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Sun Jul 22 2007: Eurotunnel & Normany Beaches |
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We wanted to wake up early and visit Tower Bridge by motorcycle, hopefully before all the traffic got too heavy. At 6AM, the alarm clock went off, Neda trudged wearily from bed to look out the window and the roads were wet from the morning rain. Right then, back to sleep. Tower Bridge will have to wait for another trip. Got up again at 10:40AM. Getting a bit more accustomed to GMT, but really, we'll have to start our day at 6AM to get any real mileage done if we're going to tackle Europe in the timeframe that we've set out.
Having a blast riding on the wrong side of the road
This is really the first day of riding. Getting out of London was a bit easier than getting in, thanks to my Uncle who told me to go west on the motorways instead of taking the surface roads east. It added another 70kms to the trip, but saved us over half an hour. It's a nice place to visit, but the congestion would be a dealbreaker for living here. These past few days I've noticed there's lots of money in downtown London: tons of late-model Carreras and Aston Martins.
Neda at the Eurotunnel
Today we're taking the train under the English Channel. Foreigners call it the Chunnel, but it's the Eurotunnel to locals. It was mainly motorways from London to Folkestone, which is the coastal town near the closest point between England and France. At the entrance to the Eurotunnel, we met a group of bikers from Spain, who were just coming back from a trip from Morrocco to the northern tip of Scotland. Neither of us spoke Spanish, so I was communicating in broken French to one of the guys, and Neda was speaking Italian to another. I really admire the Europeans for their ability to speak more than one or two languages!
Our Spanish friends exchanging travel tips
On the train, we met a three English BMW bikers in our car that were going to the Loire valley, and we broke out the maps while they gave us some tips on what to hit in central France. Castles and vineyards and LeMans, Oh My! The train ride was actually quite smooth, no need for tie-downs for the bike. I didn't even notice that we had gotten going. Only a few jerks when stopping 30 minutes later on the French side.
Posing at the Eurotunnel entrance
Enter the Eurotunnel train from the side and ride all the way inside to the front
In the Eurotunnel train
Our British friends exchanging travel tips
The first thing I noticed as we got off the Eurotunnel were the speed limits: 70 km/h on the motorway, but up to 130 km/h between cities! Sweet! We stopped for lunch at the gas station just outside the Eurotunnel, but I now wish we would have waited, because as we took the coastal road across Normandy towards Dieppe, there were several small towns with inviting cafes along the main road to stop and eat. One town did catch our fancy, Wissant had a beautiful beach with the cliffs in the distance.
Typical town in Normandy, we passed through so many
Coastal town in Normandy
Stopped in Wissant to walk on the beach
Wissant, cliffs behind us
Wissant
I don't know if we're going to stay on this coastal route, it's kind of like Wasaga Beach on a weekend, traffic moves at a snails pace, checking out the action on the strip.
Boulogne-Sur-Mer: the Wasaga Beach of Northern France. Not really, it's a pretty big port city.
I was hoping to make it to at least Dieppe tonight, but we ended up at a coastal town called Le Touquet. The GPS just happened to give us a nice golf resort called the Manoir Hotel. Funny thing is, it's an tourist spot for English golfers. All the guests are British!
The Manoir Hotel, an English-style manor... in France.
We sat down for a light dinner and I know now why the French are known for their cuisine. Every dish from a simple soup to the foie gras was amazingly delicious. And the presentation was top-notch as well! Last year we actually lost weight on our California trip, doing nothing but eating salads and sitting on our bikes 14 hours a day. I don't think that's going to happen this time round...
We had great weather today, but the forecast calls for rain. Our first steps in the old continent has been as wanderers, no set plan or route, but I am a planner at heart, and I'm worried about keeping to a schedule so that we'll see everything we want to see in the time that we have. We only managed 70 km in France today. I think tomorrow we'll have to forego the coastal route and hit some motorways to get through this country a lot quicker than we're doing.
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