We purchase a new Peugeot to tour Europe.  As sleak black 308 station wagon just in case we can’t find any accomodation and have to sleep in the back.  Haha.  1.6l diesel automatic (not the norm here), It’s a Eurolease so we have a guaranteed buy back, an alternative to a rental.  We pick it up at Lyon Airport and are dropping it back at Paris airport in 50 days.  

We plug in Valvignere’s into the GPS, find a petrol station and viola we are off driving on the right hand side of the road.  Valvignere’s is only a couple of hours away but we don’t have to be there until Saturday so we intend to spend a night  somewhere along the way.  We try to keep off the motorways and it is not that long before we are driving along beside the Rhone’ a huge river but surprisingly very little river traffic, almost nil.  At about 2 we started looking for a hotel but weren’t very successful.  Either full or far too expensive.  After running all over the place we decided to drive for another hour and try again which worked.  We stopped at Tain L’Hermitage, a really nice little wine village on the Rhone and found a nice hotel straight off and with free parking. Went for a stroll over to the old city across a pedestrian only bridge.  Just as we were getting back to the hotel the sky’s opened.  It wasn’t cold though and after a bit it eased off and we made it back reasonably dry.  Later we walked into the town square for dinner.