A meander through France…

After a fantastic few days in the Pouancé area of France, it was time to move on. But it seemed rude to leave without one last visit to the lake… Laundry day!!

I spent a good hour in the water getting my washing nicely rinsed and having a super swim in the warm water.

Again, I parked at La Mine Bleue and enjoyed the walk down to the water in the glorious sunshine – a toasty 30C.

I had the lake beach all to myself – and Ted of course. By mid morning I decided to make a move.

I had a change of plan… Somewhere I’d wanted to go for a long time was sort of en route. When I say sort of, I mean about 200 miles the other way. Oradour-sur-Glane. On 10^th June 1944, the village was destroyed and 642 of its inhabitants, including women and children, were massacred by Nazis. The village has remained untouched since the tragedy. A new village was built next to it.

Stopping a few times beside the Loire, this seemed a delightful spot for a bite to eat.

By early evening, I decided to pull into a random Aire. I rarely park in designated motorhome places, but this looked really pleasant.

After being parked up for an hour or so, something looked vaguely familiar…

Very familiar indeed…

This is where we parked up for a night in March 2016… The chances of that! It’s a little greener now!

The following morning, my navigator was ready to set off.

A quick bit of van tidying, a spot of breakfast, and we were ready to roll.

We stopped at some stunning places on the way and I cooked pizza in the Ridge-monkey. I can’t recommend one of these highly enough to anyone – for a house, van or even BBQ!

By early evening, we found a very secluded sleepy spot which at first seemed perfect…

Until the darkness crept in and flies were everywhere! It was too hot to keep the windows closed, so we headed over to an Aire I’d spotted along the way.

Size isn’t everything!!!!

Though far more civilised than my usual parking spots, we didn’t get hounded by bugs all night!! The Aire was free too, which was a huge bonus.

That evening, we parked next to an English couple who were over here for a couple of weeks in their motorhome. It’s always nice to chat in your own language and they were very interesting.

Needless to say, I couldn’t have a shower where we were parked overnight, so I headed back to the previous sleepy spot attempt in the morning for a private shower, bite to eat and some quiet blogging time…

A hot shower, outdoors in the woods. It’s something you can only truly appreciate once you’ve experienced it. It’s amazing.

The sky isn’t blue today, which is perfect for my visit to the memorial village as Ted isn’t allowed in so he’ll be staying in the van. It’s cooler today so he’ll be fine.

My next blog post will be dedicated to my experience at the massacre village of Oradour-sur-Glane. Spoiler alert, if you plan to visit.

Later in the day our plan is to head in the direction of the sand dunes, south of Bordeaux. That of course may change at any given moment…!

This is our route so far. A nice meander, slow pace and thoroughly enjoying every moment.

 

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