6th May 2017. Bergues, France.

We had a surprisingly good night and intended moving on to an aire beside the beach near Dunkirk.  We’d talked about having another quick look around Bergues before we left, while we were sorting out things in the van for our departure there was a knock on the door and a man from one of the other British vans was standing there.  He’d come to see whether we’d like the leaflets he had for walks around the town and ramparts, we had a bit of a chat, he and his wife had travelled around Europe for six years in their van but they were now doing shorter trips and were about to return home after their recent six week trip.  It was nice chatting to him but he was actually supposed to be getting ready to drive to Calais as his wife came over to remind him.

It was so kind of him to give us the leaflets, we followed the ramparts walk and it was lovely, in places the only sound we could hear were birds chirping.

We were surprised by how much there was to see in Bergues, we assumed we’d seen most of it the night before but there was a lot to see on the outside of the ramparts as well.

After we’d walked around the circumference of the town we walked back across to the steeple that we could see from our parking place.  It was strange, there was a church with a steeple standing separately, that was now an pigeon loft, they looked very grand and it was a lovely surprise to stumble across them on our walk.

We caught sight of a restaurant on the other side of the park and popped over to see about having lunch.

The waitress was lovely, she immediately walked over, shook our hands and said “Bonjour”, it was such a nice thing to do, she welcomed all her customers that way.

We ordered a sandwich, she couldn’t quite get her head around the fact that I didn’t want fish or meat in my sandwich until I said I was a vegetarian then she suddenly twigged what I was saying, she popped off back into the restaurant and returned to ask whether I would like goats cheese instead.

The food was so good, the coffee was lovely too and it came with a tiny chocolate cake which was absolutely gorgeous.  We enjoyed our sandwiches so much that we shared a banana split too, it was very nice ice cream.  It was lovely being able to sit in the sun looking out at the gardens, enjoying the last meal of our trip.

We were enjoying our leisurely meal (when in France!) until it suddenly dawned on us that we were SUPPOSED to be moving to another aire for the evening AND we wanted to visit a hypermarket so we hurriedly finished eating and rushed back to the van via a little door in the ramparts.

From Bergues we made our way to Dunkirk via a hypermarket.

It was hard work getting into the parking area, we drove under the chains of the warning barrier which said 3.2 metres and it donked the top of the van which was a bit of a shock as our van is 3.1 metres high!  We decided not to risk it and Darren reversed and we drove round and round the car park until we found our way to a motorhome that we’d seen driving in ahead of us earlier.

We didn’t spend long in the hypermarket, we have a low tolerance for shopping, we bought a few bottles of wine and some Belgium beer and decided enough was enough.  Once we’d packed them in the van we made our way to the aire, unfortunately the main road was closed for road works so we ended up on a magical mystery tour.  We drove through the centre of Dunkirk and arrived at the aire to see another motorhome driving out.  The aire was full to bursting and we both looked and wrinkled our noses up, definitely NOT somewhere we’d have wanted to stay even if it had been empty so we drove back to the aire at Bergues.  It was a good choice, it’s a nice place to stop.

 

Click the link below for restaurant L’Aubette, Bergues

http://www.laubette-bergues.fr/

Click the link below for motorhome stopover at Aire de camping car de Bergues:

http://www.bergues.biz/campingcar/index.html