France - Normandy

2 July – 8 July

Brothers in Arms

We were ready to leave Villandry mid-afternoon so decided to travel on a little further, have an overnight stop at Ecommoy, and then complete the journey to Normandy on Sunday.  The site we picked at Creully in Normandy is very rural and peaceful, but with plenty of amenities, which ticked all the boxes for a relaxing day and a half.  It is also just ten minutes’ walk from the town centre, where there is small but comprehensive supermarket, much more to my liking than the hypermarkets where you walk miles to find what you are looking for!  Relaxation time over, we decided to book a third night and did a day trip to Arromanches-les-Bains, to visit the D-Day Landings museum, but a very pretty town in its own right. Motorhomers please note: the museum does not have motorhome parking and Arromanches-les-Bains is not the most motorhome friendly place to drive around!  However, there is both an aire de campling car (for about 12 motorhomes, tucked in a quiet cul-de-sac) and a municipal camp site, which looked fine as we passed by, and which also offered parking for the day or half day.

In June 1944. Arromanches was the site of one of the Mulberry harbours, temporary ports created to help the massive flow of men and material following D-Day. The Landings Museum gives a detailed insight into the complexity of these structures; enormous hollow concrete blocks constructed in England, and slowly towed across the channel by tugs before positioning in a precise sequence and location. Remnants of the harbour are still visible on the beach.

Our second day of D-Day education was to the American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, with its 9387 white headstones (including, sadly, 41 pairs of brothers).  It’s an extremely peaceful and beautiful location overlooking Omaha Beach, scene of some of the worst fighting on D-Day, and needless to say, very moving.  The visitor centre provides a great deal of information via display boards, films and interactive media.

It was an “interesting” journey from Colleville-sur-Mer to our next overnight stop at Martragny, on the eastern side of Bayeux. The D82 junction on the N13 is, contrary to SatNav’s wishes, well and truly closed.  So we did a couple of laps of the N13 between that and the next junction in order to find our own way to our destination.  And well worth the effort it was too. The site we had picked out was good, if quirky, tucked away behind Le Manoir de l’Abbaye and even offered a selection of hot meals to take away at very reasonable prices.  Dinner sorted! We weren't sure if the stepladders left in the orchard were there to encourage you to "pick your own", but we didn't try our luck.

Our third D Day related visit was to Pegasus Bridge, scene of a remarkable British airborne assault just before 1.00am on the morning of 6 June 1944.  The museum was, once again, extremely well done, culminating with the now-relocated bridge and a full-size replica Horsa glider located at the rear of the site.  

The car park is not particularly large but we (and other motorhomes) parked there without a problem. It seemed odd to be picnicking on the grass a few yards from where Major John Howard and his troops drifted out of the night sky in their 3 gliders, landing (by a masterful piece of navigation) right next to the bridge and achieving total surprise.

We were now on the homeward run, with an overnight stop at Neufchatel-en-Bray.  We felt sure that the site we had picked was affiliated to the Motorhome and Caravan Club, with its neat grass, well-marked pitches and directions as to how to pitch!  There was time for a detour to Valerie-sur-Somme for lunch, but sadly not to ride on the steam train which runs between St Valerie and Le Crotoy on the other side of the bay.  

We then completed the journey to L’Escalles, which was where it all started just three weeks ago.

France - The Loire

29 June – 1 July

The Old Castle

First stop on the Loire was the delightful town of Chinon.  We stayed at Camping de l’Ile Auger just ten minutes’ walk from town and, if you picked the right pitch, with a view of the fortress.

The weather had become less extreme, just settled into fairly frequent showery rain from the grey sky, so we didn’t see it anything at its best, but despite that, we enjoyed the visit to the castle, which is a combination of restored fortress and exhibition hall.  The ticket price included a brief guide book, which also doubled as a trigger for the scanners dotted around the place to give you more detailed commentaries.  All sorts of other media provided even more information.  Highly recommended to anyone with even the slightest interest in history.

Having picked up a map from Tourist Information, we followed the suggested walk around the old town, which led us through quaint streets of medieval buildings, stone and half-timbered.

From Chinon it was just 40 miles to Villandry, where we parked at the aire de camping car and walked to the chateau. This was a complete contrast to the Chinon fortress and is the last of the great Renaissance Chateaux built on the banks of the Loire.  Each room has been carefully decorated and furnished by its current owner.  From most rooms in the chateau you get views of the six individual gardens; decorative kitchen garden, ornamental garden, water garden, herb garden, sun garden and the maze.

It was then time to head north for an overnight stop on our way to Normandy.

France - Around Cognac

 25 – 28 June

A delicate sound of thunder

It had been our intention to travel from the Ile de Re to the Ile d’Oleron, but we decided that a third island was perhaps one too many and, in any case, the weather forecast was not looking too good.  That didn’t bode well either for a couple of days at Coulon (aka La Venise Verte) in the Marais Poitevin, where we had planned to view the marshes via a boat trip.  So plan B was implemented. 

The scorching weather followed us to Saintes, where we quickly got ourselves organised before going out in search of “Sunday lunch”.  This proved to be a little difficult as the town was very quiet, but we eventually found a restaurant which could accommodate us (outside only) and where one of the two choices on the menu de jour was “fini”; the remaining option was, however, delicious.

We then made our way through the town to the Roman amphitheatre, one of the oldest of the Roman world, built in the first century AD during the reign of Claudius.  The terraces, long since overgrown, accommodated up to 18,000 people.

An audioguide in English was very interesting, if a bit long!  Having purchased a “bargain” ticket for both the amphitheatre and Abbaye aux Dames we felt obliged to go there too, but it was still hot and I, for one, was flagging, so we really didn’t do it justice.

With hindsight, we should have stopped at the public gardens, from which we could hear music, or taken a boat ride on the River Charente.

The next day took us on to Cognac, which was a series of non-events!  We arrived at our chosen site to find reception didn’t open until 4 pm (it was only 12:30 pm) and finding yourself a pitch prior to registering was definitely forbidden. Instead we made our way into the town centre and found the aire (functional, not pretty) but it was somewhere to park while we visited a museum, Espace Decouverte, which would tell us all about the flat-bottomed boats called gabariers, that once carried cognac to towns in northern France.  Damnation! The museum turned out not to be open on a Monday!  This was not to be our day.

So on to Jarnac where the good weather finally deserted us, per the weather forecast.  We set up in the rain and the weather veered from hot sunny intervals to heavy rain and thunderstorms in the blink of an eye.  This rather scuppered plans, although we did manage a cycle ride on the first day along the river Charente.  The cycle “track” was just compounded earth, with potholes filled in with hardcore here and there, so it was not a comfortable ride.  The Ile of Re it was not! On the second day we sampled the restaurant adjacent to the site (L’Auberge de la Prairie) for its “menu de jour”, which turned out to be good quality and excellent value, before going on a tour of the Courvoisier Cognac distillery.

This was enlightening and made you realise what a lengthy process it is and why Cognac costs what it does.  The tasting rounded off the visit nicely and we toddled back to the ‘van.

We had stayed in Jarnac a night longer than planned; there didn’t seem to be any point in moving when the weather was the same all over France.  But tomorrow, even though the weather is forecast to be pretty much the same, we head towards the Loire …