Issoire

We were up at 8am and had, had a pretty good nights sleep. The forecast has said rain overnight but we didn’t get that but now the wind had picked up and there were some very strong gusts.
We left the aire just after 9am having tipped off our grey water and emptied the toilet. We still had half our fresh water left from Carcasonne and we didn’t want to buy more.
We had a 150 mile drive ahead of us today and we left the aire with 3/4 of a tank of diesel. I had already decided to use the toll roads as we were in hilly terrain and I didn’t fancy decending all the way down into Millau and back up so we crossed over the Millau viaduct and it was unbelievably windy and we were down to 40mph and getting buffeted around.
After Millau we were onto the Hors Autoroute and as in the cycling world Hors means all category when it comes to climbing mountains and this road was just like that. We climbed up to 800meters then 1100 meters then 1500meters getting buffeted around by big gusts every time we summited.
We stopped at one of the aires on the motorway and refilled our LPG tanks and one we got to the city of Issoire the first thing we did was fill up the diesel tanks.
This is a lovely free aire right on the edge of the city with a tarmac drive and compact gravel to park on. It has free water and dump station and it opposite à carrefour supermarket with laundrette.
On arrival the first thing we did was go to the supermarket and get fresh bread and some soup and then we came back and had lunch. After lunch we did the washing which will be our last laundrette visit and in the morning we will refill the water after both showering then Wanda will be completely topped up and we’ll be clean.
At 6:30pm we headed in to the city to watch the switch on of the Christmas lights and there was a big display of fireworks. Lots of the historical buildings had light projections displayed on them and we saw Father Christmas. In the centre of town the historic church was open and we went inside and it was one of the most beautiful town churches we had been in. All of the pillars were decorated, the ceiling was painted and the altar area was also beautifully painted but not to Gordy and there wasn’t a lot of gold like most churches.
Also because the Christmas light display was happening the crypt was open to the public which was also amazing to see.
At 8pm we got back to Wanda and it was now just 5°c outside and feeling Christmassy although it is meant to get cloudy overnight and actually warm up.Read more