I notice that Kerriann mentions that having an awning out on
our motorhome is ‘naughty’ and thought that a few words of explanation might
clarify the position. In France we
always stay at the wonderful camping-car aires, i.e. free and legal stopping
places for motorhomes. When staying at an aire, it is usually accepted that
permission is granted for ‘parking’ and not ‘camping’. Parking means that you are self-contained and
do not put tables, chairs and other camping equipment around your van.
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| Naughty Awning Action |
This said, the French have a great aptitude
for ignoring the sometimes ridiculous rules. Usually, when over-nighting on an aire we would not wind out Dickie’s awning but on this lovely spacious aire
with its big bays it would be silly not to make use of the generous space
allocated. In fact we also snuck our satellite dish out so that we could watch
live British TV. All the other vans on
site were French and all of them were breaking the ‘camping’ rule and we love
them for it!
In the 5 months we have been travelling in Europe on this
trip we have only stayed 4 or 5 nights in paid campsites – the rest of the time
we have parked legally in aires and spent our money in the towns and villages
that have kindly provides them. The UK has a lot to learn from the European system
– it is also interesting that we have not had to pay to park anywhere since we
left the UK apart from one instance in a busy French town where we paid two
euros for four hours. How different to our local parking in Cornwall.
It is still 27 degrees at 10.30 at night – we are all hot a
sticky. We might not miss the UKs
parking charges but we do miss the cooler evenings.
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