French Roadtrip Part One, Warwick to Le Mans

So there we were, waiting in our allocated queue line for the ferry, KFC on our laps, watching the rain gush down the windscreen in torrents. What a start to our French adventure.

The weather in the UK had been scorching with virtually no rain for the previous 5 weeks. We kept saying “it can’t last” but it did. That is until it was the day to start our French roadtrip.

We had handed over the site reigns to our colleagues, hoped we had packed everything we should be taking and started off for Newhaven. Once underway we soon began whizzing along the motorways heading South, had the usual chug and stop section around the M25 and arriving at the port several hours early we went in search of food. That’s when the sun disappeared, the skies darkened and the clouds burst. We made it back to Mo just in time and sat eating our KFC hoping we were going to be leaving the wet weather behind on this side of the Channel. We had 11 days and 10 nights on French soil to chase the sunshine.

It was a smooth, quiet crossing overnight and we dozed as best as we could in the reclining lounge chairs. It was still dark when we docked at 5am and with Dieppe not woken up yet we had a traffic free exit out onto the autoroute. The sky gradually grew lighter and after 3 hours we arrived at our first overnight stop at Le Mans. We had not used a Camping CarPark site before but this one was ideally placed and allowed us to check in at the early time we required. The process worked perfectly.

After coffee and a doze we caught the bus into Le Mans City. The no:20 stops right outside the site and drops you at the foot of the old town (Cite Plantagenet) in about 30 minutes for €4.50 return. We had an interesting wander up and down the winding cobbled streets and alleyways in awe at the well preserved half timbered buildings and at the top of the hill arrived at Cathedral St – Julien. The Gothic Cathedral has parts dating from the 9th century and houses over 20 stained glass windows, the oldest dated 1120.

After an early night catching up on our sleep we hit the road early the next morning, stopped to do a food shop and arrived at Le Mans Circuit Museum for 10am when they opened. Unfortunately we couldn’t visit the circuit itself this time as it was in use, and by the sound of it there were some awesome cars going round. So near yet so frustrating we could only hear them. The museum was incredible, cars, motorbikes, drivers hall of fame and memorabilia charting the history of the circuit and 24hr race since its conception in 1923. Steve was in his element. After a couple of hours – and a visit to the museum shop- we finally dragged ourselves away as we still had a long drive to part 2 of our French Roadtrip. Ile de Re, sunshine and La Rochelle was beckoning.