Every year, hundreds of thousands of devout English make a spiritual pilgrimage to Calais. They usually return on the same day, with much fuller cars. The first, and greatest booze cruise, which lasted 116 years, was made in 1346 by Edward III (see our Lorraine blog). It took Edward eleven months to get into Calais (it's much quicker now) and when he finally did get in, he was in a really bad mood. Edward's first inclination was to massacre all the inhabitants, but after some deep-breathing exercises he'd learnt on his anger-management course, he decided to kill just six prominent citizens. The six Burghers of Calais bravely stepped forward, nooses round their necks (you can see Rodin's sculpture of them in the main square.) Fortunately for the Burghers, Good Queen Philippa persuaded hubby Ed to be lenient, and suggested they both just do a bit of shopping and find somewhere nice to eat instead.
La Résidence - THE French Property People
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