Campanile - Le Havre - Montivilliers

Arrived at Ouistreham just before dark and found an Aire de Service right on the beach and this time it was free! The downside was it was right next to the ferry terminal and the 6am ferry to Portmouth the next day was kill the tranquilo the next morning. Kim's Maison du Scooby cooked up a storm. Pork fajitas on rice - delicious. I gave it 5 stars.

... and of course washed down with a few glasses of rose!

Next morning we went for a run through the village and along the beach. It was a glorious morning! Afterwards Kim went to have another potter through the village, take some photos and buy groceries while I was able to have my long awaited fiddle with Scooby ...

Onwards to Etretat for our first overnight stay in an Aires de service. These are overnight parking areas for campers and moterhomes and supply fresh water, electricity and waste dumping facilities. All at a rock bottom price. This one was 5 Euro for the parking a and extra 2 euro for the water and electirc hookup.
Town has spectacular cliffs beautiful old building full of character.

... a noisy night and not much sleep. Went round the museum - mainly nautical - and though it had the edge on ****-pots it wasn't particularly interesting. French museums in our experience tend to be a touch boring. I got ripped-off - I felt - at an internet cafe where I was charged 7.50eu for two coffees and half an hour on a computer which wouldn't accept my memory-stick. 18.09.09 Saint Brice-En-Cogles N48.24'40" W1.21'46" A small pleasant town advertising a Grand ...

... maybe with a car with a bigger trunk though....but jason is getting better at the packing now, think he figured out the knack.....though its a good thing i packed light as we wouldn't have fit anymore in the car (and we are using up every available inch of space) since Jason's suitcase is bigger than mine! Ah well, at least he left the vampire boots behind....maybe if i'm lucky they got lost in the move.....

We started this morning planning to visit Honfleur and spend a couple of days here as it is so beautiful. But today it rains, so today it loses!
As the battery is flat too, we simply cast off and drove south west.
On the way out of Cite Europe where we took on some diesel we say a couple of hitchers, and as we were feeling in good spirits we picked them up.
They were quite chatty but after a while we were ...

TomTom is great, expect when you don't have the maps for the country you're in!
We have the full european DVD but loading all the maps onto the phone was one item that did not make it onto my big list of jobs to do before we left.
I still have the DVD with my but no DVD drive!
We have been navigating with googlemaps since ...

The first night was spent in a nice stop on the edge of the old port in Calais.
I've been here before when i did some sailing in my youth so i know it well.
It seemed safe enough as there must have been 50 motorhomes but there was a broken window overnight for someone!
We moved onto honfleur and found a nice stop 2Km from honfleur which was free and had a large football/basketball court for jake to play in

... been confidently asking for our tickets at each museum (je voudrais deux billet s'il vous plait) now he was floundering asking for a beer. It was a sad sight we had turned into the terrible tourist who speak loudly, gesture wildly and ask anything that moves if it speaks English. Mostly thanks to the nicest waiter in France who found it all mildly amusing we managed to get through the whole thing. Delicious dinner though. Only 1 day left until the start of Le Tour!!

... were playing some good latin dance music, but no one was dancing and they were showing polo on the big screen. It was also an older crowd that hung out there and the drinks were pricey, mediocre, but very stiff, so after a drink my dinner party and I left. The next morning we went on a short walking tour of Deauville. It's nice and quiet, but nothing special, just your typical resort town with some classy hotels and casinos. It's claim to fame is the American Film ...