Camping Acacias – (16 euros per night inclusive of electricity)

Well, it was going to happen at some point – at least we didn’t go from 5 star luxury to 0 Star …. This one is about a 3 Star and to be fair the facilities are clean and the water is hot …. We have just been spoilt 🙂 and it didn’t help that the weather has turned a little and the trees were chucking acorns at us from a great height… we are just picky!

We left Saumur on Wednesday morning and headed towards Chateau Azay Le Rideau to take in a bit more of the Chateau scene.

The chateau is pristine and worth a visit if you are in the area. However, if you are only going to visit one chateau whilst in the Loire, you must go and see Chateau Chenonceaux.  Unfortunately we saw the latter the day after the former and however lovely the former was, the latter is spectacular both inside and out.

Thursday was another day of cycling, in the morning over to Chateau Chenonceaux (as below)

and then across to Amboise and back to Tours along the Loire – 90km round trip. We didn’t stop in Amboise, but from the quick cycle through it looked like a beautiful town with yet another chateau – they are quite common – on the edge of the Loire. We arrived in Tours late afternoon and parked the bikes up in front of the cathedral.  Tours is a larger more industrial town, but it has an attractive old town (along with another chateau). which was worth a wander around.

We are now however Chateau’d out ….. I wouldn’t mind but we are only half way across the Loire valley.  Worse still we are leaving red wine country and entering white wine territory … what to do ??

Camping Lac de Maine – 16.55 euros each night all inclusive

Keith found this lovely campsite on the edge of a lake and the Loire in the ACSI book, which has more than returned the money we paid for it now.  Clean, tidy and friendly situated 5km outside Angers which is a large, but pretty town on the Loire.

We arrived on Friday afternoon and wondered into Angers to have a look around.  It has a ‘real’ Chateau ….. not quite sure how they differentiate between a Chateau used for protecting the town and the pretty ones that the rich people used to live in … but this one was quite impressive and still mostly intact.

There are two parts to the town, the newer, which still contains older buildings but is predominantly a shopping area, and the old, which is solely residential now and has no access for vehicles … very pretty.

When we got back to the campsite Mika’s twin sister was parked opposite her.  She was owned my an Austrian couple who were as enthusiastic as we were to see the differences between the two motorhomes despite the fact that we speak no Austrian and they spoke no/very little English. 

Saturday morning we popped into the market to stock up on fruit and veg and then decided to try and explore the region and its vinyards on bike.  90km later we had definately done some exploring – the most beautiful place (An undeveloped Richmond on Thames) was a village 5km along the Loire called Bouchemaine where there are a handful of bars and restaurants on the river front.  Our ‘tour’ took us along the Loire to Chalonnes-sur-Loire and then down towards Thouarce then up to Brissac-Quince (which has a beautiful ‘posh’ Chateau), on to Les Ponts de Ce and then back to the campsite.

Somehow or t’other we missed out on the ‘degustacion’ as many of the tasting rooms were closed.  We made up for it with a couple of glasses of wine with our dinner and a catch up with some neighbours from near Cork.

Nantes Camping – 16.50 euros all inclusive

Wow what a campsite – this one is definitely worth a visit if you are in the area. It is a municipal 5 star eco friendly site open all year round situated 5km outside Nantes by the University.

Nantes is a beautiful city which is buzzing as it has a huge university. After arriving we wondered into town to have a look round and it is the kind of place that you could go from café to café, via a patisserie and just people watch. As with La Rochelle everything is pristine, although slightly more normal, with shops that you wouldn’t mind going into and having a look around … oh and toilets that you don’t have to pay for 🙂

Today we cycled over to Trentmoult which is a small old village on the other side of the river and then afterwards on to see the Ile de Machines … http://www.lesmachines-nantes.fr/en/

Dave and Nicky suggested that we came and had a look and we weren’t disappointed. If you are interested in mechanics or engineering or even just animals you would be amazed by the skill that has gone into creating the ‘machines’ that you can touch, move and ride on 🙂

We spent nearly two hours looking at the mechanics in the gallery, which is where they have a giant ant which takes 5 people to move, a heron which can take 4 passengers, a plane and a concept mini tree world amongst other things – all built out of wood and metal with the mechanics to move like the animals/plants. Everything is child (and inquisitive adult) friendly and they invite you to sit on the animals and operate them as they move around.

We then moved outside to ride the elephant…..

Weighing in at 48.4 tonnes the elephant is 12m tall, 21m long and moves at a maximum of 3km an hour. It would be quite a site if you were driving through Nantes and had no idea of its existence as it is almost pre-historic ….although I am not quite sure that elephants have such long eyelashes.

I was a little over zealous with my camera and had to cut the 78 photos down to 37 ….. but the tree is due to be completed by 2018 and so far there is only one branch on display …. definately worth a trip back

After a bit more of a wander around the centre and up to the top of the Commerce tower which has fantastic views over Nantes we headed back at the campsite for a bar b q and some inside info on Italy from our new neighbours from Northern Ireland.

Au Petit Port De L’houmeau –  – 16,54 euro per night inclusive of electricity.

Although there are a couple of campsites in the centre of La Rochelle we decided to opt for something a little further out hoping that it would be a little more tranquil. As the schools have started to go back and low season has officially started we assumed that there wouldn’t be any problem finding a space we were however lucky as when we arrived there were only two left. It is a nice campsite with a mixture of posh wooden chalets and pitches for tents and motorhomes and for people like us who are happy to jump on a bike ideally placed.

1/9 Île de Ré

Situated just off the coast from La Rochelle connected by a pretty impressive 3km bridge is the Île de Ré, a hidden gem with beautiful beaches and beautifully preserved villages. We looked at the map on Sunday night and decided to bite the bullet and cycle all the way to the lighthouse at the end. The route on the way passed through some beautiful little villages as well as fields full of grapes, and salt and oyster farms.

On the way back whilst wiggling round the coast trying not to take out any cyclists (or pedestrians come to think of it as there were quite a lot) we got distracted by what looked like a castle, which upon further investigation was Saint Martin de Re which is a walled cathedral city containing a vibrant town with a rather plush port – all of the buildings maintained to a really high level …. I know I shouldn’t say it, but you certainly wouldn’t expect to see anything as pristine as this in France… not a tumbling down building in site 🙂

After rattling the bones on the cobbled streets of Saint Martin de Re we continued on to La Flotte which was equally as beautiful, slightly smaller and more personal. We stopped for an ‘Artisanal’ (I think that is supposed to be ‘home made’) Ice cream and soaked up the atmosphere whilst people watching.

The journey home was via a part reconstructed Abbey leading to the days total cycling distance of 84km….. phew, lovely day but I definitely have a couple of sore bits 😦

2/9 – La Rochelle

With sandwiches in hand we set off on the bikes again to explore La Rochelle. The campsite is about 6km outside La Rochelle so it was an easy journey in and we managed to chain the bikes up near the seafront and set off on foot to explore.

There is obviously something about this part of France as, like yesterday on the Île de Ré everything was immaculate – I know it helps when there is a bit of sunshine, but all the buildings in the city are built in a white stone which looks stunning against the blue skies. La Rochelle is obviously a touristy city as there is every possible shop you can think of from the UK high streets, from Kookai to Kickers and there is a price to pay …. My eyes happened to be wondering in a patisserie window and a Millefeuille was 4.50 euros ….. Bagnoles De L’Orne count yourself lucky at 1.90 euros.

Definitely worth a trip, but quite glad we made some sarnies before we went!

La Rochelle8

As we got closer to the Loire valley the countryside started to change from fields of corn to fields containing vine after vine of grape… both red and white. We couldn’t have timed our visit better as looking at the size of the grapes we may still be in the region for harvesting which I understand is a bit of an event.

As you rarely get the opportunity to visit friends whilst away we took a slight detour from our planned route and popped in to see Dave and Nicky in Brem-Sur-Mer and were lucky enough to be shown around the area and can only say that we were thoroughly looked after for four days…. Quite a treat!

 The weather was kind to us and we managed to take advantage of one of the regions’ fantastic cycle routes, cycling along the coast to la Chaume (across the estuary from Le Sable D’Olonne) with Dave, we walked along the local beaches as whilst also taking in some of the local cafes, markets and playing some tennis 🙂

 We were spoilt by Nicky’s wonderful cooking and the families hospitality and were also introduced to some lovely local sparkling red wine and a fantastic restaurant on Saturday night where Keith Dave and Nicky all had Sardines three different ways…… tasty and definitely interesting!

Hopefully they enjoyed the time as much as we did and feel as relaxed as we do coming away from their house….although we have to apologies for the hole we left in the driveway when Keith spun the wheels whilst trying to reverse off 😦

We look forward to coming back and seeing more of Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie in the future as we only got a little taste and hope the driveway is big (and possibly hard) enough – we could quite see ourselves living there 🙂

I think we managed to go through three of the four seasons on the 120km journey to Arromanches, but thankfully by the time we arrived it had stopped bucketing down…. For the first 15 minutes at least.

We found a municipal campsite which is just on the edge of the town …. I am over cooking it …. there really isn’t much town so it is fairly central. The site is big (about 100 places) and reasonable (15 euros a night) and the pitch is flat … with predominantly Italians motorhomes.   We can’t work out why there are so many Italians up here, but they appear to travel in groups (Can I say gaggles or ‘gaggias’ J … oh ok maybe not) of motorhomes with CB’s – which when it comes to a small place like Arromanches blocks roads…. But interesting now the less!

On Sunday afternoon we set out to explore – the beach that Arromanches sits on and which spreads to the East is Gold Beach. Even though it is mid-August (albeit with mediocre weather) the long sandy beach and shore line stretches out for as far as you can see, interrupted only by a handful of pontoons left as reminders of what happened 70 years ago.

We walked along Gold Beach to Asnelles and then back on a slightly longer than expected route through the countryside and lots of Corn fields (Keith thought that the man in front was doing the same route as us ….. J).

On Monday we made some sandwiches and set off on the bikes into Bayeaux via the country route via more corn fields (I am still not allowed to pick any to eat…) and about 12.5km later we arrived. Bayeaux is a really pretty town with lots to see. It was built around the waterways and hence has lots of old mills and baths for laundry dotted around the town in addition to the beautiful cathedral. The journey back helped build up an appetite for a spontaneous bar b q … well it was dry J

Following a morning run we decided to set off West on Tuesday morning to see whether we could walk to Port-en-Bessin-Huppain which is the beginning of Omaha beach. Well…. The answer is yes, you can walk there and you don’t have to walk along the main road… it just takes a long time. The way back took us 2.5 hours … so it was about 12.5km. Unfortunately on the way there we followed (no, not another man) some white and red trail signs thinking that they may be the coastal route, to be fair it worked for the first 11km or so, however when we were about 1.5km from Port-en-Bessin-Huppain we followed the trail signs instead of turning right into the town which although pretty was through woodland without any options to turn right … and you don’t want to go back the way you came, so just before we got to Cherbourg….. only joking thankfully we managed to only walk an extra 4 or 5 km and at least we found a nice ice cream place when we got there … it was just a long walk back J

We were invaded on Tuesday night by the Poles – they started to arrive mid-afternoon and by about 20:30 there were about 30 motorbikes and about 50 people. They were here as part of a two week tour to celebrate the 70^th anniversary – quite impressive and apart from some early morning operetta singing they were pretty well behaved …. I couldn’t quite work out where they stored all the vodka though as they were travelling light so may have been in the fuel tanks J

On Wednesday morning we decided to have a quick bike ride along the coast to Courseulles-sur-mer to see a bit of Juno beach this morning. Unfortunately about half way there the skies opened and it proceeded to rain until we were on the road back. The beaches at Courseulles-sur-mer were completely deserted (not surprising considering the weather) with mile after mile of sand, quite pretty considering the history.

When we arrived back at the campsite there was absolutely no sight of it having rained ….. obviously went the wrong direction!

After our last game of tennis at the club we headed to Juvigny in convoy to park up in the car park and enjoy a gastronomique feast with Tom and Monique. My parents have raved about the evening meal here for ages but we have only visited at lunch time (also great food), so felt it apt for our ‘last supper’.

Following Kir royale, red wine, foie gras (I probably shouldn’t say that out loud – but for someone who hasn’t ever had it before, it was amazing), home cured Salmon, lamb cooked for 7 hours, more cheese than you could imagine eating, and some delicious deserts we retired to the car park for a very pleasant nights’ sleep despite the peacock which decided it wanted to look for a mate at sunrise ….. noisy little buggers.

Thank you Tom and Monique for sharing the evening with us and for the lovely homemade jams…. oh and more cheese J

It is time to say goodbye to our home for the last 4.5 months …. oh ok, the photo above is the Chateau de Bagnoles and Mairie, the one below is the house 🙂

We have had a fantastic time, got to know some lovely people, walked, cycled and run the forests, played tennis and eaten some great food….. what more can you ask for? The locals are so friendly they even held a national holiday yesterday with fireworks over the lake last night to say a final goodbye 🙂

Keith has now got a good level of French and mine has been revived from the ancient past although that probably means that the Spanish has taken a bit of a knock – but we get by!

We will be back ……first stop Juvigny-sous-andaine for dinner tonight.

We had previously dismissed the idea of baking cakes and biscuits whilst away, but thought that it was worth a go before we pack everything away and send it back to the UK. After a couple of slightly dodgy looking batches (although they still taste lovely), I have managed to perfect oat, raison and chocolate chip cookies and gooey chocolate brownies 🙂

We will now happily be rolling our way round Europe…. the baking utensils are staying with us 🙂