Revin & Maison Espagnole

In the morning we drive down the Meuse to the town of Revin, where Ghyll will be administered some tapeworm medicine by a veterinarian to certify that he (Ghyll, not the vet) is permitted to re-enter the United Kingdom. Revin is quiet in a lively sort of way—there are people on the streets running errands, fishermen on the riverbanks, kids loitering away les vacances.

Behind a small shopping centre is an urban aire, a sort of camping-car-oriented car park with individual bays lined with tall bushes for privacy and a booth that dispenses clean and grey water for drinking and cleaning out your camping-car'sseptic system—for a fee. I think these are fantastic ideas in the little towns that dot tourism-oriented parts of the country like this: it brings people to the town but keeps the big vans off the streets of the quartier ancien.

The vet's office has the sort of bureaucratic sprezzatura of a New Wave film: you get the sense that the business of tending to people's pets is what the staff get up to when they're not siesta-ing with an apertif. This is, in no uncertain terms, not a bad thing. The vet himself moves behind his desk with cool ease, and, though speaking in broken English, gives the impression of speaking English better than I do. Ghyll devours the medicine and we pay using a card reader that the vet keeps in his desk—then we're out the door.

On the way back to the car, we stop at the Maison Espagnole, a house dating back to the 1500s and built during the Spanish occupation of Revin, of stone and brick and ancient oak. It's a museum now, but it's not clear what it's a museum of—renovations meant that most of the building was empty but for a collection of enamelware stoves of local fabrication on the top floor. We buy a couple beers, a pen, and a sticker sheet for Sam's water bottle and thank the lady behind the desk on our way out.