Hints and Tips from our first long trip (Latest - 27. Cap Corse Site Review)

[WelshGas]

6. Corsican Separatists
Oops - it seems that not all the French like the Corsicans. We certainly became aware that there is a strong nationalist movement in Corsica. The evidence of this is widespread - many road signs are bi-lingual (Corsican is a recognised language) and the French place names are obliterated in many places. It seems the year 1905 is significant as that is scrawled in Graffiti all over the place as well - I haven't managed to find the reason for that yet - anyone know?

But we kept a low profile and we survived 10 days in Corsica without being shot by bandits or chancing upon carnage from a bombing (apparently these are regular occurrences).

Today a Client who happens to be French (from Brittany) asked me where we went on holiday. 'Corsica' I proudly told him - 'it's fantastic isn't it'. Apparently not! He was distinctly unimpressed and considered the Corsicans to be the lowest of the low and 'not really French at all'. Too late by then to gush that I love Brittany as well.

1905.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/56661819

 

[DM]

7. Lake Como
This is completely out of chronological order because we visited Como fairly late on - but I know a few are about to set-off for that region so I thought I'd promote this.



Como is one of the three largest and most famous lakes - the others being Garda and Maggiore. Como and Garda are wholly in Italy whilst Maggiore is partly in Switzerland. We'd been to Garda before so settled on Como for 3 days - it was just a quick stopover on our way home. We had a loose arrangement to meet some friends in Como on the Friday as one of them is Italian and only lives 40 mins from Como. Lake Como is like an inverted Y with Como at the bottom of the south-west leg. We started out looking for campsites around Como - but there aren't really any. There's one lakeside site on the Lecco arm (south east) but most are in the North where the lakeshore is less mountainous and there is a little more flat land. These sites are full of families and are mostly lakeside so are ideal for watersports. In the end we found a little campsite on the hill above Bellagio which is on the peninsula where the three arms join.

Camping Clarke -Hotel_Review-g187834-d5963874-Reviews-Agri_Camping_Clarke-Bellagio_Lake_Como_Lombardy.html

It was a good choice for us. Bellagio is a great location from which you can explore some of the nicer villages by ferry or boat. There is a regular car ferry service connecting Bellagio, Varenna, Cadenabbia and Menagio which are all towards the centre of the lake. Varenna is particularly pretty an unspoiled.

We had considered cycling along the lakeshore but we soon binned that idea - the roads are incredibly narrow and very busy. Its OK for serious cyclists who will be keeping pace with traffic - but not very pleasant for a leisurely ride. We did use the bikes between the campsite and Bellagio - great downhill on the way in - hard work on the way back.

Como is certainly very pretty and scenic. But also busy. The central area was extremely busy with mostly Amercian tourists. Como itself had a more mixed feel with many tourists of many nationalities including Italians. Most tourists don't leave the lakeshore. You don't have to go far up the hill to find tranquility. We had a great day out - Boat to Argengo, cable car up to Pigra (where there is a fantastic marked walking trail through the village, and then a walk back through the forest to Colonno with amazing vistas over the lake in the way down. Then bus to Cadenabba and the ferry back to Bellagio.

Prices for camping are high - 31 Euros per night where we stayed - even higher lakeside according to fellow campers.The ferry and boats are also pricey - approx 4 Euros per person for any trip on the ferry, more for longer journeys on the passenger boats. But the cable car and the funicular in Como are cheap and we had a great meal out with friends in Como for about 15 Euros per head.

We moved to Como itself for our last night and stayed at a camperstop there. great and good value (12 Euros) for one night but I wouldn't have stayed their longer. I'll post more about the camperstops generally later.

For a longer holiday I'd suggest 3 to 4 days per major lake would be good. There are also some smaller ones that are apparently just as scenic but more frequented by locals than on the main tourist trail.

Hope those of you heading this way have a great time.

 

[DM]

8. Priorite a Droite
One of the quirks of driving in France. The French have an antiquated rule that means you always have to give way to traffic approaching from your right. This may have made sense in the days of the horse and cart but it can be quite disconcerting when you are travelling at 70kph and someone pulls out right in front of you! The French have realised how ridiculous this is but instead of repealing the law they over-rule it in almost every scenario. So the only place that it really still applies is in remote villages. It nearly caught us out in one village when a car pulled onto a mini-roundabout right in front of me.

There's a helpful guide at http://www.drive-france.com/faqs/get-your-priorities-right/

 

[hirsty]

I'm enjoying this.

 

[kave]

8. Priorite a Droite
One of the quirks of driving in France. The French have an antiquated rule that means you always have to give way to traffic approaching from your right. This may have made sense in the days of the horse and cart but it can be quite disconcerting when you are travelling at 70kph and someone pulls out right in front of you! The French have realised how ridiculous this is but instead of repealing the law they over-rule it in almost every scenario. So the only place that it really still applies is in remote villages. It nearly caught us out in one village when a car pulled onto a mini-roundabout right in front of me.

There's a helpful guide at http://www.drive-france.com/faqs/get-your-priorities-right/

We have the exact same rules in Sweden, Germany has the same called rechts vor links etc.

 

[DM]

9. Navigating Paris
I've driven through France many times heading for the Alpine piste (winter) or rivers (summer) or the west coast beaches. You'd have thought that experience would have taught me about Paris. It has - I have a rule - avoid driving anywhere near Paris except at 6am on a Sunday morning when it can be tolerable. So why ...................

Stupidly I over-ruled common sense by my other rule which is to make a round trip of any journey - so Paris it was. Having just been stung by motorway tolls I steeled myself for the Périphérique. But non-non - Waze knew even better! There's a relatively new bypass on the west side of Paris the A86. But ............ several tunnels have a 2m height limit and we were - hmmmm, definitely over 2m (with the kayak on the roof). This first clicked when we drove under a warning barrier that said 2m (we didn't actually touch it so it must have been nearer to 3m high) but Mrs DM and I locked eyes and together thought "did that say 2m - how high are we?". 50m later there was another barrier at a toll booth that most definitely was set at 2m. Oh dear. Well it seems that we were not the first high vehicle to get this far as the highway designers had helpfully provided an escape lane. And we only had to cross 6 lines of traffic queuing at the toll booths to get to it. Heads hung in shame, and avoiding eye contact, we escaped. To be spewed out into the Paris suburbs without a detailed map and with a sat nav that helpfully attempted to take us back to the A86 again, and again, and again.....................

So it was back to basics navigating on a vague sense of direction and looking for signs to towns / areas which were vaguely in the right direction and continually avoiding tunnels. What seemed like many hours later we escaped Paris and were en route for our first stopover in Orleans (one of the reasons we tested the beam adjustment (see earlier).

Several lessons were learned.
1. always avoid Paris (no really...... always)
2. know the exact height of your vehicle - 'what do you reckon.........?' when approaching a concrete lintel doesn't really cut it.
3. find a satnav that you can set a height limit on (is there one)?
4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 & 10. always avoid Paris

 

[WelshGas]

9. Navigating Paris
I've driven through France many times heading for the Alpine piste (winter) or rivers (summer) or the west coast beaches. You'd have thought that experience would have taught me about Paris. It has - I have a rule - avoid driving anywhere near Paris except at 6am on a Sunday morning when it can be tolerable. So why ...................

Stupidly I over-ruled common sense by my other rule which is to make a round trip of any journey - so Paris it was. Having just been stung by motorway tolls I steeled myself got the Périphérique. But oh-no - Waze knew even better! There's a relatively new bypass on the west side of Paris the A86. But ............ several tunnels have a 2m height limit and we were - hmmmm, definitely over 2m (with the kayak on the roof). This first clicked when we drove under a warning barrier that said 2m (we didn't actually touch it so it must have been nearer to 3m high) but Mrs DM and I locked eyes and together thought "did that say 2m - how high are we?". 50m later there was another barrier at a toll booth that most definitely was set at 2m. Oh dear. Well it seems that we were not the first high vehicle to get this far as the designers had helpfully provided an escape lane. We only had to cross 6 lines of traffic queuing at the toll booths. Heads hung in shame, and avoiding eye contact, we escaped. To be spewed out into the Paris suburbs without a detailed map and with a sat nav that helpfully attempted to take us back to the A86 again, and again, and again.....................

So it was back to basics navigating on a vague sense of direction and looking for signs to towns / areas which were vaguely in the right direction and continually avoiding tunnels. What seemed like many hours later we escaped Paris and were en route for our first stopover in Orleans (one of the reasons we tested the beam adjustment (see earlier).

Several lessons were learned.
1. always avoid Paris (no really...... always)
2. know the exact height of your vehicle - 'what do you reckon.........?' when approaching a concrete lintel doesn't really cut it.
3. find a satnav that you can set a height limit on (is there one)?
4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. always avoid Paris

You can buy SatNavs for HGV/Motorhome use that can take account of Height/Weight limits. Don't know how well they work abroad. Yes, the A86 is interesting.

 

[Dave650]

We had exactly the same Paris experience last year with bikes on the top of the car. Very irritating eventually the sat nav forgot about the tunnel.

 

[DM]

We had exactly the same Paris experience last year with bikes on the top of the car. Very irritating eventually the sat nav forgot about the tunnel.

Haha - yes. About half way to Orleans .

 

[Jay586]

You can buy SatNavs for HGV/Motorhome use that can take account of Height/Weight limits. Don't know how well they work abroad. Yes, the A86 is interesting.

My nephew is a HGV driver. When he was new at it, we spent a bit if time with street view, getting a specific HGV sat nav & a paper road atlas. Have quite a lot of bridge strikes in Wales...

Great blog. Well written. (-:

 

[DM]

I've still got lots of ideas for future topics but if you want to know about any particular aspect of our trip let me know and I'll move it up the list.

 

[JohnnyP]

I've still got lost of ideas for future topics but if you want to know about any aspect of our trip let me know and I'll move it up the list.

I would be really interested to know the route, stop over locations and journey times through France to the Corsica ferry, I have wanted to visit Corsica for years and I started looking at a trip next year but the driving time is putting me off going in the Cali.

 

[OCCALI]

I've still got lots of ideas for future topics but if you want to know about any particular aspect of our trip let me know and I'll move it up the list.

Route across France and time taken please. Plus which ferry, times and options. A place I will visit....

 

[Hotel California]

Priority from right is very common in Europe.

 

[DM]

10. So where exactly is Corsica?
So "Where are you going on Holiday?" everyone asked. "Corsica " we replied.
- " is that near Majorica?'
- "oh Greece!"
- "How hot is it in Turkey in July?"
- isn't that an island?" - Halleluja !

I was amazed how few people knew where Corsica is and that it is French. I could perhaps forgive people assuming it is Italian - it probably should be from a geographical perspective - but how could you not know it's an Island. I mean didn't everybody watch Le Grand Depart in the 100th edition of the Tour de France in 2013?

So why Corsica? Inspiration from this forum of course. We wanted to do a long-ish trip somewhere hot-ish - and I'm a sucker for ferries and Islands. I mean its not a proper holiday if you don't cross water is it? So Corsica it was.

After our manic 80 hour dash to Salzburg and back last year we were determined that the journey should be more leisurely. So we booked a Dover - Calais ferry early afternoon on Thursday and an overnight ferry from Nice to Bastia on Saturday night. I usually spend weeks poring over maps and planning routes but work has been a bit manic recently so 24 hours before we set-off I had no idea what route we would take or where we would stopover. I'm not sure exactly when we did decide our stopovers - it could have been on the ferry! But we opted for Orleans and Avignon. Two historical French cities that we had heard of but never been to.

Our route was roughly as follows:



So (adding on 3 hours from home to Dover) that's 17 hours driving in 3 days - should be a doddle ................

Well - the Calais ferry was late, and you've heard about Paris, and you've heard about our experiences with AutoRoute tolls - which resulted in me stubbornly avoiding Autoroutes for most of Friday! So a week later.........

Actually it wasn't so bad, although we did reach our overnight stops in both Orleans and Avignon after 10pm each night and only had time for a quick supermarket shop in Nice before catching the overnight ferry to Corsica. Driving times were roughly:

Home to Dover - 3 hours
Calais to Orleans - 5 hours (inc Paris)
Orleans to Avignon - 9 hours ( to save about 20 Euros - duh)
Avignon to Nice - 3 hours

We spent a good morning in each of Orleans and Avignon and these times included fuel and brew-up stops.

It was a long way - but only the leg to Avignon was really hard work and that would have been much easier if we'd just have stuck to the autoroutes. But we visited two fascinating new French cities on the way.

We also wasted a bit of time looking for overnight stops but found two good ones in the end. We used the Camperstops book for the first time. More about that in a future post.

 

[WelshGas]

Time I ordered mine. Did so with the link and got the discount

Mike

Running out of room on my windscreen.
7 Tag, French Tag, Italian Tag, German Emissions Disc and French Emissions Disc and lastly Swiss Vignette.

Thank goodness DVLA got rid of the Road Fund Tax Disc

 

[T6 CFO]

Running out of room on my windscreen.
7 Tag, French Tag, Italian Tag, German Emissions Disc and French Emissions Disc and lastly Swiss Vignette.

Thank goodness DVLA got rid of the Road Fund Tax Disc

Yep we should have known there was a dastardly plan to use up the space.

Mike

 

[bvddobb]

Ready for the off.
View attachment 23477
We were well loaded - sea kayak on the roof and two bikes on the back. I'll post about racks and loading methods in due course.

Interesting that you have the canoe upside up... We always had canoes upside down on our roof! Better aerodynamics, we thought, lower (the bow an stern pointing downwards), and no rain catching...

 

[DM]

Interesting that you have the canoe upside up... We always had canoes upside down on our roof! Better aerodynamics, we thought, lower (the bow an stern pointing downwards), and no rain catching...

Three reasons.
1. Sea Kayaks decks are covered in hatch covers / deck lines etc which mean they do not sit easily easily upside down.
2. The hull is much stronger than the deck so less likely to be damaged by the bars / carriers than the deck when strapped down.

And the killer reason

3. I can't open the tailgate fully when it is upside down.

Aerodynamically I don't believe it makes much difference if carried upright or upside down. I do believe that either of these is much better than on it's side. Yes it's a bit higher but once you go over 2.1m it doesn't really make much difference. Rain catching is avoided by using a cockpit cover.

 

[DM]

the driving time is putting me off

I can't deny that it's a long way but its so worth it once you get there. Corsica is Cali heaven . The roads in the cap, west coast and much of the interior are too narrow, windy and steep for big motorhomes (or indeed lorries). We saw loads of VW campers though - most of them Calis. All sorts of nationalities. We saw French, Swiss, German, Swedish, Danish, Italian and Slovakian Calis - no other Brits though, Don't think we saw a single other UK registered vehicle in Corsica.

 

[jts46]

In many parts of France Priority to the right is common in towns so beware!!!

 

[CYCLOPATH]

9. Navigating Paris
I've driven through France many times heading for the Alpine piste (winter) or rivers (summer) or the west coast beaches. You'd have thought that experience would have taught me about Paris. It has - I have a rule - avoid driving anywhere near Paris except at 6am on a Sunday morning when it can be tolerable. So why ...................

Stupidly I over-ruled common sense by my other rule which is to make a round trip of any journey - so Paris it was. Having just been stung by motorway tolls I steeled myself for the Périphérique. But non-non - Waze knew even better! There's a relatively new bypass on the west side of Paris the A86. But ............ several tunnels have a 2m height limit and we were - hmmmm, definitely over 2m (with the kayak on the roof). This first clicked when we drove under a warning barrier that said 2m (we didn't actually touch it so it must have been nearer to 3m high) but Mrs DM and I locked eyes and together thought "did that say 2m - how high are we?". 50m later there was another barrier at a toll booth that most definitely was set at 2m. Oh dear. Well it seems that we were not the first high vehicle to get this far as the highway designers had helpfully provided an escape lane. And we only had to cross 6 lines of traffic queuing at the toll booths to get to it. Heads hung in shame, and avoiding eye contact, we escaped. To be spewed out into the Paris suburbs without a detailed map and with a sat nav that helpfully attempted to take us back to the A86 again, and again, and again.....................

So it was back to basics navigating on a vague sense of direction and looking for signs to towns / areas which were vaguely in the right direction and continually avoiding tunnels. What seemed like many hours later we escaped Paris and were en route for our first stopover in Orleans (one of the reasons we tested the beam adjustment (see earlier).

Several lessons were learned.
1. always avoid Paris (no really...... always)
2. know the exact height of your vehicle - 'what do you reckon.........?' when approaching a concrete lintel doesn't really cut it.
3. find a satnav that you can set a height limit on (is there one)?
4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 & 10. always avoid Paris

We did those tunnels on my first long cali trip a few years back...it is scarey, especially at 70. I was literally ducking when we passed under some of the signs

 

[CYCLOPATH]

I've still got lots of ideas for future topics but if you want to know about any particular aspect of our trip let me know and I'll move it up the list.

Just keep it coming, I am enjoying this DM, and picking up ideas for the future. Thanks

 

[hirsty]

Hilarious how we go to this much trouble to cart our 'leisure equipment' all that way ...

I've been to a cycling event with a pal in Italy three years running (twice van, flew middle year) and, whilst it's the whole excuse for the trip, the cycling part is incidental in the grand scheme of things & the whole transport of them is such a PITA!

 

[hirsty]

Any pics of Avignon & Orleans DM? As you say, have driven past many times but never stopped off...

Last year we got from the Tunnel to nearly Dijon before wanting to stop, but we randomly chose Beaune instead as a smaller regional town stop-over rather than Dijon as a bigger city - really pretty & much more laid back for al fresco dinner & a wander.