This
year we decided to just tour around France after a few days travelling
from Zeebrugge through Belgium and Luxembourg. We drove down the
eastern side of France to the Med visiting new places and some of
our favourite old haunts. We then turned west to the Camargue and the
Hérault before driving up through the Auvergne and the Loire to
the coast at Dieppe.
We decided to travel from Hull to Zeebrugge this year and enjoyed a smooth overnight crossing.
After a quick disembarquement we had a good drive bypassing Bruges and
Korjtrik to reach a campsite on the edge of Tournai. We then drove via
Durbuy with it's interesting topiary garden to Vianden in Luxembourg for a couple
of nights and continued south into France stopping at Metz then down to
the lakes and woods of the Jura region.
Continuing
south we
climbed up a narrow road through the Chartreuse Massive although
it was too misty to enjoy the scenery. We ended up in the middle of
Grenoble luckily on a Sunday morning but hit a mass of roadworks
for new trams, and eventually found our way out into more
mountainous scenery heading down to Gap and Sisteron and a stopover at
Moustiers Ste Marie. As the weather was now sunnier but accompanied by
the cold
northerly Mistral wind which blew for several days, we reached the
coast at
Port Grimaud and took the water taxi for a day in St Tropez. Realising
that the next weekend was the Monaco Grand Prix we turned
north again to the Alpes de Haute Provence for a few pleasant days in
the mountains before returning to the busy Côte d'Azur, staying at
Antibes for a day trip on the bus to Nice. We then headed inland once
more to one of our favourite regions of Provence around Aups and the
turquoise Lac de Ste Croix, now sunny and getting warmer. | 
Our route around France in 2013 |
We
headed west via the colourful cliffs around Rustrel and Gordes to
Les Baux de Provence and down to the Carmargue for a few days. From
there we turned inland to Sommieres, a pleasant small market
town then west again to the
Hérault department staying by a couple of lakes. We were going to
return to the coast near Sete but fearing it would be too built up
and busy for us, instead drove across the yellow broom covered hills to
Albi
to look at the impressive brick built cathedral, and on to the hilltop
village of Cordes sur
Ciel. From there we again turned north to the Lot region and Entraygues
sur Truyère
for a couple of days and on to Puy Mary in the Cantal and a few days
touring the Auvergne, another of our favourite regions.
It
was now Day 47 and only ten days to our homeward ferry so time to
head northwards with longer daily drives across the flat
agricultural regions of the Centre to reach Chaumont sur Loire and a visit the annual
garden festival, which we felt was not as impressive as in previous
years with too much quirky hard landscaping. From there it was an easy
drive through the pleasant hilly area of the Parc Naturel Regional du
Perche with many pretty villages to reach the Seine just south of the
Pont de Brotonne, avoiding Rouen, and finally an easy last day's drive to reach the
coast near Dieppe in familiar grey damp weather.
Costs
Ferry : Outbound: Hull to Zeebrugge P & O
£310, booked
through Camping & Caravaning Club
Return: Dieppe to Newhaven Transmanche booked direct by phone for over 60's discount
Fuel : £593 for 3237 miles about
28 mpg.
Gas: Gaslow LPG 56 litres €38 total : Initial fill
in UK
16 Litres £10.45; three top-ups in France 40 litres €34
SitesFees £325 total
Campsites 23 nights
€283 (€9.40 to €17.20) 14 using ACSI discount Camping Card mostly €16 + tax
3 nights at CL sites in the UK £20
Aires 31 nights: €71 (€5 no services to €21.00
inc services) 22 nights free
