France

May 2005

Norfolk Lines were doing an excellent price (£88) on shipping campervans across from Dover to Dunkerque so I thought I'd take the parents' campervan across to France for a spin before the big summer trip.

I didn’t really have much chance to think about the trip and I pretty much just piled my gear into the campervan on the Friday night and took off for Dover the following morning. The ferry left at 5pm on Saturday March 28th. Norfolk Lines is usually a ferry company dealing with freight, but this year, they have a promotional campaign to increase their customers. It isn’t P& O but it is half the price and you should try and take advantage of it in 2005.

With France an hour behind me, the two hour crossing meant I arrived at 8pm local time, with daylight lasting until after 10pm. I have crossed the English Channel so many times, it is a routine trip. For years, I drove to France to buy my wine and into Belgium to pick up decent beer, saving a fortune on annual socialising. I would even take my empty bottles back for the deposit money.

Tonight, the immediate jobs were to pick up some cheap wine, smelly cheese and sausage at a hypermarket to get ‘Bob Food’ well stocked for the trip. As I waited to be processed, there was an animated discussion between a couple of fat French ladies and the young cashier. Maybe she was commenting on the fact that they had a lot more than 10 items in the ‘10 items or less’ queue or maybe she just called them fat bastards. Whatever she said, they didn’t like it and gave her enough verbal abuse for all the neighbouring cashiers to stop and listen to the argument before a security guard was eventually called. It was refreshing to see that the French also have ‘supermarket rage’. Consequently, it took me 15 minutes to buy less than 10 items. Laugh? I nearly insulted them myself.

I also had to fill up the almost empty campervan with French priced diesel. Currently the hypermarkets are charging less than a Euro per litre. It worked out at least £14 cheaper to fill up the campervan in France than the UK. Top tip: always arrive in France with an empty petrol tank and fill up before you return to the UK.

One problem with the hypermarkets is that after normal working hours, you have to use special credit cards on the petrol pumps (rather than a cashier). These are cards provided by the hypermarkets/garages and as English tourists you will not have one. We didn’t and drove on fumes down the main coastal road until I came across a garage with an attendant.

This was at a rest stop which was a small motorway service area. In France, there are free overnight stops (‘Aire de’ whatever) where you can sleep for a few hours in your car/truck and often get a shower. It was 10pm but I decided to push on to try and find a campsite before resorting to this. Another top tip to remember in France is when you see ‘Peage’ on blue signs, it means ‘Toll Road’ and you will pay for the privilege of travelling at speed. With a campervan, speed was irrelevant and throughout the week, my quest was to avoid toll roads – which can lead to some interesting diversions. Generally, I find the local roads to be more enjoyable, if slower. At least you get to see some French towns and villages even if the traffic lights are an annoying delay and you get to yell “Are you local?” at the pedestrians in French.

I bypassed the night lights of Calais and Boulogne, but headed for the coast soon after into the hamlet of Condette where I spotted a camping sign and found a campsite still open at 11pm. I had my own hedged area and shared clean facilities.

The trouble with France, as with any European country, is that there is just so much to see. Every city has historical sites, every region has different scenery. So to keep it simple, I decided to stick to the regions of Normandy and Brittany and to mix it up a bit with historical stuff and scenery. The tour did take in some of the best sights you can see within a restricted time period. Being a ‘Jack Tour’, the idea was to see as much as possible without spending any money to see it!

The following morning, just being nosy, I drove down to the nearby Hardelot Plage which appeared to be area where people had bought land and then had their own houses designed. The area was full of unique, distinct houses which really gave the wooded area some character. There was also a splendid beach (Plage). This was one place I wouldn’t mind living in, especially since it was called ‘Hard A Lot’ – obviously giving me street cred on my sexual prowess!

The rain started and kept up all day – a fine drizzle that just never stopped. I headed for Rouen. As the capital of Upper Normandy and one of France’s most ancient and historic cities, it was essentially destroyed during World War Two and has been rebuilt to try and pretend that the centre is a remnant of an old medieval town. The River Seine also runs through the centre and cuts the city in half. The Cathedral de Notre Dame somehow remains at heart the Gothic masterpiece that was built in the 12th and 13th centuries, although all sorts of different towers and spires have since been added. The most recent of these, in the 19th Century, was the iron spire of the central lantern tower, which made it at 151m the highest in France at that time. The interior was impressive with a huge area of space and history seeping from the carved stone. Strangely, there is a large bed inside, which belongs to the Jack family. My father told me that my ancestor was the Chancellor of the Exchequer for King Louis XIV. The King had presented him with the bed as a reward for his honesty. Not a lot of people know that. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t fit on the campervan roof so I had to leave it.

Up the road, in amongst the ‘Disney’ medieval landscaping, lies the Gros Horloge – a colourful one handed clock moved there in 1529. Further along is the Place du Vieux Marche in which a small plaque and a huge cross, 20m high, marks the site where Joan of Arc was burned to death on May 30th 1431. Ironically, France’s patron saint was executed because she insisted on wearing mens’ clothing. Only in France. In 1979, a new memorial church to the saint was constructed in the square – a “wacky, spiky looking thing” (Rough Guide) designed to accommodate some 16th Century stained glass rescued from a World War Two destroyed church. It is said to represent either an upturned boat or the flames that consumed Joan. To me, it represents unbeatable sheer bad late 1970s architectural taste. It rather dominates the square for all the wrong reasons. The only highlights are the fish shaped windows near the floor. What I could do with a gallon of petrol and a match.

Rouen in the rain is a pretty miserable place. It took about three hours to get there and only an hour to tour these sights before I decided to push on. Avoiding the A13 autoroute, it took an age to negotiate the minor roads and head for Honfleur across the estuary from La Havre. Honfleur is ‘the best preserved of the old ports of Normandy’ (Rough Guide) – a perfect seaside town that is lacking only a beach. It used to have one, but with the accumulation of the silt from the River Seine (heading west from Rouen), the sea has steadily withdrawn and left the original coastal houses high and, er, dry. The ancient port, however, still functions for pleasure craft and I wwas fortunate (?) to have the small bridge rise up in front of me to let half a dozen boats through who had been waiting. When the bridge went up, the whole town seemed to stop and watch.

Despite the pouring rain, while waiting for the bridge, I was able to look over at the old centre, around the ‘bassin’ where slate fronted houses, one or two stories higher than seems possible, are harmonised despite their tottering and ill matched structures, into a wonderful backdrop. Next to me stood the Lieutenance at the harbour entrance, the 1608 residence of the King’s Lieutenant, responsible for the harbour. It all looked very inviting, but not in the rain. I postponed the walking tour and pencilled it in for the return journey.

Leaving the Middle Ages, it was time to move forward in time and take a look at the World War Two D-Day Beaches along the Cote De Nacre; wide stretches of sand, backed by scrubland and still dominated by the memories of 1944 when they served as the landing beaches for the Allied forces. It is now hard to picture the scene at dawn on D (Deliverance)-Day, 6th June where this foothold in Europe was won at the cost of 100,000 lives. The beaches are still often referred to by their wartime codenames. The British and Commonwealth forces landed on Sword, Juno and Gold beaches between Ouistreham and Arromanches; the Americans further west on Omaha and Utah beaches. Actual physical traces of the fighting are rare, but there are endless cemeteries and most towns have a war museum. Best of all, Steven Speilberg or Private Ryan are nowhere to be seen.

I pottered along the coast in the late afternoon to see what I came across. The first sight was Pegasus Bridge, 5km south of Ouistreham where on the night before D-Day, the twin bridges here that cross a canal were the target of a daring glider assault. Capturing them intact was a crucial objectives for the Allies, because it would enable them to advance east along the coast but also stop the Germans from sending reinforcements. An old mounted tank pointed it gun towards the strange bridge.

While driving through the sleepy resort towns often renamed with ‘Montgomery’ or ‘Churchill’ in the titles, I did not pay attention to the roads where the locals had unhelpfully built difficult-to-see ‘ramps’ as traffic calming measures. As I banked the first at a decent rate of knots, the whole campervan seemed to take off and the microwave at the back launched itself into the air and on to the floor. After that, I kept a close eye out for ramps.

31km along the coast, I arrived at Arromanches, in the pouring rain and checked into a forlorn municipal camping site. It rained all night while the wind buffeted the van. I was so glad to be on holiday in France. Not!

The next morning, C-Day 3 (Campervan Day 3), the sun was shining, the wind had gone and all was well with the world. It was like a different place. Looking out from the cliffs, I could see the remnants of the artificial Mulberry Harbour. “Port Winston” facilitated the landings of two and a half million men and half a million vehicles during the Invasion. The prefabricated concrete constructions were built in segments in Britain and then submerged in rivers to hide them. On the third day after the invasion, they were all towed across the Channel. 50+ old ships were sunk to provide a breakwater and then the concrete was set in place to provide a harbour shelter over three times the size of Dover. During 1944, it was the busiest ‘port’ in the World. Now, all you can see are remnants of the concrete constructions arching around the coast to give you an idea of the scale of the operation. I had never heard of the Mulberry Harbour and nearly resisted the urge to yell ‘Torpedo, los!’ at the visiting German tourists.

Just down the coast is the small village of Longues-Sur-Mer. On the nearby coast and with a view of the Mulberry harbour, lies the best preserved German defensive post to survive the war. ‘La Batterie de Longues–Sur-Mer’ consists of four concrete Nazi pillboxes from which mighty gun barrels still point out across the channel. The first one has been left after it was blown up. I tagged onto a English tour group where the very informative guide told us that the pillbox had been blown up by a one ton shell fired from a ship 12 miles out to sea! How did they get their accuracy? The French milkmen who delivered milk to the German troops manning the guns would count the paces between the pillboxes, calculate the distances and pass them onto the French Resistance. The other three pillboxes had been restored with guns to show you want they would have looked like. On the coast itself was another look out used in the movie ‘The Longest Day’. I liked this whole site which was nestled between the summer crops of wheat. It was real history and it was free!

For the World War Two aficionado, the whole coastline offers enough poking around for a holiday in itself. I did, not, for example, bother to check out any of the museums which would have given me the true story of the D-Day landings. It was May 30th and during the week I did see men driving old American jeeps towards the area for the annual reunions in the first week of June. There were also lots of tourists coming to have a look.

Jumping in my time machine, I headed inland and back to the 11th Century to Bayeux. Despite the hoards of tourists that come here, it has a small intimate feel about it. It was the first French city to be liberated after the D-Day landings. Like every other tourist, I had come to see the famous tapestry; a 70m strip of linen that recounts the story of the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. “Although created over nine centuries ago, the brilliance of its coloured wools has hardly faded and the tale is enlivened throughout with scenes of medieval life, popular fables and mythical beasts” (Rough Guide). The tapestry looks and reads like a modern comic strip. Supposedly, it is historically accurate with William’s justification for his invasion being the fact that a shipwrecked Harold (an English Prince) promised the throne of England to William as a reward for saving him. But when King Edmund died, Harold was quickly pronounced King and William sought revenge. He crossed over to England with his Norman army and kicked serious butt. England never recovered from this French invasion. We are still using the phrase ‘déjà vu’ even now!

Housed in an impressive building, you go through three simple but effective stages. Firstly, upstairs, you follow a replica of the tapestry which fills you in on details. Then you watch a 15 minute movie that repeats the story and draws further attention to the detail. Finally, armed with an English tape, you descend and walk along the real thing while the commentary also points out the significant things. Such reinforcement was an excellent idea. By the time you saw the real thing, you knew what to look for and it all made sense. Sadly, the thing that most caught my end were the numerous horses with very large erections – but then they would wouldn’t it. I laughed as other parents shuffled their kids past saying “Oh look over there at that scene!” “Mummy - what is that horse doing?” “Ask your father, he can probably still remember what it means.”

I came away very impressed and much more knowledgeable about 1066 and all that. Walking around the sleepy town, I popped into the impressive Cathedral Notre Dame; the first home of the tapestry. Of Romanesque design with Gothic additions, it is a beautiful cathedral; loads of over the top decorations and gargoyles outside and stately stonework inside set off by beautifully carved wooden choir stalls. It was a real gem.

Leaving Bayeux, I passed some World War Two cemeteries and a couple of tanks keeping watch. It was a lovely sunny day and I headed south west along a fast dual carriageway racing with German campervans. Campervan people seem to like to wave at each other and it became a regular occurrence to acknowledge any other.

Just past Avranches, I pulled into the sleepy hamlet of Pontaubault and checked into the virtually empty campsite run by an English family for the last 12 years. Glad to have a short day, I sunbathed and read and drank local vino.

I had deliberately stopped 30 minutes from Mont St Michel and in the morning, got up early to ensure I would have the place to myself before the tour buses arrived. Despite the fact it was only 8.30am, there were already a dozen tour buses parked on the causeway, but I could walk around the battlements with few people around.

Mont St Michel is probably one of the most recognizable French silhouettes after the Eiffel Tower, even on an overcast day like today. Anyone who visits France has probably visited it. I had seen it as a 13 year old in 1973 when I was staying with a French family on an exchange program. I remember us parking on the sand and having to rush around before the tide came in threatening to wash the cars away. Now there was a proper raised causeway and cars could park at anytime. It cost 8 Euros to leave the campervan – the only parking I paid for all week.

The island at the very frontier of Normandy and Brittany has, for over a 1000 years, housed the Abbey of Mont St Michel that sits at the top of the 80 metre high rocky outcrop in the middle of a silted bay. It is a fortified hotchpotch of Romanesque and Gothic buildings, piled one on top of the other. I entered through the tall fortified walls via the Porte du Roi into the narrow Grande Rue, climbing steadily around the base of the rock. It was lined with medieval gabled houses and full of tacky souvenir shops and restaurants. Later in the day, as I left, I could hardly move along this street for the crowds. I cut up to the battlements and generally just explored at leisure. Apart from the Abbey, there was nothing much to see, but it was nice to feel as if you were walking around history, even if it has been rebuilt to cater for a 20th Century tourist’s ideas of what medieval history was.

The base of Mont St Michel rests on a slime of sand and mud. To escape the crowds, I walked around the whole island by the edge of the tidal channel where quick sand lurked. As the tide started to come in, dozens of fish would leap out of the water. I have no idea why, but I had never seen so many do it.

By the time I arrived in the old town of St Malo in the early afternoon, the sun was booming out. Walled and built with the same grey granite stone as Mont St Michel, St Malo was originally a fortified island controlling an estuary and surrounding coastline. Now attached to the mainland, it’s the most visited place in Brittany due to its superb old citadel. I strolled around the ramparts looking out at the lovely coloured sea and then explored the narrow cobbled streets full of shops, restaurants and hotels. There was a nice relaxed atmosphere here.

Outside St Malo, I pulled into a hypermarket to restock on food. Up to now, I had always had a check before I set off. Is the step outside pushed in? electric cable disconnected? gas off? cupboards shut? I was so pleased to find some goodies that I dumped the shopping inside and slid through to the front seat eager to get at my spicy sausage (oo-er) and when I pulled into the garage section, there was an loud scrape. I had forgotten to pull up the step and the handle had caught the high kerb, slightly buckling the step and destroying the handle. Doh! For the rest of the trip, the step had to be held up by a bungee cord until my dad and me fixed it upon our return. I suppose it could have been worse. My brother had taken the previous campervan to France, left the step down which was completely smashed when he drove to close to something. You only leave a step down once!

Heading inland, I had one more sight to check out. I am always trying to find sights that the average tourist will never bother to check out and Dinan was the gem of the week. The wonderful citadel of Dinan has preserved, almost intact, its three kilometre encirclement of protective masonry, along with street upon colourful street of late medieval houses. It was never bombed during the war and has managed to retain a real medieval feel. I arrived around 6pm and explored the sleepy streets taken aback by the superb original and colourfully painted medieval houses in the centre. There is nothing to do here but walk and relax but if you are passing by, it’s well worth the visit. There also is a modern bridge that crosses the river and overlooks the old inland port that also looks relatively untouched with its line of old houses.

Although I wanted to stay, I couldn’t find a municipal campsite and headed back towards the Brittany coast along narrow twisty roads, with few road signs telling us where I was. It was past 9pm but still light when I reached the small town of Matignon and the only campsite I had seen in 2 hours. It was also virtually empty and I had the place to myself.

It was raining when I set off for the coast and walked down to the impressive Fort La Latte, used regularly as a film set. From here, I could see Cap Frehel and walked in between the heather to reach the lighthouse and take in the lovely coastal landscape as storm clouds massed.

There was nothing to do but drive so I headed towards the Coast of Rose Granite; a series of small seaside resorts and rocky coastlines, tiny sandy beaches and wonderful pink granite outcrops. Lunching at Erquy , I then found the fifteenth century Chateau De La Roche Jagu which stands on a heavily wooded slope above the meanderings of the Trieux River. “It’s a really gorgeous building, a harmonious combination of fortress and home. The central solid façade is composed of irregular red-granite boulders, cemented together” (Rough Guide). I took a hike down to the river to watch a Frenchman and his two daughters fishing (unsuccessfully) and climbed back up. There were splendid roses climbing the buildings. I suppose it was just another sight to punctuate the driving.

Late in the afternoon, the sun returned and I relaxed on a beach before finding a municipal campsite right by the sea near Tregastel . At 12 Euros it was a steal. I don’t know where it came from but later that night I started to cough and sneeze and felt pretty wretched. I dosed myself up and tried to sleep it off.

Thursday morning (C-Day 6) was inevitably overcast and windy. Not exactly beach weather. And I felt like shit. I decided to make it a driving day to return to Normandy, to cut down the travelling on Friday. By the time I turned around, there were 835 miles on the clock since leaving Norwich. Just south of Tregastel lay the puffball dome of the 1962 Pleumier-Bodou Telecommunications Centre, now a museum. Nothing special but worth a photo.

I made for Rennes and bypassed it because the small town of Vitre east of Rennes, held more interest as a “lesser rival to Dinan as the best preserved medieval town in Brittany” (Rough Guide). The thirteenth century walls are no longer quite complete but its castle looks magnificent with fairy tale towers and pointed slate grey roofs that look like freshly sharpened pencils. There were lots of old narrow streets to wander around with a selection of medieval houses. It was a pleasant stop after driving all morning.

Northwards lay Fougeres, which supposedly was picturesque according to one guidebook, but I found nothing worth exploring and didn’t bother to stop. In the late afternoon, the overcast skies cleared and gentle sun bathed the green countryside. I went on a magical mystery tour to find the fabled village of Camembert where they make the famous French cheese. To find it, I had to drive for miles along empty narrow country lanes, past rich green fields full of cows and no signs for Camembert until I was less than 7km away. It wasn’t on any road map Ie had. It was a case of following my nose.

In retrospect, with the sun falling, and the quiet rural ambience, this was probably the most beautiful scenery I saw all week. The rough Guide summed up Camembert as “tiny, hilly and very rural, home to far more cows than humans. On one side of its little central square the largest local cheese producers La Ferme President run their own cheese museum.” But not at 8pm when I rolled up. The twinky village was deserted. I didn’t see anyone. But it had been worth the hunt.

Back on the main road, I found a cheap campsite at Vimoutiers which still had a reception open at 9pm. A full day’s driving had done nothing to improve my health. A virus had got me and for the second night, I just hit my bed dosed up and with a ragged throat, was eating little

Friday morning (C-Day 7). Still overcast. I decided to make for Honfleur again (which I had passed through on the second day). It took an age to reach it on local roads and endless traffic lights and when I arrived a traffic cop was tempted to book me when I did a U-turn to park on the side of a major road. “Ju cannot park ere”. “Why not?” “Jus for carz. You mus park at ze campervan park”. I had already checked this out and baulked at the 9 Euro parking fee. I only wanted a quick stroll. So ze French policeman learnt the English for “Stuff your parking policy, I’ll go and spend my money elsewhere” and I left town. Two strike outs. I wouldn’t be back for a third.

So I headed back to Rouen in the pouring rain. What is it about Rouen and rain? I never saw it in a dry state. Just for old times sake, I decided to pop into Belguim on the way to Dunkerque …sort of. It took hours of local roads, local traffic lights, local roundabouts (I went over the edge of one which was different) and endless delays.

En route, I popped into Amiens to check out the wonderful cathedral of Notre Dame. It dominates the city by its sheer size. It’s the biggest Gothic building in France, but its appeal lies mainly in its unusual uniformity of style. Begun in 1220, it was mostly finished in 10 years, so it escaped the influence of succeeding architectural fads. It was certainly he most impressive Cathedral I saw on the trip with restored statues adorning the main facades.

It took most of the afternoon to reach the Belgium border and just after passing the border sign, a ‘wrath of god’ thunderstorm erupted to dispel the humidity. I’d never waterskied in a campervan before, but I managed it today with the amount of rain falling. Then the hailstones started (in June?) and the winds. “Welcome to Belgium” I tactfully said as the windscreen wipers failed to clear the rain.

By the time I reached Ypes (pronounced Eeps), the rain had stopped. I knew Ypes well (from all the beer runs). Completely destroyed in World War One, it was rebuilt and its central square and Town Hall are outstanding. There is also an excellent war museum which I had attempted to reach in time but it had closed by the time I arrived at 5.30pm. No matter, the square still looked magnificent.

Back in France,I rolled into Dunkerque and I hit the hypermarket to fill up with a serious quantity of cheap French wine, Belgium beer, cheese, sausages, chocolates…all the main food groups. It took an age to find a camp site outside town but I found one by a long flat sandy beach at Bray Dunes, where sand yachts were raced in between all the tanks we had left in 1940 (I’m only kidding).

On Saturday, I filled up the campervan with the last batch of cheap French diesel. The Northern Lines ferry to Dover left at the civilised hour of 10.30am. I was home near Norwich by 5pm with a clear run all the way home.

It’s always a pleasure to tour France. Since it is very close to the UK and I have popped across so many times, I take it very much for granted. But when you actually spend an occasional week touring a specific region, it is amazing what you come across. I have no problem with the French people. To be honest, I was moving so quickly, I hardly met any.

Postscript: That virus lasted two weeks and destroyed any training for the Marathon Des Sables. In the second week, it returned with a vengeance. Even now, a month later, I have only just shaken it. I coughed up my lungs for days on end. A fellow colleague also in France that week (in a different area) got the same virus which struck him down too. It seemed to leave our bodies on the same day. It’s a small world.