Travelling through France - Day 1

Seven hours sleep overnight, which was pretty good given the circumstances. Only woke up a couple of times. But I do ache quite a bit from sleeping in such a cramped space. I noticed that some of the other travellers who weren't in RVs had tents with them which they set up next to the car - unfortunately, my tent was somewhere in the roof box and would have been tricky to find. But my plan now is not to be tempted to stay in any hotels. Instead, I am planning to spend all the money I would have spent on hotels, on wine instead.

So I acquired about a dozen bottles this morning as I made my way throught Southern Provence. I am very taken with the service stations that feature "Products Regionaux". One of the ones I stopped in today had a huge wine selection - and some very good offers on half cases.

Parked up for lunch near Narborne

By early afternoon, I had reached Carcassone, the famous medieval walled-city. Linda and I have been close to this on many occasions in the past without actually being able to stop at it. But it is high-season of course and the place was packed out - virtually bumping into people all the time.

Highlights of my couple of hours there was a sitar player by the cathedral and two French girls playing folk music. Stayed and watched each for quite a while. Also there was the photographic gallery of someone called Gerard Sioen who is a superb landscape photographer. I would have liked to buy one of his books but they were far too expensive. You could get his photos framed, some of them were really large prints and did look very good.

The first person I have seen playing sitar for ages - a god chance to really study something of the technique of playing. Very impressive.

The girls did do a rather odd version of "Danny Boy" for some reason

Gerard Sioen's "Purple and Green" from his book on photos of Provence

Carcassone from the motorway

I stopped at a service station based around an exhibition centre for the Canal au Midi. This had a decent enough restaurant where I had dinner. I have started reading Naomi Wolf's "The Treehouse" again (maybe for the fifth time!) as I am hoping to use it to raise my commitment levels for the work tasks I have ahead, which will then support my MSc properly.