Planet Ruby Starrs

We left the camping and set off for Italy..  the weather continued to unrelentingly hot... we broke the journey with a supermarket shop and headed up more mountainous roads (acouple of great viewpoints) to Grasse.  We tried to stop in Grasse but we just couldn't find any parking as usual and the traffic was crazy we did a circuit and ended up just driving back out of town it looked quite pretty but fairly touristy.  We were happy to stop and camp for the night in a forested carpark just south of the town.  The next day.... There were some really boring bits... Dr Fred had to drive for about two and a half hours through seriously built up French Riviera. To be honest it was seriously grim. About a million roundabouts... ridicolous traffic behaviour... packed out beaches... bright red people... we went under an underpass... there was this dreadful noise... we thought s*** thats the awning casing gone... but we had no...

Very underwhelming day out in Aix de Provence. We got the bus in from the camping and then wandered throught town looking for tourist info...  I had thought gallery (shut on mondays) and then leisurely lunch with a beer but ended up having desperate breakfast instead. It became obvious  my plan wasn't working so we wandered aimlessly until we more or less found the bus stop home.  Looked quite an interesting place  lots of cobbled back streets lots of cafes and bars. I took sone random photos.  Sometimes days out just dont work. 🤣 We did have amazing thunderstorms with incedible hail later that night though....non stop lightening and thunder for a couple of hours... 

This is very much a filler post... more about minor details for later recall than any particular interest.. .  I no longer keep log book version so much I just write this and put it in van journal book..  although there are some nice photos Dr Fred took when he climbed the mountain.  Driving through vinyard after vinyard looking quite lush in places.. watching the weather change...from deluge rain and humid grey skies to huge blue spaces and almost bearable temperatures of about 29°.  Huge completely  stationary windmills looming over long (very french) avenues of plane trees.  Quite a lot of evidence of fire damage. Long vistas with faint hills - probably mountains in the far distance.  The villages punctuated with obligatory cave pour le vins and the odd rather grand chateaux.  There were quite a few vehicles on the road but all the towns and villages seemed deserted not a soul in sight. Fot one night we camped in amoung...

We have found the most delightful camping... basically its someones front garden passing as a basic campsite.  Nailloux Lauragais.  Theres apparently room for 6 vans but to be honest I,m not sure how.  There were just 2 vans the first night and then just us. The hosts were incredibly friendly giving us freshly picked figs and muscat grapes from the garden and making us very welcome with a shaded picnic table and chairs.  They were very helpful about how to get the bus in Toulouse and so we made a plan to do that for the next day.... as the bus was at 8am we decided to explore the village to determine where the bus stop was.   Its a very pretty place, mostly quite old village - lots of tiny red bricks and interesting rooves. The usual ornate church with bells that ring every half hour and not a lot else.   The bus stop was exactly where our host said it was so all  was good. Up with the ra...

Camping Graus... day3 had been a pleasantly damp day in fact Dr Fred just made it back before some serious thunder storms hit with massive torrential rain turning the campsite into an instant lake. I felt for those in tents the water was inches deep. A group of campers were setting a fire in the big communal fire place - they had huge paella dishes... when the rain first started they were optimistic and erected a large parasol. Then it REALLY rained and they had to run for cover carrying everything into the shared games room - I'm guessing it got finished on camping stoves as the rain continued for a couple of hours....  We put some tunes on and drank wine. Spent some time sorting photos and determining that Dr Fred had seen a goat/antelope indigenos to the area...  In the morning we filled up the water bottles and emptied the loo and hit the scary steep windy road back down the valley.... its only 5 k's but meeting someone coming the other way on bit...