Roman remains and a 3800% increase in the wine budget, Arles to l'Ardèche

France, 2nd – 5th May 2016

We’d been told that one of the towns not too far from Mérindol, Ansouis, was one of the prettiest towns in Provence, so while we were in the neighbourhood it seemed a shame not to investigate it for ourselves.  After approaching through fields of vineyards, we reached a town full of stone cottages and lots of potted plants.  To me, it felt a little like being in the Lake District but with a French twist; the lakes were replaced with vineyards, and the constant rainclouds with beautiful sunshine.  It was pretty but being a small place there isn’t much to keep you around for long, so we continued to Arles.

Blown Away by the Winds (and Sights) in the Luberon, Provence

Taking in the views from the Petit Luberon, Provence

France, 28th April – 1st May 2016

We’d returned to France with the ambition of getting the van serviced at an official Fiat garage in a country where Matt could bumble his way through the language rather than struggling with Spanish, but without already having booked an appointment we had a waiting game.  We’d already emailed a few garages while we were in Spain and had only heard back from one of them in Narbonne, who quoted more than we were hoping to pay and with no availability until 5th May, at which point we were hoping to be a lot further north in France towards Switzerland.  Whilst we were waiting around for the other garages to get back to us we didn’t have too much planned beyond slowly crossing the country, but we did set ourselves one very important daily goal: acquiring pain au chocolats.