1 CENTRE-VAL DE LOIRE AND NOUVELLE AQUITAINE
BYE BYE BRITAIN, HELLO FRANCE
Having wistfully said goodbye to my friends in Liverpool, Cam and I drove to my house in North Wales. Here, more goodbyes were made to my Dad and Step-Mum Nia who kindly helped me pack the van and do last-minute checks. I then said yet MORE goodbyes, this time to Cam, who is staying behind for the first few weeks to complete his Masters exams.
Therefore, joining me for the first couple of weeks is my Mum, Françoise. For those of you who haven’t met my mum, I would describe her as really funny, extremely caring and wildly honest (often bordering on rude). 2022 was a tough year for my mum for various reasons and I’m hoping that this trip will bring out her inner youthfulness after a few bumps in the road (please forgive the pun). Nevertheless, she is still my mum and is therefore not immune to being annoying. So of course, I had to devise an extremely complicated anger scale from 0-10 to express how annoying she is and consequently how angry I become at any given time. To confirm: 0 being not at all annoying and 10 being I’m close to driving her to the nearest airport to catch the first flight home. I thought this would help to show you guys the reality of only having my mum’s company for 2 weeks.
Anyway…
We drove-on from North Wales to Hythe on the outskirts of Folkstone, not far from the Eurotunnel terminal. I wasn’t expecting Hythe to be anything other than a convenient pre-Eurotunnel stop, but the town itself was lovely.
The next morning we boarded the Eurotunnel and caught the 8:20am train to Calais. This whole experience was reminiscent of summer holidays visiting my family in Brussels or camping down in the Alps and I therefore felt quite comforted.
Once we arrived in Calais, obviously our priority was finding a boulangerie (a bakery for those who failed GCSE French). I had an almond pain-au-chocolat whilst my mum had a chausson-aux-pommes (some variety of apple pastry - she insisted I wrote the correct terminology).
Following that very necessary stop, we trundled down to a small town called Vendôme in the Centre-Val de Loire area. Along the way we stopped outside Les Andelys to stare at the Seine and yet another ruin of some 11th century fort that France seems to have in excess. It took around five hours to get to Vendôme, where our home for the night was a carpark in the centre of town by the river. It was surprisingly pleasant and with very modern public toilets and a skatepark right next door, I couldn’t complain. We explored the town itself that evening and whilst its prettiness was undeniable, it was lacking in activity and seemed unusually quiet.
The following morning, I went for a skate whilst my mum did her favourite activity: faffing (3 on the anger scale). The skatepark was good and although it was generally catered for flatground, I managed to find a nice mini-ramp which meant that I was content. We then left Vendôme and drove to Amboise to see the famous royal Chateau d’Amboise, notably where Leonardo Da Vinci is buried. All I’ll say is: I think we were scammed. I was hardly expecting to shake Da Vinci’s hand or meet King Charles VIII who died in 1498, but for €30 I was hoping to see at least a grave or a headstone. Firstly, the bit of the castle where Da Vinci was buried (literally the reason why people visit) was closed off for renovations- where was the discount? Secondly, I’m not too sure if the gardener was on holiday or had been fired, but for a royal Chateau I would expect the lawn to be mowed and the pond to not resemble mud. All-in-all, I think I’ve made it quite clear that the experience was underwhelming and I shall therefore not be returning. On the other hand, the town of Amboise was lovely, and my mum and I enjoyed a couple of crepes at a restaurant in the square beneath the castle.
Keen to forget the misspent €30, we moved on to a town called Chauvigny around 1h30 south of Amboise. Here, we parked up at a carpark we’d found on a really helpful app called Park4night. Chauvigny was a nice town, with the cite medievale ruins overlooking the town from a steep hill. The French really do love a chateau/fort - they seem to be everywhere and for what reason, I haven’t much clue. My French is fairly limited and the jargon used to describe the history of these castles is not generally part of my vocabulary.
The next morning, we did the Chauvigny VéloRail. This involved cycling 17km along a disused railway and it was super fun! We crossed bridges with incredible views of the town, continuing through wooded areas and open fields of wheat. The journey back to the town was almost all downhill, so you can reach quite high speeds making me think that in the UK, we definitely would have been made to wear helmets.
After leaving the VéloRail (and discovering that we had a petit issue with Bert’s sliding door coming off its hinges - 7.5 on the anger scale), we headed off to La Rochelle on the west coast. It was about a three hour drive in the end, but the ice-cream we had from TonTon Mabule (a highly recommended ice-cream parlour) made it worth it. As per, my mum copied what I had- chocolate and pistachio- therefore we weren’t able to try the range of ice-creams available and of course this was completely her fault. La Rochelle was only a stop, as our final destination for that day was La Flotte on the Île de Ré; a small island off mainland France accessible via a large bridge. Getting onto this bridge proved a struggle when eight toll lanes full of heavy traffic were forced to merge into one lane crossing the bridge. It was actually quite entertaining - watching drivers cutting each other off and giving the finger when things didn’t go their way. Once on the island, we arrived at a campsite called Camping Bellevue Bon Accueil. We made a curry watching the sunset and had a couple of GNTs. It was very wholesome.
In the morning, we walked around La Flotte looking for bike rental shops. Some were charging €30 a day and due to a newly developed fear of wasting €30, we continued searching and eventually found a shop with a very flirty French man charging €12 a day. We cycled from town-to-town throughout the day, stopping at each one to stare at clothes and food we couldn’t afford but enjoyed it anyway. In the evening, I went for a little skate at a questionable skatepark, made dinner and went for a drink in the harbour of La Flotte which was a hive of activity. I was baffled at all the bars stopping service at 9pm (on a Friday night!) and yet the ice-cream parlours and creperies had endless queues way past 10pm. I noted how different it would be in the UK. In the end we cycled almost 30km that day and ultimately concluded that the Île de Ré is very beautiful (although I do think we were extremely lucky with the good weather) and I would definitely recommend it to anyone.
The following morning, we left Île de Ré behind and explored La Rochelle for a couple of hours. Having been recommended a patisserie called D’Jolly, we bought two petites gâteaux and a few macaron. They were delicious.
We then continued south to Bordeaux, where we had a campsite booked for a couple of nights just outside the city so that we felt comfortable leaving Bert for the day (silly attachment issues). We chilled all afternoon and made pasta in the evening. My only criticism of Bert is the cooker is far from efficient. In fact, I think Gordon Ramsay would have an aneurism trying to cook with it. I would estimate it took us around 1h30min to fry some pancetta, boil some pasta and heat some tomato sauce. Perhaps we might look into installing a new cooker on the way - depends what the bank says.
On Sunday, we FINALLY had some time apart. We caught the tram into Bordeaux and whilst my mum visited some art galleries and wine museums, I walked around staring at the pretty buildings and then headed via a boat across the river Garonne to the Hangar Darwin indoor skatepark. It was in a very ‘up-and-coming’ neighbourhood (AKA. an ugly, dodgy industrial area) but the park itself was super fun and varied. The kids there were insanely good, but I was still disappointed to be only one of two girls there (out of around 50). I then went to a pub for a well-deserved pint, where I met up with my mum again to go for dinner. Having sat-down and awkwardly left two restaurants due to disappointing reviews we only read after being seated, we ended up at a Turkish place called the Istanbul Café. Once again, my mum was unoriginal and copied what I had which was this vegetarian Turkish ‘pide’. The ‘pide’ weren’t dissimilar to pizza but the dough was slightly more flaky. The ones we ordered were topped with roasted carrots, caramelised onion, spinach, feta and crème fraiche. They weren’t like anything I’d ever tasted before but really yummy. I find describing food difficult, because things either taste good or taste bad and there aren’t too many words I’m able to use to describe food without sounding ridiculously pretentious. Anyway, we then caught the tram back to the campsite just in time for the heavens to open. Thankfully this was the first rain we’d come across on the trip so we weren’t too bothered.
SUMMARY
My first week in Bert has been amazing ! SO FAR he’s running like a gem. My mum and I have had minimal arguments and considering the few amount of times I’ve used the anger scale in this week’s blog, she hasn’t driven me to insanity yet. All jokes aside, we’ve had some really good laughs and I’m excited for that to continue (hopefully). Next week we’re off Biarritz to do some surfing and then venturing towards the Pyrenees. Stay tuned ! Appreciate the support :)
