France 2016 - the "Which socks are dry?" one!

Bonjour!  Mes amies.   So here we are back on our travels 2016 and off to Troyes in France.   Why Troyes you may ask?   How do you say Troyes? Is it, Troy...es?  No my good fluent French speaking friend Colleen tells me – it is named after Helen of Troy and so therefore in French it is pronounced T..roy..ay! 

Anyway in true Hawkins/Worley tradition we hit the road at 3.30am – Del had snoozed his way through at least four hours sleep (thank goodness as he was doing the driving) but I wasn’t so lucky and had tossed and turned until the alarm went off.  Everything was packed and we set off promptly.  We arrived at the tunnel with just enough time for a quick wee before we were called.  Coffee and a pack of garibaldi biscuits kept us going until we arrived in Calais at 6.30am.  

The road to Troyes is motorway and in true French tradition hardly anyone on it, so with a stop for the supermarket we arrived in Troyes at 14.30. Now, the past few days have been filled with the ‘Blocages de raffineries’ in France and the British press have certainly shall we say... enjoyed scaremongering – we’ve had no problem getting fuel and we did pass just one very civil blockade – not saying that it isn’t bad elsewhere in France, just that we’ve been okay.

Camping de Troyes http://www.troyescamping.net/ is really very nice for a municipal campsite. Lovely lush green pitches “park where you like”, bar, restaurant, swimming pool and it’s sooooo quiet that we fell asleep in the chairs! Tomorrow we are going to investigate the medieval town of Troyes. There’s a bus right outside the campsite that costs E1.35 into town every five minutes.

Day 2 – Friday

Loads of rain during the night leaving the site very muddy in parts – we are very lucky as we’ve found one of the few hard standing pitches available. Many caravans and motorhomes were well and truly stuck and needed the Dick and his trusty tractor to pull them out. Late morning early afternoon turned out cloudy but warm so we took the bus into Troyes centre-ville – E1.35 each. The No 1 bus stop is just outside the campsite.

Troyes centre-ville is in parts medieval with many churches and a wonderful cathedral. It’s a mixture of old and new and where the two eras meet the buildings have a ‘mock’ medieval fascia. It’s a town full of fountains, churches, restaurants and is clean and friendly – well worth a visit.

Troyes Cathedral

The Medieval Town of Troyes

After 2.5 hours of walking around my old friend Arthur Itus started moaning so we decided it best to call it a day and return to the campsite. Good job too, because as we got off the bus the heavens opened, thunder and lightening the works!

Day 3 - Saturday

Saturday arrived and we decided to go back in Troyes for another adventure – there’s a great market both indoor (food and wine) and outdoors for clothes, household etc. We walked around the food and wine hall and were very impressed by the quality of all the produce anything from lobsters trying to make break for freedom to bottles of the very finest vino..... nearly every stall holder had a glass of wine in their hand!

Troyes Indoor Market

We decided to have lunch at one of the kerbside restaurants, Del decided on a 4-egg omelette and I went for a ‘lucky-dip’ (because I didn’t understand the menu) e.g. Tarticrepe! Fab food and service at Maison Maxine.

Arrival back at camp bought the sun out and it was well after 9pm before we came back in again, to yet another round of Only Fools & Horses as we’re running out of videos to watch – always good for a laugh though.

Seems like that was the last of the sun we’ll see for a while as all through the night it poured down and we were woken up once again by Dick and his tractor pulling people out. Breakfast of croissants and coffee and Del decided to see what the roof of Deedee was like as we’d been parked under trees for 3 days.... mmm... pidgeon potty comes to mind – jeez what do those things eat to produce that????   

Day 4 - Sunday

It did stop once we arrived at Camping de la Foret http://www.eurocampings.co.uk/france/centre/loiret/montargis/campsite-de-la-foret-103849/ - but the campsite had also had very heavy rain and there were only about 6 other campers there – several of them looked a bit like they’d come out of a sketch of Only Fools & Horses! We’re going to stay the night but then move on tomorrow – this place is just not for us, I don’t know whether it was because it was raining so hard and there were a lot of old, unused caravans around but this place gave me the bloomin creeps!

24 hours later – Oh My Goodness! What a night, pouring pouring rain, it just didn’t stop all night and because we were under the trees it sounded like the entire troupe of Michael Flatley’s Riverdance on our roof. In the morning we very gingerly raised the blinds thinking we may need to call Noah and his Ark to get us out, there were huge pools of water everywhere. We decided to pack up and get out – I’m sure that campsite is very nice in the sunshine.   

Montargis - The Venice of France

Day 5 - Monday

We moved onto Chateauneuf-sur-Loire http://www.camping-chateauneufsurloire.com/index.php/en/ - quick stop in the Super U for refreshments and 10 minutes later we arrived. It’s still pouring with rain but because of the trees isn’t anywhere near as bad. The campsite runs alongside the Loire river, which at the moment is swollen and looking quite menacing. Forecast tells us that we’ve got this weather for at least another 24 hours. Oh well.....

The rain did stop briefly and then slowed to a drizzle but it just kept coming down. We stayed here for two nights but just daren’t go anywhere because the weather was just too bad. However, it is a lovely campsite, the lady in the office speaks lovely English and it’s spotlessly clean (as are most municipal campsites) – lovely hot showers here.

Day 7 - Wednesday

Wednesday morning came and we decided to move onto Epernay (the weather said it would be a little better). This meant having to retrace our journey from Troyes but it was motorway all the way, so really not too bad. The morning was warmer, drier and we set out reasonably early for us. However! The motorway was closed off for miles both ways, no explanation, just closed, which meant we had to resort to the jolly atlas and my map reading skills – I knew my Duke of Edinburgh’s award would come in handy one day.

Our journey took us back through Montargis where we’d left only days before, oh my goodness, I have never seen such awful flooding. There was no electricity in the centre ville which meant no traffic lights, but people were being very sensible. Then we began to pass flooded houses where you could only see the top six inches of doorframes, gardeners’ allotments flooded, children’s play areas where just the top of the swings were visible and rivers of thick brown mucky water – it was really awful.

The floods of Montargis

Eventually we picked up the motorway and arrived in Epernay http://www.epernay.fr/hotel-restaurant/camping-municipal - the girl on reception spoke very good English and we were given a pitch. This really is a lovely campsite – big spacious pitches, toilets & showers immaculate, laundry (E4 per wash – get the coin from reception and E1 for 30 minutes in the dryer). There’s a small restaurant, electric boat hire (E30 for 2 persons for 1 hour) and they organise a bus to take you to a Champagne tour three times a week – we’re trying that tomorrow so we’ll let you know what it’s like! We were told the shopping area/champagne area is just 2 kilometres up the road. The rain seems to be holding off too.....

Up early, we even set the alarm so we could get some food inside before the champagne tour. The minibus to take us the 25 minute journey to the champagne producer Bernard Tornay just E8 each. Why is it that wherever in the World you get a cab they all drive like bloomin nutters? Anyway, the tour and tasting was very good – excellent champagne, but three glasses before 11.30am is a bit heavy! Now Del likes a bit of champagne so we ended up buying two boxes, one box of Brut Blanc de Noirs “Grand Cru” and 1 box of mixed. The tour was very informative and told of how champagne is made and kept – the lady who showed us around was the great granddaughter of the man who founded the business in 1875. The vineyard is right up on the surrounding hills and had it been a nice day it would have been beautiful. However, the lady did tell us they were very concerned about the vines because of all the rain and the possibility of mildew; normally they spray the vines but they have been unable to do it because of the rain.

Tipped so the sediment goes to the neck where it is then frozen and removed before shipping.

These bottles are owned by the Japanese and kept at the vineyard for up to 10 years.

There’s been more news about flooding in France and Germany, terrible pictures on the BBC and five people have lost their lives. Tomorrow we move on for our last overnight, we’ve chosen Lille as it’s quite close to the tunnel for Saturday morning.

Day 9 - Friday

We did the Intermarche shop on the way here – champagne grand cru half-price for a box of six! Don’t mind if we do.... also stocked up with 10-litre boxes of red wine and 5-litre boxes of Sauvignon – we’ve been buying the same stuff for the past 4 years and it’s good (and cheap). Also bought things like a huge bottle of Ariel liquid and dishwasher tablets – all much cheaper here than at home.

We weren’t sure where to camp but ended up at Camping La ferme des Saules in Bailleul, http://www.ferme-des-saules.com/ just outside Lille and about an hour from the tunnel. We’ve not really bothered to investigate too much, I poked my nose in the facilities, they were clean but pretty basic, there’s a fantastic farm shop here too. One night is just Euro14.05 so it’s fine for a stopover. 

The weather has been dry for quite a few hours now, but we’ve seen all the flooding in Paris and surrounding areas, terrible. Petrol situation seems to have gone quiet and we managed to get fuel with no problem at all.

Up early tomorrow for the 11.50 train and then home. Even until the final parts this
Holiday was going to be a ‘right-one’ – Miss Satnav decided to take us the fastest route back to the motorway via muddy sodden farm tracks!!!!!!!!!

We always treat each trip in Deedee as an “adventure” – this one has surely been that, but not one we would like to repeat again in a hurry. We still love France and can't wait to return again - I mean where else do you get roads like this?