2018-03-19 Northern Italy and Southern France Calais to Reims

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Calais to Reims route

Northern Italy and Southern France by Hymer Motorhome

Calais to Reims.

According to our planned schedule to arrive in Italy for the international dance festival we need to be somewhere around Reims by tonight. We are on the aire at Gravelot, Calais, this particular aire is very convenient when you are arriving or departing from France via Eurotunnel, it’s a great pity that we don’t have facilities like this in the UK. There seems to be great resistance to providing facilities for motorhomes in the UK. We serviced the Hymer, purchased a token for €2 which enabled us to fill up with fresh water, then headed out of Calais en route towards Reims.

Filled up with diesel, expensive because we called at a motorway type area, we will not do that again! We were using google maps for directions. Google maps works very well wherever you are, as long as you have a good mobile phone connection with a data package. We are both on the 3 network, so our data allowance gets carried over into the EU. [Later note: Since the UK left the EU most of the mobile networks have introduced extortionate roaming charges, just one of the disadvantages of leaving that we’re only just finding out about. Another is the loss of the ability to import as much wine etc as you wanted. ] We knew our progress was slow because the time remaining to our destination did not seem to be reducing. Finally we arrived in Reims around 5pm, which was much later than we wanted. Along the way we stopped off for some shopping at an Aldi.

There is a free aire in the centre of Reims, marvellous really because parking in the city is difficult for cars, so must be almost impossible for motorhomes. We found the aire but there was a barrier, fortunately Gill noticed that there was a phone number to call, which we did, and obtained the entry code. The temperature today has hovered around zero, very cold. Once we had parked up we walked to the cathedral, not really knowing whether or not it would be open to visitors. A wonderful building with many side chapels, cold inside as well as outside. Then we walked back to the Hymer and ate a plate of spaghetti bolognaise that Gill had prepared at home and brought with us, together with a glass of Fitou.

Before leaving home I had fitted some USB sockets inside the motorhome, it was annoying to find that one of them had failed. It was a difficult job to fit them. That means another job to go on the ‘to do’ list when we’re back home.