April 6th. Calais

We took Eurotunnel to Calais on Saturday afternoon. Kids were entertained by driving into the train that was driving though under the channel. The goal was to get situated in Calais and start our exploration down to Normandy on Sunday. We arrived at around 5pm local time. Situated at the Hotel Du Golf – empty-looking abandoned-looking hotel across the beach. There were rows of white storage boxes on the beach. We’ve never seen anything like that. If they were in Yalta or old Sochi they could possibly rented out to house people. But here it looks like most are used to store the beach supplies.

We walked to the center town stopping to wait for boats to pass over the moving bridge. The town was pretty empty on Saturday night. One possible reason for it was because all of them were at the city hall celebrating some event. We saw the tower of the building from far away and were drawn in by its beauty. As we got closer, we saw  the lovely building that went with it. We got inside and started to look for the ticket office. But there was none in sight and everyone was too busy drinking the Champagne.  So we took the elevator to the next floor and the next, walking alone around the magnificent meeting rooms. We could not get as far as the tower but enjoyed the "private" tour with no one to stop us :) When we got back downstairs Dan dared me to join the party :)

We continued our walk but the town is really nothing to write home about. Dmitry found glorious local restaurant for us to have our dinner. It was amazing. Starting from the perfect decor which included tapestry style armchairs, chandeliers and all the works, to the incredibly nice and accommodating waiter to the food itself.. We are not used to such rich foods and so painfully dragged ourselves back to our rooms and lamenting the absence of the functional wifi connection went to sleep.