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Family camping holiday touring France in an Austin Seven Summer 2018...
#75
"Moving swiftly on"  -  not something that was really possible on this trip!

A few of the party-goers had set up camp in the field and appeared, bleary-eyed, just in time to wave us off.  A quick stop at the village cafe/meeting point/bakers etc. to get bread for the day ahead and we were off - Chateau-Region in our sights!

   

The steering felt strange and the car a little loose on the road, I spoke to the girls about moving about too much as the rear end seemed twitchy.  I stopped to check, all seemed well, and carried on.

Suddenly the rear tyre blew, the car lurched towards the ditch and I held on tight.  The car stopped quickly, we were not in a good place to deal with the repair and so everyone except me decanted on to the verge whilst I drove carefully along the grass edge to a driveway some 100 yds. ahead.  Even here the road was faster than I was comfortable with and, whilst working out what I might do, a lady appeared, opened the gate to her garden and ushered us in!  She brought a table, benches, offered us to stay in her caravan (if it could not be fixed) and generally was quite wonderful!  This little haven provide a space for an early lunch whilst I swapped out the tube for another.  Quite proud that I had not needed a tyre lever to  complete the job I was disheartened to find the tube did not hold air!  I set about a second change and was relieved to find the second spare did!

   

   

We thanked the lady for her help and thought how wonderful it was to meet such people in life.

A few hours later we arrived in the town of Blere, just south of Amboise - a large Brocante was on and we were able to walk around to view the remains of the stalls just before they packed up for home.  The site here was larger than most we had stayed on and, for the first time in a month, we saw UK registered cars and heard people speaking English - it felt strange and we found ourselves keeping a low profile...

4 years previous we had made friends with a German family in Roy Bridge, Scotland.  We were in our Austin Twelve and they in a 1960's Eriba Caravan.  We spent only a few days together at that time but had stayed in touch.  Their Facebook status announced that, remarkably, they were only 6 miles from us.  We exchanged messages and met the next morning for coffee.  They were heading to Northern Spain and we were able to recommend campsites and sites which they visited the next week.

From their campsite we travelled East to Blois and then the mighty Chambord.  Our last visit here was in the '29 Tourer whilst on Honeymoon, we were keen for the girls to see this remarkable place.  They were quite taken with the enormity - Daisy particularly so.  She spent a long time exploring the double staircase allegedly designed by Leonardo Da Vinci (see: https://www.pariscityvision.com/en/franc.../staircase).

   

   

   

We stayed most of the afternoon at Chambord before heading a little way up the Loire to Beaugeney where we rented a bungalow-tent for the night and met a Belgium family cycling through France and spent several hours comparing our lightweight camping gear whilst the children compared modes of transport!

   

   
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RE: Family camping holiday touring France in an Austin Seven Summer 2018... - by Ruairidh Dunford - 30-08-2018, 08:40 AM

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