The title above... did you see what I did there?!!?
Anyway I digress, where did we go for this, nigh on a fortnight's, holiday then?
Summary of route
Essentially, we left Wolverhampton at 7.30 am drove to the Channel Tunnel, (I love the tunnel what a feat of engineering it is?) crossed over to Calais and drove due south to Alençon where we stayed the night in a lovely little Campanile motel.
From there, next day, we drove to La Rochelle spending two nights in a superb little hotel right on the harbour front amidst all the pavement cafes and the fantastic walled harbour.
From there we travelled down to Richards house near Pau stopping on the way to meet two of his friends for lunch at a cracking street cafe in Castillon-la-Bataille and then finished a long day in the van at Cannet near Pau.
Approximate distance was about 1100 miles, but at least we were at our main destination for the next seven days! The return journey was going to be shorter and hopefully quicker, but, as it was going to be done over two days not three, they would be slightly more miles per day than the journey down. Let's hope the better roads and less traffic would be on our side?
Whilst in La Rochelle we took ourselves over to the Île de Ré just off the coast of La Rochelle where we spent best part of the day visiting places all over the island. Access to the island is via a massive bridge some 2.28 miles long and yet another example of excellent engineering.
By the way, have I commented on the quality of the roads in France? They are truly amazing, barely a pothole in sight, many roads are arrow straight for miles and the twisty bits, when you find them, are great fun, but the best bit... they are all but empty! But again, I digress...
La Rochelle
Île de Ré
Interesting facts about Île de Ré is the island has small roads, is designed and promotes the use of bicycles and is basically a village atmosphere in a massive campsite site full of Motorhomes or as the French say, Le Camping Car! You are never far from the sea, the beaches we saw were ok, nothing overly dramatic but not bad either and the atmosphere in September is calm and peaceful. Apparently the French flock there in droves and it is packed for all of August! So if you want to go, work on going outside of August for some sanity!
One oddity none of us had ever seen was beach snails... they live on the beach, not on the sand but on the branches of small bushes, presumably living on the leaves which we assume keep them fed and watered? They appear, by the number of them, to breed there too! Hey, ho, such is life...
Part three of our "adventure" sees us at Richards place, mounting a sky dish and setting up his freesat box and our ride down to Spain and back. Er... have I mentioned the can-can girls? Ooh La la!!