The frogs or toads croaked all night until the birds started singing, including a cuckoo. The morning is much cooler than recently and patchy clouds cross the sky. Yesterday Ali picked up leaflets showing walking and cycling routes around the area and she is a bit miffed this morning when Grete appears saying how lovely it was, having gone off without thinking to ask if Ali was going. Just before leaving Ali goes in to leave a thankyou note but the owners are ...

Yet another warm day but much fresher. Ali and Grete go into town again for another look around while the Nicks do a couple of maintenance jobs. We have lunch and a couple of lazy hours. We would have been content to stay here again tonight but Grete is determined to move on. There is a passion 18 miles away which is not too far. We travel part of the same route we did last year on our way to Beaune, stopping in Cormartin for a brief look at the chateau but ...

The building site starts work at 08:00. Ali and Grete go to the minimarket. Last time we left Eyzin Pinet, the route through Lyon was awfully slow and ugly so we programme a scenic route to the east. We use the service point and set off around 11:00. It's all cross country on D and C roads through pretty, ever changing landscape of farmland and villages. Tractors work the fields and hay is baled in large rolls. There are fields bright red with poppies and w...

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 hills...

The vines on this passion are just flowering and the foliage really lights up in the morning sun. We leave and drive towards Crest then follow Grete's scenic route to Bourdeaux, Dieulefit, and around the south of Montelimar. France never ceases to amaze us, just when you think that you've seen every side, something different comes along. This route is more woods and climbs and bends and drops, but somehow the shape of the land, the colours of stone and buildin...