Friday 25th April Montfort Virac to Boisse Penchot via Souillac, Rocomadour and Figeac.

Montfort Virac is a deserted place, presumably it must get busy in peak season as there is a holiday park enorme down the road on the banks of the river. At the moment there is no one here, but very optimistically they little shop opposite the aire is building an extension to their bar/glacerie. Good luck to em we say.

The weather remains heavy so we set off to Soulliac where there is a Byzantine Abbey and hopefully some strong coffee. We arrive to discover it is market day and we are overwhelmed once again with fragrant local produce – as normal Moo and Norm make their presences felt under various market stalls and coffee tables. With a true flair for the French language Jon exclaims over a vat of cream that one stall holder is offering.. “Look at that cream Noush, Kinell!!!”.. a murmured “Good morning” is the only response and this from the rather dapper gentleman standing next to us. The reach of the Empire should never be underestimated. 

We pop in to the Abbey to atone and are rewarded with a magnificent and stark beauty and peace. It’s an awe inspiring place and we leave much becalmed.

We leave Soulliac and push on towards Rocomadour. We have the choice of two roads, both of which threaten hairpins and overhangs, we choose the wider of the two (still not that wide!) and are rewarded with astonishing views and hair raising drops.

We arrive at Rocomadour on the top road and park up outside the Chateau. It’s spectacular..

However we resent being asked to pay €2 just to access the ramparts, especially as much of them seem to be shrouded in scaffolding. We admire everything from a distance and decide to forsake the pilgrimage to the famous Black Madonna and get back on the road. Next stop Figeac.

Figeac, on paper, allows motorhomes to park anywhere, but on arrival it transpires that the fair is in the process of coming to town, so the place is somewhat snarled up and parking is limited. However, we manage to squeak into a spot for an hour and zoom down to centre ville. The fabulous café Champollion – named after the man who was born here who was first to translate Egyptian Hyroglyphics – soothes somewhat frazzled parking nerves and is situated just opposite the museum. We don’t have time to seek out the replica of the rosetta stone, but would happily come back to Figeac again to do so. Really lovely place, without the fair…

We make our escape from Figeac before the artics block us in completely and zoom down the road to Boisse Penchot. We have  an aire lined up for the weekend, alongside the River Lot, at the foot of a Chateau, BBQ, fishing, grassy and shady, bar on the corner, wifi the works… heaven. We arrive in sheeting rain and batten down. Hohum.

Thursday 24th April Reynac to Montfort Vitrac via Roque Saint Christophe, Sarlat, Beynac and La Roque Gageac

We have a relatively leisurely start today as we are camped at the bottom of Fortresse Reynac, which we haven’t seen yet, but it doesn’t open until 10am, leisurely breakfast, coffee, siiii. We flash the dogs up by Prehisto park again, but the walk takes longer than expected as Jonboy is caught short with a large case of ‘out of hoops way’. Eek. When one is given such a dramatic warning one should pay attention and go back to bed and not attempt ANYTHING at all for the whole day. We do not heed however….

Noush is left to explore Fortresse Reynac alone while Jon recovers.

The Fortresse is amazing; previously only open to academics for scientific research it has only been open to the public since 2006 having been bought by a Perigord residence with a penchant for architecture and troglodyte caves. With a whole array of artefacts and period history; its weird and wonderful rooms hewn out of the rocks, its defences and its uses over the years are all tied up behind the amazing façade. Spooky and surreal it more than lives up to its aura of impenetrable mystery. The exhibition currently on show displaying various implements of torture is not for the faint hearted, albeit fascinating.

The evolution of Reynac from medieval to a bit more recent..

And then it’s off to La Roque Christophe. Oh how we wish we had heeded Jon’s prescient bottom….

Nous sommes dans la merde. We are officially stuck…. Route barre, overhanging rock, no turning place. 2000 tourists watching.. EEEEKKKKK…

The cause of our problems is he one and only spot where we can attempt to turn around…

Unbeknownst to us it’s soft, there’s a drop off and it’s insant… ah.. we’re stuck. Wheel spins, 20000 years of prehistoric ground nicely mounded behind the front wheels and cue a tourist group of friendly americans who come to offer advice and push our..erm.. 4 tonne van out. Several hundred people watching from the perfect gallery view of La Roque Christophe itself. EEEEEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

With no swearing, no effort and no advice whatsoever, we of course manoeuvre ourselves out quick smart. There is no applause from the gallery, nobody takes a bow, American feet aren’t kissed (In actual fact God bless them, they were heroic and wonderful). We are super casual as we drive nonchalantly off, pride completely intact and no concerns about Valerie’s heath at all. J

We are in urgent need refreshment and so high tail it all the way to Sarlat to lose ourselves in the beautiful city and regain some sort of equilibrium.

Sarlat.... we love...

Zoom on to Beynac... none shall pass, snotty overpriced aire at Roque Bageac, entire place being dug up. Probably usually quite pretty….

Finally find Montfort Virac an oasis of calm, isolation, tranquillity. With a big entrance, turning space and flat parking. Job done. 

Wednesday April 23rd Montigniac to Reignac

LASCAUX II visit.

We arrive at Lascaux II in plenty of time for our 11.50am tour. This is fortunate as the site isn’t exactly geared up for Camper van parking. Lucky we arrived at about the same time as the end of the previous tour or parking could have been dreadful, apart from that the site is brilliant, really well set up and really really pretty, hidden away in the forest.

Lascaux II is so called because it is an exact replica of the original Lascaux caves which the minister of culture closed in 1963. They were closed when it became apparent that public access was damaging the artwork within. Said artwork is 17000 years old and both the original cave and the artwork has been recreated in Lascaux II. A local artist was recruited who spent 6 years using the same prehistoric techniques to recreate the artwork. The site is a UNESCO world heritage site and the most visited site of its kind in the world (we think). It’s amazing, just go. Our tour guide brought the whole thing to life, informative, educational and funny he made the caves and the paintings of our prehistoric ancestor “Cro Magnon” come to life. An example of Cro Magnon’s work:

Our attempts...erm... 

Jonboy sticks to original techniques..(Vino colapso may have been involved)

Noush cheats with nail varnish and an entire make up palette

Hmmm.. not sure we’d be famous in 17000 years!

After Lascaux we head to our earmarked French Passion site. Don’t like him though so we drive on and head towards the next destination on our new route: La Roque Christophe. One tour a day is enough though so we park up and decide to do it tomorrow. The car park we fall into turns out to be for the Prehisto Park at the foot of the Fortress de Reignac. We don’t realise this until after we’ve parked and we turn around and actually look up…. Not a bad view!

Odd things seem to get spook the dogs today, perhaps it’s ghosts from the castle, perhaps it’s the thunderstorm that hits us later, but Norm nearly ends up in the river all for chasing someone’s tossed apple core and not great day for Moo either as he gets spooked on walk by fake mammoth roars from prehisto park and debates attacking a fake plastic wolf. We try to calm everybody down by going for a quick bread and a sundowner at Les Eyzies down the road, but typically this is when the thunderstorm hits (it was scorching 2 minutes ago!!) so everybody ends up drenched, but at least amused.

Thunder lingers in the air and the fog is rising off the river, the fortress is lit up and extra specially spooky… we turn in. Moo stands guard.

Tuesday 22nd April Argentat to Montigniac via Brive la Gaillarde

We head towards Brive La Gaillarde which is the gateway to the Dordogne. We have high hopes for this lauded department of France and hope we will be able to appreciate its real beauty without the hordes that descend during the summer months. Brive is out first earmarked stop mainly because it’s a bigish town and will allow us to replenish stocks. On arrival things don’t seem to bode well. The outskirts aren’t appealing and we can’t find anywhere to park. We do a good few laps of the concentric one way system they have in place and finally loose the plot and decide to move on. As fortune would have it we stumble on a Leclerc on the way out and go in to sort out the serious case of Mother Hubbard syndrome that we are suffering from. (if you are aware of the song, not the bit where Rover came over I hasten to add!).

Arrive at Montigniac, having had a quick stop off at Terrason (awesome place, but we’re zooming).

We arrive at Montigniac, really beautiful place and just around the corner from some prehistoric caves we want to see. We park up in the aire and collapse with a beer, we’re right on the river bank so we have a quick fishing attempt – pas de poisson, so decide to go for a mooch into town instead. While attempting to put our empty beer bottles in the onsite bin some bin protecting maniac, who looks like (s)he might have crawled out of one of the aforementioned caves, has a go about the correct disposal of bottles. It’s in the bin, there’s only one bin. What more do you want (wo)man???! (S)he makes our minds up for us and we move from the slightly isolated aire, with it’s one bin maniac, to the car park adjacent.

Montigniac is wonderful, slightly British even this early in the season, but completely beautiful. We hit the market early doors in search of some local Honey, even this early the streets are lively and the market is ace. We meet ‘actual prehistoric wolf dog’ under one of the stalls and Moo is actually dwarfed, wow. After a quick peek in the local church we head to the tourist office with MR LOUD I CLEAN PAVEMENTS power washing everything in site like mad. Negotiations to buy tickets to local caves are conducted at FULL VOLUME, every person in Montigniac now knows where we are going. Clutching our 17 leaflets for local attractions – we head back to Valerie, the leaflets give us a whole new route, but it’s first stop the caves of Lascaux II..

P.S. no one in Montigniac can drive with any skill whatsoever, you have been warned. 

Monday 21st Aurillac to Argentat

After last night’s somewhere restless night we want somewhere a little bit smaller and more peaceful for tonight. We decide to head north towards Bealiueu sur Dordogne. Apparently it’s extremely charming, historic, peaceful and lovely. Just what we need, from the map (which we fail to consult properly) it’s also on the way to where we need to be tomorrow (Brive La Gaillarde). So. Turns out it’s not really on the way at all, they don’t let Camper Vans in the village and yet the want to charge you €5 to stay the night, which doesn’t even include hook up. We sail on past. Sucks boo to Bealieu. 

We cruise on to Argentat. Argentat is the best place in the world it turns out. It’s beautiful, you can steal the wifi from the local hotel if you park close enough, (i.e right outside the front door, sorry Mister manager person) it’s free to park, it’s got a river with ducklings and everything and the pizza place is YUMMY. We love Argentat.

After an afternoon of admin and wifi and stuff we treat ourselves to a long quay side walk and some ‘ventures and ‘sploring. It’s really beautiful here. We lock the Norman Pet and Moo Sulky in Valerie and go out for a dinner. We feel like grown ups who have snuck out on the kids. It’s bliss.

We weave gently back to Valerie and fall asleep to the gentle clack of petanque boules from the pitch next door. Um… why are they playing in the dark…? We fall asleep before we can answer… sleepy happy folks.

Sunday 20th April Aurillac

We arrive at Aurillac and the weather has abandoned us. It is most definitely raining. However Aurillac is where the Umbrella was invented, so we should be in safe – and hopefully dry- hands.

The aire is tricky to find and looks absolutely nothing like the photo in the book, but it’s acceptable and so we park up. We are parked opposite the most bird shit covered car the world has ever seen. And later we realise that we are parked under the same tree. Not clever. We both decide we can’t be arsed to move. His poo looks old anyway, all the birds have definitely left. (4am in the morning, AMAZING how loud bird shit can sound landing less than a foot above your head on a metal roof. Splat, splat, SPLAT, splat. Sigh. Shit. As it were).  If we’d have asked for a Dalmatian effect paint job on the van it was definitely job(s) done, as it were.

Aurillac itself while being completely and utterly closed for Easter Monday seems like it would be a really cool and vibey place, if anything at all were to be open. The architecture is amazing and there are stoney old hotels and antiques everywhere, really pretty. The book of all parking knowledge mentioned that it close to a rather loud bar. From what we heard it wasn’t the bar, but the whole town. All night, through to the early hours all we could hear were the screams and shriekings of the inebriated. Quite why people have to drink so much we just don’t know. Ahem. 

Hardly surprising nothing was open in the morning on the bread run then. Jon goes out foraging early doors and manages to find one lonely hunchbacked greying hermit, emerging from the morning mist, clutching a baguette to his pigeon chest. Retracing hermit man’s steps, Jon returns successfully laden to Valerie. We get set to zoom.

Sunday 20th April Lac de Neuvic to Aurillac via Ussel and Bort les Orgues

We leave with heavy hearts. The decision is helped by the slightly cooler weather. This lake side location is unreal. We honestly, perhaps ignorantly weren’t aware that places so remote and devoid of human life existed in Northern  Europe. We urge anyone reading this to visit this place if you can.

We have earmarked a stopover in Sornac, but it’s Route Barre so we head to Meynac instead, just near Ussel. After so much wild camping and isolation, not to mention consumption of all liquid and food on board we need a town to stock up, feed the van all its necessary life aids and connect to the outside World. 

Sadly Meynac is not what we hoped so we decide to zoom on to Bort Les Orgues, which is bigged up in the (fictional) book of knowledge. Borg is also not that place. Pretty, but the Campervan area is rather unappealing after we have been so spoilt. After a Coffee and and a vain attempt to buy bread from 3 Boulangeries (easter Sunday disaster) we give up and head towards the largest place on the map nearby: Aurillac. 

Saturday 19th April to Sunday20th April Lac de Vessiviere to Lac De Neuvic

For the first time the day dawns and the weather is cool. We decide to leave our wilderness and go in search of another one.  We have earmarked another lake which looks just as wonderful and the forecast looks a bit more promising than where we are currently. We drive down to Eymoutiers which is really beautiful. Excellent little town and really pretty. It yields up a coffee but sadly no vermeez or fish bait. But we reckon we’ll find a big LeClerc on the way which will sort us out. We wanted to go to a big town to do some wifi, but all the places we were thinking of turn out to be too industrial.

We carry on to Lac de Neuvic, the pictures in the aire book look very promising and sure enough we arrive at possibly the most spectacular place yet. Vast forests, vast reservoir, sandy beach… collapse (and a bit of fishing..)

Spot the van... 

The remainder of the day we spend lazing by the side of the lake. We are literally the only people around. It is quite a strange sensation. We sit by the water with the sun going down over the horizon and other than norm paddling in the shallows there is no sound, other than the distant calling of the Cuckoo in the forest. How lucky we are. Bliss.

Thursday 17th April to Saturday 19th April Lac de Vessiviere

Our arrival at Lac de Vessiviere as the gloaming closes in.. happy folks, Norm turning into a water baby…

Because of all the zooming we are all pretty tired. So after a quick look around the lake and some staring back at nosey camper types we retire to consider some wine and some bed. 

Having arrived relatively late last night we find ourselves caught short for fresh bread so we decide to go and explore around the lake and try and find a boulangerie and some yummies. Eventually we find somewhere and stock up on coffee, bread and other basics (beer). On the way back there are two spectacular wild spots on the other side of the lake from us. One on the edge of a damn, Jon flicks a spinner in, but to no avail. The surrounding woods did provide some cover for some smelly ablutions though… why do it in the van when there’s a perfectly good forest right there??!  We pass another spot and there are some old dudes fishing who look like they know what they are about. Noush goes and asks them what bait they’re using…. Maggots and worms are key apparently.

Jon and Norm have a go, but nothing’s biting on the spinner. Time to find some worms.

We find another spot, totally secluded and no soul around, just around the corner but out of sight from the old dudes . Noush is dispatched to dug up worms. Turns out there are three worms in France and Noush found them all. Well, Jon found two and Norm found one. Moo unearthed some underpants. So proud.  Managed to catch though. Woop!

By this stage the weather is getting a bit chilly so back to lake side for an afternoon of exploring and messing about. The chill begins to win so we batten down the hatches. But then it’s just so wild and beautiful here that we can’t resist getting back out there and going for another fish on the sneaky bay around the corner out of sight from the other campers.

Darkness falls. We light a campfire. We start catching fish. Jon goes into full on hunter provider Ray Mears mode and the fish are being reeled in thick and fast while fire blazes ever higher.  It’s fabulous and as wild as it gets. Completely numb we return to Valerie at nigh on midnight, we sneak past the battered VW that turned up late that now seems to be having some sort of smoking/fire extinguisher catastrophe with bottoms and naked bits flying everywhere as they attempt to..er…succeed in their endeavours.  Norm manages not to bark and we make it undetected to Valerie… cosy in our van in the wilderness. 

Thursday 17th April Le Grand Pressigny to Lac de Vessiviere via Chauvigny, Montmorillon and Bellac

Lazing in the sun last night we decided that we needed to get the most bang for our buck, so today we are off to Chauvigny –  apparently overlooked by five, yes five, Castles or Chateaux or Forts or magnificent things of some description that we can’t quite pin down, we feel that we can’t go wrong. Chauvigny actually does live up to expectations historically speaking. 

Allocated motorhome parking is not so bad, if a bit unlikely, but town centre is just there and so are the forts (they turned out to be forts in the end).  The history of the place is quite special  - it is the only example of its kind in the whole of Europe in that five forts are all housed within one all-encompassing wall. Bear in mind these were all built or rather finished in the 12^th Century it’s amazing that anything survives at all. This is the worst of it….

But the other buildings have been preserved either in their original form or turned into museums. The 11^th-12^th Century Church is still amazing. How did they build such wonders so high up???

Lovely as the history is we have other destinations today so after a super zoom espresso we head off towards Montmorillon for lunch. The weather is still favouring us and lunch on the river sounds pretty good. Now….. a word of warning for the faint hearted.  AIRE BEWARE! The aire in Montmorillon has a somewhat hair raising entrance. Don’t be shy, just stop the camper, hold up the traffic, get out and have a good luck before attempting. Jon made the turn with grace and aplomb, but he’s a driving God. And our van isn’t monster sized. Just look, mkay?

We make it in, picture post card view again, sunshine, little beach for fishing on should you want to. Lunch heaven basically.  Spot the pooches and the ducklings J

Lunch over we decide to head off. While the view is perfect it’s not quite the solitude we’re after. Off we zoom to Bellac. A small aire on the banks of the river, only three spaces, nice and quiet and on the edge of a park and the bottom of some more ruins. Sounds ideal. We get there and it’s everything it promised to be. Except there are goats next to the aire. Cue Norm barking like mad. Sigh. We move round the corner, STOP VALERIE there’s a bar! There’s also a pretty little Roman bridge and all is serene. We take Norman Pet and Moo for a walk up to the ruins, the sun continues to beat down… marv.

Upon return to Valerie there are youfs hanging about, the bar is closed, the sun has vanished behind the ruins and someone is chainsawing the tree next to us. We exchange glances. Time to zoom. We hadn’t planned to travel so far today, but peace and quiet is the order of the day so we decide to make one last final jump to Lac De Vessiviere. This kills two birds with one stone. We will be holed up in advance of what might be a Good Friday rush and we will be guaranteed peace and solitude and hopefully some decent fishing. It’s a long a tricky zoom, Jon and Valerie do a fab job on bone shaking hairpin roads in the gloaming. We arrive early evening and instantly paradise is found. 

Wednesday 16th April Saumur to Le Grand Pressigny Via Chinon and Loches

The day dawns fair – again!! With aire mayor nowhere to be found and despite the fact that we suspect he might be the actual mayor we set off. Our first destination of the day is Chinon, another medieval town where we intend to breakfast and sightsee. Note to all campers about trying to park in Chinon…. just don’t!! It’s wonderful from a distance but seems to be populated by the rude and those inept at driving. Streets are narrow, no campers shall pass. We slink across the river, everybody’s tales between their legs and admire from afar. It looks beautiful from a distance, but perhaps the impassable fortifications should have given us a clue! The fortress is 400m in length and its surrounding wall dates from the 10^th century. Truly none shall pass! We breakfast on the (far) bank of the river and consider ourselves defeated and zoom on towards Loches.

Another medieval town, Loches is amazing. We had hope to stay here for the night, but the fair is in town and the aire is situated a little unsafely shall we say. Loches is too good to abandon though, so we park up and take a look. It’s just beautiful and dripping with history everywhere.  Evidently this is the place where all the best Kings came on holiday. Apparently all the Kings of France have used the Chateau as a holiday home; one half dates from the 14^th century and the other half from the 15^th Century (why did they need to expand it?).  As the residence of Charles VII it became known for its decadent feasts held for his mistress (Ah. All becomes clear).

In the park there are the remains of a Sequioa tree (spot Jon).

The tree was struck by lightning but the three forks remaining were preserved…

We return to Valerie, walking along the river banks. At this point Moo spies his first ever fish. The water is shallow and clear. Moo is transfixed. And looks very perplexed. Fight or flight? He decides a dignified retreat is the best bet and tries to look super casual as he walks away. Around the corner he spies a more familiar looking piece of water, not transparent, just weedy, reedy, safe… no fishes here and in he sploshes for a drink. Clearly some fishy beasty is lurking under the reeds after all; Moo evidently startles it and the dog leaps out of his skin, water up nose, ears flat, eyes looking every which way -  total whack attack. After a moment he realises that he’s fine actually. Thank you.  Then a dead reed breaks off from the clump and lands across his nose. Moo turns himself inside out and scarpers for the van. Dignity be damned.

Everyone is back in the van in one piece and we decide to try our luck at our First French Passion which looks to be down the road. French Passion is a scheme operated purely for Camper Vans by French business folks who have the space and the inclination to allow campervans to stay on their land for a night. It’s free and you get to know the locals, sample the local produce if you’re lucky and enjoy a slice of ‘real France’. Staying on a farm, lovely French hosts, lovely countryside, peace… what could be better? Off we toddle. We drive straight past. We know it said “farm” in the book, but the animals were closer to our parking spot than we’d anticipated. Norm would have barked, Moo would have probably gone to bed with a full belly. Eek.

There’s an aire not too far and we decide that we’re going there. Even if it’s horrendous, that’s where we’re staying tonight. Thankfully it turns out to be fab. Sunny, small secure private park with picnic benches, free hook up, showers (good ones too) and loos for the princely sum of €1 and a really charming and (guess what) medieval village just around the corner.

We wander up to the Chateau. Some of it has been converted into a prehistoric museum and the remains that are too far gone to restore hang precariously in the sky. Spot the staircase anyone?

Sadly the Prehisto bar in town only has two tables outside in the sun, both of which are occupied by scary French types with an empty espresso cup who clearly won’t be moved. We retreat to Valerie and showers and air(e) drying in the sunshine J

P.S. Just realised that Easter is this weekend and not last weekend as previously supposed. This major error makes even Moo look good today. Woops. 

Tuesday 15th April La Fleche to Saumur

From La Fleche we head south to Saumur. This is the first leg of our trip where we don’t have a fixed destination in mind and where our true dedication to wild camping begins. No more campsites for us - we are determined to stay at as many beautiful and isolated spots as possible. Saumur might not seem like the obvious choice, being such an historic place and with so much going on, but we’ve earmarked our resting place for the night outside Saumur, a disused campsite admittedly, but now an overgrown and wild Aire by the banks of the river. Both Saumur and aire are beautiful.

We park up in Saumur by the Chateau to have a mooch around, the Chateau is mind blowing – originally built around about 1370 it looks like a fairytale castle perched up on high with the town and the river snaking their ways underneath it.  The medieval town is picture postcard whichever way you look. Even the post office is in the original postal building… ancient signange in old stone across the top proclaims “TELEGRAPHES POSTE TELEPHONE”, with a statue in front proclaiming “honour and Country” and there’s a even a ‘back to the future’-esque clock tower and everything. Marginally more impressive than the post office in WHSmiths on Worcester high street. Only just mind.

With reluctance we leave and lake our way to our free aire. We follow the river there on the way and it seems low with its sandy flats, perhaps it is always like that? We don’t know.

We arrive at the aire and park up, the view, while not medieval, is hard to beat. The dogs pronk off into the grass and we settle down for some sun. Not so very bad really. And free. Or so we thought. It turns out there’s an aire mayor and he wants an aire fare! €5. Exorbitant. Sigh, perhaps not so wild after all. Once again, the (new edition) magic book of knowledge reveals itself as a possible contender to the title of book of fiction. Campers beware.  Idyllic spot nonetheless and everyone sleeps like babes.

Sunday 13th April La Suze sur Sarthe to La Fleche

ZOOOM to La Fleche! Back to where we got engaged – “the Scene of the Crime” as Noush so delicately put it, back to yet more happy memories and with a couple of surprises up our sleevies too.

We make the short hop to La Fleche, eager to see this pretty town which holds such wonderful memories. The day is sunny and warm and the journey swift. Ironically and in true style, despite having made the journey from La Suze to La Fleche countless times we get lost. Only we can manage that!

As we breeze into La Fleche we decide that due to the surprise visit of La Momma Boss tomorrow evening, (Monday) we will stay at the Campsite and get some guaranteed peaceful shut eye.  We find it surprising that the site is virtually empty, Early in the year perhaps? Or more likely to do with horror film creepy dude (HFCD) at reception – what is his problem. And what has he done with lovely lady from last year. Still it all bodes well for a good night’s sleep. After a long walk around the town and through the park and all down by the river (engagement bench, hi J) and a big feed at the fabulous Gargantuan Restaurant, it’s a very early night with restful shut eye assured.

Sadly this is not meant to be and this time it isn’t even Norman Pet’s fault. Some complete sadist has decided that 7.45am is a perfect time to re-gravel all the pathways on the campsite. All of them. With gravel. With a tractor. With a BEEEEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEP reversing noise thingy. This guy can’t drive, think reversing as in having an Austin Powers moment (those who know will know). Did I mention it was 7.45???? So in high dudgeon we go to reception to pay up and leave, all prepared to be snotty and have a word. Sadly, or luckily, lovely campsite lady is back and neither of us have the heart to be mean. On the upside when we park across the river at the free parking the campsite wifi still works. Siiiiiii. Sucks boo to you HFCD.

Anyway, we pass a lovely day in La Fleche and Mamma Boss arrives mid afternoon; Norm, who knew her when he was younger, goes WILD and just has to pee all over the dog bed in the back of her car. She doesn’t seem to mind. Much. We meet up for dinner and spend a wonderful evening together, long fun meal, full of laughter and then a wander around the streets of La Fleche with the team of dogs under a night sky. Thank you La Mamma, was a real joy and a pleasure, loved seeing you J

Tuesday morning dawns fair, breakfast with La Mamma and a brief visit into our favourite shop in La Fleche to buy a little something to commemorate our (nearly) first wedding anniversary  (we bought the engagement ring there, so it has huge sentimental meaning) and off we zoom again.

Thursday 10th April Arromanches to La Suze sur Sarthe

We bid a fond farewell to Arromanches, a truly special place and the last we shall see of the coast for sometime. Bayeaux is just around the corner but we decide to forsake the tapestries and try and get some southern miles under our belt. We have numerous other places marked out that we want to see before we hit our next ‘fixed’ destination – La Suze sur Sarthe. But somehow we both manage to convince ourselves it’s Easter weekend (its really very much not) and it’s truly essential that we get a good spot on the La Suze aire before they all get taken with what will surely by the Easter rush.

So, all our well laid plans go out of the window and Valerie kicks up her heels and we zoom all the way to La Suze. Woops. And yay. We nearly treated ourselves to a circuit around the Le Mans track, but at the last minute decided against it – Valerie probably not being the vehicle of choice… will Noush ever get to go????

We arrive at La Suze and our concerns are borne out. There is a marquee up in the main parking area of the Aire and slightly limited parking around the corner is all that is left. We roll in quite happily and park on the grass a little further away from the other vans to try and get some privacy. The reason they have avoided the grassy area swiftly becomes apparent as we promptly sink. Some deft driving from Jon gets us out of the mud and we decide to stay anyway – it’s baking, it’ll be dry by the time we leave! Logic always wins with us.

The van enclave all seem a bit cliquey and peculiar – why ask Noush if the aire is full, do you not have eyes you stupid anglais?? Got eyes enough to stare at everyone though. Weird.  Slightly odd and very ancient people park next to us and in the three days we were there we swear they didn’t leave the van once. Weird. But no matter.

The reason for the marquee is made clear by Monsieur Local Gendarme who has come round to check  that everyone is behaving. It turns out that it is the 57^th Moto Rally of the Sarthe this weekend. Sure enough big zoomy bikes, race vans and even bikes with side cars start turning up to stay at the adjacent campsite. What a way to celebrate Easter! (Ahem).

Not so very good for the poor Campers who tore off the corner of their bumper on the exit gate of the aire. Audience and everything. We feel your pain L Stupid gate.

We go for a wander round town to re-acquaint ourselves with familiar sites and happy memories (and to stop Norm barking at EVERY bike) and have a lovely drink outside the Hotel St Louis in the last of the evening sun. Tomorrow will hopefully bring more sun, more fishing, more relaxation. And less barking.

The rest of the weekend is scorching and wonderful, the rally takes place, we do some fishing and everything is about as relaxed and happy as life can be. Even Norm has chilled out, but Sunday comes and La Fleche beckons.

So. We will be leaving La Suze, leaving Aire Mayor, leaving Johnny Cash and Sylvian at the Bar de France, but what happy days.