A weekend break in north east France, all within 40 miles of Calais….

[Wapping]

The London Marathon finds me trapped in Wapping, cut off from the rest of the world due to closed roads. The consequence of this is that I have taken up going away to France or Belgium on the Friday and not returning until the Monday morning.

This year, I thought I’d do something a bit different, to see what might be possible, going away to north east France, but never more than 40 miles from Calais. I also thought I’d ring a change by turning left (eastwards) when leaving the Chunnel, instead of heading south or westwards. I wasn’t disappointed.

People say that the roads of north east France are boring. To me, that’s a bit unfair. I’d call them ‘different’ but you do have to work at it a little and use a little imagination. Heading east from Calais, towards Dunkirk, brings you into Flanders, a strange part of France that stretches into Belgium. The land, in a word or two, is flat open. But as much of it lies on or not much above sea level, it is often cut by manmade canals and little waterways, all irrigating the agricultural land which stretches as far as the eye can see. Boring? Maybe, if you want to hoon twisties all day and see mountains. Less so, if you want to see and experience something different to a motorway or even a fast N or D road.

Knowing that I wanted to be within 40 or so miles of Calais and east of the port, I looked at a map and landed on the town of Bergues, roughly six miles south of Dunkirk. A quick look in Google, suggested that it should be a nice enough place.



I then needed to find a hotel, good enough for a two night stay. Google again came up with suggestions, so I picked one, reasonably near the middle of the town and reasonably close to a fuel station. Why there? Two reasons:

1. I wanted to stroll into town, to see what the place was really like.

2. I always like to fill up, if possible, on arrival at a hotel, to save any faffing about on the next morning.

Google found the two fuel stations for me and showed me that the town had a pretty reasonable looking Logis hotel, slap bang in the middle:



This is the hotel, I chose:

Logis Hôtel Au Tonnelier

A large 18th century residence, fully-renovated, at the heart of a fortified, listed village. Delightful all-year round with its tranquil paved, flowery courtyard. Local and regional culinary specialities along with a range of bourgeois-style dishes - a splendid time is guaranteed for all!

www.logishotels.com

Au Tonnelier...

Établi dans une magnifique bâtisse du XVIIIème siècle, Au Tonnelier se situe au cœur de la ville fortifiée de Bergues. Pour un séjour détente ou... - Au Tonnelier

autonnelier.com

I wasn’t too fussed about garaging the bike, reasonably confident that it would be pretty safe on the street for the two nights of my stay. As a rule, I tend to avoid hotel parking garages, unless they are very large with easy access. Why? I once got blocked in by a gang of other motorbikes, whose owners idea of a good stay was to leave the hotel at around 11 AM, the next day. Fine and dandy if your timetable matches theirs. Far from fine, if you want to be on the road at nine AM, latest.

Despite dire warnings on these pages of Obergruppenfuhrers now fining anyone arriving at the Chunnel early and / or refusing to offer bikermates or cage drivers earlier trains, all was good and onto an earlier train I went. The same experience coming back, all at no additional cost.



Rolling off the Chunnel in Calais, I had created a simple route, taking D roads all the way to Bergues:

​

I wasn’t disappointed.

To be continued……

 

[JohnnyBoxer]

Thank you

 

[Wapping]

With the bike parked up outside and checked-in by the very pleasant lady on reception, there was no need to do much more than sit outside in the early evening sun with a beer to catch-up with a bit of work and then have dinner. All good.

 

[timeandtide]

The mighty Himlayan - good choice!
Just shows what can be done with a little initiative.

 

[Wapping]

Next morning, I was up reasonably early and (as is my wont) I went for a wander about, to see what the town offered. I often do this, just to see what else goes on and to see if it might well be a good place to pass through in the future.

The place is typical Flemish French, with a large market square, ringed by all the shops / cafes that anyone might need for a coffee stop, a bite to eat or an overnight stay. Slowly, it was coming to life:



Seeing the remains of an arch, I decided to wander up, too see what sat at the top of the low rise:



To be continued….

 

[Wapping]

The French are often quite good at putting up little notices, giving you a potted history of what you are looking at. They go to the trouble of presenting the story, so I usually reciprocate by taking a minute or two to read them:



Let’s wander through the arch, into quite a pleasant park area at the top of the hill and look at the remains of the abbey and what else there is to see:



I could see there is a little cafe, just a short walk through the small park, so I went to have a look. The little information boards, gave a bit more history:



Clearly the town had been of some strategic importance since well before the French Revolution and was, as a consequence, quite prosperous. The town was hit hard by the Germans in 1940 as they raced towards Calais and the Channel coast. We’ll see a bit more of this later.

 

[Wapping]

I wandered down to the little cafe, to see what it offered when open:



It would make a good place to stop off on motorcycles for a coffee and a bun, as an alternative to the large market square.

Here’s the view from the cafe, back up to the former abbey:




The arch, former abbey, a bit of local history and the park knocked off, it only left walking back for 15 minutes or so to the hotel. But on the way, I read another little notice, which sort of confirmed what I had half worked out. From the Google map, the town had clearly once taken the star shaped defence outline of a Vauban fort. Even my schoolboy French was good enough to understand what the little plaque said:





Let’s wander back to the hotel for breakfast:



You can see the Flemish influence in the house, place and street names:



The travelling butcher was up and trading:

Fortifications of Vauban - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[wessie]

40 miles of Paris?

did you offer a pair of your Y fronts for the art installation?

 

[Wapping]

The French do love a dramatic war memorial. The town’s example was no exception. The little plaque tells that the town, which must have been a routing post between the Channel ports and the front line was heavily attacked by the `Germans, using long range artillery and bombers. We have already seen that it was attacked in the hot June 1940 too, which accounts for the holes in the acting of the dying French soldier:





Now for breakfast and then off we go…..

 

[Wapping]

40 miles of Paris?

did you offer a pair of your Y fronts for the art installation?

That’ll teach me to multi-task. I was writing an email to a client, moaning about a French (Paris based) reinsurer at the same time as creating this sunning trip report.

I have no idea what the artistic washing line was about. It did though amuse me in the morning sunshine.

 

[Wapping]

The day out on Saturday morning, is going east to west, horizontally from Bergues to Wimmereux, a little north of Boulogne:

It takes entirely D roads, often quite narrow (a car wide) often with grass growing up the middle, across the fields and canals of Flanders, before passing through the gentle rolling hills and woods, as we near the coast.

It’s only 60 or so miles, but it’s not necessarily made for hooning. Nor did I want to, as it was not the purpose of the day out, nor the weekend break.

More later…..

PS The map is vaguer interesting, as you can easily see why the French went to a lot of expense to build the motorway, which runs to the north of the route’s black line. Before it was built, it would have been slow going between the Channel ports and the industrial area on the Belgian border.

You can also see why for centuries armies have marched through Flanders, east and west, the flat land making manoeuvres easier (impeded only by rivers) and difficult to spot (particularly before aeroplanes) due to the lack of high ground. Church spires, came in very handy as observation points, though not particularly life enhancing for those charged with observation duties. As did the town of Cassel, the one truly high point. I can recommend this book:



If anyone wants to read a bit more of the ‘miracle’ that took place. Dunkirk and the surrounding area is often overlooked, in favour of the Normandy beaches and, of course, the town of Ypres and the Somme killing grounds. It’s maybe a bit of a pity, as (whilst it was the defeat of an entire army group) it was a ‘victory’ (of a sort) too. That it depended on great heroism and some luck, is without a doubt obvious.

 

[Traffic893]

A nice little ride report.

 

[Wapping]

I didn’t stop to take too many pictures on the way, not least as it’s not necessarily always the easiest route to follow. But here goes:



Luckily, there was no breeze to speak, or I’d probably have been drenched in something unpleasant:



You can though see how the scenery changes, from the flat land to the rolling hills and woods:



At one point and quite unannounced by way of road closure, the track was blocked as a little bridge was in a bad state of repair and closed off by metre square blocks of bricks. The gap was much narrower than it looks, really only a narrow path for someone on foot. I’d have been stuffed on my 1600 and turning around on a very narrow, sloping unmade path (not great fun) but the mighty Himalayan was narrow enough to squeeze through. The cows were interested enough to come to watch me:

 

[Wapping]

A nice little ride report.

Thank you.

 

[g00ner]

You’d be very welcome to stop by for a pit stop en route to the tunnel if you didn’t live quite so close

Enjoyed your report

 

[Wapping]

Wimmereux is quite a nice and popular seaside town, with a decent choice of bars, bars and snack joints:




I of course headed for the kebab van and scoffed an excellent Merguez American, which is basically a decent sized baguette, split in two, packed with two merguez sausages and large pile of excellent salted chips.




This I scoffed, sat on the steps of what I think is the town hall, closed for renovation:

 

[Doc]

Looks good Richard. Can't beat picnic style eating out.

 

[Wapping]

You’d be very welcome to stop by for a pit stop en route to the tunnel if you didn’t live quite so close

Enjoyed your report

Thank you.

It’s somewhere between an hour and fifteen and an hour and thirty, door to door, providing the M20 is behaving itself and there’s no blockage crossing the Thames. I am pretty lucky on that front.

 

[Wapping]

Looks good Richard. Can't beat picnic style eating out.

I was actually thinking of you, when I tucked in.

 

[Wapping]

Lunch over and a couple of Zantac taken, the return route took different roads but was near enough the same distance:

Off we go, taking the minor roads as before:



Unfortunately, the cafe I had planned to stop at was shut:



But never mind, as I knew that the cafe / pizza place in Watten would most probably be open instead:



More later, as I need to go and give a blood donation and have pints thereafter….