Day 28: Auchy aux Bois to Arras, France: Grampies Land on Their Feet - Again! - Grampies on the Go - Again! Summer 2012

June 16, 2012

Day 28: Auchy aux Bois to Arras, France: Grampies Land on Their Feet - Again!

There were quite a few other guests at the B&B, making for a party like atmosphere.

We are still tickled at having been able to go from wet and homeless to staying in a great place at a reasonable price. While not a heritage home, it was still beautiful.

Mostly the warmth of Gina, the hostess, made it a great experience. We also found that she spoke very clearly and slowly, removing any problem of figuring out what she was telling us.

Just like in the best parts of rural England, we were now following a single back road, joining a string of small villages.

The road continues through countryside and many villages

We were noticing, though, that much unlike rural Quebec, the villages were not marked by elaborate churches with tall ornate steeples. There were of course churches, but they were rather undistinguished, I thought.

The villages, too, while atmospheric were not strictly "quaint". Take Ferfay, for example:

The reason for this difference, it seems, is that the villages were passing through here were real working farm villages. The buildings that fronted the road were often farm houses, and cows for example were in side yards.

Despite our traditional slow speed, villages seemed to pop up and recede at a remarkable rate.

Our thin yellow line streaks across northern France

Each village had one or more bakeries, and some had other shops, most likely a butcher. Each baker or butcher claims to be an artisan. The reason is, it's true! Each one features only product made on site and each has a slightly different style. We love, love, love going from one of these places to the next!

Dodie bought pate at this Boucherie. How French is that?

Both the butcher and the baker claim to be artisans. And it's true!

We have had a problem, though, replacing the British "pub". The equivalent here would be called a "cafe", but the cafes we have seen do not have an open door and people sitting at picnic tables outside or standing around with beers. Rather they have seemingly small and very closed doors, often with a few men standing right in the doorway smoking. They seem intimidating to go in, say just to use the toilet.

How about this other cultural problem that happened today: I went into the pictured cafe with my coffee thermos, and asked for it to be filled up. Now, in a Canadian cafe this would mean pouring pre-made coffee from a carafe, for a cost of about one dollar. But in this cafe there was no concept of leaving coffee around to moulder. There was not even a drip machine in the place. Rather the man went about making an espresso into a small cup, and pouring it into the thermos. Then he emptied his grounds and went again. After two, we seemed to arrive at pouring in boiling water to make up the volume. Cost? About 5 Euros!

Our bikes in front of a cafe/tabac. All kinds of cultural problems lie inside for us.

Perhaps it is us that are more sensitive to it, but there seem to be more war memorials here than at home. That makes sense. But some here are extremely poignant. The one pictured below was different, because rather than referring to general fallen soldiers or to a list of those fallen from the town, this pictured three specific people. The cause of their death was given not as "the Great War" but as "shot by the Germans". ooof. This put us in mind of a sad and evocative song by Leonard Cohen -"The Partisan"

The monument to three people, likely Partisans, near Cauchy a Tour.

Here is yet another town that while highly interesting, will not really make the tourist brochure. We were heartened, though, by the sign at the edge of town welcoming cyclists.

Speaking of feeling heartened, almost all the people we have spoken to, usually to ask for directions, end by saying to us "Bon Courage et Bonne Route". Loosely translated that is "Be strong and Happy Trails". Not only is it really nice that they all say that, but it actually gives us strength.

There are many war monuments. Each refers to their fallen "enfants" - children.

In the U.S. this would be the Martin Luther King or JFK high.

I never did get around to putting out a bonus feature on all the unique models of cars that we saw in England. Maybe soon. But here in France, they are all different again. Here we see almost exclusively French makes: Renault, Citroen, Peugot, and also some oddballs, like Dacia. Dacia, though Romanian was bought out by Renault.

In Houdain Dodie went into a grocery, leaving me to mind the bikes. Outside I noticed something I had also seen earlier, there are no charcoal briquettes, only the higher quality real charcoal pieces.

This is just one of those things that we see in North America that the French have no time for. Garbage processed cheese would be another good example. White sliced bread too!

There are quite a few wind turbines to be seen here. They stand in the fields and it strikes me that both the fields and the turbines are simply modes of solar collection.

Beautiful countryside dominates most of our ride to Arras

Well, one by one things supposedly in Europe that were just theoretical for us are being ticked off as actually being real. Add Arras to that list!

Downtown Arras was alive with people in general, and right downtown a street musical presentation was going on. Everyone was having a great time, and soon so were we.

We went and checked out the train station for our upcoming trip to Paris. Then, following instructions we had written for ourselves back home out of Google Maps, we set out for the nearby Municipal campground. Evening was hinting at arriving, and we were in the middle of a town, yet we were confident we would soon be snug in our tent.

We had the camping address as 116 Rue Du Temple, and the GPS took us right there. Oh oh.

Our real reason for being here is nearby Vimy, and we considered cycling out of town. But it was too late to both reach Vimy and hope to find camping there. We went into a hotel to inquire: Over 100 Euros. Not that hotel! However, the lady in the hotel checked Google and found the municipal camping, correcting our address from 116 to 166. We cycled back out there and again found nothing. So we asked two men on the sidewalk about it. They said there had been a small camping park but that it was permanently closed. Anything else was well out of town.

At this point one of the men, who turned out to be Michel de Saint-Aubert made a snap decision. He had a house nearby with a separate studio apartment, and he would rent us this.

In a minute we were at Michel's place, with our bikes safely stashed in the back yard.

So now we live in Arras, in our own apartment. We may only be here two days, it's true, but for now we are residents!

Tomorrow, with our stuff safely in our apartment, we can sally forth on our unloaded bikes and explore Vimy.

How swell is that?

Today's ride: 55 km (34 miles)
Total: 953 km (592 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	0
Comment on this entry	Comment	0