Arriving in France, and how to get there!
Fast forward a few months from my last chapter to New Years Day 2015. It was 4 degrees outside, we had a hundred unopened boxes due to arrive the following day in 2 vans but we’d made it, we were finally French residents.
After what felt like a lifetime of planning, forgetting all about it for a while, then trying to put France out of our minds and become corporate animals, then realising we were not corporate animals and we actually did want to move to France, we had done. We’d eventually succeeded in doing what a very small percentage of the population manage to achieve. We had a dream, planned it out, stuck to it, kept chasing the dream, took the opportunity to ‘jump ship’ when it presented itself, and eventually, we realised the dream that first started being shaped some 6 years earlier.
Just because something has never been done before, does not mean it can’t be done.
The journey from Yorkshire to Sud-Charente was fairly uneventful on the day we left our home of 10 years just outside Harrogate in North Yorkshire, England. We said our final goodbyes, not knowing when, or indeed if, we would see any of our friends again, made sure the car was as full as possible, and off we went. Top box full, car boot full of bags and suitcases, tow-bar bike rack full with 5 bikes. 2 kids and 2 adults inside the car, too many sweets and books to fit in, not enough leg room in the back. Usual drill for a family road trip in other words!
We looked at a few options for the best route to take, so if you’re wondering about this for your own journey, we found the easiest was to drive from Yorkshire down the A1 in the morning, then hit the motorways around London early afternoon (only a couple of junctions on the M25), then head down to Folkestone for an early evening channel tunnel train ride to Calais. Once over the other side of the channel, the drive from Calais and across the top of France to Rouen takes a couple of hours, or thereabouts. Avoid driving through Paris at all costs, is what every single other person here has ever told us!!
Following an overnight stay at one of many great Logis hotels just off the autoroute surrounding Rouen, we hit the road again at 9am, after eating what was an amazing and very authentic French (continental) breakfast (start of day 2). Keeping on the autoroutes, using their fantastic Aire de (service stations) for food and water, toilet breaks, stretching the legs, the drive down south was made very easy as we headed towards Le Mans. Paying to drive on the French autoroutes is not that cheap, but it is definitely worth it in my opinion. The roads are super quiet, very well maintained, and the standard of the Aire de is first class.
After driving the 2 hours from Rouen to Le Mans, we then headed down towards Poitiers (another 2 hours south) and then a further 2 hours south of Poitiers to Angouleme. From there we went on local N and D roads to get to our home town, towards the bottom of the Charente.
Extremely tired, but excited to have finally made it, we arrived late in the evening of day 2 at the house we had rented and which we hoped would be our home for at least the next year or 2. After having a run around our new over-sized garden, exploring the dusty and slightly under-used basement, we crashed out and didn’t surface until some time the following morning (day 3 — New Years Day 2015).
First job was to walk into town, find an open cafe or boulangerie, buy some croissants and pain au chocolate (or chocolatine as they’re known locally) and have my first ever espresso. In fact, my first ever coffee of any description! I’d promised Fran and some other friends that I would try coffee upon moving to France, so here I was, giving it a go in the worst possible way!! No latte and 6 sugars for me, if I do something I go all in or not all. In the words of Master Yoda:
In hindsight maybe the latte and 6 sugars may have been a better plan, because my reaction to the espresso was, well, lets just say I found it quite unpleasant (understatement of the year, it still makes me gag just thinking of the taste) and I won’t be drinking coffee again any time soon!
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Route planning update!
Since we took the original journey we found a much faster, easier route from Yorkshire to Sud-Charente.
Drive down the M1 then head off it around Oxford, past Silverstone, down to Portsmouth and get the 3 hour mid-afternoon Ferry to Caen.
I would highly recommend you watch a film at the cinema on board, its great, also pay the £30 or so for a cabin with 2 bunk beds (4 beds) and a bathroom, it’s well worth it for storing your things and saves carrying coats, ipads, rucksacks etc around the whole boat with you. Plus the cabin is perfect for having a cheeky sleep before you hit France, and the kids always get excited by having a little room to go back and visit now and again!
From Caen you have a 5 hour drive (plus stoppage time) south to the Angouleme area via Le Mans and Poitiers. It’s mostly all autoroute until you get close to Angouleme, so the same comments as above apply regarding road conditions, paying tolls, using the Air de, and so on.
If you get on the road from Yorkshire very early and get a morning ferry, it is possible to drive to the south of Charente in the same day (approximately 1000 km). It’s a long day, not one you want to do all the time, but it is doable so worth bearing this in mind when you make your road trip plans! Other than that, this is a decent 2 day trip, with an overnight stay somewhere around Le Mans at the end of day 1.
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Ok, that’s it for this chapter. I will be back next week to explain what we did next, after day 1 of our new life in a completely new country, where we knew zero people, had no job, no real grasp of the language, not very much money and all of your worldly possessions in a hundred boxes around our ears!!
