It's a long way to go, goodbye Piccadilly farewell Leicester Square -----

Sunday 15^th April.

Finally packed and away from Taunton at 15.30. Miserable weather and heavy traffic on A303. Arrived at our overnight stay on a farm “CL” in Postling, Kent at 20.45. We then found a pub in the next village called The Drum Inn and were lucky enough to get an after hours meal.

Monday 16^th April.

 

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We go up at 06.30 as we were due to take the Euro Tunnel departing at 08.20 but our camp site as it turned out was literally only a 5 minute drive away. This was our first experience of the Chunnel and it is certainly a speedy and efficient way of crossing the channel. However bearing in mind the time it takes to get to Folkstone and the fact that it is an experience not to different from travelling from Hampstead to Leicester Square on the Northern Line the Romance of a sailing away on your holiday wins hands down. Brittany Ferries and the French have won again.

Having arrived in Calais we made our way to Ypres but had a small problem with the spelling of Iepers / Ypres and the GPS. We visited the Menin Gate and looked for possible relatives, found no Rudrams, no Perrises and lots of Jones (Liz’s Grandmother’s maiden name) and Millars the later present in the Scottish regiments. It is very humbling to see every available space covered with names representing 56,000 men unaccounted for during a 4 year period.

At this point 13.00 hours the area was bereft of tourists, so off we went to the Flanders Field Museum and spent a couple of hours looking at 1^st world war memorabilia. Then it was off to find the local camp site at  Camping Jeugdstadion walked back into the town centre and had a drink in the main market square before wandering back to the Menin Gate for the last post and remembrance ceremony held every day since the 1920’s only to find the gate absolutely packed with the world and his wife actually more like the world’s son and daughter. Finally being in Belgium it was only tactful to sample the beers, Liz was being all righteous and keeping away from Les Chocolatiers.

Tuesday 17^th April.

We left Ypres and headed for Lille, where we spent a couple of hours wandering around the city centre. Very busy and lots of Flemish style buildings. We found a lovely little court yard café for some lunch and then we were on our way south east. Very heavy traffic and lots of road works. We had hoped to make it to Luxembourg for the evening but progress was slow and at 6pm decided to pull off autoroute and look fora camp site. There being nothing mentioned in any of our guide books we resorted to the GPS and ended up at Camping de la Lesse in a small town called Houyet and we were still in Belgium. The camp site had obviously only just opened as although being a a large site there was only a few permanently sited caravans there and we were the only residents that night. We were camped on the banks of the river Lesse a fast flowing river with several small rapids. In the centre adjacent to our site. Running behind the camp site was a railway line and the town station. Across the road from the station was a small café bar where more Belgium beer was sampled even Liz partaking this time. We entertained or were entertained by three of the regular locals and the landlady the sole occupants of the bar. A Belgium man of indeterminant age decided Liz was his bosom buddy and practiced his English chat up lines. I was left with his wife and local nursery man to exercise my Franglais, gesticulations and when all else failed buying some more beer. I did discover she ran a local livery and ménage although any horse she rode would have my sympathy and he grew flowers for the cut flower market. Where is Liz didn’t manage discover much even although he spoke reasonable English other than he was called Snoopy (really?) and his first wife was a Filipino.

Wednesday 18^th April.

We decided to try and get some miles under our belt today. We did go into Luxembourg City and was impressed by the architecture and the way it is built on either side of a gorge. I guess if I was in financial service industry and had to move here because of Brexit then that wouldn’t be all bad. Once into Germany the volume of traffic increased and on many sections there is work in progress upgrading the autobahns. We made it to Manheim and then went on towards Stuttgart. We stayed overnight on a free to use camper-stop in Leonberg. This was a small medieval town with half timbered buildings real Hansel and Gretel land. Liz has now got into the evening pub crawl so we went into the Blue Angel where she drank tumblers of the local Riesling and just to keep her company I had a couple of beers. Don’t tell our neighbours but I think the Belgians do it better.