Where's Bertie? He's in an Aire (also advertised as a 220-space grass car park) just outside the walls of the village of Rodemack. Exact location: 49.466499, 6.23215
Weather: Mainly overcast with some rain.
A gentle run along the canal (a wide, commercial goods barge sort of a canal, rather than the UK-style narrowboat one) started my morning, followed by putting my shower token to good use. In hindsight, now we know that the length of time given for one token was far longer than either of us needed, we could have used one of the tokens between us yesterday and the other this morning. As it was, we both got bored and turned off the water before our tokens expired.
View back across the marina to the motorhome parking
Further along the canal
After a quick breakfast I got into the passenger seat and with my next job being to set the SatNav, I thought I'd best look at a map and come up with a destination. That I did, although a short while later, once on the road, I suggested an alternative to Mick and thus it was to Rodemack we came.
I think it took us around 4 hours to get here, including a couple of stops. We weren't far short of the Luxembourg border when I discovered that LPG in Belgium is way cheaper than it is in Luxembourg or France. Finding an LPG station was slightly impeded by the lpg.eu App not displaying a map on my phone, but we're not short of phones on this trip, and Belgium must be the best-served EU country when it comes to LPG, so we were never going to be far away from an outlet. Indeed, LPG-powered vehicles are so popular that, after a minor 1km diversion off the motorway, we found ourselves third in a queue for the pump. 35 litres at €0.59/litre later, and off we tootled again.
The next stop was a tea break, that morphed into lunch, in a motorway rest area. That was swiftly followed by a twenty-minute crawl through some roadworks, after which it was plain sailing back out of Luxembourg and into France. The only reason for the change of country was to come to this village; when we leave here we will go back into Lux, then Germany, in order to re-enter France further to the east.
By the time we parked up, the sky was looking ominously black and it was so heavy and humid that it felt like thunder was coming. We didn't let that put us off completely, but did take our waterproofs as we set out into the village.
Without a city wall
Within a city wall
Having visited any number of medieval villages in the past (and there will likely be plenty more on this trip), I had a mental image of what this place was going to be like - and the reality didn't match it at all!
However, we didn't get very far through exploring the place today (Tourist Info Office, the church and a couple of streets) as not many paces after we left the church the rain started. Jackets were donned, and back to Bertie we came. No point walking around in the rain today when it's forecast to be sunny tomorrow.
It turns out that the morrow is a public holiday in France. I'm sure I knew that a few years ago, but it had slipped my mind. It is thus surprising how quiet this big Aire is - especially as a negative review just three days ago said how vans were packed in like sardines with no privacy. Of the ten vans here, I would say that at least four of them have taken root (one very deeply).
Does this qualify as a fountain for 'fountain of the day'?
A gentle run along the canal (a wide, commercial goods barge sort of a canal, rather than the UK-style narrowboat one) started my morning, followed by putting my shower token to good use. In hindsight, now we know that the length of time given for one token was far longer than either of us needed, we could have used one of the tokens between us yesterday and the other this morning. As it was, we both got bored and turned off the water before our tokens expired.
After a quick breakfast I got into the passenger seat and with my next job being to set the SatNav, I thought I'd best look at a map and come up with a destination. That I did, although a short while later, once on the road, I suggested an alternative to Mick and thus it was to Rodemack we came.
I think it took us around 4 hours to get here, including a couple of stops. We weren't far short of the Luxembourg border when I discovered that LPG in Belgium is way cheaper than it is in Luxembourg or France. Finding an LPG station was slightly impeded by the lpg.eu App not displaying a map on my phone, but we're not short of phones on this trip, and Belgium must be the best-served EU country when it comes to LPG, so we were never going to be far away from an outlet. Indeed, LPG-powered vehicles are so popular that, after a minor 1km diversion off the motorway, we found ourselves third in a queue for the pump. 35 litres at €0.59/litre later, and off we tootled again.
The next stop was a tea break, that morphed into lunch, in a motorway rest area. That was swiftly followed by a twenty-minute crawl through some roadworks, after which it was plain sailing back out of Luxembourg and into France. The only reason for the change of country was to come to this village; when we leave here we will go back into Lux, then Germany, in order to re-enter France further to the east.
By the time we parked up, the sky was looking ominously black and it was so heavy and humid that it felt like thunder was coming. We didn't let that put us off completely, but did take our waterproofs as we set out into the village.
Having visited any number of medieval villages in the past (and there will likely be plenty more on this trip), I had a mental image of what this place was going to be like - and the reality didn't match it at all!
However, we didn't get very far through exploring the place today (Tourist Info Office, the church and a couple of streets) as not many paces after we left the church the rain started. Jackets were donned, and back to Bertie we came. No point walking around in the rain today when it's forecast to be sunny tomorrow.
It turns out that the morrow is a public holiday in France. I'm sure I knew that a few years ago, but it had slipped my mind. It is thus surprising how quiet this big Aire is - especially as a negative review just three days ago said how vans were packed in like sardines with no privacy. Of the ten vans here, I would say that at least four of them have taken root (one very deeply).
No comments:
Post a Comment