The White Cliffs have always been on my bucket list so I was pretty insistent that we take the ferry from Dover to Calais to get to France, rather than the much easier route on the Eurostar. We had hoped to find a place to check our luggage and explore Dover Castle but there were no lockers to be found so we had to walk around the town, looking for a cafe, to wait out the few hours before our ferry departed for Calais.
We walked the downtown and felt a little like Popeye Doyle, walking the streets of Marseille in the French Connection. Port towns can be a bit seedy and Dover definitely lived up to that reputation. Xavier commented on the vast number of vaping shops and Alexander asked why so many people in Europe smoke. Their comments reinforced that they’re a bit sheltered in their solid middle-class life.
We decided to head to the ferry and wait out the few hours before our departure which meant that the boys drank Sprite and ate potato chips for lunch (not the first time this happened on this trip nor the last). Luckily, Josh got us on an earlier ferry, quite the coup considering the stories of the previous week about the horrors of travel from Dover, stories that were reinforced by the bus driver who took us from the check-in to the ferry. He told us that the previous week, it took him eight hours to get to work and he only lives eight miles away — that seems outrageous but that’s what he said!
We spent the ferry ride staring out the window and fighting the urge to gamble. Some of us played Nintendo, oblivious to the wonders of nature outside the dirty windows. The ferry was the closest thing that I’ll likely ever be to traveling on a cruise ship. It was huge, with more food options and entertainment than truly necessary. It went very fast — only 90 minutes from leaving the port in Dover to arriving in Calais.
We got to Calais around 7pm and due to further delays getting off the boat, we just missed the free bus into town and had to wait 45 minutes for a taxi. We learned the hard way that the ferry does not cater to foot traffic, only car traffic. In retrospect, we should have befriended a car traveller on board the ferry and paid them to take us to our destination!
We got to our hotel then had a nice dinner at L’Hovercraft, a Calais institution that first opened in 1966. Alexander thought it was our destiny to eat here as he’d just read the book, Framed by James Ponti, and there is a particularly funny line, “My hovercraft is fully of monkeys.” Xavier and Alexander did a great job ordering their first meals en Francaise (un burger au poulet et un cheeseburger sans fromage et tomate).
Calais was prettier than expected. The Tour de France had just come through town so there was lots of fresh paint and newly planted flowers. We visited the famous sculpture by Rodin, Monument aux Bourgeois de Calais, commissioned by Calais in 1884. It depicts the unlucky souls chosen to hand over the keys to the city to the King of England at the end of a particular siege during the Hundred Years’ War. According to the Rodin Museum, “The six characters are individualized … but independent. Alone facing their destiny and death, they do not look at each other, do not touch … the condemned men begin their slow funeral march. Rodin gives each figure … a particular gesture and movement – from despair to abandonment, from confidence to resignation.”
On Saturday morning Alexander had his first French pain au chocolat which did not disappoint. We then departed Calais via train and headed to Paris and then changed trains for a quick trip to Fontainebleau, our next destination.
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