France

May

2026

2026 France, Germany, Netherlands

The 2026 trip was officially put into operation a month or so ago with the booking of the ferry to France. The plans were considered in the shadow of the Trump & Netanyahu and their governments’-induced needless loss of hundreds if not thousands of innocent lives from illegal bombings & targeting of civilians in Iran & Lebanon, reciprocal shelling on sites in the Gulf states, shortages of resources with impact for food production across the world, and other significant impact on global economies and the person in the street arising from this and the diesel price instability and hikes and fuel shortages, adding to the continuing Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the West Bank, and of course Ukraine still fighting off the other tyrant. I’ll record these unprecedented, at least in my lifetime, sufferings whose responsibility falls according to my study on those 3 war criminals and their sycophantic, greedy and power-addicted enablers, for when I may look back from however my near-future unfolds.

At the moment this minion is fortunate and thankful to be many steps removed from all this. Since last writing, two grandsons have been born to my daughter and youngest son and their partners. I was struck on visiting to give them all a last hug before this grand depart, by how much I will miss the little ones. I am able to enjoy spending alot of time with them, and other little great nieces and nephew who also live locally, which is such a joy despite being knackering. My granddaughter who is now almost 3, loves coming into ‘Nanavan’ and when I opened the bathroom door to remind her of what was behind it, she again caused such a laugh with her main expression of toilet expertise – namely “is that a soft-close lid?” My little shower room equipment doesn’t thankfully extend to a hand dryer, of which she is pathologically scared.

My choice of day to drive towards the south coast avoiding bank holiday Monday traffic proved wise as once again I entered into a very nostalgia-evoking memory lane with Heart 70s radio. A lovely journey break and stop over with relatives near Oxford and then the ferry with a calm sea and bright day heading for Le Havre, France from Portsmouth. No reservations initially but just target places on my travel list to Carcassone and then upto Germany & the Netherlands.

Off the ferry and we were not put through any Schengen border new requirements. The 2-hour journey to the planned first night stopover at the free motorhome parking provided by Giverny, worked. How fantastic to be on the continent where the philosophy hasn’t been to monetise every blade of grass or parking space. What would have been the overnight cost was able to be spent on the entrance fee for the Monet museum, house and garden. Very busy it has to be said, causing me not to want to join the big queue to get into the house from the gardens, but I got the picture! 🙂 Heavy overnight rain had dissipated and it’s been a really pleasant day. Am so happy in this free setting that I’m staying another night, and then will head to a site closer towards Paris for a day of train plus cycle tomorrow. Just one minor annoyance in that there’s a known problem with my TV aerial which needed fixing and I had forgotten about it. This realisation was prompted by the concept of trying to see if PSG vs Bayern Munich might be available this evening so that I could watch some good football and see who Arsenal will meet in the Champions League final.

: My first camping spot

: Monet’s house

: The famed lily pond

: Beautiful gardens

Oct

2025

Paris à Velo

Cycling the 5km to our Aparthotel Home & Break in the Porte de Choisy, Place d’Italie area south east from our arrival at Notre Dame, was a slightly uphill affair but continued our initial journey on different types of the Paris cycling infrastructure. Our room was on the 6th floor with small kitchenette including sink, fridge, microwave, kettle, very comfy beds, with enough space to take the bikes up to, preferring to do this and seek forgiveness after rather than be reliant on asking for a key from the often busy reception for their official bike store. This cost approx £360 for 4 nights, and absolutely met our needs with the exception of being pretty hot as the windows could only be unlocked by someone from reception on safety grounds, and the cool aircon having been switched off for the whole hotel given the autumn/winter season. Complete luxury nevertheless compared to the toilet requirements during the camping cold nights and deflating (expensive) mat which I forgot to mention previously. The area was a ‘China/East Asia’ town, so we enjoyed some Thai food one evening.

We loved our three days exploring, on now unladen bikes, many of the city’s sights in fantastic weather 🙂 including going into the cathedral, the Jardin des Plantes, the Bastille monument, Place de la Republique, the Bassin de La Villete, the Jardin du Luxembourg.

: Notre Dame – beautiful stained glass and stone

: The photos don’t do it justice

: Jardin des Plantes

: Sorbonne area

: Jardin du Luxembourg

: Bastille

: PLace de la Republique

Bassin de la Villette

Always an enhancement to listen to some quality live music:

We even managed to meet up with my brother and cycling buddy who had cycled from Caen to the Mediterranean and training it back to the ferry had a 4 hour transfer time in Paris, so we cycled once again along the Seine and upto the Montmartre area and Sacre Coeur.

: Looking towards Champs Elysee & Arc de Triomphe from Place de La Concorde

: Hilly Climb up to Sacre Coeur

So that ticked two off of this trip’s aims – bikepacking with a tent & seeing more of Paris. Re the latter, we didn’t cycle up the Champs Elysee, or along to the Eiffel Tower, nor the Tuileries or Louvre, and plenty more for next time.

But as for the cycling infrastructure – absolutely amazing. I think every street or road we needed to use from the outskirts and throughout the centre had some absolutely clear provision or other for bikes. It seemed to me that cars definitely did not have priority, and even though I think their numbers have significantly diminished over the last years since the major push for cycling, walking and public transport, still they were caught in jams and could not compete with the efficiency and effectiveness of travel with 2 wheels. It took us some time to understand what we had to look for when it came to navigating intersections, as there was a variety of different cycle lane approaches, and traffic lights were not as responsive as they could be which imo leads to a significant amount of red-light jumping by cyclists. One of the principles adopted in the Netherlands for cycling infrastructure design is to keep bikes moving and this was the approach adopted anyway by the majority of cyclists in Paris 🙂

: The road along the Seine now only used by pedestrians, joggers and cyclists

: One half of a major road given over to busses and cycles

: Cars and bus/tram stops to the car-side of the roads with pedestrians and cycleway separate

There are loads of bike maps for Paris on the internet and youtube videos of how this really radical, significant change in such a relatively short time has occured, not least https://youtu.be/woFlJx7Rv78?si=JjZF3LBvfMjwcPVO & Paris en Selle.

After 3 days we were ready for the return journey home getting the bikes on the train and travelling from Gare St Lazare to Rouen, then change to Dieppe. This did involve having to book the bikes onto the Rouen train, then hang them in the allotted place for the journey necessitating the removal of the paniers etc, and then have a somewhat stressful time doing the transfer to the Dieppe train in 10 minutes – the Paris train was thankfully on time. A tick for French trains so far.

We managed it, and arrived to rain in Dieppe and a short ride to the ferry port for the 6pm crossing back to the campervan and the journey to North Yorkshire.

: The face for re-loading yet again of the bike!

: and for the first time for the rain poncho

A good ferry crossing again, despite the Storm Amy warnings for the north, and a good non-stop journey in the van. This was despite navigating the one-junction full closure of the M1 around Northampton, but absolutely helped by Greatest Hits 70s radio and additional sing-along by this first mate.

Would I do it again? Yes for the bikepacking, trains etc, camping with the caveat of being in warmer climes and a mattress that doesn’t deflate in the night.

Last but not least – here’s the star of the show – ie my Brompton. Not particularly liking the field tracks or cobbles but managed the weight of all the stuff and the miles, and responded like a thoroughbred to the city. The genuine face of delight on the rider trying it out for the first time says it all 🤣 🚴‍.

Oct

2025

Bikepacking – who’d have thought

Almost 2 weeks ago a friend Nicola and I cycled our bikes onto a ferry to the continent for the first time, the actual culmination of July travel musings about bikepacking with my brompton – including camping, wanting to see what Paris had done with its cycling infrastructure, and spend more time in that city than the odd days in the previous decades as a stopover on the way to warmer climes in France.

My research turned up the Avenue Verte route from Dieppe to Paris and the tentative decision was made for a trip in September, weather dependent. I used the Sustrans guide book and then the France Velotourisme site for this and all the other routes across the country. Both good resources imo.

Over the next few weeks I assembled equipment, leading to the bike looking like this .

The weather forecast towards the selected time period was looking favourable, so we landed in Dieppe after a night-time drive in the campervan down to Newhaven, leaving it there in the port parking.

After a 4-hour pleasant ferry crossing, which I would recommend, we cycled in the sunshine to our first campsite in Arques-la-bataille a few kms along the route. Nothing had been booked apart from the Paris hotel, so we had ultimate flexibility to change or abandon the route and/or accommodation.

: Nicola’s one-person coffin

: Lovely pitch

: 1st breakfast

1st morning take down

We counted the first night as a success in that we managed to get some sleep, pack everything away and get it back onto the bikes. The tent, borrowed sleeping bag, thermal inner and ‘Trangia’ cooking set did the job, meaning cups of tea and porridge for breakfast. The campsite was very pleasant, including heated toilet block next to the pitch, as was the 30 miles of former railway line route the next day.

The weather started off bright and we enjoyed the landscapes and quick views of chateaux on route.

The gloom increased though and we stopped for a coffee or two to get out of the cold in Neufchatel-en-Bray, finally arriving in very low dark clouds and mist at the Forges-les-Eaux municipal campsite. These two sites were in their last week of opening, and felt it, and the latter had no heating in the toilet blocks. But of course very cheap. Bedtime was preferable to sitting outside in the cold and dark, so between 8 & 9pm by the time we’d done everything; the availability and usefulness of a picnic table and benches were recognised and used for sitting above the wet grass to cook, have food, and keep things dry from the dew while packing up the next morning.

The lack of rain and wind continued in day 3 thankfully, but we had decided to try and book ourselves into one of the two small hotels in the town of Gisors when we arrived, having cycled 40 miles including some long hill climbing. Beautiful route again.

Another highlight was meeting 4 guys from the UK also cycling to Paris at the almost top of one long climb, providing a lift for our spirits with good fun conversation and the very welcome gift of sweets. I didn’t get immediately what they meant with their ‘spooning’ 🤣recommendation for keeping warm, but we pointed out that we more than happy to be in our own separate tents despite the cold. They did say that we could join them in their chambre d’hote as Nicola indicated we may have to crash their pad should we not find a hotel room, but it might not be pleasant spooning between the four, and putting up with their snoring. We didn’t need to gatecrash and had a wonderful nights sleep in a 2-star hotel after a lovely meal out in the centre of the small town.

We now had another planned 3 days of cycling and two nights of camping before getting to our booked Paris hotel. The weather forecast was looking good and the day started positively bumping into the 4 guys again who recommended a cafe which could meet one of Nicola’s romantic (not unreasonable altho’ for late September …) expectations of being able to sit in a small town square at a french cafe in the sun:)

So that we would only have to put up and pack up all the kit once more, and then enjoy a non-cycling day, we decided to combine two days cycling into one to reach the last campsite – a 4-star in the town of Maison Lafitte on the Seine, hopefully meaning heated toilet blocks, and a cafe/restaurant for a comfortable meal whiling away some evening time. This meant 50 miles of cycling and abandoning some of the route’s tracks aross fields in favour of our own satnaving on quiet roads. It was a long day, sunny, no wind, but I at least was knackered and had had enough of being on the bike as the approach to the town seemed by now interminable.

The decision was a good one, the campsite was lovely but the pitches were without decent grass, having mainly been occupied by motorhomes over the season, so somewhat muddy, and no picnic table set up. Packing up, although in the sun, took quite a long time on the next but one morning, avoiding mud and dealing with the heavy dew and condensation. We enjoyed the restaurant evening meal and cafe the next morning.

Our grand Paris Entree was 30 miles of cycling along initially beautiful parts of the Seine, including through Rueil Malmaison, perhaps similar to places along the Thames, west of London.

The route then morphed into separate cycling provision along busy dual carriagways in very industrial logistics areas. No cafes, McDs, or similar for a needed stop for quite a way. Thankfully the Komoot app navigation, into which I’d loaded a GPX file of the route performed a treat, and matched the regular Ave Verte signs at the key intersections. Back to tracking the Seine, we now cycled along the Saint Denis canal through the banlieus of the same and then Aubervilliers, both more deprived areas. My phone having finally given up the ghost re power, we followed cycling signs to Notre Dame, the final destination of the route.

And we did it.

With a celebratory french millefeuille for me.

We had reached the reality and luxury of a hotel base for 3 days of cycling exploration of the city and train journey back to Dieppe. Next post to document this.

Jun

2023

May/June ’23 Trip Roundup

Something about driving north through France towards a ferry booking in early July, and the facts that I’d done quite alot of moving on in 5 weeks, and had paid £10 extra for a changeable ‘flexi’ ticket, brought me to the conclusion that I was happy to finish the trip slightly earlier than planned, and the other places I had envisaged would keep.

So I set out to cover the ground from Bordeaux to Le Havre, with a stopover near Le Mans over two days, having successfully managed to change the booking. Although the region between Tours and this city was at the end of many hours of driving, still I was able to look at the passing landscapes and towns with somewhat fresh eyes, and realise that this region around the river Sarthe was also beautiful. So where isn’t in France?

I did have one moment of absolute horror in an otherwise fantastic uneventful road trip, when all of a sudden my van lost all power. I was able to coast onto the hard-shoulder – still available in France! – on a quiet motorway, and to huge relief re-start the motor immediately. The journey continued in the same uneventful way, and the next day all the way home to north England?? Whether my knee had somehow managed to turn the key in the the ignition to off, I don’t know. But that van has been stupendous and I continue to love it. It needs and deserves two new front tyres immediately upon return.

The campsite I had selected from the Park4Night app, Le Vieux Moulin, was like staying in a lovely garden, only a few kilometres from Le Mans, and in a future tour, I won’t hesitate to stay here again, and recommend.

The next day I opted to drive across country again on non-toll roads up to Honfleur, which is only a few kilometres from Le Havre. I stayed in Honfleur at the end of my 4 months travel back in 2019, and I’d forgotten how lovely a place it is. Likewise for the hinterland of this part of Normandy.

It was great weather, a flat sea and as we sailed past the city, Le Havre looked again to be an attractive place for a future visit. On the list now with the Marais Poitevin, Chatellailon sur Plage, and L’Ile Noirmoutier.

Off the ferry and straight up the A34 from Portsmouth and then onto the motorways became more and more like driving through France and Spain, a result only of rising to the challenge of travelling through the early hours. Thanks to a rest in the 6-hour sailing, and tuning into Heart 70s for the totality, I was actually able to enjoy the journey. When do I have 5 hours of uninterrupted singing-along bliss. What a decade of classics for this 70s girl.

In summary, I continue to be so thankful for my good health, for the material blessings of this vehicle and my bike and other kit, and for this time and money freedom to experience other cultures and landscapes, and meet so many interesting people along the way. And to have all this, knowing that I have a wonderful family, set of friends and home to return to each time.

Looking forward only a few weeks now, who knows how I (and my campervan) will incorporate the momentous change of the arrival of a new next generation family member.

Jun

2023

Bordeaux, Bordeaux

So good ~~they named it~~ I visited it twice.

The campsite was great, offered live music for two nights, the first being great musicians playing Django Reinhart-style French jazz, in a setting on Bordeaux Lac, only about 8-9 kilometres or so via well-designed cycle routes into the centre.

The Tchikiswing from Toulouse

More often than not, live music is a surprise and a gift for me; I even got up and danced due to the insistence of a Belgian couple

But Bordeaux – I’ll just bullet-point what I observed, as it rises to the top of my city list alongside the likes of San Sebastian, Porto, Copenhagen

Well-designed cycling city which the residents of all ages and types, with all manner of cargo/child-carrying bikes use
Shared public spaces, with walkers, bike and scooter riders, tramways, all co-mingling without hostility; the car is definitely not king and in fact I experienced courtesy from car drivers both here and generally in Spain
Absolutely beautiful, yet somehow understated public spaces and buildings being lived in, rather than museum pieces, and enjoyed by all; my favourite was the Jardin Public
Smaller, more personal scale than the likes of Madrid, with 1 million inhabitants according to Google, twice as many as Montpellier, similar to Toulouse, less than Porto or Copehagen
Sigificantly fewer canine family members in evidence – down to more apartment living for the suburbs I cycled through and the centre?
Cycled past camps under underpasses of what looked like groups of immigrants from Africa, and did see other people who I would describe as having fallen through gaps in society
Murky brown/sandy river water results from the meeting of the sediment-laden fresh water of the Garonne with the salty sea water of the Gironde estuary, according to Google

My phone camera is not as good as I would like to record what I love to see and be part of.

Sep

2022

Route to Charleville-Mezieres

This was a pleasant, interesting drive through forested, steep-valleyed high hills to Saarbrucken and into Luxembourg. I hadn’t realised, despite driving through the Moselle valley a few years ago, that it was so close, and the countryside of Luxembourg did look appealing for a visit in the future.

The municipal site, Mont Olympe in Charleville, was as I remembered it, and really good value/place for a stopover, but be warned that the shower blocks were showing end-of-season, or just general severe need of attention.

When I was last here with my sister, brother-in-law and niece, we did a bike ride along the river Meuse, so the countryside is very accessible. We also ended up in a multi-storey car park with my campervan and their higher motorhome which caused their TV aerial to get caught on an overhead concrete beam, and having the embarassing situation (particularly for my teenage niece) of getting the ladders out in situ to remove it under the observation of other motorists, as it was causing something of a blockage. We did manage slowly but surely to navigate the motorhome out of the car park without any further more serious damage to the roof, but this was not a foregone conclusion. That was the trip that on the autoroute on the way back through France, my solar panel flipped off its housing and managed to be held by my tv aerial and the cabling until I could limp off to a service area, which are thankfully very frequent, to remove it. I was extremely lucky that the damage was minimal, including to the panel. The adventures of life.

This is the historic central square 10 minutes walk away surrounded by little streets with independent shops and cafes: