Tuesday 4th October 2022 – Bruley, France

At the archaeological museum, we saw many references to finds from Le Donon with Roman and Celtic finds. I found that there was a relatively short walk from the road up to the site and we decided to travel there today. The weather was much improved and the visibility was good, which was a good sign. We parked the van in a small layby and started walking, only to find that there was a car park further up the unsurfaced, but drivable track. We continued to climb up a good path with occasional rocky stretches, passing lots of fresh fungi that had fruited after the rain and cold nights. We arrived at the summit to see fantastic 360° views and a temple. The temple, although on the site of a Roman temple, was constructed in 1869 but still looked good in the mountain context. The soft sandstone on the summit had tempted many people over hundreds of years to carve their names, including soldiers based there in the two World Wars. The site has commanding views over a vast area and was used as a sacred site from Neolithic times. Descending on a much easier path we passed the remains of a Roman site sacred to the god Mercury. Many statues of the god were found there and replicas have been put on display near the ruins of a temple.
We decided to drive on for another 90 minutes before stopping for the night and chose an aire at Toul. On the way we stopped at a service station to fill up the LPG tanks only to pull up at the pump in the middle of a swarm of ladybirds. There were literally thousands of them all over the pump, flying around and landing on the van. I got out to use the pump and immediately had them all over me – in my hair, on my glasses and all over my clothes. Even in the very short time that the door was open for me to get out and back in, the van was invaded. It took hours to track them all down and, gently, evict them.
When we arrived at the Toul aire, we found that it was full and implemented our Plan B – another aire just 15 minutes further on at Bruley. There was only one other van there and plenty of room for us to park up.

Photos: The ‘temple’ at Le Donan; One of the great views from the summit; The Mercury temple site; A small selection of the fungi that we saw on the walk.