What a screw up La Havre is. This might be a boring post but I'll try to explain what my problem was. La Havre sits on the north bank of the Seine. In the middle of the river is an industrial Island. But actually it is made up of 4 different islands, connected by bridges. From one of the islands farthest from the mouth there is an enormous bridge connecting to the south bank and Honfleur.
I looked on my map and thought the easiest way would be to cross straight from La Havre to the island with the big bridge. It was an E road, so not a motorway. I cycled down but the bridge actually was a motorway, it changes to an E road on the island side. So I cycled all the way back (probably 5-10km each way).
I found another bridge, but that Island didn't connect to the island I wanted, so I'd have to cross to the island in the opposite direction, then head south and cross another bridge to the island I wanted. So I did this, but the bridge from the 1st Island to the 2nd was closed, so I cycled back. (another 5km round trip or so). Of course when I got back the bridge back over to La Havre was raised, so I had to wait.
There were two bridges that crossed directly to the island furthest from the large bridge, so I tried to find the closest one. The first problem was a canal separating me from it. So I had to cycle north away from the river around the canal. Because I'd cycled north that put me on the wrong side of the motorway. So I had to cycle a long way towards the mouth of the river (further from the big bridge that was my goal) to cross the motorway while still being on the correct side of the canal.
However the train line starts that far down, so once I got across the motorway I was then trapped by the train line, so I cycled further down to get across the train line, which led me to almost be on the motorway. By the way, I didn't know where these crossings were so it took a lot of probing. Google was no help because as well as the motorways there were a bunch of other elevated highways so the map just looked a mess.
Eventually I got to a bridge which was 2 along from the one I wanted but across I went. So my next step was to find the next bridge to the next Island. When I got there it was raised, and stayed that way for a half hour. That's where I did the last post from. On my blog, not on my bugle. When I got across that bridge I had to cycle all the way back to the big main bridge, which I crossed and escaped that hell hole. I estimate I cycled about 40km just trying to cross the river.
I ran into the rarest of commodities while I was there - a helpful French person. I say helpful, but she couldn't tell me how to get across the river. She did list a series of ways that I couldn't get across, which did help. It was a long list.
My battery went flat when I got to Honfleur so I stopped in at McDonald's to charge it and search for a place to camp outside the town. The beach looked like a goer so I got on my bike to race across town and out the other side to the beach before it got dark.
When I zoomed out the other side I went past a camp ground with a big sign saying it was full so I backtracked and went in. Reception closes at 7 at all these camp grounds which means you have to waste roughly 3 hours of daylight if you want to check in. It was almost 10 so reception was well and truly closed so I helped myself. Rode in, set up, went to sleep. Turns out it wasn't full.
Now I'm in McDonald's again, charging my phone again. But I've hit the Normandy beaches, at a place called Touques.
I've been reading about Operation Neptune, which was the allied attempt in ww2 to expand after the original foothold was secured after D day. It took them over 2 months to get across the Seine after initially landing, so I suppose I did it quicker than they did.
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