Judging from the comments from my wife on Facebook, at 4:11am , I seemed to have woken the entire street whilst attempting a quiet getaway.
Anyway, onto the journey to Folkestone to catch the Eurotunnel - 2 hours of concrete monotony is what precludes almost every trip to the 'Eurozone' on Chris Rea's 'Road to Hell'.
Motorway is just NOT what Sevens are for !!!
Motorway is just NOT what Sevens are for !!!
Bleary eyed, I drove through the maze of roads in the EuroTunnel complex to finally get to the train, followed by a very nice Ferrari 458. In fact, I was so busy looking in my mirrors, I wrongly queued in the 'oversized vehicles' lane. A Eurotunnel employee leaned out of a control box as I was passing... "'ello sir...This lane is the high side.... for high vehicles, and yours is definitely a very low vehicle !" . suitably chastised, I U turned and joined the correct queue, whilst the Ferrari , with it's wider chassis (Apparently they are too wide to fit between the curbs on the 'normal trains') - got onto the 'Truck-train' on the other platform.
25 minutes later I was sat French-side in a garage quaffing much needed coffee (3 cups !) and an 'am et fromage jambon' whilst I waited for TigerMark and the Southern Kit Car boys arriving on the next train.
Unfortunately Mark didn't get on the next train, due to some problems UK-side, so we set off for the first meeting point, a coffee shop in Cassel,
As we entered the town, a familar TVR was parked in the square - Mark had arranged to meet up with Bruno Lecoq from La Grange aux Damiers, who ran the fantastic Rallye des Jonquilles earlier this year. Mark had cut some points out of the SatNav route to beat us to the cafe !
The roads on the continent are in a lot better condition than anything in UK, and with no hedgerows to block your vision, you can see well ahead for those heroic overtakes , and some really good blatting-roads. One of the best moments of the day was an old gentleman on the opposite side of the road coming past us in his Electric-wheelchair, walking stick raised, waving with everyone beeping their horns - priceless !Cassel is a great place to stop , and is pretty much all very quaint coffee bars and restaurants.......and LOTS of cobbled streets.
I think I lost most of my fillings , on the way out of town, and on to our next stop, Tyne Cot cemetery, in Flanders fields. Nothing quite prepares you for the biggest Cemetery in the world at the site of one of the bloodiest battles . The museum is an extremely sobering view of life in WW2
The journey continued after lunch , where we experienced Belgian toilets, which seem to be little more than urinals screwed to outside walls - It's a little unnerving, mid-flow, to look over you shoulders to see the diners in the restaurant !!!!
We headed to the German cemetery at Langemark. As in a previous trip to Normandy, there is a completely different air than in the British Graveyards - all the headstones are black
and a certain bleakness inhabits the place. Very sombre, and there are about 600 cemeteries in Ypres and the surrounding area,as the Allied forces deemed it an area to be held at all
costs. (Background info to the battles here) .
- The museum is very quirky, and in some places does look like a WW1 junkyard, but very interesting, and the period 3D stereoscopic photos really bring it to life.
The final stop of the trip was Ypres itself. As we rolled into the cobbled central square, the absolutely massive town hall dwarfs almost everything else in the area. We parked (well
more like 'abandoned' our cars and headed to the nearest cafe for some well earned food (and shade !) , and maybe a little Belgian beer (note to self - do check that it isn't 8.5% before ordering !!!).
the last post, and laying of wreaths. The crowd hushes as the bugle sounds , followed by a dedication, and a piper playing 'Flower of Scotland' - It really is amazing that in Europe, this sort of thing happens more regularly than in the UK - '....some corner of a foreign field' indeed.
thank goodness British trains are never on time !!!.
What strikes you about Belgium and France is how quiet the roads, and villages were for a weekend, and the locals so courteous - I lost count of the people pulling over to let 12 cars pass, and people waving as we sped past..
Thanks to MarkG for organising this. A great route, some great people, sublime roads.
Two words come to mind.......ABSOLUTELY and SUPERB
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