As forecast, the welcome rain and lowering of the temperature came overnight. Before leaving we went and had our morning drink down by the lake.

We followed the lake around part of its shore, taking in some of the alternative places we might have overnighted, but definitely felt we’d chosen well the previous night. We took advantage of a particularly pleasant view to stop for an onboard cheese and bread lunch.

By the way, we learnt the trick of halving lengthways and lightly dry-frying our day-old French bread, which crisps it up nicely. This gives it a lovely, slightly nutty flavour and it works excellently with cheese. No hunting out fresh bread each morning for us – we’ll tend to pick up a loaf more often than not in the afternoon when we’re out and about and pass a Lidl.

We were very fortunate today because Sophie did some research and so we headed up towards some WW1 sights, that I’d have blindly passed. En route to Apremont-la-Forêt, we saw a sign for the Fort de Liouville, so followed an unlikely unmade track for a couple of kilometres. I could see that there was actually a Park4night up there so we thought it would be fine and so went for it.

In fact there was an official motorhome parking sign there, which was a surprise given the trek up there, and the scruffy patch of grass to park on, and not a soul around, or sign of civilisation for that matter. Anyway, we enjoyed our visit of the fort, well, sort of, because it was actually closed, but we did wander about a bit in the moat. The fort proper, whilst its gate was open, had clear signs that you enter at your own “peril” and you will likely fall into a pit or a well, or words to that effect. Ordinarily, we might have had a sneaky peak inside, but Sophie wasn’t keen for her driver to risk any limb injury, because it would be a long drive home for her to undertake.

So safely back on our way we popped up the road to Apremont-la-Forêt, where we arrived at Bois Brûlé, Croix des Redoutes. Amazingly, the actual WW1 trenches still exist here in the wood, which was impressive.

Despite her initial misgivings, Sophie did appreciate the great far-reaching views we had from there and the parking area was a Park4night, so this was us for the night. We enjoyed a very pleasant evening sat outside with no neighbours, other than a deer who popped out for a bit, and we watched the funny shaped clouds that passed by, each of us imagining what they looked like, but mostly animals.

*** Just to mention that our blogs can be up to a few weeks behind reality, as we’re always in catch-up mode ***