07/02/2026
Camping-Car Parks
It’s taken us a long time to start using Camping Car Parks aires. There are many places that are just as good and free, and something in me just feels a little uncomfortable with a company making a profit from motorhome parking in a country where many aires were traditionally provided by the local authority.
But I recognise that local authorities all over Europe are being squeezed, and pandering to the needs of a few privileged travellers is not a priority. And we have to admit that even if we are not rich, we are very privileged compared to a lot of people that local authorities have to provide for. Camping Car Parks have done a good job in picking up the administration of old municipal campsites and parking areas which may alternatively have been even more commercialised or, even worse, disappeared altogether. Local communities still benefit from the footfall and motorhome owners still benefit even if it’s not quite as cheap as it use do be.
Anyway, the reason I mention this is because I started writing this blog entry while sitting in a CCP aire in the town of Is-sur-Tille, just north of Dijon. It’s a very convenient location for us as we follow the toll roads down to the French alps. It’s not too far from the motorway and after a hard day’s driving we know we can arrive and park without any concerns about the suitability of the location. We can even check that there are spaces before leaving the motorway. We could book but that requires an additional subscription so it’s a no from us.
Overnight in Canterbury
Our day started in Canterbury Park and Ride, we’d collected the van from the garage in Basingstoke and driven straight to this convenient stop for getting an early morning ferry from Dover to Calais. We woke at 7, luckily, as Paul’s alarm hadn’t been set correctly. By 7:15 we were setting off to Dover and by 8:30 we were on the DFDS ferry. Then we had a long wait while a problem was sorted out leaving us about an hour late departing across the lumpy channel.
Toll Roads to Dijon
Getting off the ferry in Calais is so easy and second nature now that it passed without much thought from us. Follow the signs for the A26 towards Champagne country – Reims and Troyes – and then south towards Dijon, city of mustard (in our heads at least). We were tired and happy to let the toll roads remove the pressure of sight seeing and roundabout navigating. All that mattered was driving onwards, getting closer to the Alps.
The weather in Canterbury had been interminable grey drizzle broken by occasional heavier drizzle. As we got into France we had spells of brilliant blue sunshine interspersed with the type of heavy downpour that made everyone actually obey the ‘Pluie’ speed restrictions. The landscape was mostly flat but the weather gave us our entertainment. Rainbows arced, cumulous clouds reached their wet fingers out of the sky, other vehicles created a fine reflective spray.
Overnight at Is-sur-Tille
We drove for about 5 hours. Well, Paul drove, and I looked at possible overnight stops, found a fuel station and otherwise scrolled Facebook between bouts of almost-sleep. The CCP location seemed a no-brainer for our overnight stay, I checked how many people were already in the aire. It was one person, we weren’t in danger of finding it full and having to move on.
Dinner was some leftover chicken casserole and green veg. A quick tidy and rearrangement of the van sorted out some of our more rushed preparations. Then it was about 7:30pm. We were ready for bed and were hard pressed to stay awake until a more reasonable time.
We both had a very unsettled night, the stress and adrenaline of the last few days is still playing havoc with our nervous systems. As we lay awake at night we heard the sounds of freight trains and the whoosh of the distant road. At night everything sounds louder and these were noises we probably wouldn’t have registered if we were sleeping properly. The still air hadn’t helped either, allowing the sound to carry, and when we awoke there was a blanket of fog across the fields. The fog persisted on and off for much of the morning giving the drive a ghostly quality.
Filling up
We both started the day groggy. It was a caffeine morning, with plenty of tea and coffee to boost our energy levels before we did our services and set off for our next stint of driving. It was Saturday, the first day of the French winter holidays which are arranged so that different departments get different weeks all the way to the end of the first week of March. The roads weren’t too busy but the supermarket we stopped at was heaving with families loading trollies to the max. Our little basket of groceries seemed pathetic in comparison. At the fuel pump the queues of traffic caused a very gallic altercation of hands thrown in the air and shrugs. The issue; a trailer blocking access to a couple of the pumps for about 5 minutes.
We decided to stop on the motorway for LPG, we managed to squeeze €5 in – the minimum spend. At least we know that we have a full bottle even if the €100 hold on the card seems a little excessive. The LPG was the last of our tasks before we got to our destination, we were now full where we needed to be full, and empty where we needed to be empty. Ready for some skiing.