What a contrast from Hondarribia’s massed motorhomes. St Paul les Dax’s Lac de Christus was an extremely peaceful night’s stop completely without disturbance. Rich and Liz have reported that Hondarribia was much quieter too last night. 

Keen to head-off asap we shot into Dax and after a quick drive round realised that the main places you can see on the Internet were likely the only bits of history worth seeing, and we’d sort of seen them in the flesh in our drive by, so off we went to find Dax’s next great feature, Lidl – our first French one in a long time. 

Next on the agenda was Mont de Marsan. Park4night informed us that we could park near the bullring and we should ignore the “motorhomes will be towed away” signs, because that only applied if you overnighted there. Maps.me guided us into the town, which was admittedly more modern than we were expecting, but the Tourist Information lady guided us to some ruins, “a beautiful dungeon”, and a riverside walk, so all was not lost. 

On returning to our motorhome, we bumped into a motorhomer Sophie’d told me was Austrian and passed on to him the tourist map we’d been given earlier. Unusually for someone from that part of the world he didn’t have much English so we communicated, sort of, in French. When I asked Sophie how she knew he was Austrian, she said she’d only thought he was Austrian or Bavarian because of his hat and braces, but she’d since seen his registration number and he was in fact French. Mystery solved. 

Keen to end up in Labastide D’Armagnac for the night, as we’d stumbled across this lovely tiny bastide town when previously passing through this region, I thought a picnic stop somewhere quiet and relaxing en route would be in order. Sophie’s never keen to arrive too early at a potential overnight stop, because she thinks she might get bored of the place too soon. Don’t ask because I don’t understand either and I’d be perfectly happy chilling out from any time. 

So we stopped at the very green and rural lovely Park4night picnic spot at Sainte-Foy, having to sit out in the shade to cool off. Hoping to eat out tonight I restricted my late lunch to a pain au raisin, a small rice pudding, and a coffee. Sophie, on the other hand went for the full French cheese and baguette lunch, and will wonder why her capacity for food will be less than usual later, but that just means more for me. 

Actually today’s temperature has been touching 30C so I’d better behave myself as it could be too easy to incur her wrath in this heat, and I wouldn’t want to do that as I’m very keen to eat out tonight at Labastide. We ate here last time and are aiming for the same restaurant where we’ll be able to be outside in the main square. 

Progress so far (blue flags indicate our return journey):