Britain to Brittany in 12 hours – 20 August 2011

A 6.45am departure from home got us to Dover for the 9.55am check-in, and by 6.45pm we were checking into a campsite in Fougeres in Brittany.

The GPS said non-toll roads would take us 6 hours, but toll roads would only take 4.5 hours. We decided to pay the €30+ tolls and get to Fougeres in time to visit their medieval castle. But we now know that toll roads have drawbacks.

There were queues at all toll booths, both to collect your toll ticket at the start of the toll portions and then to pay the toll at the end. Some of these were extremely slow moving, and worst of all was the fairly new suspension bridge over the Seine near Honfleur. The queue to pay the toll went on for several kilometres, and added another 40 minutes to the journey time. The total time for the journey was 5.75 hours; we may as well have saved the €30.

Fougeres is a lovely town. There was enough time to put up the tent, have a brief look around before eating at a delicious creperie. We had just started eating when the lightning and thunder heralded the arrival of rain. As the day had been super hot, this was not surprising. Fortunately it stopped just before we were ready to leave the restaurant, but it had done very little to cool the air. It was definitely a night were we could sleep comfortably, but felt sorry for those indoors.