Early in the morning in Boulogne-sur-Mer
Early in the morning on Monday the 28th of October 2024,
I was walking around the walls of the 12th century fortified old town.
I felt like I was time-travelling into the ancient French town. Especially, I had been watching the Prime Video - Marie Antoinette at my apartment in the Amstelveen, before coming here. Felt captivated into this historical world!!
I came here yesterday for visiting one of our facilities in the area of the largest fish port in France. It was almost 10 hours trip from my house. From Schiphol airport to Paris Gare du Nord, I took Eurostar.
And then, I took a train to Boulogne sur Mer from Paris Gare du Nord, which took almost 3 hours.
As I did not know anything about this Boulogne sur Mer, I tried to book the most decent hotel here through Booking.com. But, when I arrived at the station of Boulogne Ville and ordered the Uber, I re-read the message from the hotel and started to realize the uniqueness of the contents of it. It says that the check-in can be done from 17:00 to 18:00 but if you want, we try to do it from 11:00. What kind of message is that?
My train from Paris Gare du Nord arrived at 16:02 and an Uber driver took me to the front of the hotel from the Boulgone station. “Again, I cannot get into the hotel.” (It happened in Milan.). This time, I acted more smartly than before. I called the hotel. But, the person who answered my phone replied that the check-in starts from 17:00, which is 30 minutes later.
To try to calm myself down but still having unclear thoughts in my mind, I wandered in the town. Somehow, I felt an urge to have some nice sweet, as I am now in France and I cannot eat it in the Netherlands. And I had a Pain au Chocolat with coffee at the one of Cafes in the old town.
Then, went back to the hotel, I found a women standing with a carrying-case and obviously waiting for her check-in in front of the hotel entrance. She said she came by the same train as me and being confused with the situation. She was French. So, this situation is astonishing for even French people.
And the check-in started and the hotel person asked me what time I want to have a breakfast. I said, “maybe, 7:00?”. He said “ Sorry, our breakfast starts from 8:30”.
What kind of the hotel is this?? (After being calmed down, I realized that sun rises around that time of day here and in the Netherlands. So, in a way, having a breakfast after sun rise makes a sense. ...Is it a twisted interpretation to calm me down?)
Finally, I got into the room. It was a beautifully-decorated cozy room.
In front of the hotel entrance, which is locked all the time, there is a small patio, and then the door to the reception is there. Adjacent to the patio, there was my room. So, there is no steps to my room or anything. On the same level of the stone-paved patio, there is a glass door with wooden white painted frames, which is the door to my room and I can see my bed through the door, although white thin cotton screens were attached to these glasses.
It was so cozy, such as nicely put chair in the bath room (see picture below), I felt so comfortable but it was quite cold in there.
This kind of coldness happened to me when I first moved into my apartment in the Netherland, at the hotel room in Germany and here. They are all old buildings with the same type of heating system. Later, I found this hotel seems to have been a part of, or be at least adjacent to the Basilique Notre-Dame de Boulogne (See the building shown at the headline picture).
No wonder.
With an extra comforter, I could sleep without feeing cold.
As I said at the above, breakfast here starts at 8:30. Especially, the summer time finished on the previous day, I had to wait till like 9:30 in the morning.
So, I wandered around the old town.
Finally at 8:30, as shown below, I could enjoy my breakfast after the Pain au Chocolat on the day before.
At the end, I found the hotel person quite nice. When I was commenting how to check out early in the morning, he offered me some foods prepared in the room for my early departure.
I found that the common senses between us were different but basically the people in Boulgone sur Mer were nice.
When I arrived at the station yesterday, I saw a lot of people reunion with families, hugging each other, like the intro-scene of the movie “Love Actually”.
This place must be the place fulfilled with beauty and love.