Hotel Des Phares Le Havre

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.

From Rouen we drove to Honfleur, which is a tiny harbour town on the Normandy coast. So so cute!!!! We wandered around checking out the wee boutique shops and eating galeti - yum! Nothing for dinner and as it was Sunday only one little grocery shop was open with not much selection so we opted for a fillet of freshly caught ...

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.

... descriptions from clothing to antiques. Here it was just rubbish. As in Les A the town was closed to traffic but had we been desperate to buy we couldn't have found a single thing. Not that the French weren't buying!. The aire had filled up with camping cars and people were ferrying bag after bag of junk to them. One mans'junk ..... 21.09.09 Mayenne N48.18'11" W0.36'56" No official aire here but a good spot next to the river and the Tourist Info. 22.09.09 Vire N48.50 ...

... 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.....

... riding the bike ten times easier! It was the bike! Unbelieveable!

After getting on the ferry we were a few beers in due to the waiting process which can only be avoided if your a little drunk. We started to play Top Trumps: Austrian busses, which I won. Mainly due to a large bus called the Flukenhaven Vorfold. What a ridiculous game. As usual we spent the rest of the night doing Jim Carrey impressions.

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

... 10,000 Americans. So, you're probably wondering which exciting area I chose to visit. I'm ashamed to admit this is the first time I've been in port & never left the ship. Sadly, our cruise ends tomorrow & I must be out of my cabin by 6 am. Today was dedicated to packing & attending to all the other details of disembarking a ship after 102 days. I'll post the last travel blog tomorrow. Linda