Lee's favourite campsite

It's been a busy day, my friends. 

I went for a run around the lake near the campsite first thing, and was the only one in the park for most of it. It was beautiful, with the mist rising off the lake and the boats from the sailing club moored on the water. 
Lac du Brettonières at about 7:15am

The bridge at the bottom end of the lake

We got off our pitch with no problems, despite all the rain we've had (apart from the first day, it's rained every day).

Our first port of call after leaving the campsite was a caravan shop, to see if we could get our toilet cassette fixed - the flap which opens and closes the cassette wouldn't close. 

The lady in the shop spoke very little English, so my crap French was called upon again, with some help from Google translate (because I don't have to say "my flap is broken" very often) and we managed to explain the problem. She was lovely and so helpful. 

We ended up getting a whole new cassette, and some lubricant, which you're supposed to spray on it regularly to avoid this very problem (we didn't know this was a thing). 257.00€ lighter, we headed towards Angers. 

We arrived at the campsite, Port du Caroline, and they let us choose our pitch. They've also had problems with people getting stuck, after the rain, but the pitches here look drier than the last campsite. Apparently, a lot of campsites in the Loire valley aren't open yet, due to the river level being so high, so we've been quite lucky. Also, the owner said she recognised us from last year! Not sure if that's good, or bad?

This was Lee's favourite campsite last year, so this year's route had to include it again! He's already been to the pool (while I was doing the laundry). 

On the way here I picked up a little variety pack of French cheeses, as I'm never sure which ones to try. They're what Lee calls "stinky French cheese", but he did try them all. He's sticking to cheddar for now, though. I enjoyed them all...

A selection of (not stinky) French cheeses

It's rained on and off, again, since we arrived, and there's some thunder around, but hopefully we'll have some dry weather to get out on the bikes tomorrow. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside

The rain returned this morning, but it did stop long enough for us to have a little pootle around the local area.  From the campsite we went up in one direction, to a small village called Bois-de-Cise. It sits on top of the cliffs of the English Channel and all of the houses are styled very differently. The houses in Bois-de-Cise look like something out of a fairytale   The villas were mostly built during the Belle Epoque (1871 to 1914) Chapelle Sainte-Edith, built in 1912 From there we went back past the campsite and on to the nearby towns of Mers-les-Bains and Le Trèport.  They're your typical seaside towns, although quiet at this time of year. The buildings on the seafront in Mers-les-Bains are also from the Belle Epoque. The seafront buildings of Mers-les-Bains We turned off the main seafront in Le Trèport in the hope of finding a coffee that didn't require a bank loan, and found a really nice café/bar with coffees for 2€. The owner was about our age and had a great 8...
Read more

Ferry across the L' Authion

Image
Another 40km ride today, into Angers and back. Lee's trying to kill me off, I think.  Last year we just cycled along the roads to get to Angers, but this year Lee found a better route that was cycle route almost all the way. Some of it was still on roads, but they were mostly quiet country lanes or proper cycle paths.  Even when you do have to join busier roads, they've almost always got a cycle lane, or separate cycle path next to them. France is totally set up for cycling which, in turn, means that more people cycle.  At one point we had to cross the Authion river, but rather than a bridge there was a DIY ferry (of course there was, this is France)! It's basically a metal floating platform which has a chain running udnderneath it, which is anchored into the river bed. You pull the chain to bring the ferry to your side, put your bikes on, then pull the chain at the other end to pull yourself across the river.  Holding the ferry near the bank, so that Lee could put t...
Read more

Tours be, or not Tours be

So, we got to Tours, after another 4hr drive. We went via Decathlon, for me (Lee reckons I've got radar for Decathlon as I find one wherever I go), and a car garage to pick up some grip mats for the van, in case we get a muddy pitch somewhere down the line. I'm still traumatised by last year's antics in Chartres, when we got stuck on the pitch, so hopefully the mats are more of a precaution.  We arrived at our campsite, Le Mignardières, on the outskirts of Tours, at about 4:45pm. They said they've had a lot of rain in the last couple of weeks, so some pitches were soggy, but they let us have a wander about and choose our pitch before we paid.  We're on a nice corner pitch near the swimming pool, so after we pitched up we went for a swim.  There's a nice little lake nit far from the site, and a restaurant across the road, so we'll probably take a walk around the area tomorrow evening. Tomorrow we're planning a local ride along the Loire cycle route, but f...
Read more