Arrived around the 7.30 mark when restaurants typically open and went to the more upmarket one first only to be told they were fully booked so we reverted to plan B and went to the other restaurant but a sign outside said it all “Restaurant Complet, Merci” and even our basic French told us that it too was fully booked. Nevertheless we spoke to the manageress to confirm, which she did so we asked her for a recommendation.
She suggested that most restaurants in the villages would be booked and we should go to Orange - so it was back to the car, set the GPS and follow the instructions. We arrived in Orange and it became pretty obvious that finding a car park was not going to be easy however we scored one in the underground car park near the theatre. It was at this point that it clicked - there was a show (Famous French DJ) being held at the Roman amphitheater we had visited earlier in the week and the town was swamped by folk going there. A restaurant was found, a meal was had and we trekked back home.
After bidding farewell to Yvonne and Jean-Paul (& Cachou) and receiving a nice gift from them we set off for Saint Etienne but the detail on the GPS quickly indicated that the A7 was barely moving and there would be around 35 minutes delay over the journey - nothing we could do and we had all day as check-in was not till the ridiculously late time of 6pm, so we added one more car to the many and moved slowly on arriving in StE at around 3pm.
The challenge was now to spend three hours in a city that was closed it being a Sunday - we walked a little, we sat in a patisserie and had a cold drink, we walked a little more, we drove past our new accommodation, we parked the car and we walked a lot more. And (nearly forgot) we sweated like you know what because it was blazingly hot.First impressions of StE aren’t that great however we have been pleasantly surprised many times before so we reserve judgement until we have been back in the city again tomorrow .
Kms driven today: 229
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