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Showing posts with label Canterbury. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canterbury. Show all posts

Monday, July 2, 2012

Day one: Canterbury to Dover and on to Calais

Gordon - We walked/rode together from Canterbury to Dover yesterday. It was about 36 km, including a few extra kilometers caused by losing our route. The way is not well signposted, and everyone who has written about the Via Francigena (VF) has mentioned the route finding difficulties.
The walk was beautiful, passing through an agricultural landscape dotted with small villages. We were particularly taken with the village architecture, which I would characterize as hobbit-homes in brick. As a fortuitous result of being lost, we also passed a charming 12th century parish church with a delightful tympanum and other Romanesque details.
We took a P&O ferry to Calais. The distance and sailing time is about the same as the trip from Swartz Bay to Tsawassen, but, critics of BC Ferries take note, the fare for a walk-on passenger is about $50. On the plus side, a plethora of bars and lounges on the boat give you an opportunity to drink steadily during the crossing, which is what many of the passengers were doing.
It's great to be back in France. We celebrated our return with a $5 bottle of robust red wine from Cahors.

Ruth- Obviously Gord wrote the bit above. Have you heard me use the word plethora and fortuitous - hey I can't even spell them without auto correct.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

The Via Francigena for 2012!


Gord and I have air tickets purchased and Alison Raju's new guidebook hot off the press. 
Our planning for the Via Francigena is now offically under way. 

We fly into Gatwick on July 1, 2012  and we are booked into to the Canterbury Cathedral Lodge right in the Cathedral grounds for our first night.

This year we will  do about half of the route to Rome ending somewhere in Switzerland. We will spend five nights in Paris before heading home on August 11th. We are bringing a tent this time just in case we run into difficulties with accommodation. Being a princess of a thing I went out today and bought a really light inflatable mattress. It certainly  is way more comfortable than my old therma-rest. I am glad it is a fairly flat route because it looks like there will be a bit more stuff in my bike trailer.