A usual early start!
I had a bad night's sleep; I'm beginning to wonder whether it's the lights in our office, as this now happens whenever I go into work... I woke up at 2:21am and decided to check the route to Folkestone on Google Maps. Because of numerous road closures, it advised three hours and for us to take the M25 the other way, i.e., not the Dartford crossing side, which I was not happy about.
At 2:45am, I woke Sophie, and she had a shower. I went downstairs and checked Google Maps again, but nothing had changed! By the time we had both showered and dressed and made a flask of coffee, it was 3:40am. Keith had got up to say goodbye, and the cats were totally bemused by the goings on, especially as we didn't want to let them out until later in the morning. I felt a little off as I'd had stomach cramps since I woke up, so I'd taken some ibuprofen to help, but I have to admit I was a little worried about the journey!
We set off in the blackness and saw a fox and a muntjac deer before we got to the A43. There was very little on the road, and we drove to junction 15 of the M1 and joined the motorway. The left lane was a wall of lorries, but we made good progress until just after Luton, when all the lanes were reduced to one, and we were held up for a while.
The journey from the M25 to the M20 seemed to take forever! We passed Heathrow, and then Gatwick, and took the M26 towards Maidstone, a motorway I'd never been on before! I had never, in all the years of travelling to Dover and Folkestone, taken this route, but we had no further hold-ups, and we were checking in at 6:30am.
We could have taken an earlier train, but we both needed the loo, so we kept our booked departure. In Duty-Free, we took advantage of two bottles of vodka for £18 (well, we had to!) and then returned to the car for coffee, pastries and a granola yoghurt.
Very soon, we were called, and we were asked by a charming French border guard where our final destination was. When I said Ver-sur-Mer, he looked at me blankly! Le Shuttle was very quiet indeed, and we boarded quickly without having to go up the ramp!
We passed the crossing by napping, and we were delighted to see blue skies when we got to France! The roads were quiet, and we made good time to our first stop, the aire de la baie de Somme. We used the facilities (no toilet seats) and had a coffee and hot chocolate overlooking the cold canal. It had turned grey and misty, but we didn't mind! We like it like this!
Lunch with a frog
Our journey continued, and we spotted three buzzards on the fences and loads and loads of mistletoe balls in the trees. We stopped at two tolls and then drove over the Pont de Normandie bridge. Below us was the Seine and the port of Le Havre.
We had decided to stop for lunch in Honfleur and parked in the usual car park. As the time was getting on, we picked the first restaurant we came to, La Grenouille (The Frog). We had looked at the menu outside and picked the set 24 euro menu. Inside, it was warm, pleasantly busy, and the staff were lovely and friendly.
We both chose the terrine to start, followed by chicken in a cider cream sauce and frites. I ordered a 50cl pichet of Muscadet de Sevre et Maine to accompany the meal. By now, we were both hungry, and our breakfast at the shuttle terminal seemed an age ago! The food was very good - simple but delicious!
For dessert, Sophie had "floating islands", which was a dollop of meringue on top of a pistachio cream. She'd never had that before! I had liquid cream cheese topped with a fruit coulis. It was a lovely lunch, and just what we wanted!
We paid the bill, about 60 euros, and had a quick look at the harbour. The time was getting on, so after a quick look at the boats moored up, we made our way back to the car.
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| The Frog restaurant |
My main objective now was to fill up with petrol, and I'd spotted two stations on the way in. We backtracked and filled up the car with fuel, so that was one worry alleviated. I could hear Keith's words in my head saying, "Don't let it get too low!" but we hadn't wanted to fill up on the autoroute because it was a lot more expensive.
Collecting shells
We then took the coast road to Deauville, as we did last year, and saw the sea and the industry around Le Havre, which I'm sure we hadn't noticed last year! The tide was a long way out, and we decided to stop at Houlgate again to collect shells.
We carried along the coast road, enjoying the beautiful scenery and stunning houses. This is just one example:
A lot of the beach houses were well and truly shuttered up; some of them were gorgeous! There was sand on the road, and when we stopped at the beach at Houlgate, a digger was pushing back sand from the promenade back onto the beach. We both felt it was because of Storm Goretti last week, as it must have affected this area quite badly.
We both found shells and crunched our way over to a large church that is being renovated into apartments. I took a photo of the estate agents handling the sale to find out more information later!
Back in the car, we carried on our way, and I asked Sophie to find a supermarket so we could do a quick shop before we arrived at the Airbnb. We found a small Carrefour in Lion-sur-Mer and bought some essentials to tide us over. It was a perfect little place, and we bought all we needed.
From Lion-sur-Mer, we drove to Ver-sur-Mer, and it took us about forty minutes. We crossed over Pegasus Bridge at Ouistreham and then headed inland, clashing with the rush hour traffic. The sun was very low in the sky, making for difficult driving.
It was a huge relief when we parked opposite our little house, and that was the driving done for the day! We had been up for fifteen hours, and we were shattered! We let ourselves in with the key from the lockbox and unpacked the car before putting our clothes away. The house was wonderful, with a wood-burning stove, a comfortable dining/living room, a separate kitchen, a downstairs loo (bonus!) and two bedrooms with an upstairs bathroom. When we'd arrived, a little grey cat had come over to say hello, and he/she almost came into the house! It was very friendly!
Plunged into darkness!
It was heaven to collapse on the sofa, open a bottle of wine and decide which Netflix series to watch. After about twenty minutes of a strange Polish drama, we decided to watch a documentary on the murder of a very rich man in Monaco, Edmond Safra, which was riveting!
As we were watching, all the lights suddenly went out and, after looking out of the windows, we realised it was a power cut... I was just glad we'd lit some candles and the stove was alight, but this gradually went out. It lasted about forty-five minutes, and it was a relief when everything came back on! I dreaded waking up in the night with no way of seeing how to get to the loo!
We watched the end of the documentary, finished our bottle of El Diablo, and went to bed. It had been a long day!
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