We headed via Gannat en-route to the City of Vichy, it was about 32 degrees Centigrade by the time we arrived but the town seemed fairly quiet. As soon as we came out of the car park we saw some English Flags and then on the pavement were some more flags with different information on them. It would appear that there will be a Rugby Tournament soon and they are using the signs and flags of the participants to advertise the games. Mark Knoppfler of Dire Straits was on the Scottish flag , I thought he came from Newcastle????
Vichy is a very nice City, although it does not really feel like one with its small streets and old houses. This town has money as the shops were mostly of expensive clothes and many of the Paris fashion houses had outlets here. This place is also famous for the spa mineral water and in the centre of town is a bubbling pool, fully enclosed in a fabulous old building, please see photos.
There are many taps running with the different types of water but the temperature of the water from the tap differed from say 38 Degrees Centigrade down to 22 degrees, We triedsome but warm water never really taste nice although should I get rheumatism then I am sure it will help me a lot.
After shopping at a CORA Hypermarket, this is really a great shop with an excellent choice of fresh vegetables, fish, cheese and fruit etc and we bought some salmon-en-croute for dinner.
We also checked our email at a rather nice internet shop before leaving town for our camp site. As we got closer to Ebruil the clouds got darker and darker and as the weather was promised for some thunderstorms we closed the tent down for the worse. And we were right to do this as the storm that came was very powerful and at one point we had hail stones the size of large peas hitting the tent. Unfortunately I had l left the camera in the car as I would have liked to take a picture but did not want to go out in the thunder and lightning and hail and rain.
This storm went on for about six or seven hours altogether with small breaks and then the strong winds arrived and I thought we might get blown away. A Belgian family got washed out of their tent and another older couple in a camper van also got a little wet.
This new tent of ours made by Outwell is fantastic and it has stood up to all that’s been thrown at it so far, we would certainly recommend anybody wishing to buy a new tent to strongly consider this brand.
So we had our dinner in the tent with the wind howling and the rain pouring down and we were dry and warm.
One of the challenges of camping is keeping the white wine cool in the hot sun, but here in Ebruil we put the bottle in the river to cool, it's not as cold as a refrigerator but it’s the best we can do. Red wine is Ok as also put that in the river as well to keep at the right temperature.
We had to get up in the night as the tent shook in the strong winds just to check the tent was secure.
Oh, I forgot to mention the football. The match was not great but the TV reception was very poor and you could only see lots of white dots and even the ball disappeared sometimes. One of the camp helpers got up the building and tried to adjust the satellite dish and then I noticed that tree branches were right in front of the dish, after they cut down the branches we watched the second half and could see everything. Sorry Germany, Italy did to you what you have done to others in this series.
