Vvf Villages Les Argousiers Calais

We awoke to the noise of trucks and early morning deliveries..Took Lucy for walk and packed van ready to hit the road again..Start? Yes!!<br><br>Breakfast at the Happy Chef opposite the Marina in Dover was very welcomed, and to be recommended. We will be checking out Uncle Sam's next time we pass through. Now down to the Ferry port for check in..<br><br>Ooh la la......<br>

... the motorway at the first opportunity, and retraced our steps, along with the Landyprikkers, but we lost them shortly afterwards, as they sailed off missing the turning again.<br>We then followed the roadbook ok, but missed most of the things we should have seen along the route.<br>The Landyprikkers caught us up later, and we travelled together for a while.<br>

18th September<br><br>Staples 2 Naples &#8211; Day 1 &#8211; Calais to Sarnen.<br><br>Last night I was well fuelled up on continental 6% European blond beer! Real lethal stuff, it was served in 3 litre tubes, we had 3 of these between 4 of us!!<br><br>Not a good mix after just 1 hour sleep in 2 days! <br><br>After drinking this and signing up for the rally, with a few more beers, i was told we are heading for a ...

... due to a couple of little incidents on the way. We had a new inverter delivered yesterday morning as the original failed on Friday so I attempted to install that this morning but ran out of time. We were making good time to Dover but we needed to fill up the gas before we left the country as we had no time to get a French adaptor. The pump we found filled ...

... not who crossed the line first. We were told to get back in our cars and at that point we produced our trump card, the stuffed horses head from the sunroof having a good look around the car park. From no-where teams came over to snap our friend and took videos of his antics. There was then a blast again of the horn and we were off!!!. Every siren, whistle, horn and CD was sounded as we exited the car park on the start of a very long and tiring experience.<br>

In this section of my journey I travel in a huge arc from Carcasonne in the south-west of France, through Geneva, to Calais in the north-west. Carcassonne looks like a caricature of a fairy-tale palace with it's walls, battlements, towers, etc. It's very crowded because it's mid-summer and crowds of people are attending the festival (Massive Attack is playing in the Arena and I join hundreds of people outside and enjoy a free concert :). This area is called the Languedoc and ...

Today we got the ferry from Dublin to Holyhead and are driving straight through to Dover to get the ferry to Calais, France tonight. Our gps says its going to take 5 hrs 50 mins so we will see, it may just be another mad rush to make the ferry.

I felt very anxious throughout the first half of the ferry trip to Calais as I was not convinced that this trip was meant to happen. The last few weeks had been really stressful and right up to the last minute on English turf, things were still going wrong. The van decided to make some horrible noises on the way to Bishop's Stortford on Monday night, and Mr RAC diagnosed air in the engine, and couldn't really say what had caused it and whether it would ...

We soon climbed out of the tunnel and raced towards the train's first stop at Lille. The land was flat, bathed in sunshine and looking decidedly and strangely 'foreign' !!!<br><br>We were served with a late lunch during this section of the ride. Well cooked and well served! Also with a nice glass of champagne!!! <br>

... Airaines, Abbeville, Montreuil, Samer to Boulogne (where we got geographically embarrassed again). Along the coast through Wimereux (and our first sighting of the White cliffs of Dover!) to Calais. As we passed each of these places new sights and differences struck us. Not the least being - the decorated roundabouts, each town seemed to be competing for the most elaborate roundabout to mark either entry or exit. We found gardens ...