We’re off again

On Friday March 3rd we set off to Ashford in Kent in our 'little' van for our next European adventure. We spent Friday night parked at the 'picturesque' Evegate Business Park (!). The parking is free, 15 mins from the tunnel, there is an easy dog walk round a field and there is a micro pub called the Dog House that has decent food and beer! (note the 'enormous ' van in front of us in the photo just back from Switzerland!) We should remember though that on a Friday night they have live music. Dave Ferra, a blues musician was very good but conversation was quite difficult in a small pub.

On Saturday after passing the dog paperwork checks we got on a slightly earlier crossing so arrived in France at 12.30. We drove 115km to Saint Riquier for our first night. We parked in a free spot in town. The town was very small but has an amazing abbey which was founded in 625 over a spring which had been a pagan place of ancient worship - it became a royal abbey in 632. Sadly it was closed!

On Sunday we drove on to La Fleche, which is south of Le Mans. (Michael - we passed the race track and there were some cars zoomin' round ... very fast). We stayed the night at a nice quiet aire run by Camping-Car, an organisation that now runs numerous aires in France. It was situated on the edge of Lac de la Monnerie which was perfect for walking the dogs and running round. To get in you have to buy a card from a machine and then it should be authorised once you put money on it. Sadly we could not get it to work - after trying for 40mins a nice French man let us use his phone so we could call HQ to get sorted.