{"id":30441,"date":"2022-09-27T04:02:18","date_gmt":"2022-09-26T18:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/?p=30441"},"modified":"2023-01-21T12:18:33","modified_gmt":"2023-01-21T01:18:33","slug":"bethune-france-%f0%9f%87%ab%f0%9f%87%b7-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/?p=30441","title":{"rendered":"B\u00e9thune, France \ud83c\uddeb\ud83c\uddf7 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Date: 25th September 2022<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Travelled: 60 kms from Douai to B\u00e9thune  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visited:  B\u00e9thune   <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stayed: B\u00e9thune Aire, free, N50.53530, E02.65450<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Budget: 123 days @ \u20ac100 per day<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It\u2019s another grey morning in Douai. As you would expect on a Saturday night a few noisy cars woke us once or twice so it wasn\u2019t a perfect sleep, but we\u2019ve had worse. Pam goes for a short walk and I finish a blog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have breakfast, service the Hymer before heading out of town. It\u2019s a relatively short drive mostly on the highway, the sun breaks through, but by the time we arrive in B\u00e9thune the grey has returned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Why are we visiting B\u00e9thune<\/a> other than it\u2019s on our way west to the Chunnel. Well B\u00e9thune doesn\u2019t rate a mention in our guide book but having a quick Google it looks interesting especially when a picture of the belfry pops up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

B\u00e9thune has an aire but it has no services, most importantly it\u2019s free has a nice view of a park and no through traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have some lunch before walking up into the centrum of B\u00e9thune. It takes about 15 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As we walk up we get an amazing first glimpse of B\u00e9thune\u2018s Belfry and the Hotel De Ville behind, pictured above. The pictures below, The Grand Place or town square. The Hotel De Ville or Town Hall is quite unique and unlike any we have seen before. As you can see the buildings facing the square have a Flemish theme common in this part of northern France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The classic 2CV\u2019s come out on the weekend, pictured above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below the belfry, which unfortunately is closed as is the tourist office at its base. Its 36 bell carrilion has stood watch over the square and B\u00e9thune since 1346, but it may have had a couple of renovations since, as it glistens in the afternoon sun<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It\u2019s hard to ignore the Eglise Saint-Vaast \u00e0 B\u00e9thune just a couple of blocks from the Grand Place. Built in 1547 it was totally destroyed during shelling in WWI and rebuilt to it current Flemish Gothic style. With a tower of 68m it\u2019s had some bricks thrown at it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We are greeted by one of the church elders and given the cooks\u2019 tour which was very kind of them. Being half in French and the rest in broken English we appreciated the effort and the recognition we were Australian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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He takes us over to this plaque on the wall which recognises the contribution of the British Empire at France\u2019s time of peril in the Great War and particularly notes Australia if you have a closer look.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The afternoon is getting on as we make our way back to the Hymer. We have arranged 5pm drinks with Glen and Pauline an English couple parked behind us at the aire. We end up having lots in common as retirees and chat for a couple of hours about life on the road and the camper-car life style. Another evening slides past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Michael + Pam<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Date: 25th September 2022 Travelled: 60 kms from Douai to B\u00e9thune   Visited:  B\u00e9thune    Stayed: B\u00e9thune Aire, free, N50.53530, E02.65450\u00a0\u00a0 Budget: 123 days @ \u20ac100 per day It\u2019s another grey morning in Douai. As you would expect on a Saturday night a few noisy cars woke us once or twice so it wasn\u2019t a perfect […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":30446,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[89],"class_list":{"0":"post-30441","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-french-towns","9":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30441"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30709,"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30441\/revisions\/30709"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}