Old castles and beer

Our night in Montherme was not brilliant as it poured with rain and  some 'worse for wear' locals were quite noisy at 2am and 6am. The boulangerie van then arrived beeping his horn at 8.30am and Mike just managed to rush out to buy our breakfast before she disappeared. We took the dogs down the river for a quick walk in the pouring rain. Mitzy stopped after 10mins - she just sat down and refused to go any further - can't blame her really.

After breakfast we headed off to Sedan to visit the largest castle in Europe. The castle dates back 1000 years and we enjoyed our walk around the ramparts. Sedan was a principality which joined France in 1642. The city had a reputation for producing fine high quality linens. The Sedan car gets its name from the reputation of these linens as the Sedan linens were used to adorne carriages and the chairs of 'sedan' cars.

After a quick walk round the town with the dogs we decided not to stay but drive on to Stenay where we found an aire by the river.

After a peaceful night we decided we could not leave without visiting the beer museum! The museum is in an old brewery and is filled with a great collection of brewery machinery with lots of signs informing you of interesting beer facts - all the french breweries are now owned by two major companies! Some beer contains corn - that must be the beer Mike does not like!

From Steney we set off on a long drive to Mittelbergheim as we had decided to explore the Alsace region for a few days before going to Switzerland. The drive was very long but we went through some beautiful country with fantastic forests of autumn colours. Luck was on our side as we got a place in our chosen aire with great views over the vines. We managed to have a walk round the vines and into the village quickly before the sunset and the rain came in.

Mittelbergheim is a beautiful town and we cant wait to explore further tomorrow.