Last day in Ardeche then to Piedmont

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Sorry its been a couple of weeks since we posted, but it has been a combination of a lot of activity and then we burnt out and got colds, so recovery. Now the process of catching up while still having more travels.

This blog will be covering two days, the first was us looking at a few local activities in the Ardeche and then the second day, traveling to Piedmont in Italy.

For our last day in France, we started the day in a local town across the region boarder to Drome near where we were staying to visit a family run chocolate factory. They were surprised to have visitors as they are not in the town and do not get regular visitors, even though they were well setup to receive them. The Morin factory is very artisanal and has a rich family history of chocolate making dating back to 1884, while existing business has been operating since the 50's. They have a range of sources which they blend to make a variety of chocolates that highlight the different regions flavours as well as having different Cocoa % (even up to 100%), and they also blend with fruit and nuts grown in their own orchard. They were very generous in their tastings and we must have tried 12 chocolates and they were still offering us more. We now have chocolate to enjoy with our dessert wine.

On the way to and from our AirBNB and the Chocolate factory we had to drive over a set of Dams on the Rhone, we were fascinated as to why these were here as there are some larger commercial bridges within 1 km from it.

We finished the day off by going into St Montan to one of the restaurants for dinner and we were treated to great French cuisine.

Our time in France was over and on the 11th we left early for the 5 hour trip into Italy. Our trip went up through Valence and through (literally) the Alps and down around Turin and in to Incisa Scapaccino. We have chosen a wonderful small rural town with a detached Suite and a Pool which we intend to have at least one day round.

After our big day driving we discussed to have dinner in the local (only) restaurant in the town on the hill - La Piola del Borgo. What a great place and a wonderful way to start our Italian portion of the holiday.

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