Although we had every good intention of leaving first thing in the morning we eventually got on the road in the late afternoon. So instead of driving through the French Alps to Lyon we took the expressway so the passing scenery paled in comparison.
Lyon is a beautiful city – the city centre is on a 500m-800m wide peninsula bounded by two rivers, the Rhone and Saone. Walking along the river reminded me of Budapest but on a much smaller scale. By the time we arrived in the late late afternoon we found that Lyon was completely booked out on a Monday night but we did managed to get the last room in the city centre not priced over €200. It did cost us €100 for a two star room that was very small with a smelly bathroom and had not been touched since 1972 but it was in the centre of town.
There was a huge moment that morning in Lyon – Lily’s first tooth appeared! We celebrated with a morning stroll around town and after Michael bought three pairs of jeans to add to his collection we headed to Dijon, the home of mustard. I was craving Asian food so we headed to the local Chinese restaurant for dinner. As usual Lily wanted our full attention as soon as our meals arrived and as usual I was going to have to eat cold rice but then a hungry tour group came in for dinner and Lily was taken around to every table by the Taiwanese tour guide and we got to enjoy our hot meal! Just brilliant!
It was here in Dijon that we spotted a divine piece of art for Lily’s bedroom – it was a huge canvas covered in a patchwork of 390 little squares of japanese paper. It was ‘impossible’ to be sent back to Sydney so we ended up buying a few boxes of paper instead! I have a huge job ahead of me but well worth it…whenever I finish it!
The thought of creating this piece of art made me think of champagne. I had penciled out Epernay as our next stop since it was in the Champagne region and it is the home of Moet and Chandon. On the way we went to Troyes for lunch which was long enough. The lonely planet describes the town as what ‘Europe would have looked like back when William Shakespeare was alive’ – to me it felt like we were in a theme park.
I was happy to join the champagne route to Epernay straight after lunch. In Epernay we didn’t get to stay at Monsieur Chandon’s previous residence since it was completely booked and we are not that organised so we stayed at a very far away second, the Kyriad (it is about 10 steps below an Ibis hotel and was once again the only hotel room available – thank god Michael beat the traveling toy salesman to the door even though he had to help my beloved open the front door since he couldn’t work it out!).
The three of us went on a tour of Moet and Chandon. I don’t think either Lily or Michael were as excited as I was being so close to thousands and thousands of bottles of champagne. Lily had her first taste of Moet but I think like her mum she prefers Veuve. The one bad thing about the hour tour was 10 minutes in I smelt something. Without wanting to change Lily’s nappy in the cellars of Moet and Chandon we stayed at the back of the group hoping the smell of champagne was not being overtaken by something else.
There is over 20,000 bottles of Moet in this cellar cave alone
As you can see Lily is growing although she is still smaller than the largest bottle of Moet. The third bottle from the right is the normal sized bottle.
A couple of hours north of Epernay is the town of Arras. We drove out to the Somme although we did not intentionally stay here for this reason but after we arrived we realised that it was less than an hour away. We visited the Australian Memorial Park in Le Hamel, which still has some trenches, and the Australian National memorial – carved in stone are 10,982 names of the missing soldiers who have no known grave. Also went to the Franco Australian Museum in Villers-Bretonneux. The museum was on the top floor of a primary school and was given as a gift to the schoolchildren from primary schools in Victoria.
The Australian Memorial
As we have been heading north the weather has been getting cooler and there is certainly no need for those t-shirts I packed. It has been about 12degrees during the day but still clear sunny days.
The main reason for our roadtrip was a Channel swimmers reunion on the French coast. We spent the night in Wissant since Des was made an honorary citizen after landing there so many times on his swims. I wanted to stay at the Hotel Bellevue as that was where Michael had stayed with his dad in 1974 on one of his swims but when we arrived it looked like it was stuck in a timewarp so needless to say we stayed somewhere else. I like old world charm but I’m not a fan of smelly old hotels. Wissant is a tiny little town and even though the French were playing Argentina there were no places showing the match and our room didn’t have a tv so Michael used his broken French and they found a tv for us. That night we ate very expensive and very ordinary pizza on the floor of our hotel room lit up only by the glow of the tv since Lily went to bed early for a change and we didn’t want to wake her.
Wissant before a storm
Every year a group of Channel swimmers get together to tour the French coast to see their landing spots, have lunch at Cap Gris Nez (which means the grey nose) and of course to chew the fat. We met the group of about 40 people (15 swimmers and their entourages) at Sangatte then drove along the coast stopping at Cap Blanc Nez, Wissant and finally Cap Gris Nez. The coastline was absolutely beautiful and certainly worth the drive if you ever find your way to that part of the world.
Sangatte beach
View from Cap Blanc Nez - you can see Cap Gris Nez in the distance
Road to Wissant
It was wonderful to see where Michael landed on his swim and to steal a few pebbles as a memento. It was a beautiful clear day so you could see the White Cliffs of Dover and it made you think ‘why on earth would you want to swim across it?!’.
Cap Gris Nez
The landing spot (or around abouts there since it was dark on the night of 01 August)
A big thank you to Cliff and Laura for organising the day – it was a memorable one.
We caught the ferry to Dover and watched the rugby world cup final that night - it was hard to watch since I didn’t really want either team to win. But I did get to have KFC so I was happy enough (I know it is very bad for you but there is something so special about the colonel’s 11 herbs and spices!).
Michael finally got to meet Kevin Murphy and his wife Jane who he hadn’t seen since Kevin raced his dad across Sydney Harbour in 1977. Kevin is the current King of the Channel with 34 crossings! He is arguably the greatest endurance swimmer of all time having spent 52 hours in the water during a three way Channel attempt. 
Kevin and Alison Streeter (queen of the Channel with 43 crossings...yes 43 crossings!) were both at Hubert House being interviewed for a book on Channel swimming so we got to hear some great stories of their swims. One funny story was on one of Alison’s swims and involves the restaurant where we had lunch which is right on the beach at Cap Gris Nez. After swimming from England to France, Alison kept walking up the beach to the restaurant, ordered a beer and pulled some money out from under her swimming cap - of course they didn’t let her pay for her drink! I mainly went along to enjoy THE best club sandwich ever only to arrive to find out that the gas wasn’t working so I had to have a pain au chocolat instead.
We went to the Dover Museum and saw the King of the Channel trophy on display.
On Sunday afternoon we were in search of a dream cream tea and we were tipped off to head to St Margaret at Cliffe. The Bluebells Tea House is located in the old coast guard station and overlooks the Channel. The Johnstons would have been jealous since they had loads of plain and fruit scones served with homemade jams and cream. Lily enjoyed her first taste of a traditional cream tea. Absolutely delicious – I could easily survive on cream teas, hot chips and bacon…..mmmmmm. 
Lyon is a beautiful city – the city centre is on a 500m-800m wide peninsula bounded by two rivers, the Rhone and Saone. Walking along the river reminded me of Budapest but on a much smaller scale. By the time we arrived in the late late afternoon we found that Lyon was completely booked out on a Monday night but we did managed to get the last room in the city centre not priced over €200. It did cost us €100 for a two star room that was very small with a smelly bathroom and had not been touched since 1972 but it was in the centre of town.
There was a huge moment that morning in Lyon – Lily’s first tooth appeared! We celebrated with a morning stroll around town and after Michael bought three pairs of jeans to add to his collection we headed to Dijon, the home of mustard. I was craving Asian food so we headed to the local Chinese restaurant for dinner. As usual Lily wanted our full attention as soon as our meals arrived and as usual I was going to have to eat cold rice but then a hungry tour group came in for dinner and Lily was taken around to every table by the Taiwanese tour guide and we got to enjoy our hot meal! Just brilliant!
It was here in Dijon that we spotted a divine piece of art for Lily’s bedroom – it was a huge canvas covered in a patchwork of 390 little squares of japanese paper. It was ‘impossible’ to be sent back to Sydney so we ended up buying a few boxes of paper instead! I have a huge job ahead of me but well worth it…whenever I finish it!
The thought of creating this piece of art made me think of champagne. I had penciled out Epernay as our next stop since it was in the Champagne region and it is the home of Moet and Chandon. On the way we went to Troyes for lunch which was long enough. The lonely planet describes the town as what ‘Europe would have looked like back when William Shakespeare was alive’ – to me it felt like we were in a theme park.
I was happy to join the champagne route to Epernay straight after lunch. In Epernay we didn’t get to stay at Monsieur Chandon’s previous residence since it was completely booked and we are not that organised so we stayed at a very far away second, the Kyriad (it is about 10 steps below an Ibis hotel and was once again the only hotel room available – thank god Michael beat the traveling toy salesman to the door even though he had to help my beloved open the front door since he couldn’t work it out!).
The three of us went on a tour of Moet and Chandon. I don’t think either Lily or Michael were as excited as I was being so close to thousands and thousands of bottles of champagne. Lily had her first taste of Moet but I think like her mum she prefers Veuve. The one bad thing about the hour tour was 10 minutes in I smelt something. Without wanting to change Lily’s nappy in the cellars of Moet and Chandon we stayed at the back of the group hoping the smell of champagne was not being overtaken by something else.
There is over 20,000 bottles of Moet in this cellar cave alone
As you can see Lily is growing although she is still smaller than the largest bottle of Moet. The third bottle from the right is the normal sized bottle.
A couple of hours north of Epernay is the town of Arras. We drove out to the Somme although we did not intentionally stay here for this reason but after we arrived we realised that it was less than an hour away. We visited the Australian Memorial Park in Le Hamel, which still has some trenches, and the Australian National memorial – carved in stone are 10,982 names of the missing soldiers who have no known grave. Also went to the Franco Australian Museum in Villers-Bretonneux. The museum was on the top floor of a primary school and was given as a gift to the schoolchildren from primary schools in Victoria.
The Australian Memorial
As we have been heading north the weather has been getting cooler and there is certainly no need for those t-shirts I packed. It has been about 12degrees during the day but still clear sunny days.
The main reason for our roadtrip was a Channel swimmers reunion on the French coast. We spent the night in Wissant since Des was made an honorary citizen after landing there so many times on his swims. I wanted to stay at the Hotel Bellevue as that was where Michael had stayed with his dad in 1974 on one of his swims but when we arrived it looked like it was stuck in a timewarp so needless to say we stayed somewhere else. I like old world charm but I’m not a fan of smelly old hotels. Wissant is a tiny little town and even though the French were playing Argentina there were no places showing the match and our room didn’t have a tv so Michael used his broken French and they found a tv for us. That night we ate very expensive and very ordinary pizza on the floor of our hotel room lit up only by the glow of the tv since Lily went to bed early for a change and we didn’t want to wake her.
Wissant before a storm
Every year a group of Channel swimmers get together to tour the French coast to see their landing spots, have lunch at Cap Gris Nez (which means the grey nose) and of course to chew the fat. We met the group of about 40 people (15 swimmers and their entourages) at Sangatte then drove along the coast stopping at Cap Blanc Nez, Wissant and finally Cap Gris Nez. The coastline was absolutely beautiful and certainly worth the drive if you ever find your way to that part of the world.
Sangatte beach
View from Cap Blanc Nez - you can see Cap Gris Nez in the distance
Road to Wissant
It was wonderful to see where Michael landed on his swim and to steal a few pebbles as a memento. It was a beautiful clear day so you could see the White Cliffs of Dover and it made you think ‘why on earth would you want to swim across it?!’.
Cap Gris Nez
The landing spot (or around abouts there since it was dark on the night of 01 August)
A big thank you to Cliff and Laura for organising the day – it was a memorable one.
We caught the ferry to Dover and watched the rugby world cup final that night - it was hard to watch since I didn’t really want either team to win. But I did get to have KFC so I was happy enough (I know it is very bad for you but there is something so special about the colonel’s 11 herbs and spices!).
Michael finally got to meet Kevin Murphy and his wife Jane who he hadn’t seen since Kevin raced his dad across Sydney Harbour in 1977. Kevin is the current King of the Channel with 34 crossings! He is arguably the greatest endurance swimmer of all time having spent 52 hours in the water during a three way Channel attempt. Kevin and Alison Streeter (queen of the Channel with 43 crossings...yes 43 crossings!) were both at Hubert House being interviewed for a book on Channel swimming so we got to hear some great stories of their swims. One funny story was on one of Alison’s swims and involves the restaurant where we had lunch which is right on the beach at Cap Gris Nez. After swimming from England to France, Alison kept walking up the beach to the restaurant, ordered a beer and pulled some money out from under her swimming cap - of course they didn’t let her pay for her drink! I mainly went along to enjoy THE best club sandwich ever only to arrive to find out that the gas wasn’t working so I had to have a pain au chocolat instead.
We went to the Dover Museum and saw the King of the Channel trophy on display.
On Sunday afternoon we were in search of a dream cream tea and we were tipped off to head to St Margaret at Cliffe. The Bluebells Tea House is located in the old coast guard station and overlooks the Channel. The Johnstons would have been jealous since they had loads of plain and fruit scones served with homemade jams and cream. Lily enjoyed her first taste of a traditional cream tea. Absolutely delicious – I could easily survive on cream teas, hot chips and bacon…..mmmmmm. 
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