Peelies travels

France Passion provided a super end to the trip in Champagne country, as we picked a small producer and spent a lovely evening and night in front of the farm. The France Passion book shows the location of the hosts and it's just a case of relating this to a more detailed map and perhaps more importantly, the reviews left by other visitors. In this case, the reviews mentioned a great spot and nice hosts at a small champagne producer, Champagne Lysiane Moncourant at Villevenard to the south of Epernay. It's just off the main road running north from Sézanne to Epernay. We turned up a hill and drove across the front of a big house, stopping in a turning space at the end of the road near farm implements and next to a nice lawned area. This was the overnight pitch. Room for one and that was us. It's a good job that our rudimentary French was as polished as it could be after almost six weeks, as the host spoke almost no English. We soon established that we had access to a...

One of the main reasons the campsite at Ligny had been chosen was because of the proximity of the river for paddling. What a great relief it was to have the cool water available during another record-breaking heatwave in France. It is such a contrast to the mountain waters of Corsica which were warmer, probably due to the huge rocks that absorb so much heat and then release it into the water. It seemed ironic that fast-flowing water there was significantly warmer than the slow, shallow waters of the Serein here. It was just as well that the water was cool, look who came to stay. The heat was correctly forecasted and Thursday's maximum was over 42 degrees measured with two different thermometers and the Landy interior temperature reached 48C, No wonder that the solar panel was working overtime to maintain the battery charge for the fridge. Two little grandsons therefore had to acclimatise very quickly and it was hard to increase their fluids intak...

Moving north to Saône-et-Loire, we spent a night at a 'Cool Camping' featured site, Camping Terre Ferme, at Le Petit Condal . This is a beautiful rustic site, developed and run by a Dutch couple, as many are across wider "Europe". (Charge Emplacement x1 Personnes x2  = €17) Here one can chill in the rural surroundings with hens pecking around and there's a constructed pond in which to swim or boat, although the latter isn't exactly challenging. It was a one night reconnaissance for Charlie who would visit a week or so later. The site passed with flying colours in spite of an evening music feature, which didn't begin until 21:30 and finished at 23:30. This was the local brass band giving a regular performance. The timing wqas a little curious considering the number of young kids staying! We continued our leisurely journey north, roughly following the Rhône river and driving mainly on D-roads, so it was scenic, sedate and with...

Things quietened down overnight and the next morning it was almost as if nothing had happened. The campsite people were moving washed-out pebbles from the wrong places and the tree surgeons still had their chainsaws out as we drove to Bastia. The ferry line-up was more orderly than it had been at Nice and we were almost at the front of the queue even though we arrived just an hour before sailing time. For the first time on the island, we met and talked to another British couple who happened to be in our queue. The vehicles are so tightly packed on the lower car deck that it proves quite hard to walk to the nearest door and stairs. It's a pure coincidence that it's the same ferry for this crossing to Toulon that we took to get to Bastia from Nice. Leaving  La Corse  is really tough because it has been a great trip and we've been here for well over three weeks. Although it's easily said, we will be back. This scenery and hospitality is easily accessible and in Eu...

The final journey closed the loop of the island tour at Bastia. This is our arrival and departure port, apparently the busiest in France after Calais. We drove through the town from south to north, avoiding the tunnel with it's 2.6m clearance even though we are 2.3m and we continued a few km up the coast to a campsite, Camping A Casaiola . This is run by Veronica from Napier on New Zealand's north island. Here she almost micro-manages the positioning of tents and vehicles and crams us in. There's a beautiful pool and the beach just down the road is quite stoney which we found a bit painful for a swim but we had one all the same. We had a nice evening in the sun but were wary of the forecast thunder overnight and into the morning. It wouldn't matter though, as we planned a day walking around Bastia old town and harbour. The lightening and thunder did start overnight and the show was quite spectacular, as they usually are in hot summers. There wasn't too mu...