Firstly, thanks for the comments and wishes. We did try to respond individually on the blog but so far have failed to make it work - doh!
So if you do want to have a chat, it might be easier to send an email until we post an update to say we have worked it out...
See you soon!
S
Leaving home is often a challenging time: maybe we’ve failed to liaise on who was responsible for remembering what; or we’re running a bit later than we’d like; but this time trumped all previous ones.
Who would have imagined that we’d get a parking ticket loading up the van on our own driveway! So, thanks to our local Civil Enforcement Officer who decided that, in the six minutes we were preparing the next load of gear to take into Evie, we were infringing our local parking regulations by parking across the driveway entrance. Next time, should we be loading up over one of the two hour-long permit only weekday slots, perhaps we should have someone standing guard!
We’d discussed the new post-Brexit rules on what fresh foodstuffs you can/can’t take into France now (not much it turns out, apart from bananas, pineapples and durians, but no milk for our morning cuppa). Undaunted, and feeling a bit rebellious at the pointlessness of it all, we decided to follow our usual approach of emptying our home fridge into the van fridge in order not to waste food and as it turned out, the only difference on exiting the port at Dieppe was not that les Douanes inspected the van and confiscated all our non-approved foodstuffs, but just the novelty of having our passports stamped like the ‘good old days’! Hurrah for this laissez-faire approach!
Marvelling at the quality of French roads (it’s been a while) and impressed with the new-to-us dual carriageway to speed us on our journey, the drive south from the coast was a real pleasure, and we arrived at the lovely free Aire at Montville, just north of Rouen, comfortably before midnight. Just like so many earlier trips, we managed to nab the last van space once more. All bar one of the other camping-caristes were French (another Brit): it will be interesting to see who our fellow travellers are in this brave new post-Brexit world…
Montville is only about an hour’s drive from Dieppe. There’s a good boulangerie for the obligatory day one croissants and baguette and the Aire is beside a small lake that makes for a great stroll before heading further south.
The journey through Rouen is, for us, frequently marred by one or more ‘navigation challenges’ (Satnav is the devil’s work and we still rely on paper maps and sharing the responsibility) and after a period of three years since our last transit across the city we shouldn’t have been surprised that it would be any different this time.
What we hadn’t anticipated though, was that our entire ‘west-east’ route would have been replaced by an ‘east-west’ dedicated bus route (the TEOR) that meant we had to resort to the tried and tested ‘keep the river on the right’ mantra as we found ourselves squeezed into narrow and non-HGV lanes.
Previously we’d not have been worried about Evie’s HGV status, as to all intents and purposes, she looks like any other 3.5t campervan. Not this year though, as our garish and bright yellow ‘angles morts’ stickers that are now mandatory for any HGV in France, were advertising to anyone and everyone that we really shouldn’t be where we were – oops!
Breathing a big sigh of relief that we hadn’t been pulled over by the time we cleared the outskirts of Rouen, we agreed that next time we’d take the free auto-route across the city – lesson learned!
As lunchtime approached we reminded each other that this part of the route is not littered with picturesque places to pull over for a nibble, so Mrs B started to look at options for an Aire not too far off the route. Surprising both of us, she found one in Nonancourt – somewhere we usually speed past having spent a not-too-comfortable night free camping in a side street there many years ago.
And what a cracking find it was! Seven parking bays, no charge and each with electricity (also free) if needed, water and waste and with a maximum stay of 48 hours, it’s situated next to a lovely municipal park, with picnic benches by the river. Chatting with a British couple who were overnighting there, and like us, on their first trip in three years post-Covid, we heard that the Aire had been there a while and was a regular stop for them.
Thank you Nonancourt, we’ll certainly visit again.
Not content with finding such a great Aire for lunch, Mrs B then set herself the challenge of a new Aire for our second overnight stop south of Orleans.
Which is how we found ourselves on the second night at another free Aire in Jouy-le-Potier, where we had a choice of pitch as there was no-one else there. We chose a secluded spot under a huge oak tree, and apart from the odd acorn dropping on the roof, we spent a peaceful night, having been joined later by two French campervans.
We love France!
After buying more croissants and a baguette in the village (apart from loving the food, it’s part of our contribution when using free Aires) we headed off with great excitement towards Argenton-sur-Creuse, where we were set to meet up with friends or ours we’d not seen since 2019 who were heading north. Having failed to meet up with them in the UK, it was fantastic to know that at last we’d managed to organise a get together!
Swapping notes via WhatsApp as we converged on Camping les Chambons, we arrived within 10 minutes of each other – to find reception abandoned, no notice to say ‘back in 20 minutes’ or any other clue, but plenty of helpful campers offering advice about what to do in the meantime!
Luckily the site manager arrived not too long afterwards and with her ‘Gallic charm’, registered us and sent us on our way to choose our pitches, leaving us to wonder whether what appeared to be an absence of apology may have been lost in translation…
Like all good friendships, although it had been a while since we had seen Dave and Jan, we soon fell into a good old chat-a-thon, followed by lush tucker and drinks until ‘just after’ the 1000 curfew…
As Mrs B and I had never stopped at Argenton before, we took advantage of the sunny weather in the morning to explore the town, meeting up with Dave and Jan in the afternoon to explore the Romano-Gallic site of Argentomagus, and its much advertised amphitheatre.
The town was a real gem, with its ruined Roman bridge…
and picturesque riverside buildings…
it’s certainly somewhere we’d come back to.
The trip to Argentomagus turned out to be more than we had expected, in that after a couple of hours in the incredibly informative and well organised museum/visitor centre, we had reached the end of the trip without actually seeing an amphitheatre…
Encouraged by what looked like an icon for a Roman amphitheatre on a nearby display board (but not at the site we had spent a couple of hours exploring) Mr B went back to reception to find out that it was actually ‘ten minutes’ away.
So brandishing a map that looked cunningly like a rough sketch, Mr B confidently led the way to what was bound to be the highlight of the visit…
Except that through a combination of poor map reading/drawing, it took 30 minutes to get there. And when we did, well, perhaps you can draw your own conclusions by the look on Mr B and Jan’s faces…
as well as the amphitheatre itself…
Maybe having those memories of visits to sites of antiquity in Italy and Sicily in years gone by didn’t help!
Bidding fond farewells to Dave and Jan after more delicious food and drinks under their awning on the final night, we promised to try and not leave it quite so long next time – pandemics notwithstanding!
Our trip further south started in persistent rain, and before long we were wondering out loud whether this would be another year where the siren call of sunshine on the other side of the Pyrenees would be tempting us into an early exit from France…
But no! The weather improved and soon we were lunching at another free Aire at Lamotte Beuvron – one of our favourites for a quick stop. Usually we’d take a pic of the fountains alongside the Aire, but the drought this year had reduced the water level too far for them to be operable. The picnic however, was as good as ever!
As the weather continued to improve we decided to tempt fate and see if Mrs B could magic up another Aire we’d not been to – and sure enough she did, this time at Auterive, south of Toulouse. Situated alongside a canal that feeds the local hydro-electric station, with the river Ariège adding to the charm, we joined the other campervans (all French) under the rows of neatly pollarded plane trees beside the canal.
We’d noticed as darkness fell, the gentle sound of something falling from the trees above, and having slept through the odd acorn dropping at Jouy-le-Potier, thought nothing of it, although we did wonder why our immediate neighbours had moved to the other side of the parking area at dusk…
That puzzle was solved when we opened the blackout blind in the morning to discover that the dramatic swooping flock of Martinets we’d seen the previous evening, and whose chirping we had enjoyed over dinner, had been roosting above and left us a little gift…
Climbing up on our collapsible ladder, Mr B soon saw that they had been more generous than we could possibly have imagined!
After what seemed like an age, but was probably only an hour, the copious amount of bird poop had been cleaned off enough to allow us to see out of the skylights and for the solar panels to function, and we made a note to be more circumspect the next time we choose a tree to park under!
S&J
27.09.22
What with Covid, post-Brexit changes and one or two other challenges, we are eventually heading off to Europe again in Evie the Iveco camper, after a hiatus of more than three years!
We'll be travelling south through France and then crossing into Spain - but beyond that we will be deciding as we go...
It's been a while since we've blogged and we'll be grappling with post-Brexit data roaming amongst other changes - and charges, so the entries might be a bit sporadic, but we will try our best to catch up at least once a week.
As before, feel free to use the comments facility.
Thought we'd try this pic as a test - our new mandatory UK sticker...
A bientôt
Steve and Julie
