After a quiet night’s sleep, Sarah got up to walk Skye and while they were out I availed myself of the opportunity to scurry into Arras for our breakfast. Two baguettes, one croissant, one pain au chocolate and one pain aux raisins later, I was back at Basil waiting for the other team members to return.
All three of us greedily wolfed down the best French boulangers’ have to offer and without even waiting for coffee we were off to explore Arras.
Arras is a pleasant small town which occupied us for two and a half hours. During WWI it was only 6 miles from the front line and so got badly damaged and likewise it bore the brunt of a British offensive in the Second World War. Like many pretty Flemish, French and German towns, it has been painstakingly restored to its former glory. Britain, of course, just replaced its damaged towns with lumps of concrete!
The town is probably best known, apart from the home of Robespierre for French Revolution enthusiasts, for its two main squares and bell tower.
The Place des Heros is the smaller of the two squares but the most beautiful. It has UNESCO World Heritage status and the square is surrounded Flemish baroque buildings and dominated at one end by the old town hall topped by a 75 metre bell tower.
We lingered in this square over a cup of coffee, or tea in Sarah’s case, and admired the sights.
We then undertook a self guided walking tour, taking in the Grand Place, which is the largest such square I have ever seen, again surrounded by beautiful Flemish baroque buildings. Unfortunately it has been turned into an enormous car park, which probably didn’t play well with UNESCO!
Finally we walked round to the Cathedral, which from the outside is a rather dreary building, only finished in 1930s. Sarah read somewhere that it is better inside, but since it was firmly shut there was no way for us to judge.
On our return to Basil out came my birding lens. You may remember from yesterday that Basil is parked next to a river. Our previous evening’s walk along the river had revealed a large number of Little Grebes. This is a bird which I have seen in England but never photographed,
I set off with my big lens and set myself on the river bank where all the Little Grebes had congregated only find that they had disappeared! That’s not quite true. I got one or two shots of one bird before it fled in horror at the sight of my lens, but it was not the tranquil hour of photography I had hoped.
Now I’m back in Basil I can hear the little beggars distinctive calls on the river behind me. Their calls are beginning to sound a little more like jeers!