Sunday 15 September - Provins

Where's Bertie? He's in an Aire in Provins, where it costs €8 for 24 hours. Exact location: 48.562044, 3.279718
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine and warm (20 degrees)

We were in no rush to leave Troyes this morning, so it was a leisurely start. Mick took a run along a canal whilst I pottered, then we started getting ready to travel. Possibly because we were in no rush, we achieved readiness with unusual efficiency, and there was no queue at the service point either.

With Aldi being almost next door to the Aire, I could have walked there whilst Mick was out for a run, but instead we made it our first stop. In France it only seems to be the really big supermarkets that have self-service tills. That causes a problem in the smaller shops, as it's common for people to pop in just for a baguette. Being British, we feel obliged to allow someone to go ahead of us if they've only got one or two items (something that we don't often observe the French doing), which means we can be at the till for quite some time if people keep coming along with just a bit of bread. Love them or hate them, self-service tills are really convenient for this scenario.

Quick pitstop completed, onwards to Provins, chosen purely as it was a convenient location for our onward plans (actually, not that convenient, but as convenient as I could find for official motorhome parking, and we didn't want to risk a disturbed night in a random car park tonight). Lots of the reviews on Park4Night said it was expensive just for a patch of car park with a sub-standard service point (one tap shared for drinking water and toilet cassette cleaning). A few reviews even said that the town wasn't even interesting. Our expectations were thus low.

Greeted at the entrance to the car park by two parking attendants, they gave us directions (in rather rapid French) to the motorhome parking, which turns out to be closer to the town than the car parking. We are looking out of Bertie's windscreen at the town walls, which was the first sign of promise that this might be an interesting place.

A couple of minutes walk along the road. Notice the chap in costume.

Looking along les remparts

What we found inside the walls felt like a cross between an open-air museum and a film set. The former was based on the fact that there were a lot of people around (more than we've ever seen in any sort of museum) and they were all clearly tourists.

Town street

We opted not to pay the entrance fee to go into Caesar's Tower.

But we did go into the church

Far brighter and airier than most churches.

Heading out of the mediaeval town, down into the 'new' town we went, although that was mainly half-timbered houses and clearly not very new at all. Through a rather nice park, beyond which an equally nice tree-lined promenade took us back to the ramparts.

The day had warmed up by now and as we climbed up to the top of the wall, then proceeded along it, having to ascend and descend for every tower along the section that was open for public access, we regretted not wearing shorts.

View into the old town from the ramparts (note the artist in the bottom right; there were lots of them dotted around the town, presumably on an organised painting holiday)

Along the wall

Coming back through the town, trouble was had finding an ice cream vendor who hadn't run out of cones. It was third time lucky. Then back to Bertie with me opining that of all the mediaeval towns/villages we've visited on this trip, this one was the best. 

Friday 13 and Saturday 14 September - Troyes

Where's Bertie? He's in an Aire (that is really a campsite) in Troyes at a cost of €15 per night including electricity. Exact location: 48.312185, 4.096685.
Weather: Sunny intervals, Friday 15 degrees, Saturday 17.

Troyes is about 2.5 hours from Étival-Clairefontaine, where we had languished for three nights. We broke that journey up, although not very evenly. After 3 minutes we stocked up at an Aldi. After 20 minutes it was a small detour to a laundrette.

Every time I do laundry, I stand in the middle of Bertie and contemplate what items I have forgotten (because it's seldom just the contents of the laundry bag), and every time (or so it seems) I forget something. Last week it was pyjamas, and if it hadn't been for that, we probably could have got away without doing another wash on this trip. Of course, having made the diversion and needing to pay for the machines, I made the most of it and did a full load (€6.50 for a 6kg wash and a 16 minute dry, so pretty good value).

Then to Troyes. At the time of publication of our Rough Guide to France, this Aire was the municipal campsite (and apparently 5km out of town; I've checked the address, it's definitely the same place). It's now a motorhome Aire and the old reception/toilets/showers/laundry building is closed. The fact that it used to be a campsite is, however, relevant as, to my eyes, it is still a campsite. The pitches, each bordered by hedges, are huge. You could fit 3 Bertie's on ours, and some are even bigger. All very nice; far nicer than we need.

We did nothing out of doors for hours after we arrived here, which was fine by me as it turns out my trip and subsequent sudden and close examination of the pavement in Nancy had more of an impact than just skinning my hands and knees. I can only assume that I landed with my elbow between tarmac and ribs, as my ribs are decidedly bruised. I'm fine as long as I don't breathe deeply, laugh, cough or look over my left shoulder. Despite that discomfort, after tea we decided we'd been indoors too long and took a leg-stretch.

This morning we walked into Troyes. Contrary to the guidebook's '5km out of town' claim, we reached the edge of the old town after just over 1km, and were at the cathedral in 2km. It was still early, and everywhere was quiet as we looked around the cathedral and poked around some of the streets.

Cathedral

So much stained glass

It took a while to work out why they were all left hands

More wandering ensued, greatly enjoying the wonky half-timbered buildings, even though we've seen more than our fair share of half-timbered towns across both Germany and France over the last few years.

Probably not the best framed snaps

We then discovered that it's market day, and around the market the streets were far from quiet. What a huge market it was too, spreading around three sides of the indoor market. We took a walk through the market hall too, and got completely disorientated upon emerging on a different side.

 The range of wares at the market was extensive, from mattresses through dozens of clothes stalls, pans and utensils and the standard French fruit, veg, meat and cheese stands. The only photo I took was of this array of peppers.

Our mission was then to find somewhere for a drink and snack. This is not usually a problem. France has bakeries (with tables) all over the place, except, it seems, in Troyes. In fact, at this point, we'd not spotted a single boulangerie, with tables or otherwise.

That resulted in us seeing much more of the old town, and a bit of the main shopping area, before we settled on a bar in the main square.

Forgot to the take the obligatory snap until after significant progress had been made on the croissant.

We did vaguely contemplate nipping into the Tourist Office to get a map or leaflet, but just continued wandering, reading information signs as we spotted them (all bar one that we found were bilingual).

We'd gone prepared with sandwiches, which we ate in a park, whilst I looked up information on the museums. We likely would have visited one of them, if it hadn't been for the fact that they'd all just closed for lunch themselves.

So, more wandering and reading of signs.

It's certainly an attractive and interesting town for wandering.

 
As we arrived back at the Aire we spotted a table right by the entrace/exit on which there were various leaflets and a pad of tourist maps, complete with all the main sights highlighted and a suggested route around the town. By luck, rather than by design, an inspection told us we had managed to hit most of the sights. 

Mick chatting with a local

I liked these, although it was a shame that the water level was lower than those in the water were designed for.

Fountain of the day

All the horse chestnuts indicating that we have passed from summer into autumn.

Thursday 12 September - Nancy

Where's Bertie? He's in a commercial Aire at a marina on the canal in Nancy where it costs €19.42 per night, including tourist tax. Exact location: 48.692147, 6.193260
Where was Bertie the last two nights? He found himself staying in Étival-Clairefontaine for three nights.
Weather: Tuesday: rainy start, clearly late morning, then raining later.
Wednesday: grey, cold and wet with a high of 13 and a low of 9.
Thursday: Sunny intervals with just a couple of short showers. 15 degrees

First a catch-up: We were only going to stay in Étival-Clairefontaine for one night, but with Tuesday being rainy, and having work to do, and with the Aire having good facilities (including electricity) for the €8 fee, we decided to stay another night.

The only activities, other than staring at computer screens...

multiple screens in my case; I got the big screen out so I could view three different documents at once.

...Mick went out for a run just before the weather cleared up in the morning and I went out just before lunch. Mick's outing was relatively flat, along the local Voie Verte, whereas I opted to visit the Pierre d'Appel viewpoint (an impressive rock outcrop, that I was unable to capture in a photo).

Good view of three valleys.

I went across the bridge onto the pillar the other side, where my knees started to knock completely irrationally as even a specatcular dive wouldn't have sent me over the edge.

We then decided we needed cake for after lunch, so visited the friendly boulanger/pâtissier:

The lemon meringue was particularly good

The intention had then been to leave E-CF yesterday, but with the weather forecast being for heavy rain all day, and with the temperature having collapsed (it was 30 degrees four days prior; by the time we went out for a walk last evening it was 9 degrees!), we decided there was no point travelling a few miles up the road just to sit somewhere when we could stay where we were and take advantage of the electricity. So, we extended our stay again*.

There was another visit to the bakery, which involved us going through the small Wednesday morning market. Would have bought some cheese, except there was so much choice we just couldn't choose. 

The fan heater came in handy, and for the first time on this trip, we broke the duvet out for the night.

We woke up this morning (Thursday) to a temperature of 11 degrees inside. This really has been a sudden plunge into autumn! We caved and dug out our long trousers.

After Mick had been for another run/walk along the Voie Verte...

Misty start over the water

...we were promptly away for the hour-long drive to Nancy, via a supermarket shop on the way. We wanted to arrive here by late morning, firstly so that we would have time to do the town justice and secondly to maximise the chance of one of the 19 spaces at the Aire being free, as I'd read that it usually fills up quite early in the day.

The welcome from the Marina office chap was excellent, giving me a map and explaining exactly what we needed to see in the town. The map also told us there were various audiotours available via the town's website.

So, off into town we went.

Plas Stanislas is quite something!

Fountains of the day

Having visited most of the POIs on the '18th century heritage' route...

...sustenance was needed...

...and whilst waiting for our food to arrive we planned our afternoon, to do the Art Nouveau tour route, via the Musee de l'Ecole de Nancy. Many an Art Deco building was passed and admired, and we stuck our heads through the door of Brasserie Excelsior (kicking ourselves for not thinking to go there for lunch):

I think that lady may also have just been having a gander

We were almost at the Musee when, looking at directions on my phone, I failed to notice a bent over spring coming out of the pavement and went down so hard that I didn't bounce back up. It didn't take Mick too long to realise that I'd disappeared and another chap also came to check I was okay - which I was, even if I'd taken quite a bit of skin off my hands and a little off my knee (those long trousers were a good call today for more than one reason!).

We continued on towards the museum, but when my hands started dripping blood and with my knee throbbing, we abandoned and came back to Bertie. Scraping the grit out of my hands wasn't the most fun I've had on this trip, but hopefully they'll soon stop smarting.

Rather a shame. Having paid more than we usually do for this stopover, I'd wanted to do the place justice, rather than sitting indoors by mid-afternoon feeling sorry for myself. Only myself to blame though (although what was that spring doing there?!).

(*There may have been others, but I can only think of two occasions on this trip when we've stayed somewhere for 3 nights, and both were in places where we arrived and declared the town to be completely uninteresting.)

Monday 9 September - Senones & Étival-Clairefontaine

Where's Bertie? He's in an Aire in Étival-Clairefontaine, at a cost of €8 per 24 hours including electricity, water, a bit of wifi and tourist tax. Exact location: 48.363565, 6.864388
Weather: Rainy start, clearing to give a bit of sunshine this afternoon before coming in grey again.

With Senones seemingly offering so little of interest, I had a look at Park4Night last night and found that there was an almost identical Aire 10km along the road, and thus the decision was made to come here today. That meant I needed to be back from my morning run/walk by 10am so that we could pack away and use the service point before our exit barrier code expired.

The route I'd plotted for myself came in at 13.5km, but that included a 1km out-and-back to a point of interest, so by omitting that I was sure I could be back in time. I'd allowed for the ascent involved, but not for how interesting the route was going to prove to be!

It was in full waterproofs that I set out at just gone 8am, and so I remained for the whole of the climb and most of the ridge. On the way I passed a couple of bunkers and an information sign, then when I got to a large multi-way junction, where I was to turn onto the ridge, there was a more comprehensive sign.

The ridge part of my route then passed through the German defensive line (having taken the town of Senones in September 1914), through no-mans land (where signs told me I mustn't leave the path, presumably due to the risk of unexploded ordnance), and through the French offensive line. The remains of various bits of infrastructure (mainly on the German side; the French side only had one building, in addition to its trenches) were dotted along the route, each significant point accompanied by a tri-lingual sign.

It was soon apparent that whilst the town of Senones is not interesting (in my opinion; the local tourist board disagrees), this route was itself worth an overnight stay. It was just a shame that Mick wasn't with me, and that I needed to be back by 10am. I tried not to tarry too long at each point of interest along the way, but even so the first 4km took me just shy of an hour. I decided not to turn back immediately, but to see where I was twenty minutes later, as I knew the rest of the route would be faster (less interesting stuff to stop and look at/read, plus mainly downhill).

I didn't half put a shift on once I was beyond what is effectively an open-air museum, completed the intended circuit and got back to Bertie with plenty of time to spare. I'd also only covered 10km. Not sure what happened to the other 1.5km that I'd plotted! I should also mention that I saw not a single other person (the weather may have had a bearing), but did see two deer.

We were soon on the road, and fifteen minutes later we arrived at this Aire, where I set about searching for the payment machine, to buy an access code (after a lap of the place I found it near the entrance, but hidden in a hedge), Bertie was then installed on an absolutely massive pitch.

In reality, there wasn't an awful lot of benefit in moving, as we both then spent the day in front of our laptops. TGO Challenge 2025 entries open in less than a month, and there is much work to be done before then. We did, however, finally head out for a leg-stretch around teatime. We can report that Etival-Clairefontaine is even less interesting, but better kept, than Senones, but (just like Senones) there's a point of interest up on a nearby hill, so I shall go and look at that in the morning.

The first bits of WW1 infrastructure I came upon during this morning's outing

The main focal point - Roche Mère Henry; until August 1914 it had been a tourist attraction with telescopes to hire. The following month it became a German Command Post.

It's now back to being a viewpoint, but it wasn't the weather for views today, so I shoved my face in front of the camera

Lovely woodland paths too

Moving on to Étival-Clairefontaine, there used to be an Abbey here. The church is one of the few bits that remains and didn't strike me as being of typical French design.

Sunday 8 September - Senones

Where's Bertie? He's at an Aire in the town of Senones where it costs €8 per 24 hours, including electricity, water and tourist tax. Exact location: 48.393491, 6.974163
Weather: Rainy morning, brightening to a good amount of sunshine before coming in for rain again at teatime. 16-23 degrees.

I gave Mick a couple of options as to where we could go today, one being a free Aire 30 minutes from Obernai (where we spent last night) with walking routes immediately adjacent, the other being this place in an historic town with an abbey, an hour away. Preferring to do a longer journey and spend 2 nights in the same place, this was the option he took.

There was nearly a minor detour when I read about a museum just before we passed it, but the weather wasn't conducive to doing much at that point. It had rained on and off through the night, sometimes with thunder, and the morning was nothing short of grey, wet and miserable. The temperature was also dropping, until it reached 16 degrees. Putting this together with the poor MPG being achieved by Bertie, we deduced that we had been gradually ascending. Sure enough, we soon passed a sign telling us we were at seven hundred and something metres.

The rain had stopped and it was looking a little brighter by the time we arrived here. It's a nicely presented Aire here, with 16 spaces, only one of which was occupied. Quite a contrast to Obernai last night where vans just kept rolling in. I didn't do a count, but there must surely have been at least 50 there.

After lunch, a stroll around town was on the agenda, and it didn't take us long to realise that there wasn't a lot to it.

First impressions: an information sign so damaged and faded that it's now useless, next to some shabby, flaking shutters on the adjacent building.

Not far away we found the abbey, with a car boot sale taking place in the entrance yard, but with restoration works clearly affecting some of the buildings (and possibly also with it being a Sunday) nothing was obviously open for us to wander around the site. We did, however, learn that it ceased to be an abbey in the 1790s and became a textile factory, which it remained until the mid-1990s. It is now being restored as a historic site.

Continuing impressions. We couldn't get directly to where we were going next as the road (that goes through the building at the end of the street) was blocked. I didn't take a snap of substantial building 'under construction' around the corner that had clearly been abandoned long ago

Taking a long way around to the chateau, the impression of a tired and dying town continued, with lots of empty and unloved buildings/shops. Then we rounded the corner and came upon:

The chateau

The chateau doesn't look classically French-chateau-esque, probably because it dates from the period (1751-1793) when Senones was the capital of an independent state: the Principality of Salm-Salm. Three successive German princes reigned, and built the chateau - although they probably referred to it as a Schloss - which is what (per my general mental images of chateau vs schloss) it looks like.

Only a short foray was had into the gardens, before we headed back to Bertie.

So, the historic town was rather a disappointment, but we are still in the wooded hills of the Vosges region, and there seem to be a few landmarks in those hills, near to the town, that may be worth seeing, so at least one of us will venture out tomorrow for a look.

Bertie at the Aire. They built it, but people didn't come - or at least, not in any great number.

Fountain of the day