FR14 - Hostel Weekend Day 2

After breakfast on Sunday we decided to head south to the Baie de la Somme, and to Le Crotoy in particular. A couple of years ago we had a short visit there on the way back from Normandy. Although the obvious non-motorway route was to go down the D940 coast road to Le Touquet and Berck sur Mer, TomTom had other ideas and we ventured away from the coast into nowhere, or the hinterland between the N1 and the coast. In the end a road closure actually forced us back to the coast road in any case! 

The first stop had actually been on the outskirts of St Leonard, the town that adjoins Boulogne. It was to fill the tank with refreshing French diesel. At €1.242 - litre I was saddened to only get €60 to fill up the pipe. There is a flap to stop overfilling. That price equates to about 98p a litre! At home at the local supermarket it is about 34p a litre more!!!!

After eating out twice the day before we decided to have a picnic instead. The weather was good with temps around 22C and so we stopped at the Carrefour at Rue and bought some food and drinks. As with Douai the day before, parking is free between 1200 and 1400 and we arrived at 1141. To cover out arses we popped 30c in the machine and that took us to 1159! It would be a hard traffic warden to issue a ticket for 1 minute?

Panoramic picture of Baie de la Somme

Leaving the stuff in the car we had a walk from the beach area to the town for a coffee and a look in the shops, just in time for them all to be closing for the day or for lunch. And then back along the seafront to the car and to eat the pizza like food we had bought. It was still warm and the beach was pretty much "tide out", with the bay looking almost shallow enough to walk all the way across to St Valery about three miles away.

Le Crotoy beach huts

With food eaten, we had another walk along she sands to try and exercise the calories away, instead stopping for an ice-cream!

Le Crotoy

Once back at the car it was about 1430 when we set off home, via Audreselles and afternoon coffee. There were delays on the Shuttle due to an earlier breakdown and we managed to squeeze on the back of the train that was retimed to leave at 1827 instead of 1820. The rest of the train was filled with the previous train's cars! Two cars further back in the queue and we would have been on the next one at 1850!

Unlike Southeastern Trains, there is no compensation for delayed travel! You simply have to grin and bear it!