Easter Adventure, Day 2

OK, have already blogged about the food. As I mentioned, I did well on selecting the hotel. Not a 5 star place, but, by European standards, very decent for the price and location.

On Saturday morning I awoke to a gale outside. Not sure I've ever been in wind this fierce. Also was raining. Not hard, but with the wind so string, it took no time to get wet.

I was determined. So after finding a place that served the biggest ham and cheese omelet I'd ever seen (had to have been 8 eggs!), I went looking for historical sites. Near the market square, I found a 12th century tower where Edward III received the town's surrender. Apparently, all of ancient Calais was destroyed during WWII and this is all that remains. It's at



And across the street was a cheese shop I thought would interest Cassidy



Then wandered down to the main city square and got these photos. Lots of Hooker on this trip "I'm a boogie Rambler, boogie night and day".

The Story of Calais was that in the 13th century siege,when the town wished to surrender, Edward III required 6 of the prominent citizens to bring him the keys to the city, naked, with nooses around their necks, a very humiliating display. These "6 Burghers" are the pride of Calais.





Also there was a memorial to citizens from Calais who have lost their life in various wars. Remember European countries have many more wars in their history that we do, but this one starts in th e19th century with some of the colonial wars. It has an addition for Afghanistan.



There's a few other pics in the album at here

I also toured the WWII Museum. It was in an old Nazi war bunker and they had a nice collection of uniforms, weapons, newspaper articles, etc. And enough in English to makes it worthwhile.

However, by mid-day, I was as cold and wet as I wanted to be. I stopped into a pub and had a pizza for lunch and dried off and warmed up. The rain and wind kept coming, so I spent the afternoon in my hotel room watching rugby on BBC. Now, I don't have a TV in the UK yet, so the ability to watch 4 hours of english-language TV was a treat itself.

I discovered that the port of Calais had been closed down for a while Saturday due to high winds, and I was concerned about getting out on Sunday. I was basically tired of staying someplace with nothing to do and no ability to get outdoors, and got anxious to get home.

So my plan became to get up Sunday and call the ferry ports to see what the schedule was. There was an option to take a train to Dunkirk (not the French spelling) and catch a different ferry from there. It's about 12 miles.

The forecast fro England on Sunday was for heavy snow, and I had concerns about getting from Dover to Richmond. The adventure continues....