Back to the Channel Tunnel, and Home

Thursday 2^nd October

Another disturbed night’s sleep – probably the prospect of going home. We were up at eight and I cooked bacon, eggs, mushrooms and tomatoes to keep us going.

The service point for this aire is about a half mile away from where you park up, so I drove there and waited my turn to empty the tanks. From there we were directed by the satnav to the nearest point for diesel – which was a Super U just on the edge of town. We filled up, and made our way back to Calais. We passed some police on the roundabout near Super U - they were obviously looking for something, as they were stopping cars. We sailed straight through though. 

By the way - back on the 8th September I said that we were running low on toilet fluid - well, I bought some biological washing liquid to give that a go. Whilst it worked in part, I would say that it is no substitute for the real thing, and we will remember to take extra supplies with us next time.

We made good time back to the Tunnel. As we arrived before ten thirty I was given the option of an earlier train – so we went for it, and were sent to line up for the eleven twenty train. We waited about twenty minutes before boarding, and the train left dead on time. Just over twenty five minutes later we were back in England. On the way back we were thinking about our European van trip for next year. K fancies Italy............

Too Much Shopping and Pont de l'Arche Revisited

Tuesday 30^th September

We didn’t sleep very well, and got up for a cup of tea at about 4am. We managed to grab a few more hours, and when we finally surfaced we found that there was a heavy mist. It made all the spider’s webs easy to see. 

I cooked K some scrambled eggs and ham for breakfast, and we took our final showers – we intended staying on aires for the last two nights, so didn’t expect any facilities. By the time we had packed up and availed ourselves of the very useful motorhome service point at the site, the time was getting on. We knew that there was a LeClerc supermarket just down the road, so we headed there to buy some things to take home with us.

It was a very big store – and we wandered around for far too long really, meaning that we didn’t leave until after two thirty. We decided that K would drive for the first part of the journey, and I would do the latter half. We were heading back to Pont de l'Arche – but this time to the aire that we had spotted last time we were there. The drive took a while, and we didn’t really stop for lunch – just a quick drink and a cake when we changed drivers. We arrived at about seven twenty – which is much later than we normally try to arrive at places. Luckily, there were a few spaces, so we parked up and ate the rest of the ‘risotto’ from yesterday, once I had warmed it up.

We listened to an Agatha Christie play for a while, and then went to bed.

Wednesday 1^st October

Another misty morning. We left the aire by nine thirty - after another cooked breakfast. We were heading for Cite Europe at Calais to do some alcohol purchasing to take home. The weather stayed misty for quite a while, then the sun came out. We decided to take the toll motorway, as the satnav said that it would save us about 35-40 minutes. However, we stopped at the Baie de Somme Services to empty the tanks, and ended up spending nearly an hour looking around, and in particular, feeding the remains of our rice to some very noisy ducks. It was fun.

We made it to Cite Europe and did a big shop in Carrefour. Lots of other motorhomes there as well. Well loaded with booze (well, the van was), we headed off for an aire at a place named Gravelines – about fifteen miles away down the motorway. The skies opened, and the rain came down quite heavily.

We arrived at about five thirty and took up a position overlooking boats on the river – well, I think it’s a river. Gravelines is at the mouth of the River Aa. It is a fortified city, rebuilt by Vauban – just like St. Martin on the Ile de Re. It is also star shaped. The aire costs six Euros a night in summer, three a night in winter – when I tried to pay at the machine this time however, it told me that I was in a non-paying period, and wouldn’t take money. I didn’t complain too loudly.

A few other motorhomes arrived – mostly British. It had been a long day, so we decided to have showers in the van – very nice. Our water heater works well. We settled down and I cooked some very tough steaks for food – along with mushrooms and French petit pois. Again, we listened to an Agatha Christie story before retiring to bed at about ten o’clock.

Tour of Tours

Monday 29^th September

Managed to kick the laptop power supply back into life – which means that I am writing this on Monday. We have been to Tours today. It rained all through the night, and we were expecting it to rain on us today – but we have been very lucky and escaped it. In fact, this evening has been very pleasant and we managed to sit outside for a while in the sun. This is a very nice site, and the showers are amazingly hot! I had a shock this morning and was desperately trying to turn the thing down.

We set off on the bikes, and despite the fact that the site had given us a useful map as to how to get to the cycle track it still took us fifteen minutes to get there – a few wrong turns – and I got the blame of course! We got onto the track eventually, and it was very good. Most of the track into Tours was alongside the river Loire and the scenery was great. 

We saw many birds – egrets, cormorants and others. The track was fairly level and easy to ride. I think that we both pedalled all the way in; hardly using the motors at all (I did use it to start off once or twice when I had stopped in the wrong gear).

We reached Tours in about forty minutes, and chained the bikes up outside the Saint Gatien Cathedral. Wow! What an impression the cathedral gives. It is amazingly impressive from the outside, and the inside is a feeling of space with wonderful stained glass windows. I feel that it is almost on a par with Chartres, and personally, more impressive that Santiago de Compostela. Pictures can’t do it justice, the feeling of devotion is almost overwhelming – and I’m not a religious person. It has undergone a renovation program and is looking amazingly clean and bright. The current building was constructed between 1160 and 1547, but a religious structure has been on the site since about 350 AD. A volunteer guide came over and told about the cathedral. He struggled for some words, but his English was good. He was obviously very proud of the cathedral. We had a good look around.

The only thing that we didn’t like much were some modern ‘stained glass’ windows, which were a kind of photo montage on glass. They seemed to jar a bit with the age of the rest of the building.

We left, unchained the bikes, and went for a tour around the city. We found lots of half timbered buildings in the ‘old town’ – very attractive. Most had been turned into café’s and restaurants in the lower halves it seemed. 

I did a small shop for lunch and bought some cheese, bread, tomatoes, some Serrano ham and a bottle of water. 

We rode to find a bench – the one we chose was near a grassed area close to a statue of Descartes. We continued our ride after lunch. 

We found one weird glass fibre ‘statue’ which looked like a monster from a very blocky video game – reaching out for you. Could find any info on it there – will have to look it up. Close to this statue I bought a ‘Tartelette au Fraise’ in one of the patisseries. I would have that with some coffee later.

The sky was threatening rain as we rode around – but we found Charlemagne’s Tower and the Collegiate Church of Saint Martin. 

We also rode along the tram tracks that cross the centre of Tours – and headed for one of the bridges over the Loire to take some pictures. Then another bridge to take a picture of the bridge that I had taken the first picture from (!)

 

We rode back along the river to the camp – taking advantage of the electric facilities of the bikes – we thought that we would be rained on at any moment. As it turned out, we missed the rain, but when we got back to Les Ville Aux Dames, we found that it had rained a lot there – so we were lucky.

As we were putting the bikes away the sun came out, so we sat outside drinking coffee, and I ate my tartelette – I shared the strawberries with K – but she couldn’t eat the pastry as it had wheat in it.

We managed over an hour before the sun faded, and then retired to the van where I cooked chicken with salad and potatoes. We listened to some more audio book, and then tried to get an early night, as we had a way to go in the morning.