Can you see, we're in Normandy
Our journey in France begins and we head west across the northern coast.
We decided to take it easy the first week, find our feet and get a feel for driving on the right (wrong) side of the road.
From our first stop over after arriving in France we were in the quiet and beautiful town of Saint Valery. We didn't do much exciting here, we had a nosey around, got some food and parked up the 'Aire de camping car' on west side of the port for some lunch.
I think we were still a bit shocked that we were here. 6 weeks ago we had no van, were still slightly unsure whether it would happen and Ellie hadn't even handed her notice in yet.
From Saint Valery, we headed out of town and towards our next stop over for the night in Saint Andrieux. Here we found a nice field with a few other motorhomes but still found it peaceful, the sun made an appearance and a bank built to protect you from the cliff edge provided a good wind breaker from the sea.
Le Havre was next on the agenda, a coastal city with a huge beach and promenade scattered with restaurants.
We were trying our best to stick to our weekly budget, but we said we could afford one meal out a week. We passed a restaurant with a lunch menu 3 courses for 15 Euro, and we dabbled into our first taste of French seaside cuisine.
It's was difficult to find over night parking in Le Havre, and we needed to do our van admin duties of emptying the toilet and filling up the water tank . We searched for a place to relax with a motorhome service station en route.
We found a spot in a beautiful forest to relax in and there wasn't another person in sight, which felt strange after being in the city of Le Havre and the busy northern coast of Normandy. We spent the evening enjoying the quiet and lack of signal, and playing tennis!
After my morning run and with sore legs, we headed to a coastal town branded 'The riviera of Northern France' - Deauville.
Deauville is beautiful and you can see why it has earnt its name. We wandered around Deauville taking in the amazing architecture and enjoying the sunshine before calling in to the super market for our daily baguette - I am still fuming about the fact Ellie bit the end off it as soon as we left the shop!
Around the north of France, as you can imagine there is a lot of WWII memorials, especially from the 6th June 1944, D-Day! So we headed to Juno beach, the most easterly beach from D-Day, where the Canadians landed!
Juno is a quaint little town, with a prom, a small pier and a lovely beach. As it was a small town there wasn't much for over night parking apart from a motorhome park, which was free, it wasn't the most idyllic location but it felt safe and it was quiet.
We didn't want to go to all the D-day beaches, but one that we had to go and see was Gold beach, where the British landed. we parked right next to beach and there was certainly an eerie feel around the place. Unlike Juno beach there wasn't much around and with out distraction you can't help but think about what it would of been like running up the beach all those years ago.
In land by about 5 minutes is the British war memorial, I believe this was due to open for the 75th anniversary but due to Covid it only officially opened in 2021. The memorial is truly magnificent and due to lots of people still not travelling we were the only people there. We were completely taken aback by the size of the memorial and would recommend everyone to go and visit.
After spending 2 nights in the town of Juno on a motorhome park, due to van problems, which were fixed swiftly by a French mechanic (I will follow this with another post about the realities of van life soon) we fancied a night away from people. we searched park4night and looked for places heading west. we stumbled across a car park in a woodland over looking a lake. there was a couple people there, A mother and daughter wild camping and another French couple car camping, but other than this it was a lovely place to stop for the night, as well as a nice 8km running trail which I ran the following morning in preparation for Monte Rosa.
We had a great time on our first week in Normandy, finding out feet in France had been interesting. It was coming up to our Anniversary and we wanted to be on the west coast. Each year we replicate our first date on a beach, but first there was one stop we had to make, Mont Saint Michel, which will be in the next post!