Week 61: Dormez vous?
- Oct 30, 2022
- 7 min read
Updated: Feb 23, 2023
Our stops this week:
One night at Camping Bagatelle (in Avignon)
Two nights at Camping de Mon Village St Martin (in the Ardeche)
One night at Area Camper Park (in Villefranche Bueajolais)
One night at Aire de Camping Cars (in Toul)
Two nights at Camping du Mont Olympe (in Charleville-Mezieres)
We’ve covered a lot of ground this last week, we’re currently on the edge of the Ardenne Forest, still in France but about 800 kilometers north of where we finished last week. So it’s no surprise that we’ve spent quite a few hours on the road but we’ve had some good stops along the way and seen a few interesting places. Bear has enjoyed some good walks and even managed a little paddle in the Ardeche river. That said, its also been a bit of a frustrating week with a few trivial things like tumble driers that don’t dry and campsites that don’t have taps that you can fit a hose to. This is really annoying when it takes 40 minutes to fill up the van from a very slow tap using a water bottle, especially after a four-hour drive and you really want a shower! We’ve also had a few issues with noisy neighbours this week but more of that later.
Although this stuff had been a bit frustrating at times, I think the bigger thing in the back of my mind is that this is our last full week away and from next week we have to start facing reality and making some decisions. Not that this is a bad thing, we’ve got some exciting things to look forward to when we get back, like picking up a new car, getting Gordon’s bumper replaced (from the damage in Spain last March, which I still get the odd flash back to), I’ve also got a temporary Christmas job at Blenheim Palace starting in a few weeks and an interview for a 'proper' permanent job coming up . Plus Yvette is getting close to finishing the third module for her MA, which marks being over the halfway point! We’re both really looking forward to seeing friends and family… and I think Yvette is looking forward to having some more space to study… apparently trying to study with me and Bear in a space about the same size as our garden shed isn’t always very easy, although I don’t know why, it’s rarely an issue for me or Bear!
Our first stop this week was in Avignon, I’ve been there before but a long time ago and mainly remember siting in a wine bar for the day, so it was good to actually see some of this impressive and ancient city. Sat-nav took us on a very random route across the city through little back streets, at one point we had to stop and wait for a couple of chickens to cross the road (no jokes please), we then had to deal with a multi-lane contraflow, where the sat nav helpfully and calmly told us that we were ‘travelling the wrong way down the street’ but then so was everyone else so we didn’t panic on this occasion. Eventually after a few questionable lane changes, cutting up the locals and some apologetic waves we arrived at the campsite. We had a quick break at the campsite to catch our breath, eat some lunch and then headed out to explore. The campsite is on an island just opposite the famous bridge (or half a bridge) and a short walk into the city centre. First stop the bridge! Bear did really well spending about four hours wandering around the old city and was ready for a nap when we got back.
The next day we travelled up to the Ardeche region, or ‘the deche’ as I’ve always known it. This is somewhere I know fairly well as I spent a summer working here when I was 19. We stayed at a nice aire, formerly the municipal campsite in a small town called St Martin, which was the town I lived in, although I spent most of my days canoeing on the river and the nights in a bivi bag on the riverbanks. It all felt very familiar only much less busy. The Ardeche is one of the most popular rivers for canoeing in Europe but in October it was eerily quiet, and the town resembled a ghost town. Still it was nice to enjoy the peace and quiet and some warm sunshine so late in the year!
From the Ardeche we travelled further north to Villefranche-sur-Soane, we stayed on a massive aire, also a former campsite. It was in a good location next to the river but just off the motorway and on the outskirts of a busy town, so nothing special but fine for a quick stopover. Late in the afternoon we noticed a few trucks drive through the campsite with cherry pickers on the back, ten minutes later we heard the chainsaws start up! They were chopping bits off some really tall trees and massive sections were landing very close to some motorhomes, luckily at the opposite end of the campsite to us! We took Bear for a walk along the river a bit later and enjoyed watching a Frenchman standing guard next to his motorhome (a massive coach-type van) as large branches fell around him! We don’t think they caused any damage, but it all looked a bit haphazard. The chainsaws started again the next morning at 7.30, luckily we had planned an early start and were already preparing to leave for the town of Toul.
The river Soane in Villefranch
The river Soane in Villefranche.
We had a nice easy drive up to Toul, aside from Yvette having a small go at the automated toll machine over the cost of the toll charges! We arrived at a really nice aire, with parking for seven vans and two spaces left, so we parked up, said hello to our new neighbours and headed off for a walk around the town. Here we found a really nice small town, with all the usual typical French things we’ve come to expect… some nice shops, a few bars and restaurants, interesting architecture and a huge cathedral!
By the time we got back to the van, the aire was full and throughout the evening more and more vans turned up, most realised it was full and headed off to find somewhere else to spend the night (there is a massive aire nearby with room for 80 vans and it’s free of charge but not so close to the town centre)… however a few vans decided to get creative and make their own spaces. It was a bit inconsiderate as what had felt like a nice quiet and spacious aire, quickly felt cramped and noisy, especially when the last vans arrived after midnight and made a lot of fuss parking and revving it’s engine. We’re pretty sure it hit something but it was too late to get out and check and whatever it hit wasn’t us, so not our problem. What was our problem was when the bin lorry arrived at 5.30 the next morning but couldn’t get to the bins because of the extra vans, so it honked it’s horn and eventually squeezed it’s way through. Not very considerate of the lorry driver but I’d have done the same… we definitely exchanged some angry looks with our 'extra' neighbours later on and if we spoke any Dutch (sorry but all the extra vans were Dutch)… then we might have had a few words too!
Feeling a bit tired and grumpy we departed for Charleville- Mezieres, we went via Verdun to visit some of the first world war battlefields and memorials. Having seen some of the battlefields in Belgium in August we were keen to visit some more and it was really interesting and well worth the trip. We had a nice long walk through the woods, it would have been slightly less long if I didn’t get lost… well the footpath seemed to disappear into very heavy undergrowth, not my fault!
The walk took us past some interesting places including what was once a village but was completely destroyed during the fighting and artillery exchanges, the local historians have now marked each building with a small white post with the name of the family that lived there, without these you’d have no way of knowing it was ever a village, really very sad to think of what it once was and how normal life can change so quickly. Apparently, the village ‘changed hands’ sixteen times during the war as it is on the top of a hill and provided a strategic advantage! When the war ended the locals decided not to rebuild but to plant a woodland here, although it sounds like this was quite a contentious decision.
Douaumont Ossuary, home to the memorial to Muslim soldiers, the memorial to Jewish Soldiers and the burial place of 130,000 unidentified soldiers from the battlefields of Verdun. We've seen quite a few WW1 battlefields, each one is incredibly moving and tragic but such an important reminder of the past.
Bayonet trench, a section of the French front line which was hit by heavy German artillery and now preserved under a concrete shelter.
On a lighter note, Bear refused to walk across the metal grid sections of the walkways through the woods, so he was carried!
The rest of the journey was going well, we decided to avoid toll roads to save a few euros but this means driving through lots of small towns, which started off well as it’s interesting to have a nose at the locals going about their business but after you’ve seen one hundred small French towns the novelty soon wears off and the straight boring motorway seems quite nice after all! We hit a small hitch when the road was closed in one town, we tried to use some logic to get around the closure but ended up at a bridge that was only 2.4 meters high, not great when the van is 2.9 meters tall. So we did a quick 'Liz' (i.e. a u-turn) and pulled over to check google maps… the was a way around but it added about 30 kilometres of small country roads to the journey, not ideal but not too bad. We eventually arrived at the campsite, which is pretty much abandoned, I called the number written on a piece of paper pinned to the office door and a lady said to park up anywhere and she would come and find us to collect the money… she still hasn’t turned up and we leave tomorrow morning so this might turn out to be a very cheap stop!
The campsite is very run down and looks like they’re ready to shut it down for the year (or maybe forever) but it’s next to a really nice park and the river and very close to the centre of the town, which we really like and crucially it’s really quiet, so we finally got a quiet night and as we forgot the clocks go back this weekend we had an extra hours sleep! Plus Yvette has had some peace to focus on her assignment, despite me and Bear!
This time next week, we'll be back home and Yvette will do one last blog post!
Finally here is a few pictures we forgot to include in previous blogs...
I’ll leave the chicken joke.…
but a temporary job at Blenheim please tell me it’s wearing a beard and a red suit? looking forward to catching up with you both 👍🏻