No, not “passion in France” – sorry to disappoint you – but a blog to tell you all about a very special kind of place where we’ve been staying as we travel around France in our camper van. When we picked the van up in the UK, we also collected a number of European campsite guidebooks to take with us. We’ve used them all – either to find a fully serviced camping ground when we need all facilities like Wi-Fi, washing machines and dryers etc., or to find an “aire” which are the free places like motorway laybys, service stations, truck stops, rest areas etc. But the best book of them all and the one we’ve used on a number of occasions recently, is the one entitled “France Passion 2012”. This has opened up some wonderful doors to us – doors that could be up to 500 years old as we’ve discovered – and doors that lead to some extremely interesting experiences.

What is this all about? Passions are locations all over France….1700 of them in fact….where self sufficient camper vans are welcomed for an overnight stay. Each location offers a friendly invitation to motorhome owners to come and stay, whilst the property owners carry on their normal day to day activities. So, you park your van on the property, usually ‘out the back’ somewhere – tonight for example we are under the willow trees which are less than 20m from sixteen hectares of Merlot, Cabernet Franc, and (a new one to us) Ugni-Blanc Grapes – and then learn about what the property is all about, what the people do, what they produce and so on. The hosts are farmers or wine growers primarily, but between them all they cover every aspect of French rural life. And of course there’s the opportunity to sample and buy some of their product, but there’s absolutely no obligation to do so, so therefore no need to sneak away before dawn the next day to avoid the shop! In most cases there are no services offered which is fair enough when there’s no payment expected, but some will have rubbish disposal, water, occasionally electrical hook-up, and maybe even toilets, especially if the property is also a commercial premises like a vineyard offering tastings and meals.

We have been hosted now on seven occasions, from the Pas-de-Calais region in the north on our very first night in Europe back in mid-June, to a vineyard in the Var region of the South. Here’s a brief idea of the variety of places we’ve enjoyed….
:: a vegetable grower (légumes de saison) on the very edge of the village of Locon, near Béthune in Pas-de-Calais. This was our first place, and where we first encountered the very European concept of farms being right on the edge of urban areas….in this case, as you viewed it from the road the 50ha of vegetables were to the right of, and behind, the owners’ house, whilst to the left of the house was the village hairdresser’s salon and then 150m of houses leading up to the church and the village square! And beside the implement sheds out the back was where we parked up, and had a very peaceful meal and overnight sleep in the tranquil French countryside. Next morning, we stocked up on freshly dug new potatoes, beans, garlic and tomatoes (at extremely cheap prices too!) before we headed off.
:: the Cave du Chateau de Lagarde, a rosé wine and olive oil producer near Fignieres in Var not far from Cannes. This one was the carparking area of a wine tasting boutique, in a new building made to look old. Corinne, the hostess, was a lovely lady who was very enthusiastic about the wines she produced, and who not only allowed us to taste them all, but gave us the remainder of the bottle of rosé which we’d just sampled from! Next day before we left, of course, we went back into the shop, and came away with a very tasty jar of pear jam, a bottle of olive oil which will keep us going for months, and another bottle of the rosé!
:: two days later, we changed grape varieties and parked alongside the sheds on a Beaujolais vineyard at Lachassagne, north of Lyon in the Rhône region. We not only met the owner in the very well stocked shop the next morning, but also met her dog Saturn who showed us what a clever boy he was with his tricks. (The owner, finding out we were from Nouvelle Zealande, rang her sister in law from Avignon and got us to talk to her….a Kiwi who has lived in France for 22 years and still has her NZ accent). Possibly bemused by the dog’s antics, and definitely intoxicated by the sheer notion of having spent the night in a Beaujolais vineyard (this time right smack bang beside the first row of vines) we managed to buy a couple of bottles, plus some locally produced goat’s cheese. And here’s a fact you may not know – Beaujolais isn’t just a red wine…..they have a white variety and a rosé as well. All you real wine connoisseurs out there will of course know that, or at least say you did, but we will be honest and admit that we didn’t know so once again, this trip has expanded our knowledge base! And the taste of both the wine and the cheese? Très magnifique!!
:: change of drinks now, with two properties in the Calvados region of Normandy both located on 10 or so hectares of orchards growing apples and pears, and both with the owners living in homes first built in the 1600s! (And one, Le Lieu Chéri near Lisieux, was complete with a “wine dog” as well, a Dalmatian youngster named, we think, Garayon). In both places they use a process that is hundreds of years old to turn the fruit into juice, cider, Pommeau, or a cognac-like drink named after the region, Calvados. The process includes steps like letting the apples fall to the ground and picking them up from there rather than from the branches, and then juicing the entire fruit all bar one part. The skins, stalks, cores – everything goes in the mix….all except the pips which are definitely excluded as they are too bitter. We tasted all the resulting varieties, and they’re all great, but as there are limits to both our budget, and also the the carrying capacity of the camper, from the first place we only bought some pear cider and a bottle of Pommeau (an aperitif made from 3/4 apple juice, 1/4 Calvados and then left in an oak barrel for 3-4 years without any fermentation….as opposed to the Calvados itself which is fermented juice that has been aged in oak barrels for up to 30 years) and from the second a jar of Confite de Cidre au Calvados, plus a small bag of caramels which taste kind of like Jersey Caramels and are made from their fruit jam and milk. Come to think of it the Channel Islands including Jersey are not far off the coast of Normandy, so there’s probably every good reason why caramels from Normandy should taste like those from Jersey!
:: the next place was a real gem – owned by an artist originally from England named Diane who has set up a studio in a tiny village named Leimburel in the centre of the Finistère region of Brittany. We intended to stay the usual one night but had such a great time, and Diane and her friend Yvon (and the dogs Islay, Ruby and Tiki) were such wonderful hosts, that we stayed two nights and have now made friends for life. Purchases here weren’t quite so important – it was so much more about the friendship made, and the instant rapport that we found there – but we did buy some very tasty garden vegetables (courgettes, runner beans, tomatoes and the best strawberries in France!) plus a small watercolour of some pigeons. The painting is significant because everywhere we have been there are always pigeons cooing, so much so that we’ve decided they are actually our guardian angels in disguise, and therefore to find them in a watercolour of Diane’s was just a purchase waiting for us! Our parking spot here was on the grass near the studio, alongside a large paddock of clover which was where Diane’s bees were as busy as…..um, bees. And another little note about this place – the village of Leimburel is a delightful place which used to have 110 inhabitants living in 25 houses, but with the gradual depopulation of rural France as people move to, and over-populate, the cities, Diane is now one of only three people – total – left in Leimburel. It is a crying shame and if it wasn’t for the ridiculous tax and property laws in France, we’d just about be tempted to buy one of the old houses and live there ourselves! If only!!
:: and the property we are in now which produces Pineau des Charentes and 5, 10 and 20+ year old Cognac! (yes, back to the booze!). This one is near Asnierès-la-Giroud north of Bordeaux, the house is only 150 years old, and they make very nice products from the 30ha of grapes which are just about to be harvested by a huge machine which we were proudly shown, after our little pre-dinner tasting session. There’s a similarity to the Calvados process – just as Pommeau is apple juice and Calvados, Pineau is grape juice and Cognac….and Cognac itself of course is the fermented, distilled end result of grape juice.

We have seen some wonderful, off the beaten track sights and places; have been hosted by some lovely people; we have tasted and sampled some very tasty food and drink; we have learned so much about how things are produced; and in the process have really experienced the best of France. Forget Paris! If you come to France and, oh yes, if you’ve got a camper van, then try the France Passion system – you will absolutely love it!

We’re off to Spain and Portugal now (via a cheese place down near Bayonne), but we’ll be back in France again in a few weeks, and then again in November – who knows what new experiences we might be able to add to the list! Watch this space….