Saturday 1 October 2022 Nido's parked up at Wissant, our last aire of this six week trip to France.  The alarm is set for 0400 tomorrow morning ready for our 0750 Shuttle and, so long as Salty's EU Pet Passport passes muster again and assuming no train or UK road delays (bound to happen now!), we'll be back in our home on Ynys Môn (Isle of Anglesey) by this time tomorrow.  We've had a walk along the seafront and on to a noisy and busy beach with Salty; the over-stimulation set him off barking so he came back to the van for some 'quiet time' and we went back for another walk.  ..read more

 Thursday 29 September 2022 Nido's parked up on the aire at Forges-les-Eaux, which is run by the campsite opposite - Camping de la Miniere. Although €9, which includes EHU, it made sense to come here as it's mid-way between last night's stop and the vets in Buchy, where Salty has an appointment tomorrow for his pre-UK worming tablet.  It's a calm, peaceful evening with a nice sunset; probably set to turn quite chilly tonight.  We've stopped here a couple of times before, first in 2013 on our first ever trip to France in a motorhome and again in March 2018, on the first day of ou ..read more

Monday 26 September 2022 Nido's parked up on the very large aire in the fishing port of Honfleur.  There's probably over 100 motorhomes here.  It costs €12 for 24 hours which includes electricity.  It wasn't that busy when we arrived, so were able to grab a pitch in the front row with a view of the marina.  It was raining hard on the way here and when we arrived, but it brightened up into the afternoon although now, as the light starts to fade, the clouds still look threatening with the chance of more rain.  We can't complain; apart from this, we've only had a couple o ..read more

Saturday 24 September 2022 Nido's parked up on a free aire in the village of Écouché.  Now if you've paid attention or have been sad enough to read all of my blogs, you'll know that we've stayed on the Écouché aire already this trip.  The thing is, I didn't know - I'd forgotten!  I picked this aire because it said there's a great pizza van with a wood oven that's in the village on a Saturday night.  I'd completely forgotten that this is the village where we found the 'pizza from the hole in the wall' machine.  It wasn't until we started to pull in to the aire this aft ..read more

Thursday 22 September 2022 Nido's parked up on a free aire in the small village of Le Guédeniau, about 30km north of Saumur.  It was a short hop today as Cathy had her online Welsh lesson until 2pm, so we didn't want to drive too far after that. Leaving Dampierre yesterday, we drove about 7 minutes along the road and parked up in the Troglodyte village of Turquant.  We'd stayed on the aire here on a previous trip, but for today we stopped in a large car park a bit further on for the day, although it can also be used as an overnight park-up.  We had a good wander around the narro ..read more

 Tuesday 20 September 2022 Nido's parked up on an aire in Dampierre-sur-Loire.  It used to be a municipal campsite, so there are no pitches, just park where you like, under the trees or in the sunshine.  Its €6 per night including services (no electricity); the servicing point to empty the loo and grey tank and fill up with fresh can be accessed without entering the aire.  It's about a mile east of the town of Saumur. The last couple of days have been fairly quiet, with short hops to the next park upa.  Sunday was admin day.  Before we left Romagne Cathy emptied o ..read more

Saturday 17 September 2022 Nido's parked up with a couple of other vans at an aire in the village of Romagne, in the Vienne department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region. We're next to some excellent sports facilities for such a small village, although I suspect it's used by the surrounding villages too.  There's a full-size rugby pitch, football pitch, tennis courts, pavilion (village hall) even a toddler-sized running track.  This is yet another free aire - free services and free 5A electricity.  I don't know how they do it but thank Monsieur Mairie and the people of the commune ..read more

Thursday 15 September 2022 Nido's parked up with seven other vans at a free aire by Lac Rouffiac near Angoisse.  It wasn't until we arrived that I realised we'd stayed here before, in May 2018.  The lake has a sandy swimming beach, watersports and fishing and is popular with school groups, with a type of 'Go Ape' in the forest trees around the edge.   After a bit of a mammoth food shop in Sarlat, we arrived at our park-up yesterday in the tiny hamlet of Lorserie, close to the village of Nailhac.  It was a bit of a gamble as not much was said about it in the Camperstop ..read more

Tuesday 13 September 2022 For two days Nido's been parked up on a campsite, shaded by trees and next to the Dordogne river.  We came here for a couple of reasons; I needed to be on electric for a Môn SAR Committee Meeting last night and the weather forecast was for some more extreme heat, so we needed to be some place where we could cool down.  We therefore came to Camping La Plage, as it was right next to the river (for Salty to cool down in) and it had a swimming pool (for us to cool down in!).  The campsite is part of the ACSI Discount Card scheme.  This is an annual sub ..read more

Thursday 8 September 2022 Since we were last here three years ago, France seems to have become a lot busier. On previous trips I can remember driving around and hardly seeing another vehicle, never mind  people walking about. But now everywhere seems so busy.  I realise we've been staying in mainly tourist areas - so they will be busier - but even allowing for that I've been surprised at the increase.  Having left Ile d'Oléron this morning, we crawled through 13km of traffic to get off the island, an almost constant flow of vehicles going both ways. It was never like this before ..read more