Well, it may have looked like we are lost somewhere in Carcassonne, but in fact we travelled all through France without any signs of Internet access anywhere. The campsites were all too small and rural and France doesn't seem to have Internet Cafes at all.
The cold that enveloped the UK last Sunday also reached the south of France, and so our journey was just about as chilly as it was back home. We found a delightful little site on Monday in the tiny hamlet of Cayriech, near Montauban - one worth a visit in warmer weather. The cold had really set in by this time and an hour's walk was all we could manage before we snuggled up in our warm van again! We had to go through the small town of Caussade to get to the campsite and found ourselves following several huge circus trailers who according to the many posters displayed in the area, were performing for the locals the next day. The one particular vehicle we were behind was pulling 3 long trailers - more like a train on the road - and it took several attempts to turn left into their setting-up area.
The next morning our outside thermometer read 0.9 deg. - we were so pleased we'd taken some porridge oats with us! And so we continued our journey north. We stayed on the autoroute, especially as after the peage just before Brive, the A20 is free. The road takes you up and up over the Causse (high plateau) over the Lot and through Correze - beautiful scenery, but in this cold snap it meant into the snow. The hills and the trees looked wonderful, but the snow was still falling heavily, so rather stressful for a while. Mind you, the snow ploughs were out in force, keeping the road as clear as possible. We stopped for a while at an Aire de Repos that we immediately recognised as one we'd had lunch at, 2 years ago. We fished out our log-book from that trip and read that all the picnic tables were occupied, so to keep cool, we had sat on our stools in the dappled shade of a tree to have our lunch. What a difference this time - we hardly put our noses out of the door, it was so cold!
And so on to Camping Les Grands Pins just south of Chateauroux. We've stayed before at campsites called "Les Pins" and they are usually rather lovely, but this one was a bit of a disappointment and we were glad that we were only staying the one night instead of the originally planned, two. That evening, we were about to get into bed when we thought it was extra chilly at the front of the van, although the fan heater had been on for some time. When we'd arrived and getting the van into the best horizontal position, we'd had the passenger door window down for us to comunicate with each other - and forgotten to wind it back up again!!
On Wednesday we had quite a short journey to do and as the description of the campsite at Rambouillet (south west of Paris) sounded like a good spot for a walk or a bike ride, we got there by 2 pm. A disappointment .... to reach it we drove through beautiful woodland and the entrance to the site was just beyond a peaceful lake ... so far, so good ... but it was Ferme! Both of the site guide-books quoted it as being open, but a large sign said that reconstruction work was delaying this year's opening. The good news was that the sign gave the phone number and details of another site at Versaille, just 25k away. John, using his very best French, phoned and was told that that was the wrong number (he thinks a garage somehow connected with the campsite) and given another. He then rang that and was told that no, they are not open yet either. (A very useful sign we were reading!!) He tried one more, beside the River Seine, that we found in the guide-book, and that was closed too. So over a cup of tea, we decided that we would have to miss out the tempting walk in the chilly sunshine by the lake and press on. And so we negotiated the outskirts of Paris instead and despite one traffic jam because of an accident, we reached the A16 autoroute and stopped at a small Aire de Repos to cook and eat our dinner and moved to a larger Aire de Service just north of Beauvais to camp for the night. We would like to return to the Rambouillet site some time - it really was in a lovely spot.
Now, of course, we are ahead of ourselves, journeywise. So what better plan than to spend a day in Le Touquet. We have been there many times, but it is always a joy to stroll along the sea-front and to look in the windows of the very expensive shops. We approached the area with lots of cafes and restaurants soon after midday and stopped to look at the menu outside the first one we came too. A good job we rather fancied the dishes on offer, as their 'customer-grabber' came out of the door and showed us to our seats before we knew what was happening!! Lunch was very good and by Le Touquet standards, fairly cheap.
Our last night was spent at Camping Le Manoir de Senlecques at Perne on the outskirts of Boulogne. What a pleasure to return there - Monsieur meets and shakes hands with everyone as they arrive, he makes a few little jokes with his broken English and positively beams all the time. At the water tap later, another camper asked John if he recommended this site to friends, because he thinks it's time we all stopped doing that, as it was becoming too popular! It's true that all the hard-standing pitches were taken, but M. would never turn anyone away. There's quite a lot of driveway area around a little duck pond in front of the Manoir (an very old house with a tower) and he fitted 2 or 3 on there. M. invites you to come to his office at around 7 pm to pay for the camping and he gives you a free advertising pen. This holiday I had been using one of the 2 pens we already had from him and I joked with him that they seem to last for ever! But he insisted that we should have another, even though it was his last one and he was waiting for a new batch to be delivered! We got chatting to a couple who were also spending their last night in France, and they told us a bit about their travels - they left home last March, have visited (I think they said) 17 European countries and stayed at over 100 campsites .... now there's a thought for the future ....!!
After a bit of essential shopping on Friday morning - well, we couldn't pass by 'FranGlais' without a visit could we? hic..... - we sat still on a rather bouncy ferry back to Dover and quickly arrived at Peter & Hannah's. Oh, the pleasure of being grandparents! - dear little Emilie was jumping with excitement to see us and on Saturday morning when she unwrapped her Spanish summer dress, she tried it on straight away and wore it for the rest of the morning - over her jeans and long-sleeved T shirt! Her sentences are coming along thick and fast - "No dress off" was today's!
And so we are home again. Lovely to be here and to see all our friends again.
Jacki and Philip entertained us on Saturday evening, when we all tucked into Jacki's very tasty lasagne and an extremely creamy, chocolatey, calorie-laden French pud that was so big that we had to empty our van fridge to accommodate it!
Till the next trip ... goodbye and thank you for reading our blog and for your comments ... but first, please read on .....
While we were away, Natalie sent us an email saying that she was entering the Slough Race for Life in July. She has a very close friend, Karen (Mum to two little boys), who is receiving treatment for breast cancer at the moment. If any of our friends who know Natalie would like to support her effort, just click on the widgit below to find out more, and if you wish, to sponsor her. Thank you.
No comments:
Post a Comment