I woke at 6 then read until 7.30, by which time I was bored so I got up to make a brew, in the hope that John would wake up… cruel I know, but he’d had 9 hours! 😈 Once we were ready, we left the aire, paying our €5 for the night with no issues, and emptying our bins and waste water tank on the way out. When we’re not on campsites, we need to take opportunities to do these chores when we can because some stopover aires have no facilities.
The sun shone as we travelled through the Auvergne following the Allier Valley past the chain of domed volcanic hills in the Central Massif, the highest, Puy de Dôme towering above the rest. The landscape is far hillier than it was in the north yesterday, and Bertie’s been up and down along rolling roads between pretty fields of corn, sunflowers, vines and Charolais cows, past villages tumbling down hillsides.
We had our first experience of using a free flow toll on the A79, which doesn’t have toll booths. Instead, every now and again, our tagged bipped as we passed below an overhead gantry. I also managed to find a supermarket with cheap diesel and saved us €10. Well we are pensioners now! While we were there we stocked up on supplies.
As we drove into Le Puy-en-Velay where we’re staying for a couple of days, we were stunned to see Rocher Saint-Michel d’Aiguilhe, a chapel perched on a rock. I’d seen photos, but was surprised just how tall and pointy the rock is. It’s stunning and amazing to think how it was constructed centuries ago. Tonight we’re staying at the aire below the rock, before moving to a campsite tomorrow.
We wandered into the town to find the tourist office to buy a pass for 5 attractions. Le Puy is a beautiful place, with narrow cobbled streets and lots of interesting buildings.
We’ll explore more tomorrow but, this afternoon, we passed through some pretty gardens and visited a museum included in our pass before heading back to visit the pointy rock. We’ll visit the other 3 attractions tomorrow.
We climbed 268 steps around the rock to the top, from where the views were amazing, particularly of the Statue Notre-Dame de France and the cathedral… and of Bertie below! The chapel was pretty inside and, once the tour party left, we had it to ourselves.
John is now cooking pork chops while I write the blog. Later we’ll head back into the town because there’s a free light show every night… Puy et Lumières. This illuminates all the main buildings and monuments, and should be enjoyable, even though it will keep me up well past my usual bedtime!
Ramblings 
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