The French apparently know how to celebrate. Our little aire promised to give us a lovely peaceful night’s sleep. It was in a small village, near no main roads, what could go wrong. I told you in yesterday’s blog that we had come across a wedding group in the centre of the village during the afternoon. Later that evening there had been the usual car parade, with everyone sounding there horns, but then that seemed to be that.
When we went to bed everything was as quiet as we expected. However when Sarah woke up at 3.30 am and me an hour later there was very loud music throbbing through the village. This kept us awake until about 5.30 am when the music stopped, only five minutes later to be replaced by discordant warbling from amateur human singers. The party had presumably swapped to karaoke! The whole racket finally stopped at 6.30 am!
On our journey north today I had an important task to undertake. Buying some wine. Yesterday while I was researching about Cornas, I had discovered that we were in the heart of an excellent part of the Rhone valley for wine. The problem in these situations is knowing which of the many vineyards to visit. In the past, when we visited France regularly, I used to buy wine from various shops in England for the region we were visiting. I would make a note of the wines I liked and then spend a day touring the producers of the relevant wines.
With the internet it is so much easier. So last night I scoured the internet for Cote du Rhone wines, read reviews, looked at prices and narrowed my sights to a producer called Saint-Desirat in the St. Joseph Appellation. The website said they were open on a Sunday and even gave me the GPS co-ordinates, which were fed into Sat Nav.
The Wine Cellar, or is that seller?
It took about forty minutes to reach the “cave”*, which when I arrived was empty save for one lady to serve customers. By the time I had told woman which wines I wanted the place was suddenly full of locals. I had already decided what I wanted to buy and went round the cellar picking out the relevant bottles. I limited myself to a few bottles of the more expensive St. Joseph Appellation, which I will use for presents and special meals such as Christmas and more of the cheaper wines for everyday use. The locals seemed to be predominantly buying ten litre cubes of the cheaper wines and then adding one or two more expensive bottles to their purchases. I always see it as a good sign of the quality of a producer that locals are buying in large quantities.
With Basil’s suspension creaking under the increasing weight we carried on northwards through mile upon mile of vineyards in their autumn colours. The Rhone producing area peters out just south of the huge city of Lyon by which time SatNav had directed us onto free motorway around the city.
After Lyon we left the main north south tourist route behind and started to head in a northeast direction towards Luxembourg, where my brother has now arranged a mobile home for his family on a ACSI site, so we can all spend a couple of days together next weekend.
As lunchtime approached and we could find no suitable parking places, we saw some motorhomes, and a caravan, parked on an Aldi carpark, so we pulled in to join them. All supermarkets are shut on a Sunday and so it’s a perfect place for a picnic.
Following lunch we travelled for just another half an hour to a tiny village called Saint-Andre-sur-Vieux-Jonc. What a mouthful! The village have five lovely parking spaces for motorhomes, and a point to service them, opposite the village playing fields (46.153106, 5.152041). It costs €6 to stay overnight but it is free to empty and fill your motorhome.
Church and flower display
We went for a walk round the village and found that they had done a fantastic job on communal flowers, which were still in bloom. For people who don’t travel to France, villages and towns in France often display a sign as you enter saying “Ville Fleurie” and then underneath display the number of stars they have been awarded. This village has been awarded two stars, but I think it should be more! Other than the flowers there is not much to see. A nice little church and that is about it.
Yet more flowers
A man from the village has just been round to collect the €6 and we hope it guarantees a good night’s sleep!
*”Cave” is, rather confusingly, the french word for “cellar”, but tends to be used to indicate anywhere a wine producer is selling wine.
St. Andre Mairie’s office and local school
Village Church
Village Library! If you look hard you can see a book, pencils and a paintbrush in the flower display.