First Experience of France

Came off the ferry in Cherbourg missed the turning on the island and ended up having to do a U-turn in the city with the shed on the back, tension is building. Lesley is driving and I’m doing the navigation, which I’m usually good at, I may add. But after 2 beers on the ferry and 2 kwells! I think my judgement is impaired somewhat! I even think I was still wearing the 2 stupid bands on my wrists, hey oh! This was all pre TOMTOM Go I may add, but I will cover this excellent GPS innovation later in the stories.

So we find the route out of the city and are given our first introduction to the French road system, which, and I quote from the excellent Destination France Magazine, “everything the British road system should have been and isn’t”. Trust me on this one, the road system is excellent, the tension which had started in Cherbourg just drained away, even if we were on the wrong side of the road.

We were heading for the village of Les Pieux then onto the camp-site of Le Grand Large at Anse de Sciotot. This is approximately 20 miles from the ferry port and we considered it to be a good location for our first venture into France, in other words, no pressure.

All the pitches on this site were what we would call super pitches, each had its own tap and waste drainage point, excellent! The site itself is on the coast, so 80 yards and your straight onto the beach the site consists of a pool, usual toilet block and bar which doubles as camp-site shop. Something we soon got use to was ordering your baguettes for the following day which you collected from the site shop at about 8:30hrs. Sliced Hovis who needs it! When in France do as they do. The thing to remember about French baguettes is eat them the same day and no more then 6 hours after purchase. If you don’t they make excellent short fence posts the following day!

Which brings me to the point, yes we are English and be proud of it, the same as the French are proud of being French, but stop being English when you hit the shores of France, loosen up a bit, eat the French food and attempt to speak a little French, don’t bother looking for the fish and chip shop, their aren’t any! The only thing I would suggest taking are good old fashioned PG tips or Typhoo tea bags because the only tea bags I have ever found in Europe are Lipton’s! In the shops on the ferry the ruddy things are everywhere! No wonder the French don’t like tea, they must also think we all drink Lipton’s! Someone should put them right.