EXPLORING OLD Avignon

Touring overseas for the first time in six years, Nigel and Kay Hutson take in a World Heritage delight as they head to Provence

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Pre-Covid, Kay and I were fortunate enough to take the caravan abroad for our main holiday every year, but we hadn't done so since 2019.

Although we often have a fairly good idea of where we might end up on our travels, this can and does change, and frequently. The first step is to book the ferry. Once that's done, there's no backing out, especially given the high costs involved.

Speaking of which, our favourite crossing, Hull to Zeebrugge, no longer exists, so we looked at just about every alternative and ended up with Hull to Rotterdam.

You might think this is an odd choice if considering travelling to the south of France, but for us, Hull is about 70 miles away, compared to more than 200 miles to the south coast, plus we don't need an overnight stop as the ferry crosses at night, and the big one is cost.

Crossing the water

While still expensive, it was several hundred pounds cheaper than making an overnight crossing from the south coast, and not much more than a "sensible time" crossing from Dover/Folkestone.

So, ferry booked, which direction should we take from Rotterdam? We decided on a few days travelling to Avignon, where we would spend some time, before moving on to the south coast for a couple of weeks, then back up to Luxembourg for another few days.

It was a dull, wet, windy morning when we reached Rotterdam, but we arrived safely at Camping Gritt at Ingeldorf in Luxembourg for our first overnight stop.

Thankfully, the weather improved the following morning and we set off for our next overnight stop, just off the A31 autoroute at Camping Le Fil de L'eau, near Nuits-Saint-Georges in Burgundy. By the time we arrived there, it was shorts and T-shirt weather (which it remained for the next few weeks).