Aire-sur-la-Lys to Dunkerque 6-10 September Our next major destination was Dunkerque, but we took our time visiting a few delightful towns on the way. We spent two nights in Aire-sur-la-Lys. We were surprised at how pretty this town was. The tourist information building (above) in the old Bailiff's house, was especially lovely. The collegiate church was quite run down, but very interesting. On our way to Arques we had two locks to go through. I told Howard that the first lock was a drop of 1.3m, however, after we squeezed in behind a big commercial I realised my mistake - it was a drop of over 13m, and there was no suitable floating bollard for us to tie to, so Howard had a lot of unexpected work to do, having to secure us using a dirty ladder and needing to move the rope down to lower rungs over 10 times. At Arques where we stayed at the pretty marina. Even though we were only metres from the main canal, it was relatively quite. We stayed two nights. On the first afternoon we went to visit the old Fontinettes ascenseur (boat lift). It was under wraps, as it is being renovated. And we also saw the 13m lock that we had come up that morning that replaced the ascenseur. (Unfortunately I had misread our map and had told Howard it was only going to be a 1.3m drop, so, unexpectedly it was quite a lot of work for him) We then came across tourist railway, which was just getting ready to take on passengers. Then we had a look around town. On Monday we cycled into St Omer, which was a decent size city. In places it was a bit grimy but in the main tourist areas it was well kept. After a delicious lunch, we had a walk around the town gardens, which were built among the Vauban fortifications. Our original intention was to make another stop before the final cruise into Dunkerque, however the forecast for Wednesday was for Force 5 winds, so we decided to do the whole trip on Tuesday. It took us over six hours, but as there was only one lock and the weather was fine and sunny, and we were able to cruise mostly outside it was a very pleasant day. At the only lock we were followed in by a very wide commercial. On exiting the lock we moved over so that he could pass us. We were travelling at about 7.5km/hr, and he was going at about 10kms/hr. As an indication of how much water these big guys push around, our speed dropped to 0.6 kms/hr as he came alongside, without us changing the throttle at all. And as he passed our speed picked up to 8.9kms/hr and it felt like we were surfing on his surge. Large commercial in a 12m wide lock At the end of the day we were happy to have a very nice mooring just before the lock in Dunkerque as we will be here until Sunday.
3 Comments
Richard Switzky
11/9/2019 05:01:59 pm
As always fascinating following your journey, and the pictures are treasures. Interesting how much the church has played such a prominent role in all these communities with beautiful cathedrals.
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Deb
11/9/2019 06:32:40 pm
Even quite small towns have massive churches.
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Matthew Robinson
11/9/2019 11:37:38 pm
Great pics Thank you Mattw.
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