After spending the night courtesy of Port Solent Marine Park, along with some 30 other vans taking advantage of the marine park’s free overnight parking, we are up at 5.30am (yikes) and pulling out of the park just after 6 for the couple of miles trip to Portsmouth International Ferry Terminal. Check in is all very seamless and we are ensconced in our pet friendly cabin as we set sail at 8am.

The crossing is 6 hours in duration and apart from a little rocking and reeling in the middle somewhere quite easy – we read, snoozed and ate the time away.

We jumped forward an hour and disembarked at Caen, bang on time at 3pm.

Queued for about an hour to get through customs and we soon were on our way. As you can imagine my mind was full of ‘keep to the right’ and the various speed limits but I have to confess indicating at roundabouts was just a step too far!! I’ll get there.

I had only set myself a short journey up to the coast, to the village of Merville-Franceville, a little to the east of Caen, where we plan to stay for a couple of nights just to settle in.

We were soon pitched at Camping de la Mer and took a stroll down to the village centre for a few supplies….

We then enjoyed a lovely stroll back to site along the beach…

Tilly enjoying a lovely run around after being cooped up for most of the day….

All in all a pretty successful day – I just need to clear my head of Spanish and remember some of that O’level French!!

Thoughts of the day:

• The roads are nice and wide with no nasty hedges
• The French drivers are not in a hurry
• I feel a little ignorant being unable to communicate even on a very basic level
• I forgot that the European’s don’t do fresh milk – I’m hoping that I might find some little long life single use sachets to save waste

Today’s stats:

• Miles driven – 28
• Miles walked – 5
• Site – £22.57 (EHU)
• Food – £17.24