We left the UK on Friday morning and headed south to catch the ferry from Dover to the French port of Calais. On the way, we discovered the brake light on the back of the Leading Ladies wasn’t working, so we diverted to Canterbury where I knew there was a Harley-Davidson dealer. However, the H-D dealer was no more, but had changed into a Victory and Suzuki dealership, but they still worked on Harleys as well and luckily for us, still carried a few parts. With Jackie looking at the pink helmets for sale, I bought a replacement bulb and fitted it, but that wasn’t the problem – it looked as if the fitting that held the bulb had failed, so on the forecourt of the dealership I set about trying to fix it. One of the mechanics walked by and said that he thought they might still have one of those fittings and he appeared a few minutes later with the small part that meant we could get back on the road, heading for the ship.
The delay to fix the light meant we missed the ferry we were meant to be on, but managed to get on the next one. With a crossing time of just 90 minutes on a very calm English Channel, there is barely time to grab something to eat before the coast of France comes into view and soon, we were rolling along on the French roads. Having arrived in France quite late in the afternoon, we stopped for the night in the city of Arras. We had travelled 197 miles on the bike, plus about 20 miles in the ferry.
Day 2 of the trip was about travelling down through northern France, avoiding the motorways. This took us through many of the regions that had seen battles during World Wars I and II, and we passed many military cemeteries. We saw French, British, American and Australian cemeteries, all kept in immaculate condition.
On VE day, it seemed appropriate to be visiting war cemeteries.
This is one of the British cemeteries, at Feuchy....
One of the headstones....
A huge cross at another British cemetery....
A beautiful setting at the same cemetery....
It isn’t until you see the sheer numbers of headstones that it really sinks in just how many soldiers lost their lives in Northern France....
We went to see the Somme American Cemetery....
Inside the memorial building, the sun was refracting through a glass cross causing rainbow colours on the wall of names....
The crosses marking the graves of the American Soldiers....
An impressive French gateway. I am struggling to remember where this was....
We saw a couple of tanks at the roadside....
The kings of France used to be crowned at the Roman Catholic cathedral of Reims....
There was a terrific reflection of the cathedral in an adjacent media library....
In the afternoon, we were pulled over by the police who were stopping all motorbikes on the road we were on. They were checking for stolen bikes and were being very thorough, looking at frame and engine numbers to ensure the bikes were genuinely owned. As soon as they realised we were not on a French registered bike, they let us leave with a smile and a handshake.
We stayed the night in Troyes, still in northern France, having ridden 210 miles on day 2. The weather remained wonderfully sunny and hot all day.
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