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Published: September 4th 2013
We were beginning to think we were on the 10 cities in 10 days tour. Our travels weren’t quite that fast, but it was getting to the point where we had to stop to remember where we were each day, “if this is Thursday then we must be in .... “. The morning of August 9
th we left Dieppe with light winds and a cloudy sky headed to Boulogne. Later in the morning and early afternoon the winds picked up and the seas got rougher. The water is shallow along this coast and as a result the wind creates short, choppy seas. With this combination the seas get uncomfortable, but not enough to be any kind of problem for us. As we got closer to Boulogne the winds piped up to about 22 knots and the seas were growing with the water getting shallow. Our autopilot decided to have problems showing an error message of “compass error”. Back to hand steering for a while. Bob checked the wire connections, fuses, and any other thing he could think of only to discover that Janice had moved a few things around in the storage area the last time she was in there and
What Did That Say???
We saw a mark on the chartplotter- checked to see what it meant - definitely don’t want to put an anchor down here!had put some tin cans near the compass! After removing the tin cans we were delighted to find out that the auto-pilot started working again. It is always nice when problems can be fixed that easily! Now all Janice has to do is change her inventory around to match the changes.
We called the marina on the VHF radio to see about getting a place and were told a place to head to. When we turned in to attempt it, we found it was definitely too small for Tsamaya, so backed out quickly and found a floating dock near the entrance to the marina that we could tie up to. We got checked into the marina about 4PM and then the sun decided to come out. Guess it is better to have grey skies for traveling and sun for exploring new places. We wanted to stretch our legs so decided to hike around town. We had been told that this was a very traditional fishing town and had survived for many years on herring fishing. There were still many fishing boats in the harbor, but the first impression of the city is one of many modern high-rise buildings. There
is still quite a large tide here which was obvious from the piles of rocks that you can see at the far edge of the marina at low tide – fortunately we were not at that end of the marina!
We had heard that there was a walled city here so decided it was a great place for a hike. We walked up the hill through the town to where the old town gate is. When you walk through it you find that there are a number of historic buildings still located within its walls. The belfry which was built in the 12
th century is currently one of 56 located in France and Belgium on the UNESCO World Heritage Site listing and the oldest building in Boulogne. The Law Court Building was built in 1856 at the site of a former Royal Jurisdiction building dating from medieval times and the Convent which was established in the 17
th century on the site of a medieval hostel used to house the poor. As we walked further into the walled city we found the Notre Dame cathedral, built in the 12
th century with its 100 meter high dome. This cathedral is unique
because it was designed by a priest, not a professional architect. Unfortunately it was not open so we were not able to see the interior. We also stumbled upon a medieval castle that now houses a museum. The castle was unusual in that it did not have any central buildings, only buildings around the perimeter of the walls leaving the center open to the sky. Within a short period of time we were transported back in time through these buildings, but then as we walked back down the hill into the current town we were reminded by the modern buildings and casino that we were in the present, modern day world. The next morning we left at 11:30 am to catch the tide for yet another town which would get us closer to the Netherlands.
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kate Hunt
non-member comment
sThinking of you both, reading and enjoying your \'tales\', so excititng! Summer has been wonderful in the Finger Lakes, however, fall school taxes went up!! ugh.Have only been on lake Cayuga twice this summer, so sad. Gary is running for office this year and alot at stake, (fracking), so we will be going door to door and really \'campainging\' for 1st time in 15 years! (where is the spell check!) Love Kate and Gary safe travels