After yesterday's problems we hoped for a good start to the day but no sooner are we up than Nick feels the onset of a Migraine. Back to bed for an hour. All well it's a 30 mile drive through pretty countryside, all arable here, and we wonder if there is a competition with lots of haystack scultped into tractors, happy men and, the winner for us, a massive combine harvester. Soon we see signs for our destination; Chantier Medeival Guedalon. We first learned o...

Still no sign of life in the Passion so we leave with a free stop and drive 11 miles to Auxerre [pronounced Oh-sair] The camperstop parking is right next to the river, separated only by a row of horse chestniut trees laden with spiky green pods. Auxerre is built on a hill overlooking the river Yonne. We go across the main road bridge, with a fine view of the cathedral, past the statue of Paul Bert, and walk along the opposite bank to the Tourist info for a map...

We had planned on going to Troyes until we realised the address given in CamperContacts isn't an aire, it's a site. We check its website and find 2 nights will be over €50 so we decide to aim for Auxerre instead, where there is a riverside aire. Meantime there are three Passions near Chablis all producing the namesake wine and since we have some salmon in the intermittent fridge we decide to spend a night there giving us a shorter drive the following morning...

When we wake it is a toe-numbing 16C but the sun is out and it soon reaches the low twenties. We use the service point, even though it's €4.00 it doesn't matter as we've had three good nights for nothing, then call into the supermarket for diesel before following the three-lane one way system out of town. Soon we are passing through huge areas of vines with frequent signs for domains and tasting. We see more large wine mansions some of which have the tradem...

As there is no time limit on parking here we decide to stay anther day to make use of the laundromat and see some more of the historic centre. But before that there is good news; the fridge is working on gas again. It's possible that the steep roads and uneven parking last week disturbed the refrigerant and now on level ground it's settled back - fingers crossed... It's a 15 minute walk to the laundry and once the clothes are sloshing we have forty minutes to ...