An overcast cool start to the day but the sun came out and it soon became another very pleasant spring day. My last day in Caen. Pretty much had to be rebuilt after the war. My checkout time from the hotel was midday and my ferry to Portsmouth left at but with a check in time of no later than I do like the statue of a head outside though. I decided to go for a last walk this morning and headed up to the extensive and mostly pedestrianised shopping area.
It all seemed very quiet even after the shops opened at I waited at the end of a line of around twenty men at the bottom of the short escalator to FNAC until precisely when the stairs were switched on and we all went in. FNAC is a sort of electronics, music and book store and interesting for men particularly to browse in. Electronics in these shops can be a rip off. The narrow streets are interesting to walk along.
Rue Froide is a particularly nice street. In the cyclist lane for the boat was a couple of my age from Chichester with a new Roberts electric tandem and three younger chaps who have cycled from St Malo to here this week.
The couple said they had owned lots of tandems but this was the first electric version and this was just a four day test which it had passed. There are entertainments and a cinema but a good book is recommended. We docked on time at but Border Control post Brexit is slow and because of railway engineering works I had to navigate my way to Fratton station which I eventually made with 10 minutes to spare before my stopping train to Brighton departed.
Fratton is not a great station on Saturday night. A large number of party people emerged and the floor of my coach was littered with empty beer and vodka cans and fast food packaging. At Havant station I noticed an elderly gentleman in a greatcoat on the platform nudge a youth to move him over so he could sit down on a platform bench. I recognised him as Sir Ian McKellen. Nobody took any notice of him. Changing at Brighton station was another encounter with the Saturday night crowds and the remnants of a drag stag night parked themselves in the first class section of the front coach where the bike space was.
