Day 40 - Saint-Etienne-la-Varenna to Villevaudé (467kms)
Our last full day on the road! Its going to be hard to say goodbye to our home of the last month, tomorrow morning. This morning we woke to a beautiful day, after a couple of days of overcast and rainy weather, there was not a cloud in the sky. As promised in the park4night app, the church bells started chiming on the hour from 7am, and while we went back to sleep for an hour after the 7am ringing, we were still up earlier than most mornings over the past month.
Opening the door of the van, we were greeted by the cutest little village sitting high on a rolling hill in the Beaujolais wine region. We walked around the village and in every direction we were greeted with views over vineyards on rolling hills. Right in front of the church in the village centre there was also a school and given the time of day, it got busy with school drop offs. I assume it is the only primary school around as there was more children turning up for school than houses in this village.
After a walk in the fields on one side of the village, we reluctantly decided to move on to discover more of this famous wine growing region. Our first stop would be the town of Vaux-en-Beaujolais to learn more about the region. It was a beautiful town (also sitting high on a hill), and was really trying to capture the tourist market through its links to a 1937 fictional novel called "The Scandals of Clochemerie". What we can loosley piece together is that the book is about the crazy goings-on in a french village, and central to the plot was the villagers building of a public outdoor urinal. It wasn't until 2006 that the real town decided to build an actual (non-working urinal), so we are unsure if the book was based on the town, or the town just adopted the book! Anyway, the paintings all around the town depicting the central characters of the novel made it a fun place to walk around. Together with the talking flower boxes, that you can sit down on and listen to parts of the story of Clochermerie, this town has made it a fun place to visit. Quite an ingenious way to attract tourists.
After visiting the tourist information for some advise on what to see in the region and with only a few hours to spare, we made our way to the little village of Le Perreon on route to Mount Brouilly. In Le Perreon, we bought lunch, including treats from Patissier/Chocolatier.
Keeping the food for the view, we then drove to the top of Mount Brouilly - which has 360° views over the Beaujolais region complete with a church in the middle of nowhere. We were not quite sure what all the fuss was about, as we felt the views were no better up here than from any of the other villages and towns we had past through.
"And then there were none." No more excuses that is, that we could make to prolong the inevitable return to Paris. Back on the motorway we went for the 450 odd kilometre drive to Paris - or at least the campground we have found only a few kilometres from the campervan return location.
After parting with €47.50 in motorway tolls, we exited for another hour of peak hour traffic along local roads to get to the campground. Along a busy long stretch of straight road through parkland, we noticed white commuter type vans parked every few hundred metres - seemingly in the middle of nowhere. After a while we also noticed the bikini clad women either sitting outside the van in the cool setting sun, or on display in the front seat. I guess this is how the ladies of the night work in France.
We eventually arrived Le Parc de Paris campground, only to learn that reception had closed for the night. But after a little cajoling with restaurant staff, someone came to let us in the gate as long as I gave them my drivers license till the morning as security.
Once we were setup on a site, the kids were off to the playground and Kristie and I started the job of packing up everything. This is when I discovered that the broken plastic part of the bumper that had survived being taped on all trip, was missing. Just one more thing to worry about when returning the van tomorrow.
Opening the door of the van, we were greeted by the cutest little village sitting high on a rolling hill in the Beaujolais wine region. We walked around the village and in every direction we were greeted with views over vineyards on rolling hills. Right in front of the church in the village centre there was also a school and given the time of day, it got busy with school drop offs. I assume it is the only primary school around as there was more children turning up for school than houses in this village.
After a walk in the fields on one side of the village, we reluctantly decided to move on to discover more of this famous wine growing region. Our first stop would be the town of Vaux-en-Beaujolais to learn more about the region. It was a beautiful town (also sitting high on a hill), and was really trying to capture the tourist market through its links to a 1937 fictional novel called "The Scandals of Clochemerie". What we can loosley piece together is that the book is about the crazy goings-on in a french village, and central to the plot was the villagers building of a public outdoor urinal. It wasn't until 2006 that the real town decided to build an actual (non-working urinal), so we are unsure if the book was based on the town, or the town just adopted the book! Anyway, the paintings all around the town depicting the central characters of the novel made it a fun place to walk around. Together with the talking flower boxes, that you can sit down on and listen to parts of the story of Clochermerie, this town has made it a fun place to visit. Quite an ingenious way to attract tourists.
After visiting the tourist information for some advise on what to see in the region and with only a few hours to spare, we made our way to the little village of Le Perreon on route to Mount Brouilly. In Le Perreon, we bought lunch, including treats from Patissier/Chocolatier.
Keeping the food for the view, we then drove to the top of Mount Brouilly - which has 360° views over the Beaujolais region complete with a church in the middle of nowhere. We were not quite sure what all the fuss was about, as we felt the views were no better up here than from any of the other villages and towns we had past through.
"And then there were none." No more excuses that is, that we could make to prolong the inevitable return to Paris. Back on the motorway we went for the 450 odd kilometre drive to Paris - or at least the campground we have found only a few kilometres from the campervan return location.
After parting with €47.50 in motorway tolls, we exited for another hour of peak hour traffic along local roads to get to the campground. Along a busy long stretch of straight road through parkland, we noticed white commuter type vans parked every few hundred metres - seemingly in the middle of nowhere. After a while we also noticed the bikini clad women either sitting outside the van in the cool setting sun, or on display in the front seat. I guess this is how the ladies of the night work in France.
We eventually arrived Le Parc de Paris campground, only to learn that reception had closed for the night. But after a little cajoling with restaurant staff, someone came to let us in the gate as long as I gave them my drivers license till the morning as security.
Once we were setup on a site, the kids were off to the playground and Kristie and I started the job of packing up everything. This is when I discovered that the broken plastic part of the bumper that had survived being taped on all trip, was missing. Just one more thing to worry about when returning the van tomorrow.
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