On the Road Again!

What a couple of days these turned out to be!! The rough plan was to leave Bernay and with only 60 miles to the vets in Buchy, to call in somewhere on the way.  I had toyed with the idea of Monet's Garden at Giverny, but it doubled the mileage to Buchy. On top of that we had a long drive to Calais and the CCP after the vet. Instead I saw the Le Bec Hellouin was en route. So we set off.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Bec-Hellouin A few miles short I began to shiver and feel really cold.  By the time we had followed the signs to the campervan parking it was much worse. It's a long wa...

On Saturday evening we decided that we had had enough of being pretty much stuck to the pitch. Cabin fever!!  Temps in the day still hovering around 35°C.  I've already had the Chips Rafferty wannabes scoffing at "only" 35!! Google Chips if you have never heard of him. How I began to envy my brother Neill and his mate Patrick as they ride around the island of Ireland in the mere 20's and rain!!! With the "free" days we had earned over the years, the total cost of the stay worked out at £12 or so a night. So hardly a large expense.  I had actually thought about leaving earlier and finding a dog friendly hotel with aircon. Bugger the cost!! In the end we decided to head north earlier. Don't believe Google when it claims higher ground will be cooler. It's not true in these circumstances. At 1350m above sea level in the Pyrenees in was 32°C.... Anyway. We packed everything,...

A little more planning this evening for the second day we are in France.  We will overnight at the CCP aire at Formerie and the plan is to head almost due south to the CCP aire at Beaulieu-sur-Loire. Leaving it to Google Maps and TomTom of course come up with several different routes. One that goes into Paris and on the  périphérique (shudder the thought!) and others that bypass Paris to the east and the west.   I decided that as we have "done" the east side so many times, maybe the east ought to be given a chance.   Ticking the boxes in both apps to "avoid tolls" came to one route!  No doubt when it gets onto "Max" it will all change. So the attached screenshot is the proposed route for Day 2.

Once the ferry booking was done and dusted I decided that I might as well get the first overnight stop booked. I had already been looking at Camping-Car Park (CCP) aires for the trip down through France as far as St Cyprien Plage. The firs top being around 180kms from the ferry port at Formerie. We have stayed there before. It's a small aire with only 6 places and it fills up quite quickly. To book I needed to credit my account with enough to cover the €12.50 (inc local taxe de sejour) overnight cost. I added €20 to the account taking my balance to €20.68! So that's booked. This will be a toll route start to the holiday! I have driven and ridden the "old" N1 from Calais via Boulogne to Abbeville so often and with the 80kph blanket limit even in the sticks, it's mind bogglingly terrible and tedious. I feel after 40 years I know every turn it has to offer. So it will be A16 from Calais to Abbeville. Once onto the A28 the route planning will be "toll free"!...

Today I have been looking at the France 2020 Atlas to work out where we can stop overnight on the way down. Does anyone else use a ruler to give a rough idea of distances? Just me? The inside cover has the overview of the whole country showing the pages. I use that to roughly work out the stops with the ruler. I have been using this atlas as well. It shows lots of Aires and campsites on the pages. It's okay and easier to handle than the bigger AA atlas. Allowing for the time when we  arrive in France plus some shopping for us and Reggie at Picard, I think that the first overnight stop might be Formerie where we have stayed before. It's about 170kms from the port. It's a small Camping-Car Park Aire with only six pitches. Each with electric hook-up. I'll probably have to reserve a pitch in advance. From there the Google Maps non-toll route goes in a familiar direction to Dreux and then diverts around Orléans and to the non-toll A77 towards Vichy and Millau on the non-toll...

Whilst I was concerned with the MyRouteApp problems, blogged elsewhere, I was in a quandary. Give up on MyRouteApp Navigation and simply go through the maps in Google Maps and enter the coords into the Ohrex? I leant towards the latter. So using MyRouteApp,  where waypoints display the coords, I was able to create "favourites" in the Ohrex. With MyRouteApp seemingly fixed, I returned to the holiday planning. Once Sandaya confirmed the booking for three nights in Valencia I started looking for routes towards "home". There are eight nights after Valencia to be filled.  I still want to call in or even stay at Canfranc Station.  My brother Neill and I stopped off here for a look around and lunch after the Somport Pass on the way to Morella  in Aragón in September 2022.  In the motorhome we will be taking the Somport Tunnel! The massive old station was a building site as it was being transformed into a luxury hotel. It was closed and behind fences. It's now open and ...

What difference a day makes... Another booking.  I was thinking about the last night. So I booked another CCP Aire at Flocques. It's in Seine Maritime near Le Tréport. https://www.campingcarpark.com/fr_FR/sejour/aire-etape-camping-car/normandie/76-seine-maritime/flocques This is for the last night of the holiday. The booking is from noon to noon but effectively 24 hours from when you arrive. It's a fair way off the A28 and A16 so maybe need to be away earlier in the morning to make sure we are at Calais in time to check in and get on the boat.