Nous sommes arrivés!

11 April 2015 - We have arrived … in fact we have been a little way outside Dieppe for a day and a bit. The photo was taken on Thursday, on the beach at Le Touquet, on our way here. Le Touquet is lovely, nice town, good shops, a very large sandy beach, all seemingly surrounded by a forest which we saw during the usual ordeal of trying to find our way out of town.

A day of mistakes

After spending yesterday reorganising our storage, we ventured out on the bikes with scant regard given to the weather so, when we failed to find the cycle route to Dieppe, we found ourselves on a busy road in very open country-side riding into the wind and rain. So horrible was it that we took our first shelter in a bus stop, our second under a little roof over someone’s gateway and the third was in a supermarket car park where the local shopping trolleys were kind enough to share their cover for a while. The next mistake, possibly caused by the onset of depression, was to follow the sign to Dieppe and not see the unusual sign which seems to mean ‘cars only’. However, things then improved; the rain stopped and we found the centre of Dieppe, a market, a patisserie, the tourist office (with a map of cycle routes) and a bar.

More pleasant weather at the local café

The journey home was a lot better, although we still missed the cycle routes but at least the wind was behind us. A round trip of just under 25 miles. A gentle evening ensued but later, once we were asleep …

‘Things that go bump in the night’ … An almighty crash awoke us both and Nicki’s scream should have woken the rest of the campsite. A few seconds to pull on some clothes (we thought there was no need to scare the intruders) and then we opened the bedroom door to find that the masked marauders had vanished leaving just the spice rack on the floor. Don’t you just hate Velcro; it spends most of its time grabbing hold of things that you don’t want it to and then just when you are sleeping it gets bored of holding on to something like a spice rack and throws it all over the floor.

Dieppe It’s foggy riding

Skipping over the housework day brings us to today – April 13th. A ride to Eu to see the Chateau. This is another good town to visit but the most important point is that we seem to have mastered the cycle routes and the sun shone whenever we were out of the fog and we can proudly announce that we cycled 40 miles in one day. Brings to mind the old book ‘40 miles in the saddle’ by Major Bu*sore. A quiet day beckons for tomorrow …

The chateau at Eu

It’s early and the riding conditions are not so pleasant

A well-earned treat!

Normandy thoughts …

Isn’t weather wonderful! Not only has it given us a great introduction to this part of France but it also provides a perfect excuse for not having the time for this update. Seriously though, I can now understand why so many Brits buy holiday homes in Normandy. It is so clean, fresh and unhurried. It is strange to think that we are probably no more than 100 crow-flying miles from London. We have actually driven 318 miles plus, of course, about 140 miles on bicycles (1).

The bikes have been a great success, allowing us to do a number of day trips mainly along the coast. Last week we moved from Dieppe to Fecamp, taking in Parc de les Moutiers, the house and gardens famous for design by Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll (no sign of Hyde though). A walk and a drink at St Valerie before our first ‘Aire’ at Veulettes de Mer. Our pitch at Fecamp is at the edge of the cliff overlooking town and beach with great sunset views (2). For us, the high spot of the Alabaster Coast is probably Etretat where we have been twice; once by road and once by velorail. Yport is also a good place for a quick visit (leg stretch / beer) and if you are interested in how linen is made and are prepared to risk spending money on clothes Bretteville linen showroom is worth a visit. Parc de les Moutiers

St Valery en Caux Fecamp – ‘a heady cocktail’ of attractions The words of the local tourist office! Well with Le Palais Bénédictine providing one of Chris’s most favourite drinks it’s easy to see why … the distillery is really interesting. There’s also the Ducal Palace, the Abbey, churches, views … we are really warming up to our travelling life!

Notes from Nicki: (1) I am becoming used to ‘bicycle saddle’ which now means that it doesn’t hurt so much when you are riding but it is a great relief when you get off!

(2) you will see from the photograph that we are on the side of a very steep hill, facing the sea and the sunset, overlooking the bay to Fecamp and beyond that we can see some of the cliffs that are the hundreds of miles of alabaster coast. The path to our pitch is narrow, windy and to get out Chris has to reverse uphill about 50 metres to a point where he can turn around in order to leave the camp. We thought we may have to get used to the smell of burning clutch (as would the rest of the campers) but Chris’s second reversal from our pitch certainly saved wear on the clutch and any noses within noseshot. This time he simply put his foot down and went for it … rather alarming as I had to run behind waving my arms around like a mad woman to indicate whether he needed to stay left, right or just carry on … the road was really just too narrow and steep. I have found some of the responsibilities of navigating rather fearsome and seem to have developed a rather unpleasant tic as a result of a few medieval towns which are not prepared for 8.3m of Norma and where the exit route to ‘la ville’ is rather too well hidden. As we get to ever narrowing streets I fear that having navigated us into a complete dead end Chris will have the devil’s job getting us out of said predicament. Ho hum … he has never ending calm and nerves of steel in light of my rather tattered nerves … Chris is just amazing in his (tolerance of my muffled screams and) driving skills although he seemed rather pleased that on one occasion (about 11.30am) having pitched and gone off to do man stuff and was (pleasantly?) surprised to find a glass of the good stuff open on the table when he returned. For medicinal purposes only. Obviously.

Etretat

The velorail video is in the video section of our website but here are the photos!

In summary, our first eleven or twelve days has endeared us to France and the French. Other surprises include balsamic vinegar seeming to become a regular part of my diet. Speaking of food, Nicki continues to feed us very well regardless of the very limited kitchen facilities / space. Anyway, time to move on. With the anticipated change in the weather we are moving inland for camping ‘dans la foret’ at Jumieges. At this rate we won’t get out of Normandy for about another six weeks. No rush …

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Fréville – on the way to Jumièges First foray after Fecamp We left Fecamp in the mist on Friday, swapping shorts for jeans as we did so. We used yesterday, our first full day in the forest, to start exploring the Seine valley. So many beautiful houses even in this very rural area. A circular tour via La Bouille (a very pretty little town with a manbag shop) added another 36 miles to our cycling history, only the last two miles made us very wet (3). Notes from Nicki: (3) this is because the cyclist Chris ‘Hoy’ Monro is a purist and refuses to use turbo on his bike. This has meant that he has lost two notches on his waist (and is looking very trim) but does mean that we don’t perhaps travel as fast as we might as the rain clouds loom. I am not reducing at all which is rather annoying but this is perhaps due to the fact that I use turbo at every opportunity, whizzing up all the hills with no effort whatsoever.

Magnificent Normandy barn On the note of cycling … I feel as if I am developing buns of steel (may not be fully firmed up until next century but … ). Even with turbo power my previously delicate disposition was ill prepared for miles and miles we have covered (without one of those lovely gel filled saddles). Ouch. In fact, one day I swear Chris lost about 10kgs! And on that day although we did start with legs out in gay abandon as you imagine (in true Enid Blyton style) by the end of it they were more like jelly and we were clinging to our handlebars and pedals with every ounce of muscle we had left (which actually wasn’t

much). I am just looking mile weary and haggard! No not really … we are having a whale of a time and in between the hours of sunshine out and about we have been picking our bars carefully for shelter as we improve our tans. It is after all still April. Gotta go … time to open a bottle! Much love x A very splendid campsite

The accompanying photo is our view from the breakfast table. The soundtrack was originally attached to the website, but it can’t be here so just imagine … nothing! The village is quite small (three shops and four bars – seems OK to me) but the abbey is huge. It is a ten-minute walk to the Seine with fabulous views across the river. The ferry at Jumieges keeps to an erratic timetable so is not to be relied upon and that seems to be the same for the auberge on the quayside.

Bicycling the Froot Root This was a very pleasant day and gave us the opportunity to check out the two aires by the Thatched Cottage Trail at La Mailleraye sur Seine and Saint Nicolas de Bliquetuit, one of which will be our next stop. We returned home via the foret de Brotonne seeing the strange ‘ifs’ (chapels in trees?). Photos of these are in the photos tab of this site, as are some of the views back to Jumieges from the top of the cliffs across the river.

The thatched cottage trail itself is one big oooh and one big ahhhh … the prettiness of the villages and houses is absolutely second to none! The thatches – in order to ensure consistent moisture etc – are topped with iris! Beautiful!

We have made our first travelling friends, Barbara and Derek, a Scottish couple from Edinburgh and their cats, Colin and Maisie (a Norwegian forest cat). For our bit of culture, on Thursday, we cycled out to Matmut pour les arts at Saint Pierre de Varengeville; www.matmutpourlesarts.fr. Progress is indeed slow; we have now cycled more miles on our daily excursions than we have driven, and we don’t care. We will be leaving here on Monday morning, for the thatched cottage trail, and will have no internet access for a few days. Hope you are all keeping well, as always we would be happy to have your news by email, when we next tune in, probably from Le Bec-Hellouin. Putting a spurt on! Leaving our new good friends and our hangovers behind, we moved on from Jumieges a hugely long way (14 miles) via Caudebec en Caux where we stopped for coffee; the town was shut so we moved on to the Aire opposite the town. It was there that we took the photos of two rather large boats sailing along our own personal moat. Decided to try and make something of our extended time in Norma-ndy (we finally twigged!). Nice of the French to name a whole region in preparation for our visit!