Grateful that our drift northwards to the coast was accompanied neither by stormy weather nor routes barrées, we found ourselves north of Nantes and facing the choice of finding somewhere to park for the night either south, or north or Rennes if we were to park up before darkness fell – always advisable when somewhere new! We know that one day we will make the effort to visit the capital of Breizh, but not this trip, as a convenient stop was found by Mr B that was near an ‘interesting old tower’… He’d spotted it on P4N and it sounded good with dedicated free motorhome parking and nearby boulangeries. Passing on the location (Grand Fougeray) to Mrs B to guide us in on the App, we were both a bit perplexed to turn into a dark and gloomy woodland glade with no sign of any designated parking… And we’d just passed what looked to be a designated Aire a couple of hundred metres earlier. Curious!
With us each checking our P4N Apps we quickly realised we had made another ‘wrong garden’ error – two locations in the same village! Realising we clearly needed to up our game when using P4N across two devices, we beat a hasty retreat back to the actual Aire, which rapidly filled up within 20 minutes of us arriving!
Unlike most free Aires, where you need to pay for fresh water, this offered it for free, a very generous decision by the municipality. And, as we discovered during a quick walk into the village centre, there were indeed two boulangeries and they were both due to be open in the morning – a Sunday, luckily for us, as they were, of course, closed on the Monday as usual!
As regular readers may remember, Evie identifies as Scottish, so we were interested to see that amongst the other 7 campers was a fellow and very well travelled Scot, the large van in the first photo above…
It turns out that under that mahoosive body shell is one of Evie’s Iveco Daily relatives – the 6.5t version. Essentially identical to Evie’s engine and chassis design but with a higher load rating, the Carthago M liner also dates back to 2005. We know which layout we prefer!
With Mr B falling asleep later that night dreaming about whether his build ambitions for Evie had been grand enough, we woke early enough for him to nip out to the boulangerie for croissants, have a quick chat with the local priest who was just setting up for 1100 Mass (is there no end to his willingness to try his French on anyone that stands still long enough?) and fit in a visit to the local ‘Duguesclin tower’ that had caught his attention when looking for likely stopovers.
The tower, built in the 1300s, turned out to be the one remaining of nine original towers that formed a castle, itself once one of a string of fortifications guarding the borders between France and Breizh, with the latter not becoming part of France until the early 1500s, and remaining autonomous until the French Revolution in the late 1700s. Although closed when we were there, public visits are possible and the tower is used for a variety of local events. Should we come back this way, we might also be tempted by the restaurant that looks out onto it!
With the rest of the day due to stay sunny, we enjoyed an easy drive up to the Normandy coast, heading to a site on Omaha beach, inspired by our reminder of the D Day landings when we were back on the Île de Ré on the beach which featured in the Longest Day film!
We have visited some of the D-Day memorial sites when we first headed west to Breizh back in 2019, at Arromanche-les-Bains and Gold beach, where British soldiers landed, so it was serendipitous that our route took us to the other, western end and Omaha beach where American troops landed.
The site was perched right on the cliffs overlooking the long stretch of Omaha beach to the east, with fabulous views. Just like a lot of municipal sites that were allowed prime spots in the post war drive to enable ordinary folk to have access to affordable holidays, we thought. And it turned out that Camping Omaha Beach was indeed a municipal until about 15 years ago, when it joined the Flower Campings network. At least they are still affordable and good quality, with the full range of usual camp site amenities.
We were allocated a pitch where we just about had a view over to the landing beach…
… we had time before dinner to have a wander around the section of beach close to the site. In fact the site had a path that led down past the remains of a German observation post, before opening up on the immensity of the beach itself…
...with some of the old Mulberry harbour infrastructure still visible…
...along with Mrs B demonstrating to Mr B how to work out whether sun protection is necessary only if your shadow is shorter than you are tall. Obviously none needed here…
On our way back up to the campsite we paused at this memorial to American Rangers that had landed nearby…
Before we turned in for the night, we were treated to a rising near full moon over the beach out of our ‘dining room’ window…
...and in the morning, from the same direction, a bright rising sun in our ‘kitchen’ window. Both photos highlighting Mr B’s urgent need to get a wiggle on with dealing with the scratched windows!
The sunshine was short lived however, and by the time we made it to the nearby museum, it had disappeared altogether. Which was a real shame, as although the museum is mainly indoors, it is not heated and it was our chattering teeth and shivering bodies that eventually drove us out and back to Evie.
The museum is typical of the many small, private collections that have sprung up across France to tell the story of WW2. Some are apparently little more than collections of rusty old bits and bobs – but this one was pitched just right with an interesting, if initially disconcerting hi-tech interactive film…
...some very interesting dioramas (aided by information updates on our phones as we entered each section)…
...including this idiosyncratic British invention of a mini motorbike for airborne troops, the Welbike…
...a portable battlefield X-Ray station…
...an original Enigma coding machine…
….. a painting of Churchill and code breaker Alan Turing featured on the external walls and a fascinating collection of paintings and histories of significant figures in the history of WW2 in a series of small ‘rooms’ outside the main building.…
...and, always with his cycling head on, Mr B found a WW2 era tandem with a Brooks saddle…
We left the museum with mixed feelings of admiration and sadness for the bravery of the troops that had made the landings at a very high price in terms of lives lost and injuries, as well as civilian fighters (there is a good section in the museum celebrating partisans and women in the war). We also couldn’t help having a fascination in the ability under difficult wartime conditions to invent some incredible machines!
The vast majority of fellow visitors were North Americans, and for once we avoided the temptation to get into a conversation about what they made of the current situation over the pond; mindful that some may well have been descendants of the combatants.
Warmed briefly by the quick march back to Evie for a hot lunch, we then ventured west along the coast as Mr B, still in WW2 mode, had spotted a couple of concrete bunkers on Google Maps that (to him) looked worth a visit. Suffice it to say that the absence of any photos might speak volumes as to the size and scale of what we reached. There are indeed some very large and impressive WW2 bunkers on this bit of the coast – we just didn’t find them that day!
The final day before the ferry back to the UK saw us visited by sunshine again – allowing Mr B to take this fetching photo of one of Evie’s new hand-crafted ramps which he is trialling. We often find that we need to level the van just a bit to stop the cooker leaning into the galley area and making a tip or spill hazard; or if it’s just a little bit too low on our head-end to allow non-blood-rush dreams to develop. Easily remedied by getting our giant ramps out, but it’s often overkill. Much easier Mr B said, if we kept a couple of bits of timber handy. And so we are now trialling a couple of bits of old rafter, and a couple of bits of decking. So far, so good, and the giant ramps weren’t used at all on this trip!
At the other end of Omaha beach is the Normandy American Cemetery, and, as we have done in the past, we always try and pay our respects when we are near any of the many cemeteries and memorials of the First and Second World Wars; more conscious these days than ever before of the lives sacrificed from across the world to protect and maintain democracy.
Arrival at the enormous site (the bodies of over 9,400 war dead are buried here, with a memorial wall to a further 1,600 missing), is a sobering event. And as we parked up in the very well laid out area for campervans…
...it was reassuring to see registration plates on vehicles from across Europe and to hear so many non-UK English and French voices. Americans again were, understandably, in the majority, but we also heard a variety other languages.
The cemetery is set in a beautiful location on a hill that lets on to a fabulous view of Omaha beach…
...and is accessed via a very moving information centre, with perhaps the most eye-catching quote on the greeting board that we could have expected to see, especially in Trump’s isolationist and anti-democratic USA:
“These men came here to storm these beaches for one purpose only, not to gain anything for ourselves, not to fulfill any ambition that America had for conquest, but just to preserve freedom, systems of self-government in the world."
Dwight D. Eisenhower
President, Commander in Chief
There is also a stark reminder of the simple, temporary battlefield graves that many of the buried war dead started their journey to the cemetery in…
...and the sheer number of dead in the serried rows stretching down towards the beach…
...along with the majestic scale of the monuments and statues…
...as well as seeing for the first time the manner by which the names of military personnel missing in action (MIA) are amended, in the American cemeteries, by the addition of a small bronze rosette next to the name when remains are discovered. There were a lot more American MIA in WW2 than we had imagined (over 78,000), of whom the remains of approximately 6,000 have been recovered across all the theatres of war the USA was involved in. And of the 1600 listed at Omaha, we only saw a small number of rosettes…
...adding to the poignancy of the sacrifice and loss of so many.
Leaving the cemetery conscious that there was so much more that we could have seen, but aware of the need to get to our final stop for part one of this autumn adventure – back to Auffay where we started, we headed off to join the Autoroutes we had used earlier in the year on our first trip to Breizh. It may be mainly dull (except for the section over the massive Pont de Normandie)...
...but at least it enables us to travel at a more-or-less predictable pace, which meant that we were able to arrive at Auffay on time, in the daylight, and, a first for us, the only campervan in the village…
We passed our last night on French soil for this trip, enjoying home shucked scallops, lightly fried with lardons and accompanied by fresh haricots verts and grenaille potatoes, under a beautiful and almost full Hunter moon…yum!
The joy of coming to the end of part one of our trip in such lovely circumstances was swiftly forgotten, however, as the alarm went off at 0345 to enable Mr B to drive us through the (unforecast) ethereal fog to get to check-in at Dieppe at the required time. We had agreed that Mr B would do this solo, allowing Mrs B to get some extra shut-eye for the 30 minute drive. And we had chosen the 0600 ferry as the cost of the usual tea-time 1800 sailing was so much higher. Not sure we’ll bother again though if we have a choice, with Mr B muttering that he really needed his beauty sleep – whatever the cost!
The crossing was smooth, and uneventful (largely as we snoozed through most of it) and our disembarkation saw us sail through the customs shed before the staff had clocked on for the day. And as we’d only had time for a quick cuppa at Dieppe (yes, the tray is still working!) before we were embarked, we stopped along the coast at Seaford to have coffee and pastries; a pale, but enjoyable reminder of an amazing few weeks in France. We may have only made it as far south as La Rochelle, but as we are increasingly realising, it doesn’t seem to matter where we go, if we find somewhere that takes our interest and the weather is kind, there’s a lot to be said for slowing down and enjoying the chance to explore and soak up the vibe of a small area. And in France, this is very easy indeed!
The next stage of our autumn adventure will see us heading north to Scotland, and we hope to be updating the blog on a weekly basis again, subject to good WiFi access as always. Hope you have enjoyed following our time in France!
S&J 13.10.25
