coastal path

Saturday 6th December 2025 – Hermanville and Colleville-Montgomery….

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A few showers but mostly dry with a bit of sunshine here and there for our last full day in France – where has the time gone?

We spent a fair bit of the day getting ourselves sorted for the trip tomorrow – you will not believe how difficult it was to find out where to stick the headlight deflectors onto the van for tomorrow’s early start in the dark – still not sure they are right but we are only 15 minutes from the Ferry Terminal and at half six in the morning hopefully not too much oncoming traffic!

We took a walk out around lunchtime, through Hermanville and its huge church….

Popping in to pay our respects at the British War Cemetery here…

Down to the beach…..

And northwards along the beach to watch the windsurfing at Plage de Colleville-Montgomery for a while…

Before heading back to the van via a last visit to a Boulangerie for a wee while and settling down for an early night.

Thoughts of the day:

  • 90 days is really not long enough to explore a place properly – I certainly underestimated the amount of time it would take to cover the West coast and we really haven’t stopped travelling since we’ve been here.
  • France is super campervan friendly and is by far the easiest country I have travelled around.

Today’s stats:

  • Miles driven – 0
  • Miles walked – 5
  • Beaches – 2
  • Aire – £13.30

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 – Le Pouliguen and La Baule-Escoublac….

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A beautiful sunny day mostly but the odd seriously heavy shower appearing from nowhere.

We started the day with a walk along the other side of the river to the little village of Le Pouliguen (really now just an extension of La Baule-Escoublac) and it’s rather fine white sandy beach – Plage du Nau….

We then retraced our steps and crossing the river back to La Baule-Escoublac to pay a brief visit to Plage de Benoît and Plage de la Baule to capture them with the tide a bit further out and in the sunshine – well worth it…

Today the beach is covered in a fine layer of small seashells and the water is much calmer – the difference a day makes!

After this lovely morning walk, we packed up the van and set off to get the bulk of the drive, towards Caen, done. It was an easy drive being mostly across rural France by dual carriageway, with the only busy spot as we drove around Rennes.

Thoughts of the day:

  • There are lots of clumps of mistletoe in many of the trees, something we’ve noticed when driving inland – not good news for the trees apparently.
  • It is hard to believe that this journey is nearly over – will we return?

Today’s stats:

  • Miles driven – 178
  • Miles walked – 3.5
  • Aire – £10.44 EHU
  • Fuel – £85.34

Friday 28th November 2025 – Ile de Re….

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Well a thoroughly miserable day for us today as it managed to drizzle all day and was just grey so I’m afraid we were unable to do this little island justice.

We started our day with a wander down to the nearest beach – Plage de la Côte Sauvage, by somehow managing to wander onto Military land. When we realised, due to a sign on the beach, we decided to make a pretty hasty retreat back the way we had come and wander around the village instead!….

On returning to the van we dried out in the warmth for a while to see if the weather looked like it was going to improve, by lunchtime however with no break appearing likely we decided to go for it anyway.

We drove around to the north eastern tip and the small village of Les Portes-en-Re and finding somewhere to park up we set off on a walk through the woods to Plage du Bucheron, Plage de Trousse-Chemise and Plage de la Patache….

Lovely soft sandy beaches with calm waters backed by Pine forests – on a sunny day just beautiful.

In reality to do this island justice as there are beaches all down the west side, you would need to spend several days here, but I just really wanted to get a flavour as we are fast running out of time and there are a couple of other places I want to visit on our way back north. Coupled with the fact that the Aire was overpriced and beginning to resemble a lake and the weather so awful, I had decided that we would move on today. So whistle stop tour of the remaining main beaches included – Plage de la Courade-sur-Mer….

And Plage de la Bois-en-Re….

Before returning to the mainland and driving a little further north along the coast to St Vincent du Gard – here’s hoping for some better weather tomorrow.

Thoughts of the day:

  • Many streets in the villages have weight limits of 3.5t so I am wondering how all the bigger vans that seem to be favoured by the French get by.
  • I’ve said it before and I’ll no doubt say it again a flat grey sky is nobody’s friend – it is impossible without distorting the colours dramatically to get a good photo no matter how appealing the subject is.

Today’s stats:

  • Miles driven – 76
  • Miles walked – 5
  • Beaches – 6
  • Aire – £12.25

Monday 24th November 2025 – a soggy morning in Hendaye….

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What a shame our last day of exploring the beaches of the western coast of France and it is peeing it down! Never mind we have come this far and we are not going to duck out on the most southerly beach of the western coast of France and so all waterproofed up we strolled down to the waterfront and Plage d’Hendaye….

To be fair even in the rain it is a beautiful long sandy beach though all the central part appeared to be completely tidal….

With may be a bit of beach left at the southern end and Spain just literally across the river and clearly visible…..

As you can see there were not a lot of people out and about in the rain and even the few surfers looked a little disappointed at the lack of waves compared to the previous days.

After an hour or so wandering around we made our way back to the van and settled for awhile to try and dry out but after checking the weather forecast, wherein this wet stuff appears to be hanging around for a few days, I decided to move on to our next destination.

Despite the rain we enjoyed a lovely scenic drive through the valleys of the foothills of the Pyrenees wending our way alongside the railway track and the river Nive and occasionally swapping places until we reached our destination – St Jean-Pied-de-Port. To be honest it was probably the most scenic drive of our journey so far.

I was hoping that the rain might have eased up and we could have ventured out to explore this pretty looking town but it was not to be. Instead we cranked the heating up to dry our clothes and snuggled down for a lazy afternoon.

Thoughts of the day:

  • At the risk of being a bit controversial here – I think Scotland and in particular the Outer Hebrides has broken us – will any scenery or coastline match up?
  • We have visited 436 beaches in France and that’s with having missed a chunk in the middle from the Crozon peninsula to the Côte d’Argent – that is a lot of sand!! Quite a fair bit of it is now travelling with us!

Today’s stats:

  • Miles driven – 44
  • Miles walked – 4
  • Beaches – 1
  • Aire – £10.60 EHU
  • Groceries – £41.25

Sunday 23rd November 2025 – St Jean de Luz….

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A bit of a grey one today but not as cold and although it was wet overnight it stayed dry all day. Our next and penultimate hop on this journey south was a few mile further south in St Jean de Luz a bustling coastal town.

We did plan to spend a couple of nights here but when we arrived at the Aire the vans were packed in like sardines (I mean around 50cm between vans!) and the Aire itself is sandwiched between a main road and railway station – we parked up in an available space and set out for a walk around the coastline of the town – heading first northwards through the narrow streets….

To the main beach – Grande Plage….

No dogs allowed so we walked along the promenade to the small beach at the far end of the – Plage de St Barbe…..

Retracing our steps we crossed over the river to the quieter side of town and walking southwards along the shoreline passing Plage du Carre….

Across Plage de Socoa…..

And Plage de Deriveurs…..

To Fort de Socoa….

And it’s pretty little sandy beach – Plage de Fort Socoa….

At the end of the jetty beyond the Fort we were afforded beautiful views across the sheltered bay to the main town of St Jean de Luz and also along the coast to Spain….

A lovely walk – the beaches here are similar to those of Biarritz, more golden and with coarser sand than those of the Côte d’Argent

On returning to the van, I decided that I really wasn’t comfortable being so closely packed in between neighbouring vans and that having seen all the beaches here and had a wander through town, we would move on to our next and final bit of coastline – the much smaller resort of Hendaye.

Thoughts of the day:

  • The Aire in St Jean de Luz is the worst I have encountered on this journey and it really was too close for comfort – it pays to have a back up plan.
  • We just have one more day left on this coastline – unless of course the weather is exceptionally nice tomorrow and we decide to stay. We are a little ahead of schedule but no matter that just means we can take the inland journey back up to Caen a bit slower.

Today’s stats:

  • Miles driven – 16
  • Miles walked – 7
  • Beaches – 6
  • Aire – £13.25 no electric