France 2016 - Day 19 (Epernay)

I had one of my "can't sleep" nights and was awake listening the church clock chiming the quarter hour until 4am 😔 and we didn't wake up till gone 8am.  We packed up camp and waited for Monsieur to come and pull the motorhome out of the mud.  It was all very easy especially as he put some sacks behind the wheels.  Jim was going to buy some rubber mats to do the same job but Monsieur gave him some more sacks to keep so hopefully we won't have the same problem again.

One of the things that I discovered this morning is that moles are protected in France!  When we told Monsieur that they aren't in England he suggested that we might like to dispose of a few for him.

Le Boucles de la Moselle is a nice site though it needs updating and €800,000 Is going to be spent on it next year to bring it up to standard.  There is a very nice pool and it appears that they serve food but the facilities are poor but hopefully in 2017 it will be a very different story.

Our journey to Epernay was rather uninspiring but we did see what we thought was a folly but turned out to the Conde sur Marne Aqueduc.  This was built in 1875 to pump water up from the Canal Lateral de la Marne to the Canal de l'Aisne de la Marne to work beside a lock system.  Today, three electro- submersible pumps lift 100,000 cubic metres of water per day - about 1200 litres per second.

We found the Municial Camping Site in Epernay - you think you are turning into a works entrance!  We have lovely pitches by the River Marne.

We set up camp and had a late lunch.  It was a quiet afternoon then we went for a walk around the site.  I had stayed here before in 1980 with my ex husband.  Then the bushes between the pitches were rather sparse little things and there were no trees that I remember.

We had aperitifs by the river before going to the snack bar for dinner.  We had the most amazing rain while we were in there and our pitch was flooded when when made a run for it.