FR26.12 Cucuron & Meyrargues

Leaving Lourmarin behind and continuing in the general direction of Aix-en-Provence, we spotted Cucuron on the map. It had both a lovely-looking old town and a shaded spot where we could work for the day.

We packed up early in the morning and headed over to Cucuron. We were happy to see that the comments on Park4Night held true: plenty of shaded parking spots within easy walking distance of the village.

Our lunch break gave us the first chance to explore and, once again, we were blown away by the beauty of these small French villages. Yes, at this point it is getting a bit repetitive, but it’s not our fault that everything is beautiful here!

Sadly, lunch breaks are only so long, so we headed back to work, making sure to return later for some incredibly tasty ice cream as well as a heavenly milkshake once the workday was done.

We didn’t feel comfortable staying for the night as the parking lot doubled as a temporary storage area for construction materials and we really didn’t want to get trapped behind a mountain of rocks.

Park4Night and Google Maps revealed a remote spot close to an old aqueduct and we decided to give it a go. First, however, we needed to get rid of our grey water and fill up on fresh water. This turned out to be a bigger challenge than expected.

It seems this particular part of France has virtually no service facilities. We ended up making a 30-minute detour only to discover that the fresh water supply had been turned off. At least we could dump our grey water and decided that finding fresh water was a problem for tomorrow-Stefan and tomorrow-Kathrin.

With that important decision made, we headed over to the old aqueduct.

The comments and pictures hadn’t exaggerated. The spot was wonderfully quiet and remote and we ended the day with a nice walk.

In the middle of the night, however, I woke up rather abruptly after hearing some strange noises. It sounded like somebody was pounding on the chassis, as if they were trying to get in.

Peeking through the blinds, I couldn’t see anything.

Then I heard it again.

This time from the roof.

When I looked up through the skylight, all I could see was a cat’s tail.

And then came a loud:

MEOW!

The cat was very lucky that I was still in my night outfit and that she was safely up on the roof. Otherwise she might have become the first feline astronaut to travel to Mars! 🚀🐈‍⬛💥

Apart from that small interference the night was wonderfully calm.