Two French trips for spring 2012

TRIP ONE – SANARY-SUR-MER (APRIL)

We left home (Guernsey) on 10^th April for a bumpy crossing to St Malo where we picked up our caravan from its storage. We drove to Les Grande Pins at Chateauroux for our first overnight stop; the weather was sunny but cold. The next day on to St Flour in the Lozere with heavy rain all day. The site is just off the AutoRoute, easy to find but only 2C when we left the following morning at 08.15.

We arrived at Sanary-sur-Mer at 14.45 in heavy rain to a wet and muddy site with small, tight pitches for our Senator Indiana. Fortunately the weather improved dramatically from then on and Sanary is a lovey old town with a very picturesque harbour. Our visit went on to include Bandol, Cassis and La Ciotat, well worth a prolonged visit to this area with many pretty little fishing villages along the coastline and some of the tallest cliffs in Europe 362 – 399 metres. Inland there are also some lovely hill villages to visit such as Le Castellet and St Maximin la Ste Baume, with its basilica dedicated to Mary Magdalene. The Calanques along the coast are very spectacular and a boat tour into them is a great way to see them if it’s not too windy.

All too soon it was time to head for home, so on April 27^th we set off on our return journey going back the way we came, over the Millau viaduct and on towards St Flour. That’s when it all went wrong as 30 km south of St Flour on the AutoRoute the car broke down with an electrical failure, causing the ABS to lock on, we were not going anywhere. Red Pennant to the rescue, they were brilliant and we cannot praise them enough. We were set up on a campsite, the car was sent to a repair centre, and we were provided with a hire car. They then kept us totally informed until the car was repaired and although we ran into two French public holidays, we were able to drive home with our repaired car on 8^th May which meant we had an extra 8 days added to our holiday.

TRIP TWO – THE DORDOGNE (JUNE)

Thursday 7^th June we set off again 3pm boat to St Malo once again a bit lumpy but crossing OK; a few problems berthing the boat in St Malo meant we were 25minutes before we could get off but then we were on our way, picked up our van from the storage again and headed for a site nearby Domaine de Logis.

The following day we drove to Cognac in rain, sun and cloud with 21C temperatures, and arrived 14:30.  We stopped for the night and sorted out the van, t hen drove on to the Dordogne the following day to our chosen site at Douville, some 10 miles north of Bergerac. The site was lovely, with huge pitches, good access run by a Dutch family who were both friendly and helpful. We put up our full awning and as we finished it started to rain heavily, this continued for four days almost torrential.

After the four days the weather started to improve and we were then able to start sightseeing with visits to Bergerac to look at the statue of Cyrano and the old town, very pretty. We were also able to dry out the groundsheet and other items that were still wet from the rain. We went on to explore the old bastide towns in the area, Beaumont du Perigord and Monpazier a plus beau village beautiful, a jewel of medieval architecture. Issigeac founded in the 6^th century also had some fascinating houses made from stone and wood. Some swimming in the campsite pool was the order of the day as we started to relax in the now warm sunshine.

On Monday 18^th June after shopping at the nearby Intermarche we were returning to the campsite when our car locked itself into 2^nd gear and would not change either manually or by auto. We crawled back to the campsite at slow speed and once again it was time to call Red Pennant. As with our previous breakdown the response was brilliant and once again we were set up with a hire car and our car was taken to a nearby repair centre.

The repair was to take until Friday 29^th June, but in the meantime we carried on our holiday using the Twingo hire car that Red Pennant had arranged for us. A visit to Perigueux and a walk round the old medieval town was our tour another day then a second visit to wander around the old roman town and of course some shopping was essential (or so my wife said).  A trip which we very much enjoyed was a visit to Ste Foy La Grande where almost the whole town was taken up by the market with fresh fruit, vegetables, clothing, shoes, cheese, wine, honey and many more interesting stalls and wonderful smells.

We managed in the end to return home to Guernsey on Monday 2^nd July this time with an extra four days added to our holiday.

After our experience we can only say how wonderful we think the crew at Red Pennant are we cannot speak too highly of them, they are very professional and handled our problems with great efficiency and with some humour. They set us at ease in what was, for us, quite a stressful situation so to them we say very well done and a very big thank you.