By ‘so far’ I actually mean join us from the beginning of our trip! We left the UK yesterday on a pretty empty ferry out of Newhaven, bound for Dieppe. To all intents and purposes it would appear we left in the nick of time, as much of Europe is now beginning to close their borders.
Now before I go any further I do feel the need to defend ourselves for going ahead with our trip. It’s not a decision we made lightly, but we don’t regret it for a second. Even though we are fully aware that we are unlikely to be able to visit all the places that we were hoping to (mainly Croatia, but this entails a trip through Italy so fairly unlikely – although we do have 5 months, so you never know…), we are currently heading down towards the South of France – where would you rather be stuck? In the sun by the beach or at home in the drizzle? That’s the other thing of course – we have already planned to be away for 5 months. It’s not as though we’re on our 2 weeks break and need to be back for work; so this is a massive advantage for us in this situation.
On top of this, whilst in the van we are able to avoid other people very easily! So we have no regrets on going ahead and are just going to take each day as it comes, whilst taking all sensible precautions, such as avoiding people wherever possible and, of course, washing our hands constantly; like I say, helped very much by the fact that we’re fully expected to find sun and heat within days 🙂
Having spent the last few weeks and days trying to get the van fixed (look out for a separate post on this) and filled ready for our trip we decided, this morning, to stay here in Dieppe for 2 nights instead of just the 1, giving us time to explore Dieppe a little more and decide on our next overnight stop (Brezolles)
When there was a break in the rain we headed out to see the other Dieppe Aire (over the other side of the harbour and visible from this 1st Aire), wander along the seafront and see the castle. We also visited the Square de Canada located in the shadow of the castle, beautifully planted in commemoration of all the Canadian soldiers who died during an assault on 19th August 1942.
After a short visit to the, closed, castle we bought our baguette (for our bacon sandwiches) together with a couple of cakes each – we were VERY hungry, and then wandered through the old town where the market was packing up. There were lots more temptations amongst the stalls 🙂
Stopping only to get some cash out at the old Poste (wish I’d taken a photo – it’s such a lovely old building), we headed home to the van as it had started to rain again and, despite devouring our cookies we were still hungry and in need of bacon sarnies. And this is where we’re staying as it just keeps on raining!
Here’s a few pics. I will update in a couple of days 🙂 Keep safe xx
We Stayed: Aire Quai de Marne (Both Aires, 5.20Euros for 5 hours, 12.50Euros for 24 hours and 24Euros for 48 hours)
Next Stop: Brezolles Motorhome Area
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