Rowing to Rouen

Just kidding. We didn't row. Thank goodness. That would be tough! Especially since Rouen is not only over the English Channel in France, but considerably further inland.

The day started with us packing ourselves up in London and taking a little train trip out to Harlington with Dave and Cassie, to collect a little campervan to travel the rest of their Europe holiday in.

Because we were both intending on heading down the same route on the Western side of France to reach Spain for the San Fermin festival, they offered us the extra two seats in their van while they drove from place to place, while we offered them use of the bathroom in our hotel room in each place.

The van's name is Mulder. As in Mulder and Scully. Cute, huh?

The next most important machine for the trip was the satnav device. We decided she had to have a name too. So we named her Jim. Don't ask.

After Dave and Cassie had received their briefing on Mulder, we were on the road! And in a few hours, we were approaching the coast of Dover.

They really are spectacularly white, those White Cliffs of Dover!

We had to limit our admiration of them while we figured out how to get ourselves on to the ferry to cross over to Calais in France.

And then we were free to reward ourselves with lunch and lots of photos of the white cliffs.

In no time at all, we were gazing at the coast of France.

And then Jim was assigned the task of taking us from Calais to Rouen, our intended stop for the night.

Jim managed admirably, with some translation from Cassie in the passenger seat.

We found some pretty interestingly named restaurants on our way into Rouen...

This doesn't technically fall under the category of 'restaurant', but it still has a funny name...

Once we'd had our giggle over the shop names, I immediately moved to taking photos of buildings and doors, of course.

I'm not doing stretches here, I'm actually pointing towards the street sign. My namesake!

Rouen's clock tower.

This is the very decorative underside of that arch above which the clock sits.

Rouen is most famous for being the place where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake (which I originally spelt "steak" in this post - yummo!). Her name is everywhere.

We stopped at a little restaurant in the main square for dinner. Fish Terrine for entrée...

More steak tartare for Tom...

Some other kind of beef for me...

And then a scrumptious, fruity dessert, accompanied with a good joke by the looks of it.

And then more doors...

And buildings...

And a visit to the place of Joan of Arc's death. Nothing remains from that time, but the place is well marked with a giant cross.

As weary travelers, we made it an early night then, and made for our hotel. Well and truly back to France, and loving it so far!