France, England, Belgium, Copenhagen & Helsinki

I forgot to say that we went out for dinner last night to a posh French restaurant around the corner from the B&B. We weren't greeted particularly warmly and when the waiter realised we weren't going to order aperitifs, I think he gave up on us completely.  At least, the food was pretty good, although we didn't quite get what we meant to order. Jim started with a fish soup and an enormous empty bowl was plonked down in front of him. It was the size of a dinner plate. The waiter soon returned with a steaming tureen of soup clutched under one arm and proceeded to ladle out six big scoopfuls of soup. They just kept coming! Fortunately, Jim said it was quite tasty - and they gave him lots of things to put on it and dip in it - grated cheese, different types of bread, salt (but no pepper). Then the waiter came out again with a literally four foot high pepper grinder that he proceeded to sprinkle the soup with. We could hardly keep a straight face. I thought I ordered risotto...

We didn't have to check out of our hotel until noon, so we decided to visit the Musee des Beaux Arts. What a wonderful art museum! So many glorious paintings! It wasn't very big so we managed to see it all comfortably in just over an hour. I took lots of photos to use as desktop backgrounds. 'The Walk of the Sisters' by Armand Gautier After checking out of the hotel, we drove off to Calais. It actually was an easy drive this time, which meant we arrived a bit early to check into our B&B. We looked for a good restaurant for lunch and found a highly rated restaurant near the beach. The entrance was at the bottom of a very dilapidated looking block of apartments, so we weren't sure what we were getting in to. We walked into the building to find no mention of the restaurant in the foyer at all. There was a lift though, and one of the buttons inside said 'restaurant'. We went up two levels and the lift doors opened on to an extremely fancy restaurant with flo...

Had a good night's sleep in our lovely suite and had an excellent breakfast in the first floor breakfast room, looking out on to the main square. It seems the French really know how to lay on a good breakfast. We headed out to see some sights before our food tour at 11.30am. We were lucky that it was a cold but sunny day. No sign of cloud, wind or rain (unlike yesterday). Our first stop was the Notre Dame de Treille Cathedral which mixed gothic architecture with a modern unfinished look (not very successfully in my opinion). What was interesting though was that there was some kind of gathering of all the gendarmerie of Lille at the Cathedral - all in dress uniforms with the hats and medals. There were hundreds of them about, with soldiers with machine guns standing around looking very fierce. Everyone was saluting everyone and cars kept arriving with very senior gendarmes with more and more medals getting out. I'd love to have known what was happening, but wasn't able to ge...

A rather miserable day today - on again-off again rain. But that didn't stop us walking up to the Chateau of Compiegne after another excellent hotel breakfast. We were the only people in the entire chateau for the whole time we were there - over an hour. (As we were leaving, another couple arrived to take over our viewing duties.) There were a large number of museum guides, all focussed on us, and we were politely, but firmly, told on several occasions that we were going the wrong way or seeing something in the wrong order and were made to turn back. It was a bit unnerving at times! I had one eye trained on the exhibits and the other on the guards to make sure they weren't about to descend on us. But the chateau was a delight. It was home to various kings of France, and then to Napoleon and Josephine and Marie-Louise, whom he divorced Josephine to marry. Every room was lavishly decorated and full of paintings, sculptures, beautiful furniture, amazing chandeliers and more. Here ...

We woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 3.30am, and had to wait around until 7am for the hotel breakfast. But it was worth the wait because it was really good – fresh crunchy croissants, lots of different types of bread, beautifully thin slices of ham carved from the bone, lots of different cheeses and pastries and remarkably good coffee, even though it was from a machine. I realised it was my first coffee in 24 hours. Perhaps that’s why it tasted so good! We then set out to see the sights of Compiègne. Although it was cold, there was no wind and, eventually, a bit of sun appeared, so it was quite pleasant. We soon realised it is quite a small town – as we were able to walk to all the main sights very easily. There is a beautiful town hall in a square with a Christmas market (that wasn’t yet open, but looked like it would be fun) and a lovely old gothic cathedral – Eglise Saint-Jacques (or the Church of St James). Jim wasn’t very interested, so I went inside by myself. It w...

Well, the flight to Doha was fairly unpleasant. Lots of turbulence, lots of being sick and then trying to sleep. I didn't eat on the second leg and felt much better for it. We picked up the car at Paris Airport and had a very easy drive to Compiègne - about 60km out of Paris.  Our hotel is rather quaint, as we have attic rooms with sloping roofs. The slope is quite extreme in the bathroom, so anyone over 5ft 11 would have trouble standing up in the shower. It's a two-bedroom apartment, but is rather odd because there are the two bedrooms and the bathroom, but no lounge area. I've taken one bedroom and Jim the other. We unpacked a little and then decided to have a nap. A mistake - because we ended waking up at 3am - but at least we feel rested and ready for the day.