After nearly four months in England, it’s time to head to France for a 10-day driving holiday – staying at interesting little hotels, speaking the language as best we can, and checking out a couple of rivers, canals and locks in advance of Summer 2017. Testing the waters, so to speak.
In an era where travel has become an everyday sort of thing for so many people, there’s been a rise in special-focus travel: healthy holidays, like a wellness workshop in Warsaw; giving-back-to-your-fellow-man getaways, such as house-building in Cambodia; or culinary escapes, like cooking classes in Katmandu. Our current visit to France is even more niche – we’re seeking out waterways!
We set off at 9.20am to Folkestone, via the Hilton Heathrow where we (cheekily) dropped off two huge and heavy suitcases for storage while we’re in France, only returning for our last night there on 2 October, before flying to Joburg.
This is the way to get to France! – the Eurotunnel (£214, including the upgrade to Flexipass). It was a two-hour drive from T&K Marina to Folkestone in reasonably good traffic, a breeze through passport control, a two-minute wait (third in line) for the train – no time even to use the lounge – and we drove straight onto the train for the 25-minute journey under the seabed.
Given hardly any traffic, jolly good toll roads and a mostly 130km/h speed limit, the 300-odd kilometre drive from Calais to Chalons-en-Champagne was easy-peasy (especially for moi, the dozing passenger) – with just one stop for fuel and terrible coffee at an “aire” along the way. Won’t be doing that again; the coffee, I mean. (Stopping for fuel is sort of mandatory.)
Hotel D’Angleterre (£143 for two nights through www.booking.com) is a lovely place in the town centre, just across from Notre Dame en Vaux, with good parking at the back. Our nice room faced the road but wasn’t too noisy, and had a bathroom with separate bath and shower plus a minibar and air-conditioning. Reception staff were friendly, kindly allowing me to practise my French on them. The place is most famous, though, for its Jacky Michel fine-dining restaurant, plus a brasserie that’s served by the same kitchen.
The brasserie was full the first of our two nights, so we tried the recommended Au Carillon Gourmand next door. Roy had a fish dish: the cabillaud cuit en papillote, fenouil confit, sauce a la badiane, followed by cheese; I had the filet de boeuf “Montbéliarde” fumé, risotto cremeux au girolles, and finished with a fantastic sabayon served in egg shells on a nest of hay, with smokey ice cream. Including a couple of coupes de champagne and a bottle of Bordeaux, around €100.
