I woke slightly disoriented and more than slightly groggy.

For a few seconds I had absolutely no idea where I was.

Then it came back to me.

Nice.

The hostel.

The dorm room.

Ah yes.

And the man in the bed opposite, who had spent most of the night snoring like a steam train. I had lain awake listening to him until somewhere in the early hours exhaustion finally won.

“Good morning.”

A.P. appeared in the doorway with a towel over his shoulder, looking unnervingly bright and cheerful.

This is a man who can sleep through almost anything. Apparently that includes what sounded remarkably like a volcano erupting six feet away at two o’clock in the morning.

I groaned.

“Get up,” he continued. “We have to get going. We’ve got a train to catch.”

There are few things more irritating when you have barely slept than someone who has slept extremely well.

I dragged myself out of bed, packed my things and followed him out into the street, still moving through a kind of sleep-deprived fog.

We were bound for Avignon.

For much of the fourteenth century Avignon had been the seat of the papacy, and the legacy of that period still dominates the old city. The enormous Palais des Papes rises above the centre, the medieval walls still wrap around the historic quarter and the remains of the famous Pont Saint-Bénézet stretch partway across the Rhône.

A.P. had been before.

I hadn’t.

I was looking forward to it.

Around three hours later the TGV deposited us on a platform that appeared to be in the middle of nowhere.

I looked around.

There was certainly no sign of a medieval walled city.

It seemed that when the French built the high-speed rail network they had decided the stations did not necessarily need to be anywhere near the places named on the signs.

I’m sure this made perfect sense on paper.

It was rather less convenient when you were standing there with luggage wondering how to get into town.

Eventually a taxi appeared and we climbed in.

Before long the stone walls of Avignon came into view and the driver dropped us near one of the gates. From there we walked through the old town to the Hotel Mignon, where A.P. had stayed before.

It was tucked away down a little side street and was exactly the sort of place I liked.

Small, unpretentious and right in the middle of everything.

I liked Avignon almost immediately.

We had arrived just before the main holiday season, so there was a lovely buzz about the place without it being overcrowded. Cafés and restaurants spilled out onto the squares, people wandered through the narrow streets and there was enough life around to make it interesting without having to fight your way through it.

It was just about perfect.

Over the next couple of days we explored the old city.

We visited the Palais des Papes, wandered through its enormous stone halls and courtyards, walked along the old ramparts and spent hours simply wandering through the streets inside the walls.

We also went down to see the Pont Saint-Bénézet, the famous Pont d’Avignon stretching partway across the Rhône.

Once it had crossed the entire river on twenty-two arches.

Now only four remain.

Which does make the famous idea of dancing sur le pont d’Avignon seem slightly more precarious than the song suggests.

In the evenings we found tables outside in one of the squares and settled in for dinner.

This suited me enormously.

Warm evening, old stone buildings, a glass of wine and nowhere in particular we needed to be.

France was starting rather well.

One morning we decided to take a bus out to the Pont du Gard.

It seemed like a very good idea at the time.

This thought would come back to haunt us.

The Pont du Gard was built by the Romans as part of the aqueduct carrying water towards Nîmes and, nearly two thousand years later, it is still standing there across the Gardon River on three enormous tiers of stone arches.

It is one of those structures that becomes more impressive the longer you look at it.

Partly because of the size of it.

Partly because of its age.

And partly because you cannot help wondering how on earth they built the thing without cranes, power tools or anything else we would now consider essential.

Getting there was easy.

Suspiciously easy, as it turned out.

We packed a picnic lunch — or rather A.P. packed a picnic lunch — caught the bus from Avignon and were delivered more or less where we wanted to be.

Perfect.

We spent several hours wandering around the site, looking at the aqueduct from every possible angle and walking along the river.

There were also several magnificent old olive trees nearby which we were told were more than a thousand years old.

I have no idea how you establish the age of an olive tree without asking it directly, but they certainly looked ancient enough.

Eventually hunger took over and we found a nice spot for our picnic with a view across the river towards the Pont.

A.P. unpacked lunch.

There was a baguette.

An apple.

And a tin of something claiming to be pâté.

I have always been slightly suspicious of meat that comes out of a tin.

A.P. opened it.

I looked at it.

My suspicions increased considerably.

Still, we were in France. It said pâté on the tin. How bad could it be?

Very bad, as it turned out.

I tried some.

It tasted remarkably like what I imagine cat food tastes like.

I should make it clear that I have never actually eaten cat food, so this comparison is based entirely on smell, appearance and instinct.

But I remain confident.

It was awful.

A.P., meanwhile, tucked into it with enormous enthusiasm.

I watched him for a moment, slightly horrified, then decided I was perfectly happy with bread and the apple.

After lunch we wandered around a little longer before deciding it was time to catch the bus back to Avignon.

Simple.

We had caught a bus out.

Presumably we could catch a bus back.

Oh, how wrong we were.

We went to the bus stop and waited.

Nothing.

We waited some more.

Still nothing.

Eventually we decided perhaps we were at the wrong stop, so we moved to another one.

And waited.

And waited.

About an hour passed.

No bus.

No sign of a bus.

No indication that a bus had ever visited either of these bus stops in its life.

“Why does this country have bus stops that no buses ever go to?” I muttered.

A.P. studied whatever information we had managed to find and came up with a new plan.

We would walk to the nearest town.

There would surely be buses from there.

Right?

Off we went.

We walked along the side of the road.

And walked.

And walked some more.

What had started as a pleasant little outing to see a Roman aqueduct was rapidly turning into a fairly substantial walking tour of rural southern France.

Eventually we reached a town.

I never did work out what it was called.

By this point I didn’t care.

It had buildings.

More importantly, it had a bus stop.

We stood beside it and waited.

Nothing.

Of course.

We waited longer.

Still nothing.

I was beginning to suspect that the entire French bus-stop system was decorative.

Then, just as I had more or less accepted that we might have to walk all the way back to Avignon, a bus appeared.

Out of nowhere.

We climbed aboard.

Neither of us was entirely certain where it was going.

At this stage, anywhere vaguely in the direction of Avignon would do.

Fortunately, it was.

The bus eventually deposited us back near the gates of the old city.

We had made it.

We were tired, slightly grumpy and extremely hungry, but we were back in Avignon.

I no longer cared how impressive Roman engineering was.

I wanted dinner.

The following morning it was time to leave.

We collected a hire car, loaded our bags and headed west towards Sarlat-la-Canéda.

But we weren’t going directly there.

First, we were going to take our time wandering through the Tarn Valley.