So we drove and we drove and drove, OK I drove, Moll chatted, sang and navigated. We were heading for a campsite right on the French German border, in the vosges. Of course we got lost more than once, did some big loops. French detours for road-works are amazing, they send you to an entirely different town to avoid the roadworks.

We were aiming for a town called Bitche, yes that is pronounced exactly as you wouldnt want it to. But it lends an interesting dimension to not speaking french (much) and asking directions, up to now we would lean out of the window 'excuse moi' and then add the name of the town as a question, like paris?? and look perplexed and wave the map. But now we were leaning out of the window 'excuse moi, Bitch? ' very odd, but no- one threw stones so I guess we did OK.

Eventually we found Bitche and our campsite another 15km further on, A little forest village called barenthal. we arrived hot, tired, cranky, only to find that the Gods were leading us exactly to the right place. It was on a lake, we camped in a meadow and were lucky enough to arrive on the night that the village were celebrating Bastille day, right by the campsite, bands, beer, wine, disco and fireworks over the water, It was great, we ate the local speciality flamme tarte, (which you can buy in lidl in ireland) cooked in a pizza oven by the local equivalent of the country womnes association, delicious.

Our pitch also had two trees perfectly spaced to hold our hammock, the lake was beautiful to swim in, there was a pool, the surroundings gorgeous, so we ended up stay three nights, just lazing and resting.

Reluctantly we pushed on. So on Tuesday Morning we headed for the border to cross into Germany, a simple enough task one would think, but no France loved us so much it was reluctant to let us go, a simple 15 minute drive to cross the border turned into a two hour epic, but finally we ended up over the border in Baden Baden.