3 days…2 campsites…Reims and a Cathédrale…

Our first night’s stop was at the Municipal campsite just north of Macon – an ACSI site who responded to my email enquiry by saying ‘we don’t take any bookings…’ – had me slightly worried but we’d planned to get there around 3pm, so if full, we still had time to look elsewhere…our drive was painless as usual, although we seemed to get more attention than usual – parked up for a pitstop, and folks were taking photos again…

A quick peek at Lyon from the road…

Our usual parking spot…

As it turned out, no need to worry that early in the day, but after we’d got settled, the place filled up quickly – it has 225 spaces – some right by the river with a warning about flooding (!), and it appeared that most people were using it as a stopover…vans and motorhomes of all shapes and sizes, plus tents big and small…we had a few funny looks as we did our circuit looking for a space but access was dead easy – pitches were clearly marked and we could choose anywhere – reception gave us number 91, we figured that was how many pitches were taken and judging by the number of people that came in after us, there can’t have been many of the 225 left…

Easy in..easy out…

Next morning we left fairly early to get to our next stop just outside Reims at another municipal site in Val de Vesle – 10kms south east of Reims. Also ACSI and again I’d emailed to book a space – no problem with that and when we arrived, the receptionist said she’d got us a space just behind reception…I even drove the rig all the way through the little French village right up to the site The camp itself is like a lovely parkland with no marked pitches, just electricity points dotted on the lawns under the trees – take your pick! A very pretty site but a couple of downsides…as we parked up and got out to unhitch, we were almost eaten alive – massive bugs suddenly appeared intent on biting every bit of exposed flesh, and as we were both in shorts, there was a lot available! Big horrible things a bit like a horsefly with a bite to match – argh!! Unhitching was done in record time before we retreated to spray ourselves with bug repellent before we ventured outside again – another van arrived just as we stuck our heads out, and sure enough, the bug squadron headed over to do business…Andrew chatted to the owner when he was getting water, and was told the bugs were there because they’d cut the grass earlier…hmmm…!

10pm…

Our morning view…

The other downside was the state/lack of facilities – only 2 ladies showers and 2 loos…and they needed a damn good clean – men’s were the same…thank goodness we have Woody

Parkland campsite…

A day trip into Reims to see the famous Gothic Cathédrale Notre Dame was our next outing…famous for being the place where all the French kings have been crowned, starting with Clovis who was baptised there – this was considered the coronation of the first French king…the cathedral suffered damage during the Revolution and WW1 but has largely been restored now…Reims is very much a working town and quite unlike the ‘touristy’ south of France – although the heart of the town is dominated by the Cathédrale, the rest of the town is quite plain…

Cathédrale Notre Dame…

The Cathédrale stands in a smallish square and parts of it have been cleaned and restored, which looks a bit odd…it’s quite hard to see the wonderful detail in the sculptures adorning what seems to be every square inch of the outside…

Detail on a model…

Inside, the soaring space is just beautiful and out of all the cathedrals we’ve seen, this has to be one of the best…hard to photograph as it’s enormous, so the photos are just bits that caught our eye…the stained glass windows are magnificent – one window designed by Chagall has the most beautiful shades of blue…while we were there, a group of youngsters stood on the steps in front of the altar and sang – not sure what the tunes were, but it was beautiful…

Chagall window…

A coffee in the square afterwards finished off our morning perfectly before we headed out of the centre of town a little way to find St Remy Basilica and the museum there…we were the only people there when we arrived and it was fabulous having the place to ourselves…

St Remy Basillica…

The museum next door holds Roman artefacts found in Reims over the years and is famous for its Chapter house – again, there were few people around which suited us just fine…enough museums and walking so we headed back to the campsite for a well earned rest…