The End!

We are now home in Australia after cycling around France for around four months. Our last few days were spent cycling from Arras up to Calais for the channel crossing to Dover. These last few days were very windy and dull, in stark contrast to when we arrived in May and we were ready to return home. Overall we covered around 4,500km and had a great time exploring rural France, visiting castles, cathedrals, abbeys, museums, art galleries, prehistoric sites and gardens as well as receiving a history lesson on the Normandy coast and Somme. Our bikes have been cleaned, oiled and put away ready for the next trip.

Bye bye France



Hello England




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Location:The Boulevarde,Mt Hawthorn,Australia

Arras

We are in Arras for a couple of days as we wanted some time to see the town after taking our day trip to Paris. Yesterday, after visiting the Pompidou centre we walked to the left bank and round by Notre Dame before returning to the Gare du Nord. It was a hot, humid day but a very pleasant evening when we returned. There are two large, cobbled squares surrounded by old buildings which are lit up at night by old style street lamps and the cathedral. At night it is very beautiful and is the main eating a drinking place in town.

Our holiday is now nearing then end and we shall be traveling to England, via Calais, in a few days time. The weather is looking better though and we should have a couple more days cycling before the bikes are mothballed for a future trip.

Paris


Arras












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Location:Boulevard Carnot,Arras,France

Pompidou Centre - Paris

The weather was still poor for cycling so we decided to take the TGV to Paris from Arras and visit the Pompidou to see the modern art, which we both appreciate. There was a special exhibition with a contemporary Indian focus that we really enjoyed. There were some exhibits that would not have come from western artists as they were heavily influenced by the masses of people and colours of India. We spent most of the day there and walked down to the left bank before heading back to the Gare du Nord.

Paris - Pompidou Centre



Recent acquisitions






Art from India
Computer parts


Rug made from chain and bicycle parts


Musical instrumen


Cartons etc made to look like a city (actual exhibit is vertical)








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Location:Boulevard Carnot,Arras,France

A change of plan: Albert to Belloy-sur-Somme

For the last couple of days we have changed our route to suit the weather, but the forecasts keep changing as well! By the coast, near the Bay of the Somme, it has been pretty dreadful so we headed inland to Amiens and Albert, planning to return via Belloy-Sur-Somme. Now we have decided to move north and inland to Arras, but the B&B was booked so it has been a case of one step back and two steps forward.

We had entered Albert from the north and so had not seen the town or war museum the previous day. The museum is in a tunnel and completely underground, where they have reconstructed some of the scenes in the trenches along with one section where they play recordings of bombs dropping. There are lots of artifacts and photos and it proved to be very interesting. You exit the museum in a park a few streets away from where you start. We cycled back through Amiens and onto Belloy-Sur-Somme in a light rain and then had to walk 3km to find a place to eat. Not all days go as planned!

Photos from the war museum at Albert
Before and after images - 'nothing was alive, not even a spider'








More colorful images: graffiti in Amiens









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Location:Boulevard Carnot,Arras,France

The Somme

Several weeks ago we were traveling along the Normandy coast and had a lesson about the 2nd World War, now we are in one of the main battlefields of the 1st, the Somme. It was a very windy day as we cycled from Amiens out along the canal and towards Villers-Bretonneux, where the Australians won a battle and liberated the town. The children of Victoria and their relatives bought the town a school after the war and it is still there today with a museum on the 1st floor. It is full of Australian memorabilia and has a library as well, with books about Australian history, geography, poetry etc. The businesses in town have used Australian themes like Kanga Cafe and the Australian flags are everywhere, including on the town hall. We headed north to the Newfoundland memorial, as this country purchased part of the battlefield in 1922 and preserved all the trenches and bomb craters. This was the best site we have visited and gives a really good impression of the layout of the battlefield. It looks very benign, now that the trenches have rounded off and the grass has grown, but you can use your imagination to get some idea of the conditions the troops faced after seeing some of the other exhibits in the centre nearby. It was staffed by Canadian students who were really friendly and informative. It was a long day and we just managed to visit the British cemetery before it closed. This area has a very large monument with over 70,000 names inscribed into the columns at its base. As we travelled around to these main sites we passed small cemeteries on most roads, as the dead were buried where they fought, and it is incredible how many young men died in this conflict.

Traveling out of Amiens by the water gardens.





Wartime photo of the Australians in the Victoria school



Australian Memorial on the Somme




British from line




British Memorial at Thiepval


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Location:Au Bois le Comté,Albert,France

Amiens

The weather has become gradually more cloudy and cool now that autumn is here and rain was forecast for the day after we arrived in Forges-Les-eaux. We decided to travel 2km up the road and catch a train to Amiens, rather than having a wet day in the saddle. A six hour day turned into an hour by train and so we had plenty of time to look around the city. It is a university town and lots of students were milling around the bars and cafes. This also meant the prices were low in some of the places and the glasses of beer were larger! The main attractions are the cathedral and the hortillonages, which are a series of 'floating gardens' that extend over 10 km from the city centre. They also have a museum and gallery that is one of the best in France, particularly for sculptures and prehistoric artifacts. At this time of the year they also light up the cathedral front after dark, so that you can see how it looked when all the decorations, statues and reliefs were painted. This turned out to be a remarkable show. They have about six projectors that shine on the cathedral and they light up different sections with a commentary. These two images show a small section in daylight and when illuminated:








The whole cathedral front







The museum was not quite what we expected as the first floor was closed for an exhibition, but the sculptures were outstanding.







You can visit the water gardens by boat, so we took a trip the next day. They used to be managed like allotments and the vegetables and fruit sold in front of the cathedral. Over time they suffered from imported goods and the move to a common market in Europe. Now, most of the gardens are used as holiday places with small sheds and shacks built on them. We were going to follow the canal the next day so would be traveling through this area again.

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Location:Au Bois le Comté,Albert,France

The Avenue

There is a voie verte that runs from just outside Dieppe to Forges-les-Eaux and we had been trying to work this into our route for a week or so. They are so few and far between that you feel that you need to take advantage of them. Some are relatively uninteresting but this was one of the good ones. It had a lovely wide, smooth Tarmac surface and passed through many different landscapes. It started around 8km out of Dieppe and by a series of ponds. Some were used for fishing and model boats and others seemed just for nature. We passed by a climbing wall that was like a miniature Stonehenge, so I just had to have a go, and then into the countryside. There were wide open vistas across the hills and valleys, wooded sections, farms and villages, castles and churches and a downhill section through a wooded valley to Forges-les-Eaux at the end. We clocked up 60km in the end after a delayed start looking at the old cars on the Grand Rue in Dieppe and a side excursion to check the trains in Serqeaux in vase we needed one the day after. The hotel we booked at the last minute turned out fine and also had an award winning chef, so we ate a great meal to end another fine day on the road - accompanied by a half bottle of Macon blanc.

Passing the old cars on the Grand Rue in Dieppe before setting off.






One of the radio controlled boats on a pond by The Avenue



Artificial rocks used for climbing.


Real free-range chickens



One of the many gates on The Avenue



All the towns are signposted, with distances etc.



No shortage of apples here!


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Location:Rue de Neufchâtel,Forges-les-Eaux,France