🇫🇷 France

After our forced break from van life for a good two months, we are finally back on the road. Wilma has a new transmission and there is nothing stopping us from travelling again 🚐💨 Our original Morocco–Portugal–Spain plan is now officially off the table and, with a fixed appointment back in Germany at the beginning of July, we decided to focus on France instead.

Staying true to our "slow travelling" resolution, we didn’t drive very far from Liverdun and mostly chose our next stop based on whatever looked nice on Park4Night for a single night. Once again, we were surprised by yet another unexpectedly lovely little village. Still, we only stayed for the night and spent the evening going for a couple of walks through the town.

Yet another lovely village we discovered completely by accident. Once again, we simply picked a place on Park4Night. We noticed that Cuiseaux had a free and surprisingly modern aire with full services — even free electricity. (Not that we really need or use shore power, but it’s still amazing that some villages offer it for free.) So we parked up and went for a walk through the village.

After Cuiseaux we headed straight to Orange. On Google Maps it looked absolutely lovely, with its ancient theatre and maze of little alleyways. When we arrived, however, disappointment set in rather quickly. The theatre was almost completely hidden behind scaffolding, the hilltop park was closed due to construction work and the little alleyways were, quite frankly, a bit underwhelming compared to what we had seen so far.

We spent the night at a lovely little multi-purpose centre with a spacious car park in the middle of nowhere, about 15 minutes from Vaison-la-Romaine. When we arrived, there was already another camper parked up, so we made sure to choose a spot that wouldn’t disturb anyone. It was a peaceful night and the location turned out to be an excellent starting point for walking and cycling.

Once again, we turned to Park4Night to find our next home and this time we really picked a good one. Kathrin found a vineyard called Domaine La Camarette that allows campers to stay for free under beautiful trees, surrounded by vineyards and olive groves.

Avignon had been recommended to us by countless people. Then again, if you open pretty much any map app, it jumps out immediately as one of the major highlights of southern France. It was an obvious stop on our journey. The challenge as a camper or van-lifer is always the same: where do you stay? Having heard plenty of stories about break-ins, we decided to stick to official campsites rather than risk wild camping. The campsite we originally wanted to stay at happened to be closed for a private event, so we had to find an alternative for our first night.

As I already alluded to in my previous post, Avignon was nice, but we weren’t exactly swept away with awe. Its neighbour, Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, on the other hand, absolutely did. Just like Avignon, it was only about a ten-minute bike ride from our perfect little temporary home. While we had initially questioned whether bringing the bikes had been worth it, by this point it was obvious we had made the right decision. Provence is incredibly bike-friendly and being on two wheels allows us to stay further away from the busy tourist hotspots.

One evening, while enjoying a really tasty local pale ale and an eau du pompe (yes, I am absolutely trying to sell you tap water as something fancy 🍸🚰), we asked the waitress for advice on what we absolutely shouldn’t miss in the area. She happily rattled off a list of recommendations: We quickly realised […]

The Camargue is a large national park in southern France and is best known for its wetlands. As such, you’ll find lots of salt producers and lots of mosquitoes. It’s also famous for its wild horses and flamingos 🦩 We had a grand plan and drove to a lovely farm that offers official tours on tractor-pulled trailers. Our plan, however, was to park up and go for a nice bike ride that would include the flamingo reserve as well as the supposedly lovely town of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer.

After all the hubbub surrounding the Gypsy procession in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, we were due for another quaint and calm village. In addition, we wanted to start moving in the general direction of Aix-en-Provence. So, employing our extremely sophisticated and highly successful method for finding our next destination, we came across Lourmarin.

Leaving Lourmarin behind and continuing in the general direction of Aix-en-Provence, we spotted Cucuron on the map. It had both a lovely-looking old town and a shaded spot where we could work for the day. We packed up early in the morning and headed over to Cucuron. We were happy to see that the comments on Park4Night held true: plenty of shaded parking spots within easy walking distance of the village.

After a wonderfully quiet night next to the old aqueduct, we finally made our way to Aix-en-Provence. Given that this was a bigger city, we once again had little choice but to book ourselves into a proper campsite. Naturally, we picked one with a pool and a good location for trips into the city. By this point we had become quite used to wandering through small villages with only a handful of tourists around, so arriving in a proper city again felt a little strange.

After a couple of days in Aix-en-Provence, we felt the need to escape back into the countryside. There was still plenty left on our list and we decided that what we really wanted was mountains, a lake and some good walks. The answer? Lac de Sainte-Croix and the surrounding area.

If you ever find yourself in Provence and have no idea what to visit (which would be odd, because literally everything is picturesque), I’d say Moustiers-Sainte-Marie is THE one village you absolutely MUST visit. It’s even considered one of the most beautiful villages in France, if not the most beautiful. I’m not making this up – it’s officially part of Les Plus Beaux Villages de France! And for good reason.