Category: France

Our final stop before we crossed the channel to the UK was Le Crotoy, a small fishing town on the Bay of the Somme which boasted a beautiful aire by the sand dunes opposite the harbour – a five minute walk from the town centre. The town had several fish restaurants as well as numerous fresh fish stalls. The restaurateurs were serving takeaway meals and the fish stalls were offering platters of fruits de mer. We were like children in a sweetie shop and struggled to choose between fish kebabs, whole fresh fish, crab or lobster. We finally chose a dish of oysters, large prawns and little brown shrimps, which the fishmonger assembled in the ten minutes it took us to go round the corner to buy bread from the baker. The shellfish were served on a large polystyrene platter on a bed of ice, protected with cellophane. We returned the platter the following day. On our second night we enjoyed moules marinière with chips, beautifully packaged and still piping hot when we got the meal back to the truck, the cost for us both was £14. Our chilled rosé wine from Gruissan went well with both meals.

We travelled northwards along the west coast, taking the car ferry across the Gironde from Le Verdun to Royan, a voyage of thirty minutes. We drove past La Rochelle and Ile d’Oléron and, because we didn’t have our bicycles, we even bypassed the Ile de Ré where we had spent such happy times pre COVID restrictions.

We planned to spend a few days at the coastal town of La Faute-sur-mer. We arrived on a Friday afternoon and found the site to be almost full. We grabbed one of the last available spaces – several vans that arrived after us were less successful and, with a the 6 pm curfew, goodness knows where they went. It was early March and a total of 65 camper vans (that’s about 130 souls) were overnighting in that small town – no commercial sites were open and neither was there any possibility of finding a quiet spot in the town to spend the night – there were warning signs everywhere banning camper van parking. We loathed having to squeeze into what was no better than a car park. The following morning we moved on.

We drove north through beautiful countryside, stopping by the Loir at Bazouges between Angers and Le Mans.

We drove north-west past Bordeaux, travelling through noble wine estates with names that conjured the epitome of the French wine industry.
We reached the Atlantic coast and spent a couple of days in the town of Montalivet-Les-Bains, a low key holiday area dominated by a huge beach edged with sand dunes and pine forests behind. The high street and surrounding areas featured single storey buildings, giving the place a pleasant low key feel. We were not sure whether the lack of people was due to being out of season or the effects of Covid. The weather was warm and sunny but, as was common in France, all the local camp sites were closed for the winter. The beaches were populated with walkers and a few youngsters wind-surfing. We stayed in one of two large aires, one in the pine forest and the other by the beach in the sand dunes. There must have been twenty or so vans visiting – with available space for more than 100.

It was always a special treat to visit the Lambs; they were wonderful hosts and Caro’s home cooking was exceptional. After months of travelling we had also been missing the social side of life and it was good to relax in front of their log burner putting the world to rights, our tongues disgracefully loosened by several bottles of the local wine.

French Covid rules were much easier than in England – they were allowed to meet up with friends and family indoors and outside. However they did have to obey a strict 6 pm curfew. Friends of theirs called in at 4 pm for tea and then a glass of wine but at 10 minutes to 6 pm the visitors had to hastily head for home before curfew. Had they been caught they would have been fined.

Caro and Charles’s house was surrounded by farmland – there were fields of grape vines around their house and, when we went for a walk, we saw acres and of plum trees. I did wonder why they needed to produce so many plums until Charles pointed out that the fruit would probably be sold as prunes.

We had been using a chain of aires called Camping-Car Parks which offered electricity, Wifi and fresh water as well as grey water and chemical toilet empty. Access was with a pre loaded card and charges were around €12 a night. These aires were often well away from urban areas and seemed very popular although I don’t think we saw any non-French travellers using the parks.

We revisited Gruissan near Narbonne to stock up on wine. We bought a pale, dry rosé full of flavour, €10 for 3 litres. The weather was sunny and warm 19° and a load of laundry put in the sun dried easily before nightfall.

Note to self: Before setting off in the truck, double check you have stowed everything securely, especially small bottles of soy sauce with dodgy tops. Whilst driving over some very bumpy roads, the ruddy thing fell off the shelf depositing its contents onto the work surface before dripping down over the kitchen drawers. The bottle then landed on the floor, splashing the walls and leaving sticky brown rivulets across the floor before finally leaving a large puddle on the door mat. It was as if someone had stabbed the little thing in its artery and in its death throes it had spread its life juices all over the truck. Soy sauce smells rather nice when you are eating noodles but the pungent odour is quite unpleasant when it persists for hours in spite of a huge clean up. A hard lesson learned!