The day started off well (yes, some foreshadowing...). I arrived at the Dover ferry terminal with an hour to spare. The only eventful thing on my drive from Aldershot was seeing a poof of feathers over the centre median and witnessing a poor pigeon flutter down to the ground. It had obviously been hit by a car travelling in the opposite direction.
The ferry was a similar size to the ones that ply the water between Victoria and Vancouver but the interior was much different. It was all about lounges and multiple bars and a big arcade for kids at the back. There was a much greater variety in the seat and table arrangements, I liked it, oh, and did I mention they serve beer! (although I didn’t bother having one) What I didn’t like was the lack of outdoor deck space but I guess the Channel probably tends to be much windier than the BC waters. The only outside deck was at the back and one had to walk through the arcade to get there which seemed a bit silly. Due to the lack of outside deck on the sides, the windows are not easily accessible to be cleaned and therefore the viewing from inside wasn’t great as the windows were covered in sea salt.
I watched as we pulled away from the white cliffs of Dover and wondered what lay ahead.
Arriving in Calais, I decided to head into town to get some Euros. I would be taking some toll roads to get to Vimy (near Arras) and might need the cash. It didn’t take long for me to find a cash machine and I got back in Betty, grabbed the sat nav (a Garmin GPS unit that talks to me in a nice yet stern female English accented voice and tells me directions to where I want to go) and turned it on. Wait a sec, it won’t turn on. I tried again and again. Es ist kaput! Super, day 1 on the continent and the little electronic lady who was going to guide me around Europe has already quit! I guess I’ll have to do it the old fashion way for the time being; thankfully I have a big map of France.
I hopped on the toll highway and sped towards Arras. The speed limit is 130 km/h which by luck turns out to be Betty’s top speed! Arriving at the exit for Arras and Vimy, I approached the toll booth. Those who are regulars on the highways have some sort of electronic card so they go through a different gate but I approached the one for paying cash. The window was closed, not a person in sight and a sign said “En Greve”. Hmm, not sure what that means, but the gate is open so I’ll just cruise through I guess. Not wanting to break the law in the first hours of being in France, I pulled over into a small parking area with some washrooms to look up what “greve” means. On strike. Sweet! Saves me some money. I saw the sign for Vimy, everything right on schedule apart from Miss SatNav not functioning.
I turned the key on Betty to get moving again. The diesel engine turned and turned but would not fire up. I tried again, and again. No luck. As the French would say, “Que faire?”. At first I figured I might have flooded the old girl so I’d doing some reading up on Vimy Ridge from some Wikipedia pages I’d saved on my computer. There was a group of 4-5 people standing around in the parking lot talking. I wondered why they’d be hanging out here. I found out soon enough. There was a big maroon van with some flowers in it. I hadn’t clued in that it was in fact a hearse that had broken down until the tow truck arrived. Imagine that, being late for your own funeral. “Here’s my chance” I thought, “I better go and talk to the tow truck driver”. In my rusty French I explained my situation and he told me that there wasn’t anything he could do and the hearse driver said that there was a phone in the nearby building and they were off. I had already been in that building but there was no phone and no one there, just a couple of toilets. With the toll workers on strike, the place was a ghost town apart from the fairly steady stream of cars exiting the highway. I asked the next guy that stopped in the parking lot who was driving a truck with mattresses in it and he explained that the phone he had could only be used for calling the company headquarters. Eventually this nice couple in their 60s who were from the north coast of Belgium offered to go and see what they could find in the nearby town. They returned twenty minutes later with a phone number and tried it. It turns out that one must call the Gendarmerie, a sort of branch of the police that deals with the roads. They send a specific, government approved tow truck (depanneur) to you. The gentleman, Christoph, and I went back in the building and eventually, after searching all of the postings on the bulletin boards, we found the number. He called and got a tow truck on its way. Thanks so much Christoph and your wife!
Within half an hour a truck showed up and after only five minutes the young guy had Betty purring again. I asked him to explain a couple times to me what he had done. It had to do with the fuel pump and that air had gotten into the fuel line but I wasn’t completely clear of the exact fix he did. Oh well, she’s running. Since I don’t have any assistance insurance here (like the BCAA I have in Canada), the five minute fix cost me 113 Euros! Ouch, but at least I’m back in action and only three hours after the break down occurred. On to Vimy.
It was now after 5pm when I arrived at Vimy Ridge. Vimy was the site of a World War I battle that is significant in the history of Canada. It is the first time that all Canadian battalions fought together and they successfully beat the Germans off of this valuable high ground at one flank of the Western front. Some consider it to be the moment when Canada actually became a nation. I’ve actually read Pierre Berton’s book “Vimy Ridge” and have always found the two World Wars to be fascinating, although I have to say that there’s no way you’d find me participating in them!
I first stopped at a beautiful graveyard with white tombstones, row upon row, surrounded by lovely flowers and bushes and a monument here and there. What surprised me was the number of unnamed graves. Not sure why it caught me off guard as the ground of nearby forests comprised of many mounds and pockets, the result of the incredible amount of artillery pounding the area received so I’m sure many corpses were unrecognizable, blown to bits in the massive bombardment.
I then drove up to the Vimy Ridge memorial. It is a stunning white twin set of towering obelisks with a variety of statues who all bared the body language of languishing pain and suffering (oh, and the occasional breast). It was quite stunning. Names of thousands of soldiers that had perished in the war were on the base of the towers. There was a view of at least ten kilometres out across the countryside and it was easy to see why this was such a critical piece of land during war. I was fortunate in that there were only a couple of joggers running the periphery and one other person around the memorial. As I was leaving, a double-decker bus of teenage kids just arrived so I timed it well. The last part of Vimy that I wanted to see was the visitor’s centre which includes some of the trenches and tunnels that were part of the defences there. Unfortunately they were just closing it up so I had a decision to make, try and camp somewhere nearby and come back in the morning or press on, I opted to press on.
The Vimy Ridge Memorial:
The surrounding valley:
I drove another hour or so to Reims. As part of my preparation for my trip, I had ordered a book from the French Amazon site called “Aires de Service”. These “aires” vary from road side stops to full on camping sites but all of them provide the weary motorist with a place to crash. There was an aire in Reims that was free and included Internet access so it seemed perfect, apart from the fact that I couldn’t find it! It was supposed to be just 1 kilometer from the city centre off of the highway. I did see an amazing cathedral way down one main road and I was about to press on but as I hopped back on the highway, I saw three or four campers and campervans in a parking lot of a stadium across the other side of the thoroughfare. Let’s check that out. I made my way back around and found the slightly treed lot that looked good apart from being close to the freeway. I parked and decided to go for a walk to see the cathedral and try and find a place to watch the England football game.
On the corner before I turned onto the street where I saw the massive cathedral there was a little brasserie (cafe) and the wait staff were moving some tables and chairs inside so more clientele could watch a football game. I looked at the big screen and saw that the initials for the teams playing were “ALG” and “ANG”. Algeria versus Angola?!? Strange...oh, wait, it’s Angleterre dumb ass. There was some drumming originating from the cathedral area so I decided to first go check that out before returning for the game.
Almost all of the buildings in the five or six blocks that I walked towards the cathedral had their wooden or steel shutters closed and there was next to no activity. This was quite a contrast to what was happening in front of the place of worship. There was a stage with scantily clad men and women dancing to bongo drums with a crowd of one to two hundred people watching. I read a French poster that mentioned that it was an ethnic celebration. This must have been the South Pacific contingent. I noticed some Russian or Ukrainian dancers waiting off to the side. It was entertaining but I have to admit that the music seemed to sound the same for the entire 20 minutes I heard it so after admiring the amazing cathedral that was obviously under some restoration, I headed back towards the brasserie to hopefully catch the second half of the game, which I did, only to see England tie Algeria 0-0. Some of the wait staff and a few customers must have been of Algerian descent as they celebrated the tie big time. There was also a table of an English family (parents and two twenty something sons) who took the celebrations with a smile....awesome to see this kind of national pride yet world unity.
The cathedral of Reims:
The South Pacific dancers:
I walked back to Betty and surprisingly all of the other campers were gone. Hmm....is it actually okay to stay here? I figured I’d be told if it wasn’t so I prepared for bed. While reading a book, I kept hearing some cars entering the parking lot, driving around a bit, parking here and there. I couldn’t make rhyme or reason for it but decided to ignore it and that was the right call. I had an okay sleep. It did get a bit chilly in the night but only enough to briefly wake me. I still had extra blankets and long underwear I could have used so so far no heater is not an issue. My first night in Betty was just fine...
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