Our France Trip

[Selous]

Hi all,

Hope is is ok, not too long or in the wrong place.
Not exactly RTW but we enjoyed it.

Well this was to be mine & Jeanette’s first long trip, as a couple some of you may remember last year we went to the French Belgium boarder for bastille weekend.
This trip was to be part of my Holiday entitlement so wanted it to be good, the ‘cunning plan’ was to go from Calais, to Millau & hopefully if time allowed may be a day in Spain & a day on the Pyrenees boarder.
It was also to be a test to see what worked & what didn’t for the pair of us.
I got cheap tickets with P & O for £15.00 each way; I do not have a fear of tunnels just not keen Jeanette unfortunately is, on the Euro Tunnel unfortunately.
I had plotted a route From Calais to a village near Limoges by a few Km this was to allow for us to go see Oradour-sur-Glane, (Village of the martyrs), the following day my original plan was scuppered when as we left Calais, there was some form of accident & all major roads leading to Amiens where closed? (our routes was to take in all different roads for the experience)
So our revised route took us to Paris, Orleans, Chateauroux & Limoges, it rained from the moment we left the Essex/Suffolk Boarder till we got to Limoges, (sods law we thought), we were staying at an ACSI Site, ACSI Eurocampings - 9600 by ACSI inspected camp sites in Europe! of which I joined meant we got a discount card.
The site we stayed at was called Camping des Alouettes camping des alouettes - piscine, mobile-home, limoges, limousin, france a nice Dutch couple, according to the web site they have just got a swimming pool, (not finished yet), the site is approx. 1 K from Cognac-la-Foret a nice small village, (where after visiting Oradour-sur-Glane, we stopped for a coffee in the café), we had planned to stay here for 2 nights, to allow us the whole day to visit Oradour-sur-Glane, & surrounding area, as apparently there is another village where you can visit & it is like a living museum you can go in too there houses see them work the land etc. but was not able to find out the name of it.

Just a thing about the camp sites, all of the camp sites we stayed at, had shower & toilet facility’s some had individual areas marked out others just pick a space & plonk your Tent camper or van! Only one of the camping sites did not have loo paper?!! These sites also cater for campers & we had been given a number of names & sites to look out for as very ‘nice’.










We left Cognac-la-Foret to go to Millau, with glorious weather, it always make riding a bike far better me thinks, we had already booked at the site Larribal email camping.larribal@wanadoo.fr our site,
As you can see what lovely view we had every morning





This was to be our base for exploring this area for a few days then on towards the boarder, as it happened it didn’t happen, we enjoyed ourselves there we stayed & visited more round that region. We found some tourist information sites & looked to visit some of these places & offered some interesting routes also, the first day was like all new sites town feed get the feel of things.

We had put a bit of a must the Viaduct & some of the Tarn & Dourbie Gorge’s. As recommended by folk from here so we did tick some of our boxes.

The day we did the Viaduct lucky we did as the next day was the local marathon across the viaduct. One of the suggested routes was called Des Gallo-romans, (from the Gallo-Romans to the Templars) this route was only 85km but including the Viaduct meant about 100km
Below is some of the route excluding the Viaduct, but in places, seeing castles, cottages on mountain sides was breath-taking not to mention the fantastic roads, we got to see, two eagles flying level & below & above of us a number of times.

12100 Avenue de Millau Plage, Millau,
Saint-Georges-de-Luzençon,
Roquefort-sur-Soulzon (where the cheese is made)
Saint-Jean-d'Alcapiès
Le Viala-du- Pas-de-Jaux
Sainte-Eulalie-de-Cernon,
L'Hospitalet-du-Larzac,
La Cavalerie,
Creissels, ( I tryd to place in as a map route as screen dump but no go sorry





After a number of days & different routes we decided going to Spain was an idea but was enjoying where we were, so Spain went out of the window.

What I found funny was all the kids riding scooters like Barry Sheen, (if anyone besides me remember him?), but the police where very tolerant with people parking anywhere! We went into town one day there was a Rd closure cars just drove around the barrier, including the police!!





Eventually after doing some of these routes round the Gorges & sights we headed back towards the UK going up to other camp sites en route, visiting places etc.

The return Route was also for me to be a bit emotional for me as well, As one of my tick box’s was a WWI Memorial, as a Ex serviceman I find all these sort of 'sights' very difficult.
Our return route was to be up from Millau to Calais the first night stop was near Clermont Ferrand, just past & up was a nice little site about 2 km from Saint-Eloy-les-Mines, owned by another Dutch couple they provided everything it was a disused farm they did evening meals, a plate of chips where a full cooking bowl full of them hand cut to chips not French fry’s it was called Les Sucheres email: sucheres@gmail.ciom here was the first time I had to pay tourist tax 20 cents! This was the only place not to have loo paper (provide your own) & besides the ‘European’ toilets they also had a few ‘Eastern’ style, (porcelain base 2 feet marks & a hole to drop everything in to then flush), we only stayed overnight then on to, Chartres we stayed at the only site available Les Bords de l’Eure this site is in the town centre, so a nice place to stay email: camping-roussel-chartres@wanadoo.fr from there we went to go to Amiens for 3 days en route we managed to go via Paris, (never again will I go to Paris, if possible to miss lol), the route took us towards Versailles, at Versailles there is a tunnel closed to Bikes!!! Only found out when I got there! Saw the Eiffel tower & arch de triumph , we finely got to Amiens we stayed at sites & paysages le parc des Cygnes. If I could I would of looked for the municipal site, apparently they had some problems with gas at this site, so only 3 showers available from the main block and the 2 other blocks where closed first night not too bad but it picked up and the 3rd day as we were leaving it was quite full! no lights on in the loos at night either. As already stated I

wanted to go visit the WWI Anglo French Memorial

see reply

[Selous]

Cont

wanted to go visit the WWI Anglo French Memorial




English Unknown Headstones with Crosses or Regimental Crest


French Unknown Plan Crosses








Then we had the ride home, when we got home a nice cuppa & Bacon Buttie.

Some of the things we learnt on the way my Tent Omega 350 is a good size, 250 miles to 300 is enough in a day for her, me I could of gone on a bit further, (we did stop approx. every 2 hours. Going & returning.
My Coleman featherlight cooker only needed 1 800ml bottle of fluid & still came back with some left over, (we of course made T & C but seemed to mostly eat, lightly in the day then the plate of the day was enough till morning), take out 2nd cooker MSR never used.
Some of the items we took we didn’t use, i.e. 4 T shirts only used 3, 4 prs of trousers ditto 3.
Washing up liquid in sml bottle need smaller bottle
May be look again at a 2 man tent than a 3 as we had some room, & could use that for food
Once we got to where we were staying for a few days.
Never never ever bungee your bottle of coke on the outside of your bike!! Lol told her!! (don’t ask)
my main gripe is Twat Nave Rider 2 going back, day 2 stopped charging due to wet!!! good job I had an ancillary charging set up under the seat!
I will be complaing to see what they say will keep you all informed.
The question is now where to next I would love to go back to Germany/Austria, she wants Poland.