We had an aire pegged for the night at Saint Flour and we travelled quite a few kms to get there. The weather had fortunately turned much cooler overnight and the rain from the thunderstotms had hung around. The countryside was very rolling hills like with the odd village set atop a hill with a castle or church standing out from the houses. We got to Saint Flour and google maps being what it is took us off the main road and onto a little goat track to get into where the aire was. This town was built atop a huge cliff on one side and looked quite amazing. The first aire was down at the bottom of the cliff and was very isolated and we didnt fancy it, so we went back up the right road to the top and the 2nd dedicated parking was in the midst of a carpark. No one was able to stop there the night before as there were notices saying strong winds and thunderstorms made it dangerous.
We parked with the other handful of vans that were there and had a wander around the town. The temperature had gone down to about 14deg and it was drizzling, so we had jumpers on and umbrellas.
When we got back to the van a handful of african looking fellas were hanging around the other end of the carpark setting off firecrackers and then we watched them as they sold drugs off to a few people who stopped by them. They obviously werent afraid of the police as i could clearly see the exchanges that were taking place. Thankfully they took off after about an hour and a few trucks pulled up near us and all was quiet for the night. I think we both slept really well because we could pull the blankets up and snuggle in because of the cooler temps.
The next day we were going to do a longer drive but we got tired and although we checked out the parking at Digoin, we ended up at Moliner because it was much nicer and was by a canal boat stop. It was lovely and peaceful there for the night. We heard from friend that they were near by so the next day we backtracked slightly and met them at Lapalisse. It was still a bit overcast and we had a couple of showers but it was ok. We had lunch with them at a local cafe and a few drinks and then decided it would be best to head back to the same aire as it was lovely.
