Our last day in France for this trip dawned bright and sunny - a change from the overcast day yesterday. Mark and I walked to the boulangerie for bread and croissants, and to get a pictur of the church with the sun on it (only possible in the early morning)
Leavign Katherine and Joe to wash clothes we went down the valley to Villefranche-de-Conflent, for souvenir shopping and a look around. We'd been here last year, but Mark hadn't seen it when the others came on Monday.
This is a fortfied (Vauban) town...
The main square of which is dominated by the church...
with deorated capitals...
a sundial (and sun to mke it work, unlike that at Vernet yesterday)...
...and the pink marble doorway (pink marble is also used for pavements, kerbstone etc - it seems very strange to find pink marble painted with yellow roadmarking paint, but it is just the local stone).
Back to camp, pick up Joe and Katherine, then over the Vernet-les-Bains where we'd booked a table for lunch at a pizzeria / creperie off the main square. Rosie was very excited by the zebra-style Defencer that parked on the road below.
Driving back to Sahorre we got the classic view of Vernet, clustered around the little hill with church and castle atop.
Then it was up the valley for a final dip in the river...
...and a few minutes reading in the sunshine...
...Meld made a new friend...
Then it was back to camp, finish packing, load the car, pay our dues and depart.
As we drove down towards Villefranche we got ome lovely views of the Canigou illuminated by the setting sun.
And more, from a different angle, at Prades.
And so we were off. We left Sahorre about 20:30, joined the A9 at Perpignan about an hour later as the sun finally set. I drove as far as Millau on the A75 (a 3-hour stint, the final stretch of which twisted and turned up onto the Causse plateaux). Meld then drove 2 hours of very twisty motorway to Clermont-Ferrand, I did 3 hours to Orleans, Meld 3 hours around Paris to Arras, and I did the final hour to Calais, where we fille dup with our last tank of cheap diesel, checked in for the next ferry (0935) , and soon boarded and were away. Some 730 miles across the whole of France had taken under 12 hours, including stops. Those heading south hadn't had it so good - in the middle of the night, there were big jams coming out of Paris, at Orleans, and further south - it is the weekend the French all head south, and we were luckky to be moving against the flow.
The crossing was uneventful, apart from spotting a submarine sailing down the Channel behind us.
Back in Blighty the A20/M20 were fine aand we made steady progress, but we saw signs warning of delays on the M25. We bit the bullet and joined them - the alternatives being grim, and queued up the M26 and M25 as far as Clackett Lane services, then again from leatherhead to Wisley. Then more queues on the A3 at Burpham and Guildford and the A31 at Farnham. Eventually we were home after a 3 hour drive of what should be a 2 hour journey.
Not surprisingly, we were a bit tired after the long drive - and the kittens were pelased to see us home.
