The long road home to Calais

We left Condrieu, early in the morning, and followed the directions that the satnav gave us, which in this case was on a very narrow winding road, over the hills.   Luckily there were only cyclists on the road, as we would have had difficulty passing any oncoming cars.     

We finally arrived at the free motorway by St Chamond, without hitting another vehicle, or damaging our side mirrors, or knocking a cyclist off a bike. 

Before I go further, we have gone back to the voice of Ken, the softly spoken Australian, who featured on our last satnav.   He has a comforting voice, well known, and used to us complaining every time he took us to places not expected, such as to the square by the statue of David, in Florence.  As our road atlas was inadequate for the purpose, we really had to rely on Ken this time, and mostly he was okay.  

The view in the photograph below looks down towards St Chamond, which we saw twice as we did a loop here, due to Ken wanting to take us onto a toll road.   The satnav reverted to the original instructions after we stopped for coffee.   Luckily we realised the mistake before we drove too far.

We drove around St-Etienne.  On the main motorway (A7) we always made comments that it must be an important town as every side road appeared to lead to St-Etienne.   So now we have seen the town, or rather the city, close up, and it certainly had a great many high rise apartment blocks rising up on the hillside.     

After St-Etienne we basically followed the N7 all the way to Paris, sometimes on free motorways, but mostly on single lane roads.   The speed limit of 110 kmh (free motorway) and 90 kmh (single lane roads) suited us in our motor home.   As it was Sunday there were no trucks on the roads, which also made driving pleasurable.  We passed many motor homes though, who were also avoiding the toll roads.

We drove through Moulins, Nevers, Cosne-Cours-sur-Loire, Montargis, Fontainebleau (such a pretty wooded area) plus many small villages and towns.  We did notice, however, that the houses in some of the villages were in very bad repair, as were the roads, and a great number of shops were boarded up, even a supermarket in one town was permanently closed.  Obviously a sign of the current economic climate.    We felt very sad about this.   

We stopped in this small town (not sure of the name) for a quick cup of coffee, and a chance to photograph the local church.  

We drove around the eastern side of Paris, on busy roads, trying in vain to find familiar landmarks.   We saw the sign for EuroDisney, passed over the A4, and drove behind Charles de Gaulle airport.    By now we were looking out for camping ground signs, but there were none to be found.

We saw the sign for Parc Asterix so knew we were near the A1, the main motorway into Paris from Calais.  We then drove into the town of Senlis, in order to look for an aire, but all we heard were horns blasting us as we drove slowly around the city.   Senlis had a beautiful church and monastery, and was very picturesque, but no camping ground or aire.

Walter finally saw a camping ground sign, and we followed it, only to find the camping ground had closed, according to the guests at a wedding party that Walter gatecrashed.   I sat in the motorhome and took a photograph of the cars in the carpark, with a small church behind them.

So, as we left our camping and aire books behind in the UK, we decided that we would give in and book into a hotel for the night, a Premier Classe (cheap) hotel, and ate dinner at the restaurant in the Campanile Hotel next door.  So much for saving money on tolls.

In the morning we set off again, and stopped at the edge of a village in order to have breakfast, which consisted of left over baguettes from the previous day.   Baguettes are designed to be eaten on the day they are made, so the next day they are either chewy or very hard and dry, depending on the weather.   Ours were chewy.

We followed a series of small roads towards Rouen, then Dieppe, and then finally we found ourselves on the outskirts of Abbeville.   We really had to rely on Ken, as we found it difficult to pick up the numbers of the roads on our limited map.

The villages, certainly more prosperous than the northern ones, were fascinating.  The wooden beams, with plaster in between, reminded us of villages in England.

The poppies in the fields were in full bloom.  Swathes of them.

And finally we arrived at the port of Calais, and lined up to catch the 3.20 p.m. ferry, which was an hour late leaving, due to the volume of vehicles travelling to Dover.

And amongst the hundreds of cars, trucks, and coaches there were thirty VW cars, campervans and small trucks who had been on a rally in Belgium.   They were certainly attracting much attention, while we all waited on the ferry to arrive.

We really enjoyed our alternative route from Lyon to Calais, and are determined that we will find an alternative way down to the south of France in August.    While it is certainly quicker to belt down the main motorway, the slower alternative routes are more interesting, require less concentration, and in the case of the motorhome, provide a huge saving on fuel (driving at a lower speed) and toll charges.  

After three years of retirement we finally realised that we do not have to rush, and can take our time!