Le grand camping tour part 1- Day 1 to 2- French campsite,,Belgium, Luxenbourg City and German sausages

I'm not sure in what order I am going to do my holiday photos and posts but I thought I'd share a few posts on our week in Germany and France.

We travelled by car after school and caught a 7pm-ish tunnel to France. We decided to camp the first night in France otherwise we'd be putting up the tent in the dark in Germany.

The campsite was La Chaumiere: http://www.campinglachaumiere.com/UK/presentation.html  in Buysscheurre which was just under an hour's drive from Calais.

I would recommend it pretty highly for a few reasons:
Firstly, we turned up at around 10pm and the reception was still open to receive us. Then, they were willing to serve us a 3-course dinner in their very nice restaurant.

We were led by the owner to our own little campsite- it was so much nicer than I usually think of campsites being- you had your own area surrounded by bushes and your own tap and electric link-up plug. These places were all situated around the toilet block which had free hot showers, bathrooms, washrooms, washing-up rooms and laundry.

The site was very well-maintained and it has lots of facilities, a fishing pond, swimming pool and nice grounds to walk around. It is rural but not too far from a village.

We enjoyed our 3-course meal. They were more than willing to offer a vegetarian alternative to CBC and his brother (my stereotypical image of France says that is not the most usual..) . I had a delicious beef stew with salad and French fries after melon and Prosciutto.

Whilst we waited for our courses, we explored the restaurant and communal social area. It was full of photos and had a bookcase and a brilliant set of wooden handmade games as well as a Football table and Pingpong. It was rather like the Medieval Zone in the Crystal Maze- I wish I had taken photos! My favourite was a hangman's scaffold with a wooden ball hanging from string that you had to swing to knock down pins within the box below!

We set up one tent that night and had a comfy night's sleep.

The next morning, waking up was hilarious.  I am used to bird song, but this place was something else. The dawn-chorus began and one by one, another bird with yet another type of bird call joined in until there was an absolute racket.  CBC and I suddenly realised each other was awake and were smirking about the orchestra around us and suddenly a Cuckoo started and we started laughing. Then a cockerel started and we admitted defeat! I wish I had had a recording device and it had been 30 Day's wild, because that would have been a brilliant activity to do! It was brilliantly sunny so I suspect it would have been hard to keep sleeping.

CBC made us some porridge on the jetboil gas but unfortunately didn't stir it so by the time WKWTTG and I had returned from respective showers, it was burnt and I truly have never tasted such foul tasting porridge! WKWTTG and I flatly refused to eat it so CBC nobly ate it all!

After leaving the campsite, we drove the nearest town where we located a patisserie for breakfast.

I had this delicious looking cake which was a biscuity/pastry base with a layer of custard, 3 profiteroles and cream.  I also bought a ficelle, a small baguette to nibble on.

CBC and his brother bought 2 pastries each.

We were heading for the Black Forest, a place called Enzklosterl where the campsite Mullerwiese was. The Satnav gave us 2 routes- via France or via Belgium and Luxenbourg so we decided to take the latter-route for interest and also to avoid French toll roads, thinking also that lunch in Luxenbourg would be good.

 Luxenbourg was like any typical European city would be if you visited it for merely an hour. We had a look around and ended up having lunch in an organic cafe.

As we left the cafe, the heavens opened and we were drenched by the time we had reached the car.

We reached the campsite Muellerwiese when it was about 8pm-ish and by the time we had put up the tent, it was dark so we headed off in search of food. The village was rather small and most restaurants had shut or stopped serving. We found one restaurant that was willing to serve us cold food from one page of their menu so we went in there.

 WKWTTG ordered a cheese platter which was certainly not shy of cheese but didn't seem to recognise salad. It was tasty.

 CBC ordered what he thought was a sausage salad (he was going to pick out the sausage.) but unfortunately THIS turned up.  He nobly and politely worked his way through it but I confess, I looked horrified at it!

My own cheese and ham salad turned looking like spaghetti. It was rather meaty!!! The restaurant were very kind to serve us this late  so we were grateful to eat. They gave us each a little pack of ham as a souvenir of the restaurant. How sweet but our hearts inwardly sank slightly as we contemplated days without vegetables- vegetables forming the large part of our respective diets!!!!

Come back soon for Day 2 proper of our trip and find out about the sumptuous spa and enchanted forest walk.


xx