Panicking in Paris

Evan and I were up early to collect our bread, so early that the owner commented on it – I like the way that she allows me to use my broken French with her and answers in French too, it’s the only way you can improve.  Saying we were ‘early’ is all relative as our elderly neighbours had left before we’d woken up! 

Jump started Flo -  again; it doesn’t worry me anymore although I'm sure Chris has had enough of the hassle of it.  Paid 130E for the 4 nights, I think this was quite expensive – the site was huge and obviously gave free access to the pool and mini golf etc. but it was old and definitely not maintained to an ‘excellent’ standard.  Still, we had had fun and it was so good for the kids to be able to play cricket and swim everyday so I would use them again if we were passing through the area for a few nights.

We began our usual journey north again, this time aiming for Champagne, it was going fine until Chris felt the gear stick wobble again!!!  ARGHHHH!!! NO!!!!!!  It was raining and the kids were quiet so we decided to just go north as far as we could as we were sure Flo was going to break again now.  However the very worrying part of this decision was that going north would mean that we would have to go through Paris and the though terrified us!! When we are travelling I always have the map book open as well as the satnav on because it often makes you go along random short cuts so I like to know where we are going, however Paris is so complicated that there is no way I could navigate with the map so we had to trust the machine.  We were doing pretty fine, getting closer and closer to the centre and before we knew it we were on the dreaded ‘periphique’-the nightmare inner ringroad!! That said, traffic was heavy but flowing steadily so wasn’t too bad.  We were all really shocked to see the Eiffle tower – never thought we’d be that close!!!  Evan tried to get a photo but we we’d entered into the tunnels where Diana had her crash and so we missed our chance.  We got to the north of Paris, saw the Stade-de-France and began to think how well we’d done…when suddenly the satnav let us down –BIG TIME!!!!!!  It took us off into a really dodgy neighbourhood up a huge never-ending steep hill with speed humps and traffic lights every 2 minutes – the absolute worse conditions for driving poorly Flo!! It was so stressful and an awful 45mins, how we got through it I don’t know!!

We finally left paris many grey hairs later and left feeling more than a bit sick!!  I looked for an aire that would be within walking distance of a town or village so we could have a few days without having to move again; we decided on Boulangne-sur-Mer, a seadside town about 20 mins from Calais.  It was a massive relief when we actually arrived; Flo had driven for 4 hours solid and through really difficult traffic but it was reassuring that we were so much closer to the ferry port now. 

The aire is on the cliff top looking down on the massive sandy beach and town.  When we arrived we found a space that was next to a Dutch couple (again), also in our bay was a German van and a Belgian van so very European!!  It’s now a beautiful clear sky and men are jumping off the cliff in paragliders, looked horrendous to me!!

As we’d been in the car for the vast majority of the day we walked the kids down the steep hill into the town and seafront. It’s a classic seafront with a huge sandy beach where kids are ‘sand sailing’ in classes and being towed back in a snake by quad bikes. There are rows of beach huts and a playground in the sand on the beach.  We walk around to the harbour and buy frites from a van as Evan points out its 4pm and we've not eaten anything!!!  Bad parents, mainly because there is no food in Flo!!  A steep walk back up to Flo where we all were well refreshed thanks to Flo’s amazing fridge!! When the kids go to sleep I walked over to a very popular van that had opened up and was selling snacks and frites.  I found that like the frite van earlier the vendors had no English – at all!! And they speak really fast – however, I’m pleased that my French has improved enough to have the confidence to go to them, I wouldn’t have done so in the past!!  They made us a beautifully fresh cheese and ham salad baguette called a ‘sandwich complet’, and very importantly I also bought 4 bottles of Leffe from them(!!!!!); I don’t know if Chris was more in shock from having driven through Paris or because we very nearly had a night with no alcohol!! – either way it was a real treat to have supper after the stress of the day!!

It was a quiet night, in fact every night we've been away has been.  I would so recommend to everyone the French aires.  They are such an amazingly clever and open way of allowing people to see parts of France that you would have never seen otherwise; the friendly etiquette of the aires where everyone says ‘bonjour’, ‘bonsoir’ etc. and the assumption that everyone has time and wants to talk to you allows for an amazing opportunity to show love, share experiences and make friendships (with people who in the UK you would never speak to) is amazing.  I actually prefer being parked in some cases less than 1m from another motorhome on an aire than being in my allocated plot on a campsite.  The uk is so profit driven that they can’t see the benefits that can be brought to a community of allowing between 4-40 vans stay for between 10 and 0 Euro a night.  In Turrene for example we stayed in the aire and bought bread and groceries every day, bought drinks in the tavern, bought regional products and paid to visit the castle, we added to the economy of that community and everyone else who stays there does too, so it’s good for everyone.  Such a shame the UK is only concerned with profit and making money so much so that people can’t stay anywhere at all.