A fishermen's blockade

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Just what you don’t want to hear at 4 o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon, driving to London, on the way to catch a ferry from Dover to Boulogne on Wednesday morning. ‘French fishermen are blockading Boulogne, Calais and Dunkerque in protest against EU fishing quotas. Ferry services to these ports are therefore disrupted’.

Well, the next morning, the news was far from positive, websites unhelpful, and telephones to the ferry company remained unanswered ( ‘All of our operators are busy, but please hold, as your call is important to us…..’. Maybe, but £2.50 is more than enough to spend on listening to musak playing whilst we waited in vain). So we set off for Dover, fully expecting to get stuck long before we got there, what with 'Operation Stack' on the motorway, and to return to London for another night. But Dover was freer of traffic than we’d ever seen it, we drove straight down to the port and at the terminal….’We’ve already changed your tickets, so you’ll be arriving at Dieppe instead of Boulogne. Sailing 11.30 as planned’. And we did. On the only ship to leave Dover that day, apparently.

The crossing was scheduled to last 4 ½ hours, instead of the 1 ½ to Boulogne. We decided it would be unfair to be faintly bored, when we really were extremely lucky to be on our way to France, and anyway, the weather was gusty and sunny - ideal for being on deck. Dieppe however, is not Ferry Central. Another ship was leaving as we arrived, so we simply had to wait…and wait…until it cleared the area, and we docked at 6.00 p.m. And having landed and driven through the terminal we found that an embarrassed employee, unused to so much traffic there, had simply locked the gates with all the passengers queuing up anxious to continue their journeys. Still, he found his keys and let us go.

In France at last! Some pictures tell the story of our journey…..

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Photos

An LD Lines ferry leaves Dieppe....
...and so finally it's our turn to enter harbour

....while the drivers relax over their meal inside
You might notice that as a female, I was a slightly endangered species

We spent the night in Normandy, near Le Neuborg
..and here's its château

Morning coffee at Dreux
A town we've always avoided because it elected a Front National council (le Pen's party) back in the 80s. That's in the past now, and it's a picturesque and well kept town, worth a detour

By evening, we were in Collonges la Rouge
...so called because it's built of red sandstone. It's fairy-tale pretty, but a tourist hot-spot, so we couldn't afford to stay. Still, we had a cracking meal