Alsace-Loire 2025

 Thursday 31 July A very satisfying day today.  Weather has been beautiful, we set off on our next journey, drove through the town of Brienne-le-Chateau - the chateau perched up on a hill at the end of the main road in,   found a supermarket that had washing machines in the carpark (fairly commonplace over here) so for the half hour that the machine did it's work, we stocked up on food, stopped in a little village by a church to eat our picnic lunch,   then continued on to a delightful Camping-Car Park at Marcilly-le-Hayer, sort of south east of Paris.  We've been to a huge number of these over the years and we think this is the most spacious and attractive one ever.  A super chilled-out afternoon in the shade of the tree. Plenty of space for Tilman to pitch up tomorrow. Not really any more to report today, except that we enjoyed a very tasty wok chicken and veg dinner.  Friends Barbara and Tilman join us here tomorrow.  Looking forward to a ...

 Tuesday 29 July After a coffee with Peter and Hannah we were ready to say 'a bientot'  as they were going off for a bike ride and we were heading west to reach SE of Paris on Friday.  Of course there was more rain on our journey, but we settled in to the Camping-Car Park at Luneville in sunshine.     The site is out of the town, beside a large park that was once part of a chateau.  We walked to the bridge over the River Meurthe to look for our local geo.  The hint was '54' - quickly spotted! Then explored the park.  We read that the chateau had a fire in 2003 and it is still being restored. But the gardens are kept beautifully. Another town that has modelled their bandstand on Horsham's!  So many lives lost in WWI - what a memorial to them. The dripping grotto. A peaceful night followed, but with more rain! Wednesday 30 July  A bit more journeying this morning, to Lac du Der-Chantecoq, to another CCP very close to the lake at the n...

 Monday 28 July After a rather rainy morning and shared lunch in our van, Peter drove us about half an hour to Nideck for the forest walk to a waterfall.   Here's the map of the walk, but ignore the geo spots - the walk was challenging enough for us, without searching up wooded banks etc! We parked the car where it says Nideck and walked up the left-hand path to the little x to look up to the amazing waterfall. Along the path before it got rugged.  Down on the rocks at the falls. A few selfies taken beside the falls.   Although we had thought the 'easier' walk up would be the best way for us to come down and leave the 'youngsters' to start the climb up the steep zig-zag steps to another viewpoint and the longer walk down, we had a go - and did the long walk after all!  Hannah bringing up the rear ... Views pretty good and quite an achievement to be up here. Of course Peter and Hannah went on ahead, but they did wait for us at intervals - just to check the oldies...

 Sunday 27 July As Peter and Hannah had had a very long day yesterday, we left them to their lie-in till late morning and then we set off into the town with the purpose of finding 10 locations, answering a question at each so that when completed, we'd be able to work out the co-ordinates of the final geocache.  This did take us the rest of the day, sometimes retracing our steps, going around in circles at times and with trouble finding one particular statue.  All roads seemed to lead to the main square (where the Zumba was going on yesterday, today very quiet) so we found we had to stop for a while and eat a really super lunch in the Metzig, the old Butcher's House.    Some more pictures taken on our walk today:  We came across some very quirky houses, including this one.  Not a spare inch on the wall! The Blacksmiths' Gate    Along the way, we were able to find a 'virtual' cache (logging a photo to show that you were there) by taking a ...