Aug 18, 2012 - Arras: market and quarries

Market and Chalk Quarries The day after we went to Vimy was a Saturday. Saturday is market morning in Arras and both huge squares and the adjoining streets were crammed with vendors. Arras has been famous as a market town since the Middle ages. We saw everything from fruit and vegetables to turkeys, cheese, liqueur, clothing, furniture, jewelry. It was wonderful. We bought a nice straw basket and filled it with fresh munchy, lunchy food. We went up the World Heritage clock tower and Grammar got good shots of the market. Underneath the...

Aug 17, 2012 - Arras, Vimy Ridge

Arras and Vimy Ridge August 17 Apparently Grammar booked us into a 4 star hotel in Arras. The clerk could not believe the good rate she got on line. We decided to stay three nights, partly because I thought the breakfasts were delicious. Grammar felt so at home in Arras that she got her hair dyed. The hairdresser gave both me and Grammar a terrific head massage; so she tipped him too much. If I had not been there, I think she would have tried to take him home with her. The name Arras comes from the French word "rat", which is the same in...

Aug 16, 2012 - Beauvais to Arras, France

Beauvais to Arras, August 16 Had a great shower and excellent breakfast at the hotel. Our view of it is greatly improved. We changed our cell number to a French one for the month of August. We went looking for work by the ceramicists Greber. We found their own richly decorated house plus many houses along rue Victor Hugo that sported their ceramic decoration. Three generations of Grebers produced fine work in Beauvais until the 1960s. Then we headed south to try to find Allonne, a brick- making town that the GPS would not recognize. We...

Oct 22, 2011 - Marching North in France

20th October I bet you were impressed by us crossing the Alps through Switzerland? Funny though perhaps one of the hardest days cycling has been through Belgium where the Ardennes does some very steep up and downs!! Had a nice time at the small hotel in Esch-sur Sure but the road along the valley was closed as the bridge had broken so we went up and over the top. We had spied a river route on the map but unlike the Moselle it went up and down steep banks rather than along a nice flat river – very pretty though. We had booked a Hostel in...

Nov 12, 2010 - Arras

Leaving Lille Flandres station, was around half ten, one of those double decker trains. Passing through the green agricultural rural countryside,looks peaceful now, can only imagine how it would have looked back in WW1 with the trench lines, barbed wire and shell holes pitting the land. Smooth travelling until about half way when the train came to a stop outside near what looked like a concrete plant, waited here for nearly half an hour, no announcements made, some of the other passengers were moving about to see what was going on,...

Jul 30, 2010 - Waihi war memorial

Well our final days in France were just a good temperature at mid 20s. We found the memorial to the Waihi tunnelers and also visited the Wellington memorial which took us down into some of the tunnels. We wore winter clothes as the temperature 20m underground was 11 degrees. Getting us prepared for home!!!!!! Had a nice relaxing time waiting desperately for the days to pass until we could return to London. David has done very well with the languages, even ordering for himself in French. Nearly time to come home and looking forward to it.