Wednesday 17 July 2013

Heading North

In our last blog we were enjoying our long stay in St. Aygulf, we really loved the beach there and went almost everyday to soak up the sun and swim in the sea- we even saw some fish- which was a nice surprise to just sand, sand, sand!
Daniel Craig, eat your heart out
In the sea











We left here on the Monday and started heading North and ended up in Chateroux Les Alps , which took about three hours as it was all windy and mountain roads and through the French Army training ground- we didnt see any soldiers or tanks though so either they are having a holiday OR are doing their job very well...
The campsite we arrived at only had one more day left of low season- ACSI price at a lovely 14 euros for the night. And the place was beautiful as it was surrounded by mountains and streams, as well as offering free wifi and practically a toilet block per campervan! The toilet facilities were very modern and cleaned everyday and the showers were the best that we have had since being away as they were power showers that stay on allll the time! HEAVEN! However, we did only stay here for one night due to cost, deadlines and there didn't seem to be that much to do but it was a nice stopover.
In the morning we left early and started to make our two hour journey to a campsite near Grenoble... the first hour drive was very tight, very narrow and very steep mountain roads so we were very happy once we cleared that part of the journey. with this in mind, I hope you can imagine our dismay and dread when we were sat at some traffic lights and Steven announces that he has left our priceless ACSI discount card with the owners at the previous campsite!! (This happened because the campsites ask for the discount card as a deposit until the morning we leave)
So, we did a quick U-turn and made our way back through the very tight, very narrow and very steep mountain roads in Bert the Merc, to the campsite to get our ACSI discount card back. And then back we went for the third time of the day, up the very tight, very narrow and very steep mountain roads back to the traffic lights but instead of turning back, we actually got to see something new and different once we had been in Bert the Merc for over three hours, with just over an hour left to go until we reached the next campsite. Luckily, the views had been brilliant and we got loads of photos which is one of the many perks of not going on the toll roads!
When we eventually arrived at the campsite near Grenoble we were exhausted and were looking forward to spending a few nights on the campsite which had a swimming pool and a pebble beach into a stream, so we hooked up and went for an explore! Quite quickly we new that this was not the one for us as the toilet facilities looked like they hadn't been cleaned in...well... a disturbingly long time. We are talking clouds of flies in the toilet cubicle, and the pebble beach was pretty but was more of a rock beach so you couldn't lie down or even go in without breaking your foot, so we chilled for the evening and then left the following morning. We must add that a positive to staying here, albeit briefly, was that when we went to pay we were charged 14 euros without tourist tax, whereas we thought it was going to be at least 16 euros. Every penny counts!
We knew that there was a five star campsite about an hour and a half away that was still accepting ACSI discount so we headed there, praying for better luck. And my, oh my, we got it!

Lake Annecy
This five star campsite is located in Doussard, which is just off from Lake Annecy, and has a pool and bar and restaurant- and has been the friendliest campsite we have been to so far. Absolutely loved it! We only wished we had come here sooner as only stayed three nights- we have even said that we would go back again for a holiday in the future. The facilities were lovely and we got our baguettes from the little cafe in the morning, and we even treated ourselves to the home-made pizzas from the restaurant on the second night! we were also given a map of the cycle routes that went around the lake and to surrounding areas. Out first bike ride was on our first day and lasted a couple of hours as we got to half way around the lake and then had an ice cream at one of the cafes on the lakeside. The cycle route was brilliant, and there were pro cyclists everywhere but also families so was very welcoming and easy going as long as you stayed aware. When we came back from our bike ride we were chatting to one of our neighbours who mentioned a waterfall that can be cycled to- they had driven there but we fancied the cycle.
Cascade D' Angon
 This route was a different one to the day before which was ideal but we did still get to see the lake, it was about 6km to the bottom of our ascent to the Cascade D'Angon. The climb to the waterfall- Cascade D'Angon took about an hour to walk, and was totally worth it! Beautiful view and something that we probably would never have heard of or seen if we hadn't spoken to the couple next to us. After an explore, had some leftover pizza for lunch and took some piccies we headed back to Bert the Merc and collapsed in a heap by the pool :)
              Cascade D' Angon


Riding through a tunnel
Cascade D' Angon
Trek to Cascade D' Angon













Our three nights quickly whizzed by, we left Doussard on Saturday morning and headed to Chalet Sophie, which is in Morzine, in the French Alps, to meet up with Stevens family! This drive was full of more mountain roads and cool views as we saw snow on the tops of the mountains more and more frequently, and the roads were packed with motorbikes, especially Harley Davidsons (we later found our that there was a convention in Morzine, that a few years ago had seen Status Quo play for free!). Meeting up with Stevens Mum and her partner-Dave, Uncle Tony and Aunt Ginny and Nanny Jan was great! The chalet is amazing with a hot tub! We got some rather quizzical looks when we declined the two beds in the chalet for our bed in Bert the Merc- but he is our home and we wouldn't dream of sleeping anywhere else when our own bed is so close!
After doing a quick food shop and unpacking, we all sat outside in the sun and had a very good catch up- it is surprising how nice and refreshing it is to have other people to talk to instead of just the two of us! We also got given some goodies from home which included a kindle for Steven, Modern Family, The big bang theory and Breaking bad box sets, lots of spearmint polos, a book for me :) some English biccies and other home comforts :)
We chilled for the rest of the day, nattering and sunbathing and reading in the hot tub- absolute heaven! It has been a holiday from out holiday! Oven cooked meals and loads of variety, constant wifi and no cooking for me! Me and Steven are going to cook for everyone tonight as a thank you as it has been brilliant, and its not over yet as they don't leave until Saturday and its Wednesday today!

On Monday we had a day trip to Les Gets and got the gondola up Mount Chery- it was weird to see that the ski and snowboard holders had been taken off and been replaced with mountain bike holders. But that is what the mountains are used for in the summer and it was packed with mountain bikers in all their gear! Once we got off of the gondola me, Steve, Tony and Ginny went on the chair lift a little further up to have a better view! We even saw Mont Blanc and I saw it first!! YAY! The blind one wins again- thanks for the contact lenses Mum :)
On the gondola with Nanny Jan and Jo

On the chair lift

Monument of mountains
On top of Mont Chery

Chair lift!

Up the top was brilliant and there was a monument at the top which showed what mountains you could see as you walked around the monument- was very cool and handy! We then got the chair lift back down, which was another first, and had some lunch while looking at Mont Blanc. We then went back down the gondola and explored Les Gets which was a really nice town and had a nice ice cream!

Back at Chalet Sophie we all started to plan our 'Three countries in One Day' trip for the following day.
Which started by having breakfast in France and then travel through the Mont Blanc tunnel into Italy- which as exciting as it sounds, is just a 11.6km tunnel and cost 40 euros...
In Italy we were faced with tunnel after tunnel after tunnel until we finally got to see the Italian Alps! We drove to Aosta for our Italian lunch and ate in true Italian style with pizzas! We walked around Aosta centre which looked very Italian and pretty, and we found some very cheap but delicious ice creams down a back alley- six ice creams for 9 euros!
Back in the cars we followed Nanny Jans satnav which was programmed to take us into Switzerland, over St Bernards Pass. On route to our destination the satnav thought it would be fun to take us through a housing estate and then up a narrow road... well I say road, what I mean is not a road for cars but maybe for a bike.. or a person.. we did manage to squeeeeze through, rubbing the wheels on the wall, but thankfully we were not in Bert but in normal cars!
Thank God we weren't in Bert!
After this we stayed on normal roads and started driving on St Bernards Pass which was the best road we have driven on- ever! We even saw snow and stopped on the side of the road to play in the snow on the side of the road! In flip flops and shorts! When we got back in the car and continued up the mountains until we saw snow next to a mountain stream and had to stop again :) We walked in the stream and were shocked to find that the stream was colder to a point of painful than playing in the snow! We even had a refreshing slurp which was tasty and relatively clean, if not a bit gritty!

Eventually we did get back on the road again and drove over the St Bernards Pass and carried on through Switzerland to our dinner time stopover- Le Bouveret. Which was on Lake Leman and very picturesque and very Swiss. We had our dinner at a lovely restaurant which overlooked the lake where Steven, Jo, Dave and Nanny Jan had Mussles, Tony had lasagne, Ginny had carbonara and I had pasta and prawns in an orange sauce! Yum yum yum. We then headed back into France which took about an hour and a half, but our three meals in three different country challenge was a success!
Our stops so far
Today we are having a chill and can hear the thunder on the mountains while we blog and look through all our photos! Tomorrow our plan is to go to Geneva as we want to visit the CERN facility and go get wet under the Jet D'Eau!


Much love and happy camping!


French Army Base

France's 'hole in the wall'

Just some of our routes!
Why wouldnt our satnav
take us down here?

Mont Blanc


Steven in Italy 

Playing in the snow in Italy

Playing in the snow in Italy

Playing in the snow in Italy

Playing in the snow in Italy

Playing in the snow in Italy

Mountain stream in Italy

Colder than we thought!

Freezing!

Ginny dipping her toe in

Slurp slurp- mountain water

Tony in Italy

Another hairpin


 
Italy :)

Flipflops in the snow



2238  metres

wall of snow in July!


St. Bernards Pass
Switzerland

Mussles in Switzerland


Bert's ski shop :)






Thursday 4 July 2013

Sunny South of France

As promised here is the second part of our trip since Barcelona to date!
Chilling in Calogne


From Barcelona we then drove to Calogne which was a lovely campsite with a small but lovely beach- actually warm enough for us to get in and have a swim, the Saturday night we just chilled and Matt cooked us chicken on the Barbie, but as we were all quite tired from the day of stress, panic and then relief that The Slug was back on the road, we had an early night.
Sunday was San Juan so all the Spanish were gearing up for a party night, we chilled by the beach during the day and went for a swim, the beach was down a hill and there was a ‘train’ that took people down to the beach and back up every twenty minutes- this ‘train’ was actually a tractor with a trailer/carriage behind it. Nevertheless we young legged folk did walk it!

The Sunday night we went up to the bar and restaurant up at the top and had dinner and drinks- Steven had Paella (pronounces pie-yey-ya) which looked and tasted yummy! Bri had a bucket of Muscles and a salad- the muscles were so tasty! I had shoulder of lamb which was also very yummy and Matt had a burger. Which was very unimpressive in comparison to the rest of ours ;) !!
Steves scrummy Paella
We then went back to the vans for some wine and sangria to then be tempted back up to the bar when the karaoke started going- Steven crashed some Spanish lads’ version of The Eye of the Tiger and then volunteered to sing Kylies ‘I just can’t get you out of my head’ and practically carried a Spanish waitress who barely spoke any English to sing with him. It was hilarious. Matt then dared me to go up there in promise of a free jug of Sangria, so I helped a Spanish lad out with the YMCA which was fun and then had to go solo with Britney Spears’ One More Time. Why we do Karaoke is something I will never know but we cannot stay away even though we definitely should! After our singsong we headed down to the beach to watch the San Juan fireworks. And then stumbled into bed.

Before all the sangria and karaoke-

              Steve and Matt
Em and Bri
We left Calogne sooner than we probably would have so that we could help Matt and Bri get The Slug fixed as we found a Ford garage in Perpignan in France (we realise that we missed out quite a lot of Spain but are meeting family at Mont Blanc in July so knew we would either have to miss Spain or the coast of France so we chose to miss Spain this time round but go back in the future) so we dropped The Slug off at the Ford garage and all four of us went to the camp site- Saint Marie Plage this was not the way it had been described in the ACSI book- we were quite unlucky with the weather anyway as it was really, really windy, but the beach was horrible- it wasn’t exactly sand, more like broken up concrete so we couldn’t go there and relax, the pool was nice but very cold but we did sunbathe by the pool as that was nice, but the pitches weren’t great and even though we had Bri and Matt, in their tent on our pitch the campsite manager charged us over double to have us all on one pitch which worked out to be more expensive than if Bri and Matt had had their own pitch with just there two man tent on.
Ozzies roughing it in their tent
Which made no sense and we were only told this after our three night stay at this campsite and so couldn’t do anything about it. So we had a couple of boring and windy days in Perpignan but The Slug got fixed and we know never to go back there again! We then headed off again to Serignan! This is a five star camping site and you can see why! Both The Slug and Bert the Merc are on one pitch it’s so spacious- the awning is out too! It is a very family friendly campsite so there are a lot of children around so the pools are pretty rammed but everyone is so friendly it doesn’t matter! The beach is nice and has loads of lovely shells on it but the water is f-f-f-freezing! I got my results the day before so we all went out for celebratory drinks and a meal as I did well and got the 2:1 I was hoping for! We went to the on-site restaurant and had tapas for starter which was mouth wateringly good and so big that for a main meal we each got a burger and were stuffed! We then walked across the beach to a bar which looked nice and had some wine and beers there while a French DJ was entertaining everyone, this was a great night and a great way to celebrate! Bri and Matt headed back over to Spain after Serignan as they are going to Pamplona for the running with the bulls and then going to Portugal. So after Serignan we parted our ways but will hopefully see them and The Slug in Croatia and/or Italy in a few months and then in Australia! We are carrying on East along the coast and hope that the sea continues to warm up!
Bert the Merc and The Slug in Perpignan


We drove for two and a half hours to a campsite which was described as a four star campsite 'positioned directly on a fine sandy beach'. This campsite in Stes Maries-de-la-Mer was in the middle of nowhere and was more a barren desert with actual tumble weeds and the beach was boarded off by huge rocks preventing anyone to go swimming, there was a smaller beach in an alcove but this was not easy to get to and was more of a substitution to the promised beach and not really a proper beach. Needless to say we stayed there for one night and then headed out the next morning. This was on the Sunday and we quickly realised that we were pretty low on diesel so we were keeping our eyes peeled for a petrol station open on a Sunday morning... after two closed petrol stations and two with very low height restrictions we were getting pretty desperate when we finally found one attached to a supermarket and filled up from there, but this searching had cost us precious time so when we finally got to the campsite in Cavalaire-sur-Mer it was about 2pm. It took us so long as we were driving near the Alps and so the roads were winding and steep forcing us to keep Bert the Merc at a slower pace than usual, we then stopped for lunch at a bakery and drove past a British camper that had been staying directly opposite us in the previous campsite! Bizarre! When we finally got to the campsite at Cavalaire-sur-Mer they had closed for lunch so we parked Bert the Merc and headed down to the local beach which was down quite a steep hill but presented a beautiful, small beach. After going for a bit of a paddle we headed back to Bert and waited for this campsite to open only to find that the British camper that had camped directly opposite us the night before, and who we had seen on our way to this current campsite, was parked in front of Bert the Merc, waiting for the Cavalaire-sur-Mer campsite owners to get back from their lunch. I kid you not.
So we started chatting to them while we waited and when the owner did come out we asked how many spaces they had left for campers. He said one. Awkward... We told them to have it as we had seen a campsite just down the road so it wasn't an issue. The campsite further down was really nice and had three spaces left! highlighting the fact that France and the coast in general is about to get mega busy! We set up Bert the Merc and cycle down to a different beach which is a five minute bike ride away but is flat and leads to a much bigger beach. We really liked it here and there were loads of cafes and bars on the sea front so it really had an atmosphere. We stayed at this campsite for two nights as we were paying non-ACSI price, so 26 euros a night, and wanted to keep heading toward Nice so that we were closer to the Alps in preparation for our journey up the Alps to see the views and meet up with some of Stevens family :)

We got up early and left before 9am as we wanted to get to the next campsite at good time so that if it was full we had enough time to regroup and find an alternative without being rushed. We arrived at St. Aygulf, just North of St. Tropez, at about 10 and happily discovered that they had spaces and still offered ACSI discount offers until the rest of the week, which has become rarer as the high season begins, and we book ourselves in for six nights. We can really relax and get comfy here, the campsite offers a pool which is really nice and big, and the beach is a ten minute walk but we have cycled there the more recently which is really easy and takes five minutes tops! On our first walk to the beach we did find ourselves traipsing through the very nude and populated nudist beach. It is the first one either of us have been on and it was quite a surprise at how very very naked everyone is. All ages, all sizes and not a stitch in sight! Further up we found the regular beach which we keep to and the sea is lovely, lots of boats and jet skis in the distance and lots of small fish in the shallows. We love it here! Four more nights to go until we leave and we are heading to the beach bar tonight to see what that's like, and then we will be heading to the Alps! Very excited, and we will keep you posted.



Much Love and Happy Camping! xXx