15th - 18th

Stopped in Begnac and climbed the hill to a church where the bells didn't stop ringing, discovered a funeral so didn't go inside, headed back down the hill and met an old man fishing the river, spoke no english but was very friendly showing us the fish he had caught and posing for a photo.
Across the river was Castlenaud, stopped in Sarlat, Domme, Caussade and Galliac on the hill, Castres where we stopped at the information centre to find a place to sleep. Finally made it to Carcasonne and after a few wrong turns and repeated phone calls to the hotel for directions we arrived at Balladins, possibly the most run down hotel we've stayed in, long day driving.
Shorter drive the next day to Orange, stopped along the way in Nimes to see the arena. Found a great B&B the other side of Orange in a tiny place called Camaret, the woman had made a 6 foot tall christmas tree with chicken wire and paper napkins, must do this next year.
Had dinner at a restaurant in Prange called La Rom'Antique, for the two of us; a tomato sorbet and carrot soup for starters, chicken with lemon potato and salmon for main, crepe and creme brulee for dessert.
The next day we drove to Grenoble at the base of the French Alps where we stopped at yet another information centre and then walked the streets, bought cheese, fruit and bread from the markets. Then drove to Vizelle to eat lunch and visited the (free) French Revolution Museum. Stayed at the Pavillion Hotel in Gap, B&B we had hoped to stay at (and Pete read the map perfectly to direct me there easy as) was closed (Murphy's Law).
Mon 18th drove to Barcelonette with a plan to continue over a pass before heading down to Nice. Unfortuantely all the passes in the area were closed with snow so we had to back track a little along the Napoleon Road. We drove 10km up the side of a mountain (30min later) arrived at Croix-Roudoule a tiny place with a population of 25 people in winter. Unfortuantley this meant the two B&B's we had been given the names of were closed. We met a nice lady that spoke a little english and helped us out with calling other places around about but we couldn't find anything so headed down the hill again and managed to find the information centre just as it was closing (timing!). Found a little place that was a restaurant too and bad pizza and salad for dinner (best French pizza so far, but not hard to beat the others we've had). Then we tidied the car and vacuumed and packed all our stuff in preparation for our last drive tomorrow!