Cider, Calvados and Camembert

Here we go, the time has come. The Mega-Atlantic Tour can begin: 66 days at home in the robber's cave, nine weeks following our noses on an exploration trip.
The months of July and August are not exactly our preferred travel time, expect super hot days, contested sleeping spots and overcrowded hotspots. After some back and forth, we decide to take advantage of the hopefully milder temperatures along the Atlantic coast and explore areas that have not been on our travel routes so far. Off we go in Calais and then we'll see - maybe all the way to Gibraltar?

However, I start with a nasty infection that keeps me awake for nights with a corrosive dry cough and later a stuffed concrete nose. This reminds me of a trip a few years ago when I got a bad cold on the way. Coughing, sneezing, hoarseness significantly limit the quality of life and tourism. Madame La Pharmacie happily advises me and sells me a cough syrup, the contents of which I pour half into myself in front of the pharmacy according to the motto 'More is better'. I down the rest before dinner.
I can barely remember the course of this mild evening. Bundled up in cotton, I doze off in soft, pink clouds and soon fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.
The next morning I wake up like a newborn, the cough is blown away, the nose is clear and I feel lively. Only now do I read the package insert and discover that it is strongly advised not to drive after consuming this devil stuff.
I think I should finally use this trip to stock up on a few bottles of this magic potion, which is not approved in Germany.

But otherwise, there are no obstacles in the way of the mega-journey so far, the Kangoo is truly roadworthy, everything is packed and it seems that nothing has been forgotten.
On the way to Calais, we make a detour to the worst flea market of all time in Lippstadt. On the approximately 100m market area, there are two junk dealers with rusty-rotted rubbish that the world will never need again. The rest of the stands shimmer in spooky, brightly colored plastic toys, clothes, household items that the world has never needed. This detour was really not worth it.

Calais greets us a bit chilly. A strong wind blows around our noses at breakfast, but soon the sun breaks through the clouds and lifts our mood. As a first step, we look for a shopping opportunity and drive over a bridge that is lined with high, thick barbed wire on the left and right. The whole thing looks like a high-security military site, but at a second glance and correct interpretation of the signs, we discover that we have looked at the entrance to the Eurotunnel, which has been secured as securely as the proverbial church.

In the construction of the whole thing, the largest German gun battery Lindemann, through whose 40cm thick gun barrels projectiles weighing up to one ton and with a range of 50km could be fired, was sunk in the mud. Apparently, this was the only solution. Now the thick concrete bunker has disappeared into the mud, where it belongs, in my opinion.

The Sch'tis are currently busy preparing for the upcoming Tour de France. Everywhere paths and alleys are swept, weeds are weeded, seedlings are straightened, new markings are painted on the roads, and cows are preemptively pulled out of the ditches. This leads to detours and road closures, but they are not very professionally signposted, so we spend a morning wandering through the countryside in search of access to the sea and repeatedly have to pass by the employees of the clean-up measures until they finally pull the route barrée signs aside for us full of pity. They will soon finish work anyway.

However, we still want to go all the way to Gibraltar and cannot stay until the Tour, so we continue to Normandy to discover Cider, Calvados and Camembert.