On Friday 17 July I left home to go to France. It was a rather busy day on the roads in the Netherlands, and in Belgium around the big cities of Antwerp and Brussels. But after Brussels I took the rural roads and they were okay. I was advised not to travel on Saturday 18 July since this was a so-called Black Saturday. My first stop was in a tiny village called Felleries, in the North of France, Ardennes region. A nice mixed camp site next to an old station building, and there was a small supermarket, ‘superette’ and even a ‘boulangerie’, but no café. By ‘mixed’ camp site I mean that there were camper vans, caravans, tents, and people on bicycle tours carrying all their gear in bags on their bicycle, that is truly adventurous! A lovely lady ran the place since a few years and was proud that she had been able to make it a well-kept and green site again, after years of neglect. I was there for 2 nights and made a walk through the forest and the fields, and very much enjoyed the abundance of wild flowers! I had decided that I do not want to go to some place and leave again the next morning, I want to get a bit of a feel of a place, however small it may still be after only two nights. The first night I created a dish with a beautiful zucchini from my sister’s garden, see the picture…
Next stop was Aizelles, another small village, a church (only used for Christmas mass) but no shops there. I camped on a small and super green camp site at a former farm of a very friendly family. For groceries shopping I had to cycle over a few hills, which was quite ‘faisable’, as the Madame had assured me. One has to focus on what you really need to buy if you have to carry it back in your backpack, cycling through the hills again. Waking up in the morning with church bells, and birds singing in the trees above you was very relaxing. I made a bicycle tour to the Abbaye de Vauclair which in fact were the ruins of a former Abbaye. The ride went partly over hills and partly through forests (le Chemin du Roi!) where we were warned to watch out for the processionary caterpillars, which I did, since I am sort of allergic to them….. All the villages had churches but no shops or cafés. I started to realize that it might not be easy to meet with local people which until now has proven to be true.
On 22 July I drove to Epernay in the Champagne region, where I parked my van on the municipal camp site along the river Marne. It was a city camp site and Epernay being the second capital of the Champagne region (after Reims) it came as no surprise that it was a bit full and the sites were numbered, you had to stick to the square meters allocated to you. I got number 60, very near the river where I could do some yoga in the early mornings, with swans and ducks looking at me and trying to do the same…. Now why did I travel to a city you will surely ask yourself. The answer is simple, I had arranged to meet my dear friend Angele from Chad, who was staying in Reims those days. She came by train to Epernay, with her bicycle, and we made a long tour along the river Marne (and had a chat with a lovely couple fishing together in the river). At the end of the afternoon we took a champagne tour and tasting (of course) at Champagne Mercier. What a lovely day that was, mainly for seeing Angele again after quite some time! I spent some more days cycling around Epernay, surrounded by champagne vinyards as far as the eye could see, visiting champagne villages and having a glass of champagne at the village cafés. I saw a beautiful red Volkswagen beetle with a tent on its roof on that camp site (I told the guy so and he smiled), and a young Dutch man came to seek my advice on whether to secure the canopy of his van with rope and tent pegs since I looked like a very experienced camping person he said. I had to disappoint him but told him that for that night there was not much wind and I would not do it with my van. We had a nice chat on where home is, and what makes a place, or a camper van, feel like home. What does ‘home’ mean for you???
From Epernay I took the road to Villey-le-Sec (in the Lorraine region), a very nice camp site bordering the river la Moselle, and I had my van parked in front of the river. I noted in my diary that I felt extremely happy that first day there. There were some nice ‘Voies Vertes’ (green bicycle lanes) along the river and I borrowed some descriptions (itineraries) of hikes in the region from the reception. One evening a big Roma family of about 15 arrived and put up their tents at the quiet end of the lane where I was, at the far end of the camp site. Silence gone, but it was nice to see them all together and the children were kept busy with sports and plays by one of the young adults. Between 22.30 and 08.00 the next morning they were perfectly quiet. At 08.00 sharp it all came to life again, when they started packing up to travel to their next destination.
On 30 July I took the road to Haguenau (Alsace region) where I am now. A quiet and green camp site. The other day there was a camper built in a former fire brigade truck!!! Amazing!!! Haguenau is a small city and the region is known for its wines, pottery and the Maginot line, a line of concrete fortifications and weapon installations built by France (in 1930) to deter invasion from Germany. However, the Germans invaded from the North in 1940, bypassing the line from the North. Since then the line has become a metaphor for expensive efforts that offer a false sense of security (so I read). Yesterday I made a long bicycle tour through a beautiful forest to visit one of the pottery villages, and I intend to do more cycling the next few days. I will let you know about it next time.
