From Richelieu, there is no straightforward way north. Your route is determined by the places where the Vienne and the Loire have been bridged. We zigzagged our way to Saumur, and only after 120kms or so picked up the D328 which provides a free route north towards Normandy, parallel to the A28 toll autoroute. Our road was quite empty, but motorhomes heading south passed us at regular intervals. Was it my imagination that their customary acknowledgement of a raised hand was performed with a little more vigour in celebration of the fact that not only were we all headed elsewhere, but the road was free!
We travelled south on this road over thirty years ago on our first road trip in France, previous to that we had used pubic transport or cycle-camped in Brittany. It was a big adventure in our little Renault 4. Though we did not get as far as the Mediteranean, the Medoc beaches, Cahor and the upper Lot valley seemed exotic to northerners like ourselves who had never seen a surfboard, visited a vineyard, heard a cicada or experienced the deep blue sky and dagger-sharp shadows of a southern summer.
Since that time the road has been improved, mainly by the replacement of crossroads by roundabouts. These occur once every five or six kilometres and slow up your progress considerably. They have made roads in Northern France much safer however, by removing that mysterious priorité a droite rule that so bewildered English driver a few decades ago.
France changed in the decade that followed our first visits, due largely to the programme of modernisation that Mitterand initiated. Not only rond-points popped up like mushrooms on the edge of every town, but MacDonald's, retail sprawl, and Flunch. Now, I suppose bizarrely designed lamposts, traffic calming chicanes and suspension wrecking speed-bumps, rusty modern road-side sculpture and a predilection for plastic chairs and orange and lime green decor are as much hallmarks of Frenchness as pongy pissoirs, Deux-chevaux in faded denim blue, the whiff of Gallois and sun- baked peeling shutters were to our parents.
What else have you to do but reflect about the passing of time as France's endless plains and rolling hills go by. It was a beautiful looking Spring day, alternatively clear blue, then banks of clouds from time to time drifting through. It was a day for driving rather than walking, for outside it was distinctly chilly, with a raw northerly breeze discomforting we softies from a southern winter.
Finally we reached the bocage, turned down a single track road through a lovely valley of timbered houses and slender poplars, then up a narrow lane through woods. I had to do a three point turn to get Maisy around one of the hairpin bends. So we arrived after a very long days drive at camping Le Clos St. Nicholas. It's described in the ACSI book a place to enjoy the countryside in peace and tranquility, and indeed it is. I am looking forward to a break from driving tomorrow. Then it's an aire in the Pas de Calais and Le Shuttle on Wednesday.
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| Nice ACSI campsite at Le Bec-Hellouin - but the access road is winding, narrow and steep.... |
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| It really was as cold as it looked |
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