335 km (208 miles)
Today was my last day in France. I split off from Martyn and MacBean after breakfast at the hotel. I had all day to make it to Dieppe for the midnight (11.59pm) ferry to Newhaven. There was no reason to rush and have to sit around waiting for the ferry as I could not check in until 10pm. After looking at various cities and routes, I found that Bayeux was not too far out of the way. I could go there, spend an hour or two at the museum and see the tapestry.
One of the places that Mark said I should see was the bridge over the Seine at Honfleur. It is considered a category one climb on the Tour de France. I had a mental picture of Honfleur being before Bayeux, so off I went avoiding highways and tolls. After a couple of hours, I rolled into the pretty harbor town ready for coffee and to reset the nav for Bayeux. That’s when I realized that Bayeux was an hour back in the other direction. While I still had plenty of of time and could have turned around to take in Bayeux, I decide to take inspiration from the late, great Donald Bowen, no going back so I picked out the next stop on my route.
Rather than going back, I decide that I would head for the coast and follow the coast road up to Dieppe as much as I could. I set the nav for Fécamp on the coast. I took Mark’s advice to ride across the bridge at Honefleur. This meant turning off avoid highways and tolls so that I was not forced miles inland and around. It must be be awful riding a push-bike across the bridge. I was being blown all over the place. In of itself, this would not be bad but they had closed down one side of the bridge so I was close to the oncoming traffic separated by nothing but orange cones.
All morning, the weather had been threatening rain, once I got on the road to Fécamp, the skies opened up. I decided that at the next opportunity, I would stop and put on my waterproof pants. Lucky enough, a restaurant showed up. I was going to just grab a coffee, use the toilets and change my pants. However, this was a Les Relais Routiers place. The lads had told me about these places and how good they were, so déjeuner it was. Starter, main, cheese plate, dessert and coffee all in for €23. I was today years old when I realized that entrée in France means the starter unlike in the USA where it means the main course. I guess it is right there in the word.
After a nice leisurely lunch, the rain had cleared and there was no need for waterproofs. So, off I went to Fécamp. When it was raining, I’d decided not to turn off the main road towards Fécamp. From where I was, the satnav put me on some real back roads to get back on track.
When I arrived at Fécamp, I went down to the harbor and walked around. Up on the hill above the town I could see a big church so I decided to head up there. When I arrived at what was an abbey and walked around, I found this old ruined building. It turned out to be the childhood home of William the Conqueror. As a child, I would read the William the Conqueror Ladybird book over and over. King Harold getting an arrow to his eye always stuck with me.
Until I saw this sign, I never thought of William actually being French and called Guillaume. At first, I thought this was a map of the route that he took. If you look closely, you will see 21st century road names and routes. Perhaps he had a time machine and that is why he was the last successful invader of the British mainland.
After leaving Fécamp, I continued on down the coast road through beautiful French countryside stopping here and there for coffees and pictures. The tracks in the field of wheat, above, caught my attention.
In one of the little villages I stopped in, I found a wonderful art project. All through the town were photographs of people holding up a photo of half of their face as a child, in black and white, to their face. It gave a wonderful sense of then and now.
The French seem to have embraced non-fossil fuel power generation. In the space of less than 50 km, I saw these on-shore wind turbines, off-shore wind turbines, a solar farm, and a massive nuclear power plant that seemed to have four reactors.
While I had missed the Normandy landing beaches, they are north of Bayeux, there were plenty of fields where scattered poppies seemed to thrive. They seemed to be around the edges of the cultivated areas. After a while, I made it into Dieppe around 7pm.
Given that I had 3 hours to kill, I figured there was no need to go to dinner early and then have nothing to do. I decided to take a walk around the town of Dieppe. It is a quaint little seaside town. It reminds me a lot of the towns on the English south coast, big promenades, tall four and five story buildings built as getaway places from the big cities in the early 20th century. On the top of the cliffs was a church erected in the memory of sailors lost at sea.
At the other end of the town along the sea front, I came up on this castle on a hill. It has been there since the 12th century. Having lived in the USA for so long, I seem to have lost all concept of how long Europe’s history can be.
I came across this Norton Commando parked on the sea front. The paint job was beautiful. You can’t see it here but it has beautiful gold flake in it. When I got to the ferry port. It was in line as the back of vehicles waiting to get on the ferry. The Norton Commando was the first motorcycle that I remember wanting.
I made my way back into town to grab dinner before going to the ferry port. It turned out that I picked the same restaurant that I’d been to with Mark and Martyn on our last trip. As bulots, whelks, were on the menu and I had never had them before, I decided to give them a try. I pulled the first one out of the shell and popped it in my mouth and chewed away. It was quite crunch and gave me the feeling I may not be eating it correctly. It turns out that you are supposed to pull the little foot piece off and discard it as it is quite hard. The rest were quite tasty and enjoyable.
After dinner, I went and got gas and took off for the ferry port. A short wait later, I made my way through passport control, ticket check and onto the ferry. I had a cabin booked and knowing it was going to be early when we landed, I put myself to bed after a quick beer at the bar.
Au revoir!
