Alsace Wine Tour 2023 – Calais to Tournai
Previous day || Back to trip summary page || Next day
Calais to Tournai
This motorhome trip through Europe was a multipurpose trek, beginning with an American Square Dance weekend in Colsterworth, a wine tasting tour along the Alsace Wine Route, a few days with other members of the family at Lake Annecy in France, then an extended journey back to Calais via the Loire Valley where we discovered the Lateral Canal of the Loire.
Our first day in Europe began at the aire de camping cars in Calais with a leisurely breakfast. We had allowed ourselves several days to travel to Lake Annecy and decided that we would take the northern route from Calais through Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany, then head south to the Alsace Wine Route. That route is fairly direct and takes advantage of the good roads in Belgium and Germany where there are no tolls, and the lower cost fuel in Luxembourg.
We have travelled this route on a previous motorhome trek and decided that we would revisit the aires at Tournai and Rodermack and then begin our wine tasting at Mittelbergheim, a small town whose streets are lined with wine producers. There is also a large car park that doubles as an aire de camping cars plus well-signed walking paths through the vineyards.
As always, our first need was French food and wine to sustain us on our journey. We also needed to fill up our LPG (GPL) tanks; our Hymer B544 is equipped with two large refillable LPG tanks that take 42 litres of LPG to fill them. The LPG is used by the fridge freezer and water heater plus cooking. We use about one litre per day during the summer but a lot more in cold weather when space heating is needed. In the UK LPG is available but there are less filling stations because Shell has discontinued its sale. I had checked the location of French GPL filling stations using this French website (opens in a new tab), you can change the language and check the prices of fuels, a really useful site. My only gripe is that at the time of writing you could not generate a link to a route in Google Maps or Apple Maps.
First call was at Aldi for fresh milk, but that’s all we bought. Next we headed for the GPL station and filled up, quite a lot cheaper than in the UK, then headed to Auchan at Dunkirk a couple of miles away from the GPL station. Massive parking area at Auchan so we parked near an entrance and headed in to spend euros. This is shopping on a grand scale, absolutely huge, not the cheapest French supermarket but the selection is huge and we know that we will get what we want.
We avoid Auchan at Calais because the car park is frequented by groups that look like asylum seekers and our locks have been damaged by such people trying to gain entry to our motorhome in the past. We’ve also witnessed these people crawling under other motorhomes and coaches. We have seen the same thing near Cean too. Be aware of this. If we do go to Auchan Calais only one of us goes into the store while the other stays with the Hymer and makes themself conspicuous to deter unwanted behaviour.
We spent much longer in Auchan that we expected so had lunch in the car park then drove on to Tournai where we found plenty of space on the aire. Payment is via an internet site that emails a code to you, there are scanners on the gate and other equipment that read the code, for example the main gate barrier lifts when you scan the code.
Click at image to enlarge
