Brittany - Our First Trip Aboad with a Caravan!

I have been meaning to post this story for awhile but have never seemed to have the time to sit down and write it!!

We have been dithering about touring abroad for a couple of years and had started 2013 looking at going across to Holland from Hull and saving on the long haul down to the south/south east coast for a ferry. Somewhere along the line though we decided it would be France for our maiden trip abroad with the caravan and that we would settle for Brittany.

We were heading out at the start of June for two weeks and I decided that we would use Brittany Ferries Plymouth – Roscoff overnight sailing on the Saturday night crossing booked via the CC with a good saving. This meant that the biggest part of the road trip (300 miles one way) would be in the UK on the journey from Manchester to Plymouth.

We left at 9.30am – paranoia had set in the that delays on the journey would be inevitable! – for the 10pm sailing. As we left on the M62 and headed onto the M6 south we arrived at The M5 junction with not a sniff of a delay. As we headed down the M5 I warned Mrs R that we would of course get held up around Bristol – But NO!! In fact we sailed effortlessly all the way to Plymouth arriving at 5.45pm having had a couple of decent stops.

The overnight crossing worked well with us tucked up in bed at 11pm for a good night sleep before awaking at 7am for breakfast. We arrived on schedule and we were driving on the righthand side of the road at 10am with 90miles to travel to our site Montloue in Mellac. (http://www.montloue.eu/home.html)  The toll free route to the site was effortless and we had arrived on site and got pitched and set up by 1.30pm in glorious sunshine.

We had booked to stay on the site for the full fortnight and on reflection this was a mistake and we should have split our time in different locations (We plan to do this in 2014). We also played safe in selecting a British owned CL type site that although lovely didn’t always provide a feeling of being in France somehow with only British vanners on site for the whole of our stay. In planning our holiday this year we will be more “adventurous” now knowing how easy it is to tour in France especially at the start of June. Planning of course helps but I was surprised how effortless it was even though I had been told so on many occasions.

The site did however provide us with an excellent base for touring that part of Brittany and we loved Pont Aven. Dolean. Quimper, Concarneau, Port Manech and our boat trip to Belle Ille. The weather was kind and we barbecued on our Cadac on many nights enjoying the light evenings of June.  We found the area to be quiet – a little too quiet at times in the towns and villages – but it was early in the season and the weather up until then had been atrocious throughout France so may have put off some who may have visited the region.

The food throughout the whole area was excellent and of course I drank, and brought home, too much wine (can there be to much?!).

Our journey home was uneventful including our overnight stay at Riverside in Plymouth.

We loved the area and taking the van was easy. We are converts now and are currently planning our trip for 2014 will it be La Rochelle and across to the Loire or Lake Garda? Decisions, decisions – this is why I love caravanning

Riggers