Holiday in France 3 - on the way
We caught the train at 8.30pm and arrived in France at 10.00pm, time to find somewhere to sleep. We intended to do some wild camping this trip to defray expense, but we had been kept up the night before by neighbours who had had a party in their garden which went on till 3.00am, with no diminution of volume. So we went for the tried and trusted camping van park at Gravelines which was a little out of our way. You are supposed to buy a ticket for 5 euro but the machine was out of order so it was a free night's sleep anyway.
Next day we started the journey south. It was more of a slow meander, hardly using the toll roads and passing through sleepy small towns and villages. We stopped at a place called Watten on the river Aa, (obviously wanted to be the first name in the river directory)! Watten is in the Nord Département, bordering Pas de Calais and so is in Flemish France. There is a knoll at the back of the village, the so called 'Mountain of Watten' (72m). Here there is an ancient abbey which was turned into a fort as the area has been the scene of many battles and was owned by Spain until the late 17th century. Unfortunately the abbey was on private land and could not be visited, but we could walk across to a picturesque windmill where we brewed coffee and I took some snaps.
If you are passing through Watten there is a giant blockhouse at Eperlecques which I have only just found out about. It was built by Hitler in 1942 to house V2 rockets and the Germans used the southern portion to house a liquid oxygen manufactury to supply fuel for the rockets. When it was discovered by the British their 12,000lb Tallboy bombs could not pierce the 5m thick walls of the bunker (only one gave a direct hit and one fell close by causing a massive crater) but the shock waves caused such disruption that the Germans were concerned that the oxygen would explode and the site was decommissioned in 1943 http://www.v2rocket.com/start/deployment/watten.html.
Continuing further into France we stopped near Langres on the gateway to Burgundy at a campsite near the Lac de la Liez at the village of Peigney. We did not have time to visit Langres itself but it looks to be an interesting place with a 19th century citadel. There was a striking sunset which I took pictures of just from the campsite and the next day when we drove out the lake was covered in a rolling mist.
Next day we started the journey south. It was more of a slow meander, hardly using the toll roads and passing through sleepy small towns and villages. We stopped at a place called Watten on the river Aa, (obviously wanted to be the first name in the river directory)! Watten is in the Nord Département, bordering Pas de Calais and so is in Flemish France. There is a knoll at the back of the village, the so called 'Mountain of Watten' (72m). Here there is an ancient abbey which was turned into a fort as the area has been the scene of many battles and was owned by Spain until the late 17th century. Unfortunately the abbey was on private land and could not be visited, but we could walk across to a picturesque windmill where we brewed coffee and I took some snaps.
If you are passing through Watten there is a giant blockhouse at Eperlecques which I have only just found out about. It was built by Hitler in 1942 to house V2 rockets and the Germans used the southern portion to house a liquid oxygen manufactury to supply fuel for the rockets. When it was discovered by the British their 12,000lb Tallboy bombs could not pierce the 5m thick walls of the bunker (only one gave a direct hit and one fell close by causing a massive crater) but the shock waves caused such disruption that the Germans were concerned that the oxygen would explode and the site was decommissioned in 1943 http://www.v2rocket.com/start/deployment/watten.html.
Continuing further into France we stopped near Langres on the gateway to Burgundy at a campsite near the Lac de la Liez at the village of Peigney. We did not have time to visit Langres itself but it looks to be an interesting place with a 19th century citadel. There was a striking sunset which I took pictures of just from the campsite and the next day when we drove out the lake was covered in a rolling mist.
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