Tag Archives: France

France – Drive Home, Day 2

Blasdale Home Posted on by

18th September 2022

We packed away, and left the site at 8.30, heading back to the toll road. After a little over an hour, we were down to 180miles of range, so opted to fill up at a service station. This was a Total and had a cheap price (a little over 160) compared with the other services stations which were over 30 cents per litre more expensive. We took the opportunity to have breakfast, which was a disaster. Most of the small service station was closed, and there were two women dealing with a huge queue. They were making coffee as well as serving the prewrapped goodies. I could see we would be here a long time. We left.

We stopped at the next service station, and gave that a miss, it was a construction site. In a hissy fit I said f*** French service stations and continued the drive to Calais, hoping for a snack and duty-free stop there to take advantage of Boris Johnson’s “world beating” duty free allowances.

At least Euro Tunnel check-in was great, we chose a human operated one, explained we were traveling home several days earlier than our booking. He booked us in on the next available crossing and charged us an extra 49 Euro to travel. We had been expecting to pay a whole single fee.

Passport control took us in total another 20 minutes, it was a bit clagged on the French and UK booths. Then straight onto the train with no parking, and the train left in 5 minutes. So, we missed the duty free, and still had not eaten. While we crossed to the UK, we managed to have a snack in the van of cheese biscuits and some rillette. It was then time for a loo break, had to pass through 6 carriages to find the loos. I think they are at the back and front of the train. It was quite an epic trek. The doors between the carriages are very stiff, and not all of them worked, so you had to cross from side to side of the carriage. This did not appear to be safe in an emergency exit of the train.

Arrived in London, and we were straight onto the road home. That is the way to travel. What was not, were the hold-ups at the Thames crossing.

France – Drive Home, Day 1

Blasdale Home Posted on by

17th September 2022

We packed up the van and left Camping de la Brise at 10.38. I was planning on an overnight stop and hoped to reach Chalons-en Champagne for the night. Google appears to think I would be driving at the maximum speed and did not know about road works speed limits. I wanted to drive at a more sedate 70mph, and I wanted a couple of breaks on the way for lunch and loo. These added a considerable amount of time to the trip. We were forced to change destination and stopped off at a campsite called Camping de la Croix d’Arles, close to the town of Saints-Geosmes and around 9km from the main road.

It was quite a big campsite, it cost us a little over 17 euro for the night, including electricity. It was being used by quite a few vans as a stopover. The pitches were all enclosed in hedges, and there were quite a number of mature trees on the site. The site had a restaurant and bar, so we were tempted to eat there but instead opted for eating another French tomato with cucumber and goats cheese, a type of Greek salad.

When we arrived at the site there were many men dressed in some fancy uniform, in England I would have thought there were Morris Dancers. They were all downing demi litres of beer in the bar. After night fall, the local town had a loud firework display, I know not what for.

When we come to France again, and driving this way, then we will put this site on our list to stop at for a few days. I must discover what there is in the area. I think it could be wine and lakes.

France – Camargue, Day 6 

Blasdale Home Posted on by

16th September 2022

Today was our last day in the Camargue, we were due to drive west to Gruissan to meet with John and Carol for her birthday. Today we walked into Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer to do some final shopping, birthday gifts for Carol, and of course certain local ingredients for ourselves. We also bought some large French tomatoes to use later. One we added to our left-over Aubergine stew to build it out a bit.

We found a nice bar for a drink and sit down. Despite it being long past lunch time, the restaurants bars were still serving food and did not look inviting for casual drinkers. We chanced upon a very relaxing bar, not crowded with comfortable seats. A drinker’s bar, not a food bar. Thank heaven. The bar was called Bar Des Poetes, and had wall paintings and short verses French poems.

A started off with a Europ beer. I then asked the owner if they had Camargue beer. The jist of the reply was, the beer was too expensive, and with his markup nobody would buy it. The menu board listed Pastis Bleu. R attempted to ascertain what it was, explaining she liked Ricard. The owner regretted it was not made from Ricard, but another pastis. R had to try it cos “it’s such a lovely colour”.

We got talking to some Canadians who were sitting nearby, they seemed to come to the Camargue quite regularly. We also discovered we’d all been to Figueres, whereas we’d been surprised by the Dali museum there, that’s why they had gone there. They had completely missed the typewriter museum. Amazing. That museum was the reason we went there.

After the bar, we stopped at the shops to purchase the rice, some provisions (tomatoes, and also two bottles of Camargue beer) before walking home, but we soon heard news that made us cut our holiday short and head for home.

In the afternoon I went for a swim in the sea. It was quite calm now, with the wind coming in from the shore. While preparing supper I drank the two bottles of Camargue beer, one blonde, the other brown. They were fine, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to buy them.

France – Camargue, Day 5 

Blasdale Home Posted on by

15th September 2022

Today we loafed around the campsite until midday and walked to the town along the beach. We saw that an Aires De Camping had been changed into a normal carpark. Whether it had been moved, or closed completely, I am not sure. Last time we walked this route you could see those in their motorhomes eating lunch in the narrow gap between each home.

We were aiming to catch a boat to view the Le Petit Rhone river and see the Camargue from the water. We had booked the trip online for 30 Euro. We arrived early and sat on some seats basking in the sun awaiting the boat. There was more than one company operating, the first boat left at 14.00, then our boat came in and moored, and we boarded and left at 14.30. Rosemary was the only one to show her ticket on her phone, while everyone else presented their paper tickets. We are modern technologists.

We sat in the sun on the top deck, and were soon motoring out of the harbour, then travelled east along the coast to the mouth of Le Petit Rhone. It is apparently quite shallow at this spot and also choppy.

On view were egrets and herons. We were looking for kingfishers, but none were to be seen. On land there were the Camargue horses and of course the Bulls. There was one place where a tourist show was put on, a handler on shore wearing traditional Camargue dress, herded down some horses and bulls. There were some cute bull calves on show.

Further up the river there were horses and bulls grazing in the fields. We also saw fishing nets used to drag fish from the waters. The fields between the twists in the river were grazed by cattle or fields of Camargue rice.

Our trip up the river ended at a free chain ferry allowing the D85 to cross the river. Here we turned around and headed back to base.

After the trip we had a glass of beer in a nearby bar.

France – Camargue, Day 4

Blasdale Home Posted on by

14th September 2022

There was plenty of wind early in the morning, and a little rain fell. I walked to the camp shop and bought some bread and chocolate croissants. I left it late, so the choice was limited. The bread was already past its sell by minute.

As the day progressed, the wind became stronger, the guy ropes became unpegged from the ground. Lots of remedial attention had to be made to the pegs holding the guy ropes. The ground was soft sand on the windward side. I eventually tied the ropes from each canopy leg to individual pegs drilled deep below the ground. The awning was also showing a tendency to collapse under the wind, so checked the air pressure of the supports, well below the minimum. Pumped these up to max, problem cured.

Late afternoon cooked the ratatouille for the evening meal, then went for a walk on the beach. The waves had reached both restaurants, and all sun beds had been moved to higher ground. Walking was painful with the stinging sand abrading the legs. A dinner plate sized jellyfish was on the beach, some helpful person attempted to save it by moving it to the sea. It left on the next wave, dead or alive, probably the former.

Back at the campsite, the latest influx of new vans arrived. One opposite us suddenly decided to turn around. Maybe because we were sitting in the awning looking out at them. This German couple had a dog, small rough collie job. It just lay beside the van, no lead and just minded itself quietly. There was also another German couple with two dogs who just laid around all day on their dog beds absolutely quiet and well behaved. Is this a German trait in good dog ownership? If so, it is excellent.

One van came into our area, and then nearly took a tree out as they decided the pitch was not for them. They spent quite a while with their RV against the side of the tree as they fruitlessly tried to extract themselves.

Drinks while these entertainments were going on, were enlivened by the sparrows coming around for food. We had well over 20 in the vicinity. I do hope they like the Indian spiced rice sticks.

After supper, in the dark, we could see a major lightning storm inland. This went on and on for an exceptionally long time. We were in clear air with amazing views of the stars. The wind dropped, and there was no sound from the awning shifting in the wind.