BACK TO FRANCE
Discovering the coastal side of France
30th September - 4th October | 2022
My bike was still there, with everything on it! Unfortunately, I didn’t sleep at all as the other lodgers had a different sleep pattern than me and the old wooden staircase was very noisy. After all packed up, I went in the direction of Dieppe in France. While speaking to James last night on the phone, I told him that the next stop will be Dieppe and he said he got a good friend living there. So today's destination will be Rogers & Brigittes there.
It was a nice ride across the country to the coastal area south of Calais. Roger and his lovely dogs gave me warm welcome. Brigitte was just on her way back from the UK, so she only would be back late that night. Of course, we had good talks about motorcycle travelling, but after dinner, I was so tired that I went straight to bed and slept like a log.
The next morning, I finally met Brigitte. Due to the rain, I stayed finally 3 nights with Roger and Brigitte and their lovely dogs. It was such a great relaxing time, with lots of healthy food and good red wine. Roger suggested places to visit in Normandie and Bretagne, but unfortunately, the biker hotel of his friend in Bretagne is closed (holidays) :-(
After these relaxing days, it was time to move on as I am now aiming to be back home on 22.10.22 = 8 months after James and I started the first leg of our RTW trip. Merci beaucoup Roger and Brigitte for looking after me so well! I am looking forward to seeing you one day in the Algarve to pick up the grapefruits and oranges :-D
The first thing in the morning was driving along the coast and seeing the famous white cliffs. After that I headed inland to take a ferry over the river Seine, just to stay in the habit ;-) After the river crossing, I headed towards the town of Ouistreham, which played an important role in the D-Day landing during WWII. I visited "The Bunker" museum, which was full of history about that military operation.
The next day I headed to the area of Arromanches-Les-Bains, which was also full of history as another important landing beach for D-Day during WWII. My last visit in relation to D-Day was to the American Military Cemetery. There you could again read the whole story about this important military operation that finally was a massive step forward towards the finish of WWII.
After all the history, it was time to visit the famous Le Mont-Saint-Michel - already a long time on my bucket list! You could already see the famous Abbey from about 30km away! I had booked a really simple hotel (and in my opinion far too expensive, but you pay for the location!) just 2 mins drive to the parking lot. I quickly checked into my room and then I drove off to the motorcycle parking lot.
At the gate, I could see a pink BMW GS and I just thought "I only know one person ..." and then I could see it was a Spanish number plate. So it must be Mayte, one of the Spanish GS girls I know - and it was! How amazing is that! After the hugging, she presented me to Dori, another GSgirl, her riding partner on this trip. They already did the Bretagne and were off to see Le Mont-Saint-Michel now too.
After we parked the bikes, we walked to the shuttle bus to get to the little village. It was so great to see it finally in real, and it makes you easily think how life was back in the day! We GSgirls had a stroll around outside as it was really low tide, and then a bit through the village inside. As they still had to drive 40km to their accommodation, we went back to the shuttle bus. This time the bus was jampacked, and you couldn't fall over! Ridiculous in terms of still-in-corona times! Once at the bikes, we said "hasta luego" and hopefully we will meet up again!
I hope you enjoyed the variety of France as much as I did so far. Grab yourself a Cider and some Camembert and next Sunday there will be more about France, about Bretagne.
Places | Cities:
Lille, Dieppe, Saint Valery en Caux, Fcamp, Bourneville, Pont l`Eveque, Quistreham, Caen, Arromances-Les-Bains, Bayeux, Percy, Le Mont-Saint-Michel.
Driven km | Trip:
Total | Steffi: 28845 km
Maintenance | Breakdown:
./.
Health issues:
Still a bit snotty nose and on/off dry throat
Special thanks to:
Roger & Brigitte for being so great hosts, having the best sleeping medicine called "Aquavit" ;-)
Normandie really making history interesting.
Le Mont-Saint-Michel to be even more beautiful in real.