Spain & France - cont:

Page: 3 of 3

Just a small portion of the dedicated camping car parking at Montgenèvre. A dry surface this time. The hut is the water and waste area. The orange pillars are the electric hook up points.

You take a ticket when you go in and pay when you leave. The charge was €10 for the first 24 hrs including electricity. But the day rate went down for every day that you stayed.   Great value, brilliant location!

After a three night stop in Montgenèvre and some excellent skiing we crossed over the pass into Italy and took the Frejus tunnel north. This was an expensive option as it was €55 to take Priscilla through the tunnel.  We were on our way to Morillon to meet up with our friends Malcolm & Anne and Keith & Fran for a little more skiing before heading home to UK.  At Morillon we parked in the car park for no charge but the toilet facilities had been demolished since last year (not a bad thing!) and so it is only feasible to stay there for as long as your toilet cassette/s will let you! 

Morillon car park 

(photo Jan ‘08)

From Morillon we travelled north west to Suerre, just south of Dijon. Again, an expensive trip as the automatic toll charged us €53 for the journey.  You cannot argue with an automatic toll booth!

The small town of Suerre is on the banks of the Saone. The aire was for just 6 camping cars but was peaceful enough. The water had been turned off for the winter and so we had to last on what stock we had in our tank.   In the morning, we were roused by the toot, toot, toot of the bakers van which delivered fresh bread, milk, etc. to the sleepy motorhomers. It saved a walk into town!

Suerre on the banks of the Saone river.  Not much to say about it but it was still sunny!

 

The aire, where we  were parked, is highlighted by the yellow circle.  An easy walk into the town shops.

After the hit from the autoroute tolls the previous day we decided to stick to the N roads for the next part of our journey north. We drove to Mareuil-sur-Ay (just east of Epernay) where we had been recommended to go by Iris in Peniscola. When we arrived the canal bridge was closed for repairs and we had to make a detour to get into town. We found the aire and squeezed into a space between some tall trees and had a spectacular view of the working canal and a rather pleasant canal side park.  We hoped to take on water and indeed there were some service points where you insert your €5 token and get supplied with fresh water and electricity for 3 hours. Great! Only problem was that the local supermarket which sold the tokens was closed due to annual holidays. So, no water again today! It was a good job we have a large tank!

This was a popular aire. We arrived at 4pm but by 6pm it was full up with 10 motorhomes and people were still arriving (to be disappointed) up to 10pm.  Moral of the story is get there early!

 

The following day we headed north again intending to stop overnight near Calais but we made good time and so took the boat a day earlier.

 

We had a great time, the weather was superb and it was not crowded in either Spain or France. It is a lovely time of the year to get away from the damp and grey English winter.  We met some lovely people of all nationalities. They all have stories to tell and a joke to share and this is what we enjoy so much about travelling. We have seen some beautiful places and perhaps best of all we have gained the confidence to use the aires in both France and Spain rather than the campsites. This has made the experience even more enjoyable.  We will be back there again soon.