We camped the first night at Troyes municipal site - 21 Euros. The campsite was awash with water - they seemed to have had weeks of downpours and we had to drive around a few times to find a suitable pitch as all the hardstandings were taken. Eventually we just parked up on the edge of the driveway round and made sure the steps came on to the road surface. It really was very soggy and muddy underfoot on the ground and not at all what I wanted to be tramping around in and bringing in to the caravan.
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| A quick stretch ? |
Behind us (on one of the hardstanding areas) were 4 british motor homes - they had planned to tour Normandy - but, because of the atrocious weather there, they had decided to come further south in the hope of a little sunshine. Unlucky souls !! their dogs seemed happy enough though as they just love a little paddle.
On the journey down from Troyes we stopped at a motorwway cafe for a coffee and a pitstop ! we parked up next to a row of enormous lorries and I hovered in the car while Pip went off to do whatever !! We are always wary these days of being mugged and pay attention to whoever comes near the caravan.
A young chap jumped out of the lorry, tied his laces and was scrutinizing the car and caravan intently. Oh no I thought, here we go again..... but he walked casually over and came round to the passenger door side. In fact to talk to him, I had to ask him to open the door from the outside as the child lock was playing up!!
Anyway, it turned out that he was Polish and he also had a caravan back in Poland and was very interested in our journeys round Europe. He mainly camped in Poland as he found it so much cheaper but this year was thinking of venturing to Romania and maybe further as he had a new girlfriend and I gathered was out to impress her !!
As we chatted I mentioned to him that one of my best friends at school had been a girl from a polish family, the father having been tortured by the germans during the second world war and eventually he'd escaped from europe by stealing a small boat and finding his way over to britain (he actually told me he'd rowed ?).
After the war he'd returned to Poland, claimed his childhood sweetheart and they had lived all their married life in Wales. He was such a hard worker despite his hands having been mangled - and ended up by owning a local mansion and farm.
I mentioned to the young lorry driver that we used to go to the Polish Harvest Festivals years ago and that the food was amazing. He was surprised that I liked Polish food and said - wait - and ran back to his truck and returned with a chilled jar of his mother's paprika sauce called Lecho or something that sounded like that. We had it with our next meal and it was delicious. In return all I had to gift him with from britain was a jar of WI marmalade (but a special one with whisky and ginger) and he was overjoyed.
His name was Sebastian and he was a real gentleman and spoke english very well. I was pleased to have met him.
The journey down so far has been fairly easy - except for the hellhole which is LYON !! At least this time we avoided the circular route that took us almost into the city centre!! no fun with a caravan in tow.
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| Those welcome hedges.... |
Here were the most amazing hedges - the whole site was bounded by 20 foot high leylandii - a wind barrier and also all the individual pitches had a cuter version. They were much needed shelter belts in the valley and made our overnight stay here fairly peaceful. Not so much rocking!
It was a strange experience taking a shower in a cubicle which had large open areas where the wind just whistled around you and cooled you down very quickly. Almost like being showered out in the fresh air.
We awoke the next morning to brilliant sunshine and hardly a cloud in the sky.
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| The only cloud !! |
This time the journey was very pleasant as we knew it was only for a short while and we would soon be at our destination and could relax and stretch our legs a while.
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