La Vie à Quatre Roues! Jour 17

Ouistreham - Au revoir la France, à la prochaine fois…

Our last day on the road in France, and unfortunately a rather cool, damp day. Before leaving Falaise, we walked from the campsite into town where, by chance, we came upon an old fashioned cobblers where we were able to get spare keys cut for the Citroen HY van, something M had found impossible back in the UK. We’d hoped to take a closer look at the castle, birthplace of William the Conqueror (first extra), but at this point the skies opened and the rain drove us back to the warmth and comfort of the van. One advantage of being in a campervan is that you can easily change out of your soaking wet clothes!

The supermarket was our next stop, for a final shop to stock up on wine and other French goodies. While we were there, we got talking to an elderly gentleman who had a 1954 Peugeot campervan that he was considering selling. Before I knew it, we were on our way to his house to take a look at the van! To cut a long story short, M is now considering whether or not to add the van to his collection of vintage vehicles...

Sadly the weather put a real damper on our plans for our last day, and after a short visit to Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives, where we sought shelter from the rain in the covered market hall (2nd extra), we gave up on our other plans and instead headed towards the ferry, via the famous Pegasus Bridge. We’d visited here on our Normandy roadtrip last Summer so we decided to stop for meal at the café by the bridge, except when we arrived we were told there was no chef that day! (Something that keeps happening to me!) By this time it had finally stopped raining, so we found a dry seat outside and settled on an ice cream and a final cup of coffee/glass of rosé, as we watched the bridge rise to let ships sail through (3rd extra).

With the weather changing our plans, we arrived at the ferry terminal at Ouistreham five and a half hours early, but the time quickly passed and by 11pm we were sailing away from France. As my first photo of the roadtrip was us boarding the ferry to France, I thought it was only fitting that my last photo should be us boarding the ferry to sail back home...

(Backblip posted 17th September)