Summer of 2014 rolls round and we want to get away. We don't care where exactly, we just want to get out of the country. Money is a bit tight, so we decide to camp. We plan a rough route in the space of a few days, and are ready to leaving within 5 days of deciding we want to go. Loading up my Honda Civic with the camping essential (and various replacement parts for the car, just in case), we hit the road and go down to Dover.
I hadn't camped before, so made one condition beforehand which was that we would have one night in a hotel in the middle.
2 days before we left, he also realised that we're going the weekend of Le Mans 24 hour race, so in retaliation to my "one night in a hotel", we agree that we also stop by the race on the way. On the way there it dawns on him that England are playing in the World Cup on the night we arrive, so it becomes a race to get to Le Mans to find a pub to watch the game in. We do it, but only by the skin of the teeth.
On my first real introduction to France I learn you can (it would seem) dump your car almost anywhere off the main road and it is acceptable parking. We then headed across to watch the last part of the 24 hour race (as we only bought Sunday tickets).
Once we were done in Le Mans we headed back out on the road and set off to find somewhere to stay. We didn't book anywhere in advance on this trip, something that I would find very stressful at the time, but that we now do semi-regularly as we enjoy the spontaneity of it.
The details now are a bit hazy, and we didn't really end up anywhere of particular note. This however was was my first ever night of camping looked like, and you can see I don't look particularly thrilled.
In my defence, we worked out that I'd succeeded in having about 2 hours sleep in just under 48 hours since we had left, so I was pretty tired. We had dinner, camped and headed off the next morning onto our next adventure.
Along the way we ended up in Marseille, France and went to explore the Notre-Dame de la Garde. The roads in Marseille were a bit of a nightmare and we ended up going in circles a few times. I'm still not sure whether that was down the roads or my poor navigational skills!
From some of the things we had seen and read in the cathedral in Marseille, we decided we wanted to go to see the Shroud of Turin on our trip. Neither of us are religious, but it seemed like a great sight to see if nothing else! The beauty of having nothing booked along the way meant we could change our plans as we went along and that was exactly what we did!
Further along the way, we also stopped in Monaco for the day, and watched another England match at a campsite with a great group of people from all over the world! We also drove through Mont Blanc - definitely was a big tick for the bucket list! It's a bizarre sensation being stood in snow in tshirt and shorts because it's warm.
Over the course of about 7 days we managed to drive around 3000 miles - so it was a fair old trip of exploring!
Here are some other random shots over the course of that fateful trip that gave us the bug to explore together!
I hadn't camped before, so made one condition beforehand which was that we would have one night in a hotel in the middle.
2 days before we left, he also realised that we're going the weekend of Le Mans 24 hour race, so in retaliation to my "one night in a hotel", we agree that we also stop by the race on the way. On the way there it dawns on him that England are playing in the World Cup on the night we arrive, so it becomes a race to get to Le Mans to find a pub to watch the game in. We do it, but only by the skin of the teeth.
Once we were done in Le Mans we headed back out on the road and set off to find somewhere to stay. We didn't book anywhere in advance on this trip, something that I would find very stressful at the time, but that we now do semi-regularly as we enjoy the spontaneity of it.
The details now are a bit hazy, and we didn't really end up anywhere of particular note. This however was was my first ever night of camping looked like, and you can see I don't look particularly thrilled.
In my defence, we worked out that I'd succeeded in having about 2 hours sleep in just under 48 hours since we had left, so I was pretty tired. We had dinner, camped and headed off the next morning onto our next adventure.
Along the way we ended up in Marseille, France and went to explore the Notre-Dame de la Garde. The roads in Marseille were a bit of a nightmare and we ended up going in circles a few times. I'm still not sure whether that was down the roads or my poor navigational skills!
From some of the things we had seen and read in the cathedral in Marseille, we decided we wanted to go to see the Shroud of Turin on our trip. Neither of us are religious, but it seemed like a great sight to see if nothing else! The beauty of having nothing booked along the way meant we could change our plans as we went along and that was exactly what we did!
Further along the way, we also stopped in Monaco for the day, and watched another England match at a campsite with a great group of people from all over the world! We also drove through Mont Blanc - definitely was a big tick for the bucket list! It's a bizarre sensation being stood in snow in tshirt and shorts because it's warm.
Over the course of about 7 days we managed to drive around 3000 miles - so it was a fair old trip of exploring!
Here are some other random shots over the course of that fateful trip that gave us the bug to explore together!
Comments
Post a Comment