Month: September 2025

Friday 12th September 2025 – Normandy Day 2 – a beach walking day around Merville-Franceville…

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A mostly sunny day today with a brisk breeze running along the shore – a day off from the stresses of driving with our favourite activity of beach walking on the agenda. We set off along the beach from the campsite heading firstly westwards to Merville-Franceville and beyond to Plage Le Redoute…

It appears that from the the Port at Caen on the river Orne the coastline stretching eastwards is pretty much a long stretch of sand as far as Honfleur, with different stretches being named after the nearest village – which is ideal as this is as far east that we intend to go this time. Le Redoute is a quiet and remote section of beach favoured by wingsurfers (no idea the skillset involved but they fair hurtle along appearing to hover a few feet above the water) and the odd walker like us….

After watching the surfers for a while and enjoying a flask of coffee, we turned back on ourselves and with the wind behind us walked past the campsite to Plage Varaville….

And beyond to Plage la Home…

All along the shoreline are these glorious huge mansions – mostly boarded up against the elements as I imagine they are largely second homes – no escaping this particular situation it would appear!

Thoughts of the day:

  • Savoury crepes are wrong on so many levels (I had a ham and cheese one from a van on site last night and did not enjoy it – though the sugar and lemon one was rather nice!)
  • The architecture here is very different from in the UK where lots of glass and angles seems to be a thing whereas here the houses are very ornate and fussy

Today’s stats:

  • Miles driven – 0
  • Miles walked – 7
  • Beaches – 4
  • Site – £22.50 with EHU

Thursday 11th September 2025 – And we are off again in our Happy Place – this time we are headed a little further afield to explore the beaches of France….

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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…

Plage de Merville-Franceville

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

Plage de Camping de la Mer

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