Well, we have found yet another great place to stop. A pleasant drive of only about 36 miles brought us to Charleville Mezieres. The aire is next to a campsite and is free to stay on, you have to pay 5.60 if you want electricity though - we decided we could manage without it, not surprisingly.
We are parked right by a marina and only a 5 minute walk away from the town. This is a busy aire and we were lucky to get a place, about 8 vans here altogether.
We quickly got to know our neighbours, a British couple from Manchester - Albert and Jean. They told us how to find our way into town and we were soon off to explore. Focal point of the town is Place Ducale, a large square surrounded by interesting sandstone buildings housing many restaurants and shops.
Talking of shops there is something for everyone here, loads of shops of all descriptions, many of them lining a pedestrianised street. Luckily for my wallet many of the shops were closed, this being a Sunday.
Once back at the van we had lunch up at the campsite cafe and spent the rest of the day sitting outside chatting to Albert and Jean, very friendly couple. We don't want to do it all time but its often very nice to meet friendly Brititsh motorhomers and chat about our respective journeys.
10th September
Albert and Jean are on the move today and were away by about 09.00, heading vaguely north. My main objective this morning is to find a dentist. I chipped a tooth last night and then this morning a bit of filling fell out of the same tooth. I decided I couldn't wait till we get back to the UK to have it seen to.
I went to the tourist office to ask if they knew of a dentist that speaks English. To be honest I thought they might have been asked this before and have the info handy but no, they had to make a lot of phone calls before they found a dentist that would see me today and could speak some English.
The dentists surgery was right in town and we were there in a couple of minutes. For this dentist to claim he speaks English is a very great exagerration but we managed to communicate. I was a little apprehensive when he got the dreaded drill ready to go but in the end I didn't feel a thing and he just smoothed out my tooth well enough for me to be able to wait till we get home to have it seen to properly.
I had got some extra cash out of an atm expecting to have to pay for my treatment, quite understandably. When the dentist followed me out to his reception though his assistant was not there to process any payment so he just said there was no charge, fantastic.
I was very grateful to the dentist of course so I did the decent thing and bought him a good bottle of wine plus a tin of biscuits for the charming ladies in the tourist information office.
More shopping to do now so it was off to the supermarket again. On the way back we remembered we did not buy any ice cream so you can guess who's job it was to go back to the shop while someone sat at cafe having a coke.
Lynda had been our for her jog this morning and said the adjacent park is very pleasant so we went off to have a look round. All very neat and well kept with loads of things for kids to do.
After lunch and a bit of a rest we went to have a look round the rest of the town. Its quite a lot bigger than we had thought and it took us quite a long time to just explore a small part.
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| Very keen on their rowing in this neck of the woods |
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| More rowers on the Meuse |
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| Place Ducale |
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| View of the marina from our van. You can seen how few boats are here, must have been a bad year for tourism. |
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| This is Albert, our neighbour. I get the idea his wife Jean is not too keen on having her photo taken. If you are reading this Albert and Jean - let us know what you are up to. |
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| Sunday is......cake day! |
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| View of aire from the other side of the marina |
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| Out for a walk in the park |
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| They are very keen on puppets (and strange figures) in this town for some reason |
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| Police officers on pushbikes, what a novel idea |
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