Our Travels with Rover

We drove 5247 miles through The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, Switzerland, and Germany and back through France, Belgium and The Netherlands. We spent $2887 on gas, averaging $6.50 per gallon for 444 gallons. We never filled the tank to test the gas mileage, but we had picked Rover up with little gas in the tank and dropped her off the same way, so we figure that an average of 11.8 mpg was pretty accurate. With very few exceptions, David drives no more than 55 mph, even on the autobahn.

We stayed 85 nights in Europe, 8 of them at free camperstops. The other 77 nights we paid an average of $26, which included showers and electricity. The most expensive was in Paris at $45/night. Campground expenses were $2078.

We made a conscious decision to eat out more often this year--3 or 4 times a week at least--so our food costs were higher (and our food experiences more fun) at $3434. It is necessary to pay for the privilege of sitting at an outdoor cafe, so a simple coffee or glass of wine for both of us can easily cost $8 -10. That was often necessary just to find a place to get off our feet and to gain the right to use the bathroom. However, once you have made a purchase, you can sit as long as you like--you will not be asked to move on. Our wine expenses probably averaged €2-3 a day. We had some pretty good cheap wines!

Our additional transportation costs were $1350, very close to the $100 a week we had expected for bus, trams, trains, and tolls. It is slightly higher primarily because of our one-day excursion to London on the EuroStar. Train fare for the two of us was $400.

Our insurance cost $1325 for three months. Rover is uninsured in storage. As far as we can discover, there is only one company that will insure American-registered motorhomes in Europe, and it offers no reduction for long-term storage. Our storage costs until next April are $875, prepaid. We were also able to get a $400 refund on our car insurance because it wasn’t being driven for 3 months.

Direct expenses for Rover were $1208. This includes our new air compressor for the tires, battery work, the work done by the storage people last winter, the oil change and brake check, and various things we added like the laundry rack, rugs, and water hose adaptors.

We paid $142 in ATM and foreign money transaction fees. Our current bank had wanted to charge 3%, so instead we kept open a checking account at our old bank that charges only a 1% fee. We paid all our bills and other financial work on the internet and didn’t come home to a single thing we had forgotten to deal with.

Museums and tours cost $850, but many of our best memories were free: the sand dune at Arcachon, the Pont du Gard, the ride into Italy, all the cathedrals and outdoor markets. Our little 30-hour excursion to London was $700 for train, hotel and play tickets. (Susan thinks this constitutes David’s birthday and Christmas presents, while David thinks the matter is negotiable.) 

Of course we spent additional monies on airfare, gifts, t-shirts, internet acccess ($76), newspapers ($136), LP gas ($55), and miscellaneous stuff. But we basically stayed within our anticipated $1000/weekly expenses. We don’t think anyone could  duplicate that level of spending while staying in hotels, eating all meals in restaurants and paying travel expenses, and renting an RV in Europe would cost at least $1000 a week.

Our campground in Verdun was probably the best one so far. It had everthing we needed, including free and good internet access and a wide paved boulevard that made it very easy to get into and out of our site. It was about a 20 minute walk into the town. Verdun is a small, quite depressed town, despite an energetic riverside open space with stores and cafes. Yachts and houseboats tied up along the quay, which had been built as a gift from Great Britain after WWI. But apart from this space and a few side streets, the city center looked like it could use some cleaning, paint and repair. Still, it was drawing many tourists to its war memorials and museums.

We took the four-hour tour to four locations about 10 miles outside the city. The tour guide spoke a little English and took the time to explain briefly what we were seeing. Much of the battlefield area is now forested: originally it had been farm land but was bombed so heavily during the 300 days of the Battle of Verdun that 90 years later the landscape remains pockmarked and scarred. Nine villages were completely destroyed and not rebuilt because they were too dangerous to enter, and much of the surrounding area remains off limits because of the possibility of unexploded ordinance. We visited an underground fort, water dripping on our heads, which 3000 men had occupied during the battle, first French, then German, then French again. One room was walled off because 900 German soldiers, victims of an explosion, were buried there.

Then we went to the Ossuary. In front, 15,000 French soldiers are buried, while the Ossuary itself holds the remains of 130,000 (yes, that’s right--one hundred thirty thousand) unidentified French and German soldiers. The building is like a huge granite temple the length of two football fields. But the strangest thing is that you can go out to the back side and look in small windows and see the bones of these men. Bones piled upon bones.

The next day we visited the town’s underground citadel that has been turned into a tourist attraction. It had housed up to 10,000 men as they prepared to go to the front lines. It now features a little electric car, like a fun house ride, that drives you through a series of scenes explaning how the soldiers lived there and on the front. We now know more about WWI than we ever learned in any history class. It was all quite an experience.

We drove on to Rheims where we had a camperstop just off the motorway in mind.  We were hoping to find it and park and then either leave the city after visiting the cathedral or stay for the night if it proved to be a safe place.  We  (and our GPS) were unprepared for the volume of detours and road construction that we were confronted with in the city.

But we finally prevailed: we toured the city and their remarkable cathedral and stayed the night. We were safely tucked behind a youth hostel with another motorhome in a parklike setting. It is not unusual for youth hostels to offer free camper services and overnight parking if they have space.

While in Verdun, we had decided to take a major detour, so on Sunday we drove to Paris, which we had been planning to avoid. We were going to leave Rover in the campground and take the EuroStar through the Chunnel to London just for one night so we could see “Arcadia,” a play by Tom Stoppard.  (Our former students--hi to you all--will understand the impetus behind this decision.) But first we had to get through Paris traffic to the campground. Because this was on a Sunday, we thought traffic might be lighter and it was . . . until we reached the park that we had to go through to get to the campground. Everyone in Paris was at the park, nearly all of them with a car. Cars lined every street and were parked down the center of the streets so that we could barely make it through. In addition, we tried to follow the campground signs but found some of the roads were blocked off because there was a huge outdoor concert about a half mile from the campground (we heard it until midnight). Even the police couldn’t tell us how to get through, so it was a good thing we had been there last year and knew where we had to keep heading. It was a great relief to finally get to the campground and find they had room for us because they had not responded to our email request for a reservation.

The next day we took the bus to the metro, on which you can get anywhere in Paris--that is, if you can get to a Metro station. Even the bus had trouble getting through the traffic. It took us 20 minutes to go 2/3 of the way around a large traffic circle to the Metro stop. Then we walked our legs off around Paris, scouted out the train station, picked up our tickets, and spoke with an old man who sold David a Tour de France tshirt and claimed to be very sure Lance Armstrong would win again.

Tuesday we locked Rover up tight, took the train to London (just over 2 hours, with security just like at an airport)--saw the play (wonderful)--stayed at our favorite hotel--went to our favorite Starbucks--saw the Monets at the National Gallery--walked through the gift shop at the British Museum--and took the train back to Paris, just in time for the evening rush hour on the subway and bus back to the campground. Thursday we took a different and slightly less busy route out of Paris, where we took only one wrong turn that eventually got us on a very good road.

We are now headed north with only one week to go. We have started to think about how we are going to get Rover cleaned up and get everything packed away.  We can’t just drive it into our driveway and unload everything.  So we are trying to eat up what we have, keep clean the things we will leave behind, and decide just what goes home with us besides a suitcase full of dirty clothing. Tonight we are staying south of Calais right on the English Channel. There is only a low sand dune between us and the water. It is strange to think that a few days ago we were on a train going under it. Tonight we watched ferries pass and dock at Calais. Maybe someday we’ll put Rover on one and see if we can drive on the left side of the road.

We are amazed that hundreds of European campers don’t die of e-coli bacteria every year. We are very careful where and how we get water: we have dedicated fresh water hoses that are not used for anything else. But we regularly find people filling their fresh water tanks from the water hose provided at dump sites. True, these hoses are provided for filling fresh water tanks, but they are also used for rinsing dump sites and are left lying on the ground. We cringe when we see it. 

The water we get has been consistently excellent, but getting it is often a bit of a challenge. We have been in only three campgrounds where water was available at each camp pitch. Generally there is a central water supply somewhere with a hose, and then there are usually additional water faucets around the campgrounds, often the push-button type that allow a litre or two at a time. Many of the faucets have no threading, and we frequently have to remove or add something in order to fasten our hose. We also had to purchase an attachment at one campground and haven’t used it since.

We also looked into buying an additional hose in France but discovered that all new hoses are sold without fittings on the ends: those are purchased separately and vary widely. So we gave up on that idea. Besides, they were frightfully expensive. At campgrounds, most people use the hose provided or get their water a litre at a time. One in a while we will find non-potable water--there was a lot of that in the campground in Italy--so we simply used none of their water. Fortunately we had arrived with our fresh water tank full.  

We spent a couple of mostly rainy days in the city of Belfort, where a citadel overlooks the city, guarded by a massive stone lion created by the designer of the Statue of Liberty. 

     Rover in the shadow of the citadel

We stumbled upon what the town proudly claims is the biggest antique market in Eastern France. Even in the light rain it drew a big crowd. Market sellers work really hard for their money, setting up and repacking everything, whether it is antiques, clothing, vegetables or fish. Then they move on to another town the next day. Every town has a market day, and they are usually all over and done by 1 PM. We usually don’t buy too much in markets unless we are returning to Rover quite quickly and easily, because we would be carrying things around with us too much.

We continued on to Basel, Switzerland, returning to a campground we had visited last fall. (Here they tried to steer us to the fresh water hose that was located at the dump site and weren’t too happy when David instead got out the pliers and tapped the water supply by the reception office.) Basel is fun and easy to visit with its great transportation system. Last time we discovered a huge Monet exhibit at one of the two chief museums, and this time we hit on a Van Gogh landscape exhibit at the other: 70 paintings borrowed from public and private collections around the world. It was quite a show and was drawing a big crowd. We were glad we found out about it early as we had to buy time-specific (and expensive) entrance tickets for the following day. And then it rained on us, but we were able to take shelter in a Starbucks--Basel is only the third city we've visited this years that has them.

Then it was on to Freiburg, Germany, on the edge of the Black Forest region. The small campground where we stayed was on a terraced hillside under many trees. The owner runs up the hill with each unit as it comes in and helps to get it sited in its tight spot. Since the next day was going to be a holiday (Corpus Christi Day, of all things), he expected the campground could be crowded. Rover has never been tucked so neatly into a site. Two little permanent camping trailers were very close to us, one behind and one next to us, but neither had occupants while we were there. We rode our bikes into the city center and discovered literally hundreds of others biking. This is a university city and it seemed that all the students had bikes. It was a challenge trying to avoid bikes, trams, and cars on some streets. In the center of the old city there were fewer cars and many busy pedestrians streets: the challenge there was to avoid the town's centuries' old water-delivery system, yet another lawsuit-waiting-to-happen. 

                                                                                      Bikes in the foreground...the middle ground...and the background

Again, no sign of any economic problems on the streets of Freiburg. And again we were having intermittent rain but it didn’t slow us down or keep us from the Munsterplatz, the Rathaus, or still another funicular that went only half way up the big hill.  And once again we took refuge in still another Starbucks (this one right next to a Subway and a Burger King and just down the street from a McDonalds.) The rose gardens were in full bloom and the city is well kept and really very beautiful. The only problem is that we can’t understand anything and it makes us realize just how good our French is, at least by comparison to German.

While many campgrounds have restaurants that are really snack bars, the one in Freiburg had a real restaurant and beer garden right next door. It was doing a great business with large portions of reasonably priced meals. We ate there both nights, which is very unusual for us. The food was great: true, Susan did end up with batter fried mushrooms in “Knoblauch” (garlic) sauce one night, but they were pretty tasty.

We have ventured a bit further east into the Black Forest region: there are lots of high hills, pine trees, spectacular views and very twisty roads. This really is gorgeous country.  The houses in the area are huge compared to France. 

We stopped twice: once in an 800 year old town that looked too new and cute to us and once at the tallest waterfall in Germany. It is not a single free falling waterfall but a series of falls over rocks so that you can not see all of it at any one place. But it is tucked into the rock forest hill and it was a lovely cool walk to the overlooking bridge sites. 

Today is the day we forgot to recharge our camera’s batteries so we will have very few pictures of the Black Forest and none of the falls. We arrived at our campground destination in the hills to find it is closed. But we were able to dump our tanks and are parked in their large parking lot, which is filling with motorhomes as the day goes on. We intend to just dry camp here tonight rather than face more winding roads today.

It can be expensive to travel on toll roads in Italy and France: for instance, $30 for 115 miles to Italy. So David decided we could spend more time on the “red roads” on the map and “Why don’t we see a little more of the coast while we are here?”  So we took the red coast road toward St Tropez.  (It just happened that our trip coincided with the Cannes Film Festival and the Formula One Grand Prix in Monaco, so we had decided to avoid both places.) Once you are on the red coast road to St Tropez, there is no way to get off it. It consists of a little time spent along beaches and lots of time hanging off rocky red cliff edges. Every inch that can be developed is built up with houses, hotels and restaurants. There was a lot of traffic and many, many bicycles on this narrow, winding, hilly stretch of road. It was certainly beautiful, but it turned out to be thirty miles of white knuckle driving. Once we met a bus on a sharp corner. We were right up against rock wall on our right and we had to back up a few feet and pull in our left mirror to let the bus pass. Fortunately we were on the rocky cliff side all the way and not the straight-drop-to-the-sea side.

We stayed overnight in St Maxime, close enough to ride our bikes to the beautiful crowded sandy beach. This time we actually swam in the sea because the weather was close to 100 degrees. This little tourist town was hosting an Italian art fair right at the beach. Then on Sunday we headed north to escape some of the heat. Fortunately it cools down into the 60’s at night and we are very comfortable in Rover. Campgrounds are getting busier and we have been to a couple that have had their pools open. This is still considered low season, so not all the facilities are open at every site.

We spent one night at the Roman Theatre campground in Vaison la Romaine (it was full but they fit us into a parking place made for a tiny French car next to an unrented cabin). This old town is built up around Roman ruins of a terribly over-restored theatre and the excavated ruins of houses and shops dating from 50-200 B.C., so we have seen something older than the Pont du Gard. Many of the shops in town were closed on Monday, but the campground owner strongly suggested we stay on Tuesday morning for the market which “fills the town.” So on Tuesday morning we moved Rover to a “camping car” parking lot in the town and went to the market, which did, in fact, fill the town: street after street of people selling plants, vegetables and fruit, clothing, jewelry, tools, fabics--even mattresses and sewing machines. Because the market took over all the parking lots as well as the streets, cars were parked all over around the edge of the town. We were able to get very close with the special parking lot for motorhomes.Overnight parking is allowed there also but we had opted for the pool and electricity at the campground and were very glad we did.

We are now in the big city of Lyon, where we’ve spent two nights and are about to spend a third. The campground is on the end of a bus line that connects to a subway that gets us into the center of town in about half an hour. Our bus ticket was also good for the funicular to the Basilica of Notre Dame that overlooks the city. This is a relatively new one built in the 1800’s and is totally over the top in sculpture and decorative painting. Walking in was another one of those “Oh, wow” moments. And purely by accident we arrived moments before the astroonomical clock rang at 3 P.M.--one of only 3-4 times of the day it rings. There were lots of people and school children wating for it to do its little multi-leveled mechanical-movement thing. 

There is a sweeping panoramic view of the city from behind the cathedral. The city itself is just lovely with all its tiled roofs and wrought iron trim, with one tall, ugly, round, dark Radisson Hotel in the middle of it all. We have exhausted ourselves doing museums and took refuge in the first Starbucks we have seen since Amsterdam and also in a little sports bar where we watched two more finishes of Giro d’Italia stages.

One of the most unusual things we've seen in Lyon is a mural of several buildings painted on to the flat six story side of a building. It is so well done that (pick one):

1. you could swear you are looking down another city street (Susan's way of putting it); or

2. it's only when you get far away from it that you realize you're not looking at a real building blocking your view of some of the painted mural (David's).

Our other favorite is the Miniature Museum. There is not a doll house in sight but instead movie sets created in miniature--and several others full sized--that were used instead of real locations (think “Titanic sinking” and “White House exploding in Independence Day”). This city is also known for its puppet theatres and its silk production. The shops are full of both. It is a good thing Susan has vowed not to add to her fabric collection.

(Link to pictures.)

Some of you, like one of Susan’s geographically-challenged siblings, have suggested that we include maps so our readers can see for themselves where we are. It’s a good idea, but we haven’t been able to download a map that we can write on, so let’s do this instead:

1. Find a map of France. Actually, it doesn’t even have to be all of France--just the Mediterranean coast will do. (Already you can tell where this is going, right?)

2. Find Cannes. That’s the town with the sun and the beaches and the yachts and the film festival, where the B-grade actresses take off their clothes in front of the photographers for publicity. It’s right on the ocean.

3. Now go east a bit, staying right on the ocean, until you find Nice. There’s no film festival there, but there’s sun and beaches and yachts, and everything else you’d expect in a town called “Nice,” even if they do pronounce it “Neese” for some reason.

4. Now go halfway between Cannes and Nice. Be sure to stay right on the ocean.

That’s where we are.

What looks like low clouds are actually the Italian Alps. Oh, and it was about 80 degrees today, so we had to put the awning up to protect ourselves from the sun while we sipped our wine.

Have we mentioned that being retired is tough, but we’re determined to make it work?

We’re here because since our last entry we’ve been heading slowly toward a little town on the Italian coast  called Arenzano, just west of Genoa, which is the finish line for May 20’s stage in the three-week bike race through Italy called the Giro d’Italia.

On the way to the Mediterranean coast, we visited what is probably the oldest manmade structure we’re going to see. We stopped for a night just a short walk from the Pont du Gard, a 2000 year old aqueduct built by the Romans to bring water to Nimes. Most of it still stands tall over the River Gardon, and a pedestrian bridge has been built right up against it to accommodate the large numbers of tourists. The footbridge very cleverly mimics the original in construction design and materials, so the two blend together very well. We didn’t know it wasn’t part of the original until we were almost on it. There was a large pay parking lot adjacent (which we did not have to use since Rover was at the campground), but that was the only part of the site that carried any charge. There was also no tourist information booth or anyone selling cold drinks or souvenirs, even though there was plenty of room for all of that on the long and wide approach  path to the bridge. Someone is missing a golden opportunity here because there are thousands of visitors every year. We were surprised at the large number there on the day we visited.

The next day we drove to Avignon, but not without incident. We had stopped at a large grocery store and checked out their gas station for access. It is one of those that has five or six pumps side by side, after which everyone drives past a pay booth at the exit. We had gotten gas and were next in line to pay before discovering that our 8’3” wide Rover (with the mirrors folded in) would not fit through their 8’2” exit lane. The only way out was to back up through the pump area and exit the way we had come in. The cashier called security, but by this time the few cars behind us had figured out what was happening and gotten around us, while David did a remarkable job of backing Rover up between the pumps, despite another car being fueled next to us.  The security man arrived and waved a few cars out of our way, and we turned around and were off. It was embarrassing, but we survived, and we did not tear the awning off!  

(At the risk of seeming to write about nothing but motoring hazards):

Finding a place to park in Avignon itself was nearly impossible. We managed to get ourselves into a couple of tight spots there, too, before finally seeing a sign for motorhome parking that ended up being across the river. However, it turned out to be very handy, as a free bus was provided from the large parking lot there. 

Avignon was home to the popes in the 1200’s. Since we had already toured the large Palace of the Popes in 2004 when we followed the Tour de France, we took the little train ride around the old city streets and alleys. We enjoyed the ride itself more than the sights being pointed out to us, and could not believe the tight corners the driver managed to pull us through and around. We continued on to Aix-en-Provence later in the day.

We had bought a clothes drying rack because most campgrounds don’t want you to attach clotheslines to trees. (Most also do not allow campfires or even charcoal cooking fires.) At Aix we were able to do a couple of loads of laundry and dry it pretty quickly in the sunshine. The next day we took the bus to the city center. Aix was the home of Paul Cezanne, and when we went to the museum, we found it was free--for a good reason: they were in the process of setting up a Picasso/Cezanne exhibit and had most of the rooms blocked off, so we were unable to see a single painting by either of them. Ah, well--this is only the second time something like that has happened in two trips.

Aix (pronounced ex) is a beautiful city with a wide central boulevard lined with sycamores, the tree of choice in France. This boulevard was lined with cafes and restaurants spilling out on the wide sidewalks. On part of our walk we encountered a crowd of people and discovered a movie scene being filmed at one of the sidewalk cafes. Most exciting, we also found an English language bookstore that had a whole week’s worth of Herald Tribunes free for the reading. And we got to sit down for half an hour.

After two nights in Aix we drove on to revisit the little village that had captured our imagination so much on our Tour de France trip. La Cadiere d’Azur, high on a hill in Provence wine country, is yet another of France’s very old villages with tiny streets and steps masquerading as streets. It has great parking outside the village center, where we parked and walked all around (in the rain)--it isn’t very big. From the north, one can see for miles from east to west over the vineyards. It is just a lovely place and looks like it has been there for ever. But because it was raining we didn‘t try to extend our stay but instead drove on to the Mediterranean coast.  

When we pick a destination out of one of our guidebooks, we are never sure just where the campgrounds will be. We usually try to find something close to city centers or on a bus line, but this time we were looking for a beach. We ended up at La Tour-Fondue on the Giens Peninsula, the southernmost point on the Cote d’Azur. We were surprised at the campground’s low €15/day price because this has to be one of the most expensive pieces of real estate we have every stayed at. The campground itself was nothing special--actually, it was a little worn looking, with some steep driveways and low trees for Rover to navigate--but we could see the Mediterranean from our window. It was a ten minute walk (in the rain again) to the ferry docks and a little rocky beach and an old fortress on the farthest point.  On Saturday, when the sun was shining, we walked around again and watched the boats head out with scuba divers for the day.  And we could see the islands and ships out at sea. But we stayed only one night because we are need to get closer to northwestern Italy. 

And now we are between Cannes and Nice on what is certainly another expensive property. This campground’s laundry was only € 5 ($6.75) to wash and dry a load, the cheapest we have seen, so we did two loads of laundry! And then we walked the rocky beaches. We plan to come back to this place next week after seeing the stage of the bike race. It is right on a bus and train line that would make visiting Cannes, Nice and Monaco very easy, and it would be nice to just stay in one place for a while and not have to think about driving.

One night we watch the sun set over the Atlantic Ocean; the next, over the Pyrenees. Being retired is tough work, but we do what we can.

From the dune we drove through miles of flat mashy land, through managed forests, to Bayonne, where we parked for the night in a beautiful free camperstop overlooking the ocean. There must have been fifty motorhomes there, but it was a quiet and peaceful place to stop for the night. We keep looking for other American motorhomes but so far haven’t seen any. We caught a bus for a brief tour of Bayonne--a lovely old colorful city--but mostly enjoyed the beach area. 

The next day we drove to Pau (rhymes with “so,” the guidebook assures us), where we found a huge centrally located parking lot that was also supposed to be a camperstop. We spent the afternoon exploring the city and a restored chateau which, for some reason, wasn’t charging admission for the day. This is the place where France’s King Henri IV was born, and it includes the huge tortoise shell that was supposed to have been his cradle. (Henri appears to hold a place in the approved versions of French history similar to George Washington in US history and Elizabeth I in English.)

We decided we didn’t like the idea of a busy urban parking lot for an overnight stay and instead drove on to a tiny hillside campground outside of Lourdes with a distant view of the mountains. This is the first place that we have tripped a circuit breaker: we believe it’s because we had 3 amp service, which wasn’t enough when David tried to check the tire pressure with our new compressor, which draws 7 amps. 

In the morning  we drove into Lourdes, the pilgrimage destination of 5 million people a year. It wasn’t terribly crowded, but as usual it doesn’t take much traffic in the tiny streets to be daunting. We drove around looking for a place to park while ignoring the GPS’s attempts to send us down really tiny streets and finally found a gas station with a very helpful man. He gave us the right extension for his air machine to check our tire pressure, he helped us figure out which LP adaptor to use to fill the tank and how to attach it, and he told us where we could park. All of this without any English, an accomplishment on all our parts.   

Lourdes is totally oriented toward pilgrims and tourists. In addition to the usual souvenirs, one can also purchase plastic water bottles in the shape of the Virgin Mary so you can bring home your own supply of holy water. (You can also buy two-litre bottles, and you can stay at the Holy Family Hotel, with free Sky satellite TV). Lourdes is one place where the church collects enough money to keep things in excellent condition. The main Basilica (which looks not unlike Disneyland’s palace, and I don’t mean to be disrespectful to anyone) is quite magificent. There are at least a dozen 30 ft high and 20 ft wide mosaics of the life of Christ that are just stunning. Everything looks clean and new but is only 150 years old. We visited the obvious chapels and crypts but avoided the St Bernadette birthplace and various other shrines.

                                             (Click the photo for enlargement)

But the real delight of the day was the ride on a funicular railway to the top of the Pic Du Jer mountain on the edge of town, going 3000 meters which felt like straight up. The view from the top was spectacular, and there were very few clouds to mar the view. Since David doesn’t really want to get  whole lot closer to the mountain roads, this was as good a view as we were going to get. 

(Click either photo for enlargement.)

We exhausted ourselves walking around and returned to Rover for a rest stop. We had planned to walk back the few blocks into the city center for the nightly procession, but a scruffy group with six dogs had pulled up next to us in our absence, so we decided to head to another campground just east of town. Having half a dozen different books about campgrounds and camperstop options pays off.

The weather has warmed.  We took jackets to the top of the mountain but we really needed sunscreen. Clouds are moving in again and then move on.  We are now camped in Toulouse after having traveled 116 miles on Thursday, plus grocery shopping.  As much as we would like to shop in the outdoor markets and little shops, we find shopping in the big supermarkets much more convenient. The larger towns pretty much follow the same formula. There is a ring road circling the town (which helps us keep Rover out of centre ville) and at one of the traffic circles there will be some kind of superstore, kind of like a Walmart with food, a gas station, an ATM, a McDonalds (our internet life line) and a variety of other stores. We have come to count on this. We can safely park in the supermarket parking lot and walk wherever we need to go.

Today is a holiday, as we discovered while waiting for a bus, only to find that it was on the “Saturday and Holiday” schedule: in the US we call it “VE Day”; here, with a fine Gallic disregard for events in the Pacific, it commemorates "Victoire 1945,” i.e., "The End of the War." 

It has rained quite a bit every day for the last six days. We spent two nights in Aubusson keeping an eye on a slowly rising--but quickly moving--river fifteen feet from our back door. We made the sloppy walk into the town once to see the tapestry museum and a small workshop there. It was a lovely old town . . . but too miserable to enjoy.  

Then we moved on to the prehistoric cave area. The rain stopped long enough for us to tour the Lasceaux II cave paintings. These are copies of the 17,000 year old paintings found by four boys in 1940: the actual cave was closed to visitors in 1962 because the paintings were being damaged by the carbon dioxide and humidity brought by the thousands of visitors who came. So a model of the original was constructed--dug into the hillside--and opened to the public in 1983, a few hundred feet from the original. It is quite a remarkable thing to see. While waiting for the English version of the tour, we spent some time talking to a British couple who recommended visiting St Emilion, a medieval town near Bordeaux, so we added that to our list. First, though, we headed to Les Eyzies, where cave dwellings literally hang over the town. In this part of France one can stay at Cro-Magnon hotels and eat in Cro-Magnon restaurants and, of course, buy little plastic Cro-Magnon men with spears.                   

We didn’t do any of those things. Instead, we stayed overnight at a camperstop for €5 in Sarlat-la-Caneda (yet another medieval town), sharing the space with fifteen other motorhomes. Rover attracts a lot of attention in places like that where you are parked side by side in a parking lot. 

And then it was on to St Emilion. This is quite an amazing place. It feels like you are in a movie set that cannot quite be real. The town is perched on a hill overlooking thousands of acres of vineyards all around. It was once home to 10,000 but now only 300 people live there. Many of the houses are shuttered and vacant and need repair, which is very difficult and expensive to do because it has been named as one of the top 100 historical sites by UNESCO. The streets are cobbled, steep, and sometimes consist entirely of steps (and, because it had been raining, they’re slippery too). But the most amazing things are underground. We visited St Emilion’s cave (where he lived between 750 and 767!)  And we toured the crypts and the entire church that had been carved out of the limestone in the 11th and 12th centuries. There are 50 wine tasting shops tucked into every corner of this magical place, which is also known for its macaroons, here made with almonds instead of coconut. We spent as much at the cookie/chocolate shop as we did for lunch. It really is an amazing place, and I am very glad it was recommended to us. It was well worth the visit. 

We stayed at a large campground two miles north of the village. Because of the narrow approaches, we had to go about ten miles out of our way to get there without going through the village. We were briefly stopped by a bike race coming to its conclusion right at the edge of the village and followed a biker through the vineyards to the campgrounds. This sounds simple, but it can be frightening. We knew we couldn’t drive through the town, and as we approached it, already feeling some trepidation, we met a traffic circle with a roadblock set up for the bike race. We know we cannot turn around anywhere: we HAVE to go to the left . . . and, after a momentary stop, the gendarme let us do just that. 

This campground has a welcoming committee of six tame geese that approach every single individual as soon as you leave your vehicle, hoping you will be the one who feeds them. They are probably the most photographed geese in France. It was delightful. (This is the foie gras region, and duck is on every restaurant menu . . . which may be why the next morning we were greeted by only four of them.)

And--six days and counting--it is still mostly raining.

We have been to Chartres and Chambord. Chartres is another old city with a cathedral, but this one is not just yet another in a series--it stands out from the rest. It isn’t the biggest or the tallest, but it might well be the most beautiful, thanks especially to its magnificent stained glass windows. And they have actually been cleaning it! and them! Most of these places haven’t been touched in years and years, but parts of Chartres’s have been thoroughly cleaned and repaired.                                   

We were fortunate to hear part of an organ practice and, later, some of an organ recital; then at night we heard a Swiss choir perform. David said it was funny to hear a French organist playing German Lutheran music (Bach) in a Roman Catholic cathedral. 

Besides being a lovely town, Chartres has a great campground about a mile and a half from the old city and cathedral. It’s in a park along a river with a bike path through a wood and the park to the bottom of some very steep hills to the city center. We took our bikes into the city three times, including once returning after dark so we could see the iluminated buildings. It rained on us a bit, but not enough to dampen our spirits. It is a charming place--highly recommended--only a short train ride from Paris.

After two nights in Chartres we drove all of 21 miles to Bonneval on a Sunday, when just about everything was closed. The guide book advised campers not to approach the town from the south, as the streets are too narrow. (You don’t have to warn us about that more than once; nevertheless, even from the north we had to go through some tight spots to get to the campground, and we had to do it again in the morning when we left.) We walked into the town and found the old church open, but with no one else in it. Then we walked around the town a little: only a bar was open. (About the picture below: the sign indicates 3 meters of clearance in height, but the arch is clearly taller than that--3 meters wide, though, I can believe.)

As Americans who have become accustomed to removing shoes and belts before entering even a courthouse, let alone a national monument, we’ve been amazed that these beautiful, ancient buildings are not guarded or secured in any way. No one is checking backpacks or bags; there are people pulling luggage and pushing strollers; we even saw one boy in Amiens Cathedral with a scooter over his shoulder.  

It was the same way at Chambord, a huge chateau built by Francois I for a hunting lodge: four floors and towers of stone and carvings and not a guard in sight except at the entrance. It is a very beautiful place that has gone through many restorations. Because it had been abandoned for years and then used for art storage during WWII, most of the rooms were quite empty, but it is a work in progress. An easy access parking lot was provided for buses and motorhomes. It is a popular place.

We then stayed in Blois at a free camping place on the banks of the River Loire (click on the photo below for a larger version). It had no services (no electricity or water, let alone dumping)--just a place to stay for the night. About a dozen motorhomes were parked there with us, and several people, seeing our Minnesota license plates, stopped to ask about Rover and how we got there. Blois (pronounced ‘Blwah’--nearly impossible to say) has such an old city center that some of the streets turn into long flights of stairs. And, of course, it has its own chateau. 

I (Susan) have learned the French word for sauerkraut (choucrout) and will not forget it. We went out to dinner in Chartres, and I ordered what turned out to be a huge pile of sauerkraut (like a pile of pasta) with one large peeled boiled potato and five different pieces of meat--sort of:  a slice of very good ham, one hot-dog-looking sausage, another kind of sausage, one slice of an even larger and fattier sausage, and one strip of that thick dried uncooked-looking bacon that is eaten in Europe. All in all,  a most unappetizing meal. But, c’est la vie, it’s all part of the adventure.

We have lights; we have running water; we have refrigeration!  La vie est bonne!  After being told at one repair shop that we would have to wait for days to be seen, the place in Oostende asked, “In 35 minutes?”  It took more than an hour of nervous waiting and then only another 45 minutes before Rover reappeared.  “A loose wire from the battery box” was the € 67 explanation.  Everything works again. And, as if in expiation for last year’s misbehavior, the hot water heater has actually turned itself back on when the water in it gets used up! We were off to the nearest grocery, ATM, LP gas pump, and campground, exhausted but greatly relieved.

That was Friday; on Saturday morning we drove down the coast to Calais--through a busy tourist area that shows no sign of a slowing economy--this being the first holiday weekend of the season. From Calais we headed inland toward the Paris-Roubaix bike race route and found a little village campground 3 km from the route.        

 I was delighted to also see a little church just down the street, but when I inquired about Easter services I was told there would be none. “Just one priest for 17 parishes. He was here last Thursday and will be here again sometime in May.” So on Easter Sunday we got up to ride our bikes to the race route and found a chocolate rooster on one bike seat, compliments of the campground proprietor. We waited for the race in front of another silent village church. Around 11 a.m. about a dozen primary school children and their parents gathered for a short egg/candy hunt on the well kept lawn. Some traditions never end. A small crowd gathered, the hundreds of support vehices from the race came by, the bikers flew past,                                and we rode our bikes back to the campground. Later we went to the only open functioning business in the village: a sports bar--so named because it has a big tv--and watched the finish of the race. Tom Boonan won, going away.

Then on to Amiens and the largest cathedral in France. Easter Monday turns out to be a holiday for most people.  We have been trying to find an open gas station with an air pump to fill the bike tires and doublecheck Rover’s. And we are still in the hunt for an air compressor that will fit in the motorhome. We did finally find  a huge grocery store and, now that we are trusting our refrigeration, bought about as much as we can fit in our cupboards and refrigerator. And then we stumbled upon a campground about three miles from the center of the city with the help of an old French lady who was very excited to help us. (Like many Americans, she seemed to think that the more often and more emphatically she repeated her directions, the more likely we were to understand her. And, like many Americans, she was wrong.) We rode our bikes back along the Somme  to the city center and the cathedral and even ate at an outdoor Greek restaurant.       

We have come into Spring. Trees and flowers are budding and blooming everywhere.  We are surrounded by fifty shades of green. We drove through forty miles of already worked farm fields this morning that reminded us of southern Minnesota--big rolling fields with few hedges or forest breaks. We don’t think of this kind of place when we think of France, but this is definitely big farm country and it is beautiful. This is the Somme region, so the countryside is also dotted with military cemeteries from WWI: each one full of flowers and well trimmed lawns, and even 90+ years later some freshly placed remembrances.