{"id":5063,"date":"2019-01-20T11:43:52","date_gmt":"2019-01-20T11:43:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vennwood.co.uk\/?page_id=5063"},"modified":"2019-01-20T11:43:52","modified_gmt":"2019-01-20T11:43:52","slug":"northern-france-2018","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.vennwood.co.uk\/?page_id=5063","title":{"rendered":"Northern France 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

We spent a couple of weeks in the South of France in May into June with the family so decided it had been a few years since we spent any time in the North West of France and given the good summer weather with the promise of a good autumn we set off in early September to spend 3 plus weeks exploring and re-visiting old haunts.\u00a0 Having researched the usual ferry crossings I was surprised to discover that the Caravan Club overseas booking service were offering the best deals – by far.\u00a0 Not only were they the cheapest price but also included 4 overnight stay vouchers valid for two years.\u00a0 These each cover one nights stay at one of the many hundred sites listed in their overseas book for two people, caravan (or motorhome) and car and include EHU.\u00a0 Another small bonus is that you can amend your dates for a \u00a310 admin fee – plus any differences in crossing fares.\u00a0 I reckon we saved over \u00a3200 in comparison to the best deal I could get by going to the ferry companies direct (if you include the vouchers worth around \u00a390)\u00a0 We also took out the ACSI membership for under \u00a310 from the CC and this also more than paid for itself during our trip.<\/p>\n

We sailed from Poole on the 4th Sept for a very smooth crossing to Cherbourg, having traveled down to Poole on the previous day staying on the Ferry car park alongside many other travelers overnight ready to board at 7.30 am in the morning.\u00a0 I must add that we had a terrible journey down from Beckingham on the 3rd taking almost 10 hours to cover what should have been a 4 to 5 hours.\u00a0 Maybe we need to look at alternatives next time.<\/p>\n

We arrived at Cherbourg around 14.00 hrs local and were soon on our way.\u00a0 We had decided to stay for 2 nights at the Camping Belle Riviere outside Nantes.\u00a0 We hadn’t booked in advance as we didn’t know exactly when the ferry would dock, what the road traffic would be like and we didn’t want to arrive in the dark.\u00a0 After a trouble free journey we arrived at Camping Belle Riviere just before 6.30 pm and were all pitched and settled by 7pm.\u00a0 We were surprised to find the site was very busy with most pitches occupied.\u00a0 Having stayed here previous years we knew we would get on as they have a large overflow field and that rarely gets full.\u00a0 We decided on a leg stretch before dinner and took a short walk along the banks for the Loire on a very pleasant warm evening.<\/p>\n

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The following day we had planned\u00a0to walk into Nantes and then catch a local bus back to the site however having researched the bus service we discovered that by walking from the bus stop back to camp would have given us a total of at least 15kms excluding any walking around Nantes – so plan B came into effect.\u00a0 Plan B was to cycle into Nantes park up the bikes, do our sightseeing bit and peddle back.\u00a0 This we did and included a pleasant lunch in Nantes while watching the world go by.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Following our pleasant stopover in Nantes we made our way on to the Ile de Re and spent a week cycling around the island visiting old and new places.\u00a0 The weather here was excellent with long warm sunny days.\u00a0 We met up with our long time friends Chris and Dave and spent our days looking around.<\/p>\n

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This involved us cycling to various towns\/locations while Chris and Dave drove there as Chris was suffering from a bad back and found it hard to walk long distances.\u00a0 She did manage one or two walks into Ars-en-re though and we managed a few coffee stops and a lovely Sunday lunch.\u00a0 We also met their new arrival Bertie.\u00a0 Bertie is a King Charles Spaniel and a real cutie.\u00a0 We love cycling around the numerous cycle paths on Ile-de-Re for several reasons – first its flat, secondly the paths are mainly tarmac and although quite busy they are mostly traffic free.\u00a0 In my case they just happen to have many oyster farms dotted around – naturally we have to stop and taste these wonderful things while drinking a glass of the local wine.\u00a0 We stayed at the Camping du Soleil – not the best location on Ile-de-re but friendly and well equipped.\u00a0 Here we used our ACSI card and saved more than the cost of buying the card.\u00a0 To have booked the site direct would have cost \u20ac25 per night but with ACSI we paid \u20ac17 all in saving a worthwhile \u20ac56 in the week we were there.<\/p>\n

From Ars-en-re we travelled to a new to us area – the Gulf de Morbihan with Vannes at this head.\u00a0 We stayed at the Conleau campsite and can highly recommend it.\u00a0 We originally planned to stay 3 nights but in the end extended to stay 7 nights as we found the area extremely interesting.\u00a0 We did a combination of bike riding and walking in the area and managed to visit many of the local tourist areas such as Isle d’Arz and the Sene peninsular.\u00a0 We were really impressed with the campsite as it was so well located for Vannes and surrounding towns.<\/p>\n

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We especially liked our evening strolls around the Conleau peninsular – even after a strenuous walk\/cycle.\u00a0 It was so peaceful and relaxing.\u00a0 We made several trips into Vannes and found it fascinating walking around the old town.\u00a0 The old Chateau has wonderful gardens (kept in good order by the council) however it is sad to see that the building itself is derelict – such a shame.<\/p>\n

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The market square and market was really bustling and a great place to sit outside and people watch.\u00a0 The old town quay was also a good place to picnic while watching the coming and going of the visiting yachts.<\/p>\n

We fitted in a trip to both Auray and the\u00a0Alignements de Carnac – consisting of over 10,000 rocks aligned of 4 kms dating back thousands of years.\u00a0 The visitors centre is worth a visit (and its free surprisingly)<\/p>\n

We rather reluctantly left our Conleau campsite as we enjoyed the area especially our evening walks around the peninsular (and because the site was closing for the season the next day – even though it was pretty full)\u00a0 Another ASCI site that delivered on price.\u00a0 We moved North to St Bruiac and booked into a site that stated “within easy walk into the town centre” however that was a stretch of the imagination.\u00a0 We were disappointed with St B for a number of reasons.\u00a0 First of all it was quite a way from the harbour, secondly there didn’t appear to be a single road that wasn’t dug up and undergoing modernisation.\u00a0 Thirdly it rained.\u00a0 We had booked in for 4 nights but left after 3 as the weather looked set to stay unsettled.\u00a0 We moved North again to an old favourite of ours St Vaast de Hoogue on the eastern side of the Cherbourg peninsular and only a short drive to the ferry terminal.<\/p>\n

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There is always something new do do here and the weather turned really nice and sunny once again though it was starting to turn cool in the evenings. We did a few more walks around the town and visited the Tower – we even circumnavigated the tower but couldn’t explore inside as it was closed for repair work.\u00a0 We spent our last night at a local restaurant we have frequented before\u00a0 and had a great dinner with oysters, mussels etc. and staggered back to the caravan to prepare for our last leg home.<\/p>\n

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The return journey was no better than our outward journey being dogged by traffic jams and roadworks but we did manage to get home before dark.\u00a0 Another very successful holiday.<\/p>\n

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We spent a couple of weeks in the South of France in May into June with the family so decided it had been a few years since we spent any time in the North West of France and given the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":5061,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5063","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vennwood.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vennwood.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vennwood.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vennwood.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vennwood.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5063"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.vennwood.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5086,"href":"https:\/\/www.vennwood.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5063\/revisions\/5086"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vennwood.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vennwood.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}