Final Blog Entry (Umbria to Cumbria)

We arrived back at our static home at 11am today having travelled 9,569 miles over a total of 160 days on the road and having visited 15 countries (not including England) of which 9 we had never been to before.

Time now to settle back into normal life and take stock.

Thank you for following us on our travels.

Good Morning England!

Yes, Harry has finally put his tyre print on home soil for the first time this year! We made it to a pub at Winchester for a bar meal and British pint of beer. We will do a final update when we arrive back in Carlisle later this week but to keep you going here are some photographs from our last 2 days in France where we celebrated Yann's birthday with his lovely family and friends. 

Yann's Gran doing her interpretation of the Brittany symbol! 

Apologies

Please accept our apologies for no posts in the last few days. We are presently (11am Monday) on the ferry from St Malo to.......St Malo actually! There is a medical emergency on board (thankfully neither of us) and are returning to port NOT Portsmouth.

When the WiFi is good enough we'll post some photos of the last few days in France.

Some photos from the last couple of days

As The Sun Broke Through

Just as the sun broke through the cloud for the first time in 2 days, I took this photo of Sunday night's aire looking across the Seine. It was taken with my phone and hasn't been enhanced in any way, but Rachel thinks it looks like a painting, she is right (as usual)!

Buxueil

As we tootle along the road passing through villages, all names of which have the ‘sur Seine’ tagged on, we get glimpses of something not much bigger than a stream. It transpires that we aren’t that far from the source of the 483 mile river, so it comes as no surprise that the only waterway traffic we saw on it was a raft with several teenagers navigating the shallow river.

We have been sunflower field spotting on today’s 110 mile leg, but I think we are a week or two too early to see them in all their glory. Just as Rachel comments “I’m surprised we haven’t seen any vineyards for a while”, what should pop up on the hillside to our right but the distinctive sight of uniformed rows of vines, we had just entered the southern Champagne region.

As we turn towards the village of Buxueil with the satnav indicating the aire in one tenth of a mile, the only thing visible is the village church, this doesn’t bode well, and sure enough the aire de camping car is in the church car park! A peaceful night’s sleep isn’t looking too promising, but having been here for 6 hours now we haven’t heard so much as a dormouse. In fact, it’s the quietest place we have ever been, with the only sounds seeming to be the gentle ripple of the Seine and the occasional bird song. For a village with a population of about 150, it came as a surprise that although we didn’t see any other people, we did see half a dozen Champagne producing houses!

Harry tucked away nicely between the church and The Seine

A lovely location with The Seine in the foreground,
not quite the grandoise river we're used to seeing.

Our first sight of vineyards for a while.

Bitche Citadel

Having 'bigged up' The Citadel at Bitche it was rather remiss of me not to put a decent photo on so here is one from the 'net.

But you can take your pick from these:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=bitche+citadel&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjGzNur5ujUAhXsJ5oKHVCSALIQ_AUICigB&biw=1366&bih=589

It's good to feel child-like again after all these years!

You've heard of BMW motorcycles but have you ever seen an EMW?
A rather unfortunate name for a motorbike - Eisenacher, apparently they didn't have very comfortable seats!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenacher_Motorenwerk

Ever get the feeling you're being stared at?
It may not be sunny but this is still a lovely sight!