We left the champagne region with a few bottles on board and headed to Alsace, but rather than revisit the Colmar area we headed up into the mountains and stayed in a very rustic auberge high above the village of St Amarin, just north of Mulhouse. The drive across beautiful rural France was a delight. We decided to personify our sat nav, and Fiona, on probation, took us off piste through charming villages with the most elaborate and elegant lamp posts, past acres of rape fields, tree lined roads and stunning scenery,  possibly looking for a branch of Harvey Nicks (as she does sound very posh). We had to take control after a couple of hours and seek a motorway to eat a few miles, but she did well again later on to find our destination, which was a blessing, as we had no detailed map!  The scenery was breathtaking and all we heard was birdsong and cow bells – the cow shed adjoined the hotel! No English spoken here, so we practiced our best French. It seemed to work very well.

An early start on a cold grey November, no sorry, May morning, with a ferry to catch from Dover at 1015. Alas it was not meant to be and we found ourselves gridlocked on the M26 just behind a blazing lorry full of burning bananas. We kid you not – the M26 was closed and after an hour we were allowed to turn around and drive the wrong way back on the hard shoulder to the A21 exit.  We made the 1205 crossing and happily arrived in France, where it was equally grey and then very wet. Driving was effortless as there was little traffic on the major routes and we discovered our hotel, in spite of the sat nav trying to deposit us in a field some few miles from the actual location of Hotel Bristol. What a charming proprietor. Never before have we had a guided tour of the room to the extent of a lesson in how the massage facility on the shower worked.

We managed a walk around the delightful old medieval parts of town

before fetching up in a delightfully French restaurant:  Les Ardennes run by the Family Bouffanais since 1959, in the Place Republique. We recommend you visit: 03 26 68 21 42 for a reservation. The wine was excellent.