I took a heap of photos from the top and none of them do it justice.

From Pilatus we made our way south and further into the Alps to a car park at the end of this road beneath a couple of glaciers. Nice and cool up here. This morning we'll do a bit of a walk.

And this is from part way up the mountain from the opposite angle. Spot Sally and the van beyond.

Good driving!

I bought a children's flag sticker book so we can keep a record of each country we've been to. Unfortunately that's all we'll have for this trip but there's a lot of stickers left in the book!

The obligatory fondue. This one came with herbs and a bowl of potatoes and squares of bread. I'm not going to lie; I'm a sucker for cheese. We've stocked up our fridge with three types of gruyère (one from an honesty box up a farm driveway) and a big block of emmentaler. Might have to spend our remaining Swiss francs on more although Sally reminds me we're heading into France where there will be no shortage of interesting cheeses.

After the glacier we drove further down the Rhône valley and up into Landschaftspark Binntal where we stayed in a small campground.

We've spent the last four days with Tony and Trish who are moored up in Meilhan-sur-Garonne on the barge they renovated. Lots of rich food and lazing about. Nice to take a break for a few days.

We went to a great little restaurant in Buzet where we had a four-course meal that concluded with a trolley mounded in desserts.

The canal is idyllic and the slower pace of life means everyone in the boats knows everyone else. It's not at all like this for the motorhomers.

Today we've headed into Bordeaux to catch up with an old workmate from my GrabOne days. They're having us for dinner and we've parked up near the marina/submarine dockyard in the northern bit of Bordeaux. 

We took a detour out to the coast to visit Europe's largest sand dune at Pilat. It's enormous and is slowly eating the forest behind it.

We spent the last two nights in Bordeaux catching up with an old workmate (Mikael) and family (Marie and Olivier) as well as exploring the city a bit. Marie's family owns Chateau des Arras which is about 30 minutes north of the city and she's in charge of things during the day there. It's harvest time at the moment so she's busy getting orders out and getting fermentations underway.

Tonight we're staying out at their chateau as it's part of France Passion (a guide book full of free stopovers in vineyards, farmshops and other places). The chateau was built in the 15th century as a fort and later modified to add windows and turn it into a home.

We did a tasting and a tour of the winery today and added to our growing collection of European wines.

This is Nouba. Nouba is a Good Dog.

This is a Tourteau Fromagé. It's like a dense, springy sponge cake but has a hint of cheese. It's deliberately burnt on top but you can't really taste the burnt bits.

Today we drove from the chateau north to Rochefort. We found a nice grocery shop / boulangerie on the way and stocked up with nice produce (including this). Prior to France we were eating wraps for lunch fairly regularly but that's all stopped with the wide availability of baguettes. Today's baguette was with French jambon, hot English mustard, rocket, mayo and Swiss Gruyère (the one we bought at an honesty box) -- a truly international baguette!

Tonight's dinner was potato gratin on the BBQ along with sausages.

Sorry, another picture of food. We're now on Île de Rè just off La Rochelle which is a bit of a beachside holiday destination but understandably so. It took us under an hour to drive here from Rochefort and we managed to get a spot in a camping car aire fairly early which gave us time to get on our bikes and cycle to Saint-Martin-de-Rè for a seafood lunch followed by our now-customary daily ice cream.

It's nice here so we'll stay another night which will give us time for more exploring tomorrow on the bikes.

We've booked the ferry back to England for the 26th so these next couple of weeks are going to be pretty relaxed with no more people to meet or places to be.

Our French is getting better but we're still leaving a trail of bewilderment wherever we go.

We spent a chilled-out couple of days on Île de Rè where we did a bit of cycling, visited a honey centre, some salt farms and went for a swim.

From there we drove inland to Coulon in Marais Poitevin national park for two nights. The area used to be marsh land and in the 10th century was turned into arable land by monks who dug a bunch of canals to drain the water. We hired sit-on kayaks and paddled around for an hour or so and cycled the circumference on the same day.

Laundry is fairly easy in Europe as there are laundromats everywhere including in the car parks of big supermarkets. €4/€8 for a 7kg/18kg wash and €1 for 15 minutes in a massive tumble dryer. Before we left Coulon we went to a laundromat at the nearby Super U and I took the opportunity to wash a bit of the dust off the van. Pressure washers are never as good as a bucket and sponge though.

After Coulon we drove to Nantes to visit the Les Machines de l'île. It's a steampunk creative space with a bunch of mechanical animals that can be ridden and they're gradually building a huge artificial tree that'll house the various contraptions.

And this is what we came for; a ride on an elephant!

Sorry, been a bit tardy with the updates. From Nantes (with the elephant) on Thursday last week we headed up into Brittany and toward the coast. There are a heap of prehistoric monoliths just as you hit the coast in Carnac. These are stones that have been lined up in long rows for reasons long forgotten. It's got to make you wonder what they were up to 5000 years ago.