For various reasons, this year I have decided to document our travels on Facebook rather than this blog. We awoke to a grey drizzly Sunday morning in Clermont-Ferrand and after breakfast got Red Dwarf ready for a long drive to our next port of call, Brive-la-Gaillarde. Our route, again on non toll roads, took us across the Massif Central, a huge elevated region in the centre of southern France consisting of mountains and plateaus.
The road swooped up and down through the beautiful snowy countryside; at the highest point we reached metres but as ever the roads were clear of snow and the driving easy.
The only thing that slowed us down was a bank of thick fog which lasted for several kilometres. We had identified a paid Aire in the centre of town and had planned to visit another Christmas market; however the weather was lousy β cold, windy and raining β so we gave it a miss. Instead we stayed in Red Dwarf, warm and cosy, ate dinner and watched a bit of TV. This morning we awoke to more grey skies and intermittent rain.
We paid up, left our Aire and set off. The weather was foul for most of the journey but as we pulled into the driveway the sun made a brief but welcome appearance.
Our overnight stop was a paid Aire in the car park of a tram stop, which was excellent news as we were off into centre ville in search of festive fun at the towns Christmas Market. We hopped on the tram and about fifteen minutes later were deposited in one of the big squares. There was a huge Ferris wheel and some smaller fairground rides, there were Christmas lights everywhere and despite the cold, lots and lots of people.
