We leave Muides-sur-Loire about 1pm to drive to Caen and the ferry.

Its about a five hour journey plus a roadside stop for lunch about half way there.

It’s a bank holiday in France so lots of supermarkets shut at lunchtime today. Leclerc is open until 8pm so we find one near Caen. Unusually it’s an underground carpark but we manage to get parked on a nearby street.

A wander around to buy something for dinner, more wine and a few pressies and souvenirs.

Next stop is the ferry port at Ouistreham a few k outside Caen. Even though it’s now around 8pm lots of people have arrived early.

The caravans and motorhomes  are checked by security to ensure no-one is hiding in them. This is a first for us.  Pizza for tea and a bit of kindle time and then it’s through passport control and into a second queue. About 10:30pm we are loaded onto the ferry.

We paid £5 each for ‘reserved’ seats. All the cabins were already booked. We only booked the ferry yesterday but at an extra £100 for a bed we probably wouldn’t have paid for one anyway.

We find our room on level 7 and our seats. We end up having a whole row of six seats to ourselves as the room is only about 20% full. After a cuppa the lights are turned off about 11:30pm and then the snoring starts. There’s a guy on the floor that basically snores loudly most of the night. We can stretch out across three seats each but in the end I sit up to sleep. Drop off eventually about 2pm. Lights on again at 5:45am so Brittany Ferries can sell us all breakfast.

In Portsmouth we pass Nelson’s Victory and a few Royal Navy ships but the windows are too dirty for photos. Thirty minutes to show passports and yes….get the van checked for stowaways again. According to border control people are exiting lorries and entering caravans and motorhomes through the skylights! A quick stop for a cuppa at Warwick and then we’re home.

It’s been a fab five weeks in France, the land that adores motorhomes. We’ve travelled just over 1900 miles. The weather has been amazing if a little ‘trop chaud’ at times with first world problems of trying to keep the fizz and beer cold!

We’ve loved being able to pitch up next to lakes, rivers and the beach. Cycling has been fun with lots of forest cycle paths, nature, and bird spotting. We’ve seen wonderful chateaux at Josselin and Chambord. Enjoyed our visits to the D Day beaches & museums, the Bayeux tapestry and Oradour-sur-Glane. Bastille Day celebrations at Honfleur were fab and we loved the city walls at St Malo, Les Machines at Nantes and cycling to Mont St Michel and around Île d’Oléron.
It’s also been just wonderful to be able to live outside for 5 weeks, obviously with lots of citronella candles.
France we’ll be back.