I am heading for France next month, am trying to decide whether to go by train, by ferry and mountainbike or ferry and car.
If I go by train will go to the Bay of Biscay via Bordeaux, last time I was at Soulac Sur-Mere I was doing karate kata while wearing speedos on the beach as the sun dipped into the ocean, when I turned around there was a rainbow over the land. The campsite at Soulac has a brilliant speedos only swimming pool with water slides but I had spent most of my time at le Gerpe a wilder campsite a few miles down the coast.
Going by mountainbike and ferry gives me access to a number of ports on the northern French coast between Calais and St Malo (in Brittany). Going any distance is hard work and I'm not really bike fit this year. Using a different campsite each night is fun but exhausting, pitching and striking the tent every day and finding out where the toilets and shops are.
Taking the car over by ferry allows me to cover a lot of ground fast, but I will have to drive on the wrong side of the road when in France. The car would allow me to stop anywhere with security for kit locked inside.
I would go via Newhaven-Dieppe ferry and avoid all the migrants sieging the ferry terminal at Calais.
I rather like to go back to Carnac in Brittany where there are nice beaches and wild seas, where you can go to the supermarket in a wetsuit and where surfers and sunbathers mingle happily on the sand and in the foam.
I want to go back to the Valley of No Return and visit a campsite nearby where you can swim in soft fresh water in the lake, though I hear it may have closed.
Since you have to wear speedos or square cuts in French swimming pools all French men and boys own them although they may prefer to wear shorts on the beach. So although many of the younger men and boys on the beach may be wearing shorts they don't regard someone in speedos as being anything different or unfamiliar.
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