A drive through north-west France

RooFlyer

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A year ago, I was wondering whether or not I should go to the UK in June for one-of-best-mates significant birthdays. Then the AFF LHR lounge crawl came up and that nearly sealed the deal, as I will be then able to visit Windsor Castle to view some art items in the Royal Collection. Then said mate and family said they were going to be in Normandy a few weeks later and that settled it. I've been seeing more and more of France over the past few years and it was time to get stuck into Brittany and Normandy.

So the trip has ended up being rather badly timed (too close to my last trip) and has blown out to a week too long, but 🤷‍♂️ .

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Flying into LHR on an Oman Air ticket (was keen to try them - regretting it a bit now) - Qantas to BKK then WY BKK-MCT-LHR. Damn WY has subbed BKK-MCT to a B737 which has really pissed me off.

Visit Windsor Castle the day after arriving to have a look at an album of sketches by 19th century Tasmanian artist and poet Louisa Anne Meredith that made its way to the Royal Collection. So now I am an art expert. Not.

Train up to Manchester to see my mate and also visit the John Rylands library. Booked tickets on Trainline. This worked well, but gee, trains are expensive!

Back down to London for the LHR T3 lounge crawl.

There are a set number of flights out of LHR T3 where the lounge crawl is, and I was originally going to fly to Toulouse to start my driving tour of NW France, but BA cancelled that long ago, so now I'm doing LHR-BUD (with a bunch of other AFFers), then BUD-AMS-CDG, all of these flights on points of various shades. Why fly direct when you can connect etc.

Pick up car and 18 days driving from CDG, first west to Angers, Vannes and Quiberon and then an arc to the NE across Brittany and Normandy as far as Amiens in Hautes de France, and back to Paris. A day in Paris.

Overnight stops in double circle (except Chartres - just a stop). Side trips not shown.

Route map.jpg

Getting back home on a Oman Air ticket was a real PITA. Not every day ex CDG and then not a lot of days that would also connect through to Bangkok. Finally wrangled it, with a day stopover in Muscat and a day in Bangkok on the way back.

Will be visiting the WW2 beaches in Normandy and the WW1 battlefields on the Somme. There is probably going to be some cathedrals :cool:

Have been using this site to book a lot of tickets.


Off in a week.
 
Sounds great

Have you read Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks - very interesting book about WW1

This is about a 10 minute walk from Rylands (which I really enjoyed) and is a bit quirky The Portico Library

Have a great trip
 
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