In June, I will be flying to EDWQ Atlas airfield (near Bremen) in Germany for the PocketFMS flyin.
In all likelihood, I will traveling with one or two friends from my club, and we will probably make a 10-12 day trip out of it.
We will probably leave Ireland on a Saturday, planning to arrive in Atlas the following Thursday or Friday. That gives us a six or seven days for some sightseeing along the way.
We will probably clear customs in Calais in northern France, so should be free to roam within Schengen after that without needing customs. We will probably over night in two or perhaps three places in those 6-7 days before arriving at Atlas field.
Does anyone have any suggestions for interesting places to spend a few nights along the way, or things that would be interesting to fly over/see from the air?
We’re not tied to a direct route, so some wandering and meandering if perfectly fine, if the place/town/object is worth seeing 
By the way, we already did the Frisian Islands. I don’t want to land in the Netherlands as we don’t have an ELT (Just a PLB).
As we’ll have cleared customs in Calais, customs aren’t a requirement. We are VFR pilots, so ILS/IFR facilities aren’t necessary.
We don’t have French or German language qualifications.
Any suggestions would be appreciated! It would help my thought process in deciding a route.
Thanks
Colm
Caen, the war memorial, overflying the Normandie beaches.
Overflying (not too close – restricted area) the Mont St Michel.
The hollow cliff at Etretat – north of Le Havre.
LFPT to meet me and visit Paris ;-)
Reims – the Champagne capital and the home of Reims Cessna. Hotel and restaurant on the airfield but you should really visit the city, cathedral and surroundings.
Troyes – incredibly nice, old city center and capital of the Andouillette – a sausage made of tripes.
Le Touquet – the UK pilot mekka.
Lille – capital of French fries and pretty much everything deep fried. And stinky cheeses.
Strasbourg – beautiful city center.
For French fries you are better off in Belgium, and as for the andouillette, it is one of the very few foods I will avoid, mussels another. But to each their taste, of course.
Lille does make a great effort in the field of culture and museums though, and has become quite a beautiful city over the last decades. Be careful about its grass field just to the North – Marcq en Baroeul LFQO ; it is subject to complicated limitations.
The graveyards from the Great War are a sight to behold, between Koksijde and Ieper the country is full of them. Many more, and often bigger, in Northern France.
Northern Belgium has beautiful historic cities – Antwerpen (which is a centre of fashion and of diamond trade, too), Gent, Mechelen, Brussel, Leuven, Brugge, the southwest has industrial archeology like the shipping lifts at Strepy-Bracquegnies (sp?), quite impressive from above. And of course there’s the vast expenses of forest in the Ardennes, seamlessly continuing into the Eifel in Germany.
There’s quite fine restaurants in Belgium but they tend to be pricy, myself prefer lunch and dinner in Germany, France (or my beloved Italy). Good resto’s are at the fields of EBKT Kortrijk and EBKH Keiheuvel but that last one is a grass runway and is busy with gliders, including winch launches, in the weekends.
BTW when crossing from Belgium into Germany, you’ll be wanting to be quite northerly – of course I wouldn’t do so myself, but I have heard of pilots transiting from uncontrolled Belgian airspace through a bit of Holland North of Maastricht, without ever talking on any Dutch frequency – but remain below 1200’ to avoid having to activate your transponder. And of course steer well clear of controlled airspace, including the airbase at Geilenkirchen where they occasionally fly B707-derived AWACS craft.
Troyes is indeed a lovely city and has customs so why bother with Calais?
Because it is a bit out of the way, seeing the destination is in Northern Germany?
Thanks guys for the suggestions so far! Some great ideas in there
Troyes is beyond my range non-stop, from Dublin. My usual plan is to stop at the first available customs airport inside the Schengen zone, so that I’m then free to go/divert wherever I want after that.
From Dublin, the most hassle free schengen stop airports are IMHO Cherbourg and Caen. Both very cheap (€10 and €5 respectively), very quick, mostly deserted. I would telephone to check avgas and a suitable time to turn up (not lunch, perhaps ) The towns are both relative dumps (Cherbourg has a great marine museum, Caen has a great WW2 museum, but that’s about it IMHO) but for a fuel stop they would be my choice.
Peter, be nice! Caen is definitely not a dump. It has a nice city center with a marina, a castle from Norman era, two abbeys (monasteries) built by William the Conqueror (or the Bastard if you prefer) and Mathilde de Flandres (Abbaye aux Hommes and Abbaye aux Dames). The “Memorial de Caen” is the WW2 museum Peter is referring to, but it also has exhibits about post WW2, particularly the Cold War. What is true about Caen is also that big swats of the city were bombed flat by the allies in 1944, bombings which also killed 2000 civilians and which is the reason why a certain generation of Normans are not very fond of the Americans (although the Brits and Canadians did the actual bombing).
I do not know Cherbourg as well as Caen, but it is a nice starting point for hiking trips on the coast of the Manche (the name of the department/county)
Apologies to Caen
Yes the museum does a lot of Cold War stuff and I found that especially interesting.
No sorry Aviathor. I agree with Peter. Of the many cities and towns that I’ve visited in France, Caen was about the only big disappointment. Even the marina is nothing worth mentioning.
I judge cities more by their overall architecture, scenery and atmosphere, not by some single highlight like a museum or a castle.
Only reason for me to fly to Caen would be to use it as a base for visiting the invasion beaches/museums. But I wouldn’t do it in the first half of June, as these places tend to get extra crowded during that time…
