The travels of Tim and Megan: France Road Trip

France

We drove off the ferry in Dunkirk at around 9pm French time and we headed into the centre of Dunkirk, where we parked up in quiet public carpark for the night.

Day 1: Lille

Thankfully we woke a lovely sunny day in Dunkirk. We set off, heading south for the picturesque city of Lille, close to the Belgian border in north-east France. The drive took only 45 minutes or so, meaning we had all day to explore Lille. We parked in the centre of the city and after a quick pit-stop at the Tourist Information Office, we set off to admire the beautiful buildings, churches and large open squares and gardens that the city has to offer.

We grabbed some delicious sandwiches for lunch at a bakery and then we stocked up with some picnic supplies at a supermarket - a baguette, some cheese and cold meats and a bottle of red wine - which would make for a fine dinner that night. We also managed to find a good internet cafe in the city centre, so we caught up on a bit of blogging and checked what was happening in the world. Unfortunately, the British weather must have followed us across to the continent, as it started raining in the afternoon and it carried on intermittently for the next few days. Booo.

We made our way to a rural camping ground outside of a small village south of Lille, where we quickly realised that outside the main centres, fluent English is hard to come by, so we had to call on our high school French comprehension skills more often than expected. We spoke to the manager of the camping ground, who explained in French that we should drive down the long driveway, turn left and park near the sheep... We figured we had heard something wrong, but sure enough, there was a paddock with a few sheep, some dogs, a goat, some hens and even a turkey, right next to the camping ground. Due to the wet weather, our picnic had to be inside the spaceship, but at least we had a DVD of Father Ted episodes to keep us amused.

Day 2: Reims, Champagne Region

We got showered and sorted at the camping ground and then drove south for two hours to the city of Reims, in the heart of the Champagne wine region. It was a cloudy morning and at times during the drive it rained, but the time we arrived in Reims, the weather was OK. We found a great parking spot right in the middle of the city centre and we headed for the Tourist Information Office, where we got some information about tours of champagne houses. It seems that everything closes for two hours in the middle of the day in France - from 12-2pm everybody is on their lunch break, so pretty much everything stops.

The Champagne region in France is a large, historic province in the north-east of France that is now best known for the sparkling white wine that bears its name. Despite a loose use of the term "champagne", officially only sparkling wine made in that region can be called "champagne". After 2pm, we walked to the Mumm champagne house in Reims, where we went on a brilliant tour of their cellars, learning about the history of the company and how champagne is made and stored. It was fascinating. Their cellars alone contain 25km of passageways and over 25 million bottles of bubbly. Some bottles date from the 1850s, although only the Master Taster has the keys to that particular vault! After the tour, we got on to the tastings. We tried two different types, the regular Brut Cordon Rouge and the 2002 vintage. Both tasted great to our untrained palates, and we bought a bottle of the regular Brut from the gift shop.

Later in the afternoon we visited the Reims Cathedral, a massive structure dominating the city centre. The cathedral dates from 1211, although a church has stood on that site since around 400AD. No fewer than 25 French kings were crowned in the cathedral and there is a lovely statue of Joan of Arc, who apparently witnessed the coronation of King Charles VII there. We also loved the beautiful stained glass windows in the cathedral.

In the evening, we found a great spot to park for the night, near the Place de la Republique, next to some old Roman ruins. It was a sunny evening, so we again had a picnic dinner on the grass - similar to the previous night: baguette, cheese, meats, smoked salmon, fruit and white wine. All very tasty and very cheap.

Day 3: Epernay, Champagne Region

We woke to a hot and sunny Saturday morning in Reims, so we hit the road pretty early for a drive through the picturesque tourist route of the Champagne region. Sadly, before long, the clouds rolled in and the rain returned, which made the drive a little less picturesque, but still enjoyable. The countryside is so beautiful - packed with row after row of vines and then the odd little village or windmill here and there.

Around midday, we arrived in Epernay, the other main city in the Champagne region. We walked around the city centre and got some lunch at a nice little cafe/restaurant with a rude waitress. Megs had spaghetti carbonara and Tim had pizza (those two famous French dishes...). At 2pm, we visited the Castellane champagne house, set on the bank of the river in the middle of Epernay. We did not do the full tour, but we had a look at their small museum and we climbed the massive tower, which gave great views across the river and the town below. We also had a tasting there, but decided not to purchase.

After some shopping and a bit of internet action, we left Epernay and drove across to Chalons en Champagne, where there was an excellent camping ground waiting for us. We had a familiar dinner (see previous evening's dinner details) and watched some more of our Father Ted DVD to round off another great day in France.

Day 4: Lyon

We were greeted by another beautiful sunny morning on Sunday. It was going to be a big driving day, so we headed off from the camping ground quite early. We drove the four hours south to Lyon, France's second largest city after Paris, with Tim taking the first half and Megan the second half of the driving.

We had not appreciated how massive France is. Even with excellent roads (three lane autoroutes with speed limits of 130kph), it took us so long to get between the areas we wanted to visit. It also took a lot more petrol and toll charges than we had anticipated. So we decided to cut a couple of over-ambitious parts out of our two-week tour - the south coast and Marseille got the chop, as did a day at Versailles. This meant that we could spend less time behind the wheel and more time in each of the places we did visit.

We arrived in Lyon shortly after 2pm and we had received text confirmation en route that our friends Ben and Libby (who are travelling around Europe in a van) were going to be passing through Lyon, so we were excited to catch up with them.

Lyon is a large city in east-central France in the Rhone Valley region. The city is known for its historical and architectural landmarks and was also historically known as an important area for the production and weaving of silk. These days it has developed a reputation as the capital of gastronomy in France. Lyon straddles two rivers, the Rhone and the Saone, which converge to the south of the historic city centre, forming the central "presqu'ile" or peninsula. On the west of the Saone river on a steep bank lies the original medieval city of Vieux Lyon (Old Lyon).

Very little in the way of shops and attractions are open on Sundays in France. Even most supermarkets are closed (some may open for a few hours in the morning if you are lucky). The Old Town was about the only place where anything was happening, so we headed there and wandered through the narrow and crowded cobbled alleys, passing beautiful cafes, bars and specialty shops. It was all very cute. We stopped at a sort of delicatessen shop, where we bought two bottles of Rhone Valley red wine, but we were unable to find much in the way of food for dinner.

Late in the afternoon, we met Ben and Libby and we all headed 8km north-west of Lyon to a fantastic camping ground. Camping is very popular in France, so the quantity and quality of camping grounds tends to be very high. We got a pitch right next to Ben and Libby (their van is brilliant - much bigger than our spaceship, so far more storage space and better cooking facilities etc, although Flash would dominate in a speed test). We had pizza from the camping ground restaurant for dinner and had a few wines. It was great catching up with Ben and Libby and exchanging crazy tales from our travels.

Day 5: Lyon

We had finally found consistent summer in Lyon. We woke to a glorious sunny morning and after getting washed and sorted out, we said "A beintot" to Ben and Libby and headed back into the city for a day of exploring. Our first stop, however, was a massive hypermarket just next to the camping ground, where we stocked up on all sorts of delicious food and drink. We had never seen anything like it - this place was about 3-4 times the size of most supermarkets we had seen. You could actually get lost in there. We got plenty of breakfast, lunch and dinner foods for the coming days and also some local wine. Wine is so cheap in France - we found good quality French wines for as low as 2 euros a bottle in the supermarkets. A bottle for 5-6 euros was excellent quality. Love it.

Once back in Lyon, we parked the spaceship in the middle section of the city (presqu'ile), where we discovered there was free parking on Sundays, public holidays and the entire month of August - which is more or less a public holiday in France! Unfortunately, all of the audio guides for self tours of the city were taken by the time we got to the Tourist Office, so we had to make do with our guide book as we explored the city.

We headed back across the Saone river and climbed up the steep hill to the Basilica of Notre Dame de Fourviere, the huge church on the hilltop, overlooking the city. The basilica was built with private funds between 1872 and 1896 in a dominating position in the city as a mark of triumph of Christian values over the socialists of the Lyon commune of 1870. The basilica receives 1.5 million visitors annually. There is a big viewing platform at the front of the courtyard next to the basilica, which gives stunning views of the city below. After admiring the views of the city and rewarding ourselves with a cold Fanta for making it to the top of the hill, we checked out the inside of the basilica, which was beautifully decorated.

Just south of the basilica is the ancient Roman theatre of Fourviere. The theatre was built around 15BC, although the final part of the construction was completed around 200 years later. It is still in excellent condition today and it is used frequently for concerts and festivals. Once we descended back down the hill, we wandered through some more of the pretty streets of the Old Town and then we crossed the Saone and had a late picnic lunch in a park - it was such a lovely hot sunny day.

The rest of the afternoon was filled with some lazy strolling the presqu'ile section of the city, where we looked in a few shops, sat by beautiful water fountains, watched people passing by, and used a luxury public toilet, fully decked out with highlighter coloured toilet paper! Interesting. In the evening, we moved the spaceship to the east side of the Rhone river, we we free camped for the night. It was a little noisy, but otherwise fine, and we got a good night's sleep.

Day 6: Beaujolais wine region

We got going pretty early on Tuesday morning - back to the massive Auchan hypermarket on the outskirts of the city that we had visited the previous morning. We grabbed a few more bits and pieces there and then drove 30 minutes or so north-west into the Beaujolais wine region.

Beaujolais is a province north of Lyon, covering part of the Rhone Valley and is home to the wine of the same name. Beaujolais wine is generally made of the Gamay grape, which has a thin skin and is low in tannins. Beaujolais tends to be a very light-bodied wine, with quite high amounts of acidity.

The region was stunning - green and hilly, with literally dozens of small villages only a few kilometres apart. The particular section that we drove through was packed full of "golden stone" buildings, which is, believe it or not, stone of a golden colour. The villages looked quite striking - golden buildings surrounded by green vineyards on rolling hills. The first village we stopped at was called Oingt. We visited a wine cave, where we tasted several red wines. They were quite a different taste to most reds we had tried. Very fruity and light - quite summery. We bought a bottle of red for something like 4.80 euros and then we walked through the lovely village and visited a small church on a hill.

Next we drove 1km to the village of St Laurent d'Oingt, although not much seemed to be open there, so we walked through the village and then moved on again, this time the village of St Paule. This was a very pretty place, but even quieter than the previous villages. Our fourth and final stop was at Bois d'Oingt, where we found a brilliant little restaurant for lunch. Megan had a type of crepe with ham and cheese and Tim had steak and chips. Delicious.

After lunch we drove west from the Beaujolais region to a camping ground just outside of Tulle, which was around halfway between Lyon and Bordeaux. It took about 2.5 - 3 hours to drive there, mainly because we had to cross a pretty significant mountain range. We had the night at the camping ground, which was very nice, and we were excited about heading into the Bordeaux region the next day!