Our journey to the east of Paris

Wednesday 6th August

We left a very cloudy Dover and arrived in Calais in sunshine - a very good start to our journey.  As usual, John had left just enough diesel in the van to get us this far, to enable us to fill up at the Calais Auchan at a much cheaper rate than at home.  Then we were off on the A16 heading south towards Abbeville and on to a France Passion between there and Amiens.  We have never been disappointed with these fantastic FREE motorhome stop-overs.  Usually they are on farms and vineyards, but this one was a first for us - a Brasserie, which turned out not to be a restaurant, but a brewery!  Madame came to greet us apologising for the fact that they were just going away for a couple of days, so if we needed to buy beer, we should get it in the village flower shop.  So we were on our own on a small stoney parking area beside the gates to their 'chateau' and after dinner, walked into the sleepy village of Domart-en-Ponthieu.  We are very mindful of WW1 in this area of the Somme and particularly this week, marking 100 years since the start of the UK's involvement. 

Brasserie de La Somme

Domart- en- Ponthieu

Thursday 7th August

We had a very quiet night and set off SE, on autoroute via Amiens and Beauvais and N roads by Clermont and Senlis towards Meaux - thus avoiding being too near to Paris.  We are now at Camping des 4 vents almost in the little village of Crevecoeur-en-Brie - a very well-kept site, but rather overrun by the English because of it's close proximity to Disneyland Paris! We don't plan to go there, but have booked for 2 nights so we can have a bike ride tomorrow (weather permitting) and take a dip in the lovely pool.  Today we have run into several showers on our journey, but have had a very sunny afternoon to chill out here.  Mind you, it is now raining (9pm) and our
neighbours here say there is rain forecast for tomorrow too - oh well, we are here for a rest and our van has all the mod.cons. we could wish for .....