Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[dbug]

There's a fantastic steak restaurant next to the Mercure Hotel in Alencon, which is about 35 miles before Le Mans on the A28. 

They cook the steaks over a massive log fire in a big old inglenook fireplace along with various pots of sauce! 

Highly recommended! 

That takes me back - used to use that place regularly years ago - as you say good steaks cooked as you like it, and friendly owners.  Remember owners wife playing with my daughter as we ate, and chatted to the owner.

[Sir Tigger KC]

There's a fantastic steak restaurant next to the Mercure Hotel in Alencon, which is about 35 miles before Le Mans on the A28. 

They cook the steaks over a massive log fire in a big old inglenook fireplace along with various pots of sauce! 

Highly recommended! 

So, not quite the same as the Hotel B&B just outside to the North of Alencon where I stayed then. Some people are so posh 

I used to work for a 'posh' company that were generous with expenses Rog.     I'd be at the local campsite if it had come from my pocket! 

[Nick W]

Rouen is an hour and forty-five minutes from Calais docks. Less if you hurry.

Why anyone would hurry is beyond me. Every time I've passed through Rouen I've ended up lost.

And if you try Sat Nag, it takes you right through the centre, ignoring the bypass 

I think you're using it wrong 

[Kevin Wood]

I just follow the signs for Le Mans: through the tunnel, over the bridge, turn right and back under the bridge, go past the railway sidings,straight across the roundabout with the concrete cows, up the hill and rejoin the motorway. Easy. Takes about 15 minutes at lunchtime.

Yep, easy enough in theory, kept passing those rather concrete cows in an endless loop.

There's a fantastic steak restaurant next to the Mercure Hotel in Alencon, which is about 35 miles before Le Mans on the A28. 

They cook the steaks over a massive log fire in a big old inglenook fireplace along with various pots of sauce! 

Highly recommended! 

It was the fact that one of the main drags through Alencon is called the "Avenue de Basingstoke" (their twin town) that made me laugh. Probably sounds exotic in a French accent.

[Kevin Wood]

I just follow the signs for Le Mans: through the tunnel, over the bridge, turn right and back under the bridge, go past the railway sidings,straight across the roundabout with the concrete cows, up the hill and rejoin the motorway. Easy. Takes about 15 minutes at lunchtime.

Yep, easy enough in theory, kept passing those rather concrete cows in an endless loop.

Probably didn't help that we were normally in a convoy of three. One guy had a map, one guy had the directions and I was tail end Charlie with the smallest petrol tank and the only one with a mobile phone, or any glimmer of a sense of direction.

[Doctor Gollum]

Here's a thought... OK, the ferries have gradually been getting bigger, but there are fewer of them, serving far fewer ports than they used to... There are also many times more trucks coming and going through Dover...

My suggestion is simply this:

Keep Dover/Calais as a freight and coach only crossing and  have Folkestone/Boulogne and Ramsgate/Dunkirk as dedicated car/caravan routes...

Less stress on the infrastructure on either side and a better travelling experience all round.

As for the tunnel, that simply needs flooding 

[Nick W]

With 16million passengers per year passing through Dover, using the Tesco have a bigger carpark port of Ramsgate won't help much. Folkestone isn't much better.

Perhaps we could waste another couple of million quid on the Medway Queen and pretend that's viable as a ferry? Chatham does still have a pier it could use 

[Doctor Gollum]

With 16million passengers per year passing through Dover, using the Tesco have a bigger carpark port of Ramsgate won't help much. Folkestone isn't much better.

Perhaps we could waste another couple of million quid on the Medway Queen and pretend that's viable as a ferry? Chatham does still have a pier it could use 

[TheBoy]

There's a fantastic steak restaurant next to the Mercure Hotel in Alencon, which is about 35 miles before Le Mans on the A28. 

They cook the steaks over a massive log fire in a big old inglenook fireplace along with various pots of sauce! 

Highly recommended! 

I have yet to have an edible steak in France.  The French simply have no idea how to cook steak...  ...or anything else for that matter.

[TheBoy]

Rouen is an hour and forty-five minutes from Calais docks. Less if you hurry.

Why anyone would hurry is beyond me. Every time I've passed through Rouen I've ended up lost.

And if you try Sat Nag, it takes you right through the centre, ignoring the bypass 

I think you're using it wrong 

Can't remember if that was the one that I subsequently mislaid at the end of the Aston Expressway, or another one.

[Entwood]

There's a fantastic steak restaurant next to the Mercure Hotel in Alencon, which is about 35 miles before Le Mans on the A28. 

They cook the steaks over a massive log fire in a big old inglenook fireplace along with various pots of sauce! 

Highly recommended! 

I have yet to have an edible steak in France.  The French simply have no idea how to cook steak...  ...or anything else for that matter.

The French cook steak perfectly, unlike the UK that burns it to a cinder useful only for using on boots. 

"Entrecote Bleu, s'il vous plait" 

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

There's a fantastic steak restaurant next to the Mercure Hotel in Alencon, which is about 35 miles before Le Mans on the A28. 

They cook the steaks over a massive log fire in a big old inglenook fireplace along with various pots of sauce! 

Highly recommended! 

I have yet to have an edible steak in France.  The French simply have no idea how to cook steak...  ...or anything else for that matter.

The French cook steak perfectly, unlike the UK that burns it to a cinder useful only for using on boots. 

"Entrecote Bleu, s'il vous plait" 

I like my meat well cooked.

I don't want to eat something that looks like a good vet could get it back on it's feet again.

[Gaffers]

From what i can gather from my french sources, the french police are on their arse after the overtime post various attacks, Euro 2016 and subsequent leave bans.  Eventually something has to give and the result is queues at Dover.  I hear that the policing at airports is under strain too.  I dont think that it was intentional as the last thing the french want is for brits to not spend their holidays in france/on the continent.

[TD]

There's a fantastic steak restaurant next to the Mercure Hotel in Alencon, which is about 35 miles before Le Mans on the A28. 

They cook the steaks over a massive log fire in a big old inglenook fireplace along with various pots of sauce! 

Highly recommended! 

I have yet to have an edible steak in France.  The French simply have no idea how to cook steak...  ...or anything else for that matter.

The French cook steak perfectly, unlike the UK that burns it to a cinder useful only for using on boots. 

"Entrecote Bleu, s'il vous plait" 

By my reckoning, that roughly translates to "Wipe its ass and shove it on my plate, please"

So no 'cooking' required then 

PS Its probably not cow steak anyway 

[TheBoy]

There's a fantastic steak restaurant next to the Mercure Hotel in Alencon, which is about 35 miles before Le Mans on the A28. 

They cook the steaks over a massive log fire in a big old inglenook fireplace along with various pots of sauce! 

Highly recommended! 

I have yet to have an edible steak in France.  The French simply have no idea how to cook steak...  ...or anything else for that matter.

The French cook steak perfectly, unlike the UK that burns it to a cinder useful only for using on boots. 

"Entrecote Bleu, s'il vous plait" 

No matter how you like it, the French cannot cook steak. They should supply a good chainsaw.  Knowing they can't prepare steak properly, I normally ask for rare (same as blue here), but even fillet is still harder to eat than my workboots.

They only hang it for a couple of days, unlike UK that usually hang for 3 weeks, which helps making it more tender.


Even the posh Michelin starred, €90 per person sliver of meat with a drizzle of jus poncy wank places, its bloody awful.  Even Beefeater can make their cheapo rumps better.


Trouble is, being a steak and chips man, I never learn