27 May 2010

Operation Dynamo Trip - 30th May 2010

This week is the 70th Anniversary of the "Little Ships" setting off to cross the Channel to Dunkerque to assist the Navy bring back the remains of the British Expeditionary Force that had attempted to halt the German advance into France.

As we are over in France this weekend it is a good chance to go and visit Dunkerque. Our lunch venue is in Bergues a few miles to the south of Dunkerque.

It will be a simple trip to Dunkerque to see  the "Memorial de Souvenir"; a special exhibition of the events of May/June 1940. Telling the story of the  battle for Dunkirk and Operation Dynamo in whick Dunkerque and its harbour were completely destroyed.  Check out the website - http://www.dynamo-dunkerque.com/

The other place to visit is the Dunkirk Memorial and Town Cemetery. The cemetery contains 450 WW1 casualties and 800 from WW2, but also commemorates the 4500 casualties that have no known grave.  The location can be found on the website above.

I have worked out a route to get to all three and have loaded it into the Quest.

Plan A (above) might have to be shelved as I had expected to have a relaxed run along the N1 avoiding the A16 motorway but after a slight misunderstanding with our lunch venue means that we might have to forget the scenic (!) route and use the A16 instead. The ferry doesn't arrive in Calais until around 11am and by the time we get off and onto the road it will be more like 11.15am at least so we had been looking at maybe a 1pm lunch, instead we are booked for 12.30pm.

The lunch venue was chosen after a trawl around Tripadvisor and we ended up choosing Taverne Le Breugel in Bergues - Le Breugel. 

This should give us plenty of time to eat and ride up to the Memorials and then have time to ride back to Calais to get the boat home.

Report and pics to follow.

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