Mesnieres-en-Bray and the Green Avenue

Zagan the motorhome is what we call ‘in like a tick’ at the free aire in Mesnieres-en-Bray (N49.76630, E1.38084). The reason for this is because the aire is very popular, with several vans arriving and leaving due to lack of space.

Why is Mesnieres-en-Bray so popular? Well it’s free to stay here and has a free service point (always a crowd puller). It’s around 35km from Dieppe and not far off the free motorway from Amiens to Rouen (a favourite route south for all camping-cars). However I think the main reason it is popular lies just to the west of where we are, just a couple of hundred meters away is the Avenue Verte.

We struggled to leave Stella Plage, mainly because we had nowhere we wanted to go. After much searching on Park4Night, we were planning on going back to St Valery sur Somme or Le Crotoy, both places we’ve enjoyed visiting in the past, but it didn’t feel right. We needed to go somewhere new. More searching and Jay found this place which had good reviews for the aire which is close to a renaissance chateau and an Avenue Verte.

An hour an a half later (quite a lot of which was on free motorway) we knew we were onto a winner as we passed the sign for the town. If you don’t know, towns and villages in France have a flower rating. There’s a little yellow sign at the entrance to the place which says how many ‘flowers’ it has been awarded – Mesnieres-en-Bray has four flowers, that is a high flower rating! 

After filling up with water at the service point, we bagged the last space on the aire, chatted with fellow Brits who were just getting some lunchtime shut-eye on their way to Brittany, and had a quick spot of lunch. Then we set off our to explore where we were. As usual we had done no research as to where we were going! The village is only small, but almost ‘Stepford-like’ in its perfectness. Along with the well-kept flower beds and pots of flowers being added to the streets as we walked along, a small army of fellas worked their way around the place cutting the grass and tending to the blooms. There’s currently an exhibition of photographs all over the village – yes you guessed it, photos of the village and flowers, and loads of little signs telling you what such-and-such a tree or shrub is and what it is used for. Every house has a manicured lawn and a garden packed with flowers ready to bloom. I joked with Jay that we’d be kicked out pretty much straight away due to our lack of horticultural skills and reluctance to cut the grass.

Arty photo points are scattered around the village.

I spotted a sign for a viewpoint 300m away, and as I love a good point de vue, we followed the arrow. Of course it was only 300m to the turning for it, but feeling fit and with not much else to do, we decided to walk the kilometre up to the road to it. On our way we almost got engulfed by a swarm of bees (with so many flowers around it must be a daily hazard around here) and I let out a suitably girly squeal as a brown snake slithered towards me on the path. Jay thought I was joking, a case of the ‘boy who cried wolf’ being ‘the girl who cried snake’ as I’ve often mistaken twigs and bits of rope for reptiles, but this time it certainly was one, and a fast one at that. By the time he realised I wasn’t joking it was off in the long grass. We thought it best not to disturb it.

We couldn’t quite see the sea from the viewpoint, but it did have a good orientation table which looked like new – no mention of snakes on it though. We had a great view over Mesnieres-en-Bray and could see the aire, as well as the roof of the chateau, so that was our next stop. Unfortunately as we tend to live our lives ‘off-peak’, as in we go to places out of season, it was shut. But if you’re ever over this way in July and August, it’s open every day!

Back in the village we spotted the posters for the European Elections – I don’t know why I was surprised they’re having the elections here too, but when we were back home such a big thing was being made of them it felt like they were just for the UK. In France towns and villages have an area, or put up metal boards so each political party can put their posters up, it keeps everything nice and tidy, which goes well with Mesineres-en-Bray. The signs are numbered, so each party has its own space and as I walked along the row I spotted Marine Le Pen smiling at me from one poster, another one with a communist logo on it and one talking about Frexit!

Not being able to understand 90% of the slogans, means I don’t know about any of their policies, but from looking at the posters I know who I would vote for if I was French…..

How could you refuse those big brown eyes? And why don’t we have an animal party?

The Tourist Information place is only open in the mornings, so we made our way to the local brasserie which also has a small shop attached to it. It looked and felt like a campsite shop with just a couple of each thing and a selection of local produce. As the village had been so kind to provide us a free place for the night, we bought ourselves some of the local Neufchatel cheese – Neufchatel-en-Bray which is just 5km up along the Avenue Verte. Back in Zagan we marvelled at its heart shape, then devoured it slathered on a baguette.

It’s said that the heart shape dates back to the Hundred Years’ War when local lasses would give the cheeses to English soldiers they had taken a liking too. The monks prefer to say the shape is the wings of an angel, hence it’s other name – the cherub.

This morning it was time for a bit of ‘runishment’ – the miles you sentence yourself to the morning after crimes of overindulgence! We both hit the Avenue Verte, a former train line which runs from Dieppe to Paris which has been made into a cycle and running path. Regular blog readers may remember that my last encounter with a Via Verde (the Spanish version) didn’t end so well, so I jogged slowly behind Jay with a hint of trepidation. So slowly that within a kilometre I couldn’t see him on the long straight path ahead of me.

Me on the Avenue Verte which also has the flower rating sign – they are so proud of it.

I shouldn’t have worried though as my legs remembered what they should be doing, and the path here was a little less rocky that the one in Spain. I managed my longest run since my fall, despite the sun making it a tad warmer than I’d expected, hence the very red face in the photo. Once back at Zagan I sent a text to Jay to see how he was getting on. He’d run twice as far as me and was now walking back as a cool down. So I grabbed a water bottle and jogged over to join him. We found a picnic bench and sat in the sunshine discussing our runs – both of us finding them harder than we thought they would be, but also both pleased we’d done them. It’s just over six weeks until we’ll be lining up at the start lines for the Zermatt half marathon (me) and Ultra marathon (Jay), so we need to keep up the training.  Luckily it’s not such a chore in a beautiful place like this.

Ju x