We're currently holed up in a budget hotel in the docks area of Antwerp.Yesterday, we left Crescent road for the last time at about 10am, and hit the road headed for Canterbury - a lovely city that seemed to be overrun by teenage Europeans.
The drive was fairly short, so we had some time to look around the city centre - Claire wanted to go to some farmers market at the north of the city - but it turned out to be closed on Mondays - great timing!
We then headed back to the hotel - a travelodge which was a unique combination (for travelodges that is) of being in a characterful building and right in the centre of town.
That evening we attempted to go out for dinner to celebrate the sale of the house, which had just completed that afternoon - but were somewhat thwarted by a screaming 1 year old throwing a tantrum. Non-the-less we persevered and had a somewhat hurried meal at a restaurant specialising in pies - I had the fish and claire the chicken - a fitting last meal in old blighty.
The next day we rose before 6 to pack the car and drive the 25minutes or so to Dover - we were booked on an 8am crossing and I didn't fancy missing the ferry.
Milly loved the ferry crossing, she seemed to particularly like being outside - like in the picture, where you can see us on deck with Dover castle in the background.
An hour later we arrived at Calais and headed of towards Belgium.
This was my first time driving a right-hand drive car on the right side of the road, but as yet no major concern with this - albeit most of the roads so far have been motorways - so it would be pretty hard to accidentally end up on the wrong side of the road.
We arrived in Antwerp at about 2pm, checked into our hotel, and were pleasantly surprised to see that the room had it's own shower and toilet, we were expecting shared washrooms - as is fairly common in France. I'm sure that when booking some of the hotels it mentioned that they had this, we must have that to look forward to.
Having checked in, we then proceeded out to explore Antwerp, we took the tram into town and went to a coffee shop that had been recommended by a friend, before wandering around the old town for an hour or so.
Most of the stops between here and Trieste have been selected because they're approximately 4 hours drive in a straight line from where we've come from to where we want to get to - so it's been a pleasant surprise to find that Antwerp is a lovely city, and well worth the visit.
This evening we cooked ourselves a cheap dinner, pasta and pesto - which Milly ate with gusto - before settling down and watching some TV on the computer.
Tomorrow we're headed for Mainz, but we think we might stop over in Cologne for lunch - to break up the trip a little.
Finally, our trip in numbers:
237.5 miles travelled since we departed N15.
0.5mm the length of my new beard.
4 comments:
Nice haircut Dave....I guess we will see the "beard" in due time. Ain't it amazing what happens when you do nothing? Milly might be a sea-farer like her great grandnad eh? She looks like she is loving it. Lotsaluv! Where did you get that screaming 1 year old????
I've been thinking....(as a retired NZ politician famously once said....pity he did not do it while he was in parliament!)....both Milly's great grandads on her dad's side were seafaring men....what about your side Claire? Any sailors?
And Claire, looking t that photo again and noticing the determined set of both sets of jaws our sympathies are with you! Still, being stubborn does have it's good side...I should know! Love to you all. David and Claire....when you are behind that steering wheel, think 'Kerbside'! OK??!!
There's sea water running through claire's blood too! Milly's great grandfather Da was a navy man who, when he wasn't brewing beer, was swimming or fishing in the sea. Milly is a sailor through and through it seems!
Whoah! Holiday haircut??
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