Day #: 18-25
Summary: Arriving in Frankfurt, we immediately picked up our van, Chickpea, and drove 7 hours to the Paris suburbs as we had an appointment the following day to have our leaky refrigerator replaced with a new one under warranty. Fueled by adrenaline and protein bars, we made the trip in record time as there was NO TRAFFIC at all in Paris. We dropped off our luggage at our gite in Auvers-sur-Oise and then delivered the van to the dealership for the appointment the following day. Our gite (https://latelier-auvers.fr/) was as lovely as we remembered from our visit in 2024. From our gite, we Ubered into Paris including going all the way to the tippy top of the Eiffel Tower. We also visited the Versailles Gardens which we loved and Versailles Palace which we hated. Then we set out traveling to the west to pick up where we left off last year when we ferried over to Ireland. We meandered through small villages and communes mainly in Brittany before ending up on the Corzon Peninsula which reminded us of Wales, UK in terms of climate and geography but mainly the heavy Celtic influence. We continue our “freebird” style of planning what to do the night before and we are enjoying the spontaneity this allows us.
Location(s) Visited: Auvers-sur-Oise, Paris, Versailles, Dreux, Sainte-Suzanne, Le Faou, Landevennec, Morgat France
Overall Impression of Location(s): Auvers-sur-Oise = 4, Paris = 3, Versailles Palace = 1, Versailles Gardens = 3, Dreux = 1, Sainte-Suzanne = 3, Le Faou = 3, Landevennec = 2, Morgat = 3
4 -added to our favorite list and we would return again
3 – a great place to visit
2 – OK for one visit, but we would not return again
1 – we wish we hadn’t wasted our time here
Distance Driven on Leg/Trip: 1,286
Weather/Temperature (°F): Variable. It is still solidly spring in this part of Europe with daytime temperatures between 60-68 and nighttime temperatures 35-42. This is the season where we are constantly hot – cold. Hot when the sun is shining, cold when the clouds roll into the area. There has been much more rain than we anticipated, including several very heavy storms. Luckily, the storms have not completely ruined an entire day for us and we have been able to get out for at least a few hours in good weather each day.
Road Conditions: Typical. We had quite some distance to travel between Frankfurt and Paris, so we drove on the Autobahn and the French tollways. Our Fulli toll pass worked perfectly and negates us from having to stop and get a ticket/pay a toll. Overall, the roads, highway and local, are in much better condition than the US or Canada roads.
Chickpea Mechanical Status: Chickpea started up after being in storage for 6 months without any issues. This van drives like a dream and we really appreciate all the safety features it has. We have 2 issues: 1) we need to replace the SOG carbon filter as it is not doing a very good job anymore with odors, 2) our new fridge installed on this trip under warranty is not working as it should. On Day 7, we started to hear a continuous running/boiling water sound inside the refrigerator and it is not cooling quite to the temperatures it should be. Boo! Our Hymer dealership has sent our video to Thetford (the refrigerator manufacturer) and we are awaiting a response.
Highlights:
Our gîte in Auvers-sur-Oise is simply a lovely place to stay and the owners, Catherine and Jean-Marc, who live on-site epitomize hospitality. We can just squeeze Chickpea through the gate and maneuver it into the assigned parking place, but just. Château d’ Auvers is 50 feet from the gîte and we went to the new Van Gogh (not pronounced van go, but vahn gawk) Influencer exhibit which we enjoyed. We walked more of the Artist Walk, to the grocery store and down to the weekly Farmer’s Market. This is a lovely quintessential French town that feels very local and very French. We absolutely love it there.
While the Eiffel Tower is a popular tourist stop, we immensely enjoyed our visit. We purchased an official guided tour from the Eiffel Tower directly (not from a tour company), which just started being offered in 2024. Our guide, Frederico, took us on a 2-hour tour including to see the hydraulics used for the lifts, up to the 2nd floor and then all the way up to the tippy top (3rd floor) at ~1000 feet. With our guide being employed by the Eiffel Tower, we bypassed the long lines and it made for a much more enjoyable experience. Frederico shared interesting history and stories about the Eiffel Tower and even had a book full of photographs to illustrate his points. It was a delightful tour and we learned a lot and were very glad we purchased these tickets as it helped us avoid long lines and crowds.
Now that we are back in France, Tony’s daily baguette from a local boulangerie has resumed and Tracey is eating copious amount of bright red, sweet and juicy local strawberries as we are in peak season. The food is just so much better in Europe from a quality perspective. Our bodies feel better eating over here, too.
We booked a boat tour (https://www.sirenes.bzh/en/morgat/) while in Morgat to see the coast and some of the 400+ sea caves in the area. We cruised on their newest boat the Siren V which has a special design so when sailing there is an air pocket between the boat and the water making for a smooth experience. It is supposedly the first of its kind in France and it was quite comfortable. As the spoken tour portion was only in French, we both used Google’s Live Translate app on our phone and an ear bud and listening to the translation in real-time. Technology is amazing as the translation was very good. On our tour we saw sea caves, of course, but also interesting blue jellyfish.
Lowlights:
We know this might be a surprise but we both hated (and we don’t use that word lightly) Versailles Palace and wish we had never gone there. We enjoyed the Versailles Gardens and we would return there, but not to the Palace. We knew it was going to be crowded so we selected the time (4:30 pm) which is supposed to have the fewest people but what we got was shoulder-to-shoulder jam packed experience. There were probably 2000 people waiting in the courtyard to enter the Palace when we were queuing in our line and once inside it did not get any better. We had to queue for everything, even to go to the next room had a queue in the previous room. It was so crowded we could not even see the numbers of each room we were supposed to be entering to listen to the audio tour. We felt unsafe from a fire or emergency perspective as there were just too many people inside the Palace, in our opinion. Also, once in the Palace it is like Ikea, there is only 1 route to get out and we could not get out of there fast enough. Tracey loves photography and we can always tell how well we liked a place by the number of photographs she takes. At the Palace of Versailles that was 3 photographs and all were just to document the ridiculous crowds of people allowed into this place at the same time. We don’t think anybody can enjoy this experience in this type of environment, what a shame for a place we were really looking forward to visiting.
We really do love our van, Chickpea, but ugh on the new refrigerator. We were so excited when it was installed when we arrived as it was a newer model than the original and looked nice. Initially, it worked fine but about a week in it started, not being able to hold a cold enough temperature and we are now continually hearing a running/boiling water sound from inside the refrigerator. It will get fixed and we have complete confidence in our dealer; it is just the hassle of it all. One of the benefits of being on a “freebird” style road trip is that we can easily pivot as we have no concrete plans or reservations in the near future.
The museum, Breizh Odyssée Landévennec (https://www.breizh-odyssee.bzh/en/) is in a beautiful building and it has extensive multi-media displays; however, the shear amount of information and the level of detail of this information was overwhelming for non-French people to process without a basic historical foundation for this specific area. A lovely museum and repository for this important information, but too much for us to understand without specific previous knowledge. The weather has been a bit rainier than we anticipated or expected. We thought the weather would be like what we experienced last year in Ireland, but it has proven to be a bit cooler and a bit rainier than what we experienced there. We have raincoats, waterproof shoes and Tony has rain pants (Tracey’s were mistakenly “left” at home by somebody who shall not be named) so we have proper attire regardless.
Auvers-sur-Oise, France: We just love 😍 this village outside of Paris. It is exactly what we thought France would look and be like before we started traveling here. This is an area that many of the Impressionist artists were inspired by and it is not hard to see why. 
Auvers-sur-Oise, France: Chateau d’Auvers has magical gardens and grounds and it is located <1 minute walk from our gite. The Chateau itself had a new Van Gogh exhibit which we enjoyed although Tracey liked the previous exhibit a bit better. 
Auvers-sur-Oise, France: We bring hard to find items over with us each trip inside several Home Depot moving boxes. Tracey had unpacked all her wares and was now second-guessing herself as to where she was going to put all this stuff in our tiny van! Spoiler: She fit it all in using some Houdini maneuvers. 
Paris, France: We weren’t sure if we would like the Eiffel Tower or whether it would feel “too touristy” but we really enjoyed our tour. There are only 12 English tickets each day for the Eiffel Tower guided tour to the top and Tracey set an alarm clock to make sure she was online the moment they were released. Their tickets sell out quickly/instantaneously per our guide so we were lucky. 
Paris, France: Highly recommend taking the guided tour to the top of the Eiffel Tower as our guide, Frederico, was very passionate and put everything into context for us. Within Paris proper, no buildings can be taller than the Eiffel tower, so all of the skyscrapers are outside the city. 
Paris, France: The Eiffel Tower is in the process of being repainted (old color on left and new color on the right). Normally this takes 2 years to complete but this cycle is currently in year 5 and it is still not finished. During this cycle it was decided the metal on the Eiffel Tower would be scraped and sanded down to the bare metal before being repainted. There are 19 coats of paint on the Eiffel Tower and many contain lead so the scraping and painting can only be done at night so all the errant lead chips can be remediated before the crowds arrive. 
Paris, France: We did not know the top of the Eiffel Tower was previously a scientific research station. The structure was only supposed to remain erect for a limited number of years after the World’s Fair, but Eiffel “found” another purpose for it by allowing radio antennas to be placed on the top. 
Paris, France: There are elevator/lifts on top of each concrete footing of the Eiffel Tower and they are operated using massive counterweights and hydraulics. Our tour took us behind the scenes to see this in action. 
Paris, France (Montmarte): Located in the 18th arrondissement, this hilly neighborhood was once an artist enclave inhabited by Dali and Picasso. There are many sculptures including this one call the Invisible Man which Tracey particularly liked. 
Paris, France (Montmarte): We took a VoiceMap audio tour of this neighborhood after lunch at local vegan restaurant. This is the last and only vineyard left in Paris proper. 
Paris, France (Montmarte): The Basilique du Sacre-Coeur is a Catholic church which sits on the highest hill in Paris. It was an absolute madhouse with a mixture of tourists, vendors and scammers. The line to go into the church must have been 500+ people long so we did not go inside. The church is designed to look old but in reality is only ~100 years old. 
Paris, France (Montmarte): This photo depicts how many people were in the Montmarte area while we were there. While we did enjoy exploring, this was too many people in one place for our liking. 
Versailles Palace (France): Nope, we did not enjoy the Palace one bit. It was too crowded to even see anything or appreciate the grandeur of this building. Everybody looked miserable, not just us. 
Versailles Gardens (France): Yep, we did enjoy the gardens and did a lovely VoiceMaps audio tour of the grounds which are immense and filled with sculptures and interesting nooks and crannies. 
Dreux, France: We have revived Dutch Blitz (aka Dutchie) card game but had to break out a new set of cards for this game as the ones we had been playing with were soft and literally bent in the middle from so much shuffling. 
Sainte-Suzanne, France: One of Tony’s favorite activities is finding a different boulangerie (bread shop) each day. This one might have had his favorite baguette on this trip…but the search must continue. 
Sainte-Suzanne, France: We rode our Brompton bicycles right from our campsite to this castle and nobody else was there. This was the maiden voyage for our bikes after their tune-up last year and they are both working perfectly. We ♥ these bikes! 
Sainte-Suzanne, France: This village has been named one of the prettiest villages in all of France and it was indeed quite pretty. Tony wandered into this chocolate shop mistakenly after it was closed but the proprietor was gracious and sold us some of the best chocolate we have had in a long time. She sources all her own beans directly with the farmers and is an artisan in chocolate making. YUM! 
Faou, France: Tony is quite obsessed with the French bread and seems to have numerous bread photos on his phone each day. He seriously eats an entire baguette each day. No butter, no jam or any accoutrements, just straight up bread. 
Faou, France: This cute town in Brittany is known for their 16th century houses called corbelled which can only be seen in this town. 
Faou, France: In between rainstorms we were able to get out and properly explore this town on foot. We are seeing this style of steeple in most of the churches in this area which differs from those in other parts of France. 
Faou, France: We have been staying a Camping-car pitches, including this one right on the river. We were able to do a nice proper hike directly from our campground. 
Faou, France: We are not sure if this was 4 trees fused into 1 or 1 tree split into 4. 
Landevennec, France: We mistakenly went to the modern abbey first where there was a church service starting. We were swept into the church but only stayed for a few minutes of the actual service. We found the Ancient Abbey down the road. It was incredibly well preserved. 
Landevennec, France: While we did not enjoy the museum, Breizh Odyssée Landévennec itself due to the complexity of the information, we did enjoy this statue and its companion on the other side of the building. 
Landevennec, France: In between rainstorms, we took a walk out onto the spit to get a better view of the town. Unfortunately, the weather turned for the worse while we were out there and we just made it back to our van in time before the heavens opened. 
Landevennec, France: Tracey always appreciates interesting details such as this “head” detail on this shutter tieback. We would love to know the rationale behind this. 
Morgat, France: This is a lovely resort town with beautiful turquoise water which can be seen from the famous GS34 trail. We were able to walk into town from our campsite and walked the beach while the sun was setting. We had the place pretty much to ourselves. Our campsite was another Camping-car that was located meters from the beach. In reality it was a glorified parking lot reminiscent of the place we stayed in Bruges, Belgium. Full to capacity, campervans waiting to get in and lots of overall people and campground watching which Tracey really enjoys. 
Morgat, France: We really enjoyed our boat trip to see the sea caves and experience this area from a different vantage point. This area is so very similar in feeling to Wales and Ireland. 
Morgat, France: This area has blue jellyfish called velella velella (aka by-the-wind-sailors) which contrast with the turquoise blue water. They are stinging jellyfish so nobody was swimming, but we did see many scuba divers. 
Morgat, France: The water in this area is turquoise blue and reminiscent of what we saw in the French Riviera. There were so many tourists coming to some of the small beaches in this area that they have been closed entirely to protect the fragile ecosystem.
Up Next: We are making a pivot to our travel itinerary based on our refrigerator issues. We aren’t sure how long it will take to get a response or how or when it will be repaired so instead of heading to Southern France as planned we are going to travel to the Loire Valley, Burgundy, Lorraine and Champagne areas as this will keep us closer to our local Hymer dealership. This isn’t bad and we are not upset by this as we love France and we are happy to explore these areas and will reserve Southern France for a future trip.
Allez on y va!
Discover more from The Tofu & Chickpea Scramble
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Sorry to hear about your refrigerator. We had crowds at Versailles but nothing like that. Brittany is our favorite part of France. Its nice you have the flexibility to adjust as you go.