After Orange, we stopped off just outside Aubignan for a rustled up Greek salad lunch, and then parked up in the large car park outside the Tourism office to get a little walk in around this small town, or village! Not sure which!

From there we continued our journey passing through the well known town of Beaumes de Venise, noted for its lovely dessert wine, Muscat de Beaumes de Venise which we discovered many years ago, but in a supermarket in Brittany!  

Feeling rather jaded from climbing all those deep steps in the Orange theatre, I wasn’t feeling like exploring another town already, so rightly or wrongly we just drive through Beaumes, and Lafare, and the tiny hamlet of Suzette. 

The scenery changed in the ‘Dentelles’ radically to these vast Arizona style rocky hills and I was half expecting to spot a couple of North American Indians on horses! It was pretty stunning and photos can’t do it justice really but not from lack of trying!

We drove on winding upward and around and downward, in beautiful sunshine, stopping to take the odd panoramic photo until we reached our destination of Malaucene. Here the aire was free out of season and with free water, so we parked up with fellow van travellers, keeping a bit of space between us (though night 2 there was a bit of tv sound coming from one French neighbour van) – not quite loud enough to rattle our cages! – and at worst, we’d have popped a bit of music on quietly to combat it.   
Actually it rained most of the day but by evening the rain had petered out leaving the tv noise apparent. Fortunately motorhomers tend not to be late to bed, so one is never in for late night annoyance. At worst, one can invariably move, as we have done in the past on occasion!  

Despite the rain, we ventured into town soon after 11am catching the market stall holders before they shut up shop for the morning. A horrid day for them! Can’t have been much business!  
Michael had in mind a recommendation for lunch, so we headed up the High Street and found ‘Chez Laurette’. [Probably the best “menu du Jour” meal we have ever had in France, and we’ve experienced a lot of these good value lunches! A 5 star TripAdvisor rating and very complimentary review followed – M]. 

After lunch we refused to be beaten by the rain and did our usual thing of exploring the winding alleyways and back streets in a homeward direction. I have to say my hands felt like I’d been making snowballs! – and yet that cold was simply from having my hands out taking photographs in the rain. Still, I was very pleased with some of the shots I got, so cold hands had been worth it! I soon warmed up on board once we’d put the heater on and changed out of our partially damp jeans. Nothing much worse than damp jeans!  

Next morning, we made the most of the free water and emptying facilities, and carried on our journey. 
   

 

   

 

  

   

 

   

 

  

   

 

   

 

  

   

 

   

 

  

   

 

   

 

  

   

 

   

 

  

[Nightime arrangements – M]:

   

[Neighbour with cat – M]:

  
  

 

  

   

 

   

 

  

   

 

   

 

  

   

 

   

 

  

[More from Malaucene tomorrow- M]

Date of visits: 15/03/2016