Canterbury, England to Bergues, France

Ok, I'll admit it - I am tired and my arse as well as other parts, are pretty sore this evening.  It was a longish first day, and while we only covered a paltry 61.5 km on the bikes, the first half was fairly hilly by anyone's standards.  Having said that, the route between Canterbury and Dover was infinitely charming - the consummate storybook version of the England one envisions, complete with quaint cottages, superb gardens, rolling hills, old farms with tudor buildings, and plenty of animals.  I half expected to see Dickens himself popping out of a hedgerow.

There was little time to stop and fully appreciate our surroundings as we had a 1200 ferry reservation to Dunkirk, and for a while it looked as though we might not make it.  But in the end, the ferry was delayed and we had plenty of time on our hands to chat with the other cyclists waiting at the port.  Isn't that always the way?

Waiting for DFDS Seaways at Dover

On the other side, we had our work cut out for us getting out of the ferry port and through Dunkirk itself amongst very heavy traffic, but by 6pm this evening we were rolling into our very comfortable Chambre d'hôte in Bergues, a pretty walled town just a few km west and south of Dunkirk itself.

This evening, after a mediocre repas of Beef and Frites at the Face a Face Restaurant (yes I know it's our own fault for choosing a restaurant with a crazy name like that), we've stumbled home to our little room, I've lathered myself with Diclac, which is an excellent pain numbing gel, and popped plenty of Aspirin and Magnesium.  Hopefully these will see me through the night and well into the day tomorrow.

The Mayor of Bergues?

Our destination tomorrow is Amettes.  Here we'll be back on the Via Francigena, which we had to divert from initially in order to avoid going through the Port of Calais.  As you probably know, Calais has had it's share of challenges recently with work disruptions on the ferries and a large influx of refugees trying to get to the UK.  Today we relied heavily on Alison's GPS to get us to Bergues, but once we are back on the VF, we should have plenty of way markers.

But now, it's time to don my jammies and climb into bed.

A bientôt