Well Albi, we're nearly in Spain!

Wednesday saw us heading to Cordes sur Ciel, another hilltop fortress, built in the 13^th century.  On arrival at the aire, the €3.50 fee our book had claimed, had inflated to €5, but as it included a jeton for 3 hours of electricity or 100 litres of water, we didn’t feel too hard done by.

As the ticket machine was out of order, the fee was to be collected by the Gendarme between 1800 and 1830.  Just before 1800, a nice man from the town hall dropped off a jeton for us to use.  However, the gendarme didn’t make an appearance, so we ended up with another free night and a free water top up in the morning!  We can only assume that they couldn’t be bothered to come and collect the money, or that if we’re stupid enough to still motorhome in such cold weather, we deserved to stay for free.  Of course, it could just be the norm for them not to collect during low season...whatever the reasons, thank you very much to the town hall!  There are some distinct advantages to travelling out of season if you’re on a budget!

Cordes sur Ciel (which, out of interest, roughly translates to Cordes above the heavens) turned out to be, in our opinion, better than St Cirque Lapopie.  As is becoming the expected norm, there was next to nothing open when we arrived; the difference here was that nothing opened later on either.  France’s smaller towns and villages appear to have officially closed for the winter!!    However, the town itself was beautiful and full of rustic charm, despite most of the shops being closed.  With no crowds to get in our way, we got some cracking views too.  If you squint, you can just about see Dora. 

Today we made our way further south, to the city of Albi, a UNESCO world heritage site just 75km north east of Toulouse and the birth place of Toulouse Lautrec.  I have to be honest and admit that neither of those facts were known to us before we arrived, it’s purely by luck that we decided to come here as I was looking for a reasonable sized place in which to find some boots.  We found some in the first half hour and spent the next couple of hours mooching around the narrow city streets with Powell in tow, wishing he was in the countryside!

Having initially planned to spend the night in the free parking in the city, we (Well, I) changed our minds after seeing a couple of unsavoury characters nearby.  There’ll be times when we’ll just have to suck it up and just stay put, but as there are so many aires in France, this is not the time, so we decided to go somewhere else.  We’re now sitting about 30km further south in another, much quieter, but still free, aire in Lautrec; so far we have no neighbours and judging from the amount of people we’ve seen in motorhomes, it’ll probably stay that way.  We’ve yet to see it by daylight as we arrived just before 7pm, but as luck would have it, on the drive in, we discovered that it’s another of France’s most beautiful villages...it would appear that this area is full of them!  We’ll have a look around the village tomorrow before deciding whether to move to Carcassonne or stay here another night.  Either way, we’ll be in Carcassonne by the weekend and in Spain by the end of next week!

As per usual, our internet connection is dismal so pictures will follow when it's better...!