MONTREUIL SUR MER
So here we are back in France for the first time in four years. May not seem long but the changes are, like in the UK, substantial.
Of course the French had already failed to stop the march of the supermarkets and the 'globularisation' of their shopping centres. But now it seems every town is like the worst of Britain – shut shops, boarded windows, dusty unkempt streets. Except where some glitzy new Carrefour City (Tesco Metro?) or similar has parked itself where real shops once paraded.
And the prices are dreadful. With the pound bouncing ever closer to parity they seem even worse. And gone is that beloved inexpensive menu prix fixe that would include the wine. Generally round here the price is about 14 Euros 'boisson non inclusif'.
But hey the food is still terrific, the supermarkets may seem like ours but the array of tratoria and patisserie food is fantastic, the cheese mesmeric and meat diverse and wonderfully butchered. The fish is less in quantity but I find that oddly reassuring since it always seemed impossible there was that much in the seas EVER!
And the weak pound notwithstanding their wine is still way way cheaper than back home. So are the spirits and liqueurs. So the liver is still France’s major casualty. Talking of which the pate choice, style and quality leaves even beloved Waitrose wilting.
So where are we? Well the van is on a little triangle of camping site between the Canche River and the walls of the fortified hill town of Montreuil sur mer – to be honest the sur mer bit is a touch confusing as we are 15k inland and the river is not even slightly an estuary yet.
Montreuil is charming. It first got some fortifying in 1042, lots more in 1340 and then some, yet more in the 15th and 16th century and finally some serious gunnery action in the 18th and 19th. But for us the surprise and a claim to fame was that this was the British Communication HQ during the 1914-18 horror. I trekked down 48 steps (and then up sadly!) to tour the bastion constructed under the castle citadelle in the 19th century and extended to provide the nerve centre of operations to send hundreds of thousand of commonwealth (empire, even back then) troops to their deaths. The walls are covered in panels extolling the events while hardly mentioning the matter of death.
Anyway we toured the citadel, some of the walls and repaired to the town which is charming. We enjoyed two splendid squares before discovering the real big one at the heart of town. Superb rows of mostly 18th and 19th century houses and shops on three long sides of the 'square' – La Place de Gaulle. Roughly the shape of his nose in profile actually but slightly smaller.
We have also visited several towns nearby but made a point of visiting the largest single military cemetery in France at Etaples. It was built on the site of the camps where tens of thousands were 'trained' to fight or die bravely whichever came sooner. They called the town 'Eat Apples' but we are not told what they called the camp.
It is now a place for real tears. It is hard not to well up in the face of 12,000 identical headstones. I had the same feeling at Arlington in Washington DC. Janet was telling me the message on one of the headstones but had to pause some time for the words to come.
Wonderful cenotaphs by Lutyens command the view across the disciplined ranks of the dead. A team of French artisans works among the lines, planting, pruning and trimming at the feet of the fallen. Then, incomprehension as we find first a lone Chinese army labourer's headstone planted many yards and alone from the throng. Then yards further away a dozen headstones of fallen Hindu and Sikh soldiers of the empire. The sun sets at a slightly different time on their graves. Why? Oh really... why?
Later we were in Le Touqet, known as Paris Plage and for both horse racing and its 'aerodrome' as the French have it – a word we nearly adopted in the 20s. Given the real aviation pioneering of the French – rubbed out by the 14-18 war – it would have been a wonderful word. Le Touqet is effectively a built resort – hence Paris Plage. Full of elegant houses of the Fin de Siecle and many more from the 20s and 30s of course. But not on the sea front any longer. Little patches do survive; like bleak memorials they peek between the uniformly tedious six and seven storey slabs that have replaced them. You could be anywhere but only every 100 metres or so!
Of course to an aviation buff like me Le Touqet is special. An early destination from Croydon, later the point of arrival fro Southend's fleet of Carvair ferries and once my landing place in a splendid very bearly 1950s De Havilland Dove from Biggin Hill (on a press jolly and returned by 1960s Britten Norman Islander – not bad!). It is still busy but today it is with the light and not-so-light aircraft of the rich. The town is home to gambling, horse racing, polo, tennis, croquet and boules championships. And an excellent mid-point for London-Paris trysts of affairs and affaires, as it were.
Our stay here has been interesting on the domestic front. A variety of minor caravan glitches have occurred and been sorted or can be readily. But the car suddenly produced an amber oil level warning light. Given its hi-tech engine management system and the incredibly expensive oil that provides an “I know when I need servicing” set up to rival Mae West, this took me by total surprise. I bought some oil (see Mr Osborne, the banks are lending again!) and all seemed well. But the front of the van had some nasty muck up the font which we had assumed was mud. Around five a.m. I convinced myself we had burned the oil because of towing and heavy load and the engine was frekked. I started the day in a right tizz, spilled it on Janet only to find the ruddy thing is so sensitive that a mere half litre shortage in its 4.5 litre system will set the light off! So now it is slightly over full, about which I can do nothing frankly.
So tomorrow is Thursday and we shall further tour Montreuil, pack up later and on Friday set our sails towards Mont St Michel. It is a hard life this retirement.
No comments:
Post a Comment