Where's Bertie? He's still exactly where he was last night, at the Aire at Le Tréport.
Weather: Wet overnight and until late morning, then a dry but dull afternoon. Temperature just hit double figures today.
I left Mick in bed when I went out for a run this morning. That's not unusual, but then I usually go out quite early. Today, I waited for the rain to slow to a light spit, and thus didn't get out the door until quarter to eleven.
Five minutes or so later, as I trotted along the harbour at Le Tréport (a busy place, even on this damp morning, with the seafood vendors doing a good trade) I decided that I like Le Tréport and Mers-les-Bains*. I think the main reason is because it feels so familiar - so like any number of British seaside resorts.
Obligatory shop-name pun
I returned to Bertie to find that the electricity had gone off in the Aire. To my (British) mind, we're staying here for free, with free electricity, so we couldn't really complain about it no longer being available. To our French neighbours, this was not acceptable. A phone call was made (on a Saturday morning, note) and within fifteen minutes a man in a council van had appeared and power was restored.
As Mick had missed out on my morning jaunt into Le Tréport, that's where we headed after lunch, exploring more than just the harbour area that I'd seen earlier.
Passing at a slower pace, I noticed how many fishing boats were moored in the harbour. Unfortunately this snap doesn't really convey the numbers; there were a lot!
After walking to the beacon at the end of the harbour wall and admiring the view over to Mers-les-Bains and 'Constitution Hill' atop which we stood yesterday...
...a corner was turned and along the top of the shingle beach, below some impressive white cliffs, we went:
We might then have simply turned and walked back along the promenade, but a 'passenger pod' was just descending the funicular railway. This railway has four tracks, each carrying one 10-person pod, (although if full it'd be a bit too cosy), each pod being a vertical cross section of a cylinder, and made of glass. Being not like any funicular I've been on (moreover, being free), I persuaded Mick that we needed to travel on it, up to the top of the cliffs.
That afforded us some even better views:
If you know where to look and zoom in on the full-sized version of this second snap, Bertie is visible.
After bimbling around on the coast path for a short distance, we opted to walk, rather than be transported, back down.
The side effect of lazying around for so much of the morning was that by the time we had done that, the still-overcast sky was turning various hues of 'sunset' and soon the light began to fade.
(*As I mentioned the other day, these two towns sit right next to each other. Whilst they are to the eye one conurbation, they sit in different Departments, with Le Tréport being in Normandy and Mers-les-Bains being in Picardie.)
Weather: Wet overnight and until late morning, then a dry but dull afternoon. Temperature just hit double figures today.
I left Mick in bed when I went out for a run this morning. That's not unusual, but then I usually go out quite early. Today, I waited for the rain to slow to a light spit, and thus didn't get out the door until quarter to eleven.
Five minutes or so later, as I trotted along the harbour at Le Tréport (a busy place, even on this damp morning, with the seafood vendors doing a good trade) I decided that I like Le Tréport and Mers-les-Bains*. I think the main reason is because it feels so familiar - so like any number of British seaside resorts.
Obligatory shop-name pun
I returned to Bertie to find that the electricity had gone off in the Aire. To my (British) mind, we're staying here for free, with free electricity, so we couldn't really complain about it no longer being available. To our French neighbours, this was not acceptable. A phone call was made (on a Saturday morning, note) and within fifteen minutes a man in a council van had appeared and power was restored.
As Mick had missed out on my morning jaunt into Le Tréport, that's where we headed after lunch, exploring more than just the harbour area that I'd seen earlier.
Passing at a slower pace, I noticed how many fishing boats were moored in the harbour. Unfortunately this snap doesn't really convey the numbers; there were a lot!
After walking to the beacon at the end of the harbour wall and admiring the view over to Mers-les-Bains and 'Constitution Hill' atop which we stood yesterday...
...a corner was turned and along the top of the shingle beach, below some impressive white cliffs, we went:
We might then have simply turned and walked back along the promenade, but a 'passenger pod' was just descending the funicular railway. This railway has four tracks, each carrying one 10-person pod, (although if full it'd be a bit too cosy), each pod being a vertical cross section of a cylinder, and made of glass. Being not like any funicular I've been on (moreover, being free), I persuaded Mick that we needed to travel on it, up to the top of the cliffs.
That afforded us some even better views:
If you know where to look and zoom in on the full-sized version of this second snap, Bertie is visible.
After bimbling around on the coast path for a short distance, we opted to walk, rather than be transported, back down.
The side effect of lazying around for so much of the morning was that by the time we had done that, the still-overcast sky was turning various hues of 'sunset' and soon the light began to fade.
(*As I mentioned the other day, these two towns sit right next to each other. Whilst they are to the eye one conurbation, they sit in different Departments, with Le Tréport being in Normandy and Mers-les-Bains being in Picardie.)
No comments:
Post a Comment