Geology day today. Plenty of it around here, and very interesting it is too, also very pleasant to look at. Puy is a geological term used in the Auvergne to mean a volcanic hill. There are a lot of Puys, and we went up the Puy de Dome, which is a pretty big one and can be seen from miles around. We went up in a little train, a rack railway, with fabulous views from the big picture windows. At the top you could walk all around and see panoramic views of the Auvergne and lots of evidence of major volcanic activity roundabout, including many other smaller Puys. There were also the remains of a Roman temple to the god Mercury, who was the god of commerce, medicine and travellers, a pretty useful kind of god, I'd say. But the temple was eventually knocked down and a saint Barnaby was installed, who specialised in erasing pagan gods. Now, there is also a massive communications tower and associated tall building at the very top, above the temple, so I imagine saint Barnaby is not too pleased about that.
I had to take a picture for a big group of French people who said 'cheese' for me but I made them say 'saucissons and sausages' too, just to be sure.
We moved on in the afternoon to look at more places but got sidetracked quite soon by a large lay by next to some really amazing basalt formations towering high above the road. Out of the car before us came people with walking boots and sticks, then another car came, walking boots again, and we thought, are we missing something here? So on with our walking boots and, will you credit it, another 6.5 kilometre walk, only worse this time, for upness and major downness. A good walk, woods, close up basalt formations again, rolling countryside, one cafe for oranginas, and through a farm with cows. Blue markers and blue crosses all the way. Very glad to get back to the Rosie May.
We have moved pitches because we had to have a push from two other campers this morning to get off our pitch which was grass and turned out to be quite soft underneath.
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