CAMPERVAN to LYON

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My time with the Daniel and Christian (and Johannes, who got home in time to head off with the three of us toward France) was short and really great. After two days hiking and hanging out at their place, we hit the road. Our goal was to get to Lyon by the evening, about 300 km away, not far but with the bus' lack of speed, and some of the mountain roads, it took close to 8 hours of driving.
I drove the final leg of our day’s journey from Bavaria, through Switzerland, and into France, our final destination for the day being Lyon.
Our plan for accommodations in Lyon was to sleep in the camper van, so in fact we didn’t care too much where we ended up as long as we found a good parking space.
We chose a spot right on the Rhone river, right near a cluster of boats converted into bars and clubs and such. We spent the evening exploring those, meeting Lyonnais folks; I was so thrilled to finally be in a country where I could speak the language, even if my French is far from fluent. It was so nice not to have everything depend on finding someone who speaks English, only meeting/socializing with people who speak English, etc. And it was fun to be the translator for a change (for the Germans) as opposed to the one being translated for.
We went to bed around 2 AM; at around 6 AM we awoke to a small crowd of French voices outside on the street and banging fists on the window the camper van. For a few minutes we all ignored the banging. I assumed it was just someone messing around (partly because I thought it was still night time), until out of the French conversation I heard the word ‘policier.’
Great, I thought. More police. I hurriedly get dressed and hop out of the van to find no police, but rather a few non-police standing there, looking at the van. ‘Bonjour,’ I say. ‘Est-ce qu’il y a une probleme?’ I ask. One of them politely explains to me that we had parked our campervan in the middle of an area designated for the local market, and it was Sunday morning, market day. The people were really nice to us, in fact they showed us a spot just up the way where we could park out of the way, and even guided the bus safely into our new parking space. I thanked the market folk and apologized for the inconvenience to them, and crawled back into bed.
Three hours later we woke up, rolled out of the camper to fresh fruit, croissants and cheese that awaited us in the market.
Two hours later I was on a train headed for Bordeaux to coach baseball.

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Photos

Immenstadt, Predeparture
Daniel/Chris' house, an old cheese factory.

Chris and Daniel
making lunch in the campervan