A quick trip to France and Netherlands

A quick trip to France and Netherlands

We have arrived in France from the Dover Ferry. Many cars, bikes, caravans and RV’s are lined up and many of us chat as we waited to board.

We have purchased a vehicle and you can read about how we did that here: http://exploramum.com/2014/06/buying-car-England-uk.html

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Exploramum and Explorason – Dover crossing #1

It is an RHD and the first thing we learned was how to set a new country on the GPS. Then we had to stop once outside the ship as we waited for a GPS signal – and that we couldn’t do on board.  It was a pretty smooth and fast 2-hour crossing – and very inexpensive too.

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Exploramum and Explorason – White cliffs of Dover

We decided to take the canal road and see a couple of small towns from Dunkirk up to Brugge, in Belgium. So our first stop was a pretty little town called Veurne in Belgium.

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Exploramum and Explorason – Veurne #1

We were pretty excited by now to have moved so quickly from France to Belgium, our 26th country in less than 2 years.

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Exploramum and Explorason – Veurne #2

We then visited Nieuwpoort and Ostend on the way to Brugge.  By mid-afternoon I was tired from our early start, and so we were pleased to find our Brugge hotel, where we stayed for 3 nights. You can read about that here:   http://exploramum.com/2014/06/brugge-Belgium-beautiful.html

We then had a spare day to get to my friend’s host home in Brussels, so we decided to head up via Holland. First stop was a small town called Damme, in Belgium.

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Exploramum and Explorason – Damme, Belgium #1

There was not a lot to see, and the sky was turning greyer by the minute, so apart from a distant windmill you can see below, and an old church you can see above, there wasn’t much. Therefore we drove on.

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Exploramum and Explorason – Damme, Belgium #2

Holland! Well correctly that is only a region and the real country name is The Netherlands. We stopped for a break in Sluis.

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Exploramum and Explorason – Sluis, Holland by the canal

This town is cute.  The canals are lovely!

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Exploramum and Explorason – Sluis, Holland by the canal #2

It is not majorly touristic, but it still has that element of camera clap folk milling about – just not too many.

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Exploramum and Explorason – Sluis, Holland – a cute town

So we had to go to a cheese shop of course.

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Exploramum and Explorason – Sluis, Holland cheese shop

Rows and rows of gorgeous cheese lined the walls.

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Exploramum and Explorason – Sluis, Holland cheeses

Next stop was a windmill. We wanted to have lunch here, but the man was quite rude. He told another waiter off for allowing us to sit at the tables in another section, and we had to sit in the lesser section.  So we left and decided we would just go sit elsewhere.

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Exploramum and Explorason – Sluis, Holland windmill

We passed a church and as we did the pretty bells played a lovely melodic tune.

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Exploramum and Explorason – Sluis, Holland church

We had a lovely lunch by the canal and headed to the next Dutch town.

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Exploramum and Explorason – Aardenburg, Holland

Aardenburg had the cutest arch entrance. This was a sleepy town.  We had a chat and decided to come back another day and see more of Holland. So we then drove back to Belgium and went to Gent.

I’m going to blog about Gent separately as it is a lovely town with a lot to see.

Questions and Comments

  • What do you find fascinating about France?
  • What do you make of my visit to France?
  • Do share your comments with us below.

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