After I'd written the last piece and
posted it, I went to my bed thinking that was the end of the day. Ho,
ho! I was woken in the early hours of the morning by loud, obviously
drunken people, speaking English in the corridor outside my room.
As the Formule 1 hotels are the
cheapest in France, most of the guests work in the building trade
judging by their vans. This has the advantage that as they have an
early start in the morning, they go to bed early so the hotel is
usually very quite. This also means that the next thing that happened was
a lot of angry shouting in French! Eventually I heard someone
speaking in heavily accented broken English, and I worked out that
the English speakers were so drunk that they couldn't operate the
entry keypads for their rooms. The other person had to open their
doors for them, and at last it was quiet and I went back to sleep.
I got up reasonably early and went for
breakfast. While I was eating, three black teenagers about 15/16
years old came into the breakfast area dressed and acting like
rappers or 'gangstas' or whatever they're called this week. They
wandered over to the food but looked baffled by it. They picked up
pots of jam, looked at them, then said the name in English. At that
point one of the staff came over and asked them their room numbers in
French. They clearly couldn't understand her, and she didn't speak
English, so I went over to translate. They then looked at me and
asked 'what do we do?' I explained that the breakfast was
self-service and you could eat as much as you liked. I also explained
what all the food was. They answered me in very polite standard
English with London accents, and it turned out they were a school
party and were surprised that their teachers weren't there. Some of
their friends were starting to appear, so I told them to tell their
friends what to do and that their teachers had probably 'been up late
organising things and would be down soon'. I was trying very hard not
to laugh at that point. The boys thanked me then turned to each other
and started talking in completely bogus 'rap speak' like a cross
between 50 Cent and Ali G! I did feel like saying 'you do realise
that Ali G was a parody of people like you', but they'll find out
soon enough!
I went back to my room to change into
my bike clothes and to pack, and when I came down to put the luggage
onto the bike and leave, there were more teenagers having breakfast
or kicking a ball about in the carpark, but still no sign of their
teachers! I would imagine that the parents wouldn't be too pleased if
they found out that the teachers had been out drinking and leaving
the children to fend for themselves.
Back on the road, and as it was only a
three hour or so ride to Zeebrugge even by back roads, I had plenty
of time. I decided that I wanted to go to the coast, so headed
towards Dunkerque. It started off as a very pleasant ride through
small villages with a very welcome cooling breeze, but went downhill
a bit as I got caught up with lots of trucks heading for the channel
ports. Once in Dunkerque it was very busy, so I didn't stop and
headed for Zeebrugge along the coast. I crossed into Belgium and soon
arrived in Zeebrugge, with still about five hours to kill before
going for my ferry.
I rode around Zeebrugge, but was unable
to find either a town centre nor a seafront, so headed 6 km along the
coast to the resort town of Blankenberge. It's a very busy seaside
town with lots of holiday apartments, shops, restaurants, etc and is,
judging by the people, where elderly Belgians go on holiday with
their small dogs. It's got a really laid back and pleasant air to it,
and although it was starting to get very sunny and warm, there was a
gentle breeze off of the sea.
I'd parked next to a small park with
tennis courts, mini golf, crazy golf, and something that I'd never
seen before. We're led to believe that the game of pétanque is
quintessentially French, but this was the first time I'd seen it and
it was being played by groups of elderly Flemish speaking Belgian
men.
I sat and watched them for a while, and
I think I got the hang of the idea of the game, but one thing I
learned – the older the player, the better they were! Men in their
80s and 90s were experts at throwing the balls with pinpoint
accuracy, and seemed to be able to always beat the 'youngsters' in
their 60s!
It was also only men playing, as their
wives sat at the side chatting and eating ice cream, but at no time
playing.
As Blankenberge is very flat, cycling
is very popular with the all the roads with segregated cycle lanes
and even separate bicycle traffic lights. Some of the older riders
had electrically assisted bicycles and I saw this free charging point
next to a major tram stop.
It was strange but this was the only
time on the trip where I felt a bit 'alone'. Not because I was on my
own, but because it was the only time I'd been somewhere that I
didn't understand the language at all. Flemish seems quite
impenetrable to an English speaker, and I gave up trying to buy food
from a café after reading the menu and not understanding a word. I
saw a small supermarket so went to buy something there with mixed
results – I got some very nice cakes, but mistakenly bought
undrinkable butter milk instead of ordinary milk. I did manage to buy
an ice cream by just pointing and smiling, so that made up for it.
It was soon time to head to the ferry
terminal and boarded the boat with a large group of Swiss and Belgian riders who were heading to the Isle of Man for the TT.
I had a wander round the boat until it
was time for bed, and tomorrow I'd be back in Britain.
I must have killed about a million flies on this trip!
More pictures
here. and
'Song of the Day'.
