We had planned a two week trip through France to Holland and back to Belgium to meet friends for a cycling sportive in Ypres, but the plans had to be changed to accommodate a visit to Sue's aunt in Germany to celebrate her 90th birthday, which meant more driving and less days in one place, but it all added to up to a memorable trip with some lessons learned (do we ever stop learning lessons?) and some great experiences. We usually cross from Plymouth to Roscoff but decided to cross from Portsmouth to Caen this time, partly because we hadn't done that route before and partly because we wanted to visit some familiar places in France.
The drive from home to the ferry is 5/6 hour affair and the crossing was 14:45 so we decided to spend a couple of days on a small site at Hamble, within an hour of the ferry port. Glad we did, Hamble was lovely, as was the weather and we enjoyed crossing with the bikes on the small ferry and the ride into Gosport to visit the submarine museum.
The downside of the crossing time was that we arrived in Caen in darkness at 21:30, but as we have used many an Aire in our travels, I wasn't concerned and had planned to avoid the Aire at Ouistreham - which I expected to be too busy) and head up the coast to Villers Sur Mer. Mistake #1! It was full. So on we drove to Deauville, and found that full too, so ended up parking across the way with several other vans in the car park by the railway station. Okay but not ideal.
Next morning up early and off to an old favourite, the Aire at Villers Sous Chatillon opposite Robert Allait's champangne house just outside Epernay. Two nights there and stocked up with fizz we headed for another Aire near Verdun, intending to spend two nights there and visit the town. Another full Aire, next to the canal and looking rather scruffy so we pushed on to our first campsite - Siersberg, just over the German border. This was a gem. Quiet, inexpensive, clean, handily for Saarlouis on our bikes and it had an excellent on-site restaurant. Three good nights there, the. On to Fulda for four nights with the family at their home.
From there we drove up to Giethoorn north of Amsterdam to meet Dutch friends for four nights at Camping Heetveld. For those who have never been, Giethoorn is great and cycling heaven and the campsite was superb and we will go there again.
Then down to Ypres for four nights at Jeugstadion on the outskirts of Ypres. It really is 10 minutes walk to the Menin Gate and apart from the hig food and drink costs in Ypres, we really enjoyed our time there, especially our 120km Great War Sportive ride with fellow Probus Pedalers and the chance to watch the local Triathlon on the Sunday.
After that, we drove back to Caen for a 2300 crossing to Portsmouth, which meant we had several hours to kill so we used to €10 Aire at Ouistreham we had avoided on our way out and found it perfect and very handy. But the immigrant problem ha clearly spread down the coast and as we waited to board to ferry later, the police were chasing and rounding-up young African males who were scouting the waiting vehicles and phoning their friends. For that reason alone, I doubt we will ever use that Aire at night.
All In all, a great trip. Lessons: use Roscoff next time, arrive earlier at Aires (which I knew from previous experience) spend less time driving and more time enjoying the locations, and definitely revisit Giethoorn!
