France 2007 - To the North

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Loire and the North
After our early morning visit to the Martyrs village we headed north mainly on straight D roads to Bellac and Montmorillon with the occasional deviation due to "Route Barrée" signs. Passing through the pretty cliffside village of Angles-sur-l'Anglin with a large ruined chateau we turned north along the Creuse valley to Descartes where the famous philosopher lived. After negotiating the narrow streets we drove on busier main roads for a few miles to turn off towards the Loire Valley, heading for an aire at Villaines-les-Rochers. We found a rather scruffy service area and parking places in the town square. After a quick look at the one star municipal campsite which was empty, had a height barrier and was situated next to a metal working factory we decided to give this tired looking town a miss despite its basket weaving museum, and continued to Azay-le-Rideau, an attractive town on the River Indre.
We found the aire outside the campsite but it was full by late afternoon with some badly parked motorhomes of various nationalities and the service borne was expensive at 5€ (after several free nights!) so we booked into the adjacent municipal campsite for the night so that we could spread out, do some chores and then relax! We found a pitch away from a large UK Caravan Club rally contingent, but as we were near the perimeter fence we had some stones thrown at us from the adjacent track by some bored jeunesse during the evening, the first time we have encountered this type of vandalism whilst abroad. We managed a stroll around the smart town centre alongside the river with upmarket eating places but gave the late evening performance of the Songe et Lumieres presentation at the chateau a miss. From there we drove east along the Loire Valley heading for Chaumont-sur-Loire intending to visit the excellent garden festival we had been to a few years ago, but it soon became more built-up around Montbazon and suburbs of Tours. As it was so wet we decided to head north to Amboise then on D roads to Chateau Renault, Montoire-s-le-Loir, Savigny sur Braye and more small towns where the style of architecture changed to the typical Normandie decorated brickwork as we moved north.	Azay-le-Rideau Chateau at Azay-le-Rideau
After bypassing the industrial town of Nogent le Routrou we were taken by our satnav along minor roads to Bretoncelles a small neat town with an aire by the sports centre and swimming pool. The aire with service borne(2€) was a neat hedged gravel area with a chain across the entrance and a sign stating that "only camping-caristes are authorised to remove it". The village centre was a short stroll away where there was an interesting church, a few shops which were shut (early closing day?) and some street art including a statue to Django Rheinhardt the Jazz guitarist born in Belgium and lived mostly in France
Django statue Bretoncelles Bretoncelles church	Bretoncelles - distinctive Normandie style house Brickwork detail
After a peaceful night with one other motorhome parked alongside we continued north through a series of towns with distinctive tall church spires set in the flat agricultural landscape. The first, La Ferté-Vidame had been built as a military town with straight tree lined roads and when we arrived at Le Neubourg there was a huge street market and every spare piece of land had cars parked so it was impossible to stop. From there we took our preferred route crossing the Seine at the Pont de Brotonne and turning east at Yvetot but avoiding the Autoroute. Unfortunately many lorries also take the free road (previously we have travelled along here on a Sunday when it was much quieter). At St Saens we took a road across the pleasantly hilly and wooded countryside to the valley of the Bray and reaching the coast at Cayeux-sur-Mer an unimpressive small resort with beach huts and motorhome parking banned and continued to St Valery-sur-Somme, a more lively place on the estuary with a large aire (7€ for 24 hours + 1€ for water). This was a pleasant small resort with plenty of people strolling around and a steam railway on the prom - unfenced of course - this is France!	Old Dept de L'Orne roadsign Steam train at St Valery-sur-Somme
On our last full day in France we drove through more back roads to Crecy where there was a museum commemorating the battle (Shakespeare's Henry V from my schooldays). Deciding to do a last French supermarket topup shop we stopped at a Hyper-Champion in Hesdin which was very crowded being market day again and definitely not Hyper sized with a poor selection of wine and other goodies to take home. We later spotted signs for an E L'eclerc supermarket at Lumbres near St Omer but we just wanted to head to Gravelines to stay overnight in the aire. Howeverbut had to call into another small supermarket with even less of a selection of wines to get some 50cent coins to use the service point at the caravan site on the other side of the town - by then the air was getting as blue as the Flot Bleu (which was painted orange !?). It was only a short drive from there to the ferry port the next morning and back to traffic jams.
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