Rouen (not ruin)(since 1940's anyway)

We left Doudeville for the bright lights of Rouen. For back story I have been reading Mark Twain's complete works off and on for a while now and had got to his Maid of Orleans treatment only a week or two ago. Today I got as far as Joan being captured and locked up in... you guessed it - Rouen! How's that for a coincidence? So there were a few Joan D'Arc connections during the day.

J gets us off to a great start with a healthy lunch

It was stinking hot - the thermometer is still reading 28 C at 9:30 pm. We wandered along the Sienne past converted dock sheds full of people enjoying life, and lines of barges and the odd cruise boat. 

Reggie at home in a marina

LaSienne

Rouen is an ancient town but suffered heavily during the war both during the German advance and their retreat. It is a curse as well as a blessing to have bridges over a major river river run through one's city. Result? Much of the city had to be rebuilt after the war, and there is still evidence in the form of fragment impacts in building walls. However, there is still much to like.

The cathedral

Joan of Arc's own little corner. None of her here though, as the English burned her body for 9 hours before throwing her ashes in the Seine just so there'd be no relics!

St Maclou church

Love this stereotypical French scene

The horological tower - 14th C

The cross here marks the exact spot Joan was burned. The 1970's church replaced one destroyed in 1944.

The windows were rescued from the destroyed church. It is a rather nice modern church, very open inside. It is a departure from tradition though, so apparently feelings were... mixed... on opening.

Some interesting architectural features. The towers lift a section of the main road bridge, though I'm not sure it would lift very often now, as there are fewer docks.

Sounding a Scottish retreat

In May-June 1940 the Germans swept across France leading to the well known British evacuation at Dunkirk and subsequently over-rated 2018 movie of that name. Less known is the disaster that befell the Scottish 51st Highland Division in and around St Valery-en-Caux and in the village of Veules-les-Roses. 300 Scots were evacuated from the beaches here, while the bulk of the Scots were surrounded and captured between here and St Valery. I though the name was familiar.

Guns from the Cerus, that grounded offshore trying to take off soldiers. Another ship took of the soldiers but the ship fought on until its ammunition was exhausted. The surviving crew eventually surrendered.

Another later Atlantic Wall defensive position overlooking the beach at V-l-R.

There was some time-tripping for a 19th C wedding party, though the Covid masks were a little anachronistic!

We tried to stop in St Valery but there was no short-term parking for Reggie to be found. 

Tonight's park-up is Dudeville  Doudeville, en route to Rouen. Another nice little town, though their signposting leaves something to be desired. It is apparently the Capital of Flax. (Trivia: NZ's biggest industry in the 40s? Flax!) Their very unusual Hotel de Ville used to be the covered flax market.

Plenty bargains to be had, if you want a maison in Dudeville...

Our park-up.

The weather has been glorious. I am slightly sunburnt, and the biere/vin tastes all the better when sitting in the French sun in a French village. Life is tough.

Sunshine

France is spoiling us. We awoke to a hot, windless day. But no internet...

Vodafone have let us down again. We found that when we arrived we had no internet so it was another 2 hours out of my life trying (eventually successfully) to get them to fix it. Then we discovered that the 'unlimited internet' we bought is only unlimited within the UK, and has a 25Gb limit elsewhere. Nowhere on our contract summary and never mentioned in the shop even when we said many times it was for European travel, but mentioned on the website in the small print. Why I fell for Vodafone again after the last trip I don't know. Aside from it not being mentioned, it may be enough anyway. We can't remember what our deal was last time so don't know if 25 Gb will be enough or not. I note 3's unlimited data deal is capped at 20Gb, so we'll see how we go.

Anyhoo, once that was done it was lunchtime and time for the trip to really begin. We walked into Dieppe, a lovely French port town that just happened to also be the scene of a disastrous large-scale raid by Canadians, British commandoes and US rangers on 19th August 1942. (See After the Battle Vol 5.) And as part of the Atlantic wall we didn't have to go far for a bunker:

Behind our park-up site

It's a lovely town on the mouth of the Seine, with a marina and inner basin. It is surrounded by white cliffs of the same geologic origins as those we saw across the way at Newhaven. Of course, while they give a nice backdrop to photos they were also perfect defensive positions for the Germans.

Masks were not much in evidence

There's now a small museum to the cock-up that was the raid. It may have taught valuable lessons for landings in Italy and France again, but it was a disaster by any other measure.

The beach where most of the Canadians fought and died, and the cliffs from where German defenders could rain down hell

This bunker has a commanding view, though I suspect it was built after the raid

The Canadian Memorial, with the chateau overlooking it

But Dieppe has more history than that. The chateau has a small museum too, and a wonderful view.

(The swimming/spa complex just below the chateau is located where a famous old Casino was. It was badly damaged during the raid.)

The last of the old town gates.

We then walked down the (stony) beach and back to the park-up.

The other park-up site was jam-packed. Mind you, so was ours by the time we came to leave.

Apparently there's a big kite festival once a year in Dieppe. There were just a few up today.

Late afternoon we drove further down the coast, past some other areas related to the raid and on to a lovely village, Vueles Les Roses. We're camped up on the cliffs and of course there are more bunkers - but no photos!

We had dinner out but it clouded over so we headed back and did our blogs for you. The sacrifices we make!

In which we take a boat across the sea

The park-up was a very nice farm somewhere in the vicinity of Oxford. Fishing ponds, cafe, beauty parlour...

Next day off to Newhaven. We tried to get a mechanic to fix our leak, which we have now pin-pointed to a pipe joint (so thankfully not serious), but there just wasn't enough time. When we settle for a few days we'll try to do it near a mechanic.

Our trip across the channel was very smooth. The mandatory wearing of masks was unpoliced and frankly a farce. People are over it, which may come back to haunt us all.

Bye bye Britain

The white cliffs of Eastbourne

Our park-up was just up from the ferry terminal. It was a bit noisy until the ferry moved or shut down its engines or something. (I didn't check.) The security lights must have blinded those closer to them, but we slept OK for the night.

Dieppe park-up, though we didn't see much of this when we arrived in the dark

Day 1

We're off, and true to future form took a lazy 2 hour drive to our first stop.

But first, it was hand over the keys, and then Andy H caught us just as we were driving off. Fine timing but nice to say goodbye face to face. Bye bye Lichfield, we may only return to pick up our stuff...

We need to sort out some rattles, and get back into our routines. The coolant water leak is still a worry, so we are monitoring a pipe that showed a little moisture at the end of the leg. If we can find and sort that we'll be a lot happier.

Tomorrow we'll be in France! Vive la Francais!

Thinking without the boxes

The house is echoing now that everything has been stripped out. Farewell my friend, you have served us well.

The movers took our stuff to storage so too late now if we have forgotten anything. They were a different team from last time and not as logical so it'll be tricky moving the stuff out of storage next time. We were slowed down a bit when I tried to pay them in euros, but we got it sorted.

We're now sitting in Reggie for our last night in Lichfield. Well, I am. Judi's trying to shoo a hedgehog out of the garage.

Thinking inside the box

Reggie is near ready. Hot temperatures inside over the spring seem to have melted all the glue on various bits of velcro, so things are falling off left, right and centre! Better news is that we don't seem to be losing coolant water any more.

The apartment is mostly packed and ready to go into storage, though we have a day to go yet. C and M were up for the weekend so gave us a hand by dismantling the bed. I catalogued my modelling stuff and I won't need to buy another for many years to come. I'm taking Freyberg with me to hopefully finish off. Got to get his eyes right...