Arras - Easter 2004

The original plan for Easter was to spend the day in Belgium with the GS Club UK at the GS weekend at Kasterlee. As it was only a week after coming back from the US, I had to cancel those plans.

But the bike needed a 20000km service before the Czech Trip... and so I decided to see about a service in France and use the ferry ticket for that instead. I searched on the BMW France site for a dealership in the north of France. Purely to see if it was cheaper than in the UK.

In the end I booked in to Europ' Touring in Arras. In France both 6000 miles and 12000 miles services are about 40% cheaper than the UK. Even with the cost of a cheap crossing over or under the channel it would be cheaper. And as I was less than happy at the standard of the service done at SPC at 6000 miles, plus the place was in the middle of nowhere and had no loan bike on offer (to me least!) despite buying the GS from them! So, a dealership in a town had to be better.

Patrice, the owner, lent us a Scarver 650 to get about. In the end the weather wasn't very good so we only rode into the city centre, met Mark and Julie from the SOC who were there for a hotel weekend, for coffee and as they had done most of the sights we wanted to see the day before we signed in for the A/T, had a chat, and then had lunch.

After lunch, with the weather still looking a bit naff, we wobbled on the Scarver up to Vimy Ridge. On this trip the monument was open (a later visit wasn't so lucky!) and we had a long walk around taking some pictures, however, we didn't have time to go in the museum.