Destination Orange - Day 7

It was spitting with rain as we sat down to breakfast.  Although the hotel was the cheapest on the trip @ €40 a night, it was very good.

It is currently under a massive plan of updating. Our room was brand new, the bed, everything.  Some of the other rooms where we could see in had been decorated and were "under construction" still.  We were the only guests that night.

We were away a little after 9.20 and this time we headed straight for Reims on the N roads before a detour around looking for the city centre.

On the way we drove along the D951. Every kilometre or so there are markers showing it to be the "Voie de la Liberte", a huge monument stretching across France to commemorate the Liberation.

I pulled up to take a pic of one in Mont Chenot village. This village on the road to Reims from Epernay would have been liberated on or about 30th August 1944.

We didn't intend to stop, just have a fly-by in case we want to come back.  We passed Pommery on the way in.

Once on the A4 and then the A26 we saw signs for the "Chemin des Dames" and decided to detour off to have a look. We were curious about the name and the wiki entry explains that!

Chemin des Dames

The first stop on the way to Laon was at a monument that had a couple of tanks and armoured cars. This is a national tank monument and is on the spot where the French launched their first tank attack on the German lines in April of 1917.

  

Once back on the A26, Claire took over driving and we navigated without much help from TomTom via Lille and to Bergues for lunch.  For some reason TomTom has an affinity with pay roads unless you say no and then it avoids them altogether. If you accept, it seems to stick to them rigidly when there may be a free alternative that might be better.

We arrived in Bergues and parked in the square and went to the friterie for lunch.  So many chips we couldn't eat them all....

From there it was a short skip and a jump to the ferry. Holiday over.