Category: france

Le nice lunch

On By MashleyIn france, road trip, T4 Camper, travelLeave a comment

Sunday morning was the last day of the French summer holidays and the roads are apparently mental. Mental isn’t on this trips agenda and having not made any reservations for the next couple of days we decided to stay put, let the French queue and be on our way the following day. 

We also had new neighbours in a modest motor home. 

  
The mornings start was a fairly lazy affair, so lazy in fact it started a mile up the road with lunch in Ars on Re square. 

There are a few restaurants in the square and they all look very nice, we picked the one that had a table for two, it also had moules avec frites on the menu. Lolly had Foie Gras to start and the amount that arrived was more than she could handle, I had duck slices with some kind of terrine and foie gras too. 

For our mains Lolly had the aforementioned moules avec frites and I had a lovely pasta with tatragon, whole prawns and scallops, much happier Lolly! 

 

Lolly ordered the whole meal in French which she says is a holiday achievement!

Lunch cost us all the euros we had on us so we cycled back to camp and decided to let our food go down before venturing out again. 
Our next port of call was St Martin De Re, we got there by following one of the many cycle routes across the island, they love cycling here so much so that in th towns each house has a steel ring concreted into the wall for you to chain your bike too. 

The ride takes you past all sorts of places including the salt plains and oyster beds, both stink but it’s still a nice enough ride.

  
St Martin De Re is a fortified harbour town and when we arrived it was heaving, a bit like Padstow is during the summer. We had a wander around the harbour and concluded it wasn’t quite as romantic and picturesque as we’d imagined.

I did spot a boat in the harbour that reminded me of my dad’s old boat the Affinte II. 

  
 The ice cream shop looked really popular so we decided to find out what all the fuss was about. 

  
They were good ice creams, I had chocolate and specaloo flavour and Lolly had chocolate and brownie. We had a look round the lanes which were typically French, old houses with wooden shutters and cobbled streets, it was starting to get cold so we unlocked the bikes and made for home. 

We covered a fair few miles. 

  

  

Le Cycle

On By MashleyIn france, road trip, travelLeave a comment

We decided to ride to a lighthouse not too far from where we are staying, it’s called Phare De Baleines. 

  
The ride took about 20 minutes or so, nothing tiring. 

The great thing about this lighthouse is you can go in it, all the way to top which is awesome. Lolly and I consider ourselves reasonably fit which is a good job as there’s a whole load of stairs to climb. 

  
In what seemed like no more than a couple of minutes we were at the top enjoying the view. 

  
All around the lighthouse there is lots of information which I’m sure is very interesting but it’s all in French which is no good to me as I’m lazy and only speak English with a hint of poor Spanish. 

We descended from the top and on my way down couldn’t help think of my mate Quincy at work, he’d be bricking it coming down these steps, not a fan of heights!

There is a beach below and we took a wander along that for a while before laying down and soaking up some sun watching the tide come in really quickly. It was at this point I insisted Lolly took a picture of me in the awesome tshirt she made so I could show you all, it’s marvellous!

  
All around the approach to the light house are gift shops and restaurants, all the restaurants were all heaving so we bugged out to find somewhere else to eat. 

After riding around in circles for ages we eventually game to a little town square. 

  

After a quick walk about we found a nice restaurant, got a table and found we had missed lunch so settled for a cocktail and beer. 

We thought we might find a beach bar that did snacks so we jumped on the bikes and headed up the coast, we didn’t find any bars but we did find some ruins from WW2, they look like gun placements installed by the Germans to defend the coast, thankfully they look a lot less menacing than in their heyday but a reminder that even this peaceful and idyllic island was touched by the horror of war. 

  
  

  We left this beach and made for home discussing what to have for dinner, we came across a supermarket, bought some local beer, pork chops and Turkey fillets and unanimously decided on a beach BBQ. 

Lauren seasoned up the meat,  packed up the Cobb, tongs and all the other manly beach things I would need and we set off.  
Right behind where we are staying there is a beach that looks rubbish when the tide is out, when it’s in the place is completely transformed, we found ourselves a little a spot and got cooking. 

  
There is a sign that says no bbqs which we completely ignored, the Cobb we use is pretty contained so it’s no real threat to dry shrubland behind us. 

As the sun went down so did the temperature and we huddled up covered in blankets, hoodies and looking generally like a couple of beach hobos. 

  
The food was great, there was hardly anyone on the beach and the sunset was spectacular, as good as any Ibiza sunset!

  
We covered a lot of ground in a day and I’d put strava on to see how far we’d been, I didn’t think it was that far!

  

Le rain

On By MashleyIn france, T4 Camper, travel, VW Campervan1 Comment

We set off on the bikes in howling wind and rain to visit Le Mont St Michel, we were pretty wet on arrival but that didn’t dampen our spirits and we headed through the gates for an explore. 

Lauren decided the best thing to keep the rain off was a bin bag as she brought no water proof stuff, lots of people stared and laughed at Lauren’s bin bag chic, we did however see someone else with a carrier bag on their head which made Lauren feel better. 

Despite the rain and wind it was still mobbed, making your way up to the abbey at the top involves first walking through a narrow street lined with shops selling everything from samurai swords to old world pistols, all types of food and a hotel. The narrow street is also full of people shuffling along as slowly as humanly possible. Once you clear the tourist shops it’s stairs all the way up with lots of little interesting diversions which on this day gave excellent views of rain in all directions. 

We got to the top and there was a huge queue to get in the abbey, also the heavens opened so we sought shelter under a tree. 

  
I didn’t take any pictures of the mount as it was belting down with rain and shortly after the one above we decided to head back to the van, the ride back was worse than the ride there, soaked to the skin proper. 

A quick change of clothes and we left the Aire and headed for Ile De Re, the drive took forever, a combination of traffic, burnt chips and stopping for supplies. 

  
It rained for pretty much most of the journey but for the last 20k the sun came out and then promptly set. 

It was dark when we arrived and after a massive drive I demanded a BBQ so that’s what we did, unfortunately all the things we bought were rank including kebabs that had added slices of fat between peppers and the meat. 

  
Shortly after the let down BBQ we crashed out.  

This morning we set up camp properly and will be heading to the beach, we’re also drying the stuff that got soaked yesterday!

  

Le fantastique!

On By MashleyIn france, road trip, T4 Camper, travelLeave a comment

  
We were recovered to a little place near Bolougne where we met three nice dogs and a receptionist dressed like a hooker. Once they had been paid by my recovery policy they dropped us off to E.R.A garage who emptied our tank and got us going again, the mechanics complete disregard for health and safety whilst emptying the tank was really quite refreshing. 

We had a four hour drive ahead which went fine, no lasting damage to the van it seems so that’s all good, we are now in a quite nice Aire called La Bidonniere with a view of Le Mont St Michel on the horizon, we met another couple in a T4, Dickie, Julia and their dog honey and after they day we’d had the only thing to do was get drunk so we did. 

  

They sell a local beer which is a quite like lager, suited me fine!

The sunset was lovely and in the picture Lauren took below you can see Le Mont St Michel to the right. 

 
 After a good nights sleep we’re off on the bikes to see the mount, then we drive to Il De Re and hopefully the sunshine!! 

Vive la France !

On By MashleyIn france, summer, T4 Camper, travelLeave a comment

In less than 2 weeks we’ll be packing up the van and heading over the pond to spend three weeks driving and camping around France.

We were planning to go to Ibiza but the ferry cost is ridiculous, 650 quid return which I reckon is more than the fuel cost of our entire 3 week trip around France.

Over the last few months we’ve been researching places we’d like to visit and locations we’d like to stay in and as you can see in the picture below a route has been loosely planned.

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Our first port of call will be Mont St Michel, from there we’ll be making our way down the atlantic coast to Biarritz, stopping off at Il de Re, Soulac Sur Mer and Arcachon, a night in Bordeaux and St Emillion, then across to Lourdes, inland to Argentat to hang with the Coups and finally homeward bound via Puy De Dome and Chambord.

We’ll be staying at campsites, my in-laws and Aires we’ve found using this awesome book.

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It’s going to be an epic trip!

By way of preparation some work has been done on the van, new timing belt and water pump, air filter, the old one is below, not great, i’ve seen worse…

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I’ve also invested in a tried and tested diesel treatment that should increase our fuel efficiency by 10% and clean up the injectors, expect a seperate report on that!

I’ll be updating the blog throughout the trip as often as I can for those that follow our travels and we’ll be keeping an eye out for fellow dubbers!

Thats all for now, planning and packing for the next week or so!

Le Mans 2015 aka Neils Stag Do

On By MashleyIn 24 Heures du Mans, france, Le Mans, road trip, stag do, T4 Camper, vwt4Leave a comment

I’ve never really been massively into motorsport unlike my brother who loves and works for F1.

I do however love a roadtrip, camping in the van and a chance to hang out with two of my best buddies.

The trip to Le Mans was organised as a stag do for Neil Thatcher who is marrying my best mates twin sister Carli and Neil very kindly invited me along to share this auspicous occasion with himself and his pals.

At some silly time on Friday morning we converged at Dover and set sail to Calais with pretty much a boat full of cars heading to the race.

The best man, Andrew Browne organised the whole trip and did a stirling job, we were going to the race with a company called travel destinations, it wasn’t massively expensive and we got a free crate of beer for each vehicle modelled by Neil below.

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The crossing didn’t take too long, we got off the boat and made our way to the track which is about a 4.5 hour drive, the drive is a fairly uneventful affair thats made all the more interesting by the high end sports cars making their way to the race, Aston Martins, Ferraris, Porsches, even a classic Bentley, if you love cars it’s a great trip to take.

Once you get to the track it’s mobbed and a top tip, wind your windows up otherwise you are getting done by a super soaker water gun! After some sketchy directions including failure to spot a quite obvious bridge we arrived at the gated travel destinations camp site.

On arrival we all received wristbands and a goody bag that contained a tea mug, radio to tune into the race and something else, can’t remember what it was!

The site itself was well laid out, decent toilets and showers, bar\food\chillout and watch the race area as well as plenty of washing up stations for campers, there were some quite exceptional camping efforts including in my eyes the hands down winner of the weekend pictured below..

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I’ve since learned the above tent arrangment originated in Australia, it’s purpose to stop crocs getting at the tents occupiers whilst camping in the bush, i don’t know how true that is.

As I mentioned earlier, we were in the porsche curves site and our pitch was right next to a massive mound of grass, the other side of this was the actual porsche curve on the track, a great spot unless you wanted to sleep, it’s a stag do, who wants to sleep!!!

The race started at 3pm and for the next 24 hours cars whizzed past our camp making the most amazing sound, I never got bored of them towing it past!

There is a tradition on stag do’s that is upheld by all who attend, what goes on tour stays on tour and with that in mind i’m not going to detail everything that happened, just a few little highlights.

On the first night we all donned official stag do t-shirts that Neils brother Ian organised.

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We also took a walk (one of several over the weekend) to the race village where myself and Kev ate the most expensive burger I think i’ve ever had and Rob bought a 10 euro pint of Guiness….

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On day two Neil wore a lovely new pair of shorts and we had a nice hat made for him, he wore it all day, I also got very drunk, hopelessly lost but was the only one to make it to the Dunlop stage that was rocking some proper techno on my arrival.

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Neil also wore this for the evening…

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On Sunday after the race finished, Neil found a flag (amongst other things), spent a couple of hours dragging it round the track and then attached it to the van.

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We also tied Neil up for a short while…

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and then the heavens opened and the sky looked like the world was going to end

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When the race came to an end there was much cheering and then the exodus began, quite a few people who were camping chipped off there and then as well as quite a few private jets from Le Mans own airfield.

We didn’t sail till the Monday so the majority of us chilled in the bar, watched some cricket, the England game (we won) and those who were driving laid off the booze and retired at a sensible time for an early start the following day.

Those that weren’t driving stayed up till silly o’clock at the bar egging the band on for one more way past when they should of finished and busted out some quite epic dad dancing, they deffo played a couple of songs twice.

We left Le Mans at 9am and headed for our ferry which we missed, we got on the next one no worries.

I had an awesome weekend, met some top blokes, got quite drunk, hung out with my best mates, got a bit of a tan and really enjoyed the motorsport, the van did well and made it there and back without a hitch although I have concluded the split charge system is rubbish and will be replacing it immeadiately.

Would I go again, most definitely and with Travel Destinations, I thought they were very organised and provided a good secure area with great facilities, my compadres for the weekend were a top bunch of blokes too, I’m honoured to have been invited and looking forward to catching up with you all at the wedding!