The first leg - across France to Switzerland

As we make the short trip to Newhaven for the 10:30 ferry to Dieppe, we feel thankful that the French run service, so often under threat of closure in the past, remains open, and wonder what a post Brexit future might bring.  We’re leaving, as in the last two years, at a time of continuing political uncertainty, with the French presidential elections next week and our own in June – proxy votes organised of course!

Four hours later, we’re in France and heading southeast, a change of route for us, to drive via Switzerland to visit an old friend en route to Croatia.

We decide to stop in Soissons around 7pm, just in case the small Aire listed in our new guide was full.  It’s on the main route and experience tells us that these types of Aires are often busy, especially on a holiday weekend.  This one didn’t seem to be signposted but we knew it was by the river and we soon found it.  Even better, the four official spaces seem to have expanded into spaces (albeit compact) for around 10 vans and we slotted ourselves in on the end, using our largest ramps to level off.  The Aire is only open between October and May since the area is used as a riverside beach in the summer.

After a very peaceful night’s sleep we had a quick wander along the riverbank to get some air and then headed off towards Reims. Now in the Champagne region, we marvelled at field after field of bright yellow rape, at the same time wondering where all the vineyards were.  There was no-one to ask though, as being a holiday all the Caves were closed. Using our old Rough Guide we decide to stop for a cuppa in Langres, an old fortified town in the Champagne region, which proved to be a highlight. This is one of the great things about travelling the way we do – we didn’t plan on visiting Langres in advance, it just popped out of the pages as a potentially interesting place en route. As it happened, it was sufficiently interesting and camper-van friendly and we decided to stay overnight.

There’s a municipal campsite, an official Aire (busy), and a very benign approach to free camping in the large carparks that surround the town. And so we ended up spending the night below the ramparts.

Encircled by ancient walls and updated by military engineers as recently as 1900, the town was in carnival mood with a visiting fun fair and plenty of visitors. It’s possible to walk the ramparts (about an hour) taking in the impressive military architecture, the commanding views over the countryside, and a restored coach from a disused funicular railway that was used to transport residents from the nearby mainline station up the hill.  There’s even a new nifty little glass funicular to transport residents and visitors from the lower car parks.

Another peaceful night’s sleep was followed by a quick trip back through the town walls to get our first croissants and baguette of the trip, as we’d failed the day before when everywhere was closed for Labour day. This part of our journey never fails to delight – that first munch into a mouth watering and buttery piece of French heaven that is a real croissant, washed down by a freshly brewed coffee! 

Knowing that the rest of our cliché would be fulfilled when we stopped later to buy paté and celeri remoulade, and having checked le meteo on the web, we set off in the expectation of worsening weather as we got closer to Switzerland. Stopping over in Besançon would allow us to take stock of the weather and choose our route across the Alps accordingly. This would be our first campsite stop, at Camping Besançon Plage.

It’s a quirky site, with first impressions of its utilitarian reception and amenities block belied by recently updated facilities inside, good sized pitches (some of which are adjacent to the river) free WiFi, and a cheap ride into the town (€1.40 pp each way) on a new tram service a short walk from the site.

This allowed us to explore the old Citadel of Besançon (a UNESCO world heritage site) for a few hours. Wandering up the hill from the tram towards the Citadel, we saw our first bit of poster politics – very appropriate for a town that hosts an excellent (if harrowing) museum of the resistance and deportations in WW2. The cost for the museum is bundled in the price to get into the Citadel, €10.60pp – well worth it we thought.

The Citadel is famous for its construction and re-vamping under the guidance of the royal engineer Vauban, and it remains an imposing fortress, with spectacular views over the river. It’s possible to walk the ramparts, visit a small aquarium, vivarium and insectarium and admire the odd collection of wildlife (baboons in the moat and Ibis in a cage…) but the real show-stopper is the Resistance and Deportation museum. Many resistance fighters were incarcerated and executed in the Citadel and it also hosts a memorial to them – the four posts representing how fighters were killed by firing squads.

As France faces an election in a few days with one of the candidates representing the far right, the museum is a useful reminder not only of the atrocities of the Nazis, but of the collaboration with them by many French people in the Vichy regime, as well as the guerrilla war conducted by the resistance. Particularly chilling for us, was the part of the museum which explained the rise of Nazism in a period of economic uncertainty, the blaming of ‘others’ creating and stoking fear, and a leader promising a rosy future for the ‘real’ citizens of the state…

The local weather forecast had posted a yellow storm warning for later in the day, and as if on cue, as we left the Citadel the heavens opened. We dodged the worst of it as we caught the tram back and then took refuge in the nearby Carrefour to stock up on some essentials. Returning to the van, Mr B’s earlier comments that he was glad he’d remembered to close the shower/toilet  skylight came back to haunt him, as we surveyed a soaking carpet and open skylight – doh!

As we write this we are about to head off for the Swiss border, wondering if we have fully digested the complex rules and requirements for taking an HGV onto the Swiss road network… our next update will reveal all!

S&J.