Hound (woof woof)

Saturday, February 25, 2017

A rather uneventful day, where I want to let the pictures speak for themselves. Therefore, just a short summary:

We spent the morning catching up on everything we couldn't do without electricity and Wi-Fi in Vienne. Since the campsite in La Roche-de-Glun didn't offer much else, we decided to find a spot in nature after a quick weekend shopping trip. After all, we needed to wash out all the city air from our lungs.

We couldn't have chosen a better place than Ferme de la Condamine. This farm provides free parking spaces for motorhomes and is located amidst lavender fields. Additionally, the owners sell their own olive oil, jam, and juices in their small farm store. And since we had just run out of olive oil, they immediately had us hooked. In the afternoon, we were on the road towards Bésignan, the village closest to the farm, and the path was simply breathtaking, but as I said, I want the pictures to speak for themselves. In any case, we had stumbled right into the heart of Provence and the warm light of the sunset bathed everything in a warm orange hue.

Unfortunately, by the time we finally found the farm, which was quite hidden, it was already dark, so our first impression was a bit distorted. In the headlights of Rosti, we could only see a small corner of the house and the glowing eyes of a big black dog barking and growling aggressively. We couldn't even tell if it was leashed or not. None of us wanted to get out of the car. We didn't know where the parking space for the motorhomes was and we didn't see anyone, neither campers nor owners. What now?

We were about to call the number of the house that was listed in our camping guide app when a second pair of headlights finally turned on and a woman approached us in her car. We spoke to her through the rolled-down window, and as soon as she realized we were German, she left to fetch a younger woman, around our age, from the house.

She was friendly and seemed somewhat amused by how timidly we looked out of our car. With a slight Franconian (?) dialect, she led us, with the now much friendlier dog by her side, to the parking space, where another motorhome was already parked.

Sunday to Tuesday, February 26th to 28th, 2016

However, the next morning there were unfortunately a lot of duties waiting for us. David's deadline for his online studies was only a few days away, so we spent the beautiful day on a picnic blanket in front of Rosti, surrounded by 2 cats and the big black dog, who all wanted to be petted in turns, and designed magazine covers. We also walked inconspicuously past the door of the farm store several times. However, there was no one to be seen and the owners seemed to be out all day. In any case, I really enjoyed the radiant sunshine and tried to encourage my body to produce as much vitamin D as possible.

If my body had known what the weather would be like the next day, it probably would have made more of an effort... Because Monday took away the sunshine just as quickly as it had come. Instead, we got gray, gray, gray, and a lot of wind. We couldn't stay outside of Rosti anymore, our cuddly cat realized that and therefore made itself comfortable on the sofa next to us in Rosti. On top of that, David's design work for the magazine cover had to become even more intensive, so we didn't see much of the Provence around us on this day. But at the end of the day, we were able to submit the monthly task with a clear conscience and at least had that behind us.

However, on Tuesday we had to slowly "hit the road" (haha) again, because to complete the second online course, we needed Wi-Fi again (my mobile data was eventually used up) and with the ongoing bad weather, the beauty of the place unfortunately passed us by. Plus, we wanted to see more of Provence and a bit of civilization. But our departure was delayed for a while because due to the nights of continuous rain, our not-so-reliable windshield had once again given up. It had dripped into the fuse box and our turn signals didn't work as a result. So we had to unplug everything, let it dry, and plug it back in. Luckily, we managed to fix everything and drove south in the continuous drizzle. We had chosen a parking space near Isle-sur-la-Sorgue as our place to stay, a city that had been recommended to us from all sides. The rest of the day was dedicated to online studies, and it wasn't until the next day that we found the time to explore the town.

But more about that in the next entry.