We hired a camping car for 10 days to have a look at different parts of France that we were unlikely to see on our canal boat. We picked up the camper near Lyon and thought we’d head to the south of France but we actually didn’t go that far. There was no need, as we saw so many amazing places within 200km of Lyon.
We hired a smallish camping car because the roads in France can be narrow, especially in the cute little villages that we love so much. A small van is great for the roads, but not so great for Ivan to sleep in, as he’s 6 foot 5. By the end of the trip he was pretty much done.
Most of the places we stayed were really quiet but we had one night in a camping spot in a beautiful little village called Villefranche-sur-Saone which was a not so good. The night started well with an incredible dinner at a restaurant called L’embarcadere which was recommended to us by a Lyonnaise person that I met in Brisbane. His name is Didier and he gave us a long list of wonderful places to visit in the Lyon region.
After dinner we walked back to our camping car to find that about 50m away was a concert. A very loud concert. Here’s Ivan’s not-so-happy face!
Our favourite camping car spot
Our absolute favourite camping spot was just outside Roanne in a village called Villerest at the L’oree du lac campgrounds. The campgrounds were clean, spacious and well laid out and the owners of the campgrounds – Laure and her husband Patrick were absolutely delightful. They could not have been more helpful and we were able to speak to them in our very bad French.
Laure and Patrick spent lots of time with us helping with the language and they made reservations for us on the phone for their favourite restaurant nearby (speaking on the phone in French still terrifies me). Laure gave us a note to give to the owner of the restaurant and said it was a secret and we weren’t allowed to look at it. Of course when we got out of eyesight we couldn’t help ourselves and opened the letter! But alas, we struggled to read the language. So I took a photo (below).
The note says “Look after these adorable Australians. I will pay for their after dinner drink.”
How wonderful is that! The recommended restaurant was amazing – Auberge du Pont, right next to the Loire river and this ancient bridge (below).
The owner of the restaurant was a character and he certainly looked after us. I had the specialty of the house, which was grenouilles (frogs legs). I felt guilty eating Kermit but he was delicious!
The specialty of the house – frogs legs!
After the meal, of course, we had to have the digestive drinks which were given to us by the owners of the camping grounds. So I asked the owner of the restaurant to give us traditional French digestives. Big mistake! Both of our drinks could have fuelled rockets and I couldn’t do it. Luckily, Ivan was happy to take one for the team and downed both drinks. The walk home was interesting with lots of weaving.
On the way back to the campgrounds we saw a couple that we recognised were staying at the same place and we got chatting (in very poor French). We’ve now made friends with this lovely couple who live in Evian (where the bottled water comes from). We had drinks with them the next night and we’ve stayed in touch. Their names are Francoise and Alain and hopefully we’ll get to see them again in the not too distant future.
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French