France
Arrondissement de La Roche-sur-Yon

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    • Day 23

      Fontenay Le Comte

      September 3, 2023 in France ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C

      "La marche n'est pas autorisée sur cette route!", the lady called from the car window. As I walked over to her I explained I was English and couldn't speak French. It gave her some context and it gave me some time to divine the essence of what was being said. She repeated it but this time she made a walking action with one hand and wagged her finger with the other. I wasn't allowed to walk on this road. "But I am walking to Thiré" I said. She gave me the same message a third time accompanied with a shrug of the shoulders and, what felt like, a mocking laugh. Then she drove off. Outside of the hotel, that lady was the only person I spoke to until I reached Fontenay.

      But Fontenay is a pretty oasis in this green desert. I have walked for fourteen miles without seeing another pedestrian. Plenty of cars, a handful of cyclists but no-one with their feet on the ground. In that time, I hadn't seen a shop and the only water I'd seen was being used to spray fields. From tomorrow I'll be following an official route so at least I'll have the worry of jaywalking lifted. Still, walking south of Nantes takes a lot more planning than when I was walking in the North. The temperature is over thirty so plenty of water is a necessity. In the North I would stumble across a tap somewhere or take from the river. That's not an option here. That said, this certainly has more of an adventure feel to it and it makes you appreciate places like Fontenay

      The place I stayed at last night was in the tiny village of St Juire. It was run by a mother and daughter who were constantly bickering but in a light hearted way; plenty of hands on hips and eye rolling followed by a wink and a laugh. I had planned to eat at the bar in the village but this was closed because of problems with the plumbing. The nearest alternative was a six mile round trip and there was no taxi service. I asked if I could get something delivered. Only on a Friday was the answer. The pizza man does weddings on a Saturday, takes Sunday and Monday off and delivers to other villages the rest of the week. So it was me and my last sachet of Aynsley's cous cous for tea. Unfortunately, I had lost my spoon in my panic to get away from Jeff Goldblum's house so my only cutlery was a credit card. Yet another first!

      Photos - the oasis that is Fontenay, you know it's hot when sunflowers look like this, my view for most of the day, a pilgrim's silhouette...walking poles, parasol, and freshly laundered underwear pinned to his back to dry.
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    • Day 7–8

      petiscos franceses

      December 19, 2023 in France ⋅ ☁️ 8 °C

      Ah os queijos franceses… ah, as terrines e os patês… comment dire… são uma perdição!!

      Pernoitámos num parque de caravanas fantástico e, porque é Inverno ou porque é Natal, não se paga nem eletricidade, nem água, e podemos limpar os depósitos de águas cinzentas e águas sujas à vontade 🤗Read more

    • Day 22

      Saint Juire

      September 2, 2023 in France ⋅ 🌧 16 °C

      I don't know what came first, the storm or the dog, but I do know it was three in the morning. The lightning was almost constant. It was like someone was having trouble with a giant florescent lightbulb. I remember hearing the dog bark before I saw him. He came and sat with me and we watched the storm together. Well he did a fair bit of fidgeting too! The storm lasted an hour but the dog stayed afterwards and did his best to get on my mattress. I fought him off until I fell asleep. I woke again at 6.30 to see that he'd won and my legs were on the grass. I've since been told his name is Benco. He doesn't like storms so he escaped from the pen he shares at night with two other dogs and would've been glad of my company.

      I camped in someone else's garden last night but this experience was the complete opposite of the previous one. Jerome is a real character. A wall of muscle with blonde curly hair and an ear to ear smile. His kids gave him a ribbing about his attempts at English. I didn't know he tried. I only knew there were bits that I couldn't understand at all. I think he was just making up his own words. He is so nice he invited me to eat with his family but I was too tired unfortunately. The funniest thing about Jerome is his work. He runs a fleet of ambulances (I guess ambulances are private in France) and a funeral parlour! How is that for diversifying along the supply chain?

      Today has been lovely. A little bit of rain but enough sun to dry my stuff and the walking has been good.

      Photos - Saint Juire, my mate at 3am, and again at 6.30 am having taken the mattress, my shelter in Jerome's garden, Jerome's business (headstones on the right, ambulances at the back),drying my stuff at the side of the path during a dry spell.
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    • Day 21

      Chantonnay

      September 1, 2023 in France ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

      I camped in a bloke's garden last night (he did know) but I seriously wished I hadn't. Accommodation is really sparse around here and I found this guy on a site called Homecamper, couch surfing on grass in effect. The guy looked like a wide eyed Jeff Goldblum with a goatie. He acted surprised that I had turned up that day. I wasn't sure if it was a joke and explained that I spoke very little French. He replied "No problem" in English and proceeded to talk in very fast French. When he pointed the garden I thought "hoarder!". Old plastic swimming pool (which had no water in but it appeared to have a layer of rice pudding at the bottom), decrepit caravan, numerous old kids toys, geese (yes, live geese),several ladders. I could go on. He pointed to where I should camp. As I got my shelter set up he watched me from the house and he did the same when I took it down in the morning. The guy just freaked me out with his fixed stare. I found myself fabricating a narrative about how his broken marriage sent him off the rails. And then his suggested pitch was awful. It continued raining in the night and part of the pitch developed a puddle so I had to move my stuff around. That has been the worst night I've had on this trip by a long way. Fortunately tonight's looks a whole lot better!

      The path I am following at the moment isn't the best. It is very bitty so I have to keep checking if I'm going the right way, and I seem to have to walk two kilometers to advance by one. Added to that there are very few shops over the next few days which just adds more diversions. So, over the next couple of days, I am going walk across to another route which looks more favourable. Fingers crossed.

      Photos - I didn't take many photos because I left my cable at freaky man's house and didn't wante to waste my battery, but first up is Parc-Soubise. During the wars of the Republic in 1794, 200 people were shot at point blank range by Republican soldiers. The last to be shot was an eight year old boy but the General said "That's enough!" and the boy was the only survivor. He watched as they stripped and searched the corpses which included his friends and relatives. I watched a documentary about Northern Ireland recently and one of the interviewees said good people were doing bad things. That was ringing in my head as I looked at Parc-Soubise.

      My only other photo was a baguette vending machine. Only in France!
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    • Day 20

      Saint Fulgent

      August 31, 2023 in France ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

      It was 3am when the rain woke me up. I didn't make a shelter the previous night as it was a beautiful evening and the forecast was good. I pulled the bivvy up to cover my face. Claustrophobic but dry. I woke again at four and remembered my rucksack and some of my kit were exposed, but I was just too tired. At five I mustered the resolve to ferry my gear to the toilet block. I was soaked and so was a lot of my stuff. Thankfully my quilt was relatively dry; it doesn't insulate when wet so if that's wet then I don't get to sleep. Normally I would hang stuff on my pack to dry but it has just been continual rain today up until early evening. It's raining as I write this and the forecast isn't looking great. But it's all part of the deal. I'm sure I'll learn something from it. Something other than don't do stupid things I hope.

      I met a lady called Muriel today who told me she and her husband walked from Du Puy-en-Velay to Roncesvalles over the course of a month. This is the French section of a pilgrimage that runs across the south of France and continues to Santiago de Compostela. She asked me when I started mine and I replied August. She thought I had got my French months mixed up and recited June, July August in French accompanied by her unique sign language. I had to show her this website before she believed me. She told me I need to slow down before I hurt my legs!

      Photos - the rain curtailed my photo opportunities but here's the medieval market hall in Clisson, Clisson chateau, the impressive walls of Montaigu, the river Maine as in 'Sèvre et Maine', sunflowers looking how I felt in the rain.
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    • Day 46

      A chill day

      June 27, 2023 in France ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C

      A free Aire adjacent to a lake at Mesnard La Barotiere . Taking it easy on the route to Puy Du Fou. Great stopover.
      Loving the Inverter 😉. Espresso coffee and buttered toast for breakfast courtesy of our newly purchased 9 euro toaster 👍Read more

    • Day 47

      Puy du Fou

      June 28, 2023 in France ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C

      Puy du Fou is a French historical theme park south east of Nantes which has its own Camping Car park which must hold about 500 MHs. We spent a day at the park and thoroughly enjoyed it. The shows were very well presented and great crowd pleasers and all told a story - Birds, Knights, Vikings, Romans, sunken galley, WW1 trenches and more. All were in French but some had English translations which we could get through our air pods, some of the time. Le Bal Des Oiseaux Fantomes - is a historical performance which included 200, mostly birds of prey, it was phenomenal. Returned to Leo knackered and in need of a good vodka ( we’d been buying cheap rubbish previously 😉). And onwards we go tomorrow getting closer to Calais 🥲Read more

    • Day 182–183

      Beim wem scheppert's?

      October 20 in France ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

      Man wacht morgens auf, es windet... es scheppert. Man hat dieses Geräusch noch aus der Nacht im Hinterkopf, in der man aber weiter schläft aufgrund von Müdigkeit. Und morgens beim Aufwachen denkt man wieder, meine Güte, das Geschepper, kann da nicht mal einer nach seinem Camper gucken, das nervt ja schon die ganze Nacht. Jaa, nee... war mein Geschepper.Read more

    • Day 10

      Nunquam titilandus Tiger dormiens

      October 27 in France ⋅ ☁️ 13 °C

      Sali Mali and Le Petit Prince, signing in.

      Today we decided that we wanted a chill day. I woke up and Dex was heading off to Drama class, and we thought that we would have a lie in.

      However, surprise! The clocks changed and it was only 8:30.

      But we did hang out in bed just chillin, and I tried to write the blog for the previous day (but I failed).

      After a while, we got up and went downstairs, and our lovely hosts aka Dann and Ali had left a bunch of breakfastables on the counter, which was great. I pondered for a while over what to choose, so great was the amount, but then my eyes fell upon on the crumpets, and I was sold.

      I ate four crumpets that day.

      I sold my soul, perhaps, to the crumpet demon, during this act, since in honesty four crumpets is an exorbitant amount of crumpets. But I have said it before, and I will say it again, I would marry a crumpet if it asked me. This extends to the crumpet demon, so maybe the soul selling was a good thing, put is in contact. However, maybe that would also be a bad thing since, being the owner of my soul, there would a power imbalance between me and demon man.

      I digress.

      Ali and Dann returned during this crumpet consumption, and it was decided that we would paint little miniatures. After much going up and down stairs by Dann (courtesy of my indecision), we began to paint.

      Dann instantly shot down my idea if painting my aggressive Scottish mouse man in purple, and thus I was even more motivated to do this. So purple mouse man was born, and he wore all sunset colours. He was a bit of a mess, but aren’t we all? I mean, Dann has no memory for colour. Which I learnt yesterday but forgot to put into the blog. He can’t remember colour. I could ask him what colour painted my mouse and he would say, “uh brown?”.

      Andrea’s motorbike mister and Dann’s lizard boy were considerably better than mine, but they had less purple so who won really?

      Afterwards, Dann had to pick up Dexie and so me and Andrea chilled and wrote the blog (and maybe acted out dramatic Taylor songs from red hehe) until Dex returned. She began selling us magnets for the cost of magnets, it was a strange but fun time, and then we put in some Monster High as Dex ate lunch.

      I made the shocking discovery that Dex does not know what a DVD is. I mean?? How?? I felt so old?? Especially since she kept calling og Monster High “old fashioned”??

      But after an episode or two, we had to go to Wake The Tiger! Which is actually a really cool museum/installation that felt so magical and creative and awesome. It is worth knowing that I wore entirely black and white, and I waited (impatiently) to arrive at a black and white room.

      But I saw some awesome sights, spoke on a telephone with the wall, slid a slide, climbed through a bookshelf, two cupboards and some caves. And much more! Seriously, visit the place!

      And then the black and white room arrived, and I felt like all was right with the world. I was so happy to find a place where I would belong!

      And then we left the black and white room.

      Afterwards, we had some hot chocolate in their equally swaggy cafe, and Dex got hot chocolate on her face and had a uni brow, i got whipped cream on my nose and Andrea got hot chocolate on her cheek.

      Once Dann arrived, we quickly stopped in the gift shop and bought a tote bag and a t-shirt for Andrea, and the we were off!

      All the timing felt a bit off since the clocks changed, and we went home thinking it was later than it was. It wasn’t, obviously.

      We had a chill moment where I called my sisters, and Andrea had to follow Dex around the house searching for monsters while Ali and Dann made dinner. For dinner we had a delicious sausage and mash, with sosmix ones for me, and they were exemplary so slay Dann and Ali!

      We came upon a staggering realisation that WE HAD NOT CARVED OUR PUMPKIN PATCH PICKED PUMPKINS and so while Dexie was being put to bed, Andrea and I drew on ours, including the space to be carved (#drippypumpkin for me) and some fun drawings. Mine depicted our trip, everything Marauders (constellations, footsteps etc.), Taylor Swift lyrics and an Andrea section.

      Furthermore (my english teacher would be proud!), we had to pack our bags so Andrea and I went upstairs much to Dann’s disappointment since we would have played Container or Citadels.

      After some complications involving my own mother not knowing my full name and a cardigan bingo flyer, Andrea and I went to bed.

      Honorary mention today goes to crumpets. I know that I mentioned them before and that I went on a whole discourse pertaining to crumpet demon marriage, but I cannot talk about them enough. I would like to formally thank Ali for buying a pack.

      Sali Mali and Le Petit Prince, signing out!!
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    • Day 72–73

      Saint - Lumine-de-Coutais

      July 17 in France ⋅ ⛅ 22 °C

      We found this quiet park up on search for sites, it's just on the edge of a small village on a lovely picnic area set up specially for motorhomes, a very beautiful location set among nature. The village has a nice bakery and a small shop. There are lots of walks locally, but it's a great place just to kick back and take it easy.Read more

    You might also know this place by the following names:

    Arrondissement de La Roche-sur-Yon

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