Nearly Back in Blighty

Monday September 20th

What a busy night. Those boats kept coming and going all through the night. Calais is a very busy port. When they finally woke up in the morning they had breakfast and went and paid the €7 for the privilege of parking up on the seafront for the night. Then it was off to Cite Europe to do some last minute shopping in France. This is the third time Mary has been here and there is a noticeable downturn due to the recession. Some shops have closed and it lacks the vibrancy it has had in the past. 0r perhaps a new and better commercial centre has opened up somewhere else in Calais and become flavour of the month. The Tesco supermarket is no more but Carrefour still has a wide range of goods in its huge hypermarket. Space was a bit lacking in my storage compartments so they had to settle for two dozen bottles of wine this time. It is always a daunting choice not knowing what you are really buying. Most will be taken to friends so they can pass the verdict on the lucky dip.

After lunch in my onboard cafe, Mary thought she would look at the clearance outlet over the road. It was a ghost town. Once again, a good idea at the time putting an outlet village near the port, but it had not taken off. There were more empty shops than occupied ones and most of the stuff which was labels, was still pretty pricey. So they made their way to Dunkirk to spend the night there in preparation for catching the ferry back to Dover.

Mary had found the address of a camp site on the internet but however hard they tried they could not locate it. Alan tried again from the list and found one, but then suddenly they spied signs to another camp so took them. Much to their surprise they found they were at the camp they had started out at in 2001. As soon as they reached the gate they recognised it. This was the campsite that started it all. On arriving in France in 2001 they intended staying at Youth Hostels. They had innocently driven off the boat at Calais and headed up the coast to Dunkirk only to find they couldn’t find any accommodation in a Youth Hostel, so they resorted to the emergency tent they had packed almost as an afterthought. It was such a wonderful experience they chose to camp whenever possible on that trip and have done so again on the last three trips. They knew they were near the sea so thought it would be great to go for a walk. Last time they were here you could walk straight onto the beach from the camp. Not anymore. A big fence has gone up right around the campsite and you are given a pin code to let yourself in and out a special gate.

It was a lovely evening and lots of people were walking along the promenade. They walked a long way down towards where the houses were. There was a great variety of architecture, most having been built since the war. It is a lovely long flat beach perfect for wind surfing buggies and the boys were having great fun up and down the beach. So after a good long walk up and back again they returned to use up a few leftovers for dinner and then settled down for the night.

Down to Calais

Sunday September 19th

This morning it was cold, really cold. The thermometer inside said it was only 5° and that is cold. My awning had heavy dew underneath it and was dripping as if it were raining. So it was a good morning to have bit of a sleep in. By the time they were ready to leave I had had a chance to warm up and was ready for a long drive. It was once again a very straight forward trip on the piage and being Sunday devoid of trucks. They stopped to have lunch and also to buy me a drink of petrol.

The Tom Tom was programmed to take them to a camp site in Calais. The idea was to spend one night in Calais and do some shopping at Cite Europe on Monday and then go and spend Monday night over in Dunkirk ready for the ferry that leaves from there midday on Tuesday . But on arriving at the campsite at about 2.30pm they read a sign that said the office was only open between 8 and 12 on a Saturday and Sunday. There was absolutely no way you could get in without a gate code. Mary parked the van and went for a walk towards the sign that said camping cars while Alan looked for other campsites in the Tom Tom. She found that there were heaps of vans parked on the sea front where a place was put aside for campers at €7 for 24 hours, so they decided to drive me down there.

They got a great sunny seafront spot where they could watch the ferries coming and going into the port. They searched everywhere for a place to pay, with no luck and then found a sign which said to pay at the campsite around the corner. They realised that was not going to be a happening thing so they had a cup of tea and then thought they may as well walk into the main part of Calais and at least have a look at the centre.

Mary spied the Youth Hostel and suggested they go along there and ask if they could use their laundry as they still had the problem of not having done any washing for ages. They didn’t have a laundry but the woman there directed them to the one in town. They came back and collected all their washing and went off walking into town. It was not as easy to find as they thought so they ended up at the Information centre for additional directions. They finally found it and put two loads on to wash.

Mary suggested they go out walking while it washing and they walked to the local church which proved very interesting. Although there was no information in English it was obvious that the church has been severely damaged by bombing in the war. Over time they have rebuilt and repaired it. They have a set of very modern stain glass windows and have many of their ancient wooden sculptures are on display but not in the original fixed positions. Mary was annoyed they had left their cameras behind when they picked up the washing.

What was even more of a bonus was that a concert was about to take place. A young girl was giving a very longwinded explanation all in French about it. It turned out to be a concert of 17th and 18th century music on a harpsichord, viol and recorder with a vocalist and narrator. Apart from the narrator they were all female. They were all dressed in period costumes. M and A stayed and listened for as long as it took for the washing to finish, and it was a great way to pass the time and much better than sitting in a grotty laundromat.

Once the washing was dried they returned to me and organised dinner. Someone had been by to collect money for parking and had left a note to tell them to pay at the campsite around the corner between 8 and 12 in the morning. They watched the boats come and go until it was quite dark and then went to bed but it was quite hard to get to sleep as the boats were constant and it was very light because of all the lights at the port.

A Long Trip up Through France

Saturday September 18th

Today I got to take some of the best roads on the trip so far, but it didn’t come cheaply. In France you have the choice of the big motorways which are mostly all piage (pay roads) or you can negotiate your way around the houses and not pay. Well Mary was in no mood for that sort of trip on this occasion so they opted for the piage. It was effortless travelling most of time. There was one spot where there was a deviation near Metz because a section of the motorway was closed but it was all very well sign posted. They turned the Tom Tom off so as not to upset and confuse the Tom Tom lady. She doesn’t like it when they don’t do as she says.

Along the road, before we got to Rhiems there was a huge art installation for quite a number of kilometeres. It started with giant coloured spheres, followed by lots of flat circles on the banks. These were followed by pyramids then flat triangles and cubes and then flat squares. These shapes repeated and alternated all along the route. In some ways they could have been have been a bit of a distraction, but in other ways they provided interest and made the time go faster. It was like been in a giant modern art gallery. So the €42 toll charge for the trip could be regarded as entry to a very expensive modern art exhibition.
I was a bit thirsty on this trip as I was able to move along at a much faster speed than usual as there were not the hills to climb and there were not many trucks to get stuck behind. I was feeling really well with no coughs and splutters because it was such a warm sunny day. They stopped once to have lunch and then near the end to fill me up again for tomorrow.

The campsite they had found on the internet was another one that was in a village and in a most unlikely place. The tom tom took them to it even though it didn’t look promising to start with. However some camp signs suddenly appeared. When they arrived the big gates were shut and they wondered if it was closed. However a young lad came out and opened them and let them in. It turned out that there were several horses with young foals running wild in the campsite and they were containing them so they wouldn’t escape out onto the street and into the village.
After waiting for ages they were finally able to book in. It had said there was a washing machine when Mary had looked online but there is not one, so no washing will be done here. It is all pretty basic and typical France in that there is no separate ladies and men’s ablution block. There was only a male sign on the block and Mary looked for ages to find the ladies but then decided it must be all in one. A confused English woman was also hunting for the ladies and Alan told her it was all in one. Mary noticed that the male sign has now been covered over with a piece of paper and written in English is Ladies and Men.

They left me and the guys and went off walking in the village and came back with lots of goodies. They had found a French Patisserie so had nice treats. Seems they also found steak as they cooked up a good meal on my stove and then went to bed fairly early as it was cooling down.

Pania and Ber Lin Enjoy a Boat Ride in Strasbourg

Friday September 17th

After resting for a couple of days Mary asked who wanted to come out today. It had been wet and it is such a crush in the backpacks with the umbrellas and jackets and lunches that we had been staying home and keeping Hemi company.
But today it was really sunny so BerLin wanted to see a city in France especially one that used to be part of Germany. She also said they were going on a boat trip so we thought that would be fun.

The night before they bought 24 hour travel tickets. It seems they got the tickets all wrong herein Strasbourg. Yesterday when they had gone to the machine to buy the tickets for the next day they couldn’t find the option for the one they had that day. They thought they had bought a day ticket for Thursday and that is what they had used. The tickets system relies on you buying tickets in advance and then validating them on your first trip. You have to carry your validated ticket with you in case you are asked to show it. They probably would have been in trouble with the ones they had for Thursday as they were considerably cheaper. Anyway they were sure they had the correct ones for today and validated them as soon as they got onto the bus. A group of young people were questioned by the bus driver when they got on at the Youth Hostel bus stop and they produced 24 hour tickets left over from the night before. Most of the locals seem to have prepay Oyster type cards that they swipe as they get on the buses or trams.


Once in town they walked to where the boats left from, through some streets they had not previously been along. There are lots of lovely small streets with interesting little shops in Strasbourg. They got the 11.15 boat trip. There are 8 languages available on the headphones and the commentary was very good. By now, having done the audio guide walk, they knew their way around quite well and recognised where they were. The trip is at a very slow pace and allows you to see things really well. There are two locks to go through, one to raise you up a level and one to lower further along. The trip took them right up to the European Institutions. Strasbourg houses the European Parliament. It was chosen as the venue because of its history of political unrest and its ability to adapt in times of change. There are huge glass and steel buildings all set on the edge of the river and they look very dramatic when the sun is on them. The round trip took an hour and a quarter.

After eating lunch in a pretty square they found a tram and went back out to the European District to take photos and visit the Orangie Gardens. This involved a change of tram onto the E line which had obviously been built to service this district. The gardens were all being set up for some event that is going to take place at the weekend. There were tents going up everywhere and high ropes being put up into the trees for abseiling. There were also some guys doing chainsaw sculptures and making quite a good job of them too.

The Orangie was originally built for Empress Josephine when she and Napoleon resided in Strasbourg, but apparently she never visited it. The formal gardens around it are the usual beautiful French gardens with lots of height and a great mixture of colours. They are very fond of mixing hot and cool colours in their gardens and it looks great. It was so pleasant to have a warm sunny day and for them to be able to walk around outside without several layers of clothing on. There was a little zoo as well, which was mainly birds, but there was a cage of cheeky monkeys up to their usual tricks. There were no kiwis and no bears.

They walked back along the river to get another photo of one of the European buildings and then caught the tram back to town. There they had a browse around the shops and found the patisserie that had some delectable raspberry tarts and bought a couple of these for dessert. So this was the last the day of being tourists because tomorrow and Sunday will both be travelling days to get them back up through France to catch the ferry back to Dover.

At Last the Sun is Shining

Thursday September 16th

Today the weather looked a lot better so we got ourselves into town and went to the infocentre to hire the audio guide for the town walk. This walk is supposed to take 90 min but you are allowed to keep the audio for up to 3 hours. It certainly took us well over 2 hours to do it properly. There was a good walking map provided and an excellent commentary. Strasbourg had been a Roman settlement from 12BC. It was also part of the Holy Roman Empire until 1681 when it became part of France under Louis XIV. The Marseillaise was first sung in the rooms of the mayor of Strasborg as it was the battle song of the Rhine Army. Strasbourg was part of Germany from 1870 to 1918 when it again became part of France, only to be annexed by Germany in 1940. France finally got it back in 1944 and it had been part of France ever since. Because of this there is French and German influence in the buildings and the traditions.

The walk took us along the L’Ill which is a small river that flows through the town and into the Rhine. The most interesting part of the city is Petite France. This is built all alongside the river and there are a series of locks on it as they created levels on the river for the mills in the old days. There is also an ancient washhouse that was a platform that could be lowered and raised to do the laundry. The walk ended in Gutenburg Square where there is a statue of Gutenburg with his printing press. He spent about 10 years in Strasbourg and and it was at this time that he devloped his printing press so they have claimed him as their own.

After returning the audio guides and eating our lunch we used our free museum entry to Palais Rohan which included the decorative art museum. The woman at the desk directed us to go downstairs and leave our back packs in a locker which we were quite happy to do. However when we got there we didn’t have a €1 coin to put in so that we could get the key out. So I went up with €2 and asked her to change it, but she seemed to be saying we didn’t need a coin. After struggling with this locker we went up again and in the end I realised she was refusing to change the coin. She said she did not have a €1 which I found hard to believe as there was a shop selling things for €29, so if we had bought that she probably would have found one. So we refused to buy her expensive postcards and went back across the square and bought a cheap postcard and got the change and finally got the bags locked up so we could go into the museum.

This is the ancient residence of the princes-bishops of Strasborg and was built between 1732 and 1742. It houses the Rohan Cardinals’ luxurious suites. They certainly treated themselves to style, as in Munich. There is also a large decorative arts museum as part of it. Some of the original pieces of the astronomical clock that have now had to be replaced are housed here and they were able to be viewed close up. These included the original rooster that crows three times at midday and is the oldest mechanical working metal object known to be preserved. It was an interesting collection.

When we got back outside it was nice and sunny so Alan decided to retake some of his photos of the front of the cathedral. He had no sooner got where he wanted to be when a group of rowdy med students descended on the cathedral square and started some sort of hilarious demonstration which included songs, dancing and Mexican waves. It wasn’t a protest but some kind of organised fun. They had decorated their lab coats and theatre gear with illustrations and slogans. There is a huge medical school in Strasbourg and they have students from all over the world come to study at it.

We took a tram out towards the Botanical Gardens and had a walk around but they were not spectacular so we caught the tram back into town and had a look around some of the shops before heading back to camp for tea. We decided to have dinner before going to the cafe to get online as we were quite hungry. This campsite is surprisingly full with lots of coming and going. A bus hotel combination arrived as we were having tea. It is called Rotel Tours. Half of it is bus for touring and the other half seems to be sleeping accommodation albeit very small. I looked it up online. It is a German company and looks very interesting.

A Wet But Interesting Day

Wednesday September 15th

Somehow we managed to come to Strasbourg with no information about the place at all so we had no idea what to expect when we got into town. We walked to the bus stop and managed to buy a ticket off the driver that would also be good for the tram. Alan was keen to try and buy a return ticket but we ended up with a one way one. We managed to get off by the tram and you simply get out of the bus and step onto the tram that takes you in to the city. The trams are all sleek, modern and fast. We got off at the right stop in the centre of town and walked to the information centre and spoke the woman in there who explained the Strasbourg card. It seemed really good value although did not include any transport. However there were free entries to a few places and discounts to others.

The first visit was the cathedral which was free but it closes at 11.15 to get everyone out and then you pay to go in at 12.00 to see the astronomical clock. There was a free voucher for this in the book so we lined up outside at 11.45 with all the other tourists. There was a very good movie for the first half hour explaining the clock and then at 12.30 it does it 12 o’clock thing. It is half an hour out for some obscure reason. It was quite spectacular and with the explanation I was able to video in the right places as I knew the sequence. It was quite like the clocks in Prague and Munich with its parade of characters, but as it is in the cathedral rather than on clock tower there is more to see and you can get a lot closer.

When we got outside the little train was pulling up so we bought tickets for the 1pm ride and ate lunch while we waited. This was a really good trip as it took us all over the old town and there was a good commentary through the headphones. We were able to find out where the places of interest were so we could walk back and photograph them. Unfortunately it was another wet day so the buildings didn’t look as good as they would on a sunny day. The whole of the old town is a UNESCO World Heritage site and it easy to see why. There are narrow cobbled streets of half timbered houses where the tanners, butchers and fishmongers originally had their trades.

After the train ride we went to the Alsace museum. The booklet gave us one free entry to museum of our choice so we chose this one. When we got there we were told it was free, so we still have a free visit to another tomorrow. It was all set up in a large old house built around a courtyard on four levels. It contained a lot of painted furniture typical of the Alsace region. It was very extensive and interesting and took a bit of viewing but it was a great wet day activity.
After we left here we walked some of the route that the train had taken us on and took photos and video. If it is fine tomorrow we may go back and get some sunny photos.

We eventually ended up at the main railway station. This is an old building that has had a huge glass atrium built over the front. At some stage they have added a tram line underneath and you access these by escalators from the atrium. We worked out how to buy tickets at the machine and managed to buy whole day tickets for tomorrow which will be useful and are far cheaper than single trips. We then worked how to navigate the tram and bus network back to the camp. It was still drizzling as it had been all day. However we spent some time in the cafe having a drink and surfing the internet.

Out of Germany and Back into France

Tuesday September 14th

Today I set out to take them back into France. It had been another of the very cold night and I don’t do cold, but I eventually warmed up once we were of the motorways. It seemed that we struck the most road works ever so far on this trip. For a start it was lawn mowing and clean up day on the edges motorways. Huge machines were trimming the banks and edges in several places and this took out a lane. So the traffic had to slow and merge from 3 to 2 of in some cases 2 to 1 lane. At least ,if not more of the traffic on the road is trucks, so it was interesting to say the least.

They are also renewing large sections of motorway and they take one side out completely for kilometres on end and put all the traffic through 2 realigned lanes on the remaining side. This is at a slower speed and really slows things up. All of this probably added an hour to our journey and we didn’t arrive until 3.30. However we were in traffic that was moving the whole time even if it was ever so slowly. On the other side we saw a huge tailback that was kilometres long. The trucks in the slow lane had turned off their motors and were in the biggest car park in Germany.

The little kiwis and Ber Lin were quite unperturbed by the slow trip and could be heard singing a little song they had made up.


Three little birds sittin' in the back seat
Huggin and a'kissin with Ted.
I said, why don't one of you come up and sit beside me
And this is what the three birds said
All together now, one, two, three
Keep you mind on your drivin'
Keep your hands on the wheel
Keep your snoopy eyes on the road ahead
We're havin' fun sittin' in the back seat
Kissin' and a'huggin with Ted.

Well at least they knew how to pass the time. Really where do they get these ideas from?

The Tom Tom got directed me to the campsite after a couple of replanned routes as there were road works all through the outer part of Strasbourg as well. This was quite frustrating but Mary hung in there and we finally found the campsite she had found on the internet. They decided to stay put and not attempt to make a journey into town. They did ask the girl at reception where the nearest supermarket was and it was only a 10 minute walk away so they went out and got some much needed supplies and then spent some time on the internet which is free here but you have to come up to the cafe. That was fine as there were tables and you could buy a drink as well.