The Crêpe Escape: Del Hughes goes on a Gallic grand tour

Del Hughes

Première Étape (Stage 1)

It’s early April, America is six weeks into the already-won-many-times war on Iran, and the markets are a frantic ECG, spiking on greed and flat-lining on fear.

The impact of this conflict has been tectonic. Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz was an ‘unforeseen side-effect’ – though you might have expected those military tacticians in the good ol’ U.S. of A. to have at least glanced at a map.

But it’s easy for the tangerine toddler (who is, no doubt, enjoying his extra billions in volatility profits) to play with fire, when it’s us plebs who are getting burned.

Diesel has rocketed by 70p since those first bombs dropped. And while the top 1% won’t blink at a £100 fill-up, for the rest of us the ‘Hormuz Shock’ isn’t a headline: it’s the sound of the world running on empty.

So, obviously, there’s no better time to embark on a tour of France and Spain in a Bailey Adamo 75-4DL motorhome named Bella.

She’s a seven-and-a-half-metre rolling residence that boasts a ‘Smart Lounge’, clearly catering for those whose sofas are too stationary (me), and has the aerodynamic profile of a brick.

And as Tim prepares to steer this three-and-a-half-tonne gas-guzzler toward the continent, I’ve realised that the Adamo doesn’t run on diesel; at current prices, it runs on tears of pure regret.

(Naturally, we’ve discovered that while our travel insurance covers fire, theft, and third-party liability, it totally excludes Acts of Trump. Eyeroll.)

So, with no way out of our booking, we did a late-night, diversionary drive to Folkestone, passed three random wild boar in West Berkshire, and arrived at Le Shuttle at 4:00 a.m., all of us absolutely cream-crackered.

First light and we were at the Chunnel’s animal check-in, where ‘Pet Operative’ Simon came over for cuddles – with the dogs, not me – and began scrutinising the paperwork.

Since Brexit, this has tripled in volume, making processing the pooches a lengthy process; hence the piles of gravy bones, the enclosed Astroturf ‘Play Zone,’ and more pooh bags than you could shake a heavily chewed stick at.

Taking deux chiens en vacances is très, très pricey. Rabies jabs, sand fly treatments, health certificates… it took a lot of planning and was wildly expensive – still, not quite as hefty as a pet sitter or kennels for three weeks. C’est la vie.

(Though with floor space a three-by-nine-foot corridor connecting the cab to the rear lounge, within minutes of leaving home, we’d have happily given anyone anything – wallets, iPhones, a kidney – to take the furboys off our hands.)

But, as we drove onto the train which would whisk us to the land of fromage, vin, et pain – hopefully just the crusty, carby kind – fatigue and dog-dodging was forgot, and the fizzing spark of wanderlust and expectancy kicked in. Woohoo.

Adventure surely beckoned – as did the lovely old chap who kindly pointed out our broken brake light.

Thus, within minutes of arriving on French soil, we pulled into a rubbish-strewn, graffiti-daubed lay-by, out came the official AA European Travel Bag, and Tim enjoyed a hi-vis, curse-laden hour tinkering with Bella’s backside.

(I counted his creative – and entirely uncharacteristic – use of merde as the first successful signs of Gallic assimilation.)

Repairs concluded, we were back on the road, heading for a one-night stopover in the small town of Guignicourt, roughly 250km south-east (ish): long enough for Tim to find his rhythm on French roads, short enough to arrive, shop, and catch up on some sleep.

In truth, it was also the first campsite that popped up when I was planning our Week One itinerary. But boy, did we strike lucky.

Snug in the soft verdant folds of the Aisne valley, the town was a vision of honeyed stone and faded elegance, a place of sleepy grandeur, punctuated by the whimsical, turreted profiles of the mini-châteaux surrounding the central square.

A benevolent church overlooked the plaza, whose chimes kept the populace à l’heure, tolling faithfully every fifteen minutes.

Nearby, a small Intermarché provided everything four weary travellers might need for an al fresco feast by the meandering river. It was all, quite simply, fantastique.

That is, until nightfall, when I discovered that Bella has the acoustic integrity of a French crêpe. Damn those bells.

Thing is, I’m not a natural camper. My teenage years were scarred by a singular, wind-lashed experience on Gower – a trauma that birthed a lifelong, ironclad ban on canvas.

I swore that I would only return to the great outdoors if my accommodation came fully weaponised against it: porcelain plumbing, a functioning fridge, and a memory-foam double.

Well, I got my wish. But one night in Bella sparked an epiphany: a motorhome is merely a tent, with a sturdier zip and a significantly steeper price tag.

Jeopardy

Outside, yes, she’s a formidable beast; but inside, she’s little more than a padded pilchard tin. And while Tim and I might have coped with the crush, our boys require a frankly outrageous amount of sprawl-space, which added an entirely new level of jeopardy to the journey.

There’s a unique, frantic geometry to motorhome touring that no travel blog, website, or brochure ever manages to fully capture.

I’d imagined lazy mornings: un café crème in hand, gazing out across vine-heavy hills, or golden beaches, or cypress-lined lanes. Lush.

But before said coffee could even be brewed, first came a complex exercise in spatial logic.

Remember those sliding-tile puzzles from childhood? The ones that promised a perfect picture if you could just manoeuvre the pieces correctly? Our daily – nay, hourly – permutations were essentially the life-sized version of that.

To access fridge, kettle, lounge, or loo, the cabin had to be solved. I’d step towards the kitchenette and squeeze Dog 1 under the table; Tim would toe-pivot and ease Dog 2 towards the lounge; Tim and Dog 2 would sit; I’d shimmy past; Tim would lurch, put Dog 2 in the bathroom… only for us to perform the entire exhausting routine again, in reverse.

It was a relentless, ill-tempered ballet, borne of limited square footage, and while it was a difficult dance for Tim, for me – with my less-than-perfect balance and uncertain footing – it was nothing short of treacherous.

And the main ‘leisure’ door? That featured a high step and a narrow opening where leg weakness – plus my fatness – meant a sideways, breath-holding shuffle. A stark reminder that the van’s dimensions and my own physical limitations were constantly at odds. Sob.

But, if the weather held, we had a pop-up gazebo (where ‘pop-up’ implies an ease of erection far removed from reality), a folding table, two bucket chairs, and two fifteen-foot tie-out leads.

Despite the punctuated night’s sleep, our planned itinerary fell at the first hurdle. It was a blistering day, Tim wanted to explore Bella’s innards, and somehow, we’d already run out of water after four loo flushes, one cuppa, and a quick wash-up after a Croque Monsieur.

But truthfully, we couldn’t be bothered even attempting to reload the detritus of Tim’s bike, Anwen (my walker), mounds of dog gear, electric plug-ins, wires, hoses, and the sodding gazebo.

So instead, we chose to surrender to the Gallic joie de vivre. We had fresh bread and pastries, the dogs were dozing in dappled shade, Tim wanted a dip in the on-site pool, and I finally had room to breathe. Ah well – there’s always demain.

 And that’s how our first week rolled: schedules ditched and sightseeing spots cast aside. We trundled south, stopping at whichever campsites took our fancy, taking in the sweep of the changing landscape through a wraparound windscreen, and savouring the terroir of whatever region we’d drifted into.

Plus, we were tentatively getting back to nature – or, at least, venturing close enough to suffer gnat bites, prickly heat, and, drinking bug-riddled tea ‘cause it was too much faff to make a fresh one. Huzzah.

And so began our initiation into the charms, challenges, and curiosities of camping à la française.

One five-star site had a shop, restaurant, and snack bar, but arriving parched and travel-worn, we were informed that their shop wouldn’t open ‘til May. Sérieux?

No amount of pleading for un petit tasse de lait persuaded them, so that night was cuppa-free. (Still, they were selling wine, so we made do.)

At one rain-soaked stopover, we discovered the culinary joy of proper French bœuf bourguignon, along with the severe lack of Wi-Fi or reception.

This didn’t just mean Tim couldn’t stream The Masters (hard eyeroll), but more importantly, it meant I couldn’t plan the next day’s routes, nor potential campsite stop-offs.

Luckily, we managed to switch our pitch – which is how Tim witnessed Rory bag his second Masters title, and I secured a spot in the cliff-hugging village of Sisteron. Win-win.

Jagged peaks

The village itself is wedged between great slabs of pleated limestone and the restless Durance River. Above, its citadel clings to the jagged peaks of the summit, still guarding the ancient gateway between the Alpes and Provence.

This place was real Lord of the Rings territory, and then some. Though our campsite was a smidge shabby – with an empty pool, intermittent electricity, and a sign on the snack bar door which read, ‘You shall not pass!’ (Okay, it was the significantly shorter ‘Fermé.’ Sigh.)

But with each passing day, our motorhoming competence grew (okay, mainly Tim’s). Day six, in particular, marked a major milestone: it was the first morning that didn’t begin with a screaming match, nobody trod on a dog, and we prepped petit déjeuner in record time. Things, as they say, were certainly looking up.

Quite literally, because ahead lay the first of my three holiday non-negotiables. Forget mere sightseeing; this was going to be EPIC!

​We were tracing the Route du Soleil – more prosaically known as the A6 – towards the French Riviera. But the coast would have to wait. First, there was a diversion to take and an icon to scale.

​Now, I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned my Tour de France obsession, and to be fair, it’s a pretty strange one. I’ve never harboured any desire to ride a bike competitively; cycling up massive mountains in temperatures of 35°C+ is wrong on many, many levels; and despite following the race avidly for forty years, I still can’t fully grasp the rules.

Yet, ever since Channel 4 began airing highlights back in 1986 – Dad and I watching the spectacle side-by-side on the sofa every evening that July – I’ve been a zealous devotee.

It was our thing: helicopters swooping through mountain passes, Phil Liggett’s commentary, Dad explaining tactics he only half understood. Those evenings stitched the Tour into the fabric of my summers.

And I think my nascent obsession solidified that same year, when Dad planned, plotted, and drove us through the Massif Central, and into Spain, bridging the border in the Pyrenees.

Terrifying

It was a truly terrifying experience, not least because my parents knew very little French, so the sixteen-year-old moody me was sent into every auberge, boulangerie, bar, and supermarché, stretching my O-Level language skills to their rather basic limits.

But even then – sweaty, embarrassed, and utterly out of my depth – I felt the pull of those mountains, the famous Tour climbs that Dad had mapped out. And while Mum whimpered in the footwell, Dad and I simply revelled in the sight of those colossal peaks rearing up above us, each precipitous bend revealing another wall of rock and sky. Mon Dieu.

And today, I wasn’t only going to see our favourite mountain in the flesh. Oh no – behind the wheel of our lumbering Bella, Tim was about to drive us up it. (He just didn’t know it then. Ooh la la.)

At 1,860 metres, Alpe d’Huez isn’t the highest peak, yet it commands more respect, and fear, than many of its gargantuan cousins. In Tour-speak, it’s rated HC (Hors Catégorie, or ‘Beyond Category’) – a classification reserved for the monstrous. Gulp.

​Debuting in 1952 as the Tour’s first true mountain-top finish, this dead-end road to a purpose-built ski resort forms a natural amphitheatre of gladiatorial suffering.

The climb is a 14km, 8% (average) slog, but the true cruelty lies in its twenty-one switchbacks. Tour organisers quickly realised these hairpins were more than a taunting tally to the summit; they became a tiered stage for the hundreds of thousands of fans who flock here annually.

​Here, the race mutates into a brash, chaotic, theatrical frenzy – a cauldron of noise, colour, and unfiltered devotion. Fans sprint alongside the riders, faces inches from the cyclists’ agony; the sea of orange at Dutch Corner swallows the road; names of heroes are splashed in paint across the tarmac.

It is a place where professional athletes are pushed to the very brink: where the triumphant claim a golden-ticket victory, and those who ‘crack’ are unceremoniously swept up by the broom wagon – the last vehicle on the road and the race’s final, humiliating signal that your Tour is over.

​Winning here isn’t only a win; it is the beating heart of the Tour de France’s mythology – a summit conquered by legends, among them Wales’ very own Geraint Thomas. And now, it was our turn. Eek!

The myth was one thing, but as we left the absurdly picturesque village of Le Bourg-d’Oisans behind us – all flower boxes, shingled roofs, and pastel shutters, with the Romanche River rushing through its centre – the romanticism evaporated a tad. We’d armed ourselves with a still-warm tarte aux myrtilles (a local delicacy) from the boulangerie, to help ‘fuel’ our ascent, but as Bella’s bonnet rose toward the steepening ramp, the daunting reality of the incline took over.

​I found myself instinctively holding my breath, bracing for the inevitable groan of the engine, my stomach a roiling cocktail of excitement and dread.

Unruffled

​Tim, however, was entirely unruffled. He clicked the gear lever with the casual precision of a man who had spent years handling a far more demanding machine (No, not me!) because an HGV Class 1 driver doesn’t panic on a little alpine pass. To him, this wasn’t a venerable sporting arena; it was just another stretch of asphalt with a job to do.

​While my pulse quickened, his remained as steady as his grip on the wheel. ‘Twenty-one to go,’ I murmured, eyes fixed on the serpentine ribbon of road snaking up toward the clouds. And, to the strains of Sweet Child o’ Mine, we climbed.

This wasn’t a race – not for us, anyway. It was a slow, steady ascent of the mountain, ticking off the switchbacks, each marked with little road signs honouring the greats who’d won here.

Over the course of forty minutes, the valley floor below retreated, the air grew thinner, and the sheer scale of the climb began to weigh on me, even as Tim kept Bella perfectly composed on each vertiginous bend.

But, entering the double digits of our hairpin countdown, the valley floor hadn’t become the distant patchwork quilt I’d expected. Nope. Instead, the cloud had thickened into a whiteout so dense that we could barely see three feet ahead. This was riskier than expected.

And atmospherically, having started the ascent at a balmy 14°C, the thermometer on the dash was steadily plummeting.

The air leaking through the window seals became a biting alpine nip, and as we rounded the final, notorious bend – the one that had seen so much drama and despair – the digital display read a stark -1°C.

Winter sport enthusiasts popped out of the cloud on ski-bikes, which made manoeuvring rather perilous – for them, and us. So, Tim pulled into a snow-banked lay-by, killed the engine, and sighed.

We’d scaled the monster, but d’Huez had refused to show its hand. We were on top of the world, with nothing but a laughable pic of the ‘view’ to prove we’d actually made it.

But up here in the clouds, with Bella gently steaming, I could almost feel Dad at my shoulder, quietly happy to be here – and it made the whole mad detour totally worth it.

Any hopes of converting Tim into a Tour fan, however, evaporated around bend six, when we got stuck behind a massive lorry. Watching the driver wrestle those hairpins – one-handed, a Gauloises clamped in his mouth the whole way up – Tim observed, ‘He’s showing more skill getting up there than the bloody cyclists.’ He paused, then added, ‘Probably got less lung capacity though.’ Lol.

So that’s Étape 1, done. A week of physical and metaphorical ups and downs. But standing on top of a mountain is as good an analogy as any for just how far – in motorhoming terms – we’d come.

1,054 kilometres, five pitch-up campsites, four tanks of gazole, and a partridge in a pear tree.

But crucially, a frequent lack of Wi-Fi meant my soul-crushing habit of doomscrolling was replaced by total silence and total ignorance of whatever chaos was unfolding elsewhere. And I haven’t missed those digital distractions for one second.

(Mind, the only update I need on the global situation is staring back at me from the fuel pumps: if the price of gazole is anything to go by, things are still pretty grim out there. OMG, indeed.)

If I’ve given you a taste for cycling, the Tour de France is set for a historic first this July – an epic mountain showdown with back-to-back finishes at, you’ve guessed it, Alpe d’Huez. It’s a rare chance to see the yellow jersey battle unfold twice on the same mountain – using two completely different routes.

 Dates to watch:

Friday, July 24 (Stage 19): The classic 21-hairpin ascent.

Saturday, July 25 (Stage 20): The brutal ‘Queen Stage’ approach via Col de Sarenne.

And if you fancy your own motorhoming adventure in Bella (or her sisters), visit https://whyknotthire.co.uk for info and details.