Wednesday 22nd May 2019

This morning we realised that our central heating system wasn't working properly - instead of heating the van it was heating the inside of the boiler cupboard! We discovered that one of the central heating ducts had somehow become detached from the boiler. My hands and arms were too big to get into the confined space where the problem was but Ann with smaller hands and slimmer arms managed to put the detached duct back into it's socket. The question is why had it become detached in the first place and will it become detached again?

We moved on east to the town of Falaise. After doing a supermarket shop we approached the Castle.

We parked for the day by the castle walls. William The Conqueror was born here.

We entered the castle through this impressive gatehouse.

 From the ramparts there are great views in all directions.

This town was reduced to rubble during the fighting between the Germans and Canadians in 1944. The German army was finally defeated but when the Canadians took control of the town they were unable to make out where the streets had been and had to bulldoze a way through! It took 50 years of restoration work before the castle could be opened up to visitors again!

It cost 8.50 euros each to go into the inner parts of the castle. You get a tablet computer each which when you scan onto a target area in each room you can see on the tablet how the room might have looked in the middle ages.

Here's Ann doing the scanning.

There were even more stunning views down when we finally managed to get to the top of the castle's tower.

Here's the castle's chapel today.

Here's how the tablet computer reckons it would have looked like in the middle ages.

Of course you have to exit through the gift shop. Ann bought some postcards.

We have a really nice parking place right next to the castle walls.

Bernard came along and introduced himself. He has a friend who lives in Ivybridge, Devon - just a few kilometres from us. He is 80 years old. He remembers the fighting between the Germans and Canadians here in 1944 when he was 6.

No long after Bernard had left a couple with two children came along and wanted to know about our van. They have an unconverted van of similar size and are hoping to convert it themselves up to full campervan standards. We conversed via the Google Translate Application on my phone as they had no English and we have little French. Here's the view out of the sliding door on the side of our van as the evening shadows begin to lengthen.

Today we travelled 18 miles (29 kilometres). We are at N48.89259 W0.20414

Falaise      Street View