Caudry – St Dizier

Today's route
So we left our car park style camping spot and headed straight off. Typically we got to the next village down (Le Cateau-Cambresis) and found a similar style car park place for motor homes – but this one had a "Raclet" with the services on it. These things are great – they are like big bollards with water, electricity, waste water and chemical disposal toilet options all in one place. We took advantage of everything but the electricity, and filled our on board tank to the top (first time for that) getting soaked in the process, and we emptied our various 'receptacles'. Brilliant.

A few villages along and we came across something else to make the Fimotel car park even more of a depressing first night stop – the Aires at Catillon-sur-Sambre. Although not the biggest parking space, and light on facilities apart from electricity, it was right by a canal and was really lovely. Bugger. Still, we did stop and enjoy the sceneries for a while – enjoying our croissant, pain au chocolat and coffee as we did.

It was too hot to stay long though – so we pushed on..............

When we got to Riems we stopped for something to eat and a bit of a walk around. Because of our tight timetable, we decided that tours of champagne houses were off the menu (shame), but a small walk was a good thing. We chose a brasserie by the Place de Maison de Ville (where we were parked) and sat down. When the chap came to take our order and Jon asked for the menu (he's much better at the foreign talking thing than me) the guy obviously thought we were bonkers – and, in a very French manner, said “c'est fini”. Imagine – a brasserie only serving food at lunchtime!! Crazy talk.

Anyway, we got a baguette from somewhere and had a wander about – great looking cathedral, but not much else to see (or that we saw). Not as terrible a place as the Rough Guide would have you think though – they described it as 'dreary'. Wouldn't agree with that.

So. On our way again and I get to try my hand at a bit of driving “En Francais”. Easy. Much easier in our right hand drive van on the wrong side of the road than in a left hand drive car on the wrong side of the road. My only attempt at that was in Rome on our honey moon – and it wasn't good :).

Scenery was pretty much as the photo - lots and lots of rolling hills with fields and fields of corn. Really rural. Really nice.

Eventually we reached St Dizier, and spent a while driving around trying to pick up an unsecured wireless connection so we could access the internet – completely unsuccessful! Also unsuccessful on finding a supermarket, despite trying pretty much every road out of town. We gave up and headed for the lake – our main reason for being here. Jon's parent's friends, Ros & Darrell, had given us a fantastic list of places they recommended to stay while in France, and the Lac du Der-Chantecoq was one of them.

And it is fantastic. We swung off the road into a field to join 2 other campervans and a couple of cars. Opposite there is a park, cafe and toilets & showers and - most importantly – a beach!! It was 7pm when we got here and we went straight down to the beach and into the lake. It was fantastic. You just can't believe how warm it still was at that time of night. Not only was it warm enough to swim, but it was still plenty hot and sunny enough to lounge on the beach with a beer afterwards and dry off !! Fantastic.

We decided that staying over night in the field was going to be OK. There were no signs saying we shouldn't and one of the other vans was still there showing no signs of leaving.

We cooked outside – risotto with choizo, onions & garlic + side salad and fruit salad for afters. All brilliant, including the bottle of white wine, until about 9pm when the mosquitos appeared from nowhere and the liberal sprayings of insect repellant were doing nothing to keep them away. So we moved inside, which is where I am now – and then played kill the mosquite for a while. Lovely game that. Is hot though with all the windows closed......