Exploring our surroundings

Sunday 25 November

Sunday morning.  I am up at 4.30am.  Frank, who's been awake the best part of the night gets up a few hours later.  We are not quite cranky, but after another bad night we're not in the best of moods either.  After breakfast Frank has had enough and decides to swap the mattresses of the two beds to see if it will make any difference.  We'll let you know tomorrow. ;-)

Breakfast was more like brunch, but tasted soooo good.  Fresh croissants. Can't wish for anything better...  Ah well, bagels with fresh cream cheese come to mind, but we're in France now.  Better forget our American adventure.

Then it is time to try out the car and go for a little drive.  Shouldn't be too hard, after we've been driving on the right side of the road for 6 weeks in the States.  René's GPS is a bit difficult to use, so we're happy we've brought our own.  At first we have problems setting the home location, because the GPS can't find the address.  However, there's always more than one way to skin a cat and we just set the current location as home address, et voila! It works.

The Rhône-Alpes hidden behind the first line of clouds above the horizon

It's a pleasant drive to Romans-sur-Isère and not too far off for a first little trip.  Romans, situated on the river Isère as the name implies, is well-known for the manufacturing of shoes, and industry that started at around 1850.  Plenty of shoe shops, of course, but since they are all closed on Sunday I am safe!  We walk a bit through the little town and take some pictures.  Nothing special, but enough for a first outing. There are also a shoe museum and a pogne museum.  We've been to neither, but we're here for 8 weeks, so who knows....  Plenty of bakeries too, and all are open accept for the oldest producer of pognes, Pascalis, where we believe the museum to be located.

The Tower of Jaquemart Clock in the distance

The jacquemart (bellstriker) at the top of the tower

A fountain at the foot of the tower

A barometer on the wall of the tower

A rather steep street lined with shoe shops

Of course this denotes the shoe industry of the town

Murals above a little shop

La pogne de Romans

St GeniS cakes

On the way back we pass through St Antoine L'Abbaye.  We don't stop,  because we know we will return here some day.  Gabrielle (René's sister) has invited us to visit and we will visit the abbey together.  Gabrielle apparently is the mayor of this beautiful little town.

A quick impression of the abbey of St Antoine L'Abbaye

Again we only have a simple meal for dinner as we are still not very hungry at night and today we manage to stay awake till about nine.  Then it's off to bed to try and see if the mattress swap has made a difference.