So, we’re off to mainland Europe once again and, as always, we’ll follow the sun. The south of England has been wet and windy the last week and the rest of Europe (at least in the north) looks much the same. Therefore, we will be heading directly south in the first instance.
Day 1 took us around the M25 to Dover and across to Calais on the P&O ferry. The ferry is much cheaper than the Shuttle these days. It’s also considerably slicker in terms of passing through customs and immigration etc and, with P&O providing a pet lounge, it’s not an unpleasant experience.
Not wanting to drive too much that first day, after arriving in France we made first for Saint Valery sur Somme. It’s near the coast, on the Somme Estuary, about an hour and a half’s drive south of Calais. It being a Friday and with French campsites often fully booked up over the weekends, Vanya had booked us into the Yelloh campsite at Estreboeuf, just outside Saint Valery, for two nights. That allowed plenty us a full day to explore Saint Valery and plan our route south. We’ve used this Yelloh site before.
Saint Valery proved a pleasant surprise. There’s easy parking in the town’s motorhome site (for just a few euros) and it’s a pleasant walk down to the promenade by the Somme, to the Quai Jeanne d’Arc. We followed the pretty Rue Des Moulins all the way to the promenade but there’s another almost equally pretty route running parallel to Rue Des Moulins (at least until the last part of the walk). I think it is called the Rue des Pilotes.
Initially, we planned to walk north along the promenade to the Baie de Somme, hoping to see some of the Grey Seals and Harbour Seals which bask on the flats in the Bay when the tide is out but, we never completed the walk. Nala, our German Shepherd, had been sick during the night and was clearly struggling. We revised our plan and, instead, settled for the old medieval part of the town.
Follow the promenade north towards the old town and you soon reach the 12th century L’Eglise Saint Martin. It’s about half way. Like many churches on the French side of the Channel Coast, Saint Martin is built of dressed flint and shingle. It’s a most unusually shaped church and this can be attributed to various extensions being added over the years. Not very impressive from the outside, it is definitely worth a look inside.
Little of Saint Valery’s old medieval town remains. I suspect much of it was destroyed during World War II but it is worth visiting. It has history being, amongst other things, the place where William the Conqueror assembled his fleet before invading England in 1066 and; much later in 1431, where Joan of Arc was held in the local prison overnight on the way to her demise in Rouen.
Notwithstanding the above, Vanya and I found the newer parts of Saint Valery Sur Somme to be far prettier and of more interest than the old town; with the walk down Rue des Moulins being particularly noteworthy. We didn’t stay long in the old town but started back to the newer part by way of Quai du Romerel and then Rue d’Argoules. We could have carried on along the promenade, using Rue de la Ferte with it’s many riverside restaurant-bars, but we were both intrigued by the many unique boutiques which fill Rue d’Argoules and; besides, we found a good fish restaurant there which served good oysters and mussels.
Both the promenade and the Rue d’Argoules end at the town’s small marina and alongside the marina is the ‘Chemin de Fer de La Baie de Somme’. This is a preserved narrow gauge steam railway which offers trips around the Baie de Somme during the period March to December. We had missed the last one of the day or we would have been tempted.
In conclusion, Saint Valery Sur Somme proved a fine day out and a pleasant start to another tour in the Van although the day didn’t quite end there. We had each eaten well during the day and decided on a light supper in the Van that evening, namely a cheese and ham charcuterie and a botte of wine or two. Joy of joys, the cheese selection included a new one to me which I absolutely adore – Le Trou Du Cru.
It appears Le Trou Du Cru is actually Epoisses (a strong pungent French cheese from Bourgogne) but it comes in smaller bite sized rounds which, I am reliably informed, are an appropriate size to finish and so not stink the refrigerator out. I like that logic.
One other point on the subject of cheese; while researching Le Trou Du Cru I discovered that Epoisses/Le Trou Du Cru is made with unpasteurised cow’s milk and is therefore banned from the USA. Other French cheeses that USA citizens are missing out on for the same reason include Brie de Meuax, Reblechon de Savoie, Camembert de Normandie and Bleu de Gex. These cheeses all rank amongst my favourites – you poor Americans don’t know what you’re missing! By the way, the USA has also banned Morbier (another wonderful cheese) because of it’s thin line of vegetable ash. Tragic.