We never did have the planning session. Sarah got up at 8am, had breakfast, then went back to bed. I had breakfast as I predicted between 9:40 and 10:00, then went back to my room because I couldn't find anyone. Keith missed breakfast altogether. To be fair, Keith did say yesterday that he hadn't made a hotel breakfast in 11 years.
"To be fair" is Keith's favourite phrase, which I've deliciously hamstrung him in by pointing out as much. Now he blames his use on me! I like to think the phrase is a reflection of Keith's agreeable character more than his resonse to the outrageously unbalanced statements it sometimes amuses me to make. In either case, those are the blows.
So we met haphazardly at the bus at about 11:30am and set off without much discussion toward Rouen.
Once we agreed upon the fact of our hunger, we still missed or ignored a few suitable places for lunch. This continued until we swept past a fighter jet mounted at the roadside, with a relais behind. This turned out to be the Aeroclub de la terre de la Seine, where we each had the 16 EUR menu. Whatever we ordered, it came with the same hash-brown-like discs, veggies and mushroom. We didn't mind, and none of us had space for dessert.
On to Rouen, and we have to do 2 laps of the town before we can find a non-underground parking place. Keith told a story of one such claiming 4.4m headroom at the entrance, but only 4.1m at the exit. Such dazzling lack of foresight leading to a long queue and a long reverse.
Parked, we take a beer and I learn that neither of the others has brought a raincoat on the trip. I run back for mine when it starts to drizzle, and end up wetter from humidity and perspiration than they get from the rain.
We take in a beer at a hostelry in the "Rue de la Grand Horloge" (road of the big clock - how romantic). We have a beer delicately called Delirium Tremens and served through pumps topped by a row of 12 ceramic pink elephants.
Most interesting thing we see in Rouen is the building now filling the square where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. It has swooping rooves reminiscent of a dragon's scales and tail. Most of it is a church, with a fish market beside, all in the same style.
We make it back to the Cathedral for the laser light show we're looking forward to, only to find it's cancelled in September apart from 2 days (neither being today).
Having rung and been told that the camp site in Les Andelys doesn't close until "22 hours", we happily turn up at 21:30 to be told that new arrivals had to be present before 18:00. The man lets us in grumpily.
I'm not sure who he was grumpiest at - us or, with the campsite almost empty, the people he put us right next to - a bicycling couple who were already in bed in their tent before we arrived. First we spoke softly and earned a rebuke from a ghost in a dressing gown. Then we whispered and their tent emitted grumbles when we latched a car door as quietly as we were able, or zipped up tents to turn in.
Sleeping hasn't turned out as simple as advertised. The bus turns into (effectively) bunk beds. Keith said he and Sarah would share one while I went in the other. I based my packing on that, bringing a tent as a last resort.
Unfortunately, Keith hadn't consulted Sarah. The tent is now essential accomodation for one of us each time we camp. We'll enjoy it in rotation, which seems more than fair given the situation.
Despite the inadvisability of trying to erect an unfamiliar tent in the dark, my memory returns, it's up in 10 minutes and Sarah takes up residence.
The campsite is below Chateau Gaillard, a now-half-ruined castle on a commanding height over the river that was one of the last obstacles to the unification of France. In the morning we take a brief tour and imagine how things were.
Next is a trip to the house and gardens of Claude Monet. On the way there we divert in Vernon, following signs for a LeClerc hypermarket, where we get food, kit and particularly the wine we'd have liked last night. We look out for hot, ready-to-eat pizza, which some hypermarkets sell, but come up empty and make a pragmatic decision for traditional French regional McDonald's, as the time is getting on.
Monet's house is interesting mainly because it contains very many paintings, all of them in Japanese style. Sarah says it's related to Orientalism, a passion in France lasting into the early 20th Century. The garden is the main attraction for me, though - a blaze of colour to excite the senses when seen in the morning from the great man's bedroom window.
We head off, aiming to reach Blois by evening. We ring the nearest campsite listed in the Lonely Planet guidebook. They shut for new arrivals at 7pm and there's no way we can reach it until 8:30pm.
The last leg before Blois is all motorway, so we don't see any campsites on that. We arrive in the centre of Blois and find the tourist office predictably shut. However, we think ourselves lucky when a nearby shop window has a touch-sensitive window with a computer monitor behind. We see details of a few campsites before settling on one that sounds large and close by.
I say "we think ourselves lucky" because what follows is two hours of traipsing around looking for it. We find one campsite with directions from many customers of a bar in Vineuil, but it's locked up and deserted. We find a few more areas with numbers of parked caravans. However, it's the flat-bed trucks parked beside that finally help us decide these are gypsies rather than tourists.
The shop window also told us that there's an area for camper vans to camp on the quayside. We go there and even find a space, but Keith decides sitting in a dark tarmac car park jammed between other vans isn't his idea of camping.
We give up and ring the Hotel Du Bellay from the guidebook. We do eventually reach it, despite the TomTom satnav trying to send the bus through pedestrian areas and up long flights of steps. My room is modest and clean, even if the room containing the sink and w.c. is not in the best state of repair.
After passing several restaurants busy closing, we find a bar that sells food until 11 and beer until well after midnight. The main topic of conversation is the progress we're making toward heading south. We need to make more miles tomorrow, but that makes it difficult to get into campsites (our preferred option, when possible, to keep the budget down).
On our way back to the hotel, we find a statue that some wags have equipped with a broom, etc. Sleep isn't long in coming.
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