May 2019

End of April 2019 was the start of our adventure. We were heading towards France and stayed in a few campsites on the way. (see articles here).

In May we were in France. For our first stop, we stayed in a campsite with basic services near the sea. You know you’re in France when you get fresh bread delivery every morning! A lady in a little van full of baguettes and croissants, giving a shout to announce her presence and attract customers.

We stayed in Audresselles first. It was beautiful, the beach, the calm. Especially having a nice glass of red wine on the beach.

We were still adjusting to our new way of living, but enjoying nice food cooked by Markie accompanied by amazing (and cheaper) wine.

Looking back at the pictures, I keep seeing pastries and I remember how I go crazy every time I am in France when I go to a patisserie!

And one of the best croissants I had was in La Bouille, a little village in Normandy. The interesting part was that we were parked on one side of the river and would take a free ferry to cross from Sahurs to La Bouille to buy fresh bread and pastries. It stroke me like a very artistic village, as there were “ateliers” everywhere!

We were still amazed by the fact that we can park for free in certain places and the image of sunsets on the river with commercial ferries going by slowly, creating little romantic lights stays with me until today.

After that, we headed to la Foret Domaniale Reno-Valdieu. I found that place just magical and it is still one of my favorite places. That was the first time when I thought I should be scared of being in the middle of nowhere in the woods at night, but actually I was just mesmerized. Because you see, the light of the moon was our companion and it was shaping the trees in the most beautiful way. The owls were our friends and the specially designed picnic areas made it homely.

It was a perfect place for me to practice yoga and for Mark to make the first barbecue of our trip. I got obsessed with going to see the Series Artistiques with trees that were 300 years old. One thing that you should know about me is that I am quite a cozy person and I can happily hang around wherever we are without having to go too far. But that time I had to go and explore. And it was gorgeous! Mark felt a bit nervous about me going out by myself as my sense of orientation usually fails me!

Next we stayed in Fille sur Sartre, in the back of a church where there was free parking, public toilet, water and electricity. The patisserie was literally across the street from the church so you can imagine where I was! You need to be aware about opening times though in France, as they really respect the lunch break, so the patisserie was closing around 12 I think, and re-opening around 3:30 pm.

We also took advantage of our location (walking distance to a nice restaurant) and as we quickly noticed that we are not spending as much as we though, we decided we deserve a nice French meal.

Next stop was Saumur, along the river. We walked to a street full of wineries and decided to go inside Ackerman (oups) for a tour plus wine tasting. The entrance was about 6 Euros, so you can imagine I kept trying every single wine at the end to make my money’s worth.

I liked where we parked (all credits to Mark who was researching where to park thanks to the park4night app), it was quiet, we saw a river rat and it was the cutest thing ever as it was in its natural environment.

We were also close from an outside free gym and a public toilet. I also found a place with washing machines so we did the laundry.

We then headed to L’Isle Jourdain and oh my, the bridge was fantastic, reflecting on the river! A perfect place for yoga and painting. Just chilling, princess lifestyle.

After a couple of days of staying there, we headed towards Hautefort, but had to stop in Mortemart, just because there was a very interesting square and we thought we should stop for a coffee to admire the place. And of course, a swan was walking by. As they do.

In Hautefort we had another cheeky day going out for lunch. A good tip if you are going to go out is to choose lunch time as they usually have menu of the day and cheaper food, but same quality and experience.

Following that, we went in the Condat-sur-Vezere area, and we went for a very long walk and the sky was changing into a very gray moody one and luckily we got back just in time to the motorhome and enjoyed the relaxing bit of hearing and seeing the rain, but being sheltered. We had an amazing view in the woods, seeing hills, trees and a castle. How princessy is that? When you enjoy these little pleasures in life, you don’t care about the short showers, little indoor space. If anything, it makes us appreciate more the resources that we are using and the beauty of this planet.

The next picture is a typical instagram picture where we had to stop the motorhome just to capture this. How millennial of me! I promise you, I got less narcissistic as we went. Or did I? At least I have many more pictures of nature than me, so that must be a good-ish sign?

Anyway, a service stop later, we were in the Pyrenees. And that was our proper first wild stop. We barely saw any people. We were surrounded by gorgeous trees. No sound of cars. Just the raw sign of nature. The rainbow coming out of the hills. The wet grass in the morning. The beautiful atmosphere for a good glass of wine and a nice meal. That was one of Mark’s favorite place to stay in.

I forgot to mention, the reason why we went to so many places in May was because we were heading for a house sit at the end of May so we had to be in a certain place on a certain date so we rushed a bit. But I will write more about house and pet sits in a next article.