Today we started the day like civilised dogs and not like nocturnal vagabonds frightened by acorns! At a reasonable hour —neither dawn nor almost lunchtime— we went out to explore the Lac des Oiseaux with sun, calm and feathers.

The entire lap of the lake is about two and a half kilometres, but it took us almost an hour because Daddy went into "nature documentary" mode and took a photo session of all the swans, ducks and birds with necks. I sniffed every shore, chased suspicious breezes and supervised the perimeter like a good French lake hound.

After midday we started the camper and half an hour later we arrived at Le Lude. The town has a castle that, in photos from Google Maps, looks like it's straight out of a fairytale with dragons, princesses and a vintage convertible car. It's a huge Renaissance château, with centuries on it and gardens that are hard to maintain even with seven bored gardeners. But it has a wall so high that from the outside you can barely see a piece of a turret and some of the façade. Pretty, yes, but to pay 12 euros for them not to let me in… it's not going to happen! If I can't smell the carpets, it's not worth it.

We took a walk through the town, which at the French lunch hour was deader than the Wi-Fi in a tunnel. Pretty streets, closed shops, the smell of old bread and digestive silence.

Then we went back to the car and an hour later we parked in a beautiful place next to a fishing lake. There we ate in the camper, Daddy sat in the sun and I rolled on the grass like a croquette with legs. I was so comfortable that for a moment I thought we were staying there forever, living on crumbs and the occasional smell of fish.

But no, in the mid-afternoon we did another mini transfer, about twenty minutes, to a town called Trôo (with an accent and everything, which gives prestige). We parked in a large and empty car park, as if they had reserved it for us.

Trôo is a jewel excavated in the rock, literally. There are cave houses everywhere, many converted into rural accommodation or B&Bs with excavated entrances and windows that look like eyes in the stone. It looks like Sacromonte, in Granada, but in a French version and without guitars at midnight.

We found a signposted path that runs through the most curious points of the place. First we saw an old bakery inside a cave: *Le Vieux Fournil de Jérôme*. From the outside you can tell that it hasn't baked a crumb in decades, but one can imagine loaves coming out of the excavated oven, with bakers covered in flour up to their eyebrows.

Then we went down to a cave with a fountain, or rather a natural cistern in the form of a well hidden under rock. At the bottom there is a kind of statue or tombstone guarding, like an aquatic guardian of another century. The water is so clear that it looks like glass, and people throw coins that float as if they were suspended in the air. I leaned over and almost fell in trying to understand where the wet begins.

We then went up to the collegiate church of Saint-Martin de Trôo, a stone construction with a bird's eye view and a medieval feel. Very well-kept, silent and so quiet that my nails sounded too loud when walking. Next door is La Butte, a high hill which is climbed by a spiral path. From above you can see the whole valley and the caves as if they were noble burrows.

We loved the town. Almost without cars, without noise, with strange houses and paths that look like scenes from a story. After months of seeing churches, castles and historical towns until the stones speak to us, this was something different. We spent almost two hours walking, sniffing and storing mental photos.

When the sun was beginning to go down, we went to look for a place to sleep. Less than ten minutes away we found, thanks to Park4Night, a curious corner behind a closed church in a tiny hamlet. And by a miracle, we arrived while it was still light, not almost in the dark as always.

We settled in and shortly afterwards a man in a white car passed by. He stopped, spoke to Daddy in French, super friendly, and told us that there was no problem in spending the night there. And that if anyone asked, we should mention "the one in the white car" as the official safe conduct. So here we are, in total silence, roof without acorns and a feeling of a friendly ghost town.

Today, instead of a world war or impossible roads, we had a tranquil lake, an inaccessible castle and a charming troglodyte town. And tonight, if nothing explodes over the roof, I plan to sleep like a dormouse with a canine licence.