Thursday 28th Update

Thursday 28^th June.

Settled in to this site now. Went on a leisurely 12 mile bike ride along the lake then went out in the canoe for an hour. Its still quite warm so lake swimming is needed every hour or so to keep cool. Will try to put a photo on of the lake. Later in the evening we rode about 3 miles to the next campsite. We wanted to watch the Germany v Italy game but none of the village bars were open. We’d spotted a bar on this next campsite so I went into the deserted bar and first of all asked the manager could we look at the camping area? Yes she replied. Could we then have a drink. Yes she replied. Could you put the telly on for the football. Yes again she replied, so apart from one other young lad we sat and watched the whole match and then later rode back to our campsite with the moon as backup for our cycle lamps.

Wednesday 27^th June.

We woke to a beautiful morning in the alps, at 8:30am Barbara spotted a hot air balloon passing us overhead. There was one other motorhome using the Aire, an elderly French couple. The guy spoke good English and we compared notes on all the French towns we’d visited. He was a veteran in using the Aires and gave me lots of advice. We later drove to the lovely nearby town of Cluses and filled up with fuel. We then drove about 79 miles to Chambray, stocked up at Lidl and then did the final 8 miles to campsite Le Curtelet on the edge of Lake d’Aiguebelette, apparently the warmest lake in France. A great location and a good value campsite at 12 euros a night. One or two English here. The lake is beautiful and good to swim in.

Tuesday 26^th June.

We left the site at 6:30. The boat left half an hour late at 9:30. We headed up to the top deck where we found lots of free deck chairs. We were armed with books, magazines and mp3 players but never used these as we spent the entire 7 hours on the boat watching the Italians do what they do best….show off.  First off was a man of about 50 who to be honest had a reasonably good physique but he wanted everyone to see it, so he pitched himself on an elevated platform where everyone could see him gyrate and prance about with his phone. He reminded me of the young body builder in ‘It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world’ who receives a phone call from his ‘mama’ who is after Spencer Tracey’s money. Crying down the phone…”I is a comin mama, I is a comin”.  Next up were a number of beautiful young things in the skimpiest bikinis, they somehow set up a ‘catwalk’ from the main sundeck to the toilets which they seemed to visit ever 15 minutes. Some wore high heels and one had the latest fashion accessory …a dog in a basket with the most ridiculous hair cut. Unfortunately amongst these scantily clad  ladies was a young lady with a severely disproportionate set of hips that were about 4 feet wide. The briefs of her bikini semed to span her backside as tightly as the Humber bridge spans the Humber estuary.

 As these ferries are converted cruise ships, halfway into the journey they filled the swimming pool and in the true traditions of maritime law it was children first to use the pool, then the ladies and eventually the beer bellied men. The time soon passed and eventually we docked just before 5pm. We hit the motorway and drove the 320 miles to the Aire in the alps that we used at the start of the holiday. The drive was ok and we missed most of the tea time traffic it was a hot drive with temperatures still quite high. As we drove into the Mont Blanc tunnel at around 10pm it was about 25c when we came out the other side it was 16c with light drizzle. We reached the Aire at around 11pm. We were hungry and remembered the two tins of ‘meat and beans’ that we had bought in LD when we opened them up and started to eat this we realised it was tripe in a sauce! However being true northerners we ate it all up and found it quite tasty. We should have paid attention to the name on the can…TRIPPO.