Finding ourselves in the
bizarre situation of heading north to enjoy cooler weather (!) we discovered
that this year’s great leap north looked to be a relatively easy affair, as we
were not that far from the fabulous and free A25 motorway, which we could take
all the way to Clermont Ferrand.
Making sure we were well
stocked with all our favourite southern goodies (including a stop at the
excellent local wine cooperative in Sérignan), we managed to head onto the A25
by midday, not entirely sure of how far we would get, but grateful that we
should get a good chunk of the route home out of the way.
Apart from the heat being
pretty intense in the mid 30s; our non-aircon cab maintaining the same
temperature as outside for most of the time; and our shouting skills becoming
finely tuned as we battled over the wind noise from the open windows to hear
each other – the first leg was problem free.
We stopped for a break at
the roadside aire near Garabit to take a look at the fabulous viaduct/bridge,
built by none other than Gustave Eiffel of tower fame. In years gone by we
would have driven past it a good number of times, but this was the first
occasion that we’d actually stopped to take a peek. Built in 1885 and the
highest bridge in the world at the time, it’s still in use today although with
speed limits, and is a good reminder of the building skills of the 19th
century.
Mrs B was on duty for
finding somewhere to stop for the night, and she soon spotted that we might be
able to make it to a small but lovely lakeside aire that we had last visited in
2012, in St Pardoux. It only has spaces for four campervans and is accessed via
a narrow road a few miles into the countryside – so we knew we were taking a
gamble, but took some comfort in the large number of campsites not too far away
– just in case.
We had been tailing a couple
of other campervans as we headed towards the small village, where we would need
to turn off to get to the aire. And sure enough, they both turned off in the
direction we were heading…
Luckily, they also both
turned off towards one of the campsites, so our spirits soared that we might
stand more of a chance of nabbing one of the four places. And sure enough we
did, with two vacant spots left – phew!
With enough space to get the
table and chairs out for our evening meal (and noting that both of our French
neighbours were already tucking in) we heaved a big sigh of relief that our
gamble had paid off. And it didn’t take long before our neighbours wandered
past to say hello, looking as is so often the case at our Scottish flagged
number plate and asking where we were from, in French of course.
For regular readers and
people who know him, yet again Mr B didn’t let his limited grasp of French get
in the way of a conversation, little expecting that his new bezzy mate Jerome
would keep him talking for an hour whilst Mrs B was left to labour over the
food. Even its arrival and the commencement of eating and drinking didn’t deter
Jerome from his desire for a natter. And neither did Mr B’s obvious linguistic
limitations put him off ranging across a range of topics, including of course
‘Le Brexit’!
We figured that Jerome must
have been pretty starved of conversation and/or was just one of those
super-friendly people out there, but we did benefit enormously from his sharing
of an App that was new to us for seeking out places to camp up overnight (or
park during the day). Park4night.com is
another Dutch managed app that works reliably all over Europe and, as we
discovered subsequently, was pretty useful in locating some interesting places
to sleep for the night. Used in conjunction with the Camper Contact and ACSI apps
we had been using for a while, and this year’s other discovery, Pass E’tapes,
we came to learn that we now had some pretty reliable resources to do more
advance planning than ever before – so thanks Jerome!
After a lovely peaceful and
cool night, (as St Pardoux is high enough to cool down overnight) we got off to
an (unusual for us) early start as we continued towards the northern coast. It
turned into a longer and slower day, but we managed to get as far as St
Rémy-sur-Avre where one of our apps showed us a good value Municipal campsite.
Coincidentally, we had stopped here before to have lunch, never guessing that there
was a campsite in the middle of the village! We knew we could have gone on
further, but as we had left enough time to spend a few days on the Normandy
coast before our ferry, we decided there was no rush.
With the weather still
holding steady in the mid-30s, it didn’t take us long on arrival to find a
spacious and shady pitch tucked away on the edge of the site. And what an amazing
view through the skylight in the morning!
With all available skylights
and windows fully open and the (almost silent) skylight fan on full to maximise
airflow and to try and drop the inside temperature as much as possible, (as the
Canicule sat stubbornly over this part of France and kept the night time
temperatures in the high 20s), the hum of nearby aircon units on turbo from the
large office block across the other side of the site, replaced the southern
drone of cicadas. And although we were both used to the background noise of
cicadas, Mr B struggled to convince himself that this noise was close enough to
ignore!
Making another unusually
early start, we stopped for lunch at the aire at Lamotte-Beuvron– another
regular spot for us from the past. We’ve not been there for a while and were
amused to see that there is now a floating restaurant on the small artificial lake,
well positioned to admire the fountains and capture more of the tourist-euro…
We used the stop in the
shade of the trees to make some decisions on where to stay near Dieppe, having
sworn last year that we would swerve the aire at the port at all costs because
of the inevitable noise from the arrival of our morning ferry! Using our
growing suite of helpful apps, we plumped for an ACSI site in St Valery-en-Caux
that would give us a discounted rate until our very last night, when we would
then need to pay what we expected to be a small-ish increase (Normandy not
having the pull of the Mediterranean, we thought…).
We’d decided to go to Dieppe
before the site, so we could have a more relaxed ‘last chance’ shop in the large
Auchan hypermarket there, as well as test the journey time to and from the
site. So we arrived at Camping Etennemare mid afternoon and were presented with
a free choice from a good number of vacant pitches, and also the news that our
ACSI rate of €16 a night would rise to €28 for our final night! Clearly this
part of Normandy was more popular than we had anticipated – as we soon discovered
when most of the vacant pitches filled in over the weekend!
We found the site to be very
‘English’ in its layout, with box hedges surrounding a lot of the large grass
pitches and quite unlike most of the other stops we had made across France.
Still, with the weather set fair the day we arrived, a heated swimming pool and
a short walk into the town where we could have our French ‘last supper’ as we
planned, it seemed to be a great alternative to the noisy port-side aire in
Dieppe. It certainly had some novelty value in terms of having one of the
tiniest caravans we had ever seen!
We managed to squeeze one
last day of pleasant sunny temperatures lazing about on the site, before, on
our final day of the trip (and in classic return-to-the-UK stylie we have
experienced before) the weather changed for the worse, with cloud, drizzle and
temperatures almost half those we had been used to! It didn’t stop us from
exploring the town of St Valery-en-Caux though, along with loads of locals
undeterred by the weather as they swarmed to either the enormous boules festival
right near the site, or the mackerel festival at the port. With huge queues
waiting for barbequed mackerel, we plumped to lunch on home made quiches from a
small stall on the quayside, and very warm and delicious they were too.
We discovered that as well
as the charming mediaeval centre of the old town, and a very beautiful
contemporary church with stunning stained glass windows, built after the war, St
Valery-en-Caux was (in)famous as the location of the ‘other’ and untold Dunkirk
of 1940 when around 9,000 allied troops were surrounded by the German army whilst
they awaited rescue from the beaches. Unfortunately, the ships never came and although
most of the troops were British (the 51st Highland Division) they
were under French Army control and on the 12th June French officers
surrendered. With escape virtually impossible, the 51st Division
also surrendered. Over 1000 soldiers had been killed and 4000
wounded. 8,000 were marched into Germany and Poland to spend the rest of
the war working in fields, factories and the salt mines of Thuringia alongside
inmates of the Nazi concentration camps, as slave labour. We also discovered
that a few soldiers to the west of the town managed to escape and a few made it
on foot to Le Havre and were evacuated. Others made their way through to
Spain, and then Gibraltar before finally sailing home.
Having visited the D-Day
beaches at the start of this trip, it was fascinating and sobering to discover
a part of the pretty well documented history of WW2 that we never knew about –
and probably still wouldn’t had we not visited St Valery-en-Caux.
With the weather unexpectedly
improving to a glorious sunny day and clear blue sky on the day we headed for
the ferry, our good fortune was boosted by the campsite only charging us the
ACSI rate for all of our stay – woohoo!
And unusually, as we sat at
the port in Dieppe waiting for the ferry, we knew we were not yet at the end of
this year’s adventure, as we were returning to the UK but were then heading
west for a final week of adventure and catching up with friends in Somerset and
Dorset. What a great opportunity to compare and contrast campervan travel in
the UK and mainland Europe!
And, as if to set the tone,
as we entered the port of Newhaven, the good weather that had stayed with us across
the Channel was clearly settled in the UK, and we were treated to an aerial
display by paragliders over the old fort – another first for us!
S&J
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