29 May 2016

Our Sunday morning lie-in was interrupted by yet another baker’s van, this time with a loud horn instead of the annoying siren, why doesn’t anyone buy bread at the supermarcado!!

As we were up and about Neil decided it would be cruel to park right next to a swimming pool with huge visible flumes and not take Lucy for a dip. I stayed to guard the van an complete domestic chores while Neil and Lucy ventured into the speedo wearing only pool. They actually stayed there far longer than I predicted, Lucy loved even the dark vertical flume and went on it a few times.

As the rain poured down the ducks on the river decided the aire was the place to be, surrounded by ducks Dug was going nuts barking at every window of our van till I let him out to scare them away.

From Charleville-Mezières we moved on, grabbing the Camperstop book we again had no idea where we were going to stop but we knew the direction we were heading (sort of).

We pulled up in an aire in Nismes, it had good reviews and was in a town with bars, shops and restaurants. The parking turned out to be occupied by a travelling funfair, our parking space was right next to the bumper cars. We quickly agreed we’d have lunch and move on.

Having recently watched Band of Brothers Bastogne jumped off the map and that is where we headed.

We arrived in a nice large car park with a huge dog walking field, plenty of space and best of all it was literally minutes from the centre of Bastonge and free.

We recced the town for a restaurant for our evening meal and took a look-around in day light, surprisingly all the shops were open late into the evening. The town square had a funny farmers, agricultural fair with a petting farm – I had a photo with a large cock and Lucy stroked the horses and rabbits.

We purchased odd beers in Le Nutts bar, an Airborne 101 beer seemed to be the one to go for but it came out looking like Guinness in a china cup, Neil went for a Quack followed by a Horny beer while I tried to stick to the lager! We’d be rolling back to the van.

After a brief pop back to let the dogs have another walk and put trousers on we found another Italian restaurant for really good meal. Bastogne is definitely on the list of places we’d go back, hopefully on future trips we could spend more time and go round the museums not just the bars.

Overnight Location (Free of Charge) – Bastogne Aire