The Ham Nomads

6 Jan 2015. <FR> Villedieu-les-Poêles; Pontorson, Manche —

Had a wonderful time strolling about Villedieu-les-Poêles after we finally got up. Church bells were pealing, the ducks were navigating a weir in the river, the day was a little bracing, misty, but not wet.

It was market day, and the whole town was humming. Warren couldn't go past a char-grill stand without buying a smokily-grilled sausage with mustard in a French bread loaf. Yummy! We found the post office and decided to return there on our way out of town to post a few postcards. (To anticipate things, this didn't happen, as we had forgotten to take account of the French long lunch-hour — La Poste was closed from 12:15 to 14:15, and we got there at 12:20!!).

We went through a few shops, and almost bought a few gifts, but thought better of it this time. Plenty of time for that! WE are most impressed by the variety of shops on the "high street" — whereas in the UK the high streets are dying, with most of the trade being drawn out to the superstores and retail parks (leaving mainly cafés, betting shops, hair salons, cheap outlets like Poundworld, tattoo parlours). In France, going to shop in the high street seems to be a social occasion, and it is a lively as ever, with a good and varied assortment of quality shops. We got back to the van, did a little housekeeping, then left for, and missed out on, the post office.

We then decided to go to Mont-St-Michel, only about 30 minutes away. Mont-St-Michel was spectacular looming out of the mist as we approached, but as we arrived, it was starting to rain, so we decided to adjourn to McDonald's in nearby Pontorson to charge the computer (all of a sudden the in-van charging is not working reliably — we'll need to look into it!) and get some blogging, email and Facebook time. We've found that Macca's are happy to ply us with coffee while we sit there working on the computer, plugged into their power outlet!

We then moved round to an Aire behind the local Carrefour hypermarket where we could settle in for the night. We watched a few episodes of Castle (we finally got to the wedding!) before we finally settled in for sleep. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny, but tonight will be clear, and that means cold!

Distance driven — today, 52 miles ( 84 km ); to date, 10,281 miles ( 16,546 km )