The Chunnel & Northern France

I finally feel like we really live in the British Isles. I'm wearing jeans, a turtleneck and a fleece vest, in mid-August. And I'm not warm. My hands are cold.

It's a grey, dreary, windy day, with the chilly fingers of the gusts of air whooshing, pushing, shoving all the leaves and needles of all the branches on every beech, redwood, cedar, fir, and hazelnut tree. This is excellent UK weather. And it's supposed to remain the same for the next ten days. It was a similar temperature in northern France, where we were yesterday, only fairly sunny. We wore three layers of shirts/sweaters/jackets at times, against the cold breeze!

Since our trip by air to Switzerland had to be cancelled (terrorism), we took about four hours at home to regroup, and decided to experience the Euro Tunnel and drive to the nearest international border. Did you know you can't actually drive through the Chunnel? I had no idea. I was picturing all these private cars zooming through the tunnel and suddenly switching to the other side of the road upon arriving in the other country. But no, actually you have to drive your car onto a huge car-carrier-train (having reserved a spot on their website), park, and sit in your car for 35 minutes whilst the train whisks you under the British Channel (or La Manche, francophonically speaking). It's a double-decker train and we were up on the higher level both directions. It's pretty cool. I didn't even have the sensation of going downwards, and we never saw the water at all, since the tunnel starts so far from the coast in order to descend gradually. There are actually three tunnels (two big ones - 7.6 metre diameter - with train tracks, one smaller one in between as a service/emergency tunnel), 50 km long and 45 metres below the seabed. It took four years to build, 1987-1991, for £9 Billion ($17 Billion). The best day of work yielded progress of 75 metres. More info on the structure/building of the Chunnel.

Going up... and inside the car- toting train.

We had a lovely 24 hours in northern France, speaking and listening to French, eating crêpes, boulangerie goodies (croissants, chaussons aux pommes, etc.), and taking a two hour walk on the beautiful soft sandy beach at Le Touquet as the tide was rapidly coming in.

I can't get over the fact I can ride home in my car from Calais, France to my new house in England in two hours flat. Modern technology...

P.S. I took 123 photos on this one little overnight trip, I was so thrilled to be back in francophonia. And it was my first visit ever to the north of France. Never been north of Paris before.