France 60 - on the road to Bordeaux

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It’s Sunday and Suzy the motorhome is sitting parked up in the caravan park at Yvre L’Eveque waiting to get on the road again. We had a fairly quiet night. Well at least I slept the sleep of the woman without a care in the world. I believe there were some noises but I didn’t hear a single bit of it. We woke early , showered, breakfasted and then set off on the road to our next destination Bordeaux.

The mornings are quite dark much darker than back home but I guess that is the hour making a difference. The roads were fairly empty being a Sunday. The lorries if carrying non perishable goods were parked up for the day unable to move until Monday morning. Our plan as always was to drive two hours and stop for a drink, drive again two hours which would bring up lunchtime and then arrive at our destination within our six hour driving day. Today though was going to be a touch different. It’s MotoGP day and the British race at that. How can a motorbike fan miss one of the most important days on the biking calendar. This meant a change to the plan as we needed to be on an aire for 12.30 British time – 1.30 French time and hope that Kathrein would pick up BBC2 for us to watch the race. That would depend on her being able to locate the satellite.

Suzy ate the miles up and we raced down mile after mile of ribbon straight motorway, the fields on the side becoming more red in colour and arid looking. The crops had changed from maize, corn and wheat to sunflowers which had gone over. Two weeks ago they would have looked stunning. Today they were just starting to go brown and were holding their heads down away from the sun as if in shame. . A sad site indeed. We parked up at our first aire. A really pleasant quiet one with stained benches around the area providing shady areas to eat in , clean toilets and plenty of room to sit. The French know how to provide a rest area. Everything you could wish for was there. We just don’t do them justice in the same way back home.

Our second aire was a quick in and out. It was a service station selling gas, had a boutique and a restaurant and was full of lorries from every country you could think of. We quickly realised not a good stop for tv watching so we headed for the next one which was fairly empty. Parking up next to an Irish lorry we set Kathrein the task of finding Astra 2 which she did easily and we sat for an hour watching Lorenzo win just in front of Marquez. Our hero Rossi finished 4^th just outside the podium positions. Race watched it was time to head off south and by this time the weather had heated up nicely. 30 degrees and rising. Now that’s going the right way.

The French seem to be spending their way out of recession. A very different approach to David Camerons back home where austerity is the way forward. Roads remain pot holed and nothing new is being built. Even HS2 the new high speed link from London to the north is being objected to by NIMBY’s. Not in my back yard. We need the link – if it was France the government would just press on regardless. On our route we saw patches of autoroutes being repaired or widened and a whole new railway line being built. The grand vitesse was going to link Tours with Bordeaux and the French were proud to advertise that fact.

The trees took on a more Mediterranean look leaving behind the northern European deciduous trees. Firs and pampas grasses with pink and white plumes lined the motorway and the area on the edges of the fields was full of wild flowers. How pretty they looked and they must have been a haven for bees and butterflies.

We sailed through the peages with ease using our credit card device until we reached the motorways run by Vinci. The peage machines seemed slow to pick up our machine and lift the barriers. We got stuck on one behind three cars. The first seemed to be having problems with the machine but eventually drove through, the second paid his bill in the smallest denominations he could find. It was hard to imagine him paying 30 euros in 50 cents, 20 cents, 10 cents , 5 cents and the odd euro. It took him ages to fill the machine and for the barrier to lift. The cars behind getting frustrated by the minute. The third car driver put his ticket in every which way he could and still the machine wouldn’t read the ticket. In the end he had to ring the bell and speak to the operator who let him through. It seems few, if any of the tolls in France are now manned.

We filled with diesel 1.48.9 cents a litre a little more expensive than our last fill . 112.79 euros for the complete fill. All that was left now was the last part of our journey to our stop for the night Camping Village du Lac at Bordeaux. On arriving my first thoughts were how it reminded me of Camping De La Mare on the south coast of France. A busy site with bungalows and chalets available for rent. We paid 20.80 euros per night. It is an ACSI site but it is still high season here until the end of September when the price of a pitch will drop to 16 euros a night. There was a choice of two areas to pitch and we chose what we thought might be the quietest. Hedges divided the plots and we found ourselves parked up next to a German couple in a campervan and a Dutch couple in a motorhome. The site is based around an artificial lake full of very noisy quacking ducks. There was WiFi available free in reception and around the site at a cost of 3 euros a day. The showers were noisy as they were in a communal area used by both men and women and it was also the pot washing area. There was a swimming pool but this was heaving with bodies when I went up to take a look at it. The shop opened at 6 and it was possible to order bread for the next day although we were too late as the order had to be in by dinnertime. The restaurant opened at 7.

We walked over for a meal at 7 only to be told to come back in half an hour. When we did return there were a number of couples sitting waiting for opening time. We sat and talked to a German couple who were also waiting. I don’t think I could recommend the restaurant as the staff were very surly and not really interested. Wine could only be purchased by the glass and not by the carafe and the food was lacklustre. The full menu was set three courses for 22 euros per person or two courses for 19 euros. We looked at the starters and could not recognise what half of them were. Choice made –no starter then. There wasn’t much choice for mains but we picked what was described as Rid Eye which I guessed was Rib Eye Steak served with chips and salad. It was Ok but not up to the usual French style. Pudding was better a strawberry trifle. We paid up and went home to Suzy to settle in for the night. And what a restless night it turned out to be. People wandering noisily, ducks quacking, everything that keeps you awake until the early hours.

We had not planned to set off early as our plans had changed. In the weeks before we arrived we had planned to visit the Dune de Pyla on our way down but read that it is heaving with people now. So the plan changed we will visit on our way home at the end of September when hopefully it will be much quieter. We also plan to go into the Gironde to find the only monument in the Welsh language to be erected in France. We have to pay homage to a fellow Welshman on our way home.

Monday morning and for once we woke up later than normal. The first stop of the day was to pick up a baguette and some croissants. The guy in the shop was most helpful selling me one baguette .It turned out he had ordered only 11 spare and they were going fast. He had one croissant left and I only had a small amount of change or a 50 euro note. As he couldn’t change the large note the lovely lady from last night in the restaurant came to my rescue passing over a few cents to make up my shortfall. I wonder how often this would happen back home. Would someone give me a few pence to pay the bill?. I will never meet her again but I won’t forget her in a hurry.

Eating a slow breakfast we felt unhurried. There was nothing to rush off for. A bit of last minute blogging making the most of WiFi when we have it and then emptying of the waste cassette and tidying up the van took place. The cassette generally lasts about 4 days before it needs emptying so we located the chemical toilet and emptied it while we had the chance. This is not a job you can keep putting off. There comes a point when the job just has to be done.

I had a bit of a dicky stomach. Perhaps something I had eaten or even the meal last night with too much meat in it. I think as you get older you eat less meat, become less of a carnivore and more of a vegetarian. A quick shower in what were really quite untidy and dirty cubicles. What does it take to go round them regularly, remove hair from the floor and keep them clean and tidy. There was something good about the site though – buses to Bordeaux from just outside although we didn’t try them. Perhaps another time. It was time to head to our last part of Spain before going over the Pyranees to Spain.

We were heading for the Basque regions and the seaside town of St Jean du Luz. This was a town recommended to me some years ago by a work colleague from Derby who visited it on a regular basis. Sometimes these recommendations work out and they turn out to be exactly what you are looking for . Other times they disappoint. Only time will tell what we make of St Jean du Luz.

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Photos

On the road to Bordeaux
One of the many chateaux along the route

French garlic
A bit like we protect our Cheshire/Cheddar cheese, our pork pies the french protect their garlic.

and finally
two intrepid travellers and Suzy