Early start....

Early start today with a trip to Montpellier (approx 140km) to return the rental car and pick up the new lease car. If any non-EU resident requires a long term (> 17 days) car in Europe, the leases offered by the French car firms are great - works out about half the price of a rental car. All worked with little fuss. The only thing we had to do ourselves was buy a booster seat for Sophie (sitting on a bag of rice for 4 months wouldn't have been legal, apparently).

We had to buy a booster seat for Sophie, and in the checkout at the CarreFour (supermarket) a chap, realising we were of English extraction, told me that my Tesco card wouldn't work here. He was right - it didn't. He used to live in Thame, about 3 miles up the road from where we lived in Chinnor, and worked for Raymond Blanc as a sous-chef.

The stretch of road from Perpignan to Montpellier is lined with electricity-generating windmills and acres of solar panels (not to mention field after field of vines) - a very interesting juxtaposition of old and new economies side by side.

On the way back, we called at the Fortress of Salses, a 15th century Spanish castle with a fascinating history - some pictures below.