Eastwood to Calais

The Calais Hotel de Ville -Town hall

It was a horrible morning to start out, rainy and dull, the motorways as usual was crowded with thick spray flying  we got stuck for twenty minutes in a tailback in Bedfordshire, but then the weather brightened up, we tried to visit Dover castle but it was closed , only open weekends...then on the ferry across to Calais, staying at the Bonsai Hotel that has just under gone renovation, as we were taking our bags out the car a police car screeched to a halt in the car park and this blokesprinted past us, when he saw the police had him cornered he put his hands in the air and surrendered, the police appeared to jump on him, handcuff him and march him away to the police car and away they went. We found a really good restaurant opposite the hotel "The buffet de Gare"where we had a really excellent meal, delicious home made cream of vegetable soup, beef in gravy, which was thick chunks of beef. included was bread, a quarter carafe of wine each, and coffee. ---11.50 euros each, the hotel was next to the railway but we didnt hear any trains, but from our window an amazing view of the Hotel de Ville.

Calais to Nottingham

We stayed at Balladins, Calais for the night and got up bright and early for the Ferry, amazing sunrise as we left Calais, -- when we pulled up in the line for embarkation we parked behind an identicle car to ours even the same colour, sitting waiting and all of a sudden the back door of our car is opened an this guy is looking for something, so i asked him what .. and he realised he was in the wrong car , that he was from the car in front of ours, poor guy was embarrassed but it was funny. my first thought was we were being searched by customs!.
Onto British soil and the traffic is nose to tail virtually all the way to Nottingham, the weather - dreary and wet, Oh well.
Our return journey starts 4th November, we will blog the trip back.

Villiers de Morhier to Calais

Another day of the french leg of the trip draws to a close. The  nearer we get to the channel the colder it gets, even John has donned jeans and sweater.
today we have seen so many sights to its hard to list them. The iconic Eiffel tower loomed up at us as we negotiated the city of Paris. It seemed even larger than the time we were moored below it whilst working on a hotel barge through France, Belgium and the Netherlands. The Paris trafffic was as crazy as ever, thank goodness for the Sat nav we say.
We set off today through very rural france, tidy villages and little towns, took a detour to look at Roman remains and drank coffee at a cross roads where stood a depiction of Christ crucified. All the time looking around and trying to make sense of another centuries descent into madness that was the first world war. In these very fields thousands of young men lost there lives. Roadside cemetries with row after row of white crosses marking a lost generation in the corner of some foriegn field.

The country roads where sometimes alarmingly filled by roaring lorries taking sugar beet to local refineries. All very indicative of East Anglia in UK, same flat vista, same tooth rot crop!

The last leg of the day took in busier and faster roads, three accidents spotted along the way, can driving like lunatics be a national trait, or maybe a national pass time?

Now Calais for the night and the ferry early tomorrow, cheapy hotel today, yesterdays was a more expensive B and B, but thats a long story for another time. At which point we will share with you "thoughts from the french (self styled) middle classes". Watch this space.............

THE CROSS

ROMAN RUINS

Bargain ferry

Have just been organising the ferry trip for our journey to the UK, now the Boulogne to Dover ferry has stopped we are going Calais to Dover, I found that there is a discount of 40% on SeaFrance ferries available through a UK company called Astus UK Ltd, basically, you phone them, you tell them your preferred date and time of booking and they book for you and you receive booking confirmation by Email.
The ferry worked out about 20 pounds cheaper than any other fare I could get.