This will be a quick update on the past 14 days or so. As mentioned in our last Blog entry, we travelled by train from London to Nittel, which is a small place south of Trier in Germany. We caught the Eurostar to Brussels, then changed to an IC to Luxembourg, before catching a local train to a place called Wasserbillig, which was still in Luxembourg but not far from the German border.

Some comments about European trains – the Eurostar is great, Belgian IC trains are a drab cousin to the German IC trains and Luxembourg offers free public transport anywhere within the country! We were previously aware that Luxembourg was the place to go for cheap fuel, cigarettes, alcohol, chocolate, an earlier retirement age than neighbouring countries but free public transport too? How do they afford it? We asked the question and we were told that the government taxes the banks who have their offices in Luxembourg! And the banks pay because it is still cheaper there than in other European countries!

Back to our arrival – Our friends, Rosie & Torsten were at the train station to meet us and took us to their home where we had a lovely meal and I had to crank up the old German language, as I reckon that I’ve spent the next few days talking German about 70% of the time and now my brain aches!

We first met Rosie & Torsten in Norway, when we were camping in the Lofoten Islands in 2014. They pulled up in their car, opened the door and the most beautiful young black Labrador jumped out of the car and came over for pats.  This was Benny!  We have seen them a few times since and we’ve seen Benny growing up, but this time, he has aged – given that he is now 11 years old, I shouldn’t be surprised. And he is still a beautiful Labrador!

One of the big ticket items for this trip was the hiring of a Motorhome for 11 weeks in Europe. We rented it though a company called McRent, which is fairly widespread across the EU. We arranged to pick the Motorhome up in Saarlouis, which is only an hour south from Rosie’s place.  Then it was time to head back to Nittel to unpack our luggage and stock up with drinks and groceries. One of the reasons why we like a Motorhome in Europe is the ability to self-cater, so we had arranged for a Kitchen Pack. Sadly this was a bit light-on in terms of cooking utensils, but Rosie kindly supplemented the kit and we bought a few other bits & pieces. After filling the water tank and the fuel tank, we were ready to head to France.

Nick and Torsten had planned routes, making sure that we avoided the dreadfully expensive Auto-Routes in France. We have become huge fans of the Routes Nationales (N-roads) and the Departmental (D) roads. And Google Maps still has a lot to learn about our preferred method of travel.

We survived our first day in France, found a cheap Aires (5€) in a place called Berneuil-sur-Aisne, which proved to be a perfect stepping off location to visit the Château de Pierrefonds. This Château was used as a location in the original French comedy movie “Les Visiteurs”, starring Jean Reno and is a favorite movie for us. This movie predates the Hollywood remake which I have never seen.

A little bit of info about the Château – it was built in 1397 by Duke Louis of Orléans and it was dismantled in 1617 under the order of Louis XIII. The ruin was purchased by Napoleon I in 1810 and, as a ruin, was a popular site until Napoleon III wanted to turn it into an imperial residence in 1857. The job of restoration was handed to an architect called Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, who had a passion for Medieval architecture and, in Pierrefonds, he was prone to rebuild and decorate how he thought things should have been. After almost 20 years, the work was never completed! Nick called it a “rest-imagination”.

Our second stop was over towards the coast, in Fècamp which is in the Province of Seine-Maritime. We stayed there for a few nights, to celebrate Nick’s birthday and also Bastille Day. Fécamp is famous for the chalk cliffs, just like around Dover, but in France this area is called the Alabaster Coast. Maybe because it was such a busy weekend, with great summer weather and Bastille Day, but we discovered that we couldn’t go sightseeing in the Motorhome! Boy, are we missing our e-bikes, which are back at home!

From Fécamp, it was onto Granville, which is a fishing village north of Mont-Saint-Michel. Why Granville? Do I hear you ask? To start with, it wasn’t Mont-Saint-Michel, which would have been inundated with tourists and we had already visited there in 2013. An old school friend of mine (sorry Aileen – not so old!) had been telling me about her French, sorry Breton heritage and mentioned that she had ancestors that had come from Granville. So, when we were looking at a map to decide where to next… there it was!

Granville is very much a fishing port, with a lovely Upper Old Town which is very windswept. There are also an array of Bunkers that had been built in WW2 but also some that had been built in the 18th Century. We enjoyed walking around the Port and Haute-Ville, admiring the beautiful Chaussey granite that had been used to build the original sea wall and the Church, Notre Dame du Cap Lihou, so named because, in the 12th Century, fishermen raised a statue of the Virgin Mary in their nets off Cap Lihou.

Another interesting fact about Granville, it is a town that is proud of its history as a Privateer Town. The inhabitants of the town were given a Coat of Arms and tax exemption in a Charter of Franchise in 1445 by Charles VII.  There is even a statue to a “Corsair Granvillais” in the Port! Apparently, if you hold a Royal Charter/Warrant, then you can be a pirate and not get into trouble! There has also been a lot of movement of cod fishermen between Granville and Newfoundland (Terre-Neuvas). If I understood when I read correctly (it was in French), in off-season Cod boats would relocate between Granville and Newfoundland, and there is still one Newfoundland Cod boat that still works off Granville.

After our time in Normandy, it was time to move into Brittany. Our first stop was Dinan – this time, we used tried and true “close your eyes and pick a point” method to choose the next stop. We didn’t know what to expect when we reached Dinan, but we are happy to say that it is a gem of a town, with lots of history and great architecture.  Driving to Dinan, we crossed a river, La Rance. When you study French language & culture at school, you learn about la Seine and Le Loire but there are so many other beautiful, clean rivers in France and La Rance is one of them.

Dinan has a river port but the original town is set so high about the river (there is a lot of granite around this area) that there is a second town, Port-Dinan on the river. Dinan has over 1000 years of history and the old town is wonderfully preserved. Dinan boasts of having more 100 half-timbered houses, like the sort that we would call a Tudor-style. We were surprised to see so many examples of this type of architecture outside of England, but then I suppose that building methods were fairly similar in the two countries.

Whilst in Dinan, we did a round-city tour with a small train. Dinan wasn’t the first town where we’ve seen these trains – that was in Saarburg, but they are common. For the princely price of €10- each, we were taken around the Old Town and then down to the Port and back to the Hotel-de-Ville. I don’t think that we would have managed the walk back up the hill from the Port, so we may have decided to skip it, if we were relying on walking around, but the little train made it all worthwhile and well were really impressed with the Port and with Dinan.

Now it was time to enjoy some beach time. We were heading right up into the heart of Brittany and camping at a place called Plougasnou. Actually the Campground was at Primel-Trégastel and the view was absolutely stunning! Though, at first we thought that the French didn’t understand beaches – all the beaches that we saw on the western side of the peninsular were rocky beaches, but then walked around to the eastern side and we found sandy beaches! No surf to speak of but at least you could walk along the beach and not risk breaking your ankle! And we also found our first Kayakomat! In our travels around Europe in the last, we have seen food automats, but also automats for potatoes, break, fresh vegetables, even wine… but kayaks???

Our last stop in Brittany was a night in Morlaix, which was about 30kms south of Plougasnou. It is another old town that was a river port and had a strong history of linen production. We managed to do some shopping at the Saturday morning market, have a Plat du Jour lunch and do a walking tour around the town, or most of it, before the heavens opened.

We are enjoying a mix of campgrounds with full services, and interspersing them with a night at an Aire de Camping, which is like a free camp in Australia. But there are a few differences -only self-contained Motorhomes can use them and the pricing structure can vary from expensive (€12 for a parking space and pay extra for water) to cheap (free parking and pay a nominal fee for water or power) or fair pricing (€7 for camping with access to power, water & the ability to empty grey water).

Yes, we have been to both Normandy and Brittany before, but we really enjoyed this return visit. We’ve hardly seen a single WW2 museum and have enjoyed exploring some new areas in both provinces.  Next stop – Bordeaux and the Dordogne area but you will have to wait.