We're on the road again!!!

Sunday 3rd May. Welcome back to our travel blog after a five month winter break at home, we are off on our travels again and it was 6 o'clock this morning when the alarm went off and the first sound to be heard was the rain beating against the window but not to be deterred we were ready to go by 7.45am heading east to Folkestone and the Eurotunnel. It feels like we have been packing the van all week carefully stowing away all our goods and chattels for another long trip across Europe taking in France, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. We have a vague outline of the trip but we have often changed our minds about where to go after meeting people and chatting about where they have visited along the way. Last year we met a couple in Salamanca in Spain, they told us about this wonderful Natural park in the the opposite direction to our intended next stop so after having discussed it for a while we decided to change our plans and go there. We were so glad we did the Monfrague National Park was a wonderful place to visit with such stunning scenery and amazing bird life - we saw eagles and vultures soaring on the thermals. One day we even saw a stork and an eagle both sharing the same thermal - weird!

Anyway back to this trip - we arrived at the Eurotunnel terminal at 9.35am, we accepted the next available train and lo and behold we were in France about an hour later - how about that then!

Remembering which side of the road to drive we headed south east towards Charleville-Mezieres in the Ardennes region, we planned to stop for the night early at an Aire along the route. Now some of you may not know about French Aires, but as motorhomers we are very fortunate that almost every small town in France will have an area designated for a few motorhomers to stop overnight with facilities to service their vehicles for free or for a nominal charge. The Aire we had chosen happened to have free electric hook up for 4 vehicles and luckily we arrived in time to be able to hook up ourselves. It was also only 150 m from a Lidl store and a 10 minute walk into town with a good variety of shops so before heading off in the morning we plan to visit the Boulangerie for some delicious French bread and croissants, oh and some Camembert or Brie to go with the bread at lunchtime - perfect!

Mon 4th May. We slept so soundly after a long day yesterday- for some reason when we are in the van we always seem to sleep really well and blissfully we woke up to a lovely sunny morning. Once washed, dressed and breakfasted we headed along to the nearby Lidl to buy some of their freshly baked bread and a few other supplies. Tell me - why is French cheese so much better than the French cheese we buy in our supermarkets?

This is what we bought - what do you think of this little lot?

Then we were back on the road to continue our journey to Charleville-Mezieres (so called because it was once two towns which grew, overlapped and then became one! ) The route took in quiet country roads and sleepy villages ( where are all the people???? ) the countryside spattered with yellow fields of the rape flowers stretching into the distance.

And in no time we arrived at our Campsite - Camping Du Mont Olympe, right by the river and at the start of a 83km cycle track all the way north to Belgium, just perfect for us!

We spent the afternoon relaxing in the sunshine and preparing for our cycle ride tomorrow.

During the night we had torrential rain then at about 5am there was a flash of lightening, a huge clap of thunder and the rain beat on the roof even louder, shortly 

after we were kept awake by the sound of Muslim praying- strange things do happen on campsites I tell you! A couple of pitches along there is a small group of men wearing similar clothes to the type worn by people from Afghanistan ( yes, we did wonder what they were doing on a French campsite!)

Tues 5th May. So eventually the rain stopped, the sky cleared and the sandwiches were made for a day out on the cycle track - Voie verte Trans-Ardennes. 

The whole length of the track is flat, tarmac and wide so easy to mop up the miles. Sadly the sky clouded back over and storm clouds gathered through the day occasionally sprinkling us with a light shower of rain until eventually on our return journey back to the campsite we were hit by a torrent of incredibly heavy rain - we were soaked through! We still had six miles to go so we just pedalled back as fast as we could for a hot shower and a cup of tea to warm up!

We managed 20 miles, stopping for coffee in a village along the way and at 10 miles we had our picnic lunch sitting by the river. There were very few people along the track, but we did get hissed at by geese protecting their goslings, the ducks weren't quite so protective and just quaked as we cycled by. One duck had 10 ducklings following her, surely they couldn't all be hers?