Sunday 28th – Week 2 – Drive to Vezelay

French supermarkets are a bit different to ours. Firstly, they sell just about everything – clothes furnitire, camping gear, home appliances. It's sort of like Moore Wilsons on a Mega store scale and every town has several. Then there is the annoying habit of not having any wine cooled. We've now got into the habit of heading straight for the wine section, followed by the frozen peas basket of the freezer, before heading off round the rest of the supermarket to buy whatever else it is we need for the day. After about 10 minutes, we head back to the frozen peas to collect our now cooled bottle of wine. Next, there is the checkout. There is only ever a couple of aisles open, none of them are for 10 items or less and checking out is just another part of the French social scene, so don't expect it to be quick. Most people seem to come to the supermarket about once a week or fortnight, so they always have full trolleys, they never offer to let the person with 6 items go first – why would they remove this social opportunity from us. We've taken to Anne standing in the queue, with me standing in eyesight, but near the frozen peas. When she finally gets to the front of the queue, I come charging along with my chilled bottle of blanc ou rosé. Finally, they've got right away from plastic bags, so you have to bring your own recycled shopping bag.

Today we awoke to the sound of fire breathing dragons – at least that is what the locals call it. In fact, it's the hot air balloons flying overhead on their way to drift over the Chateaux at Chenonceau. They are on the go first thing in the morning or at the end of the day and obviously drift depending on the direction of the wind. 4 went over last night, while we were sitting at the bar – two very close together, which was a bit disconcerting. This morning there was just one, but it was right above us, so a fairly noisy way to start the morning. We were up and 7:00am and showered, packed, fed and on the road by 8:30.

The French roading system is excellent going up and down the country, but much more variable going across the country. As our trip today is from Chenonceaux to Vazelay, which is largely across country, we are taking a wide range of roads to cover the 270ks in 3.5hours. The first part of the road was dangerous – there have been 25 road deaths on it since 1999. We know this because as we were driving along, we saw these black wooden stick men with yellow flourescent X's on their chest. Just as I said, what do they mean. We rounded a corner and there was a sign advising us of the carnage. We saw several more of the black men before we headed onto the motorway, but not before getting Jane totally confused by a new motorway on ramp that wasn't on her map sent us on a 10 minute detour finding the correct route. Because today's trip is quite long, we've instructed Jane to get us there on the fastest route, so while the motorway covers about 2/3rds of this, the reminder is on an ever narrowing range of back roads, that got down to a single lane, but two way road. It certainly took us on some interesting roads, and the scenery was good. It wasn't a route that we would have chosen ourselves, but then we wouldn't have analysed 120,000 roads to determine the fastest way to get to Vezelay.

We are spending a night in a hotel in Vezelay, mainly because after two weeks in a tent we feel like it. The bit of luxury is certainly much appreciated and it makes us appreciate both the freedom and social contact that camping gives us and the luxury that the time in a hotel offers. Having had a quiet day yesterday and then a drive today, we realised that we have been going at the sightseeing pretty hard, so we intend to have a day in a hotel every week for a bit of variety.

We are now well and truly inland and the temperature is into the 30's. Boy is it hot, and boy can I feel the sympathy flowing out of New Zealand. OK, fair call, I won't go on, but it is really hot. We found a nice little restaurant in Vezelay and deposited ourselves there for a couple of hours enjoying a slow sunday lunch, with a bottle of Rosé – our drink of choice in France. Take note here, when in Burgundy, drink the red and not the rosé. Anyway, after lunch, we did a walk around the town, which is set on top of a hill with a Basillica at the top of it. The annual fair was on today, so we got to wander around that for a while, before retiring to a small cafe for a well deserved (non-alcoholic) drink. At 7pm, it was still stiflingly hot. Dinner was a pizza and a carafe of the red (got it right this time) wine.