Blogs from Nord-Pas de Calais, France, Europe

Suzy is still sitting comfortably on our drive hooked up to recharge her batteries . She is being prepared for the trip to Croatia and back. Sion has worked out it's 8 more sleeps until we get to France. We have started to load up the van. Books and maps put in the cupboards, clothes packed, last minute just in case foods put into the fridge and the cupboards - it's a lovely feeling to know that at last we are almost on the road again . Kathrein has worked OK the last few days but today she refused to go up again. We have spoken to Solar Solutions who fitted her and they have been deep in conversation with RoadPro who provided the dish. The offer is to take the dish off and send it ... read more

Lets start at the beginning - the sweet little coastal town of Wimereux, a pleasant drive from Calais where we disembarked from the ferry. The first two photos are of this town, our first night in France... The next day we headed to Amiens to see the largest Gothic cathedral in France. It did not disappoint! We've included a photo of the exterior and interior of the amazing cathedral (Click on the photo tab for more pics...) Afterwards we drove to a secluded campsite, passing through grim Rouen at peak hour (thanks Sat Nav!), just past Elbouf. The nice wooded countryside is shown in the next pic, as is a snap of the charming exposed beam houses of this Normandy region. Our next stop was to see the Bayeux tapestry. The tapestry which is almost 1000 ... read more

The next day we decided to walk around Lille, use one of our Christmas presents, and visit the art expo known as Fantastic. The expo is composed of fantasy art all throughout the city. Lise parked in an underground parking deck in Euralille, a newer area of Lille. It’s a big shopping mall and if you park in the parking deck and bring the ticket to Carrefour after making a purchase, they knock off an hour and a half from your parking time. Most of the parking in Lille is not free so this was the most cost-effective option. The first thing that we did was to go on the Grande Roue (a big Christmas ferris wheel) that we had been given tickets to by Lise’s sister for Christmas. When we arrived at the top the ... read more

On Friday 7/12 we drove from Sitges in Spain to Avignon in France, and as we drove we could see the distant snowy mountains, we started to steel ourselves for the steady decline in temperature…. The plan we had in mind was to go to Avignon, stay in the van on Friday night and the next morning take the TGV to Geneva, then stay overnight on Sat 8/12 in Geneva in a hotel, returning to Avignon on Sunday evening and staying in Avignon that night in the van, then on Mon 10/12 go on to Lyon. However, we went to the Avignon TGV station on the Friday night to check the trains and get tickets. We had arrived at Avignon France from Sitges Spain at around 4pm. We left the van at the campsite and cycled ... read more

Well so far so good! After leaving work i was able to get to a local camping shop and replace the gas cannister i had for a full one and set off, the last one felt like there was a lot in it but i didn't want to risk it. I then arrived at the port bang on time only to find out the ferry was late anyway. But meet up with DK at the port entrance and found Chomp and his father in law parked up inside. Looking forward to testing out my kitchen properly, but i think tonight will be all about getting a good nights sleep, so pizza from the campsite hmmm.... pizza. OK so the story so far, my mileage is 35 miles, Chomp is on a different ferry from a different ... read more