Journey to Calais – Friday, 5 July

We caught the train to Waterloo and moved over to Waterloo East where we boarded a train to Folkestone West.

From the station we cycled a mere 2 km to a hotel in Cheriton where we were picked up by the Eurotunnel Cycle Service. This is a contracted out service which presumably Eurotunnel are obliged to offer but they don’t publicise it widely. A place has to be booked beforehand. At £20 per person plus bike it is good value.

We were joined by four other cyclists on the minibus who had ridden from Maidstone and were cycling on to The Hague over the following couple of days before flying home.

Dan, our friendly driver, dropped us off closer to the centre of Calais which turned out to be only 200 metres from to hotel.

This evening we walked into the centre of Calais. The town was clearly razed during the war and almost all the buildings are new. We revived ourselves with large glasses of Leffe which is the nearest we got to a local brew.

After dinner we walked up to the Calais beach following signs for the Via Francigena, the pilgrimage route from Canterbury to Rome.

It was good to reach Calais Plage for the start of our French Camino. Tomorrow we begin to cycle south.