Then up at 6.30, round to the right lane for the ferry, which we boarded at 7.45.
Crossed the 'oggin' on a sea that was flatter than the proverbial mill pond.
Straight run down from Cherbourg to Villedieu-les-Poeles. This is a favourite site of ours, in the middle of a beautiful town. We arrived to find that Julliet and her husband had left, the managers, and new people were in charge. The site was rather unkempt. It turns out that the new managers had never camped, motorhomed or caravanned! However we were made welcome.
After two days, with cracking weather, we moved south to Camping de la Motte in the Vendee. Good little site with a very large pitch.
After one night there we moved on th Camping de Montreal, at St Germain Les Belles.Hans and his wife welcomed us as friends and we shared a meal with them in the bar that night. We love this site as it is on the edge of a lake, and we had a lakeside pitch.
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| Our View from our Pitch |
After two nights we moved on again, this time to Millau where we stayed at Camping des Deux Rivieres. This was a busy site in the actual town.
We left there and climed to over 900m on our way to La Floride, which is in Le Barcares, which is on the Mediterranean coast about 12 miles north of Perpignan. We had been allocated pitch M34.This was our home for the next 28 nights. The pitch was large, with our own private toilet, wash basin, shower and store room.
When we arrived I showed our ASCI card, and the receptionist lady, who spoke four languages fluently worked it out that the camp site offer for 4 weeks was better than using the ASCI card. We spent time setting up properly.
The pitch is about 25yards from the beach, and half a mile from the local village! Lizzie siad I should say that it works out as less than 14 euros a night for a 28 day stay!
We soon fell into the routine of me wandering up to the village for croissants and bread, then breakfast, followed by Coffee in the local village, then the rest of the day sat in the sun reading or sleeping! Please note the temperatures were, in the shade in the high 30's.
I will not bore you with details of daily living so just a few highlights!
A meal in Le Barcares of Whelks, clams, Razor clams, whelks etc.
Another night it was a grilled Lobster for only 19 euros
The market, which happens on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. The chickens done on the Rottissiere were yummy.
One day we went to Perpignon, which is a lovely city, but was rather spoilt by the itinerant people from eastern europe who were wandering around. Still enjoyed our visit though.
On the 14th of June we set off for a day trip to Andorra! as we climbed to over 3000m the Freelander2 started to overheat, so cutting our losses we turned for home! On the Monday I rang Red Pennant and explained we did not fancy driving home with an overheating Freelander. They quickly sorted a garage for the following morning. We turned up at the garageat the due time. He took a quick look and then, aided by translation from the ladies at Red Pennant directed me to another garage. This turned out to be Land Rover Perpignon! We presented ourselves at the service managers desk. He explained, in English, thet the computer was busy until 2.00pm, so come back then. We duly were back at 1.45. The Freelander was plugged into the computer, and a faulty fan module was diagnosed.They did not have one, so one was taken off a brand new Freelander2 in the show room. We were back on then road, albeit 761 euros down.
We stayed on at Le Barcares for an extra couple of days to make sure all was well. Then, after booking a pitch for next June we turned for home.
We set of towards Toulouse, and stopped at a site called camping 3 Cantons! A really beautiful site just off the Motorway.
From there we headed north to Camping De Montreal, just for two. nights.
After that we headed to camping de la Motte for one night.
Then we returned to Villedieu-les Poeles for our final two nights in France.
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| WW2 display in the street! |
We left VdP at 2.00pm on the Thursday,driving with heavy hearts to Cherbourg, for the 6.30pm ferry to Poole.
We landed in Poole at 9.45pm, and were home just after midnight.
2232 miles covered at 26.1 mpg
An amazing trip,that I have tried to condense.
Roll on next May!
To date we have done 73 nights in the caravan this year!
A final picture. This is the local taxi in V de P
Not bad, a Discovery 4!Class!!!!
