Alsace Wine Tour – Givet to Calais

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Givet back to Calais

Givet, overnight with at least 18 other motorhomes on the aire de camping cars, another sunny start to the day, but cooler. I make breakfast as usual then go out on the bank of the river and do some Quigong, the Daoyin 12 postures followed by the 24 form Yang style tai chi, a great place to do these slow exercises.

This is our return journey, we’re now in travel mode, covering distance heading for home. We swap drivers regularly and cover the distance stopping off at Auchan supermarket in Dunkirk for the last shopping, more dry sausage, cheeses and fruit, €58 worth, but no wine, we have the exact amount of our duty free allowances carefully packed in the side locker of the Hymer. We take the opportunity to fill up with diesel at a lower price than the UK then press on towards Calais.

We reach Calais around 4:30pm and service the Hymer, filling up with water, despite the €3 cost, Gill wants a full tank of fresh water on board.

On the aire there are 31 motorhomes from various countries . . .

• Germany 8
• France 8
• Switzerland 3
• UK 7
• Netherlands 3
• Belgium 2
• Italy 1
• Spain 1

This is the first Italian motorhome we have seen on this trip, we don’t see many Spanish either, perhaps the people from those countries don’t need to go to France for good weather, perhaps they are heading for the UK?

We begin our evening meal with crevettes and a bottle of crémant, delicious. Our last night in France, always something of a sad time. However, it’s better than last time we were here escaping from covid! When Europe started lockdown we were in Portugal, not far from Lisbon, first our return ferry from Santander was cancelled and we were rebooked from Caen, then that ferry was cancelled so we had to drive all the way to Calais to take Eurotunnel home. Read more about it.

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