Boulogne to Dieppe

I am writing this while we motor from Boulogne to Dieppe - of course the wind is on the nose. It is quite rolly polly out here and the wind is very cold. We are wearing lots of clothes and wet weather gear. The temperature on land is only 12 and it is much colder out here.

We had to stay two days in Boulogne waiting for a storm to blow through, but it was just as well we had a rest after our long trip across the Channel and arriving Tuesday morning at 1.00 am. Boulogne still has an interesting walled city as its old town area, built about 1200 AD, and there are some other areas with the beautiful French architectural style, but the effects of the recession are everywhere, with shops closing down, no money being spent on building or restoration, beautiful old churches needing to be repaired, and beggars at the church doors. I am sure everything would have looked better if the sun had been shining, especially along their very wide sandy beach, but the wind was bitterly cold and nearly blew us away.  As this was our first stop in France we loved buying the pates, cheese, baguettes and patisseries. The first day (Wednesday June 12) we had magnificent mussels mariniere for lunch with a bottle of rose and excellent quiche Lorraine that we bought for our dinner on the boat. It is a major fishing port so yesterday we bought great fresh fish (carraleta - like sole but with big orange spots, filleted perfectly by the fish lady) from the fish market opposite the marina dock and cooked the fish for dinner last night. Unfortunately it was too strong for me to be able to eat it, but I enjoyed another quiche.

We met a lovely Swedish couple at the marina and they are on the same path as us, moving on according to the weather and tides, so we will see them in Dieppe. Boulogne was a port where we could enter and exit on any tide, without the need of a lock, and Dieppe will be the same. That's good because it means we can enter and leave at any time.