It has been a few years since I last went on holiday and the same for my mother who last travelled with my late father the year before the COVID global pandemic. This year we’ll be travelling together, partly following a route my parents would formerly have taken with stops and way points that had been their traditional holiday for their last 3 or 4 years of summer travel.

It is somewhat cruel to consider Rouen as an Industrial city and Tours as one for tourists. Both have old towns and large impressive cathedrals. It seems to be an impression wrongly built up within my family over the decades with Rouen being little more than a pass through to else where, or the host for a drunken camping trip when I was a young student. There are differences though.

There is so much more to Cognac, yet at the same time so little as it is all about the distilleries, however with Tours you have both the old and new, in theory satisfying both locals and tourists alike. Still, this counts for little until you have moved from one to the other.

In my mind I had this day as one of the longer journeys of the holiday, but our first leg back north was not. However due to all the driving round Gascony I would need an additional top up while at the same time being reminded about the truths of Sundays in France.

A morning trip to the Marciac jazz festival was always on the cards, however as we would have to pass through Bassoues on the way there, a side trip for day time photos and possibly a wander up the tower was also called for.

There were two reasons my mother particularly wanted to head to Marciac. The first was because she used to go there with my late father for the jazz festival and the second because friends of hers had moved near by to Gazax-et-Baccarisse. Of course due to the jazz festival every where within about 30 miles of Marciac was booked up, so we found ourselves in Auch.

First off there had always been one aim for the day, predetermined before the holiday started. A visit for 5 p.m. to the village of Le Fournial, near Bussière-Galant. My parents had stayed a number of time with a friend there who passed away almost a year ago. My mother wanted to visit the house and see if a number of neighbours were around, as it was a small and close community and they might remember her and my late father.

The first full day in France, though still one mainly of driving. Planning the night before meant I knew the route to follow, allowing a trip through Blois (famous châteaux town in the Loire Valley), plus avoidance of péages.

Though split by a half hour trip on Le Shuttle, today was the longest as far as driving distance was concerned. Roughly 325 miles. Watford to Folkstone, then Calais to Chartres.