Advertisement
Isques
On Tuesday, we drove from Paris to Isques (a village near Boulogne sur Mer). Our GPS isn’t working as it should—it shows where we are, but doesn’t tell us where to go. When we try to program an address it tells us that there are no roads in that area; then it tells us what road we’re on, the road coming up, etc. It’s helpful but not what we hoped for. The cousin of the landlord looks after this place for him, and she told us everything about it. She kept me busy while Kevin unpacked everything—not a bad deal. There’s a picture of our living room (#1), a picture of our backyard (#2) and a picture of our rental car and the house. (#3). I asked Isabelle how old the house was, and she didn’t know. She was born in a house just down the street. Her mother was here during WWII and remembered Canadians being here. She said that there was a char (wagon?) with some dead Canadians in it right in front of the house, but everyone was afraid to go near them—as I understood it, the Germans had been there for quite a while
and the locals were afraid to go near the Allies. Isabelle also showed me where a stone fence was mended across the street after it was hit by a shell.
Since we arrived on May 1, and since that’s a BIG holiday here, there were no stores open, so we went into Boulogne for supper. I ordered a seafood plate which had all kinds of stuff on it, most of which looked like shrimp of all sizes and kinds.
The day after we arrived, we had to do some laundry, find the Internet, groceries, etc., so we stayed around Isques and Boulogne but went for a walk in the late afternoon around the neighbourhood. (Pictures 4 to 8).
Thursday, we decided to drive up the coast to Calais or as far as we felt like. On our way, we stopped at the tourist bureau, and I happened to see this woman on the beach. It probably wasn’t very nice of me to take the picture, but I couldn’t resist. (pic 9). Then we continued along hugging the coast. We saw this row of cottages for lack of another name near Wimereux (#10). Then while Kevin drove along,
I caught the next picture. There’s lots of really pretty little villages all around this area. The yellow in the fields (if the tour guide in Frankfurt was right) is canola. There are fields of it all over, and they make a nice contrast to the green fields. Speaking of colours, they’re beautiful. There are trees all over the place with white blossoms that look a lot like spirea, but they’re trees.
There are lots of war relics around here. The Germans must have spent a lot of money and time preparing to fight. Number 12 shows a German bunker (I guess that’s what it is). You’re driving along looking at picturesque villages and beautiful plants and flowers when up pops something like in photo 13.
The next picture shows a little village in an area of the Cote d’Opale names “entre les deux caps”. There’s the Gris-nez and then Cap Blanc-Nez. One has grey rocks and the other white.
We drove a bit more, and then stopped for lunch at Chez Monique. (Hi Monique!).
On Friday, we took a trip towards Vimy because both of us were interested in seeing some of the memorials, etc. I
knew that the Canadians had been working on the Vimy memorial, and I had also read a book about the making of the monument. When we drove into the park, we were greeted by signs all over the place that said not to walk outside the fence because there was unexploded bombs. Imagine!! (#16). There are loads of sheep grazing all around there as well. (#17). The monument itself is very beautiful. We took lots more pics, but 18 to 18b are some of the favourites. There were also a couple of graveyards there. Many of the stones were just named “A Soldier of the Great War” or “A Soldier of the Great War Canadian Regiment.” I wonder if they had dog tags back then. We asked for some information at the tourist booth there to find out where my great uncle Dan was buried. They were very helpful, and told us how to get to Duisans cemetery in Etrun. (#21) It was right beside a fairly busy highway, but it was kept very well. With the system they use, it wasn’t difficult at all to locate his grave. (#’s 22-23).
The roads around France are so good compared
to Canada. There are hardly any bumps, and the speed limit on lots of them is 130 km/hr. It makes getting home quite a bit shorter. It’s great to take your time getting somewhere, but going back is a different thing.
So far the weather has been VERY cooperative, and if it continues, we may take a trip down the coast to the south tomorrow. There’s a bird sanctuary along the coast which would be nice to see.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.078s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 11; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0439s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb