Dinard, Dinan and St Malo

Spent a couple of days around the old walled towns staying at a site near the beach at Dinard. Had a nice lunch in St Malo, in a very friendly restaurant once we had found somewhere to park - not very camping car friendly car parks. Arrived at Dinard shortly after a storm so lots of water logged pitches, but very few campers, so we found a dryish one. We have seen too many old walled cities now, its about time the sun came out. We have not had our first BBQ yet and its almost June!. But the weather may be OK tomorrow so we are planning on staying two nights here, near Granville on the Cherbourg penisular, to get the outside stuff out. There is almost a red sunset - so we may be in luck.

North Finistere

After a very pleasant stay at Port Machem we have crossed back to the north coast via the medieval town of Concarneau. This required a short ferry ride to the old back gate of the walled town - full of English tourist on half term it seemed. Rosemary bought some pricey (but so is everything else) hand made chocolates from the chocolaterie. We are on a camping car aire on the sea shore at Erquy now - huge beach and rocky headlands in these parts. Receiving weak English TV from channel isles, just enough to catch a bit of the England match and Britain has Talent. Off to Dinard and St Malo today I think on our way to rendevous with Mike and Margaret on Sunday evening at Le Havre.

Peaceful Brittany

We are now in Southern Finistere at Port Machen for couple of days. This is at the mouth of the Aven, well known for the pretty touristy village of Pont Aven. We stopped there too for cafe and crepe but we are now on a beautiful site at Port Machen (St Valentine in ACSI book). We are the only ones here now, there were two, apart from the birds. Its so quiet and peaceful yet only 300m from a small beach and harbour with its bar/glacier and 300m from the village patisserie. Weather is still not settled, but it is sunny this morning at least and the birds are singing.

Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Ruby …. la la la la laaaaa

Its our ruby wedding anniversary today! Walked into La Baule des Pins for a suitably long celebration lunch and back again for tea. As it was 2 miles each way and sunny, it filled in most of the day very nicely. Cracked open the champagne to accompany the strawberry tart for tea and thats about it. 40 years ago we climbed/walked up Snowdon - so its been a bit different.

Its raining and its heading your way!

Been in La Baule for almost 24 hours now - which is almost as long as its been raining. Van is standing in large puddle but we have wine and other provisions for 2 days so 'pas problem'.

Made contact with Mark in Florida and Mike in England via a combination of MSN and Skype, but not enough bandwidth for intelligible Skype talk. Only one wireless hotspot for whole campsite I suspect.

Our 'cheapy' multistandard TV really does receive French Secam TV and there are also plenty of digital channels. In fact it looks like this part of France may have gone digital as the main stations are only on digital. No english content as far as I am aware but equivalent of 'news 24' channel, BFM, allows us to keep up with world events - subject to misinterpretion of course ;-)

Arrived in La Baule - with WiFi and rain

Reached our intended destination at La Baule for the weekend to find it raining. But then it looks like its raining everywhere at the moment! We are staying here at a site called La Roseraie (not quite Rosemary but pretty close). It has WiFi all over so I will be on line a lot for the next couple of days if it doesn't stop raining. Chance to catch up with news and emails, Skype and load some photos. We have a had three nice hot sunny days so a bit sun burnt and 'mozzied' - but no more than you would expect.

Morbihan and Auray

We spent the night in the parking at Mont St Michel on Monday with around 50 other vans. No facilities but a perfect place to see the sun set over the bay and then the picturesque floodlit Abbey. Next morning we drove down thru Brittany to the south coast stopping at Pleormel for a picnic lunch. Decided on an ACSI site a mile out of La Trinite sur Mer for a two night relaxation stop. Walked into La Trinite for coffee and a bit of food shopping before for returning to site to cook it. Demolished a botte of wine or two, at least that is still cheap and chilled out.

Its Thursday today, we drove round the Golfe de Morbihan (inland sea) via Auray and its pretty old harbour. Treated ourselves to a typical moules and frites lunch on the harbour - excellent. Stopping overnight on free parking (12 other French vans) at Port Navalo a huge marina with maybe 600 yachts moored here. Its right at the entrance to the Morbihan so perfect for either inland or offshore sailing - but the tidal flow must be challenging at half tide.

Normandy Landing?

Been in France for 4 days now and the sun has finally appeared! We have travelled down the wet west, coast stopping overnight at Calais, St Valery sur Somme, Jumieges in the Sienne valley, Honfleur and now in the camping car area at Mont St. Michel. Writing this blog waiting for the sun to go down (photo opportunity) having negotiated the 700+ steps on the Abbey tour and for it to be floodlit (another photo opportunity!). France is much more expensive than our last trip with diesel and petrol at UK prices, well almost, diesel is about 10p cheaper I guess. Monica is performing well, apart from the occasional sqweak, as is Rosemary. We are heading for the south Brittany coast tomorrow for a couple of days on a site as we have spent most of the trip in 'aires' so far , but only €7 a night.

Monica is off to France

It didn't take long! First holiday to France has been booked for 15th May in order to be away for our 40th wedding anniversary. Friends Mike and Margaret have just taken the plunge and invested in a motor home so we also intend to rendezvous with them in Brittany on their first trip abroad with Ivor their Ace Novello. We spent many holidays with our children in Brittany and the Vendee with Eurocamp, so this will an opportunity to re-visit some of those campsites again.