Revised - We travel on the Chemin der Fer de la Baie de Somme

We travel on the Chemin der Fer de la Baie de Somme (In English Narrow Gauge Railway of the Somme Bay).
We have travelled through the province of Picardie in France for the last couple of days, visiting  the Victoria school and museum at Villeres Bretonnnaux, Fromelles and Hazerbrouk as more of the WWI battlefields and then on to Dunkerque and Calais on the coast.
We travelled further down the coast and stayed at a pleasant camping ground just outside Le Crotoy on the French Atlantic coast. Strangely enough there is a steam tourist railway in the town, running to Saint-Valery-sur-Somme around the other side of the bay of the Somme river.

Thursday we managed to get a trip on this steam hauled metre gauge Chemin der Fer de la Baie de Somme (Tourist Narrow Gauge Railway of the Somme Bay), photo shows Le Crotoy station.

For the first time for a while we awakened to the sound of rain on the roof of the van on Thursday and the change in weather brought a much cooler day as well. This did not seem to reduce the number of tourists early in the season, even on the railway. As well as tourists there are lots of motorhomes around, we counted over 40 at a parking area in the town of Le Crotoy today and see many more on the roads. There are lots of Great Britain registered vans but many others from France and Belgium as well. There are plenty of pleasant sea-side villages along the coast, some with English sounding names from the period (around 1900) when English names were popular in France.

In our driving around the scenic coastline, we encountered several reminder signs just after lookout carparks, to remind tourists to ‘KEEP RIGHT’.  As the signs were in English only we guess for whom the signs were meant. Of course as they are just after parking areas, we could not get photos.

The view towards the north from Cape Gris Nez

This is our 16^th different campsite and we are getting used to the variety of camp standards.  Some are very relaxed and welcoming some are not customer oriented.  At the present site the manager left a note (in French, of course) stating that she was away on a course and you are welcome to select your site and come to the office later.  She called around to our site and introduced herself

and we filled out the paperwork, always remember to take your passport. She sold us the necessary tokens to use the washing machine/dryer as well as the France Telecom card to use the phone. The public phones in France do not take coins at all and will only accept French credit cards. Of course she also sold us time in the shower via the shower door key, no money no door key!

 If we settle into a campsite early in the afternoon we often pass the time cheese and wine tasting.  They are the products we have found in the local supermarket so it is always a surprise.  We are buying supermarket items using the information from the pictures on the packet or just guess work.  If it is in the cheese fridge with Gouda and other local varieties then it must be cheese.  The wine varieties are very good and not expensive. Todays drop is a Chilean wine called Santa Helena, a late picked white that is quite palatable.

Fuel purchasing in France started out easy, however it has deteriorated rapidly.  The service offered at most cheap fuel service stations is 24hr but card only-no cashier, we have not had any succuss using our Australian credit card.  And don’t get us started on finding banks or post offices.

Friday found us in St Valery sur Somme, on the other side of the Somme bay to Le Crotoy. This was a medieval town, based on fishing in the sea and the Somme bay. We managed to pick up British stations on the van radio so listened to radio 4 and “the” wedding.

 For fans of “as time goes by” you may be interested to know that the Radio 4 shipping forecast was delayed until half past one today, very un-british!!

Very narrow but beautiful streets wind up from the old fishing harbour.

Of course there are other attractions, namely the 1500 departure of the timetabled steam hauled service trainfrom St Valery towards Le Crotoy. Notice for the rail "buffs"  the dual gauge track, standard and metre gauge. The train is running on the metre gauge inside track.

More wanderings in the World War One and Two battlefields of France and Belgium

For the last week we have been touring the world war one (and two) battlefields in northern France (Somme) and Belgium (Ypres). Due to the small provincial camping sites in France being quite pleasant but not having WIFI and the only one in Belgium having WIFI that did not work, the blog has not been updated for a while.

Here is the photo of the soviet war cemetery mentioned in the last blog

The area of northern France in the province of the Somme is beautiful country today but would have been a horror to fight in WWI. We have been staying in a lovely little hamlet called Cappy, on the side of the Somme river. This area has lots of WWI cemeteries, just in driving to the next minor town you pass a couple of beautifully kept British and Australian war cemeteries.

On Saturday night we went to the Menin Gate last post ceremony in Ypres (Ieper) in Belgium. That ceremony has been presented at 8pm each night since 1928 and is quite moving, in remembrance of the soldiers lost defending and re-capturing the town. Ieper was where the WIFI did not work and

the lady behind the desk was not interested in helping to sort out any problems, she definitely needed some customer service training!!!

Photo taken inside the Menin Gate during Last Post ceremony

On Monday, Anzac day we visited the Villers Bretonnaux Australian War memorial withjust  a few friends (about 4000 or so Australians and French). This was for the dawn service which was attended by the Australian ambassador and our foreign minister, Kevin Rudd. The service itself was quite moving, especially knowing that on the 24^th and 25th April 1918 Australian servicemen fought to liberate the town from the invader. This involved setting the alarm for 0330 (yes an unheard of time for Dorothy to get up but the alarm worked, thanks for the present Emma). The service started at 0530, by the time we got there at 0430 the line of vehicles parked alongside the road was over a kilometre long.

And many more people arrived after us! This photo is from our van looking towards the memorial, there was as much traffic further laong the road past where we parked!

After a late morning sleep to recover from the early rise, we visited the Pet’t train de haute Somme, the last of the WWI Narrow gauge trains that were used to support the front lines of both sides. This

was the first running for the season so was only diesel. Its been in preservation hands for 40 years now, the celebrations are later this year. The staff at the station also need some customer service training, the first train departs at 1430 but they only open the shop, museum and station at 1400. Thus we did not see enough of a very well laid out museum before we caught the train.

It has all the narrow gauge classics, roadside running, a tunnel, a zig zag and running alongside the Somme Canal to its depot.

And finally a scenery photo of the river/canal Mosel at Verdun

Wandering the First World War battlefields in Northern France

Hello bloggers, we have not forgotten you, just had a lack of WIFI access at recent campsites.

Welcome to the followers in the leafy eastern and south eastern suburbs of Melbourne, we know who you are! We are looking forward to your comments.

No photos today, WIFI is too ropey to upload them

We are today in Thiepval, northern France in the areas that were fought over many times in the great war (now known as WWI) The British and French memorial here to those British soldiers who died in the war but have no known grave is quite impressive and can be seen from many kms away. There is even one gentleman with the same surname as Gary and from the same area of Yorkshire as Gary’s ancestors, so some family history research to be done there!   All that gentleman’s three brothers served in the great war and one brother died as well.

We are staying at Cappy, much too small to find on a map but right on the Somme river not far from Amiens and quite a pleasant little place.  We heard a cuckoo bird in the evening.

Everywhere you drive around this area there are British, French, German or even Russian graveyards of soldiers of WWI or WWII. We were driving along a relatively minor road yesterday looking for a supermarket when we stumbled onto a second world war graveyard. Apparently at Valleroy in WWII the Germans had a camp for local French officials that were not co-operating with the occupying army. This was later converted to a prisoner of war camp to hold Russian repeat offenders, ie Russian POWs who were causing trouble in other camps or who had tried to escape elsewhere. I guess it’s a long way from Russia as well, being in northern France.

49 of the prisoners did not survive that camp and are buried by the side of the road in a very peaceful graveyard which is well kept today.  All the cemeteries are very well presented, till you realise that each cross means the death of a soldier, in some cases more than one per cross. Many of the cemeteries are in fields surrounded by modern day farms. 

Bonjour Lorraine

We have moved to the adjacent province of Lorraine, obviously named after granny!!!!!
Or is it the other way round?
We have found a pleasant camping ground on the outskirts ofNancy in the province of Lorriane. This afternoon we took a bus into the centre of Nancy, much better than trying to navigate the one way streets in our camper van.

The central square (Place Stanislas) in Nancy is UNESCO listed, you can see why. All the cafes were a buzz with people having their after work drinks enjoying the sunshine.

Quite a pleasant city but very busy, lots of people around on Monday evening and lots of traffic. Except on this road.

This is the view looking back toward the Place Stanislas, standing in Circ du Gen de Gaulle.

Enchanting Strasbourg

We have today been to Strasbourg, France. We travelled in by SNCF (bombardier built) diesel train from the station (Obernai) near our camping ground, much better than fighting the french traffic and trying to park our campervan. Our guidebook  to France did not really rate Strasbourg, but we found the half timbered houses in the old town, the river Ill  and especially the cathedral Notre Dame de Stasbourg to be well worth the visit.

The timber buildings are Tudor like in their look, most have wooden shutters, with a colourful display of flowers in the window sill.

The cathedral is quite large and has beautiful stained glass windows all along the aisle, a circle one above the entrance,  lots of them in fact. This was not the only church, there were a number of protestant churches as well from the days when Strasbourg was a reformation stronghold.

We took the cruise on the local river Ill and a little bit of the Rhine, quite a popular tourist spot even for a Saturday afternoon early in the season. Some of the afternoons boat trips were booked out and each boat held about 150 persons as can be seen in the photo.
Today we travel on into Loraine

We say auf wiedershen to Germany and bonjour to la France

Thursday morning saw us motoring through some spectacular mountain scenery from Innsbruck towards Fusen in Germany.

There was snow down to ground level as we climbed up into the mountains.

We were on the way to Schwongau to visit one of the Bavarian Castles. We chose to visit Hohenschwangau, the castle built by the parents of King Ludwig of Bavaria, Maximillian and Marie. .

From this castle King Ludwig of Bavaria could observe the progress in building his fairytale castle Neuschwanstein on a nearby promontory.

We then travelled towards Stuttgart and found a camping ground at Schomberg
Thusday morning saw us doing grocery shopping with the german locals at a Penny market, a german supermarket.

We then stopped at the nearby town of Bad Herrenalb for lunch and to post some cards and letters home. Bad Herrenalb is the terminus of line S1 from Karlsruhe. Gary thought this was a train line but an interurban type light rail or tram turned up at the station as we were having lunch. As can be seen from the photo we are in the middle of the tram reversing loop but not holding anything up!

We then motored on across the border into France and towards Strasbourg but could not find the camping ground so moved on to Obernai just a few kilometres away.
The camping ground has tr-lingual staff and is just outside a beautiful 13th centrury French village with double wall fortifications and half timbered houses in the old town. Very nice but no photos yet as we did not take our cameras on our walk this evening - naughty us
Tomorrow we plan to visit  Strasbourg for some sightseeing.

Spectacular Innsbruck

There was a fresh dusting of snow on the mountains this Tuesday morning, we had had quite a few rain showers overnight, they obviously fell as something heavier at higher altitudes.

In the late morning we caught a bus into the centre of Innsbruck from the Kranebitten camping ground. Its a great camping ground with spectacular mountain scenery from all sites, as you can see in the photo of our van at the site. The WIFI internet is included in the camping fee but only if you ask for it!
There is even a view of two railway lines from the front of the van for Gary, just saw a train go past towards Italy as I am writing this post.

Innsbruck is a small but interesting city, well serviced by public transport for a city of 130,000 people.
We enjoyed walking around the old town and lunching in a warm bakery. We also spoke to our house sitting daughter today, which was good for all three of us we think!
She suggested more photos so we have done that. This photo is of part of the old town with the sun glinting off the roof of the Goldenes Dachl, or Golden Roof in English and snow on the mountains behind.The tiles are gilded copper and it was built by Emporor Maximilian I in the 16th centrury as a display of wealth.
Tomorrow we are leaving Austria and moving towards Fussen in Germany.