Page 8 - PBCOctober2013

Pickwick Bicycle Club Magazine. Volume 10 No.3 October 2013

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Mr.Pickwick went to France on Tuesday, 9 July. 2013
(Report from Baillie Mac Something and King of the Goblins).

A party of 10 members and guests made the trip with Baillie Mac Something, King of
the Goblins and Jackson with his wife, Jackie, who took the tunnel to Calais, leaving
Folkestone at 7.20 am. and then drove on down to Dinan.

Samuel Pickwick, The Shepherd and chauffeur Mr Brooks, together with Rosemary
Offer, Mrs.Baillie Mac and Celia Simpson (Mrs.King of the Goblins) took the
Portsmouth –Cherbourg ferry and drove down the peninsular to Dinan

The Tunnel Group arrived first in Dinan when a kindly gendarme allowed them through
the road block to park in the car park under the Ibis Hotel Dinan, our base for Mr.Pickwick
Goes To France 2013. The hotel overlooks a roundabout through which that day’s stage
of Le Tour would pass. Crossing to the other side of the roundabout at 2.30, the party
took up station at the Café Nero for a late lunch at roadside tables as they waited for
the riders to pass through at around 4.30. Then back to the hotel for the stage finish on
TV in the lounge.

Taxied from the hotel at half past seven to restaurant
La Fleur de Sel – ambience pleasant, food great and
a ‘trés gentil’ patron where we met up with Samuel
Pickwick’s party who had done a recce of the TT stage
for the next day!

Wednesday: early depart to the pre-arranged Hotel le
Pommeray in the village of Ceaux, 22 Km into the TT stage, Avranche-e Mont Saint
Michel. We had breakfast lunch and a few drinks at roadside watching an 8 hour
spectacle which makes up a Time Trial Tour de France.