Ah, after the disappointment of the paid for site at Aix- les-Bains, Vinzelles was, by contrast, an archetypal free to use village aire. Based in an immaculately maintained car park, ours was the first Motorhome to arrive that afternoon. This tiny village had provided parking for Motorhomes and we settled on a parking spot ( admittedly these were all car- sized so we had to be a bit imaginative as to how to use as few spaces as possible.) A walk through the village revealed only a bar, so no hope of a Boulangerie visit in the morning. However, Andrew had spotted a sign for a Wine Co-operative with free tastings, so we hopped back in the van and drove there. It was about 800 metres from the aire. Well, IF we happened to buy some wine, we’d need the van to transport it back , oui?
Guess what? Having done the usual degustation thing, yes we bought some rather lovely white wine ( their local speciality) and even some red too. Oh, and a couple of wine glasses (we’d brought only two to France and I’d managed to break one the other day…tsk) Having loaded these into the van, we returned to the aire, confident it wouldn’t be full yet. In fact, a total of 6 vans stayed the night. It was a perfectly quiet night out in the country, in a village surrounded by vines, leading again to great sleep.
Before we set off in the morning, a quick detour back to…yes, you guessed, the Wine shop. This time, we bought another 4 glasses, and a case of rose wine. Interestingly, though it was only about 10am, there were already a couple of group tastings going on…not just us, then! Let’s raise a (new) glass to Vinzelles.