Moules et Frites!
Trip Start
Jun 12, 2007
1
23
129
Trip End
Ongoing
Saint Omer, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France
Monday, June 23, 2008
Breakfast was served in a light airy room with high ceilings - looking out over the gardens - it was a continental breakfast and we were given the most scrumptious croissants imaginable - light, flaky and very more ish - a wonderful start to the day.
We check out and drive over to St Omer, where we leave the car in the town square and go for a wander. There is a park which we go into and end up walking round it for quite a while - it was just beautiful and went on for miles, huge great trees and footpaths leading off into woods.
Eventually we find our way back round and take a small passageway under the road, up to the cathedral - which has classic gothic style design and parts of it date back to the 13th century. There was a service taking place, so we didn't get to look inside and just admired the beauty of it from the outside. There were some interesting looking cobbled roads leading away from here, so we take one of them and roam around the winding medieval back streets which are full of extremely impressive architecture. We stop for coffee in the sunshine and then stumble upon 'Ruines St Bertin' - which is the remains of an old abbey, dating back to the 7th century. Sadly it has a fence round it, so you can't actually get inside to have a proper look, I leave the others on a bench and walk off round the perimeter taking photographs - then rejoin them as we stroll back in the direction of the town square. I was very fond of St Omer and I will definitely visit again one day.
By now, lunch is on everyone's mind and John still hadn't had his 'moules et frites' (mussels and chips) that I promised him. It doesn't take much to make John happy and his only request for this weekend was that we find somewhere for him to have this. It's a speciality dish for the northern region of France and Belgium and having had some the last time we came, John has been comparing every mussel he's had since then to them. We drive up to Calais with this in mind, park along the front and go into one of the many restaurants serving this. John is presented with the biggest bucket of mussels I've ever seen and he munches his way through the lot - mopping up all the garlic and cream sauce with some french bread, I haven't seen him enjoy anything (food wise) so much since last time he had them - it made me happy seeing him tucking into them - don't know why, it just did. Lunch was good, good atmosphere, friendly waiter, good food; we took our time and just enjoyed the whole thing.
Okay, nothing for it now, but a paddle in the sea - so we wander across the sand and walk along the beach in the edge of the sea. We spot a craft fair along the walkway next to the beach, so we go and have a look around that, which brings us out right next to a crazy golf course. We've got just under an hour before we need to be back at the train station, so we decide to have a game. I haven't played crazy golf in a long time and it was completely riotous - there was a vast amount of cheating going on and some very creative accounting on how many shots everyone was having!!! It really was great fun - I think we ended up making more noise than any of the kids on the course!
Anyways, another day was done and it was time to return to Folkestone. The train left on time and with it only being a half hour journey and with the hour's time difference, we ended up back in Folkestone half hour before we left Calais.
A bag of chips was all we really needed for tea after the delectable meals we'd had last night and at lunchtime today - so we head straight to the harbour in Folkestone to get some before making our way back up the motorway.
Trip statistic: Kilometers driven = 624
