Saturday was our travel day from France back to England. Should have been a quiet leisurely day. Short trip, 50 mile to La Havre, have look around the town then catch the 5PM ferry back to Portsmouth. Not quite.
Another charming Normandy town Pont Eveque
Planters are wicker covered
Flat top with short sides, please
The return to Le Havre was just as confusing as the leaving had been a week ago. Even "Kate Captur" could not figure it out! There was a lot of road work happening and every approach, there are only two because of having to cross the river, was fraught with lots of deviations and at a couple of times Kate was travelling across fields when we were actually on a roadway.
Limestone cliffs and caves
Corkscrew decorative structures on the approach to Pont Normandie -
I have not been able to find out their significance or what they represent
We finally arrived in Le Havre only to be caught up in a traffic jam. We thought it was an accident that was holding everything up on this major entry, but it turned out to be a line up to get into a gas station! It took almost an hour to go 1 mile!!! Once past the station, everything was fine.
We headed to lunch and still had a couple of hours to pass, so did a little touristing. Le Havre was 98% destroyed during WWII. A rebuilding program began after the war and the contractor hired to rebuild the city really favoured concrete, so many of the buildings are made of concrete blocks and has the nickname of the "Concrete City". One of the buildings he was responsible for was this church St Joseph's. A decidedly different style church than I have ever seen.
It is styled in the form of a lighthouse
Concrete, wood and stained glass
It is 170 meters (510 feet) tall
the organ loft
theater style seating
OMG!!! lineups again!! We spent an hour sitting in a line to gas up. I was getting very anxious, because if the reason for this is gas shortage, will they run out before we get there? And we couldn't even get out of the line once we were in it. Long story short, we got our gas, and with a lot of difficulty we finally found the car rental place. We found out the problem with gas is due to a labour problem, strikes and blockades, related to a government decision to change some labour laws. The car rental place, out of courtesy, delivered us to our ferry because they said there was a problem getting taxis, they of course also, being affected by this run on gas.
On the ferry, St Joseph Church in the distance,
last thing you see on leaving and first thing you see coming into port
all kinds of marker buoys waiting to be placed
On the ferry, cars parked going both ways, vehicles with animals in them are all marked with a fluorescent sticker
the beaches of Le Havre
crowded harbour entrance
The rest of the trip out of France went well, we arrived in Portsmouth, had a comfortable room, met a delightful couple from Finland who had been on the ferry with us, enjoyed a few drinks, and had a good sleep.
The Spinnaker Tower welcoming us to Portsmouth
Now to exit Portsmouth.
First of all, we tried to change our car from a manual to an automatic. The driver felt that dealing with a right hand drive manual transmission AND trying to get your head around driving on the opposite side of the road would be too much. No, automatics available and car not equipped with GPS. Not a big problem, as I had brought a GPS with me that had European maps. BUT, the 12 volt plug had no juice to it, so we had to change cars. Ready to go once again, but there is a low tire pressure light on. Back into the shop to get that corrected. Finally, and hour later we are on our way. Learning to drive on the right is sweat inducing to say the least. We had gotten used to using roundabout, which are prolific in Europe, but now we were approaching the other way around and on the wrong side.
At last the English countryside
We finally got ourselves out of the city, after many attempts, and were on the motorway. Next stop Salisbury to see Stonehenge. Getting to Salisbury, not a big problem, getting out BIG problem. It took over 1 hours to get to our destination which was only 10 miles from our start. By this time it was 4PM, and we felt we did not have enough time to do the site properly and still arrive at our destination while we still had daylight, so we will come back another day and do it properly.
It is going to take awhile to get use to this right hand driving. As a passenger, I foresee a bent front rim in our future. Your whole perception of where you are in the roadway changes. I can only imagine what the driver is having to deal with.
Staying in out of the way locations makes finding them a little more difficult, but we arrived at our destination about 7:30 and are now settled in. This one is quite nice. It is a Country Club and we have a two story, two bedroom unit, with full kitchen, dishwasher, washer/dryer, a full bathroom and a half bathroom in the master. Beats a hotel room. These two weeks of accommodation has cost us just a touch over $100 a day.
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