And now the end is near the continuing story of our Tour de France - Week Eight

Wild camping by the river

If you remember last week I (Tim) was using a very wet day in north western Spain to update our seventh post that covers our recent trip to France, since last week we have moved much further south and I'm typing away with a view out over fields of mangos, avocados and other exotic fruits with the Mediterranean shimmering away and providing a stunning backdrop. Without further ado we'll bring you up to date with what was to be our last week in France for a while.

We left you in suspense at the end of the last post having arrived at our most recent France Passion (the web based platform that we were using as our bible and that connects mainly organic farms with motorhome owners, or VW Campervans like us, providing a free nights stay with the understanding that you may sample their produce with no obligation to purchase but hey who wouldn't want to top up on fresh tomatoes, or olives or wines that have been handcrafted in the very fields that surround you as you sleep?) a restaurant which wasn't open so after another peaceful sleep we both got up and had runs around the lake next to where we'd parked and further into the woods which were getting more frequent as we moved further north.

After we'd packed up, a performance that we were now bab hands at, gas off, porta potti away, rear awning and pop up roof down, we moved on towards Limoges and the charming towns that sit along the river Vienne and what was to be our first real wild camping experience as we couldn't find a suitable France Passion site along our intended route.

Maz cooking up a storm, again

We arrived alongside the river late in the afternoon and had spotted another VW camper a little further along the banks, the river wide and slow moving but from our vantage point we could see a little weir and below that some faster moving water where fishermen were dangled either worms or their fancy flies into the water hoping to catch some poor fish who was probably thinking about catching his own lunch for his family! 

As the evening drew on we found a semi secluded spot in a car park by the river and bedded down for the night, which was very peaceful and we awoke with excitement in our hearts as we were to visit and have lunch with our good friends, Lisa and Rebecca, who had given up their jobs and life in Jersey (the channel islands) and bought a house complete with gite business just up the road from where we had camped out.

The grand tour

The place they had bought was awesome, it was so well appointed and renovated that it made us quite jealous and our minds which had been thinking about buying a place for ourselves in France were nudged that way even further. Rebecca and Lisa hadn't had the best of first seasons with their Gite business, what with the issues around the limited travel and therefore holidaying that Covid-19 had imposed, but they had had a few visitors and were currently hosting a couple from Belgium and the lifestyle away from the busyness of corporate business seemed to suit them.

Lunch with friends

It was great to share a meal together in their lovely courtyard garden, of which much of our view and seating arrangements was obscured by our washing which Maz had been able to do in their handy machine in their second gite whilst they had given us the 'grand tour'. We were sad to leave but we did have another engagement to make before we found our nights parking spot.

We miss these sunsets from the pop up
roof in Elsie

As we've said the lifestyle and cheaper properties in France had certainly got our attention so most days we were receiving updates from the internet on various places that were for sale so as we were passing we made a plan to have a look around a very nice home which was being sold as a full B&B business, all furnishings for under £140,000. 

Topping up Elsie's water tank from an old well

The home was also very tastefully renovated but upon chatting with the owners, an English couple who had lived and run the business for six years, we found out that their dream was to travel and they had found the B&B restrictive and wanted to sell. It seemed that the tables would have been turned had we bought the place, our fancyfree lifestyle choice of roaming instead of homing would be lost and we weren't sure we wanted to sacrifice that just to have somewhere to call home...we are continuing to look at the various opportunities as to live and own a home in England is now out of our price range so we are living in this dilemma at this time. 

We were now moving north at quite a rate as we had booked a ferry back to England leaving Dieppe to Newhaven on the forthcoming Thursday afternoon so our house hunting escapades would have to wait a while, with Brexit perhaps putting a spanner in those works too as the laws around freedom of movement are due to change on the 31st December this year.

Our rushing back to England was all timed to fit in with the birth of our fourth grandchild, seeing as we'd have to self isolate for two weeks when we got home due to the Covid-19 situation we wanted to be able to visit our son and daughter-in-law, and new arrival as soon as we could!

The flat lands were calling

As we travelled the countryside became flatter, wind turbines and fields and fields of harvested crops, oats, wheat etc, stretched out as far as the eye could see. This definitely wasn't an area we wanted to stop in too long so after a night just north east of Chateauroux at one of those very arable farms we headed to Blois via a very convoluted route which we'll pick up on later.

Le petit wine tasting

On route we stopped off at a vineyard of that we'd spotted on the map. The cellar was tiny, certainly the smallest vineyard we'd ever been to, but the welcome from the elderly father and his son (neither of whom spoke English and our French really hadn't improved much over the trip, however now we are in Spain we are realising that we do actually understand a lot more French than we thought and having conversations in broken Frenglish is much easier than Spanglish!) was as good as we'd experienced throughout the trip which was shown in their very classy white wines of which we bought a bottle or two.

Stained glass adorns the windows

We also stopped at the charming city of Blois which sits on the Loire, we parked up in a car park overlooking the river and as had become our norm we visited its cathedral and were impressed by the architecture and feel of the place.

Blois across the Loire

Now back to the story of the convoluted route. Unfortunately after leaving Blois we had the first major navigational error of the trip, not bad seeing as through we were 53 days into it, we'd put the wrong GPS co-ordiantes into GoogleMaps and had headed north west for perhaps an hour before realising we should have been heading north east, that said we made it to our penultimate stop with time to spare and found the huge farmhouse, which included our last stop and visit to a vineyard of the trip, to be empty save for a dog who was barking madly at us.

We phoned the host who apparently was in town shopping and when she arrived back she was only too willing to show us to our parking spot, under a few plumb and apple tress which had so many fallers that the wasps were eagly devouring and into her cellar which was another wonderful experience.

Our last wine tasting at France Passion 2020

After sampling her wines we made a plan to purchase a few bottles but when coming to pay she didn't accept credit card and we'd spent our last cash in Blois earlier in the day, so what was to be our last purchase turned out to be just one bottle which we think she was a little sad about but hey we're in the 21st century now and the other little cellar we'd visited earlier in the day excepted cards so get with the times!

Chartres double towers

The night was warm, pleasant an quiet so after a leisurely pack down we headed north, checking our GPS co-ordinates a couple of times so as not to go off piste again, and made our way to Chartres, visiting it's magnificent cathedral with twin towers and stained glass windows which were apparently some of the oldest in the world and had inspired others to copy the tend. We also enjoyed a cup of coffee in the square around it, which was almost deserted, which felt sad but reflected the limited amount of tourists that we'd encountered on the rest of our trip.

The empty square around the catherdral

Our last night was spent at probably the most quirky of France Passion stops of the trip, the venue was a eco farm which also ran canoeing experiences along the river upon which it sat. The toilets were again dry, meaning that we had to use sawdust to cover our poop, and the water we needed for our shower had to be drawn from a deep well. To get the bucket to fill with water was quite an art and gives us a lot more appreciation for people who lived like this in the old days and whom still live like that in the communities where we normally spend time sharing the mindset leadership programmes with.

Our last stop at the Canoe center

During the afternoon we took to the water ourselves and enjoyed a leisurely (at least on the return with the flow) time paddling up the tiny river Eure to a watermill which was the perfect way to spend our final afternoon in France seeing as though we'd spent so much time exploring the banks along a large number of the rivers but never on them.

Paddling up the Eure

Once again we spent a relaxing morning before we realised that we needed to fill in an online arrivals form which would provide us with a QR code to show the border officers in England and for them to know where we would be spending the next 14 days once we'd arrived back.

We then had a quick lunch, packed up for the final time and made our way to the ferry which was to leave from Dieppe at around 5pm and depositing us on English soil in Newhaven some five hours late when upon arrival no border officer was interested in our QR codes which we'd saved to our phones and we passed through passport control and quickly onto the M23 and M25 on our way back home after what had been a most wonderful trip.

We'd spent a total of 54 days travelling, covering just over 4,000kms and during our time away we'd noticed a lot of interesting items placed on the middle of some of the larger roundabouts, these were probably designed to give a flavour of the town or village but some seemed quite random and included in no particular order but perhaps in some sort of date order the following:-

The stunning rose window

A large chair, a large hand, a windmill, a castle, a boat, some large bikes, random beach huts, a roman style archway, a face, big bright butterflies, a big bird, a wine barrel, a huge cello, a large great crested crane (national bird of Uganda), a waterwheel, vines, an iron man, a dove cote, a matador, a large horse, fountains, a star gazer, an iron man, a gateway, large mushrooms, a wooden barn, goats with cheese, a colourful hummingbird, statue of a man on a throne, a wooden cart, a bug hotel, a light aircraft, a stone seat and finally some wooden bridge strut although we weren't sure about that one!

Back in England, it's like being on holiday!

We hope you've enjoyed journeying with us, Tim, Maz and Elsie the VW camper who was fantastic and apart from replacing a day light driving bulb hadn't put a foot, or wheel/s wrong since leaving England some 4,000 kilometers earlier.

Our first meeting with Winnie

So in total we avoided any toll roads but found every road well surfaced and signs easy to read and overall we found the french people to be helpful, friendly and accommodating. We had a special time using the France Passion site which also meant that we interacted and made friends with real French people who were similar minded people that we wouldn't have experienced had we used hotels or even B&B's, to say we were pleasantly surprised is an understatement and we will be back Brexit willing!

P.S we did self isolate for two weeks and on the middle Sunday our family was added to by the arrival of dear Winnie who made our return to England all the more special. Till next time x