As usual, this morning’s routine started with a long walk for us and the dogs. Followed by breakfast for us all. We were a bit slower to start today because of a disturbance in the early hours of this morning.

One of the dogs started whimpering about 3am, so Mick volunteered to let it out for a pee. But not one, but three dogs escaped into the darkness. The two bigger ones, barking at mysterious shadows, and ignoring Mick’s calls to come inside. It took the two of us negotiating lights and doors to get them back inside and back to bed.

Hard to return to sleep after such excitement.

However, Mick has them well trained already to return for a treat while on their walk. Perhaps he needed some treats at 3am!

We had planned to visit the small medieval township of Bargemon today. It is only 9 km from our home, but the round trip was 55km.

No, we didn’t get lost. Mick had planned a circuit that allowed us to see several other small villages as well.

One of these was Callas where we walked around for about half an hour trying to find the centre ville. A nice woman volunteered to take our photo in front of one of Callas’ fountains after she saw Mick trying to get one of me.

I’m usually the one with the phone / camera, but sometimes Mick insists.

We actually never found the city centre but we did see some pretty sites, like this set of murals in a public courtyard. You can easily spot the church tower in the background.

The streets were narrow and we did have to get out of the way of cars making their way through the maze.

This car was being driven by a one year old girl sitting on her father’s lap. I kid you not. We did get a very close view from our spot on one of those steps as she navigated her way past us.

Parking inside these villages is almost impossible and it is necessary to walk a fair way to discover the small boulangeries and restaurants.

As we couldn’t find any, and the steps were getting steeper, we decided to drive on to Montferrat and Figanières, but we did not stop in either. Perhaps another day.

We made it back to Bargemon in time for some lunch.

This is a main road in front of some restaurants. There is two-way traffic that share this road.

Mick took a leisurely pace to cross the road. He’s definitely getting the hang of being a pedestrian in rural France.

We each had a great pizza cooked in a massive wood-fired oven which took only 3 minutes to cook them.

On the way back to the park I found us in a Boules Park, Mick cooled himself off in some freezing spring water.

The sign says the water is not treated. We took that as being ‘fresh’.

We had a huge thunderstorm and downpour later in the afternoon. I was pleased as there are a lot of gardens to water here.

Oka the goose loved standing in the rain.

Mick struggled to enjoy his swim later in the evening, without company.