After 4 days off grid at the Last Night of the Prog, during which the campsite showers had degraded to very cold water only, we returned to Camping Loreleystatd. After a frantic pack and some proper showers we hitched up the caravan and were sent on our way by Isolde (campsite owner), complete with a couple of bottles of local red wine – still to enjoy.

We chose our first site just around a 100 miles away at Saarbrucken. A nice easy tow arriving at Caravanplatz Muhlenwieher (or Camping Kirkel may be an alternative name) late afternoon. We paid our 14 Euros to the Ferryman for safe passage across the Rhein to St Goar from St Goarhausen.

The site owner at our Kirkel campsite was very amicable and helpful, letting us use his commercial washing machine for free as the chargeable ones were in use. His recommendation for dinner (Campsite restaurant is closed on a Monday) was the local tennis club where we enjoyed some nice Italian pizza.

A prompt start Tuesday morning and we headed to Camping au Bord de l’Aisne, arriving at the site north of Rheims late afternoon.

The Caravan site had been booked nice and easily on the Caravan and Motorhome website and we set up quickly and headed for a walk along the river Aisne.

Dinner was at a local bar / restaurant with a great selection of beers – not to be messed with! Le Relais.

Another early start and Google was forecasting our arrival early afternoon at the second CAMC site we had chosen to use as a stopover.

As Joe had just received a slot for surgical removal of a problematical Wisdom tooth on Monday, we decided to abandon the stopover site at Honfleur and taking advantage of the Brittany Ferries flexi-ticket, brought forward our return ferry crossing by a day.

Our ferry was the Brittany Ferries Contentin, which is old, small and mainly freight which meant we really didn’t need to arrive 4 hours early to get in the boarding queue. But with van and caravan to park, this seemed like our best option. There were probably only about 20 – 30 private vehicles on this predominantly freight operated service so boarding was as swift as was disembarkation.

We were back home in East Devon sometime after 11:00am. A couple of days to sort things out before next weeks op.