Week 3. 1st to 7th July 2023 – Thones to Port Lesney 240 (hard) miles.
Saturday 1st July 2023 – Thones to Le Grand-Bornand. 8 miles.
It was a lovely evening last night, a great dinner with a belting atmosphere. We sat and realised how lucky we are to be able to do what we are doing. If you have good health, and the most valuable commodity you have, time, then see and do as much as you can while you can.
This morning we wake up to a lovely blue sky so after a breakfast of scrambled eggs with salmon, toast and fresh coffee, we get our walking boots on and set off for a walk.
We have been here before, it’s a lovely place so we know more or less where we are going.
We are not sure why but Hayley gets eaten alive by mosquitos, but nasty ones. We press on and do a circle that brings us back into the town of Thones which is having a Saturday market.
It’s a vibrant market that winds its way around the streets of this charming little town. As you walk through you can smell the rich cheese, roasting chickens and stalls full of spices. The fruit and veg are bursting with colour and freshness. There are stalls selling homemade bread and cakes. Del can’t help being drawn in by a charming lady selling homemade muffins so buys a few to take back to the van to have with a tea.
It’s a lovely morning walking through the market but we have to get back.
Del has a work Zoom meeting to attend at midday, it should only take an hour or so, in the event 45 minutes, just as well as we start to hear the rain pattering on the roof. Again.
Today we are on a long drive, all 8 miles of it to Le Grand-Bornand, a place we have been to before, but this time we are going to a campsite there rather than the free overnight parking. We stop to do a service and fill up with 75 euros of diesel. The weather has changed. The sun has gone and the skies are grey, but it’s still beautiful as we drive through a valley surrounded by mountains shrouded with clouds. Wonderful.
The campsite is fabulous, we have mountains all around us, it’s gently raining, you get wet very quickly, but it’s like a fine mist. We are given a spot and get settled in. We have been out just over a week so it’s the big weekly van clean. After a good hour or so of ripping the van apart, emptying cupboards, pulling all the cushions out, cleaning and sweeping Jess is as new inside. It has to be done. We have power so we get everything charged up, all our tech and toothbrushes!
All done with the van we take a stroll into the town of Le Grand-Bornand. We have been here before, so we kind of know our way around now. It’s very charming and also very quiet which took us by surprise.
Back at Jess and dinner tonight is Hayley’s homemade tartiflette. (See her recipe here.) She did her own take on it last night, but tonight she is making the real thing from scratch along with a pair of diots. Basically a local sausage but they are very dense and very tasty, proper mountain food of the Savoie region which is where we are.
Served with a salad it was, once again, an absolute winner. Brilliant.
Sunday 2nd July 2023 – Le Grand-Bornand to Chamonix. 49 miles.
A grey morning this morning, but the surrounding views are still quite spectacular of course. We were woken up at 2 am last night by bangers going off, we thought that the current riots in France had spread here! Highly unlikely though it may be…
Before setting off we have to do a quick grey water empty and fill up with fresh. The French are good at this kind of thing, providing free services to camper vans.
A short drive in miles but because the roads are very twisty in these parts, it takes us a good hour and a half to get to Chamonix. We visited here in August 2020, covid restrictions had just been lifted, and we took the cable car to the top of Mont Blanc and another small one across over to Italy. Today we are staying at a small but lovely campsite called Camping Les 2 Glaciers. Once we are shown our spot and get settled in, we can see why. We have a spectacular view of two of the 4000 glaciers on Mont Blanc. They look amazing.
We have a great spot and get settled in quickly. Hayley loves the glaciers and decides that today she will take lunch on the table with a full view of them while Del cleans the bikes.
There is a little bit of planning to discuss regarding the next few days of our trip. We think that this will be the turning back point.
We will stay a few days here in the French Alps before heading back west into France and then northwest towards home. Maybe. Time to get the walking boots on and set off for a good walk. There are plenty of them here, all different lengths. We choose one that says it’s 1 hour and 15 minutes, it has a great view and coffee shop, so off we go.
We may have bitten off more than we can chew. It’s a very steep walk, but really steep as it twists and turns up the side of the hill towards one of the glaciers, not only that each time there is a junction with an arrow counting down the time to the end of the walk, we find that in actual fact the times are getting longer.
We saw one that said “… 35 minutes”, ten minutes later another sign saying “45 minutes” ?!?! We plod on but decide that we have had enough, we are beaten so we about-face and start to make our way back to Jess.
Hard work but enjoyable all the same, good exercise which we could well do with. We get back to base camp and it has clouded over again and it’s a bit chilly. No matter we sit outside, Del does the blog and Hayley plans our route for the next few days.
Dinner tonight? Taking it easy tonight. A simple pasta dish, spaghetti alla puttanesca. Another Hayley speciality that she does well along with a salad.
Monday 3rd July 2023 – Chamonix to Passy. 40 miles.
Breakfast outside this morning, a proper continental breakfast, ham, “European cheese”, salmon and boiled eggs with fresh coffee. Ace. Sat at the table with a view of a slightly cloudy Mont Blanc. Today we are off to Passy or rather slightly higher to Plaine Joux Passy which is quite high up meaning a very twisty, bendy and probably dangerous road. We have been there before and we remember that it was a “challenging” drive, but well worth it once you get there. A popular place for paragliders to jump from. Not for us!
After a full service, we stop at the local Carrefour to stock up with a few provisions as we intend to be offline for two nights up at Plaine Joux, Passy.
Del is at the wheel today, and as we get higher, it gets more challenging, with hairpin turns, and narrow and rough roads in parts. It is well worth it, the view is stunning. Hayley does the business at the office when we arrive and we are able to choose a space wherever we like on a large grassy space which has the most spectacular view of the Mont Blanc Massif. Absolutely amazing, truly wonderful.
After a bit of messing about trying to get level (this is a beginner’s ski slope in the winter after all), we settle in and make ourselves comfortable with a brilliant view both when we are in the van and out of the van.
We plan to stay here for two nights, from here we are starting to turn back towards home and we have 12 days to do it. Easy. Still lots to do and see and eat and we intend to do as much of that as possible of the next 12 days.
We take a walk around the location which is very popular with paragliders, in fact, we can almost see them launching from our van. There are a couple of restaurants here and good walks which we will save for tomorrow, today is a sit by the van day, with a glass of red wine. Del is doing the blog and some homework while Hayley is looking around on the internet to buy Jess some new all-terrain tyres! What has she got planned for our next trip? All this while sitting staring at the wonder of the Mont Blanc Massif. We hate Mondays!
Spanish night tonight. For the second time on this trip Hayley is doing her ever-popular paella, with jamon Serrano ham and tomato bread to start, along with the remainder of the red wine we started this afternoon.
Tuesday 4th July 2023 – Plaine Joux, Passy – day 2.
We woke up this morning at about 8am, and opened the blinds to reveal a full view of Mont Blanc. Wow! What a thing to wake up to. We don’t hang about, the coffee machine is on and within 5 minutes we are sitting in the bright sunshine just staring at the view.
Enough of that, time for some breakfast which we really enjoy. We just sit about in the sun wittering away about anything and everything. We do a quick van cleanup, some admin to catch up on then we are off for a good long walk.
Before we set off we have a look at the paragliders launching off the edge, which is just in front of the van. They are quite mad.
We do just a short 2 and a bit hours of walking. It’s a good foresty walk, dense trees with dappled sunlight, really, really nice and peaceful. There are many walks in this area, so we choose just a short one which takes us to a lake called ‘Lac Vert’, The Green Lake.
We try and do a full walk around the lake which involves some climbing, something we are not really used to, walking and bikes yes, climbing, not so sure. We try but can’t find a way to get fully around the lake so we about turn and retrace our steps back. It’s a lovely place and very popular with walkers all eating picnics and just enjoying the peace and tranquillity of this lovely location. We carry on walking past the lake to a waterfall before turning back towards ‘base camp’.
We spend a lovely afternoon with Jess, reading, doing laundry and chatting away and before we know what time it is…, it’s dinner time.
What shall we have tonight? We have many options to choose from. Hmmm. Fondue!!
Last view of Mont Blanc as the sun sets.
Wednesday 5th July 2023 – Plaine Joux, Passy to Neydens. 50 miles.
We had a small shower of rain last night, not forecasted, in fact the weather has not been correctly forecasted for the past week! We wake up to a cooler, cloudier day today. Still feeling a bit heavy after the fondue last night, we elect to have a healthier breakfast of coffee and a bowl of porridge. Hayley is still studying tyres. GoodrichTA All Terrain or Michelin Cross Climate Campers. Decisions, decisions. Del does a little bit of homework as the darker clouds are gathering around us. That’s for real, not metaphorically, by the way.
We have been here for two nights, totally self-sufficient apart from the electricity and we still have capacity for another night. Jess could probably do three, or four at a push, days ‘off grid’ as long as there is some sunshine for the solar panel to keep batteries fully charged.
Before taking the steep twisty roads back down, we drop the grey water and set off – less weight to travel is always better. Yep, it’s very twisty, midweek so it’s also busy. In parts, the roads are narrow so negotiating with oncoming traffic has to be carried out. We also come across some nasty roadworks on a tiny junction with cars and vans trying to get past each other with millimetres to spare. Hayley’s at the wheel today who, of course, manages all of it.
We are heading to a campsite that is supposed to be very nice, according to the reviews, it’s by a motorway but we are told that it’s not too bad. Getting there is a mess, driving through industrial estates, slip roads and goodness knows whatever kind of obstacle that could be thrown at us (including roadworks preparing for the Tour de France which is coming through here on the 18th) before we finally arrive at the gate of the campsite. Well not quite. The office is a bit of a walk. Hayley sets off to pay but comes back empty-handed. This place is just not doing it for us so we decide to head off and find somewhere else.
Our next stop is at an aire in a town called Bonneville but after winding through the tiny streets for 10 minutes we decide we don’t much fancy that one either, so it’s on to a very nice campsite near the town of Neydens, just south of Geneva, Switzerland. We only have 10 minutes to wait before the office reopens from lunch. Again the drive to get here felt rather challenging, but we have made it and we are given a very nice pitch for the night. After we get settled in we have a walk around the site and we have quickly come to the conclusion that this is a very nice, very spacious campsite but that it is also meant for families. We all know what that means… KIDS!!!
So far it’s very peaceful here, we shall see. We head back to Jess. Del’s not feeling too great today, says he feels like he has a hangover?! No… To be fair not much has been drunk recently so we will just take it easy today, especially after the excitement of Plaine Joux, Passy and Mont Blanc. Hayley knocks up some cheese and salad sandwiches and Del cheers up, he just needed to eat. We have a nice shady corner for Hayley to do some route planning and to finish off the rose champagne!
Our pitch is very pleasant as is the weather. We just sit in the shade of Jess and read. Del asks a passing member of staff from the campsite if BBQs are allowed, and they are. We dive into action and finally, we can get the one item out that has just been stored in the back of the van, freeloading for the last few outings.
‘Betsy‘ is the three-legged BBQ that we bought for a tenner two years ago. She has appeared a couple of times on short trips on the Isle of Wight but never in Europe, finally, she makes her debut here in Neydens.
The weather is perfect and we set a table up in the early evening sun full of goodies, Betsy is warming up and we have some BBQ chicken and local sausages. Hayley makes some excellent last-minute potato salad and puts together a green salad.
All very, very nice. For dessert, Hayley grabs a banana that is almost past it, splits it open, fills it with peanut butter and some broken-up chocolate squares, wraps it in foil and throws it back on the dying embers of the BBQ for ten minutes. Well, it is just amazing. The presentation needs a bit of work, but it really is quite delicious, so much so another one is made up, this time though a little bit of salt is added which really gives the dish an extra boost.
All in all a really good day. Full of chicken and banana we settle down inside Jess and go to bed. Oh, and we have decided on the Michelin Cross Climate Camper tyre.
Thursday 6th July 2023 – Neydens to Saint Point. 80 miles.
A light shower of rain fell during the night, but not enough to wake us up. We have coffee and breakfast outside before packing up, and prepping Jess, and we are off again. We are on the turn-back route back towards home but with 10 days left to go. We have a choice. One choice is to pay 28 euros to go on the motorway, west through France. It’s an expensive toll because it goes through many mountains and hills so there are many tunnels and many miles of the motorway are built on very high concrete pillars in order to get across valleys. The other choice is to go briefly through Switzerland and pay 40 euros for a ‘vignette’ (a sticker that goes on your windscreen and allows use of the motorways). We go for the second option as the vignette is valid for a year and we are planning to come this way on a long winter trip in 2023/24 so there is a saving made.
After arriving at the France/Swiss border, and with very little help from anybody, we pay for our 40 euro vignette and set off through Switzerland for the 1-hour drive that will pop us back out into France a little way north, then west to go across France and up to the UK. It’s a lovely drive. Everywhere is so clean and tidy, with lovely countryside. We are hugging Lake Lucerne which provides us with a great view of the mountains to the south.
We are heading to a municipal campsite in Saint-Point du Lac, which is located right by a lake. Once we arrive the office is closed but they leave good clear instructions about what to do and where to go.
Once settled in we set off for a short walk and a small glass of cold beer. When the sun is out it is hot, very hot. There is a lot of clouds about today which we prefer as the heat can be quite fierce.
Dinner tonight is a simple modest affair. Hayley has a tray of big prawns that we had with ‘Alioli’ sauce (garlic mayo) with her ace van salad which consists of green leaves, Serrano ham, peaches, walnuts and blue cheese. It’s the best salad EVER. Once we clear up we play one of our EXIT games until dark and the temperature drops. It’s half ten and freezing by the time we finish. Well, we are over 800m up from sea level. Great day, great night.
Friday 7th July 2023 – Saint Point to Port Lesney. 37 miles.
A bright sunny day today. We have a simple, quick breakfast this morning because tonight we are dining in a Michelin Bib-Gourmand restaurant in the town of Port Lesney which is in the Jura mountains just south east of Dijon. We found the restaurant the last time we went there in August 2020 when the weather was absolutely miserable, foggy, raining, just foul. Not today. Today is a beautiful day, a complete contrast from our last visit.
The restaurant is right across the road from the campsite. Port Lesney is a typical, quiet, charming French village, but has the Bistro du Port Lesney which is a bib-gourmand. The village also has a rather expensive 2-star Michelin restaurant but we don’t have the budget for that. Last time we were here we had a fantastic 3 course dinner at the bistrot with wine at a fantastically reasonable price, which is what you should expect from a Michelin Bib-Gourmand restaurant.
We get packed up and set off for the 35 to 40 mile drive to Port Lesney. We have had a few challenging drives and today is no exception. 15 minutes from our destination we come to a downward 14% hill for 1km! It also has 90 degree bends, oh, and some hills for good measure. We could actually smell the brakes. Even though we were using the engine braking in 2nd gear, brakes still had to be applied for the tight corners. We decided to pull over for 5 minutes just to let them cool off a for a while. We had no brake warning lights, but even so…
We arrive at the Port Lesney Campsite. Hayley pre-booked us in yesterday, a spot right by the river. It’s just beautiful here. We are just a couple of meters from the riverbank, all you can hear is the river running and birds twittering on. Perfect. We sit for a while and just appreciate our surroundings. Finally, after 5 years, Del has got around to putting up a photo of Stargazer, our lovely boat, that we had from 2003 to 2017. We miss her and still speak fondly of her. She was a great thing to have.
In the afternoon we decide it’s time we had a walk. Bad mistake. It is so hot. 37 degrees inside Jess and probably 35 outside in the shade, but humid with it. We walk to the restaurant we are going to later, and to a river beach that’s located under the bridge going out of Port Lesney. It’s busy.
People are wading in the cool running water of the river but trying to shade under the bridge.
We carry on with our walk of the town, but we have to give up, the heat is too much for us so it’s back to the shade of the van with the view of the river. We spend the afternoon plotting our route, reading and chatting away.
We get a visit from a local duck who is friendly enough to feed out of Hayley’s hand.
Dinner at 7 across the road which turns out to be just ok the end. The service is very iffy, took three attempts and almost 30 minutes to get the bill, the food was good but not as we remember it.
The dessert, however, a large Paris Brest to share is very good, but Hayley can’t eat all of hers so Del helps out… The evening is accompanied by live music which helps bump up the price of the menu!
Back home at Jess, it’s hot. Very hot. 34 in the van upper 20s outside, at that’s at 10 pm! It’s going to be a difficult night, full of food and drink and hot…
Tomorrow we start to move west into the middle of France. The weather forecast is saying very hot weather for the next few days.
At last we’ve been able to read your last blog, and photos too. Scenery breathtaking as usual and Hayley’s recipes brilliant as always. We’re back home Sunday evening, and hope rest of your journey back is enjoyable.
Just envious! xx
Paste!! Nice to hear from you. We are planning a big winter get away from December to February going through Germanys Black Forest, down into the Swiss Alps then along to Spain, down the east coast and back home. Can’t wait.
Hi to you both. Would you believe I have just found your blog in my junk file which I check every day. No idea how that could have happened.
Never mind I am thoroughly enjoying catching up. The photos are stunning and love Hayleys food reports.
Carry on having a great time and sharing your travels with us. xxx
Marie
Hello Marie. So nice to hear from you. On our way home now and back to work next week. It’s been short but fabulous.