July 26th; Today is pretty much just a travel day. We jump on the coach and hit the road for a long time. We did have a stop on the way to Lyon though. Wine tasting in the Beaujolais region.
We got there and a hilarious dog, which I named Roberto, came up to greet us. It was a sort beagle looking sausagey dog. It was quite old. He just wanted to lie around. I gave him a scratch. We went looking for toilets, as often happens immediately after disembarking a bus. We found one, which a group of twenty or so people were lined up for. One of the reps of the place told us that they had more down the hallway. I followed them, with several people following me, to the end of a hallway. I don’t think they noticed, because they went into someone’s private room and shut the door.
The wine tasting was funny, but the stuff itself was quite wretched I thought. Damn my pedigree – everyone else showed every sign of enjoying it. It wasn’t enough to make me immediately gag though – Passion Pop reserves that right. Some people got drunk in the bar in the few minutes we had left there, and we all got on the bus and headed off again. It should be said that we had quite a supply of alcohol. I believe it was after the catacombes the day before that we found a supermarket with several large aisles dedicated to it. I had picked up some good whiskey and lemon cello, many others found 99c bottles of champagne and rose (God forgive our sins) though a few went in on the money and got one euro eighty cent bottles. Hey, big spender!
The camp at Lyon was quite quaint. Kate and I went about and set ours up – it was still very damp. I positioned it better this time, on an away facing slope and in a spot where the light wouldn’t blind us come morning. That night we had an early dinner and a late drinking session. It rained a lot. Some of us took to the off-limits cook tent, others onto the tent. I had a little whiskey and some of that terrible ‘One Buck Chuck’. As described by another, Andrew, ‘it’s like a party in your mouth and everyone’s throwing up.’ He had bought three bottles. We got screamed at by one of the less-sociable couples on the tour. They don’t like anyone though – and what were they expecting?
The next morning it turned out we had amassed quite a number of noise complaints, at one of the few camps with a noise curfew. We’re going to start a tally. The tent smelled bad and damp, and the heat was stifling. It rained some more.
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