Bruno Delforge has a thing about quirky French transportation. Six Citroen
Deux Chevaux sit side by side in an old barn in Clairmarais, 45 minutes from
Calais, and he can’t quit talking about them: their simplistic workings,
their sensual shape, the experience of driving them. He can’t quit, that is,
until you ask him about the Solex bikes.
Last September Delforge and his partner Olivier Nuns set up Les
Belles Echappées, a company that organises 2CV rentals, weekend
escapes and rides in the countryside of Pas de Calais. It’s impossible to
enter their converted barn and not exit with some goofy wheels: a bright
blue 2CV with rollback roof, a tandem bicycle for two or three or a Solex, a
pushbike fitted with an almost silent electric motor that powers it up to 35
kilometers per hour.
"It's a very good way to discover the country. You are driving slowly,
you've got the open roof and it's an experience to discover the countryside,"
says Delforge.
The Deux Chevaux is a quintessentially French car. People of all ages smile
and wave when you drive by. Created 60 years ago, early versions were hid
from the Nazis during the war and ultimately adopted by the French as their
favourite runaround, with its unusual dashboard mounted shifting mechanism
and seats that can be removed for picnics. James Bond escaped from the
baddies in
a sunshine yellow one in For Your Eyes Only. (Read Charles
Bremner's France
blog about celebrating the 2CV.)
They truly don't make 'em like this anymore: the car went out of production in
1990.
2CV riding tours are offered all around France, including Paris where a driver
will take you up the Champs-Elysées and past the Eiffel Tower. In contrast
Calais is not typically known for its picturesque vistas. Yet, one minute
you’re just off the ferry at the sterile port, half an hour later you’re
whizzing past green fields and sunny patches of rape in the
Flemish-influenced Pas de Calais region.
The Belle Echappées self-drive tours take you around Saint Omer past the
beautiful Hotel Chateau Tilques, the Flemish hills and houses, the vast and
imposing Blockhaus in Eperleques built in WWII to produce liquid oxygen for
the V2 rocket, and villages such as Moringhem, which hosts an annual
scarecrow festival. Scarecrows pose in residents front gardens - wearing,
say, an all-pink ski outfit or perched atop a bicycle, and on April 30th
they're thrown onto a great bonfire.
In Saint Omer itself, you can walk around the city center, taking in the
imposing cathedral which houses a Rubens, the cafés around the main Place
Foch (we drank beer in the late-afternoon sun at Le Blue Note) and a
Saturday morning market.
On your way through Calais, definitely don't miss out on Aquar’Aile,
a fabulous French restaurant plonked behind a council estate-like
development in a high-rise condo. Go up the elevator and you're transported
to a long skinny dining room with windows overlooking the sandy beach of
Calais, with views stretching to Dover. Skip the sandwiches at the ferry
snack bar in favour of dining here on scallops served with mushroom "cappuccino",
seabass in seaweed butter and desserts that include strawberries as
delicious as the garrulous patron promises.
Les Belles Echappées
Les Belles Echappées offers discovery tours of the Nord Pas de Calais region
with 2CV Citroëns, and of the St Omer region with e-solex bikes. A full
day’s 2CV rental costs £124. Half a day’s e-solex rental costs £14. For more
information or to book, call +33 2 21 98 11 72 or visit www.les-belles-echappees.com
SeaFrance Dover-Calais Ferries
We had one when I was 18. On one trip from York to Whitby I had to ask the two girls to jump out at the bottom of a hill and walk to the top as the car just wouldn't make it with all of us in. Eventually, the reverse gear went so we had to park it in places where you could get out forwards.
Richard Waring, Cardiff, UK
The 2CV6: best FUN car I ever had and all on just 602 c.c and 25 bhp. And the best drive was on B roads with the roof rolled back one frosty moonlit star-spangled night. Magical!
mohamed b halim, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia