Cars and Cathedrals Tour 2026 - London to Rouen

 

Having left the house in the hands of the window installers, greenhouse watering in the hands of my neighbour, remembering on route to add Ava (the car, a Renault Avantime) to my Dart Charge account and getting pulled for a rather perfunctory security check at the Channel Tunnel we eventually arrived at the Holiday Inn at Calais Coquelles.  This was just and only just in time for last orders at the restaurant (9.45pm).  It felt slightly closer to a refuelling exercise than relaxed holiday dinner but lunch hadn’t happened and entrecôte frites was most welcome.  ….. and superbly cooked.

Hotel very pleasant, gardens, squash court and swimming pool, not that we were there long enough to really make the most of either.   There was a seemingly well equipped gym also but we would need to be there for a very long time before either of us was likely to make use of that. 

Large room and really good size bath (excellent).   Rainfall shower - don’t get the enthusiasm, I just end up with shampoo in my eyes!  Some sort of pod coffee machine taking up counter space but they had hidden a kettle and 2 yellow label tea bags in a cupboard.  Luckily I had suitable additional supplies.

 

After a leisurely breakfast, sitting of the chickens in the grounds and general mooch around the hotel and grounds we left for a drive along the coast road to Boulogne sur Mer.   This was a very pretty drive punctuated by people seemingly wanting to kill themselves.  I was aware of the traditional May Day gift of lily of the valley (Muguet) but having retained that piece of trivia I had either forgotten, or never knew, that it is a very serious Bank Holiday in France.  Lots of people stepping off kerbs in front of us, a good few pushing buggies ahead of them, or turning across our path on bikes without signalling.  There was a holiday feel!

There were a lot of motorhomes out and a good number of proper campsites and aires to stay in them.   We will be back for a better look around when we get our Motorhome for retirement.  For now, we had a destination, which was Rouen, so we turned in at Boulogne. The telepeage Bip and Go didn’t bip and didn’t go which was odd as they usually tell us when the battery is on it’s way out and the site seems to think we are good to go.  Will try again though better it fails on this trip than when we are trying to get to the South of France and back later in the year.  A 12 hour drive each way through France is definitely the time you want your road tolls paid automatically especially if you are the passenger in a right hand drive car trying to get some sleep.

We stopped off for petrol and a coffee à la terrasse at a service station with a little nature reserve (that was a bit of a surprise) at Baie de Somme and headed off once more.

The extent of the bank holiday was reinforced became when we got to Rouen.  The odd bar aside, it was closed.  We had booked dinner at the hotel (Hyatt Place) and set off to wander round the old bit of the city.  Cathedral number 1 of the tour ticked off from the outside, anyway, along with Le Gros Horloge, Palais de Justice a few others, lots of timber framed buildings and apero in la place du vieux-marche. 

Dinner was fine as was breakfast.  The hotel itself was perfectly pleasant, occupies an old school, nicely done preservation wise with a strong environmental bias - solar tiles, green roofs, reduced water usage etc.  Personally, I find the latter means it takes  while to fill my kettle (they had given me a choice of camomile or mint so the stash of English Breakfast came in handy).  They could probably skip the bathrobes and save something on the laundry but equally I did quite like the slippers.  Both may be a promote the spa thing.  I’m told S’s primary consideration was parking so he doesn’t get to complain about the 25 minute uphill walk in an absolute downpour from the city centre to the hotel.