It had taken us 5½ hours to get from our house in Derbyshire to the Channel tunnel, nearly 2 hours longer than it would usually taken us, it had made the UK leg of the journey quite long with being stuck in traffic. Once at the tunnel we were very excited, we knew the when we get off the train we will be in France where our short adventure begins. It is so different on European roads, I can't describe the feeling I get when we are over the channel, a much more relaxed way of life and the roads are excellent. After arriving in Calais it was just a short trip on local to our hotel across the road from Cite Europe.

Day 2 - Calais - One of my most favourite roads is from Calais down to Boulogne on the D940 (see map to the left), a coastal road with breath taking spectacular views, twisting roads on top of the cliffs to riding past the beaches and thru sand dunes. It is probably less than a 20 mile stretch of road with picturesque villages and postcard views of the sea, on a clear day you can see the white cliffs of Dover from many of the places on this road! I originally first found this road last year on my 600 Bandit, I liked it so much that I had to see it again this time around.

Myself (above) on the D940 at Cap Gris Nez - A twisty coastal route with great sea views, 1400 with the wife)

The best section for me on the D940 is from Escalles to Wimereux, passing through Cap Gris Nez. The road gets twisty with some excellent views of the sea, I have seen quite a few bikers along this stretch of road, the photo's above don't really do it justice.


Day 3 - Belgium (& Holland) - Setting off from our hotel in Calais, we decided to ride thru Belgium and up to Holland, nowhere in particular planned to go, wherever the road took us basically. I thought I would get on the A16 motorway in Calais and call at the next service station for some petrol, mmm, we got on the A16 and there was a sign for the next petrol station and was 65km away!! which was going to be in Belgium.
 I had well under half a tank of petrol and thought shouldn't be too much of a problem, though it was cutting it a bit fine by the time we got to the service station with only 3 litres of fuel left in the tank, I don't like letting it get too low and like to fill up every 120 miles or so. I filled up , also there was a GSXR1000 filling up at the same time on English plates, got talking to him and he lived in the next town from me in the UK literally 5 miles away, who would have believed it! hundreds of miles away from home and meet someone off your own doorstep.

       
In Belgium         -        On Belgium/Holland border           -      In Belgium
 It was approaching midday and the weather was absolutely toasting, wearing all the bike gear was extremely hot , even at 100mph we were still sweating bucket loads, I can honestly say that I have never been so hot and sweaty travelling at such speeds. We stayed on the motorway and headed for Bruges, It never seizes to amaze me just how beautiful & picturesque Europe can be, Bruges is no exception, it is stunning, especially along the canal bank, a large canal with some rather large boats on it, there are also thousands of cycles around the city, even whole car parks just full of cycles!!.
Holland - Continuing on towards Holland on the local roads on the (N376) taking us onto the border of Holland onto N675, just into Holland was a place called Sluis, I can only describe it as excellent, biker hang out on a Sunday afternoon, similar to Matlock, Derbyshire, UK, but even more picture postcard looking. It is set around the end of a canal, lots of bikes there, the small town boasts over 20 restaurants/cafe's, as we only passed thru Sluis I didn't take any photos, We carried on towards the coast heading towards Breskens. Breskens is a small coastal place in Holland, a typical site for the Dutch is the high sea defence banks surrounding the place.

In Breskens town centre  and  Breskens looking over the the estuary       -        On Belgium/Holland border

We called in at one of the little cafe's in Breskens for a pancake and a coffee, the pancakes where the size of the bloody table, I kid you not! they were a meal all in there own, covered in cream and chocolate sauce, I think they must have been 3.5 million calories each but well worth sacrificing the diet for!! then afterwards we went on the large banks of the sea defences to take a look at the estuary and then made our 200km way back to Calais, France. It had been a great day, we had seen some truly amazing views along the route which I will remember for a long time to come.

Day 4 - Time to go home - Well, the day had soon came around to go home, the trip had been excellent, we couldn't have asked for better weather for the whole trip. Nothing much to report on the trip home in the UK, the motorway was shut on the M1 for some reason, and the detour went for miles and miles just to get back on 3 or 4 junctions further up. other than that all was well. My Next big adventure on the bike will be in July 2006 when I will on a 2000mile+ round trip to Spain, I cant wait.  

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