The journey to Dover yesterday was not very good. It took us four hours and the stretch by the Dartford Bridge was very slow indeed. However, we were sitting in the bar at just after 8pm with a drink so it wasn't that bad. We stayed at the Premier Inn right next to the ferry terminal and it was well worth the £60 we paid. We had a lovely meal and a good night's sleep. The beds in the hotel are wonderful and I even think they're the best beds I've ever slept in in a hotel which is saying something as my bed at home is my haven.
We were up and ready to go at 7.30am this morning but we needn't have rushed as the ferry terminal was like a ghost town - nobody stopped us to look at pasports or anything and there wasn't even a queue at the check-in desk. We sailed with Seafrance on the Berlioz and it was a lovely ship, very clean and quiet. We had a light breakfast as we'd planned to have lunch in Arras but it wasn't to be. We were late sailing and had to wait outside Calais to dock so we arrived almost an hour later than planned. It just wasn't worth it driving the hour's journey to Arras, having lunch and then trying to get back for shopping.
It took us a wee while to get to Cite Europe as we can never remember the way from the port! From the Eurotunnel it's easy, so we just headed for that and eventually stumbled upon the shopping centre. Again, it was very quiet and within an hour our trolley was full of wine, some of which was very reasonable. None of our wine was over 6 euros and most of it was Vin de Pays at around 3 euros. We'd been impressed with a lot of the Languedoc wines from last summer so I chose quite a few bottles of those, plus some of our old favourites such as Rasteau from the Cotes du Rhone, Julienas from Beaujolais and some Vouvray. Keith treated me to a bottle of Grants which was the same price as on the boat, but came with a glass!
Keith, much to my disgust, bought a few bottles of the beer he was drinking in the summer, in Narbonne...the ones the local hobos drank! One of them was 11%! I think he's mad but that was all he bought so I couldn't really complain!
We had lunch at our favourite place which is also a brewery and came away from there with three bottles of their brune beer. Lunch was OK but a bit on the expensive side. The children had two cokes which came to 9 euros which I was unhappy about. The bill was 88 euros in total (including a tip and the extra beer) which seemed a bit high for what we had, and certainly more expensive than the meals we had in the Languedoc last summer.
After lunch, Sophie and I went and did some shopping in New Look (much nicer than in the UK) and Pimkie where she bought some leggings and a very pretty top. We then found a shop selling some lovely New York pictures and she treated herself to two for when we finally get around to decorating her bedroom!
The journey home was great - the ferry was quiet and not as rough as it had been this morning. Even the M25 behaved itself and we came home on the M20 rather than the M2 this time so we were back before my planned time of 9pm.
So...it was great to have a break and get away even for a short time. It was a shame we never made it to Arras but there's always next time!
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