Day 3 of our family holiday to Pas de Calais, France.

 

Well day 3 of our holiday has arrived. The girls were up early, 07:30 just so they could go out and get us all fresh croissants and pain au chocolat from the local boulongerie. All I had to do was leave the money out for them and wait for the call for breakfast, can�t be bad.

Well following breakfast our eldest daughter Keziah chose our day trip today, we are going to visit Ypres just across the border into Belgium. She had been there before as part of a school trip and loved it so much, she wanted to show the whole family.

We decided to stop on route at an Abbey that was said to have spectacular views looking down across the valley from where it stood.

Its true it did, although the weather was a little overcast to show the scene off at its best. It did however give me a chance to try out my new lens again.

In the group of cows you can just see at the right of the above photograph was a lone horse.

I couldn�t get him to smile for the camera but then he probably didn't know I was there at the top of the hill photographing him.

The Mounts de Cats abbey is near the town of Godewaersvelde in the Flanders region of France. The monastery founded in 1650 by the Hospital Brothers of St. Anthony, although it is now run by Trappists monks known in the region for their cheese making.

Unfortunately we had arrived on a morning when the monastery was closed to the public. We could have waited until the afternoon to visit but that would mean missing out on our visit to Ypres. So we had an early lunch looking out across the valley, before heading across the border into Belgium.

Upon arriving in Ypres (sometimes spelt Ieper) you can�t help but marvel at the Cloth Hall that dominates the � rote Markt� Town square.

The Cloth Hall that stands today is a complete replica of the original 13th century building, known to be one of the largest commercial buildings of the middle ages. This replica was built following the complete destruction of the original building by Artillery fire during the First world war, where all of Ypres was flattened to the ground.

The Cloth hall is now home to the �In Flanders Fields Museum� of which the entrance is in the above photo. We will leave the inside of the museum to another post.

Looking around the square there was lots of restaurants or Brasseries with their colourful awnings and outdoor seating areas.

There was so many of them we just had to stop for afternoon coffee!

The Brasserie we visited had these great ceiling decorations.

Looking out across the square whilst we enjoyed our drinks, I was amazed to think that everything you could see had only been built since the end of the first world war.

The architecture looked so much older.

But then I suppose that was the idea.

There is a wonderful fountain so I just had to try and get my daughters wet�

Well as we were in Belgium and they are famous for� �chocolate� we thought we had better find some.

It wasn�t hard, there are a number of chocolate shops around the town centre.

Well upon entering the shop and seeing the large display of chocolate before us�

and with having a family who all seem to appreciate good chocolate, we left the shop considerably lighter in the wallet and probably a few pounds heavier.

One of the events Ypres is famous for is the Last Post played by the Ypres fire brigade every night under the Menin Gate.

The Menin Gate was constructed in 1927 and designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield. It stands as a memorial to all those who fell, officers and soldiers, of the commonwealth forces, who died in the Ypres Salient area and who have no known graves, between 1914 and 15th August, 1917.

The Menin gate as you can see is a main thoroughfare into the centre of Ypres, but even so, every night no matter the weather, the road is closed at 8pm and the last post is sounded by the men of the Ypres Fire brigade.

They sound it as a mark of honour to all those from around the world who lost their lives in defence of the town.

A poignant ceremony follows including the laying of poppy wreaths in remembrance to those fallen.

Our day in Ypres draws to a close with lots to think about and many happy memories.

Tomorrow on my blog is header challenge with this weeks theme being �Macro� chosen by imac so I will return to France after that, but still come and see me and my fellow headbangers, imac, Tom-fishing guy, Gailsman and Lanny attempt to create a header and post on the theme macro.

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Day 2 of our family holiday to Pas de Calais, France.

 

The first thing my daughters did on waking, on the second day of our holiday, was to go for a swim. The private pool attached to our cottage was certainly well used over the weeks holiday.

The pool itself may not have been very big but because of the amount of natural light streaming in through the windows and the high arched and beamed ceiling it was bright, airy, and inviting.

Breakfast was fresh croissants and pain au chocolat, purchased from the local boulangerie which was a few 100 meters from our cottage. Freshly brewed strong French coffee complimented the meal, yum.

We decided to head up to Dunkerque (Dunkirk) to go to the beach and do a bit of site seeing for our first full day of the holiday.

Looking across the beach in the above photograph, If you look carefully you can see there is a lighthouse at the harbour mouth. This gave me an opportunity to play with my new toy an Opton 500mm telephoto lens for my Canon DSLR camera.

I was quite impressed with the quality of the image it gave of the lighthouse, as I only used a monopod to steady the camera not a tripod. Fitting a 2x convertor to the lens allowed me to get a shot of another lighthouse further down the coast that was out of frame on the original photograph.

The beaches at Dunkerque were almost completely empty due to the weather so as we went along the seafront these brightly coloured beach huts stood out against the quite beaches.

As you can see from this picture the bright beach huts are doing there best to cheer up the overcast sky but only two are in use.

Even though the weather was overcast and cool our daughters still had fun on the sea front or even on the beech at times.

After a lovely lunch of baguettes and crepes on the sea front, we headed across town to visit the British war memorial to those who lost their lives in Dunkerque during the campaigns of the 2 World wars.

Dunkerques� British War Memorial commemorates more than 4,500 casualties of the British Expeditionary Force who died in the campaign of 1939-40 and who have no known grave.

The memorial was designed by Philip Hepworth.

I was interested, but saddened to find servicemen of my own regiment �The Royal Welch Fusiliers�, both listed on the memorial and buried within the cemetery.

 

As part of the memorial building there is a beautiful large memorial window designed by John Hutton, depicting scenes from the heroic evacuation of Dunkerque in May 1940.

It was quite a moving experience viewing the rolls of servicemen listed on the memorial. An experience that I shall not forget.

The day was rounded off with a return to our cottage in Arques after stopping off at a local supermarket for supplies. More swimming, games and general relaxation rounded off a lovely day.

Join us tomorrow for a trip into Belgium, (chocolate yum yum!)

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Family Holiday, to Pas de Calais in Northern France

Our family�s summer holiday this year was to the Pas de Calais region in Northern France. We rented a little cottage which was part of a barn conversion in the Les Palmiers complex in the town of Arques.

Arques, France

We rented the cottage for a week via the �Cottages 4 you� website. We had booked cottage holidays with this company before so found the booking of this one fairly straight forward.  When we booked it, we received confirmation and were instructed that the tickets and arrival documentation would be sent out closer to the time of the holiday, which they were. Unfortunately there was a French tourist tax and deposit added on later, this was requested to be payable on arrival at the cottage.

So we packed the car with all the important things such as camera, spare lenses, tripod, filters oh and a few clothes, not forgetting passports and tickets as well and set out on our trip from South Lincolnshire, England to Arques, France.

The journey down from Lincolnshire to Dover went well if a little cramped for the rear passengers in the car, (why do teenage girls need to take so much luggage?)

We even had time to take a few pictures of the white cliffs of Dover before we got on the P&O ferry to go between Dover and Calais.

On arriving in France we drove about an hour inland to the town of Arques were we had booked to stay. My daughters thought it fun to keep reminding me �right� drive on the �right� although I only nearly forgot at one junction and there were no other cars close by.

When we arrived at Les Palmiers in Arques, the owner of the cottages met us as we drove in to the complex and gave us a guided tour around the cottage.

Each cottage had its own private garden where you could sit out for a meal or drinks or just for a bit of sun.

In one end of the converted barn was an indoor heated swimming pool, one of the reasons we chose this property.

You could lie in the pool and look up at the lovely beamed ceiling�

or just sit and relax in the comfy chairs whilst the children played in the pool.

The whole barn conversion was very nice. All the rooms were clean and well furnished, our bedroom even had a king sized four poster bed, luxury. The complex was gated and therefore felt secluded and quite peaceful.

The region of France in which we stayed is renowned for its canals and waterways, its fine coasts, great historical heritage sites and museums and of course its abundance of gastronomic delights too.

As we had arrived late afternoon at the cottage we decided to save the exploring of the Pas de Calais region of France until the following day. Instead we had a relaxing evening, some went swimming while others read or played games. The day travelling across had went very well and the cottage was lovely, it all bode well for this being a great holiday.

Come back tomorrow and see how our first full day of the holiday in France unfolds.

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