France 19 July-3 August 2006

We drove to Dover on the hottest day of the year; it was about 34c on the car thermometer. Luckily the air conditioning was working! We caught the Dover-Calais ferry and were in Club Class, which was excellent - free drinks and peace and quiet. We arrived in a dark, thundery, Calais to a cool 18c and drove for a couple of hours to Rouen, where we stayed in an ETAP hotel.

Bright and early the next morning we set off for Royan (well not so early, as Helen had set her alarm clock, but omitted to change the time to French time!). The roads were quiet and we arrived at La Palmyre at about 6pm and set up our tent.

The next day we headed a few miles up the coast to Cote Sauvage; a nice stretch of beach with dunes on the Atlantic Ocean. We spent the day sunbathing and bodyboarding.

On Saturday we saw two red squirrels as we had breakfast and then we went to the beach again but covered up a bit more as we were sunburnt. In the evening we headed inland to Chalais, where Steve’s sister, Pauline, and her husband live.

We spent the next week with Pauline and Mike taking it easy. We put up the paddling pool, as it was very hot; in the mid 30’s, most days. We also visited the market in Chalais, the lake at Brossac and the famous Monolithic church at Aubeterre, which took 700 years to carve out of solid rock.

To celebrate Steve’s birthday, on Friday we went to the Chateau for a lovely meal. On the actual day (Sunday) we went to Beau Vallon lake and floated around on the lilo; followed later by a delicious home cooked roast dinner and chocolate birthday cake both made by Pauline.

We managed to get up at 8.30am on the last day in Chalais and set off on the long drive to Vernon. We camped in Saint Marcel just outside Vernon, which was a very pretty village. The next day we visited Monet’s house and garden in Giverney. It was beautiful; the lake looked fantastic and the rest of the gardens were packed with flowers (and Americans!).

After another sleepless night camping we packed the tent away and drove to Calais, again the Club Class was great. The drive back to Yatton passed without incident.

If only the weather forecast for our next trip (Scotland) was as good as we had in France.

Thank you very much to Pauline and Mike for putting us up and to Steve’s parents for the birthday money that paid for our meal at the Chateau.