Just after a fantastic sunrise, two more river cruisers chug in early this morning. Apparently this is the second busiest river cruise port on the Rhone.

We take it easy until 11:00 then set off to follow a route we did last year. Around Viviers we find the same busy junction by the castle then out into countryside blighted by cooling towers and two cement factories.

At Rochemaure there is a chateau ruin on a pinnacle with curtain walls running down the hillside. Grete says it reminds her of Mali Ston we all saw in Croatia.

After a long hold up for no apparent reason, we pull into Guilherand Granges where Ali did her school exchange trip in 1976. We came last year and she couldn't find the house she stayed in but today she gets a photo of it although her hosts have long since moved.

We lunch in a layby then follow the west bank of the Rhone with plenty of good views across its blue expanse.

At Tournon sur Rhone we cross the river and start to see the steep vineyards like the one we stayed on at St Jean de Muzols and soon Ali picks that one out on the hill top.

As we continue north we are staggered by the number of white vans towing identical caravans in the other direction. In waves of 5 to 10 there must have been well over a hundred.

Then we start a cross country drive through lovely open farmland with potatoes, fruit bushes,wheat and tiny sunflowers. It's really colourful and a big contrast after days in the mountains. The last couple miles drop steeply through woods until we arrive in Eyzin Pinet, with a little aire we used last year. The big bank of fir trees has gone to make way for a building site but otherwise unchanged.

We stay in the shade at 32C as more and more vans come in; Swiss, Belgian, Dutch, French and German.

Grete makes dinner, a cold rice salad wiith duck, orange and asparagus.