France June 2007

 We set off for Dover on Saturday 23 june 2007 stayed overnight at Canterbury park and ride then down to Dover for 1.15pm crossing arrived France 2.45 ish was going to stay a couple of days in Boulogne but decided to carry on making our way to the Normandy beach sites. Sunday night we got as far as Rouen and stopped on the banks of the Seine ..Monday we carried on towards Caen. We did hit a couple of tolls en route but it was only inexperience and a lack of knowledge of the motorways but managed to avoid them after this first 2 days (total toll cost 17.20 Euros). Decided not to go into Caen as it would be too busy so took the Pegasus bridge and coast rd to Juno Beach, Gold Beach, stopped on outskirts of Arromanches on an aire on the clifftops close to the 360 cinema ,at about 2pm had to move into village itself as wind was gale force and we thought it might tip the van over so stayed in aire in village with about another 20 vans. Next day travelled to Mont St Michel staying on car park in front of the Mont with a trip into Bayeux to visit the town and tapestry on route. From Bayeux  we then decided to head south a bit hoping the weather would improve .We did intend to stay in Rennes but it was very busy and the aire that was listed turned out to be a car park in front of a block of flats so we carried on to a lovely little municipal aire in St Just on the D177 towards Redon (another listed aire we couldn't find was in Messac again a lovely little village but the aire was nowhere to be found.) We carried on south into St Nazaire where we passed the largest gipsy site i've ever seen, must have been 200 on field going in, was very busy traffic wise and again aire we were taken to was a block of flats so carried on to Pornichet/La Baule. Decide to stay for a couple of days.

2 nights on site and one on the sea front at Pornichet,and a further night on a site at Tremondec camping site near Guerande and about 2 mile from La Baule( a camping card acsi site ).

After the few days at La Baule we then headed back up the coast via Le Croisic,  Carnac, Port Navalo, Port Loius,  Vannes,  L'orient and  Fougeres back into Normandy stopping again at the Mont St Michel into St Lo and then a proper look at the Normandy landing Beaches with a stay at Omaha Beach and a last night with a meal at a restaurant in Arromanches before making our way back to Boulogne for a bit of shopping, into Calais and then home.

4 nights on site the rest on aires or wildcamping £230 in diesel , used Nationwide debit card which i loaded before we went away for diesel and only had a problem at one supermarket petrol station( Geant in Abbeville) all the rest took the card no problem and covered 1,700 miles,(including the 280 miles each way from Stockport to Dover and back). £55 in site fees, I had camping card international  (Acsi), and both caravan club and caravan and camping club cards, used Acsi like a passport on site and got discount from Acsi card, we used about 4 kilo's of gas(I took a full 13kg and a part used 6kg weighed it and it was just over half full and we did not change it until the last couple of days) and had the heater in for half a day to dry clothes and one night that was cold and a very good 2 weeks holiday despite the rain.--Jane's Blog  will detail the daily travels.

Rob and Jane