Day 1 - A New Continental Adventure

Over the last few weeks, we have been monitoring the UK Governments travel advice & we have been changing our plans almost daily. At this moment in time we plan to race through France & Italy (not on toll roads) to Brindisi & catch a ferry to Greece, where we will stay for a month before making a very leisurely drive home.

At 0915 hours with our little Citroen DS3 loaded to the gunnels, we embarked on our next adventure. It was with some relief that the infected north of England hadn’t spread far enough south to restrict our movements. Talking of infections, Jackie has woken up with a swollen finger, that is turning green close to the nail. Not pretty.

An hour and a half later, we pulled into the Euro Tunnel Le Shuttle departure terminal at Folkestone & selected an earlier train (1149 hours). After a quick wee, because there are no toilets currently open in the tunnel, we received the call to depart. All very straightforward, despite initially being the low vehicles queue which would have resulted in us smashing our top box on the ceiling. Luckily we were directed to the correct queue! We were also subject of a vehicle inspection & had our steering wheel swabbed for drugs!

As soon as we actually boarded the shuttle, I couldn’t think about anything else other than having a wee. Typical.

The 35 minute journey flew by in which time we just about finished our picnic, then we disembarked into Calais. Unfortunately our car SatNav seemed to be struggling with the new language & took us on a guided tour of Calais. We were about to resort to google when finally the SatNav got its act together & spat us out of Calais & on a toll free course towards Reims in the Champagne Ardennes region.

Our route took us east along the southern side of the English Channel, then just before Dunkerque, we headed south past Lille, Le Quesnoy, Landrecies, Guise, Laon & finally to Reims, arriving at 1745 hours local time. En route we booked our accommodation for the night, the Ibis Reims Centre Gare Hotel.

We had driven through what was the green fields of France, with still numerous graveyards to remember the fallen, but now the fields were golden with wheat.

We parked up in the hotel car park, donned our masks & checked in to our hotel, which was perfectly adequate for the budget price. After a quick freshen up, we were soon back out & heading to the famous ‘Cathedrale Notre Dame’. We crossed Square Colbert directly outside our hotel, which was heaving with people enjoying the sun & kids splashing about in a paddling pool. I attempted to take a photo, but Jackie told me to stop in case people thought I was a paedo.

After a short walk, we arrived at the magnificent Notre Dame Cathedral. It was breathtakingly beautiful. We put our masks on & entered the enormous Gothic building with it’s massive stained glass windows. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site & celebrated it’s 800th anniversary in 2011.

The most famous event to take place here was the coronation of Charles VII in 1429, with Joan of Arc at his side. This was one of 25 coronations to take place there between 1223 & 1825.

After strolling past the other points of interest, Palais Du Tau & a statue of Joan of Arc on horseback in full body armour, we located a pharmacy for Jackie’s finger which was really throbbing.

The pharmacist didn’t like what he saw of Jackie’s finger & suggested she go straight to the hospital to get it checked out, but then after further consideration he diagnosed it as ‘Whitlow Finger’. He sold Jackie an antiseptic solution, that she has to douse her infected finger for 5 minutes twice a day & has advised she goes to a hospital if things don’t improve within 5 days.

We walked up through Esplanade du Colonel Boucher, had a beer in a Brazilian Restaurant, then walked to a creperie, A L’ere Du Temps, for a savoury galette & half a litre of smooth Bordeaux red. It was all superb.

Jackie’s finger was throbbing, so we headed back to our hotel, but not before picking up a bottle of Vranken champagne from Reims from the local supermarket. Back at our hotel, it was a quick shower, then popped the fizz. When in Rome................and all that!

The night ended with up drinking our fizz out of paper cups, whilst I wrote the blog. Mr Vranken would probably be very upset.

Song of the Day : The Green Fields of France (No Mans Land) by The Men They Couldn’t Hang.

Bonus Songs : Fields of Gold by Sting.
Bonus Songs : Champagne Supernova by Oasis
Bonus Songs : Joan of Arc by OMD.Read more