Where's Bertie? He spent last night at a commercial Aire at Chateau Thierry, where it cost €7.50 plus 61c each in tourist tax. That included use of toilets, shower and service point. Electricity was available at an extra cost. (Exact location: 49.03645, 3.38333)
Tonight he's outside the motorhome dealership in Belgium where he's spent many a night before.
Weather: Overcast but dry until around the Belgian border, when we drove out from under the cloud and into clear sunshine.
Bit of a disturbed night on Wednesday, as it turned out we were within earshot of a girder* factory where they move stock at intervals through the night. In general I'd rather sleep on a skanky piece of wasteland where it's quiet than in a visually appealing place with loud clangs nearby.
Away at 0830, our first move was to backtrack by a few hundred metres for a fuel station (a branded one) selling Diesel cheaper than we'd seen since entering France, and the cheapest we ended up seeing all day (€1.92/litre).
Our next stop was a Lidl a while later, which was the first place where we really noticed cars covered in Saharan sand. Since then it's been prevalent everywhere we've been, including up here in Belgium. So, that strong wind we had a couple of days ago blew sand all the way up here, yet somehow missed Bertie.
Our lunch stop was in another supermarket car park in Sens, chosen because I'd hoped to buy some specific tea bags there (they're a flavour of Lipton tea that I have only ever found in big Carrefour supermarkets in France; they're not generally available, other than via Amazon, in the UK). They didn't have the tea bags, but I made use of the stop not only to cook us some lunch, but also to decide where we were going to end our day.
I can't tell you how many times over the last week I've run the search of 'My location' to 'Campirama NV' in Google Maps, checking and double checking routes, distances and places through which we will pass. I did that again, chose a place along the way, and looked for somewhere to spend the night.
Free places to stay are easy to come by in France, but we opted to pay for an Aire again, for the convenience factor (it was barely a stone's throw out of our way, and right next to a river for Mick to run along). I duly programmed it into the SatNav and told Google Maps to take us there, and off we went for our final two hour drive of the day.
The day had already involved mainly little yellow D roads (as depicted in the road atlas, not literally yellow! 100km had been on motorway, the rest of the day was on yellow roads), but they'd been fine. Much of the time they'd been straight, had barely any traffic and, inexplicably to us, had a 90km/h speed limit that didn't even reduce to 70 for junctions.
Straight and wooded
Straight and not wooded. Oooh look, another vehicle!
The afternoon's yellow roads were a different proposition, wiggling, poorly surfaced and sometimes on the narrow side. It was only when I handed over the wheel to Mick, and checked where we were that I had a 'Why are we here?!' moment. A bit of playing with Google Maps revealed that when I put in a long route with the destination being Belgium, it was giving me route options along trunk roads. However, when in Sens I'd given it a destination 120km ahead, it had decided to ignore its own advice for the longer journey and routed us along little roads. Something to be aware of in the future!
On the plus side, it was a shorter route, so saved some pennies on fuel.
Arriving in Chateau Thierry off we headed for an early evening stroll up the river:
I think its colour comes across in this snap. It's quite a greeny hue.
We returned to Bertie toting a case of 12 boxes of tea bags after a chance spotting of a Carrefour. Yay! Tea bag success! Hopefully we'll be back in France to replenish long before they run out.
This morning Mick headed off for a run whilst I set out at a walk, my adductor still grumbling away. My outing turned into a speed-walking sightseeing tour, taking in a visit to the castle:
Being in no rush to arrive in Belgium, back at Bertie coffee and second breakfast was preceded by showers. The fact that the shower was on the cold side of tepid was ameliorated by the big fan heater in the room that had turned itself on when I entered.
There's nowt to say about the rest of today. We drove a lot, failed to buy LPG despite a detour (the pump delivered 1 litre to Bertie's tank and then refused to give us any more), and arrived here at 1600. The cost of diesel now seems to be falling, so hopefully by the time we next fill up (probably on Saturday in France, as it's more expensive in Belgium) it will be cheaper still.
Tonight he's outside the motorhome dealership in Belgium where he's spent many a night before.
Weather: Overcast but dry until around the Belgian border, when we drove out from under the cloud and into clear sunshine.
Bit of a disturbed night on Wednesday, as it turned out we were within earshot of a girder* factory where they move stock at intervals through the night. In general I'd rather sleep on a skanky piece of wasteland where it's quiet than in a visually appealing place with loud clangs nearby.
Away at 0830, our first move was to backtrack by a few hundred metres for a fuel station (a branded one) selling Diesel cheaper than we'd seen since entering France, and the cheapest we ended up seeing all day (€1.92/litre).
Our next stop was a Lidl a while later, which was the first place where we really noticed cars covered in Saharan sand. Since then it's been prevalent everywhere we've been, including up here in Belgium. So, that strong wind we had a couple of days ago blew sand all the way up here, yet somehow missed Bertie.
Our lunch stop was in another supermarket car park in Sens, chosen because I'd hoped to buy some specific tea bags there (they're a flavour of Lipton tea that I have only ever found in big Carrefour supermarkets in France; they're not generally available, other than via Amazon, in the UK). They didn't have the tea bags, but I made use of the stop not only to cook us some lunch, but also to decide where we were going to end our day.
I can't tell you how many times over the last week I've run the search of 'My location' to 'Campirama NV' in Google Maps, checking and double checking routes, distances and places through which we will pass. I did that again, chose a place along the way, and looked for somewhere to spend the night.
Free places to stay are easy to come by in France, but we opted to pay for an Aire again, for the convenience factor (it was barely a stone's throw out of our way, and right next to a river for Mick to run along). I duly programmed it into the SatNav and told Google Maps to take us there, and off we went for our final two hour drive of the day.
The day had already involved mainly little yellow D roads (as depicted in the road atlas, not literally yellow! 100km had been on motorway, the rest of the day was on yellow roads), but they'd been fine. Much of the time they'd been straight, had barely any traffic and, inexplicably to us, had a 90km/h speed limit that didn't even reduce to 70 for junctions.
The afternoon's yellow roads were a different proposition, wiggling, poorly surfaced and sometimes on the narrow side. It was only when I handed over the wheel to Mick, and checked where we were that I had a 'Why are we here?!' moment. A bit of playing with Google Maps revealed that when I put in a long route with the destination being Belgium, it was giving me route options along trunk roads. However, when in Sens I'd given it a destination 120km ahead, it had decided to ignore its own advice for the longer journey and routed us along little roads. Something to be aware of in the future!
On the plus side, it was a shorter route, so saved some pennies on fuel.
Arriving in Chateau Thierry off we headed for an early evening stroll up the river:
We returned to Bertie toting a case of 12 boxes of tea bags after a chance spotting of a Carrefour. Yay! Tea bag success! Hopefully we'll be back in France to replenish long before they run out.
This morning Mick headed off for a run whilst I set out at a walk, my adductor still grumbling away. My outing turned into a speed-walking sightseeing tour, taking in a visit to the castle:
Being in no rush to arrive in Belgium, back at Bertie coffee and second breakfast was preceded by showers. The fact that the shower was on the cold side of tepid was ameliorated by the big fan heater in the room that had turned itself on when I entered.
There's nowt to say about the rest of today. We drove a lot, failed to buy LPG despite a detour (the pump delivered 1 litre to Bertie's tank and then refused to give us any more), and arrived here at 1600. The cost of diesel now seems to be falling, so hopefully by the time we next fill up (probably on Saturday in France, as it's more expensive in Belgium) it will be cheaper still.
Sculpture of the day.
(*I have no knowledge that it was actually a girder factory; that's just what it sounded like to me.)
You seem to have had many disturbed nights on this trip.
ReplyDeleteNow you mention it, you're right. There has been an extraordinary number, although few have caused any significant amount of lost sleep. The second most disturbed night of the trip was at Cadiz, where we had the container movements/brass bands/nightclubs night, but it was so truly bizarre that it turned itself into one of our more memorable nights. (The worst night, if you're wondering, was at Getares.)
Delete(Comment by Gayle, using Mick's laptop and being too lazy to sign myself in to my own account.)
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