Rather than subjecting the van and ourselves to the slow and probably stressful task of climbing over the Alps we decided to make a large investment in the Frejus Tunnel Company which by Wednesday evening brought us to the lovely little mountain town of Aiguebelle just to the south of Albertville. The market square, which should have been our overnight stop, was full of the lorries, vans and enormous caravans belonging to a visiting funfair so, rather than trying to slip in unnoticed, and risking having no wheels on the van when we woke in the morning, we parked on the edge of a small park and passed a peaceful night with just the occasional rumble of passing freight trains to disturb our slumbers.

Our destination the following morning was Annecy and, after a brief ‘Lyon moment’ when the road signs said to go in one direction, Denise said another and Kate suggested a third we eventually arrived without the discussion having descended into excessive violence. We knew we’d arrived when we joined the lengthy traffic queue to enter the busy tourist town and it quickly became clear that there was little prospect of finding parking. Tant pis! We moved on and [mappress mapid=”6″]stopped briefly at Nantua, which I’m told is a very pretty, little, lakeside town, but by this stage my cold had the better of me so I stayed in the van frightening passing children with a cough that sounded a bit like a Klaxon. Fortunately the Nantua Tourist Office recommended an excellent campsite at L’Ile Chambod which sits on the banks of the lovely River Ain and provided an excellent location for a couple of days of much-needed R&R – this holidaying lark is hard work!

On Saturday we’d planned to visit a local ‘vide grenier’ but for once the weather let us down and we actually had rain – the first proper downpour we’d experienced since before leaving home. So we decided to get a few miles under our belt and drove for most of the day – through Bourg-en-Bresse, Macon, Moulins and Bourges, finally ending up at Amboise which, by spooky coincidence, just happens to be the last resting place of Leonardo. We spent a morning visiting the Clos de Luce where the great man spent the last three years of his life under the patronage of Francis 1^st; lots of interesting stuff, and in some ways better than the Leonardo Museum in Vinci, but I got the impression that the chateau and its contents were more of a re-creation than a restoration.