Parlez-Vous Francais?

As our ferry docked at Dunkirk it was hard to put my feelings into any kind of order

On the one hand, we were travelling again – free as the wind, ready for the next adventure.

On the other hand, we were embarking on our new journey in France – a country which we had visited many times before, including spending a month here at the very start of our nomadic lives with Henry. Being next door to the UK and part of the bureaucratic EU, it is not a place to get lost in nor a place where we would be breaking new ground or experiencing new things.

But we both like France, James in particular loves this country and has a not-too-secret hankering for renovating a derelict French chateau if we ever stop travelling. So we were happy for the time being to re-trace a few steps and simply enjoy the open road for a while.

With all the costs we had incurred getting BigMog finished over the last few weeks, we needed to conserve our budget as best we could and we decided that a good way to save a few hundred pounds would be to avoid using toll roads. I had read that driving through France toll-free is next to impossible but we had a very different experience.

The toll-free roads are more direct than the toll roads, hardly anyone uses them and they wind their way through some of the most beautiful rural scenery across France. And our secret weapon was BigMog himself, he doesn’t go faster than 80km/hr even on motorways so we would be slowly plodding along at the same speed whatever roads we were on.

And so we spent an absolutely wonderful eleven days crossing France from Dunkirk to Geneva on blissfully quiet and beautiful roads, parking up in pretty laybys and car parks and enjoying friendly conversations with locals who welcomed us and were interested in our story.

It was an idyllic start to our travels. But it didn’t feel like an adventure, not yet.

We started in the small town of Arras just an hour and a half’s drive from the ferry. We stayed the night in a quiet parking lot with acorns dropping onto our roof all night. It had been a long day so we were in bed early and enjoyed our first peaceful night back on the road.

The next day we went into the town and headed for the citadel

There wasn’t much to see, it all seemed a bit closed up

But we did find a small church

And a war memorial

From the citadel it was a short walk into the town centre where we found some interesting architecture

Including the lovely Place de Heroes and the Grand Place

Most of the buildings here were built in the 17^th and 18^th Centuries.

The Belfry was impressive from the outside

And inside we found the ‘Giants of Arras’. Giants are apparently an old tradition in this area

We wandered around the market stalls in the Grand Place and bought artichokes, sun dried tomatoes and olives stuffed with almonds

All in all we were starting to feel as though life was settling down nicely.

But, whilst Arras is pretty, there wasn’t a great deal more to see, so we decided to get ahead of ourselves and set off for the next town that afternoon. We had arrived in Laon by 5pm.

But BigMog decided that he was not going to let us relax just yet. As we pulled up in a beautiful car park by the ramparts of the old town, James noticed oil dripping out from under the chassis. On closer inspection he discovered that the breather hoses for the portal axles had disintegrated, becoming porous with age, and transmission oil was leaking out in quite large quantities

We were not going to panic, new breather hoses should be easy to find in France and James is perfectly capable of replacing them.

Putting the problem to the back of our minds, we breathed in the warm, clean air of the French countryside and opened a bottle of champagne bought for us by my sister to celebrate the start of our new journey

Laon is a gorgeous, historic town packed full of fabulous buildings

We started our explorations at the Abbey of Saint Martin

And wandered around the old hospital buildings that used to belong to it

We then walked up Main Street which is wall to wall historic buildings

A map attached to a lamppost told us where the oldest and most famous buildings were but to be honest we were happy just wandering about

Eventually we got to the main event, the magnificent Cathedral Notre-Dame de Laon

It was Sunday so they were holding mass inside but visitors were still welcome to go in and look around as long as we were quiet

Around the corner was the 12^th Century Palais Episcopal which is now the courthouse

And from there we walked along the ramparts

Everywhere we went, the cathedral dominated the skyline

Doubling back on ourselves we found the pristine Chapel of the Knights Templar, again from the 12^th Century and only re-opened a few weeks ago after years of renovation

Next door was the small Museum of Arts and Archaeology which had some interesting exhibits

Including this striking 1876 bust of General Wimpffen Felix Richard, a local war hero

We were a little pooped by now and it was definitely time for lunch so we went back to BigMog for some food and a sit-down before carrying on our explorations in the other direction

First up was the University of Technology

Past that was a long path winding its way through the countryside. It was a lovely, warm day and it was nice to stroll out of the town for a while.

We found an old battery on a small hill and then the Abbey Saint Vincent – full of history but sadly now derelict

As we circled back to the truck we were treated to an incredible view over the old vineyards towards the town with the cathedral taking pride of place

After another lovely night by the ramparts we had plans to visit the town of Reims. We had been a couple of times before and enjoyed it but it has since introduced a clean air zone which BigMog was not allowed to enter on a penalty of 500 Euros. I had spoken to the Reims Tourist Information Office and been given details of two motorhome aires that were right on the edge of the zone whilst still being walkable into the town centre.

Our first stop was to an industrial estate on the outskirts of the town where we hoped to find breather hoses for BigMog’s portal axles. Our first two attempts failed but we were finally pointed in the direction of a place called Fluiconnector which sounded hopeful. When we arrived they spoke very little English but with the help of Google Translate we managed to have a great chat with them. They loved BigMog and did everything they could to help. They found hoses of the right size along with connectors and tape. They then allowed James to use their forecourt to change the hoses and test them out

It was all looking good.

Whilst he worked away I google-chatted with the manager, Jean-Michelle, who was incredibly helpful and friendly. Once James was done we went to pay but Jean-Michelle just waved us away with a smile saying no charge. What a lovely gesture! James went back into BigMog and grabbed the French wine he had been saving and handed it to him as a gesture of thanks. The whole experience made our day.

But things went downhill rapidly from there. The Reims clean air zone is a bizarre shape with fingers reaching out along main highways and cutting other roads in two. It took half an hour or more to plot a route to the first aire and when we got there we found it was very small and completely full. We tried to plot a route to the second aire but there was literally no way to get to it without going into the zone and back out again. And to make matters even worse we then found that because of one-way streets and strange junctions we were actually trapped and could not get out of the aire in any direction without going into the zone.

So, after a bit of juggling with maps, we took a deep breath, crossed our fingers and turned the wrong way at the first junction out of the aire, speeding away from the clean air zone to safety.

It had all been too much stress. My nerves were in tatters trying to navigate us away from the danger zones and James was in need of a rest from such high-stakes driving. So we decided that Reims was lovely but not worth the trouble. We headed away from the town towards the more rural Epernay.

Epernay is in the heart of the champagne countryside and as we left Reims behind us we found ourselves driving through stunning French landscapes covered in lush, green vineyards. Our stress levels vanished and we could breath again

I had found a place to park-up for the night that was right in the middle of one of these vineyards. At first we weren’t sure whether we were supposed to drive up the dirt trail through the vines

But there were so many good reviews about this spot that we decided to brave it and see what happened.

And what happened was the best end to our day that we could have dreamed of

We made dinner then sat outside with glasses of wine, our books and big grins on our faces

In fact it was so beautiful and peaceful that we decided not to leave. We spent the whole of the next day lounging around amongst our vines taking full advantage of the gloriously warm, sunny day

James fixed our squeaking drawer

As well as changing one of our marker-light bulbs and topping up the portal axle oil – the new hoses had fixed the leak but it turned out that the oil was also migrating into the front diff and would need moving back every week or so to keep things running smoothly until we could get a special breather kit that would fix the problem.

After a wonderfully relaxing day doing very little we drove into Epernay town the next morning. I had found that most of the town’s car parks were restricted to 2m height limits but one, slightly out of the main centre, appeared to be unlimited.

Height limits were not going to be our only problem. As we found out later, the whole town is built on top of a huge network of champagne cellars. A lovely thought as you’re driving around it but not so good when most of the roads have a 3.5 tonne weight limit.

We drove round and round having to duck and dive away from the streets we wanted to go down and not seeming to be getting any closer to our car park. Eventually we managed to get the sat nav to navigate us there with a setting that avoided any roads where a 7.5 tonne truck couldn’t go. Who knew it would be this difficult to travel the world in a 7.5 tonne HGV?!

The main attraction of Epernay is the Avenue de Champagne – a long, straight road filled with beautiful, historic buildings, each one of which is a champagne house – some famous, some less so, but all filled with bubbles

Other than wander around and peer into windows, you can do two things – a tour of the cellars and a tasting. We tried to book a cellar tour at a couple of places but they were all full and tastings were off the table for James as we couldn’t stay overnight in the car park in town so had to drive somewhere else before the end of the day.

We poked around in two or three of the champagne houses, chatted to the champagne experts and got a bit scared by the prices

But, not being able to do either a tour or any tastings, we were at risk of the whole day falling a bit flat.

We spent a lovely couple of hours in the champagne museum

Which not only had a very extensive exhibition all about champagne

But was also a fabulous building in its own right

And we finally managed to get into a champagne cellar…albeit sadly empty

By then it was well past lunchtime, we were hungry and starting to wonder how we would make the most of our visit here. I consulted our park-up app and came up with a brilliant solution that solved all our problems in one go.

We walked back to BigMog and drove him to a big supermarket on the outskirts of town. Here we could not only grab ourselves a sandwich to keep us going but we were also allowed to stay overnight.

So we left BigMog in the corner of the enormous car park and walked back to the Avenue de Champagne where we could now sample all it had to offer without any limits.

We decided to try champagnes from houses that we had not heard of before. Our first stop was Champagne Esterlin where we tasted a glass of their classic and one of their lovely premium

We then made a mistake and went to Paul-Etienne Saint Germaine where we were given the tiniest sip of three champagnes and charged a small fortune.

Mind you, the owner was friendly and we had a nice chat about his family history as we were being fleeced!

The next stop more than made up for our disappointment – Michel Gonet

We sat outside in the pretty garden whilst a lovely lady served us three glasses of their premium champagne – blanc de blanc, extra brut and blanc de noirs

As we left James looked at me sideways and gently propped me up on his shoulder!

It would have been wise for me to go home at that point, but as we walked past Champagne de Venage I squealed and said that I had liked the look of that one earlier in the day and could we pleeeease go in. With a wry smile James steered me through the door and helped me sit down in almost a straight line. In my most soberest voice I ordered their classic tasting and the two of us settled in for our last two glasses

After nine glasses of champagne I wasn’t going to be any use to anyone. This was not altogether unexpected so before we started on this champagne crawl I had marked the location of the supermarket on Google maps and assured James that he would have no trouble finding it without my assistance. This was only partly true but with only a couple of false starts, and with me swaying and singing loudly down the road, we finally made it home.

I tucked myself up under the duvet whilst James cooked me some dinner to soak up the alcohol

I ate it in bed grinning at him then promptly fell fast asleep….

Once I had worked off my hangover doing my early morning training the next day we pressed on, this time to the striking town of Troyes.

Troyes is an incredible mediaeval town with narrow, cobbled streets lined with timber houses dating back to the 1500s. We had never seen anything like it – almost every building was in pristine condition and the whole town looked like something out of a film set

Every street and alley was beautiful

However, there were a few buildings that were particularly special. First up was the Maison du Dauphin

We then almost stumbled across the Church of Saint Niziel

The Cathedral of St Peter and St Paul, however, dominated the entire town

And inside it was beautifully ornate

We found the Garden of Medicinal Plants inside the Hotel Dieu le-Comte

On the Rue Passerat were some of the most beautiful houses

We then made it to the town hall and pretty square

We sat there for a few minutes watching the people around us. It was strange – for all that Troyes was historic and picturesque there was also an edge to it. Moody, as James described it. We had read many reviews of various park-up places in the town and all of them described a similar sense – not feeling comfortable, strange people around late at night. There was clearly a lot of money in this town, it cannot have been preserved so well over so many years without significant amounts of cash, and yet there was an air of something downtrodden and dissatisfied about it that we couldn’t quite put our fingers on.

We carried on our explorations at the Hotel du Marisy, the Garden of the Innocents and the Church of St Madeleine

And eventually arrived at the Hotel Mauray

This one was special as it had been turned into a museum so we could actually go inside. The whole place was packed full of tools from the middle ages which was quite interesting to see

But the main attraction was simply being inside such an old and historic building, full of atmosphere

We walked back along the Rue Emile Zola lined with yet more beautiful buildings

Past the Prefecture of Aube

And along the river

Until we came to the Museum of Modern Art. At this point we were only a short walk from BigMog and James is not a great fan of art. So he went back to the truck whilst I spent a happy hour wandering around on my own

Our senses were telling us not to stay overnight in this town so we drove a few miles out into the countryside and found the perfect place to park-up with seemingly endless views across the French countryside

Our final stop in France was to be Dijon, a big city with a big history – but, as we found out later, disappointingly little mustard!

We had learnt our lesson trying to take BigMog into cities and I spent most of the following morning devising a plan of action. We could not hope to find anywhere to stay overnight in the city itself so I found a park-up place just outside the city to the north, another one to the south and a couple of options for day-time parking in between.

We didn’t leave our idyllic park-up spot until lunchtime as it took me that long to work it all out. So we had a slow and leisurely drive towards the our first park-up place, admiring the pretty villages and lovely views as we went.

The spot was almost perfect – safe, quiet and pretty. James also noticed that there were a number of mountain bike trails around. So we settled in and James set his bike up ready for the next morning

Sadly, the next morning was one of the coldest we had had yet and he only managed half an hour on his bike before he had to come back and warm up – his lips were blue!

Once he was the right colour again we set off for Dijon city centre. However, despite all the time I had spent planning, we still fell foul of the city’s roads. Again and again we tried to make a turn only to find that the road we needed to go down was restricted to 3.5 tonnes. We hadn’t properly learnt our lessons but we have not made the same mistake again – we assigned Google maps to the bin and trusted our sat nav which knew how tall and how heavy we were and could map our route accordingly. Despite technically only being 3km away from the car park, the sat nav took us on a 15km journey all around the edge of the city and back in again from a different direction. As we drove, cars came at us from all directions, roads got narrow, turns only appeared at the very last minute and roundabouts had more exits than the sat nav suggested. It was not a relaxing hour – when we finally pulled into the car park our nerves were in tatters yet again. Not helped by the fact that the car park was tiny and almost completely full.

But we had come this far and we were determined not to give up now. We cheekily parked the wrong way along the tree line in about the only place we could fit without blocking the entire thoroughfare

We admired our handywork and dashed off before anyone could complain!

Dijon is a very regal city

Out first stop was the historic heart – the Place de la Liberation

Flanked by the Ducal Palace, now the Museum of Belle Arts

The tombs of the old Dukes were amazing

And the rest of it was a combination of curious artwork and gorgeous architecture

After all that, we treated ourselves to lunch at a nearby café

Then went off to see the Church of Saint Michael

The Church of Our Lady

And the Hotel D’Vogue

We walked down the Rue des Forges but found it was only modern shops, nothing of much interest to us. There was also another church and a garden further down the road but we felt somewhat churched and gardened out so headed back along the beautiful streets towards the truck

The drive south out of the city was thankfully far easier than it had been going in from the north and in no time at all we were back in the countryside

And parked up in a small layby on a quiet road for another peaceful night

Our final visit was to the Abbey Notre Dame de Citeaux, famed for founding the Cistercian Monks in 1098

You can only visit on a guided tour and we were lucky enough to get booked onto one at 12:30pm.

It was fascinating but the guide spoke only French and whilst our command of the language was getting really quite good by now we were not up to the standards required to understand much of it. So they kindly gave us booklets with her whole presentation written in English so we were able to follow the story well enough as we went around

The writing on these walls dates back hundreds of years and was only uncovered during renovations a few decades ago

The whole place was so quiet and serene. Apparently there is still a community of around 30 monks living and worshipping here

After a great afternoon we drove just a little further towards the Swiss border admiring more lovely views as we went

We found a perfect place to park-up for the night high above a small village next to a church

The views were spectacular

And it was yet another peaceful place. We set our chairs up and sat outside all evening looking out over the fabulous landscape and wondering whether we should just stay there forever

France is an absolutely wonderful country – friendly and welcoming, easy to find amazing places to stay, relatively cheap and beautiful. The last few days had been the perfect start to our adventures and we felt very comfortable there. But our 90-day EU clock was ticking and we had a lot to do. Neither of us had ever been to Switzerland before and we were excited to get there and start exploring new places.

As Switzerland has a reputation for being very expensive, the next morning we packed up BigMog and headed straight for the nearest Lidl where we filled our fridge and cupboards to the brim – including our own body weight in fabulous French cheeses, wine and beer. We then filled both our fuel tanks up and we were ready to go.

We said our farewells to France and set sail for the Swiss border….