The travels of Tim and Megan: France Road Trip

Day 7: St Emilion, Bordeaux

We started off the following day by driving west into the Bordeaux region to St Emilion, a gorgeous little town east of Bordeaux city. St Emilion is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, dating back to prehistoric times and with vines originally planted by the Romans! It seems everywhere we go, there is either a Roman ruin to inspect or some Roman tale to learn about.

St Emilion was named for an 8th century monk, who decided to hollow out a bit of a rock nearby. The poor guy just wanted the quiet hermit life, but alas, a devoted following joined him in his rock cave and started the good times rolling with a bit of wine production. Nowadays, there are underground wine caves, Roman ruins and Romanesque (again) churches to visit, along with cute stone paved streets, amazing resturants and macaroon shops to sample. Great place!

It was very hot and sunny in St Emilion and we wandered around the medieval town, checking out the churches, prety squares packed with cafes, and ruins of town walls and then visited some of the wine caves and tasted various wines, where the proprietors were good enough to explain details about the Bordeaux region to us, such as the different types of soils and the different types of grapes and wine that result from the soil type and location. We bought a few bottles and headed back to the car for some lunch. As we were eating we saw a familiar green t-shirt walking past us - Libby and Ben had arrived!

Together we visited a wine cave featuring wine from the Lussac area, which was where Libby and Ben had found us a campsite for the night. The guy providing us with tastings had spent a year in Marlborough, which was pretty random. Until then, we had found that nobody in Bordeaux knew much about New Zealand or its wines (snobs!) As well as explaining the qualities of the wine, he helpfully answered our questions about what qualifies as a Bordeaux wine, and what permits a winery to label its wine "Grand Cru" (very complicated, including harvesting by hand and passing tests by expert juries).

We left Libby and Ben to explore St Emilion and travelled out of town to check out the surrounding area. We pulled up to a wee estate which looked closed, but we were warmly welcomed in by the enthusiastic owner. We loved the family owned and operated aspects of wine production in Bordeaux and met people with so much passion for their business. This man was no exception, and he talked about the two areas in which he has vines and also explained the harvest process. We rather foolishly asked if the way they know when to harvest is to taste the grapes - turns out it is a lot more scientific than that, involving acid and sugar level testing, laborotories and what not!

With an impressive stash of Bordeaux wines on board, we thought it was time to park up the Spaceship for the night. The campsite Libby and Ben had found was really cool, set amongst a massive vineyard and coming complete with a swimming pool, sauna and play area (including a bouncy castle!) We had a great dinner of sausages cooked by Ben on his charcoal BBQ, salad and some local grapes. Very local, in fact. And of course, a little bit of red wine...ok, a lot of red wine.

Ben and Tim tested out the bouncy castle after dinner and can say that it was not quite as sturdy as they would have liked. You would expect bouncy castles to be solid and safe, you don't want them collapsing in on themselves. Not ideal.

Day 8: Bordeaux

The next day involved a rather slow start, and with such beautiful weather and a great campsite, it wasn't difficult to decide to stay another night. This decision was made even better when we discovered that it was all you can eat mussels and fries at the campsite restaurant that night!

We did some tidying up and admin sort of jobs and then forced ourselves to do something active in the afternoon - we hired bikes from the campsite and explored the surrounding area, picking up some blackberries so that Libby could attempt to make some blackberry jam. Impressive camping cuisine!

Our find for the day was the Chateau Vieux Mognac, where a delightful lady who spoke no English at all showed us around her vineyard with a friendy English family acting as translators. We sampled some white wine for a change (a sweet, almost dessert wine) as well as several delicious reds. We decided to buy a bottle of the sweet wine wine - which turned out to be a great apertif to our mussels - and a bottle of the 2003 red.

Dinner was all we had hoped for - fantastic mussels and fries and a little bit more wine on a stunning evening. Certainly not a busy day, but a great chance to relax in the beautiful sunshine and countryside of Bordeaux.

Day 9: Biscarosse Plage, Bordeaux

On Friday morning we decided to head out to the beaches west of Bordeaux city. Our original choice of Lacanau was under seige from Portuguese Men of War jellyfish, and given our previous run-ins with the Portuguese, their Men of War did not sound like something we wanted to mess with. So we headed for Biscarosse Plage, 200km or so north of the Spanish border.

We soon realised that a lot of people shared our plans! After a few stints in crawling traffic on poorly designed French motorways with crazy French drivers and sweaty conditions, we were glad to arrive at Biscarrosse and parked up in an "Aire Picnic" for some lunch. We then found a free camping spot down near the beach, strategically positioned next to a campsite where Libby and Ben had checked in. There are a number of quiet spots in France where free camping is tolerated and public toilets are usually provided. We were also happy to note that the campsite entry points were not manned, meaning a sneaky shower was on the cards too!

We met the others down at the beach, where we nestled into a spot amongst crowds of other visitors and chilled out for a few hours. Libby and Ben went off surfing at one point, but we were very lazy and remained essentially motionless. Delightful. Later in the day, we made our way back to the spaceship to shake some sand off (unsuccessfully as always - we were destined to be accompanied by Biscarrosse sand for the remainder of our journey) and then joined the others for a pizza dinner as night fell.

Day 10: Journey to Loire Valley

After a very good night's sleep by the Biscarosse beach, we said farewell to Ben and Libby and got going fairly early on Saturday morning, heading north-east towards the Loire Valley...or so we thought! We knew it would be a pretty big driving day to get to the Loire Valley (approx 3.5 hours), but then we figured we would need to drive much for the few days after that.

Unfortunately, we had a Sat-Nav incident combined with an extremely unfortunate coincidence. We decided to head to a town called Saumur in the Loire Valley as our first stop, and then explore the rest of the region from there. Apparently there are two towns named Saumur in France and both happen to be about 3.5 hours driving distance from Biscarosse, meaning we did not pick up the problem when we entered the incorrect Saumur into the Sat-Nav - now is that bad luck or what?!

It was only three hours into our journey that we discovered the mistake and when we turned the car and headed for the correct Saumur in the Loire Valley, we had another 3.5 hours to go! We had headed east, past Bordeaux and then north (all correct) but then somewhere along the way we had gone east and then south again toward the centre of France, rather than continuing north. Needless to say, we were unimpressed. It meant that our entire Saturday (a sunny, hot Saturday) was spent in the spaceship driving for nearly 7 hours, burning expensive petrol as an extra punishment.

We eventually arrived in the proper Saumur, a pretty town between the Loire and Thouet rivers, and we stayed in a camping ground next to one of the rivers. It was pretty decent and we cooked dinner of rice, mince, veges and tomatoes on the camping stove and charged our electrical gadgets before hitting the hay. We needed a big sleep after such a day!

Day 11: Saumur, Tours and Chenonceau, Loire Valley

Sadly we woke to a wet, grey Sunday morning in Saumur. Booooo. We had a little look around Saumur and went up to the majestic looking Saumur chateau, perched on a hill overlooking the town and river below. You cannot go inside the Saumur chateau, so we quickly moved on after viewing the outside and then decided there was little else to amuse us on a wet morning in Saumur.

We drove an hour or so east to Tours, which was a nice enough city. There weather had cleared a little, so we had a walk around town. The highlights were the beautiful Hotel de Ville in the city centre and the small medieval old town, with pretty buildings and churches. We had lunch in the spaceship before pushing on to Chenonceau.

While the village of Chenonceau is tiny, the Chateau de Chenonceau, which happens to be one of the biggest and most famous of France's chateaux, draws mammoth crowds all year round. The chateau has been destroyed and rebuilt several times over the centuries but the current manor was designed by French Renaissance architect, Philibert Delorme. We manged (somehow) to find a park and get tickets to go inside the chateau. It was insanely packed inside - you could barely move - but as it was still raining on and off outside, we thought inside was not a bad option.

We got a brilliant audio guide, which gave a detailed explanation of each room that we visited and what used to go on in there, as well as an overview of the history of the chateau. It was very interesting. We loved the tiny chapel - not much bigger than your average lounge at home - and also the Great Hall, a huge wide and long decorated hall that actually spans the River Cher on a number of arches.

After our indoor tour, it had stopped raining, so we walked through the beautiful gardens outside the chateau and then retired to a pub in the village of Chenonceau. We ended up having dinner there too and then free-camped in a quiet carpark in the village.

Day 12: Chateau de Chambord and Chartres, Loire Valley

We were a little slow in getting going on Monday morning, thanks to the extremely quiet, peaceful spot we had camped in. We drove from Chenonceau to the Chateau de Chambord, the other main tourist-favourite chateau in the Loire Valley. This chateau is one of the most recognisable in the world due to its very distinct French Renaissance architecture. We decided not to go inside this one, as it is not furnished or decorated like the Chenonceau chateau and there were literally hundreds of people queuing up for tickets to get in. So we enjoyed it from the outside, as we had a picnic brunch on the grass. All of the chateaux that we visited were stunning from the outside, like fairy tale castles.

As the throngs of tourists were getting overwhelming, we hopped in the spaceship and left Chambord chateau behind, heading north towards Chartres, via a brief stop in Orleans, where we picked up some supplies at the Auchan hypermarket - love that place!

Chartres was lovely. We arrived in the middle of the afternoon and we explored the town centre, admiring the famous Chartres cathedral from the outside and then doing some much needed blogging in an internet cafe. We found a great camping ground (probably one of the best we had stayed at in the whole trip) on the outskirts of the city, where we also did some much needed washing and dishes! Then we sat in the beautiful evening sun and enjoyed breads, cheeses, meats and a "bit" of red wine. We had to get rid of some of the bottles we had bought before we gave up the spaceship and were on foot once again!

Day 13: Chartres and Le Quesnoy

Tuesday was our last full day in France and we had to get up towards Dunkirk for our Wednesday morning ferry. We left the camping ground pretty early and drove into Chartres, where we visited the Chartres cathedral.

The Chartres cathedral is one of the finest examples of French High Gothic styled cathedrals. The current cathedral was built between 1193 and 1250. Its most striking feature is its massive collection of stained glass windows, all of which are originals dating from the 13th century. They were removed piece by piece to avoid being destroyed during bombing raids in WWII. We marvelled at the hundreds of amazing stained glass windows all over the huge cathedral and we also admired the labyrinth design on the floor of the cathedral and the extensive carvings.

After the cathedral tour, we grabbed an early lunch at McDonald's and then drove the 3 hours or so north, around Paris and up towards Lille. Just south of Lille lies the town of Le Quesnoy, a town that was liberated by New Zealand soldiers at the end of WWI. It is a town that is (still today) surrounded by huge fortification walls, which the New Zealand troops used long ladders to climb over and chase the Germans out of the town. The town is very grateful to New Zealand for freeing it from the Germans and there are a number of markers to commemorate little old NZ, including several streets being named after prominent New Zealand troops and even one street being named Rue Nouvelle-Zelande / Rue Aotearoa.

We stopped in and wandered through the town centre and visited the New Zealand memorial plaque on one of the fortification walls. We met a few Kiwis there, including one man from Waikanae, who had come all the way to France to visit the grave of his great uncle who had died climbing the very walls we were looking at. It was quite special to be able to visit the place and to see that there were significant memorials for the troops all over town.

We then drove on further north, around Lille and we eventually found a great "aire" (services area) just half an hour south of Dunkirk, which was complete with cafe, shop, picnic area, toilets, showers, free Wifi, TV, ATM - pretty much everything we needed and more! We stayed there the night, our final night in France.

Day 14: Return to London

In the morning, we woke early, got our stuff packed up all tidily and tried to clean up the spaceship as best we could. Then we drove the short distance into Dunkirk city centre, where we sent some postcards and got a snack for breakfast. Then it was on to the ferry terminal and back to the UK.

The ferry ride was smooth and uneventful. We enjoyed seeing the famous white cliffs of Dover as we approached England. We drove from Dover to London (on the left hand side of the road) and dropped off the spaceship at the space station. It was a little sad to let of go of Flash, but we were excited about not sleeping in a car again for a long time.

For the record, we managed to drive 4,697 miles (7,559 km) across six different countries in 36 days. That's about 7.5 lengths of the South Island of New Zealand. Nice work Flash!