Day 1- Wednesday
The one and only thing that has made both Del and I say “it was easier with the camper” is the
fact that we could park the camper on the drive at home and pack it at our
leisure. Of course, with Bill it’s a
case of having to remember everything because once he’s hooked on at the
storage place there’s no going back.
Today Del managed to leave work earlier and was home by
13.30, Rob, Fred and myself were all ready for him and we were at the storage
and all hooked up by just after 14.00.
The first part of our trip was to Folkestone where we stayed overnight
at the Caravan & Motorhome Club site, Blackhorse Farm
https://www.caravanclub.co.uk/club-sites/black-horse-farm-caravan-club-site.
The site has ‘Ferry Pitches’ for the likes of
us who want to leave early in the morning to catch either the ferry or the
tunnel to France. We were somewhat
shocked to find ourselves the next morning the only ones still left! Everyone else had gone. Very nice site, lots of rabbits bobbing
around, nice clean shower block etc.
Day 2 – Thursday
We were up and ready to go promptly and got to the tunnel
terminal very quickly. Note to self
here, make sure you check the roof hatches are closed as the main roof hatch
(the expensive one) was wide open, thank goodness we hadn’t travelled far. For those of you who have not used the ‘ferry
pitches’ it’s really quick and simple to get to the tunnel and takes about
10-15 minutes. There was a slight delay
to our train departure so we had some breakfast in the terminal – breakfast
muffins at Leon, yummy.
Arrival in France and on the road with no hassle. The weather was mixed but even with the low
cloud the air was much warmer than at home.
The drive to Epernay took us about 3.5 hours with a couple of stops and
despite trusty Satnav not being able to tell us where the campsite was, Del and
I remembered as soon as we drove into the area.
The municipal campsite here in Epernay was heaving
Epernay Municipal Campsite
– thank goodness we’d actually booked a pitch.
The small restaurant/snack bar had been raised to the ground by a huge
fire earlier in the year so a pop-up restaurant had been installed just yards
from our pitch and we decided to go along there for dinner. The food was lovely, well-cooked, tasty and
portions were sufficient – prices around the same as you’d pay back in the
UK. Probably a little pricey to eat in
there every night but as its well within staggering distance we’ll definitely
be using it again before we leave.
Despite every intention of ‘practicing’ the erection of
Flash (the awning) we didn’t actually get round to it before today... BUT!
With the help of the lads (gotta stop calling them ‘the boys’) we
erected the awning, complete with inner bedrooms for the lads, remote control
strip lighting, blow up beds etc. in about 2 hours – which isn’t bad
considering all the new stuff was still in boxes and needed unpacking,
instructions read etc. and not a cross
word was uttered!
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| This is one of the pods that the boys had each |
Day 3 – Friday
Shopping day today.
We went to Carrefour as there isn’t a Super U or Intermarche in this
area; not sure if it is that particular supermarket or prices in general but
boy the prices have gone up in France!
Del and I shopped carefully as we’re feeding 4 mouths this time and boy
can these lads eat!
The afternoon was spent lazing around, playing cards, before
a lovely barbeque cooked by Del on his birthday present. The weather once again has been mixed, quite
a reasonable amount of sunshine and it was quite hot (ish).
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| Playing Chess |
I bought Del a Safari 2 Cadac for his birthday (tomorrow)
and we/he was very impressed with it.
Del’s not a lover of barbeque but on the new kitchen he cooked a lovely
pork chop and chipolatas for us all.
Definite success. The evening was
quite warm and we sat outside until about 9.30. Del and I are early birds so the boys (sorry
lads) are set-up with a video to watch on the laptop outside in the awning –
result!
Day 4 – Saturday – Happy Birthday Del
Crap day to be honest – so far! We decided to go into Epernay Center Ville
but by the time we got there, the market was closing, all the shops were either
shut for lunch or closed for their holiday – can you imagine closing a shop for
2-3 weeks at home? Oh yes, and it’s
raining... Robert is getting a cold...
and
Groucho seems to be visiting us
all today! We then came back to the
campsite, had some lunch and then sat in our own corners being grouchy. However, as I write this we’re all much happier
and preparing to visit the campsite restaurant again to celebrate Del’s
birthday!
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| Happy Birthday Del |
Once again we had a very nice meal on site, I tried the coq
au vin which was cooked the traditional way with a rooster, the meat was red
and a little drier than normal chicken but still very tasty. Del was presented with a glass of Pineau
Champagne for his birthday – he enjoyed it, I thought it tasted like sherry –
and cooking sherry at that!
Day 5 – Sunday – on the road
Up and packing this morning in search of the sun. We were very methodical in our packing – open
the door and chuck it in the van! It was
a long drive south to LeMoulinFort in the Loire Valley
http://www.lemoulinfort.com/ where we
have stayed before, just down the river from the beautiful Chenonceaux Chateau.
The sky changed from grey heavy clouds, through to lighter
off-white, through to bits of blue, bigger bits of blue (like The Simpsons) and
now this:
On arrival we had the awning up and all but the lighting in
an hour – we didn’t even have to use the instructions for the awning –
hallelujah. The awning is the best
erection we’ve had so far! Dinner was
had in the campsite, pizza which wasn’t the best but they were very busy. Del and I were reminded of our previous trip
as we sat outside eating with the hot air balloons flying overhead, a beautiful
site.
Tonight in the awning we had a visitor. Now normally he would be nicknamed Freddie
but as poor Fred was not to happy with our visitor best we call him
Fergus. Fred had opened the awning and
in he hopped, he did quite a circuit of the awning until Del managed to catch
him and let him go outside. It really
was quite funny!
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| Fergus the Frog |
Day 6 – Monday
Woke up to glorious sunshine today and as we’d had a long
journey yesterday we decided that a day in camp would be for the best. By the end of the day there were some very
red bits amongst us.
This evening we attended the Pasta & Virginie evening at
the camp house. Lots of different pastas
to be had and then the delightful Virginie as entertainment. All the songs were in English and she had us
up dancing by the end of the evening.
Once again we watched the beautiful balloons flying overhead – it was a
lovely evening so we counted six tonight!
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| Balloon Fest at Le Moulin Fort |
Day 7 – Tuesday
Shopping this morning and we found SuperU just up the road
in Chissay de Toigne, we bought just a few things we needed – meat and wine
mainly. Prices here are about the same
we’d pay at home and Del looked forward to trying out the new ‘kitchen’ and
barbeque we had.
The afternoon continued to be grey and miserable so we decided
that today maybe a good day to visit Chenonceaux – so did everyone else... We waited an hour in the queue to get into
the chateau, but it was worth it. The
rain left off until we came out, so unfortunately the beautiful gardens went
unvisited except for a quick photo shoot.
There were some aching legs that evening.
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| Beautiful Chenonceaux |
Day 8 – Wednesday
Mixed day sunshine/showers but it remained very warm. We decided it would be good to hire a small
propelled boat to sail the River Cher and see Chenonceaux from underneath. I was a little reluctant at first (I’m not
too good with boats) but once we set sail it was very peaceful.... until, we
picked up some weed in the propeller and the boat almost ground to a halt – I
mean, we were being overtaken by row boats!
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| Father & Son sailing on the River Cher |
Caught up with some washing in the afternoon – quite
expensive here at 4.50 euros a load, but they are big machines.
Day 9 – Thursday
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| Umbrellas in soggy Saumur |
Grey and windy today so we thought we’d go to Saumur which was
about 1.15 hours away. As we approached
Saumur it began to rain, once we’d parked at Saumur it was really raining. Mr. Grouch returned, mainly because we’d come
out without coats, umbrellas etc.
Saumur didn’t look anything like Del and I remembered from two years ago
and we just wandered around until we decided that we needed food and a
drink. So, we went to the first
restaurant, got totally ignored, I went to the loo, still ignored, got up and
left. Found another restaurant, ignored
again – I mean do we smell? Finally
went to a third restaurant and was told “non Monsieur food finie at two
o’clock” (it was 2.05) – no wonder we were ignored at the other two, they
didn’t want people ordering so close to closing time! Seriously, 2pm? The waitress gave me a forlorn look and I
returned her look with a really p’d off scowl!
Finally we found a ‘pub’ which gave us his own ‘version’ of a croque
monsieur – piece of ham between two slices of bread and some grated cheese on
top, but it was okay and ‘
filled a hole’
as my mother would say. The return
journey went quickly and the day was summed up by the blue skies above our
campsite....
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Saumur
We stopped at Super U tonight and bought some of the very
nice pork that the French seem to produce.
Barbequed pork chops, June’s barby potatoes and the tinned peas and
carrots that the boys seem to have taken a fancy too.
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Rain, heavy rain is forecast for tomorrow, it’s very windy
out tonight and Del is fitting the storm straps to the awning. Who knows what will happen tomorrow?
Day 10 – Friday
Well surprise surprise it was grey and cloudy with just a
hint of rain in the air so Del and I thought a nice trip to the supermarket
would be a good thing to do – yawn... but seriously there is nothing else to
do! The boys decided to stay at home
and play games. However! Joy of joys we found an Intermarche where we
were able to buy our favourite wine – Del likes the 10 litre box of cab sav for
a whole 17 euros! My 5 litre box of
white wine is a whole 9 euros. We
bought, chocolate, cake and a whole stack of naughties to try and cheer us all
up –goodness we’re sad!
As we left the shop the sky decided to burst and it just
poured, we stayed under the shelter of the roof. A young English family left at the same time,
the Dad being ‘macho’ said, I’ll run for the car and bring it across –
well! And it’s one of those moments
where you have to repeat the word, well!
the poor bloke just as he made a beeline for the car there was this huge
cloud burst and he got drenched.
Once we’d got back to the campsite the sun came out and we
were able to sit in the sunshine for a short while. The campsite had really emptied out and the
friends we’d met via a Facebook page Janice & Ted had already left.
Day 11 – Saturday
Yay! We were on the
road to our favourite place in the whole wide world! It was only a two hour trip so we virtually
slung everything in the van and left pdq. Arrival at Kathy and Dave’s was just
about the best feeling ever and we both felt that we were finally able to relax. The sun was shining it was warm and K&D
were hosting a huge party in the garden to celebrate Kathy’s birthday.
Now by party I mean the entire village turns up. Food is brought out in dribs and drabs, huge
bowls of beetroot, shredded carrot, bread and there was no specific order, it
just came, you helped yourself and then ate until the next bit came. For the main course they had been roasting a
pig and cooked whole potatoes in the ashes, then came pate and more bread and
fruit salad, cheese it just kept coming.
Of course, all of this was washed down with copious amounts of wine,
including their own cocktail of wine, pamplemousse (grapefruit) and cointreau –
oh yummy it was gorgeous!
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| Camp Host Dave had his dancing shoes on! |
I sat with Tracy (& Bob) whom we met last year and
caught up on the news, they had just arrived that morning and a French couple
named Phillipe and Chantal, both of whom spoke very good English but were keen
to learn more – it was quite hysterical teaching him cockney rhyming
slang! I think I must have drunk about 2
bottles of wine but felt fine. I think
it all finished about 11pm, everyone went home until the morning when they all
come back to tidy up!
Day 12 – Sunday
Oh what a beautiful morning.....
The sky is a deep azure blue the sun is shining and hot –
Del went off in search of bread as the bread van doesn’t deliver on a
Sunday. Several men from the village
had turned up, later joined by the women – it seems K&D were hosting an
invitation only lunch party today.
Campers kept their distance, we went out. We decided to visit the Trogladyte village
that we’d been too before, but of course, the boys hadn’t. They both agreed they’d enjoyed walking
round seeing how the people lived.
Accidentally on purpose as we say in my family, the trusty Satnav took
us the wrong way and we ended up driving around the area, but it was just so
glorious in the sunshine. Fields of
sunflowers with their heads bowed ready for cropping, purple hazed fields of
linseed and of course rows and rows of vines.
We enjoyed sitting in the peace and silence (not a sound to
be heard) of the orchard until it was time to cook dinner. So nice to be able to sit outside eating a
lovely meal, drinking some wine and watching one of the glorious sunsets here
at La Fosse de Tigne.
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| Rochemenier - Troglodyte Village |
Day 13 – Monday
So tonight at La Fosse was the traditional wine tasting
evening! Around 6pm Dave (the host), Luke his son, Bob & Tracey, Del and I and a couple of other campers walked into La Fosse and sampled a few of the local
wines. As we’d been before we knew to
have a meal before the sampling.
Now the vineyard produces 10 different wines and even at 0.5
of a glass to sample it’s still a lot (Del and I had also had a snifter with
our meal). Once we’d tasted and
purchased what we wanted we wandered back to the campsite and we all gathered
(plus the 3 other couples that hadn’t come along) for an evening of more wine,
cheese, pate and lots of chit chat into the dark hours. The evening was warm and very quiet and as
everyone was attending the party there was no one to disturb – result! This really is a place for lovely people and
to meet lovely new friends.
Day 14 – Tuesday
Oh god! Felt rubbish
this morning but after several cups of tea and some breakfast we decided that
we’d go to Nantes to Les Machines de I’ile
http://www.lesmachines-nantes.fr. It was just over an hours’ drive from La
Fosse but well sign posted once we got near.
Bob & Tracey decided to come along too.
Oh my god! What a fab afternoon we had. The machines are amazing and so clever and
despite the heat (about 32 degrees) a good time was had by all.
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| Les Machines de I’ile |
First stop was the Gallery of the Mechanics – it was a
guided tour, all in French – where we watched enormous creatures come to life,
driven by children and adults from the crowd.
Giant spiders, caterpillars, ants and a Heron all came to life, flying
overhead or coming up from a hole in the ground and squirting webs (water/steam),
we were in Jurassic Park!
We had lunch at the cafe/restaurant on site – we had lovely
fresh baguettes filled with tuna, chicken or ham (thon, poulet or jambon) – if
any readers plan to visit the museum make sure you take water with you, there’s
very few places to buy drinks but there are some water stations around. Following this we visited the Carrousel des
Mondes Marins 82ft high, 72ft in diameter – 3 carousels on top of each
other. You have to pay extra for this
but we’d travelled a distance and probably won’t go again, so you have to do it
don’t you? Each level represented a
different part of the ocean and the mechanical creatures reflected this – Del
and I chose the middle layer – the abyss, and rode the Deep Sea Lantern
Fish. All of this excitement was
followed by an ice-cream which was blinkin cold and we all struggled with a bit
of brain freeze!
The Grand Elephant 40ft high, 26ft wide and 70ft long. The ride on the elephant was arranged for 6pm
and I managed to get right up the top – although you - could move about once
you were on there. The ride is very slow
and takes about 20-25 minutes; every now and again the elephant would raise its
trunk and squirt water over ‘itself’ (in other words - us) or the crowds
standing around watching. When the
elephant was standing being unloaded and loaded with new passengers it also
pee’d itself! Much hilarity from all the
kids.
Exhausted but happy we returned to the car where the machine
wouldn’t accept the parking ticket and I then had to explain to the guy what
had happened, fortunately with my little French and his little bit more English
we managed to sort it out.
Day 15 – Wednesday
It took us a while to get going today and then it was all a
bit of a mad rush because Kathy & Dave had invited us all to a Chinese
restaurant for lunch.
We followed Dave nearly all the way to Angers – Del actually
thought we were going to China at one point.
The restaurant was an all you can eat buffet at 12.50 euros a head and
the food was really good. There was
sushi or you could take your meat up to the chef and he cooked it all for you,
or of course, there was the many many dishes to choose from. Well recommended if you are in the area.
When we arrived back at the campsite several fellow campers
remarked that tomorrow evening would bring thunderstorms and heavy rain. Oh blimey, we wanted to do so much tomorrow –
our last day at La Fosse, but with this news we now also had to contemplate packing
up the awning on Thursday night, dry or leaving it until Friday morning when it
would more than likely be soaking wet?
- I love flowers and whenever we're away I take photos of the beautiful blooms that can be seen in the villages of France.
Day 16 – Thursday
Woke up to a another beautiful morning so Del and I set off
to Doue le Fountaine Intermarche to stock up on our favourite wine and to spend
some of the euros and cents we had laying around – “last day of holiday, spend
your shrapnel, postcards and souvenirs”.
We got back about midday and went straight off to the zoo at Doue
http://www.bioparc-zoo.fr.
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| BioParc Zoo |
Doue is only just 10mins down the road from La Fosse and to
be honest we weren’t expecting much in the way of a ‘zoo’ – so much so we all
nearly choked when she said 82 euros for us all to get in! However, we weren’t just pleasantly
surprised we were all wonderfully amazed at how fab the zoo actually was. Wow, bears, tigers, lions, hippos, giraffe,
monkeys, parrots, vultures, the list goes on.
Each area is beautifully laid out and all the animals were very well
cared for and all given adequate living areas – thoroughly recommended if you
are ever in the area; do take refreshments with you as they are expensive.
Upon return to the camp we made the decision to collapse the
awning and pack all away for an early departure in the morning. It seemed like a good idea but when you’ve
been shopping and then at the zoo all afternoon you are rather tired – I think
we finally finished around 9pm. At
which point Bob (of the Bob & Tracey campers) came and invited us for
drinks at their place – we finally left at 12.45am....
Day 17 – Friday
We got away about 9am, none of us slept particularly well
but as it happened the weather was not too bad and it only just started to rain
as we were winding up the legs.
Bob & Tracey were there to say goodbye with “see you
next year”....” if not before”. We’ve spent
some lovely time with them this week.
We’d booked for the night at a campsite just 10k from Calais
which meant a long journey ahead of us. One
thing we have found a bit annoying is the services at the Aires on motorways;
the signs are really good saying where each type of vehicle should park but the
spaces for car/caravan are very limited and are usually full of cars or
trucks. Twice today we had to drive
straight out again because there was nowhere to park. However the roads are so good here and traffic
was very light compared to the UK with three stops we arrived at
www.campingdelabienassiste at
about 4.30pm. Lovely campsite, really
pretty. Loads of Brits here, swimming
pool, bar, restaurant, snack bar, golf etc.
Not sure I’d like to stay here more than two nights as there are loads
of kids but it is very pretty.
We just had dinner here, all reasonably priced and nearly
all the food is homemade! Really really
tasty. And sorry, I have to say it as it’s been going through my mind since I
got here – there’s several people that look like they’ve made the most of the
good food....
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| Camping de la Bien Assiste |
Can’t finish today’s blog without telling you of the little
‘oh dear me’ moment we had at our nemesis – Rouen. It seems each time we travel through Rouen
trusty Satnav takes us a different route, this time we were doing okay until
trusty Satnav told us to stay left – we did, until we found ourselves in the
filter lane for the tunnel that takes you under the next busy junction and
brings you up the other side with a bloody great sign that says height maximum
of 2.6m.... STOP! Del just managed to stop before we descended down the slope
into the tunnel and without following cars hitting us. Fortunately there was a small escape break
in the wall which meant that we could get back into the lane going straight on,
but this meant we had to back up about 2m too be able to swing the car and Bill
into the traffic – this also meant getting the traffic behind us to back up
too... oh dear! But at the end of the
day, it is better to have to ask traffic to back up than to close the tunnel
for goodness knows how long because a caravan has gone in it and crunched its
roof.
Day 18 – Saturday
We were up around 7.30am, we’d all had a reasonable sleep,
the campsite had surprisingly been very quiet; it was about 9am by the time we
left and the Tunnel was minutes away. At
check-in we managed to get an earlier train, traffic on the motorways home was
heavy but moving – good grief, caravan in storage and home eating toast by
midday!
Another adventure had, we’ll cram in a few weekends before
Winter but for now there’s a mountain of washing to be done and a caravan that
has that well lived in look to be cleaned and polished. So I leave you with just about the best view
in the World – La Fosse de Tigne at sunset....
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| Sunset at La Fosse de Tigne |
