France - to Troo and Vaas
We had some fun with the power in Vincent while writing the blog the evening before the leisure battery died completely with a alarm going off (the one in the main van not the engine). We quickly unplugged everything but it did not seem to recover! Not a good thing to do as the lights, pump for the loo and water and charging anything stops! Later posts will see whether the battery recovers from either a journey or a hook up at a campsite!
Before heading out from Chateaudun we decided to visit the Thursday market. We had walked the dogs on a track behind the Loir up into town the night before and did the same track as it was an ideal early morning stretch!
The market was a nice friendly French affair with a mix of clothes and food! We walked away with a baguette, 2 croissant, 2 pain au chocolat, 2 lamb chops, 2 chicken breasts, 6 mixed chipolatas, a lettuce, some tubular tomatoes, radishes, a red pepper but also a near heart attack! While buying the meat, Michael left his wallet at the butcher (!) and then could not find it when buying veg! Eeek! Luckily someone ran after us to tell us and a quick sprint back retrieved it!
We decided to move on without breakfast as on the way to Troo Bridget had found 'Freteval Forest', which was the centre of the French resistance in WW2, and we thought it would be a good place to stop and have a late breakfast and walk the dogs. As it was we had a hard time finding them and ended up parking under some trees in the woods starving and scoffed croissants, pain au chocolate washed down with coffee. The leisure battery seemed to have partially recovered its charge from the driving.
We then headed down to Troo, a village on the Loir known for its cave houses set in the cliffs. There are a number of cave house villages along this stretch of the Loir. These houses are now in big demand as homes, gites or artists workshops. We deciced to stay at a "France Passion" place (France Passion is a scheme offered in France, when you buy a guide, which allows you to stay on farms and vineyards for free) and ended up in a field with no one there! After a quick look about we decided to stay - it was very quiet and next to the river - what not to like?
After some lunch, (the leisure battery was not as healthy as we thought), we headed for a late afternoon walk around Troo. Nice interesting village and, as so many places we have visted, empty of many people! Where are the French? The cave houses were fascinating and the whole village seemed very old!
We headed back to Vincent and had an excellent dinner of lamb chops, salad and sautee potatoes! We then had to have an early night as the leisure battery was totally dead.
In the morning we headed to the old railway line for a walk between the river and fields - mainy filled with sunflowers ready to be harvested. On returning to Vincent we decided to pack up and head on along the Loir valley. We needed to find a campsite that we could plug in and recharge our leisure battery. As we were packing up a small French motorhome arrived to disturb our peace. Mitzi and Luna gave them a good telling off :)