Friday 11th March – Monday 2nd May
Part 5 : Elne to Home
Friday 22nd April continued
Leaving Elne we are bound for Albi, in the Tarn Department, a town I’d never heard of before seeing it showcased on television as a finish, rest day and start town for the Tour de France in 2019. The helicopter shots made it look awesome.
Two interesting items on the way to Albi. Firstly, we happened to visit the service area where I stopped – Aire de Fitou Est – after I’d successfully got through the Spanish/French border on my journey home from Spain in 2020. I was so relieved to be allowed through the border into France, a goal which, according to rumour at the time, may not have been achievable as the pandemic began to grip. The service area is away from the autoroute with trees, picnic benches and a wonderful view across the Étang de Lucate to the coast, plus the high-speed rail line from Barcelona to Paris in the foreground, which I had travelled on a few years back.
Secondly, a service area with a view of Carcassonne, famous for its medieval citadel (which we visited many years ago). It is clear the view is best enjoyed wearing one’s slippers!
The site at Albi, Albirondack Park Camping Lodge & Spa https://www.albirondack.fr/index.php?lang=en was nice, if unusual. The owners were American, and had brought the American National Park vibe to the site. A more than double-height restaurant, sadly not yet open for the season, with mooseheads, drapes and a feel of the Ahwahnee Lodge in Yosemite National Park. On site there are log cabins, treehouses and Airstream caravans to hire. We were glad of a gravel pitch, but were a little confused about the purpose of the scarecrow shirts with bucket heads dotted all around us!
Husband set off on foot to the nearby Geant Casino hypemarket to get a few supplies and I got on with the over-due laundry pile. Well tackling items that could be tumble dried at least. Heavy, heavy rain all night and those trees you can see, released even heavier drops on the motorhome roof all night.
Mileage = 194 Miles
Saturday 23rd April
It was an easy mile or so walk into Albi from the site, where the market was in full swing. It is a stunning town, the bridges, cathedral and other buildings are constructed with millions of red bricks. The central area being a UNESCO World Heritage site.
We should have taken time to visit the Musée Toulouse-Lautrec but, it was raining and we decided on an excellent 3 course lunch out instead at the Restaurant La Temporalité http://www.latemporalite-restaurant-albi.fr. Husband had their speciality, Cassoulet; I did not! A lucky find, fab food and service.
We got absolutely soaked on the walk back to the site; once again wet stuff hangs all over the motorhome – coats, trousers, walking boots – we were still drying out until Tuesday!
Sunday 24th April
A driving day and a fuel top up …. the first time we’ve paid over €2 a litre, making it €122.39 to fill up – eek!!
We stopped overnight at a site run by Camping-Car Park – Camping de mon Village of Louroux-de-Bouble https://www.campingcarpark.com/en_GB/stay/camping/auvergne-rhone-alpes/03-allier/louroux-de-bouble; it belongs to their group of sites called Camping de mon Village – it seems to be a franchise of small French village sites where CCP have taken over the marketing/admin/computerised barrier access etc. and the ‘village’ carries out the maintenance. The sites take caravans and tents in the summer (where they have a toilet/shower block), but they take motorhomes with their own facilities all year round. This seems a great success to me.
You can see from the photos it was a little wet underfoot and it was tricky not to get the wet, red sand inside the motorhome. In fact, more than tricky, it was everywhere!!
Just a reminder for arrivals – in order that the computer knows you are there, you need to pull the vehicle right up to the barrier. This avoids phoning the customer support line again(!), and having that detail explained to you again and may even prevent you having a black mark on your file. Do try to remember to pull right up to the barrier!!
Mileage = 240 miles
Monday 25th April
Another driving day and, yes, it’s raining again. We stopped just off the autoroute to get some grocery supplies from the Intermarché that we had visited on the way up. It rained so much that we sat and had a cuppa in the motorhome until it was safer to get across the, pretty much, flooded car park.
Our stay for the next two days is at Camping Merry-sur-Yonne http://www.campingmerrysuryonne.com another site I had stayed at with my brother in 2020. At that time, whilst trying to leave the site, the motorhome got stuck. It is wet again and that gap between the hardstanding and road looms. I can see they’ve repaired the mess we made in 2020, let’s hope we don’t cause any problems this time.
Early evening we took a stroll down to the River Yonne; it’s such a very attractive area, even in a mist.
Tuesday 26th April
Husband set off early on an 8.5 mile walk along the river, round and back, while I chilled/did laptop admin. There was actual sunshine. He took 65 photos during the 8.5 miles he walked – I think 4 will be sufficient here to illustrate what he saw!
In the evening we had dinner at the site restaurant, Restaurant Le Saussois http://restaurantsaussois.com, which is also open to the public. Husband had rabbit; I did not! The restaurant has the most wild tablecloths and decor – it’s great. The waiter who served us explained he was just filling in as he has a ‘real job’ as a Circus Skills Trainer!
Wednesday 27th April
This morning we needed to fill up with both fuel and AdBlue. We found a local garage with well-priced fuel, that was the easy bit. We have learned that you cannot use the pumps you see for AdBlue, they are for lorries only. You have to buy it in plastic containers. Five litres is probably a good idea. Once purchased, getting it into the motorhome is a whole other thing! A normal funnel doesn’t give you the right angle and the pokey tube which comes with the container has a mind of its own. Anyway, we left a fair quantity of our AdBlue on the garage floor …. hopefully it will dry quickly in this sunny weather.
It was a lovely drive along the N77 but no elevenses stops were suitable, so we pulled into some services when we reached the A26. The services were in the midst of a massive re-development; a total nightmare. The motorhome parking directions were, entangled with the lorry parking parking directions and difficult to fathom. The main buildings were still there (not even that old) but when you reached them they were closed. We had to walk a long way around the works to get to about 4 large portacabins that were linked together providing loos, hot drinks, sweets, sandwiches and a few other bits and bobs. Everyone was doing the best they could but, let’s not go there again until it’s finished!
We spent 3 nights at Camping de Châlons-en-Champagne https://www.aquadis-loisirs.com/en/nature-campsite/camping-de-chalons-en-champagne. We’ve stayed several times before but always just for an overnight stop. The directions from the motorway took us on a rather circutious route due to some roadworks, but we arrived, checked-in, found a perfect pitch and were set up in record time.
Unbelievably we had the awning out and had dinner outside under twinkly lights – yay!
Mileage = 125 miles
Thursday 28th April
Husband walked over to reception to collect our regular order of ‘une baguette and deux croissants’ please to find the off-site baker had fallen short on croissants. Reception were sourcing some more and, sorry, but could Husband pop over again in 20 mins or so? We had set up for breakfast outside when the reception man personally came whizzing over with our deux croissants made into trois crossants for the inconvenice. Yup, we ate them all.
A lovely, sunny day so we set off on foot from the site, down to the river and along the riverside path into Chalons-en-Champagne. As we arrived at the Le Grand Jard, the large park just before the centre, we saw the circus was in town …. and the name of the circus (which you can just about make out below) Cirque Plume!!
Having explored much more of the town than ever before, (very nice), we had a salad lunch in the square accompanied by a chilled carafe of something pink.
Our evening meal was catered by the snack bar on site – burger, chips and a bottle of wine – yum!!
Friday 29th April
We attempted breakfast outside but, nope, too chilly!
Once organised, we cycled to the Carrerfour Hypermarket to purchase our last supplies for the trip. Since we were last there, Carrefour has become surrounded by other large clumps of big stores and the most confusing car parks divided by new roads. Perhaps there was a better way, but we had to cycle around 3 sides of a square to get to it.
After loading up the panniers, we went over to look at an old friend, The Buffalo Grill. A company has bought out the chain and apparently wants to change the image of the restaurants. Such a shame, they are an institution in France and provide entertainment while we travel around; if you see a red roof with horns first you get points!! (But no prizes).
Having topped up on groceries, giving us plenty of choice, we decided on quiche and baked beans for dinner!
Saturday 30th April
A big travel day, made slightly longer by the roadworks signs making us leave Chalons-en-Champagne via the eastern edge, rather than the, closer, western edge of town. We travelled two sides of a giant triangle to get to the autoroute.
We arrived at my old favourite Château du Gandspette https://www.chateau-gandspette.com/campsite-france-pas-de-calais.html. Understandably, only one part of the site was open, however, this is a sloping grassy area – not good for motorhome levelling. Also, the toilet block has a wide, airy gap between the tops of doors and the roof (great in the summer – a bit chilly in spring!). Husband actually showered in the motorhome!
We tried out the pitch below, looked round again but stayed with the one we had which seemed only slightly tipsy. We then realised this particular pitch didn’t have electric so we stretched our cable over to the empty pitch next door’s electricity box.I told the guy at reception what we had done and he was fine with it, but I spent the rest of our stay worrying somebody would turn up on the next door pitch and, quite rightly, unplug us!
A lovely lamb steak for dinner. I enjoyed it at the time but what a lot of washing up it/Husband created!
Mileage = 190 miles
Sunday 1st May
It is the last day of our mega-trip. We had a chilled morning and then, after spam and baked beans for lunch, set off for a walk from the site circling Le Blockhaus building https://www.leblockhaus.com/en/ which we’ve visited a couple of times before. The walk was rather longer than it looked on the map and, some parts, were not all that interesting. When you’re in the Éperleques forest you can only see trees!
Later we cleaned and packed up as much as we could ready to go home and then had dinner in the site restaurant where we reminisced over our holiday memories.
Monday 2nd May
Now, we are not booked on Le Shuttle until Thursday but, due to the rain, we are travelling home a few days early. I did not ring The Caravan & Motorhome Club about this (they are closed at the weekends) nor did I ring Le Shuttle because, last time I was a few days early, it was fine, they waived me through. This time …. notsomuch. The computer says you can travel on the next train but it will cost you £101 extra. Eeek – what are you going to do, you’re at the check-in point?! Lesson learned.
We swapped drivers at Dartford Services – dreadful, dreadful place, try never to go there!
Arriving at the storage around 2.00pm, disaster, my car battery was totally flat. We investigated the motorhome to use as a jump point but, having removed the carpet and unscrewed the floor in the cab, it didn’t even look like a battery; far too complex.
So Husband cycled home to get his car. We tried to jump start from that but nothing worked as my car was sooooo flat. We agreed with the storage guy that we could leave my car where it was until the next day and leave my motorhome on the wash bay. Thank you!
Mileage = 143
Afterwards
While we’ve been away my niece has kindly been keeping an eye on the house, the post etc. We came home to find a lovely bouquet of flowers and two drawings welcoming us back.
To celebrate our return from a lengthy holiday, plus Husband’s birthday, we had a family get together over dinner a few days later – I’m sure Finn is hiding in the photo somewhere!
On a domestic note, the reality of coming home after 7.5 weeks away – 19 loads of washing, 7 pairs of shoes to clean, various rucksacks, containers, baskets and bags to wipe out, plus the inside and the outside of motorhome itself!
Days away = 53
Total trip mileage = 3802 miles
‘France and Spain without a map!!’ – at the time of writing (December 2022, yes I’m way behind) the aforementioned missing maps are yet to be found!!
To see a map showing the location of the sites we stayed at and a few words describing each one, click Menu / Maps at the top of the page or click here – https://tiddleyompompomontour.com/tiddleyompompom-motorhome-stops/
TiddleyOmPomPom on Tour 