Premery to Vic-sur-aisne via Auxerre Friday 21st September

The nights have turned really cold and we awake to one of those beautiful crisp clear cold autumnal mornings. After a peaceful quiet night and some excellent sleep (no doubt helped by the evil liquor) all cosied up in Onzo we are ready to zoom north. After a bit of admin (it’s not all play, honest!) and some reyt nice croissants we wave farewell to lovely campsite and hit the road.

Auxere is only a short hop north (65 km ish) and the journey is beautiful. A few gentle hill climbs, but nothing to startle Onzo, the countryside is like some perfect pastoral picture. The farmers are harvesting and the fields lie dusty and scorched for mile after mile. Bordered by thick forests and only the occasional old farmhouse to be seen, this is truly rural France. The difference is marked from earlier in the year when all the crops were growing, no there are no more nodding sunflowers, the corn fields are either already harvested or are looking slightly exhausted and sunburnt. It’s all tremendously beautiful, but you can see the labour that goes into maintaining such vast tracts of agricultural land. We find out that France is the largest agricultural exporter in the EU and is second only to the United States globally. When you drive through the land like this it’s not hard to see why.

We arrive at Auxerre and instantly find a place to park down by the river. It’s free and shady and perfect, thank you Auxerre! There are a few brits here, doing things to their house boats, they’re the most we’ve seen so far, but in no way do they impinge on our enjoyment of the city, they seem mostly boat bound. Auxerre is a delight. Beautiful Cathedral and lovely old streets, medieval houses bowed down with window boxes full of cascading flowers.

The city is blissfully empty of tourists, cafes are still lively and fun, but off season is definitely the way to do things. We visit the cathedral and have it almost entirely to ourselves, this somehow adds gravitas to the experience and we are struck by the solemnity of the moment. To top it off the organist begins to play, haunting and atmospheric, it’s a real treat, the icing on the cake. We dip into the holy water, thankful for life and love and hopeful for the future.  

The city is a bit like a mini Florence in some respects. It feels very well heeled, lots of boutiques, expensive shop windows and stylish people floating about, we guess that being so close to Paris there’s a bit of money in the air around here. We stretch to a tin of sardines and a baguette and dine overlooking the river, with the Cathedral lit by the sun on the opposite bank. Life is nice. Sadly we must go.

The unusually named marmite bar... you either love it or you hate it..

Our lunchtime view of Auxerre from the bridge

We leave Auxere with sun shining, but this quickly takes a turn for the worse, as does the scenery. We are confronted with mile after mile of arrow straight roads and flat countryside, dismal linear towns, bleak moody skies and then it starts to rain. We make the executive decision and decide to take advantage of crappy weather to make up some miles and get north. Jon’s mates Lard and Sarah and their nipper Amelia (to whom Jon is Godfather) are staying up near Soissons and we decide to zoom up to them and drop in for a bit of a Friday night rendez vous. By coincidence we have an appointment set up for the Sunday with a guy that runs his own business in France. We have an inkling that they might be in the same sort of area, (more of this later). Miles and more miserable miles later we finally arrive at their campsite. It’s vast!! We honestly didn’t know that camping could be so big. It’s so big, in fact, that when we ring Lard to tell them that we’ve arrived they have to get in the car to come and find us because they’re living at the opposite end of the site to where we are! Campsite ENORME!! It’s got three lakes, three pools, archery, zip wires the lot. We thought we’d seen Centre Parcs on steroids, but this is something else entirely. There are also loads of brits, more here than we’ve seen on the journey in total, but it’s got everything you could ever ask for, happy days.

We pop round to Lard and Sarah’s for a quick drink and catch up before hitting the hay after epic 200 mile drive. 8 bottles of wine later, sigh, getting lost trying to find Onzo in the dark (we’re on a campsite and still we get lost!), we finally manage to find bed. A thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining evening, little Amelia being a poppet, massive thanks to Lard and Sarah for their hospitality and for all the fun.