Tag Archives: France

French Camping 2023, Day 7 Rauzan

Blasdale Home Posted on by

5th September 2023

Showers, breakfast and off to see the Château de Château-l’Évêque on the way to our next stop outside of Bordeaux. We followed Jen and Bev, but there were some odd navigation decisions, and so we went our own way. We eventually arrived at the Château de Château-l’Évêque, sometime before Jen and Bev. We parked and went on a search for the Château.  It was closed, closed for the week. A small handwritten note on the gate was all that told us it was closed. Why had they not updated their Google maps business listing with the closure dates, or their website? Both of these had been checked by us.  We had a coffee in the village and bought some sandwiches. Rosemary handed over our spare CD-player mobile-phone mount, hoping this would help to raise the phone up higher in their car to use Google Maps. We all said our goodbyes.

We continued our journey to Rauzan, stopping for our sandwich lunch at Montpon-Ménestérol, R discovered it wasn’t easy to dispose of the wrappings from the sandwiches. One large bin required a special card to be used. We’d heard about these; they entitle residents to use their local tip 20 odd times a year. Stopped at a supermarket at Castillon-la-Bataille. Arrived in Chateaux de Rauzan in the searing heat. Booked into a pitch for 4 nights. I went for a swim to cool off. Steak for supper with potatoes, and fennel.  Cooling a little after dusk. 

Our reason for visiting here was the site is located in posh wine country.  We would visit Saint Emillion and hopefully Bordeaux. The campsite sounded nice with the mention of nearby Caves, walks in the countryside and the chateaux,

French Camping 2023, Day 5 Puymoroux

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3rd September 2023

Morning was bright & promising. Showered & breakfasted by 8.00. Rosemary went to a car boot sale with Linda and purchased another two flat irons. She uses them as book ends.  We set off to Jen and Bev before midday, stopping off to purchase some wine before the supermarkets closed at 12.30, and arrived at Puymoroux in the afternoon. The van was parked in the drive and connected to the electricity.  (Not strictly required, the battery should keep the fridge running for at least 4 days, but good to have.) We sat in the garden under the shade of a tree and chatted, while playing with the dogs.  Supper was an excellent BBQ cooked by the man of the house, with numerous vegetable sides prepared by Jen.

France - Puymoroux
France - Puymoroux

French Camping 2023, Day 4 Arçais and Spiders

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2nd September 2023

There was no damage from the heavy rain. Even the ground appeared surprisingly dry. It turned out to be a hot sunny day.

We were given a tour of their son’s barn, which is next to their house. Some excellent renovations with plenty of style.

Preparing for supper

Linda drove to the nearby town of Coulon to purchase some ‘pork spiders’, or Araignée de Porc, also known as ‘pope’s eye steak’ (!) for the BBQ in the evening. Sausages and some bread were also acquired.

My Boggie Tel eSIM

I had been receiving text messages from Boggie Tell suggesting that I was going to be cut off, unless I phoned them on some premium number and confirmed my ID. This sounded like a scam, but with the aid of Google, this appeared to be true. I phoned the number, but there was a rush of French telling me to press some number. With the aid of Linda, we navigated this menu. For future reference, it was 1, then 1.

We then were talking to a call center operator; they do speak both English and French. They wanted my passport number and name. This apparently is the French law. Anyway, it all worked out, I was not cut off on my 30-day SIM, and I had no idea how they were going to charge me on the premium rate number, because they did not have my payment details.

One other positive aspect of the Boogie Tell eSim is it allows roaming throughout the EU, and also free roaming in the UK. In fact, I downloaded the eSIM and activated it in the UK before I left for France, using both data and making phone calls.

The Afternoon

Lunch was bread and cheese. I went for a five mile walk in the afternoon. Crossed the river using the ferry. This is a small ferry and operated by chain. You haul yourself across the river. Linda was surprised it was still in operation. There had been trouble with the ferry, vandals sinking it on occasion. The town mayor was considering removing the crossing. I then headed back along the river towards Damvix. I did not reach Damvix, time was short, and crossed the river at the locks and headed back up the road.

The evening was wine and a BBQ of the ‘pork spiders’, and sausages. There were glow worms about, which proved very difficult to photograph. There was a lovely clear night and I saw a trail of satellites which must have been launched this very day by musky boy.

France - Arcais
France - Arcais
France - Arcais
France - Arcais
France - Arcais
France - Arcais
France - Arcais
France - Arcais
France - Arcais
France - Arcais
France - Arcais
France - Arcais
France - Arcais

French Camping 2023, Day 3 Arçais

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1st September 2023

It had rained during the night at Le Bec Hellouin, so it was a damp start to pack away the van. We set off to the Eatons in Arcais in the rain, using departmental roads. The Google route was bizarre, at one time taking us down at least 20K of single-track road.  As we drove south the weather improved and the sun came out

We stopped off at a supermarket for lunch and topped up with 1.75 diesel. Very warm, stripped off our outer layers. We also stopped at the Aldi in Niort to buy some wine.

Arriving in Arçais

Arrived at the Eatons around 4.00. Had tea. Supper was a lovely veggie Lasagne with Aubergine, made by Madame.  The house martins and swallows were sitting on the TV aerial making a freak display. A couple of starlings joined them. Mike mentioned the number of birds was a lot less than last year.  Very few bats out tonight. We did not see any, but the bat detector did hear them a couple of times.

After dark, I took some pictures of the stars and the van. There was tremendous thunder and lightning storm over night.

France -Arcais
France -Arcais
France -Arcais

French Camping 2023, Day 2 Le Bec Hellouin

Blasdale Home Posted on by

31st August 2023

Today it started to drizzle in the morning. Breakfast in the van. Lunch in the van – Camembert cheese and some excellent brown, sliced, French bread. I went for a short walk down to the village, and along the cycle path that passes through here. The path is metalled, and could take a small car down it. The surface is absolutely perfect, nothing like a Buckinghamshire road. This metalled path is part of a cycle track built on an old rail line. I walked back on a path, across the river and back up the road. The Abbey tower was always in view.

France - Le Bec Hellouin
France - Le Bec Hellouin
France - Le Bec Hellouin
France - Le Bec Hellouin
France - Le Bec Hellouin
France - Le Bec Hellouin
France - Le Bec Hellouin
France - Le Bec Hellouin
France - Le Bec Hellouin

French Camping 2023, Day 1 Le Bec Hellouin

Blasdale Home Posted on by

30th August 2023


We left home early at 5:30 am to go to the Channel Tunnel. We got to the terminal at 8:10, which was well before our scheduled 9:23 Tunnel departure. Surprisingly, they offered us an earlier crossing, but we decided to stick with our original reservation. Looking back, we realized our timing calculations were a little off, and we could have taken the earlier crossing. While we were at the terminal, we explored the duty-free shop not buying anything., but planning for our return trip to make the most of the “world beating” duty-free allowances introduced by Johnson.

While we were at the terminal, I had a great conversation with a woman who was demonstrating the features of the Ford Mustang electric car. It caught my interest because, three years ago, I had been thinking about getting a Mustang EV. However, I ended up choosing a Polestar 2 because it could be delivered faster. The woman knew about the Polestar, and we had a nice chat about electric cars.

Getting on the train was a bit different from normal. Loading the cars seemed to have some issues, so we had to wait for a while. Eventually, we got on the train, and interestingly, we were the last to get on and off. We departed about 15 minutes later than scheduled.

We took our usual toll-free route to the pretty village of Le Bec Hellouin. We arrived at the Camping Saint Nicolas campsite at 3:44 pm. Before we got there, we made a quick stop at a small supermarket in the nearby village of Grand Bourgtheroulde to get food for the first few days of our stay. Since Brexit, there are strict rules about what food can be taken into France.

The weather was a bit chilly, but we decided to eat outside and enjoy the setting moon. To start our evening, we opened a bottle of Vouvray from the supermarket, as is our tradition for fizzy wine on the first night. With our meal, we had a glass of Abbey beer, which is a rather strong 10% beer. Dinner was pan-fried pork fillets with a side dish that was like ratatouille, all cooked in one pan.

Strangely, there were very few bats out tonight, maybe because it was cold. The weather forecast for the next few days didn’t look great.

My eSim, with 30GB of data from Bouygues Telecom, worked well. I just had to be careful not to accidentally use data on my physical SIM card, which I really wanted to avoid. Meanwhile, Rosemary still has her old EE contract, which allows her to use her phone in Europe. It came in handy when my reception wasn’t great. I started calling Bouygues Telecom “Boogie Tell” as a nickname from that point on.

France - Campint Saint Nicolas
France - Campint Saint Nicolas
France - Campint Saint Nicolas

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

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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 

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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 

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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.