We very reluctantly said goodbye to Merry-sur-Yonne and our friends David (doing the loos) and Zac (serving breakfasts) and Zac's very ancient Mum (tidying a serviette or two), having sat out in the sunshine for as a long as we could manage. We did our take-home shopping at a Geant Casino at Auxerre and stopped to eat our picnic at an Aire we'd spotted last year on the N77 at Pontigny. (NB to motorhoming friends - a lovely one, more like a tiny campsite, small charge.)
We drove north past St. Florentin and onto the autoroute almost to Chalons-en-Champagne, then turned left to a France Passion at Villeneuve Remeville Chevigny at the Champagne vineyard home of Philippe Leclere-Massard. As we turned at junctions on the way to the village, we were surprised to see Motorhome Aire signs leading the way. We wondered where this could be as it seemed to be heading in the same direction as we were to the FP. Yes, on arrival, there were two signs - to the FP area and the Aire. Never seen this before. What the owner has done is turn his parking area into an Aire with 4 electric pods for which he charges €5 a night. FP people would be free, but we chose to take the last pod available. All was calm with 3 already installed - NL, F & UK (got chatting to them) - when 3 more F turned up together to squeeze into the remaining space available. It meant that we were extremely hemmed in, so good job we didn't need to leave early in the morning.
(Should have taken a photo.)
Sunday 13th May
Fortunately the 3 late-comers moved off just before we were ready to go. In our conversations with the UK couple (John and Jacky from the Wirral) - both couples we've made friends with this trip come from the Wirral! - we told them about the lovely campsite not far from Calais, at Licques. As they were just over in France to buy champagne for their daughter's forthcoming wedding, they were heading that way too today.
We decided to have a walk before leaving the region, so went to Vertus, a nearby village to have a look around and do 3 geocaches.
The latter turned out to be a disaster as all were missing, but the walk was good.
Except for the swan .... beside the church was a pond between the buildings and on it was a very lonely swan, who tried his best to fly across towards us, but failed miserably because of lack of space to take off. He (could have been she) then proceded to bash his head in and out of water in a very wild manner - we think he is going mad in a space he can't get out of and with no mate.....aah
In the olden days people obviously did lots of washing - we came across 3 lavoirs in the small town.
We eventually arrived at Licques Camping and chose one of our favourite pitches, only to find John and Jacky next door! After a very dull day, it was now sunny and quite warm, so sat out chatting and discussing the merits of our Chaussons - they have an older, larger one than ours, but are now thinking of changing - that John complained to this John than meeting him is going to cost him a lot of money!
After a swim and our dinner, we spent the rest of the evening hearing about their smallholding and chatting about this and that ... which of course included all our ailments (seems to often come up in conversations at our age!).
Monday 14th May
And so this morning, we are packing up to get to the 12.35 ferry. We have taken Jacki and Philip's advice and have booked the Club Lounge for the journey - never done that before. Might be a good idea to have some comfort as it is blowing half a gale this morning!!
If you have stuck with us through this journey, we thank you very much indeed for being our blog-watchers. This will be our diary to look back on, but do like to feel the closeness of our friends and family during the trip.
To the next time ....
Welcome back! I have been reading most of the blog, honest!
ReplyDeleteGlad you've had a good time, look forward to seeing you soon.