Monday, June 30: France, Rouen to Jumieges

During our walk around town yesterday, we noticed a laundromatique, so we hauled our one laundry bag of clothes, sheets and couple of towels and figured out the instructions written only in French. The laundromat had 3 sizes of machines and we could fit everything into the mid-sized one for 7 Euro – about $10. The dryer was 1.5 Euro for 10 minutes, so we did one load of laundry for about $13.

Outside of our campground is an Aire where we dumped both our tanks and tried to fill up with fresh water where there is a spigot instead of the "push to get water" types that were in the campground. The Aire charged 2.5 Euro for the fresh water, but it would not accept our credit card and it did not take cash. Oh well.

We stopped at a Super U, which is a decent sized grocery store plus a bunch of other stuff, but not as nice as a super WalMart. We picked up a few things and then headed north towards the coast. Our first stop along the way was Benedictine Abbey ruins founded in 654. Ready for another GPS adventure?

Is this really a road?

The only prohibition in the navigation that we entered was toll roads since we want to stay on the highways, but not limited access type interstates. Well, the GPS figured the best way to get across the Seine to the Abbey was via a ferry, except the weight limit was 3.5 ton and we are twice that., we kept on going, entered “no ferries” in the GPS and let it redirect us to the Abbey. It worked great except it took us down roads so narrow that the brush and tree branches were scraping both sides of the RV – these roads had not been used in years! We enjoyed a good laugh while driving down these “roads.” 

Gotta love the GPS!

 We arrived at the Abbey safe and sound and toured around the multiple buildings with all the different architectures (Normandy Romanesque, Gothic, etc.) according to the pamphlet that provided a brief walking tour. William the Conqueror helped consecrate one of the churches in the early 1000's. We really need to revise our thoughts of what is “old.”

A type of sundial near the top of one of the towers

Hard to see, but a painted portrait of an Abbot from 1600s inside the church

We expected to get to the coast, but it was getting late and it turned out that our parking lot is an Aire. We can stay here overnight for free (there are three other RVs here, too) and they have a spot to dump tanks and get fresh water. We purchased a 3 Euro token at the Tavern in the little town across from the Abbey, put it in the box and out came 100 liters of water whether we needed it all or not. Worked great! So, we settled in for the night. Free campground!

Thursday, June 26: West Flanders, Belgium to Amiens, France

We left the Ypres area on the motorway and quickly crossed into France with just a small sign saying we were in France – no customs, no border. The EU sure makes travel a lot easier. We now have to figure out all these French signs – some are the same as Belgium, but there are a few new ones and of course, any signs with words are only in French. The rural areas are similar to eastern Pennsylvania – some rolling hills and vast fields of corn and grain.

Every town and village has a church with a steeple

We drove through the Somme area of France, another important World War I area mostly involving the French and the British. We saw many memorials and cemeteries and signs marking the front line on various dates.

Our GPS is programmed with the latitude and longitude of an Aire near the French city of Amiens. France has many of these Aire motorhome stopovers with few or no services (and no actual street addresses), but a good place to park for using public transportation, so that we can avoid driving in the city. Well, the GPS malfunctioned and we ended up on these one-lane country roads many miles south of Amiens. When we re-entered our destination, it took us right through the heart of the city. Not quite as bad as our previous in-city driving, but it was not pleasant, and the GPS went completely bonkers telling us to turn left, recalculating, turn right, recalculating go 5 kilometers, make a u-turn. If we hadn't been in such heavy traffic and narrow streets, it actually would have been hilarious.

We finally gave up trying to find the Aire and entered the street address of a regular campground. It stopped giving us crazy directions and got us where we wanted to go. We had noticed over the past year that occasionally in we would find all these strange coordinates in the GPS memory that we had never entered, so apparently there is something very wrong with that part of the GPS.

During our earlier lost stage driving through the countryside towns and villages, we were stopped by the Gendarmes. No English, so I am thinking they would want our papers, but in the end, all they wanted was for Jack to take a breathalyzer test – just a random alcohol screening. They are very strict in Europe on drinking and driving, but really, are there that many folks out there driving drunk around noon? They passed us through without even mentioning our lack of a front license plate.

Our campground is in a tiny village north of Amiens. At first, we couldn't figure out these tiny rural villages we had passed through – riding along the street, all we saw were brick walls, and some looked like homes with curtains on the windows, but others were just walls or looked like industrial buildings. We finally figured it out ….think middle ages manor and village where the peasants all lived in the town. Their homes and outbuildings clustered around tight little streets with the manor home nearby on a hill and the fields surrounding the village and the peasants travel out to tend the lord's fields. Pretty much the same thing here, but the fields are no longer owned by the lord. Our campground is on the manor grounds (here in France, the manor is called the chateau) with massive gates leading to the chateau property which is now a tourist attraction.

Gates at the top of our campground leading to the Chateau that can be toured in the summer

The woman at campground reception speaks no English and my high school French is pretty non-existent, but we figured it all out and we have a nice grassy site, but with limited electric (10 amps).

Oh, did I mention why we are here at Amiens? To see the largest cathedral in France..tomorrow.