Yesterday we'd enjoyed looking through the interior of Notre Dame but thought it would be fun to climb up to the belfry for the view over the surrounding area. Also because obviously the movie "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" had such a scary impact on Fred when he saw it as a child that he still remembers many of the details and had a rather macabre fascination with visiting the belltower. Viewings don't open till 10.00 am and the queue moves very slowly as there is only one way up and the same way down, plus they can only deal with small numbers and each group takes quite a long time, so even though we were there at 9.30 it was an hour improving our suntans in the queue before we were in the door. The view from the top did give a great perspective of the area and Fred got much closer to the gargoyles and the huge bell, so all worth the wait in the end.
Our next visit was to Saint Chapelle the chapel attached to the palace in Saint Louis' time and which is just a short walk away across the river. Another long queue but in the shade this time and much quicker moving. This chapel is renowned for its spectacular stained glass windows and we were really glad we'd chosen it as one of the places to visit; it really is fantastic and we spent a long time enjoying the beauty and trying to work out the stories and significance of the depictions.
Next door (another part of the old palace) is the Concierge which was the hideous rat infested, water logged prison from where so many thousands of prisoners ended up taking the short walk to the guillotine. While used as a prison for ages,it had it's highest use at the time of the revolution. The display is done well with good information about conditions, people who were prisoers here and recreations of cells including that of Marie Antoinette.
All in all that added up to a pretty full on morning and neither of us felt we could do justice to any more history so decided the afternoon activity should be the favourite French pastime of window shopping, which apparently in French is 'faire du leche-vitrines'/'licking the windows'! And what better place to go looking than Le Grande Epicure de Paris at Le Bon Marche! A fabulous department store devoting a whole large shop to the Grande Epicure, the most fascinating food hall bulging with every imaginable French staple and delicacy. A simply wonderful place to spend an hour or so!
Meantime we'd been in contact during the day with Bruce and Diana who, settled into their very nice hotel, were gradually recovering from the harrowing delivery of the hire car to Paris airport yesterday 6.00 pm. Great driving, great interpreting of Gretels navigating; well done!
We'd planned to meet up tonight and perhaps have dinner together, so we hopped on the Metro again (have certainly had our money's worth out of our 5 day pass!) and over to their place for a drink. We'd heard that the soccer semifinal Spain/Germany was to be broadcast on a big screen under the Eiffel Tower so we all decided that would be fun to be part of, so off we went, snatching takeaways en route.
It certainly was fun! A beautiful warm, still evening, sitting in a lovely park on the bank behind the Tower watching, with thousands of fans, an exciting game, as the sky grew darker and the tower lit up. Having been in Spain so recently we were of course backing the Spanish and immediately armed ourselves with a Spanish flag and a while later felt we needed to add to the cacophony with a trumpet too. Can you imagine the mayhem of Spanish celebration at the conclusion of the game! Cars racing round and round with horns blaring, fans yahooing and the red and yellow flags streaming behind while groups of happy supporters wrapped in flags wove their way through the streets - loudly encouraged by our trumpet as we wandered back past the tower and over the river to the Metro.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
July 9th Musee d'Orsay and home
To be packed and checked out by 10.00 am with a whole day to spend in Paris where we expected temperatures to reach mid thirties, but with over 30 hours travel leaving 9.45 tonight and an arrival to NZ winter, was something of a conundrum. However, the hotel was happy for us to leave our bags with them and to make a room available for us to change later in the day before we headed to the airport, so by 10.15 we were on the town in our lightest weight gear.
Along with our entry to Le Louvre, we'd also purchased entry to Musee d'Orsay, the gallery which exhibits early modern art works - impressionist, art nouveau etc; so this is where we headed. With ticket in hand we totally by passed the queue and were immediately inside this fantastically light, airy, modern art gallery which once upon a time was the Paris railway station! We both found this a very "user friendly" gallery and loved the more modern works exhibited here. It was very exciting to see the originals of works from artists such as Renoir, Monet, Gauguin and Picasso which we see so often as faded prints, here they were fresh and glowing - and great too to see some of their lesser known works. Engrossed for several hours, the day passed rapidly and to remind ourselves of some of the beaut stuff we'd seen here we bought a souvenir book which I'm looking forward to reading.
With just an hour or so to fill I was keen to spend some time outdoors as we'd soon enough be inside planes for many hours, so we walked across the river to enjoy the shade in the lovely Tuilleries garden before returning to the hotel to change into our travel clothes.
We'd booked the train to take us from Paris out to Charles de Gaulle airport so it was just a short Metro ride to the train connection. With a 7.00 o'clock check in time we'd left the hotel at 5.00 o'clock which was perfect timing for the route to be covered, but certainly not perfect timing for lugging suitcases through the underground or for fighting one's way on to a train. Pushing our way into the crush of bodies lining the platform, we weren't quite able to make it into the front of the pack, which was very unfortunate, as it meant that Fred and his suitcase managed to shove their way on board, but I didn't stand a chance. Luckily, before the door closed and the train pulled away, Fred managed to peer back from the centre of the carriage and realise I was left behind, giving me a chance to mouth "I'll catch the next one"!
All ended well I was at the front of the pack for the next train and a man inside the train hauled my case on as I fought to hold my place, so half an hour late we were both safely at the airport and checking in.
Checking in was the next drama! On our travels I'd bought a little bottle of truffle oil and one of walnut oil and to keep them easily accessible to show MAF as we entered NZ I'd popped them in the carry on luggage, forgetting that the walnut oil was bigger than 100mls and so inadmissable in carry on luggage. I'd asked Fred to take them as I didn't want them in the same bag as my netpad just in case there was a leak. What a kerfuffle as the French official tried to explain to Fred that he could take it as checked in luggage and Fred tried to explain that his luggage was already checked in and gone. Eventually we reached some level of understanding and the chap took Fred back and found a lady who spent ages wrapping it in layer after layer of bubble wrap and bags so that it would survive the journey checked in as a parcel; "this is far to good to waste" she kept telling him.
Took off at 9.45. An eight hour flight saw dinner, one movie and a sleep before we landed in Dubai for a three hour stopover (hard to stay awake here - for us it was still the middle of the night). On to the next leg and this time the Airbus, so it was good to have the noise level reduced and the leg room increased, though it was a long time before I could sensibly fall asleep again. Eventually, 13 hours later in to Auckland and no worries about the truffle and walnut oil which had survived it's trip.
Finally home at 5.30 and there was John to pick us up in the limo, plus Pauline and John to welcome us. Then Dan and the chidren turned up and home we went to find Andrea there. They had dinner cooking and the drapes closed, the fire roaring and the electric blankets on so we had dinner together with Emily and Anna popping in to see us too. What a lovely welcome home and what a great sleep! It's been a fantastic trip and we've loved every bit of it, but home is always great too!
Along with our entry to Le Louvre, we'd also purchased entry to Musee d'Orsay, the gallery which exhibits early modern art works - impressionist, art nouveau etc; so this is where we headed. With ticket in hand we totally by passed the queue and were immediately inside this fantastically light, airy, modern art gallery which once upon a time was the Paris railway station! We both found this a very "user friendly" gallery and loved the more modern works exhibited here. It was very exciting to see the originals of works from artists such as Renoir, Monet, Gauguin and Picasso which we see so often as faded prints, here they were fresh and glowing - and great too to see some of their lesser known works. Engrossed for several hours, the day passed rapidly and to remind ourselves of some of the beaut stuff we'd seen here we bought a souvenir book which I'm looking forward to reading.
With just an hour or so to fill I was keen to spend some time outdoors as we'd soon enough be inside planes for many hours, so we walked across the river to enjoy the shade in the lovely Tuilleries garden before returning to the hotel to change into our travel clothes.
We'd booked the train to take us from Paris out to Charles de Gaulle airport so it was just a short Metro ride to the train connection. With a 7.00 o'clock check in time we'd left the hotel at 5.00 o'clock which was perfect timing for the route to be covered, but certainly not perfect timing for lugging suitcases through the underground or for fighting one's way on to a train. Pushing our way into the crush of bodies lining the platform, we weren't quite able to make it into the front of the pack, which was very unfortunate, as it meant that Fred and his suitcase managed to shove their way on board, but I didn't stand a chance. Luckily, before the door closed and the train pulled away, Fred managed to peer back from the centre of the carriage and realise I was left behind, giving me a chance to mouth "I'll catch the next one"!
All ended well I was at the front of the pack for the next train and a man inside the train hauled my case on as I fought to hold my place, so half an hour late we were both safely at the airport and checking in.
Checking in was the next drama! On our travels I'd bought a little bottle of truffle oil and one of walnut oil and to keep them easily accessible to show MAF as we entered NZ I'd popped them in the carry on luggage, forgetting that the walnut oil was bigger than 100mls and so inadmissable in carry on luggage. I'd asked Fred to take them as I didn't want them in the same bag as my netpad just in case there was a leak. What a kerfuffle as the French official tried to explain to Fred that he could take it as checked in luggage and Fred tried to explain that his luggage was already checked in and gone. Eventually we reached some level of understanding and the chap took Fred back and found a lady who spent ages wrapping it in layer after layer of bubble wrap and bags so that it would survive the journey checked in as a parcel; "this is far to good to waste" she kept telling him.
Took off at 9.45. An eight hour flight saw dinner, one movie and a sleep before we landed in Dubai for a three hour stopover (hard to stay awake here - for us it was still the middle of the night). On to the next leg and this time the Airbus, so it was good to have the noise level reduced and the leg room increased, though it was a long time before I could sensibly fall asleep again. Eventually, 13 hours later in to Auckland and no worries about the truffle and walnut oil which had survived it's trip.
Finally home at 5.30 and there was John to pick us up in the limo, plus Pauline and John to welcome us. Then Dan and the chidren turned up and home we went to find Andrea there. They had dinner cooking and the drapes closed, the fire roaring and the electric blankets on so we had dinner together with Emily and Anna popping in to see us too. What a lovely welcome home and what a great sleep! It's been a fantastic trip and we've loved every bit of it, but home is always great too!
July 8th Thursday LeLouvre and Arc de Triomphe
Our last complete day in Paris and Le Louvre was Number One on the list today. Entry here is very efficient and it seemed we were admitted in no time at all. Russell and Mary had kindly passed on their floor plan and we realised what a huge place this is so had already decided that we’d concentrate on the exhibition of paintings. Four hours later we had seen a simply amazing number of original paintings – Italian, French, Spanish, Dutch and more. Mind boggling and wonderful to see “the real thing” of so many paintings.
Yesterday’s stair climbing, plus the heat (34 degrees) and our late night had caught up with us at this stage so a siesta was called for before we climbed the Arc de Triomphe to enjoy the wonderful view of the avenues, the seething traffic and greater Paris. There is some good information here with great pictures of earlier times and when we came back down we were lucky enough to coincide with the daily ceremony at the flame of the unknown soldier.
We had a great discovery tonight of a really great little lane of typical Parisienne restaurants very close to our hotel and were enough to find a table without waiting too long. Surrounded by locals and enjoying another top quality French dining experience was a really nice way to spend our last evening in Paris
Yesterday’s stair climbing, plus the heat (34 degrees) and our late night had caught up with us at this stage so a siesta was called for before we climbed the Arc de Triomphe to enjoy the wonderful view of the avenues, the seething traffic and greater Paris. There is some good information here with great pictures of earlier times and when we came back down we were lucky enough to coincide with the daily ceremony at the flame of the unknown soldier.
We had a great discovery tonight of a really great little lane of typical Parisienne restaurants very close to our hotel and were enough to find a table without waiting too long. Surrounded by locals and enjoying another top quality French dining experience was a really nice way to spend our last evening in Paris
Friday, July 9, 2010
Paris!!
Well I've fizzled on my last couple of updates - just too crazy here in Paris. Flying out 10.00 tonight and have four hours to fill in Dubai, so maybe I'll get the last couple of days done for you somewhere in that time, otherwise I'll see some of you before you hear anymore!
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
July 6th Tuesday Notre Dame, Pantheon, Gardens, Sacre Coeur
We were at the Notre Dame early this morning to beat the crowds and had a great look through this magnificent Cathedral. What an awesome façade – I just love those portals, and the stained glass windows are glorious. We also went round the back Lincoln and checked out the flying buttresses! When you were biking in Spain I remember you telling us about a church you passed which is supposed to have the biggest flying buttresses in the world! See what an impact that information must have had on me, I still watch out for flying buttresses!
From here we headed over on to the left bank of the Seine and walked down past the Sorbonne with all the students out and about in the streets. Then around the next corner was our destination the Pantheon. What a fascinating building with its square cross shape flooplan and fabulous dome, built in a totally revolutionary way and what a chequered history it has had swinging between religious and republican use since day one. An example of this is the huge pendulum which hangs from the centre of the dome and so perfectly demonstrates the earth’s rotation. Our timing was perfect to join a group going right up to the top of the dome…… wonderful views of the interior on the ascent and great views all round over the City once outside at the top.
Once outside again we followed the students to a great little patisserie and got our best baguette to date which we quickly carried to the nearby gardens and devoured, plastered with a gooey camembert, cherry tomatoes and French radishes. Mmmmm. The gardens we were in surround the Palace of Luxembourg which used to be the Royal Palace but now houses the French Senate. It has a large area of mature trees with park benches and moveable chairs. There are plus statues, manicured lawns, formal flower gardens, petanque and tennis courts, a great and frenetically busy children’s playground and even a huge pond with solid wooden toy yachts children can hire for E2.00 per 30minutes. It’s a great leisure haven for locals and well used and respected.
From here we took the Metro across town to visit the Basilique de Sacre Coeur. This gleaming, white, domed cathedral sits on top of a hill, so we took the funicular railcar to reach the steps to save ourselves for the climb up this dome! I’m not that keen on getting too far off the ground, but on the other hand I like to get the views, so I’ve done very well getting to the top of all these domes on this trip! 300 steps up an ever narrowing circular staircase was pretty claustrophobic, but great 360 degree views when we got there and a really different perspective on things from here. The viewing through the interior was also very worthwhile. I thought the perfectly round shape of the altar area and interior dome and the glowing colours of the dome frescoe with Christ dominant were really striking.
Home tonight for the Soccer finals which has been great for me to catch up here.
From here we headed over on to the left bank of the Seine and walked down past the Sorbonne with all the students out and about in the streets. Then around the next corner was our destination the Pantheon. What a fascinating building with its square cross shape flooplan and fabulous dome, built in a totally revolutionary way and what a chequered history it has had swinging between religious and republican use since day one. An example of this is the huge pendulum which hangs from the centre of the dome and so perfectly demonstrates the earth’s rotation. Our timing was perfect to join a group going right up to the top of the dome…… wonderful views of the interior on the ascent and great views all round over the City once outside at the top.
Once outside again we followed the students to a great little patisserie and got our best baguette to date which we quickly carried to the nearby gardens and devoured, plastered with a gooey camembert, cherry tomatoes and French radishes. Mmmmm. The gardens we were in surround the Palace of Luxembourg which used to be the Royal Palace but now houses the French Senate. It has a large area of mature trees with park benches and moveable chairs. There are plus statues, manicured lawns, formal flower gardens, petanque and tennis courts, a great and frenetically busy children’s playground and even a huge pond with solid wooden toy yachts children can hire for E2.00 per 30minutes. It’s a great leisure haven for locals and well used and respected.
From here we took the Metro across town to visit the Basilique de Sacre Coeur. This gleaming, white, domed cathedral sits on top of a hill, so we took the funicular railcar to reach the steps to save ourselves for the climb up this dome! I’m not that keen on getting too far off the ground, but on the other hand I like to get the views, so I’ve done very well getting to the top of all these domes on this trip! 300 steps up an ever narrowing circular staircase was pretty claustrophobic, but great 360 degree views when we got there and a really different perspective on things from here. The viewing through the interior was also very worthwhile. I thought the perfectly round shape of the altar area and interior dome and the glowing colours of the dome frescoe with Christ dominant were really striking.
Home tonight for the Soccer finals which has been great for me to catch up here.
July 54h Monday Paris Orientation
Orientation was our first project for today so we’d decided that we’d take a tour on the Hop on Hop Off Bus. Fred had done quite a bit of research about routes etc before we left so armed with his printouts we headed across to Notre Dame where we tracked down a bus stop.
All in all we took three of the four routes which gave us a fabulous over view of the city. What an easy way to take a ride down the Champs Elysees, around the Arc de Triomph, over the bridges on the Seine, past the Obelique de la Concorde, the Eiffel Tower, the Sorbonne and the Pantheon plus a narrow squeeze for the bus through the arch in the wall surrounding the Louvre and through the grounds there; all with a really good commentary. It was a really pleasant sunny day with enough breeze so that we weren’t stifled with heat and by the end of the day we felt quite well orientated and we’d confirmed various places we knew we wanted to go back to explore more thoroughly.
Our final trip was timed to end at the Eiffel Tower about 8.00 o’clock so that hopefully we could go up the tower and have both daylight views of the City and then views of the City lights. What an awesome structure! Fred would have liked to have gone right to the top but unfortunately for him that floor was closed. However, the view even from the second level where we went is pretty jolly spectacular and we spent ages identifying places we’d driven past in the day and watching the sun set in the West and the lights on the Tower brighten in the twilight until finally at 10.30 darkness fell and slowly but surely the buildings all over the City lit up; spectacular! The Eiffel Tower is lit from twilight and then, for 10 minutes on the hour, it has extra white lights which flash so that it sparkles as well. We were up the Tower for the 10.00 sparkles and on the footbridge crossing the Seine for the 11.00 sparkles; both views equally thrilling!
While we’ve been away, Fred has tackled the conquest of transport routes with determination and enthusiasm – everything from road routes to confirm or complement the GPS, to the vaporetto system in Venice, the trains in Spain and the Metros in Rome and Paris. (I did mention to him that perhaps he was thinking of a job as a tour operator here, but he said he’d be a bit worried about learning French.) He’s done really well and it’s really helped us group visits and activities together for efficiency. Of course when we’re with Bruce and Diana they have a lot of knowledge to add to the planning mix too which is great.
All in all we took three of the four routes which gave us a fabulous over view of the city. What an easy way to take a ride down the Champs Elysees, around the Arc de Triomph, over the bridges on the Seine, past the Obelique de la Concorde, the Eiffel Tower, the Sorbonne and the Pantheon plus a narrow squeeze for the bus through the arch in the wall surrounding the Louvre and through the grounds there; all with a really good commentary. It was a really pleasant sunny day with enough breeze so that we weren’t stifled with heat and by the end of the day we felt quite well orientated and we’d confirmed various places we knew we wanted to go back to explore more thoroughly.
Our final trip was timed to end at the Eiffel Tower about 8.00 o’clock so that hopefully we could go up the tower and have both daylight views of the City and then views of the City lights. What an awesome structure! Fred would have liked to have gone right to the top but unfortunately for him that floor was closed. However, the view even from the second level where we went is pretty jolly spectacular and we spent ages identifying places we’d driven past in the day and watching the sun set in the West and the lights on the Tower brighten in the twilight until finally at 10.30 darkness fell and slowly but surely the buildings all over the City lit up; spectacular! The Eiffel Tower is lit from twilight and then, for 10 minutes on the hour, it has extra white lights which flash so that it sparkles as well. We were up the Tower for the 10.00 sparkles and on the footbridge crossing the Seine for the 11.00 sparkles; both views equally thrilling!
While we’ve been away, Fred has tackled the conquest of transport routes with determination and enthusiasm – everything from road routes to confirm or complement the GPS, to the vaporetto system in Venice, the trains in Spain and the Metros in Rome and Paris. (I did mention to him that perhaps he was thinking of a job as a tour operator here, but he said he’d be a bit worried about learning French.) He’s done really well and it’s really helped us group visits and activities together for efficiency. Of course when we’re with Bruce and Diana they have a lot of knowledge to add to the planning mix too which is great.
July 4th Sunday Bayeux to Paris
I’m starting today’s diary on the train between Bayeux and Paris, hurtling along to our final, but very exciting destination. We’ve had a wonderful day in and around Bayeux, Caen and the Normandy Beaches today.
Popped into town after breakfast with a visit to see the Bayeux Tapestry top of my list. With Summer and the school holidays having started here and the festival bringing crowds of participants and onlookers to town, the tourist season is well underway and we were pleased to be early enough to miss the huge queue we saw later. Some information I read about the tapestry describes it as a “comic strip” which was displayed to tell the people of the time the events of the Norman Conquest. That’s a really good description in a way as the amazing work tells the story in pictures so well, with incredible detail such as posture and expression portraying even little nuances of deception, embarrassment, excitement, etc; remarkable! The complimentary audio guide was fantastic; explaining how the tapestry is telling the story and pointing out the significance of quirky little things you could easily miss. 70 metres takes on a whole new meaning when you see it telling a story in 57 consecutive scenes stitched 1000 years ago in wool on linen and the colours still as good as new.
On our exit from the Tapestry display we struck a real bonus, being just in time to watch the medieval parade, one of the highlights of the annual festival. It was along the lines of Nelson’s Mask Parade, with community groups taking part dressed in all manner of medieval costumes and regalia and with plenty of lively music and slapstick humour. (I think you would have liked dressing up to be part of this parade Yasmina, Andre, Isabelle and Hannah – lots of princesses and knights!)
You couldn’t come to Bayeux without taking a trip out to the D Day Beaches to get a picture of the location and the area involved and try to get some idea of the scale and magnitude of the operation and the human cost involved, so that was our tour for the afternoon and now, here we are having fare welled Bruce and Diana again and speeding toward Paris for our next discoveries and adventures.
Later Sunday:
An interesting trip on the train with lots of Parisienne families with little children returning from a weekend out of town, mixing formula, heating baby food (the trains have electric plugs available) and trying to keep tired scratchy toddlers calm. I've never seen so many children with dummies as over here, in fact it's unusual to see any baby or toddler in a buggy without a dummy!
Countryside gave way to urban views and suddenly we were at the seething station, dragging our bags to the ticket office for Metro tickets. We've seen a few armed police around in both Italy and France so it wasn't too much suprise to see police here with holsters strapped on, but we did wonder why there needed to be the stoneyfaced swivel headed ones slinking about with their AK47s. Anyway, no worries for us so, with a 5 day pass in hand, a call to our hotel for connection instructions and we were diving into the underground. Everyone had told us how efficient and user friendly the Paris Metro is and we would certainly agree. With one change we were at our hotel and checked in to our room.
Our hotel is old and very French - dark and mysterious with dark wood, wild pink, red and gold decor and furnishings, but comfy and superbly located in the Hotel de Ville area just across the Seine from the Notre Dame. Popping next door for a beer and glass of wine to celebrate our arrival was an expensive exercise costing E14.70 so needless to say we moved further away for dinner! I had a fried camembert which was fabulous and Fred is going to recreate his dish for lunch next time you come Em as it was a magnificent French version of cheese on toast and you two are the cheese on toast makers!
Popped into town after breakfast with a visit to see the Bayeux Tapestry top of my list. With Summer and the school holidays having started here and the festival bringing crowds of participants and onlookers to town, the tourist season is well underway and we were pleased to be early enough to miss the huge queue we saw later. Some information I read about the tapestry describes it as a “comic strip” which was displayed to tell the people of the time the events of the Norman Conquest. That’s a really good description in a way as the amazing work tells the story in pictures so well, with incredible detail such as posture and expression portraying even little nuances of deception, embarrassment, excitement, etc; remarkable! The complimentary audio guide was fantastic; explaining how the tapestry is telling the story and pointing out the significance of quirky little things you could easily miss. 70 metres takes on a whole new meaning when you see it telling a story in 57 consecutive scenes stitched 1000 years ago in wool on linen and the colours still as good as new.
On our exit from the Tapestry display we struck a real bonus, being just in time to watch the medieval parade, one of the highlights of the annual festival. It was along the lines of Nelson’s Mask Parade, with community groups taking part dressed in all manner of medieval costumes and regalia and with plenty of lively music and slapstick humour. (I think you would have liked dressing up to be part of this parade Yasmina, Andre, Isabelle and Hannah – lots of princesses and knights!)
You couldn’t come to Bayeux without taking a trip out to the D Day Beaches to get a picture of the location and the area involved and try to get some idea of the scale and magnitude of the operation and the human cost involved, so that was our tour for the afternoon and now, here we are having fare welled Bruce and Diana again and speeding toward Paris for our next discoveries and adventures.
Later Sunday:
An interesting trip on the train with lots of Parisienne families with little children returning from a weekend out of town, mixing formula, heating baby food (the trains have electric plugs available) and trying to keep tired scratchy toddlers calm. I've never seen so many children with dummies as over here, in fact it's unusual to see any baby or toddler in a buggy without a dummy!
Countryside gave way to urban views and suddenly we were at the seething station, dragging our bags to the ticket office for Metro tickets. We've seen a few armed police around in both Italy and France so it wasn't too much suprise to see police here with holsters strapped on, but we did wonder why there needed to be the stoneyfaced swivel headed ones slinking about with their AK47s. Anyway, no worries for us so, with a 5 day pass in hand, a call to our hotel for connection instructions and we were diving into the underground. Everyone had told us how efficient and user friendly the Paris Metro is and we would certainly agree. With one change we were at our hotel and checked in to our room.
Our hotel is old and very French - dark and mysterious with dark wood, wild pink, red and gold decor and furnishings, but comfy and superbly located in the Hotel de Ville area just across the Seine from the Notre Dame. Popping next door for a beer and glass of wine to celebrate our arrival was an expensive exercise costing E14.70 so needless to say we moved further away for dinner! I had a fried camembert which was fabulous and Fred is going to recreate his dish for lunch next time you come Em as it was a magnificent French version of cheese on toast and you two are the cheese on toast makers!
Saturday, July 3, 2010
July 3 Saturday St Pardoux la Riviere to Bayeaux Normandy
Well I said we were going to go out for dinner on ourlast night in Pardoux, so after hearing such good reports from Bruce and Diana about the wonderful meal they’d had at Pardoux’s Hotel de France we thought we should go there. Wow! What a great place and what a lovely meal!
The day had been stifling and even with the sun gone it was still very warm so we were very glad to have a table on the huge deck the hotel. The menu was comprehensive and had an English translation for each dish which was very helpful, but for simplicity’s sake we both chose one of the set menus. Good choices!!! A complimentary appetiser arrived being a shot glass with a layer of cucumber topped with a salsa of tomato finished with a swirl of truffle flavoured cream. Yum yum.
My entrée was a huge leafy salad with white asparagus, fresh fruit, nuts, tiny portions of lobster and thin slices of smoked duck. My main was beautifully cooked duck with roast potatoes and a fantastic rich thyme and berry gravy, and then I followed up with their three sorbets!
Fred’s entrée was foie gras with spice fruit bread, fresh fruit and veg, then a deliciously light omelette bulging with meaty mushrooms. His main was a tender leg of roast duck with roast taties, then they came out with a platter of five different cheeses each one amazingly different to taste. He finished off with profiteroles filled with ice-cream and lost in lashings of thick, rich chocolate sauce! Needless to say we’re afraid our clothes which were looking quite smart on Pilates toned bodies are now failing to hide the increasing rolls and bulges!
After thunder and a little rain in the night we were up, packed and away in good time this morning for a long drive from St Pardoux all the way up to Bayeaux. We had decided to side-track a little to incorporate a stop at Oradour-sur-Glane on the way as it would hadn’t managed to fit it in as a day trip while in St Pardoux. June 10th 1944 this tranquil little farming village of about 650 people was attached and completely annihilated by the Nazis. The town was never rebuilt or inhabited again, but in more recent times it has been made safe to visit (with documentary movie, explanation if you wish – we didn’t). It’s a chilling memorial to that and other similar horrors and a moving plea against such insanity.
From here we drove North West right through the beautiful farmland of the Loire Valley. Crops as far as the eye could see hour after hour; what a lot of food they produce here! A patchwork of nature’s colours and a fairyland of chateaux, whizzed through on some very busy, fast motorways until finally we started to near the Coast. The terrain flattened out, the traffic numbers diminished, wind farms re-emerged and we rolled into Bayeaux about 7.00.
Out hotel here is very smart and fresh here and we were glad to settle in and have a quick cuppa before heading into town for dinner. Bayeaux is of course home to the Bayeaux Tapestry telling the story of William the Conqueror’s invasion of England and his defeat of Harold king of England at Hastings in 1066; we’re going for a look tomorrow which I’m really looking forward to. Remember Dan and Andrea we went to Hastings and did the tour with the audio guide about the Battle of Hastings? Now I’m at the other end! Bayeux was fortunate to escape war damage and has a very beautiful old church which was originally consecrated in 1077. It was open tonight when we arrived in town and lit up so was very impressive.
Would you believe we’re lucky enough to have arrived here on the first of the two nights that Bayeux has its annual medieval Festival! The town was really rocking with heaps of folk dressed in medieval costumes, troubadours singing, dancing (even on stilts on the cobblestones!), juggling and making wild medieval music on wild medieval instruments (we heard some very wild recorder music Isabelle!). Stalls were selling everything from medieval goods such as herbs, spices, leather money pouches, jewellery, masks, swords and chainmail helmets, to party knick knacks like babies dummy which had flashing lights! There were endless entertainment acts and everyone in party mode. School holidays started here today so it seemed no problem that it was 10.30 and that everyone including children were trailing through the streets after the musicians.
What a wonderful night and we had a wonderful meal - medieval of course! With just one night here we wanted to try some of the local cuisine so had to start with a traditional Normandy cider and finish with an apple tart and a glass of their “apple brandy” Calvados! Missed out on their other specialty Camembert, but will track that down tomorrow.
The day had been stifling and even with the sun gone it was still very warm so we were very glad to have a table on the huge deck the hotel. The menu was comprehensive and had an English translation for each dish which was very helpful, but for simplicity’s sake we both chose one of the set menus. Good choices!!! A complimentary appetiser arrived being a shot glass with a layer of cucumber topped with a salsa of tomato finished with a swirl of truffle flavoured cream. Yum yum.
My entrée was a huge leafy salad with white asparagus, fresh fruit, nuts, tiny portions of lobster and thin slices of smoked duck. My main was beautifully cooked duck with roast potatoes and a fantastic rich thyme and berry gravy, and then I followed up with their three sorbets!
Fred’s entrée was foie gras with spice fruit bread, fresh fruit and veg, then a deliciously light omelette bulging with meaty mushrooms. His main was a tender leg of roast duck with roast taties, then they came out with a platter of five different cheeses each one amazingly different to taste. He finished off with profiteroles filled with ice-cream and lost in lashings of thick, rich chocolate sauce! Needless to say we’re afraid our clothes which were looking quite smart on Pilates toned bodies are now failing to hide the increasing rolls and bulges!
After thunder and a little rain in the night we were up, packed and away in good time this morning for a long drive from St Pardoux all the way up to Bayeaux. We had decided to side-track a little to incorporate a stop at Oradour-sur-Glane on the way as it would hadn’t managed to fit it in as a day trip while in St Pardoux. June 10th 1944 this tranquil little farming village of about 650 people was attached and completely annihilated by the Nazis. The town was never rebuilt or inhabited again, but in more recent times it has been made safe to visit (with documentary movie, explanation if you wish – we didn’t). It’s a chilling memorial to that and other similar horrors and a moving plea against such insanity.
From here we drove North West right through the beautiful farmland of the Loire Valley. Crops as far as the eye could see hour after hour; what a lot of food they produce here! A patchwork of nature’s colours and a fairyland of chateaux, whizzed through on some very busy, fast motorways until finally we started to near the Coast. The terrain flattened out, the traffic numbers diminished, wind farms re-emerged and we rolled into Bayeaux about 7.00.
Out hotel here is very smart and fresh here and we were glad to settle in and have a quick cuppa before heading into town for dinner. Bayeaux is of course home to the Bayeaux Tapestry telling the story of William the Conqueror’s invasion of England and his defeat of Harold king of England at Hastings in 1066; we’re going for a look tomorrow which I’m really looking forward to. Remember Dan and Andrea we went to Hastings and did the tour with the audio guide about the Battle of Hastings? Now I’m at the other end! Bayeux was fortunate to escape war damage and has a very beautiful old church which was originally consecrated in 1077. It was open tonight when we arrived in town and lit up so was very impressive.
Would you believe we’re lucky enough to have arrived here on the first of the two nights that Bayeux has its annual medieval Festival! The town was really rocking with heaps of folk dressed in medieval costumes, troubadours singing, dancing (even on stilts on the cobblestones!), juggling and making wild medieval music on wild medieval instruments (we heard some very wild recorder music Isabelle!). Stalls were selling everything from medieval goods such as herbs, spices, leather money pouches, jewellery, masks, swords and chainmail helmets, to party knick knacks like babies dummy which had flashing lights! There were endless entertainment acts and everyone in party mode. School holidays started here today so it seemed no problem that it was 10.30 and that everyone including children were trailing through the streets after the musicians.
What a wonderful night and we had a wonderful meal - medieval of course! With just one night here we wanted to try some of the local cuisine so had to start with a traditional Normandy cider and finish with an apple tart and a glass of their “apple brandy” Calvados! Missed out on their other specialty Camembert, but will track that down tomorrow.
Friday, July 2, 2010
July 2nd Friday St Pardoux today
Today has been a relaxed pack up day before we head North and into hotels for the last week of our trip. So it’s been a day to restore the cottage to its original state of cleanliness and tidiness, charge phones and cameras, do the washing, download photos, deal with emails, sort the mountain of brochures one accumulates and repack suitcases with gear for Paris on top.
Our last lunch cleared out the fridge and of course the boys had managed to acquire a few pastries and some wine when they were in the village disposing of the rubbish, so a siesta overcame some of the party. We’ll have dinner in town tonight and so no chance of messing up our good work here!
More once we're in Bayeaux I hope and looking forward to driving through your special part of France Alison!!
Our last lunch cleared out the fridge and of course the boys had managed to acquire a few pastries and some wine when they were in the village disposing of the rubbish, so a siesta overcame some of the party. We’ll have dinner in town tonight and so no chance of messing up our good work here!
More once we're in Bayeaux I hope and looking forward to driving through your special part of France Alison!!
July 1st Thursday, Hauteforte, St Ypriex la Perche and Jumilhac le Grande
Liz, thankyou so much for all the wonderful information you armed us with about day trips from St Pardoux la Riviere! We’re just blown away by what a gorgeous area the Dordogne is and it’s been so helpful having your notes. We studied them for places that appealed to all of us to visit and then combined as many as we could into manageable day trips covering more than one attraction if possible. We’re pretty pleased with how much of the territory we’ve managed to cover in the short time we’ve been here though there are many wonderful things we’ll just have to rely on you to tell us about!
Today we headed further away East to Chateaux Hautefort. Originally a medieval fortress (built on the site of an old Roman camp) it was transformed by the Marquis of Hautefort into an imposing stately home in the 17th Century. In the 19th Century an unbelievable formal French garden of topiared plants, plus an English stlye park was added around it. In 1929 it was in a bad way and purchased by Baron Henry de Bastard and his wife who painstakingly restored it, only to see it bun down. The Baroness (by then widowed) promptly took up the restoration process again and so we are lucky that it has been saved to enjoy today. A fascinating building with its huge rooms, fab furnishings, bakery and wood framed dome roof on the tower, and the symmetry and perfection of the gardens is awesome!
From Hautefort we drove to St Ypriex la Perche (pr, Y’yeee!!!). This is just out of the Dordogne area into Limousin, the area of France famous for producing porcelain (think Limoge!) . We visited the church which was unexpectedly impressive and then tracked down the four roomed shop on Liz’s list hat has porcelain goodies stacked from floor to ceiling everywhere! Some lovely stuff here and even some treasures of Limoge pottery at more reasonable prices. I’m not usually into forking out for luxuries but the work is exquisite so I’m now the proud owner of a small piece.
From here we drove to check out the fairytale Chateux of Jumilhac le Grand which has links to Richard the Lionheart. Well, if I thought I saw Sleeping Beauty’s castle hiding in the undergrowth yesterday I was mistaken because here it was today!!! Turrets and towers bristling everywhere and absolutely captivating. It looks as if it would be fabulous to tour through - beautifully furnished etc, but by this stage it was getting quite late and we were feeling a little chateauxed out, so we opted for being content with the view from outside.
The rolling terrain here offers so many lovely views and the range of greens from dark forest greens through sage green crops to vivid lime green grasses....... gorgeous. Meanwile, because the weather has been so hot and sunny the sky is perfectly clear and blue though in the evenings we've seen some spectacular towering cloud formations build up and Fred's taken some fab pikkies. Today we travelled past farmhouses with massed planting of daylilies lining the drives and past acres and acres of hay paddocks - heaps mown, some still standing and some already dotted with the big round unwrapped bales. With feedlots for the animals there are very few fences and very little grazing done, so the crops just connect without interruptions, although today was our big day to spot walnut groves everywhere!
Pasta and salad at home tonight was perfect. We've loved seeing the big fresh bunches of French radishes for sale everywhere and have enjoyed lots of them, but tonight had a taste test with a bunch of mixed colour radishes ...... phew! I'd looked in the travel book for cheeses of the region and discovered something resembling a cheddar which I found today in the little shop in town; Cantal Juene and very yummy it was with a cracker and Rose before dinner - grainier than a rubbery NZ cheddar and good flavour (and we noticed it was pasteurized!)
We've found everyone here in the Dordogne region very helpful even though we can only sensibly manage 1/2 a dozen useful French words. Most people selling tickets, entries or goods have enough basic English to ply their trade adequately as long as you don't try to get into conversation outside of the transaction (which is a real frustration to Fred who of course wants to engage with them). The women at the superette are great and always pleased to see us with enough to English to be able to say"exchange?" when I returned with the receipt and a roll of paper towels and took from the shefl a packet of toilet paper.....! The lady at La Poste was struggling a bit but finally twigged to Nouvelle Zelande, the boys at the internet cafe have enough English to manage as did the girl at the pizza shop, but the hairdresser where Fred went for a haircut had absolutely no English, so just as well her friend had popped in and could help out because she was sweet enough to stay late and do the job as we couldn't make another time work (not being a big job probably helped :-).
We've been absolutely amazed in both Italy and France how many Pharmacies there are! Even the timiest towns seem to have at least one. But a big difference we've noticed coming from Italy is the number of coiffure establishments here in France!!! There are three in St Pardoux la Riviere which only has two little streets of shops! The other thing we've noticed here in France is, of course, the pampered pet dogs. So many little (and some not so little) pooches and no worries about them being in cafes, on buses, trains or cruise boats....! Another difference between Italy and France is in the gelatos/glaces. If you're thinking of going big on icecream consumptions over here, do it in Italy where they're thick and creamy and so big it's amazing they stay perched on the cones! Here we've resorted to buying Magnums form the superette!Another suprise here is how difficult it is to identify the little towns you drive into. If you don't spot the tiny (sometime non-existant)wooden sign before the town, you probably won't know where you are till you drive past the sign saying you're leaving the town; at least you know you've been there (though GPS is a lifesaver for this).
Today we headed further away East to Chateaux Hautefort. Originally a medieval fortress (built on the site of an old Roman camp) it was transformed by the Marquis of Hautefort into an imposing stately home in the 17th Century. In the 19th Century an unbelievable formal French garden of topiared plants, plus an English stlye park was added around it. In 1929 it was in a bad way and purchased by Baron Henry de Bastard and his wife who painstakingly restored it, only to see it bun down. The Baroness (by then widowed) promptly took up the restoration process again and so we are lucky that it has been saved to enjoy today. A fascinating building with its huge rooms, fab furnishings, bakery and wood framed dome roof on the tower, and the symmetry and perfection of the gardens is awesome!
From Hautefort we drove to St Ypriex la Perche (pr, Y’yeee!!!). This is just out of the Dordogne area into Limousin, the area of France famous for producing porcelain (think Limoge!) . We visited the church which was unexpectedly impressive and then tracked down the four roomed shop on Liz’s list hat has porcelain goodies stacked from floor to ceiling everywhere! Some lovely stuff here and even some treasures of Limoge pottery at more reasonable prices. I’m not usually into forking out for luxuries but the work is exquisite so I’m now the proud owner of a small piece.
From here we drove to check out the fairytale Chateux of Jumilhac le Grand which has links to Richard the Lionheart. Well, if I thought I saw Sleeping Beauty’s castle hiding in the undergrowth yesterday I was mistaken because here it was today!!! Turrets and towers bristling everywhere and absolutely captivating. It looks as if it would be fabulous to tour through - beautifully furnished etc, but by this stage it was getting quite late and we were feeling a little chateauxed out, so we opted for being content with the view from outside.
The rolling terrain here offers so many lovely views and the range of greens from dark forest greens through sage green crops to vivid lime green grasses....... gorgeous. Meanwile, because the weather has been so hot and sunny the sky is perfectly clear and blue though in the evenings we've seen some spectacular towering cloud formations build up and Fred's taken some fab pikkies. Today we travelled past farmhouses with massed planting of daylilies lining the drives and past acres and acres of hay paddocks - heaps mown, some still standing and some already dotted with the big round unwrapped bales. With feedlots for the animals there are very few fences and very little grazing done, so the crops just connect without interruptions, although today was our big day to spot walnut groves everywhere!
Pasta and salad at home tonight was perfect. We've loved seeing the big fresh bunches of French radishes for sale everywhere and have enjoyed lots of them, but tonight had a taste test with a bunch of mixed colour radishes ...... phew! I'd looked in the travel book for cheeses of the region and discovered something resembling a cheddar which I found today in the little shop in town; Cantal Juene and very yummy it was with a cracker and Rose before dinner - grainier than a rubbery NZ cheddar and good flavour (and we noticed it was pasteurized!)
We've found everyone here in the Dordogne region very helpful even though we can only sensibly manage 1/2 a dozen useful French words. Most people selling tickets, entries or goods have enough basic English to ply their trade adequately as long as you don't try to get into conversation outside of the transaction (which is a real frustration to Fred who of course wants to engage with them). The women at the superette are great and always pleased to see us with enough to English to be able to say"exchange?" when I returned with the receipt and a roll of paper towels and took from the shefl a packet of toilet paper.....! The lady at La Poste was struggling a bit but finally twigged to Nouvelle Zelande, the boys at the internet cafe have enough English to manage as did the girl at the pizza shop, but the hairdresser where Fred went for a haircut had absolutely no English, so just as well her friend had popped in and could help out because she was sweet enough to stay late and do the job as we couldn't make another time work (not being a big job probably helped :-).
We've been absolutely amazed in both Italy and France how many Pharmacies there are! Even the timiest towns seem to have at least one. But a big difference we've noticed coming from Italy is the number of coiffure establishments here in France!!! There are three in St Pardoux la Riviere which only has two little streets of shops! The other thing we've noticed here in France is, of course, the pampered pet dogs. So many little (and some not so little) pooches and no worries about them being in cafes, on buses, trains or cruise boats....! Another difference between Italy and France is in the gelatos/glaces. If you're thinking of going big on icecream consumptions over here, do it in Italy where they're thick and creamy and so big it's amazing they stay perched on the cones! Here we've resorted to buying Magnums form the superette!Another suprise here is how difficult it is to identify the little towns you drive into. If you don't spot the tiny (sometime non-existant)wooden sign before the town, you probably won't know where you are till you drive past the sign saying you're leaving the town; at least you know you've been there (though GPS is a lifesaver for this).
Thursday, July 1, 2010
June 30 Wednesday Market, Thiviers, St Jean d Cole
To market, to market to buy a fat pig, duck or chook, replacement suspenders for your corset, wafer thin walnut macaroons, a scalloped edged mirror, any of an infinite variety of salamis, sausages and meat products, or cheeses, fruit and veg, or even a pendulum clock! You name it, I think you’re likely to find it at the bustling Piegut (pr. Peejoo)/Pluviers Wednesday morning market.
My suspenders have been holding up just fine so our shopping was more a taste opportunity for a variety of luscious dried and fresh fruits, veg and cheeses, with Diana scoring a real bargain with two pair of lovely sandals to replace her broken pair. I had some very interesting conversations with stall owners about cheeses and of course had the taste benefits expounded of making cheese from unpasteurized milk. Both the English and French samples I bought were of course unpasteursed as opposed to our NZ method.
Even a short 20 minute drive such as we took to Piegut is fascinating here. Travel (thanks to GPS Gretel) is on a variety of very narrow roads, often with absolutely no road markings and sometimes in very poor repair, through farmland with grazing and crops punctuated by oak forests and today pine and Douglas Fir plantations. There seems to be no sign of life in the countryside but tiny villages with stone houses and cobbled street occur every 10 to 20 minutes, and in between side roads and crossroads occur in the most unexpected places and chateaux and maisons pop up out of nowhere. Today I swear we passed Sleeping Beauty’s chateux and she must still be waiting for Prince Charming to wake her up; the whole property looked like it had just been halted in mid stride and was being gobbled up by trees and vines. We’ve also been fascinated that even the tiniest towns have very big well-tended cemeteries - I guess indicative of how long these villages have existed.
In the last few days we have seen some stock – though very few are ever visible. A few Friesian cows and another big rusty red breed and these had their big 3 or 4 month old calves still running with them. All the cows still have horns and tails and the sheep have their tails too! I guess all the others are indoors.......
Today as we drove we saw lots of ferns and big blackberry hedges covered with flowers which reminded me that on the Cinque Terre we’d seen huge blackberry hedges (just wild, not thornless) on waste areas, but also seemingly incorporated into people’s gardens. Today too, we saw several beautiful ponds and many with lovely pale and dark pink water lilies flowering. Maybe these were parts of large grounds belonging to hidden residences of maybe just ponds in the farmer’s paddocks, but very pretty.
In this area we’ve passed several huge log stacks piled up on the road verge – pine and maybe oak. At Port Nelson they’d be classed as shorts, but we think they’re probably made into pallets here and have seen a huge sawmill and pallet factory. OSH would be very busy sorting out these unsecured stacks in public places and also at some of the other weird things like loose handrails on battlements, terraces two metres high with no railings etc; but then, NZ does seem to have gone a bit far with some of this stuff. Briefly back to the tree growing; we’ve also seen many woodlots and the houses seem to have huge firewood stacks, so despite the fact our daily temperatures are ranging from 24 in the morning to 35+ later in the day, it looks like it gets a bit chilly here in the winter.
Home to pop the market goodies in the fridge and sample some of our cheese, veg and bread for lunch. I've loved sampling some of the local cheeses and yes Phil, we've had a fabulous big chunk of Roquefort we've been teaming up with some of the bold red wines! I also noticed another local blue called Fourme d'Ambert looking similar to the Roquefort so bought a piece and we did a comparison. I still prefer the Roquefort with its bite, but Fred preferred the slightly creamier more mellow Fourme d'Ambert. We've really enjoyed the sweet nutty (and very affordable) Emmenthal Francais for lunch and love the gooey bries. Today I had to turn down a huge chunk of brie which the excellent salesman at the market "couldn't cut smaller, will go dry" and would really have frightened the bank balance anyway. We compromised and he sold me a smaller peice of creamy, full of flavour St Nectaire which I'm thrilled to be munching on right now, with a very good local chardonnay as I finish my diary for the day while Bruce and Diana prepare to go out for a special dinner celebrating their meeting 35 years ago!!!! Well done eh!!!!
This afternoon we drove over to Thiviers. Apart from its claim (which couldn't win my enthusiaism) that it's the foie gras capital of the area and having a museum about the "craft", it offered us the railway station where we could book our tickets for Caen to Paris 4th July, plus a culinary shop where we could buy a very cool nutcracker (you'll know the sort Liz, just like yours - and we have to confess Fred has raided a few of your yummy walnuts..... thankyou.... great with the sultanas we bought at the market!!!)
Our second afternoon/evening stop was St Jean de Cole, rated as one of France's most beautiful villages. Yes; beautifully peaceful, with the uniquely paved humpbacked bridge - wide enough for an army of galloping knights (though I hope the poor horses were well shod). But there is a lot of work to be done here (which has been started in the Church dating from 1086) to reroof and make safe and habitable the dwellings in the village.
My suspenders have been holding up just fine so our shopping was more a taste opportunity for a variety of luscious dried and fresh fruits, veg and cheeses, with Diana scoring a real bargain with two pair of lovely sandals to replace her broken pair. I had some very interesting conversations with stall owners about cheeses and of course had the taste benefits expounded of making cheese from unpasteurized milk. Both the English and French samples I bought were of course unpasteursed as opposed to our NZ method.
Even a short 20 minute drive such as we took to Piegut is fascinating here. Travel (thanks to GPS Gretel) is on a variety of very narrow roads, often with absolutely no road markings and sometimes in very poor repair, through farmland with grazing and crops punctuated by oak forests and today pine and Douglas Fir plantations. There seems to be no sign of life in the countryside but tiny villages with stone houses and cobbled street occur every 10 to 20 minutes, and in between side roads and crossroads occur in the most unexpected places and chateaux and maisons pop up out of nowhere. Today I swear we passed Sleeping Beauty’s chateux and she must still be waiting for Prince Charming to wake her up; the whole property looked like it had just been halted in mid stride and was being gobbled up by trees and vines. We’ve also been fascinated that even the tiniest towns have very big well-tended cemeteries - I guess indicative of how long these villages have existed.
In the last few days we have seen some stock – though very few are ever visible. A few Friesian cows and another big rusty red breed and these had their big 3 or 4 month old calves still running with them. All the cows still have horns and tails and the sheep have their tails too! I guess all the others are indoors.......
Today as we drove we saw lots of ferns and big blackberry hedges covered with flowers which reminded me that on the Cinque Terre we’d seen huge blackberry hedges (just wild, not thornless) on waste areas, but also seemingly incorporated into people’s gardens. Today too, we saw several beautiful ponds and many with lovely pale and dark pink water lilies flowering. Maybe these were parts of large grounds belonging to hidden residences of maybe just ponds in the farmer’s paddocks, but very pretty.
In this area we’ve passed several huge log stacks piled up on the road verge – pine and maybe oak. At Port Nelson they’d be classed as shorts, but we think they’re probably made into pallets here and have seen a huge sawmill and pallet factory. OSH would be very busy sorting out these unsecured stacks in public places and also at some of the other weird things like loose handrails on battlements, terraces two metres high with no railings etc; but then, NZ does seem to have gone a bit far with some of this stuff. Briefly back to the tree growing; we’ve also seen many woodlots and the houses seem to have huge firewood stacks, so despite the fact our daily temperatures are ranging from 24 in the morning to 35+ later in the day, it looks like it gets a bit chilly here in the winter.
Home to pop the market goodies in the fridge and sample some of our cheese, veg and bread for lunch. I've loved sampling some of the local cheeses and yes Phil, we've had a fabulous big chunk of Roquefort we've been teaming up with some of the bold red wines! I also noticed another local blue called Fourme d'Ambert looking similar to the Roquefort so bought a piece and we did a comparison. I still prefer the Roquefort with its bite, but Fred preferred the slightly creamier more mellow Fourme d'Ambert. We've really enjoyed the sweet nutty (and very affordable) Emmenthal Francais for lunch and love the gooey bries. Today I had to turn down a huge chunk of brie which the excellent salesman at the market "couldn't cut smaller, will go dry" and would really have frightened the bank balance anyway. We compromised and he sold me a smaller peice of creamy, full of flavour St Nectaire which I'm thrilled to be munching on right now, with a very good local chardonnay as I finish my diary for the day while Bruce and Diana prepare to go out for a special dinner celebrating their meeting 35 years ago!!!! Well done eh!!!!
This afternoon we drove over to Thiviers. Apart from its claim (which couldn't win my enthusiaism) that it's the foie gras capital of the area and having a museum about the "craft", it offered us the railway station where we could book our tickets for Caen to Paris 4th July, plus a culinary shop where we could buy a very cool nutcracker (you'll know the sort Liz, just like yours - and we have to confess Fred has raided a few of your yummy walnuts..... thankyou.... great with the sultanas we bought at the market!!!)
Our second afternoon/evening stop was St Jean de Cole, rated as one of France's most beautiful villages. Yes; beautifully peaceful, with the uniquely paved humpbacked bridge - wide enough for an army of galloping knights (though I hope the poor horses were well shod). But there is a lot of work to be done here (which has been started in the Church dating from 1086) to reroof and make safe and habitable the dwellings in the village.
June 29 Tuesday Brantome, Bourdeilles
Regrouping again today with a big effort to update my diary and post blogs. There’s an interesting little café in town specialising in tea tastings and offering Wifi, so we all sorted our internet stuff, plus stocked up on supplies, checked out the fabulous new boucherie in town and got Fred a coiffure from the darling French speaking hairdresser who was about to head home but stayed on to tidy him up perfectly. He has never been into a hairdressers in his life and only been to the barber twice in 40 years, wonder why, but he was very pleased with his 10 euro touch up.
Late afternoon saw us on the road to check out the very beautiful village of Brantome which sits on an island with the river Dronne flowing around it. What a feast for the eyes! For me this is the most gorgeous place we've seen in this area but I'm embarrassed to say that in the travel books this is slightly derisively known as long being popular with middle aged Brits!!!! Aaaaaagh!
Above the narrow river banks are limestone cliffs with the remnants of troglodyte dwellings easily visible and nearer the river a medieval abbey and belfry which apparently is the oldest still standing in France. They had such bad luck with the super heavy bell ( 5 ton ) falling down out of the belfry, that eventually they decided to attach it to the rock face ( tolled at 6.00pm for us) which leaves the empty belfry there just for show!
Crossing the bridge to the island offers enchanting views of the river and park beyond, with weirs, a waterwheel and a very beautiful and expensive guest house on the water’s edge (anyone need a very romantic place to stay?) The village too is absolutely delightful and a highlight for us was the little shop selling authentic tapestries and the owner here who talked with such enthusiasm, knowledge( all in French) to the boys about his spectacular collection of Military caps and helmets over a century from every country in Europe and sadly Oz( no RNZAF, RNZN or RNZA) displayed in the shop. The tapestries were amazing too, we didn't purchase as the 48.50 euro cushions wouldn't fit in our suitcases.
Further in this direction is the delightful village of Bourdeilles, once again sited beside the Dronne River. We were too late to visit the Chateaux, but we did walk around the old fortifications (which apparently has walls two metres thick!!! - hows that for insulation and protection! - great that you're doing new gib and batts Link and Mel :-)! We headed across the pretty bridge for a picture postcard view of the boat shaped mill house with river flowing round it (I wonder if rats are, or were ever, a problem in these places – we did have a few discussions about the Pied Piper, though that was Germany….) A walk up through the town past the stone shops and houses lead to cafes and finally a beautiful old church with a large parklike garden area behind where a big development is underway as part of a major tourist upgrade for the village. It was fascinating to study the billboard explaining the plans and to see the painstaking extension of pedestrian areas with paving and tourist facilities to enable better access, functionality and appeal. I’m sure their plans, efforts and investment will pay off and with some good marketing soon Bourdeilles will be thronging with tourists like other well established villages such as Sarlat. Probably we were lucky to enjoy its beauty while it’s still comparatively serene and sleepy.
Home by 9.00 to whip up a quick dinner, sample yet another red and white wine, eat our Magnums and make plans for tomorrow.
PS. Before I finish tonight I just want to add a few things I think I’ve forgotten on the way through.
E.g. the melt in the mouth cheese filled crepe I had in Avignon. The hot plate the woman cooked on was about ½ a metre in diameter and just a ladle full of ultra-thin mixture was gently raked out to cover this. With nothing but a long metal spatula she eased the edges and when cooked firm enough gently she freed the bottom of the crepe, folding it till she could expertly turn it and open it out again to brown the other side. A good handful of grated mozzarella in the middle with a generous grind of black pepper, then she folded it into a square with the hot melted filling safely enclosed and it was mine!
Fred has observed that in all our train journeys; Italy, France and Spain, we’ve only seen one small flock of about 200 sheep and not fenced in a paddock, but under the care of a shepherd!
He’s also noticed that all the fields are used to grow produce and fodder rather than rear stock because all the animals are in feedlots. This way of farming animals plus other gruesome practices such as the feeding practices to produce foie gras could almost turn the heartiest carnivore vegetarian!
I know I mentioned that mushrooms are a big cuisine item in Spain (and here in France too and I can see why after the heat and the rain we experienced yesterday!) But did I say that apparently in Spain there are about six dozen different types of edible mushrooms?!
Also, I think I’ve omitted to mention the soya beans and chestnuts they grow here in the Dordogne region.
Maybe I mentioned seeing great vege gardens in Italy but they have them in France too! Fabulous big, immaculate, perfectly laid out plots with obviously enough to provide all the requirements for the family. We're loving travelling through these regions at this time of the year as all the gardens are brimming with veges, the orchards are laden with fruit and all the crops are at, or very near harvest. To follow on from that though, the growing season here must be considerably longer than at home because we constantly see a big range of ages and stages of sunflower and maize crops which we couldn't manage in NZ.
Not once have I mentioned temperatures! Days in Italy 32+ Spain hotter and St Pardoux up to 37!
More news tomorrow I hope!
Late afternoon saw us on the road to check out the very beautiful village of Brantome which sits on an island with the river Dronne flowing around it. What a feast for the eyes! For me this is the most gorgeous place we've seen in this area but I'm embarrassed to say that in the travel books this is slightly derisively known as long being popular with middle aged Brits!!!! Aaaaaagh!
Above the narrow river banks are limestone cliffs with the remnants of troglodyte dwellings easily visible and nearer the river a medieval abbey and belfry which apparently is the oldest still standing in France. They had such bad luck with the super heavy bell ( 5 ton ) falling down out of the belfry, that eventually they decided to attach it to the rock face ( tolled at 6.00pm for us) which leaves the empty belfry there just for show!
Crossing the bridge to the island offers enchanting views of the river and park beyond, with weirs, a waterwheel and a very beautiful and expensive guest house on the water’s edge (anyone need a very romantic place to stay?) The village too is absolutely delightful and a highlight for us was the little shop selling authentic tapestries and the owner here who talked with such enthusiasm, knowledge( all in French) to the boys about his spectacular collection of Military caps and helmets over a century from every country in Europe and sadly Oz( no RNZAF, RNZN or RNZA) displayed in the shop. The tapestries were amazing too, we didn't purchase as the 48.50 euro cushions wouldn't fit in our suitcases.
Further in this direction is the delightful village of Bourdeilles, once again sited beside the Dronne River. We were too late to visit the Chateaux, but we did walk around the old fortifications (which apparently has walls two metres thick!!! - hows that for insulation and protection! - great that you're doing new gib and batts Link and Mel :-)! We headed across the pretty bridge for a picture postcard view of the boat shaped mill house with river flowing round it (I wonder if rats are, or were ever, a problem in these places – we did have a few discussions about the Pied Piper, though that was Germany….) A walk up through the town past the stone shops and houses lead to cafes and finally a beautiful old church with a large parklike garden area behind where a big development is underway as part of a major tourist upgrade for the village. It was fascinating to study the billboard explaining the plans and to see the painstaking extension of pedestrian areas with paving and tourist facilities to enable better access, functionality and appeal. I’m sure their plans, efforts and investment will pay off and with some good marketing soon Bourdeilles will be thronging with tourists like other well established villages such as Sarlat. Probably we were lucky to enjoy its beauty while it’s still comparatively serene and sleepy.
Home by 9.00 to whip up a quick dinner, sample yet another red and white wine, eat our Magnums and make plans for tomorrow.
PS. Before I finish tonight I just want to add a few things I think I’ve forgotten on the way through.
E.g. the melt in the mouth cheese filled crepe I had in Avignon. The hot plate the woman cooked on was about ½ a metre in diameter and just a ladle full of ultra-thin mixture was gently raked out to cover this. With nothing but a long metal spatula she eased the edges and when cooked firm enough gently she freed the bottom of the crepe, folding it till she could expertly turn it and open it out again to brown the other side. A good handful of grated mozzarella in the middle with a generous grind of black pepper, then she folded it into a square with the hot melted filling safely enclosed and it was mine!
Fred has observed that in all our train journeys; Italy, France and Spain, we’ve only seen one small flock of about 200 sheep and not fenced in a paddock, but under the care of a shepherd!
He’s also noticed that all the fields are used to grow produce and fodder rather than rear stock because all the animals are in feedlots. This way of farming animals plus other gruesome practices such as the feeding practices to produce foie gras could almost turn the heartiest carnivore vegetarian!
I know I mentioned that mushrooms are a big cuisine item in Spain (and here in France too and I can see why after the heat and the rain we experienced yesterday!) But did I say that apparently in Spain there are about six dozen different types of edible mushrooms?!
Also, I think I’ve omitted to mention the soya beans and chestnuts they grow here in the Dordogne region.
Maybe I mentioned seeing great vege gardens in Italy but they have them in France too! Fabulous big, immaculate, perfectly laid out plots with obviously enough to provide all the requirements for the family. We're loving travelling through these regions at this time of the year as all the gardens are brimming with veges, the orchards are laden with fruit and all the crops are at, or very near harvest. To follow on from that though, the growing season here must be considerably longer than at home because we constantly see a big range of ages and stages of sunflower and maize crops which we couldn't manage in NZ.
Not once have I mentioned temperatures! Days in Italy 32+ Spain hotter and St Pardoux up to 37!
More news tomorrow I hope!
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
June Monday 28 Sarlat, La Roque Gageac, Rocomadour
We decided to tackle our biggest day trip today so headed south with our first stop Sarlat; bang smack in the middle of Foie Gras and walnut country and renowned for its concentration of Rennaissance and 17th Century architecture. As a destination Sarlat has itself very well organised to provide for and make the most of the millions of tourists who come here (apart from the rather dysfunctional toilet set up where out of four toilets in the toilet complex, only one would open its door!). It has a very good walking route with an excellent numbered brochure pointing out the interesting buildings and their features.
Nowhere here for a quick, light lunch, but nice to sit at a tablein the shade on the cobblestones outside a tiny café and order a Rose and a Heineken with something which turned out to be a fabulous “wholemeal crepe” with tasty vegetarian filling and a salad which I knew would have lettuce and tomato, but also had white asparagus, cucumber and heaps of lovely crisp radishes!
Leaving Sarlat the countryside here was once again farmed intensively (though always with forest groves) and now with tobacco, asparagus, sunflowers, lots of crops and now and again some fences and cattle! (Absolutely noteworthy!).
We were heading for a drive by of La Roque Gageac looking for cliff side troglodyte and medieval dwellings. Well, of course we didn’t just drive by, we were so amazed we stopped to look and next thing were aboard the boat for a cruise with commentary on the Dordogne. Fantastic.
Sadly we’d missed our chance to visit the nearby Chateax Marqueyssac with its 8 kms topiaries of box hedges, because we needed to get to the Cliffside village of Rocamadour. This village is unreal. Developed as a holy site after miracles happened, it clings to side of a massive gorge. Chateaux on the cliff top with ramparts which offer a panorama over the whole valley and then a sacred walk zig zagging down the cliff face with a shrine to each station of the cross in each zig and zag – really I think if you’re on a pilgrimage to you’re supposed to walk up the path rather than down, but wonderful Gretel had directed us to the top! At the end of the path, half way down the cliff is the sacred site of miracles where six varying sized chapels and churches cling to the rock face. A very impressive and memorable place. 274 steps further down is the village with quaint old buildings selling the usual tourist stuff and a lift to take us back to the top. Too late, the lift was closed.
We survived the ascent, fortified with a drink stop half way up, then homeward bound. A long journey, thunder, lightning, dark and again Gretel’s weird choice of roads, but we made it safe and sound and no counting sheep for sleep.
Nowhere here for a quick, light lunch, but nice to sit at a tablein the shade on the cobblestones outside a tiny café and order a Rose and a Heineken with something which turned out to be a fabulous “wholemeal crepe” with tasty vegetarian filling and a salad which I knew would have lettuce and tomato, but also had white asparagus, cucumber and heaps of lovely crisp radishes!
Leaving Sarlat the countryside here was once again farmed intensively (though always with forest groves) and now with tobacco, asparagus, sunflowers, lots of crops and now and again some fences and cattle! (Absolutely noteworthy!).
We were heading for a drive by of La Roque Gageac looking for cliff side troglodyte and medieval dwellings. Well, of course we didn’t just drive by, we were so amazed we stopped to look and next thing were aboard the boat for a cruise with commentary on the Dordogne. Fantastic.
Sadly we’d missed our chance to visit the nearby Chateax Marqueyssac with its 8 kms topiaries of box hedges, because we needed to get to the Cliffside village of Rocamadour. This village is unreal. Developed as a holy site after miracles happened, it clings to side of a massive gorge. Chateaux on the cliff top with ramparts which offer a panorama over the whole valley and then a sacred walk zig zagging down the cliff face with a shrine to each station of the cross in each zig and zag – really I think if you’re on a pilgrimage to you’re supposed to walk up the path rather than down, but wonderful Gretel had directed us to the top! At the end of the path, half way down the cliff is the sacred site of miracles where six varying sized chapels and churches cling to the rock face. A very impressive and memorable place. 274 steps further down is the village with quaint old buildings selling the usual tourist stuff and a lift to take us back to the top. Too late, the lift was closed.
We survived the ascent, fortified with a drink stop half way up, then homeward bound. A long journey, thunder, lightning, dark and again Gretel’s weird choice of roads, but we made it safe and sound and no counting sheep for sleep.
June 27 Sunday settle in at St Pardoux
Washday at the Pa today and a quick trip up to the Nontron supermarket for more major supplies including a beaut fresh chicken which we popped in the oven early so that no matter how the day panned out we were set for dinner. Suddenly we found we had time to start thinking about the exploration opportunities this area offers and by 3.30ish we were feeling we could tackle some sightseeing and so headed for nearby Villar to view the limestone caves here.
The Dordogne region is a labyrinth of caves and boasts discoveries of some of the earliest human civilisation. The Grotte de Villars was amazing. A very well structured and presented route through a section of the 13 kilometres of caves had non slip paths created, handrails where necessary and excellent lighting to show up the breath-taking formations, plus an excellent commentary from our French guide who kindly did a second English commentary for us. Stalactites and stalagmites of all shapes and sizes from big fat pillars, to “candlesticks” and “spaghetti”, “curtains” of deposit hanging in folds like draperies, some so fine the light glowed through and further on bear scratching’s and cave drawings from 20,000 years ago!!!!
The Dordogne region also bristles with châteaux and we were near to the Chateaux de Puyguilhem so made that our first. Almost too late to gain entry was great as we felt like we had the whole place to ourselves and really enjoyed a few laughs and quirky photo opportunities in the great hall with its huge fireplace, the huge bedroom with four poster bed and the whopping kitchen with its massive fireplace and table.
Chicken good for dinner and more planning and bee sting bathing.s
The Dordogne region is a labyrinth of caves and boasts discoveries of some of the earliest human civilisation. The Grotte de Villars was amazing. A very well structured and presented route through a section of the 13 kilometres of caves had non slip paths created, handrails where necessary and excellent lighting to show up the breath-taking formations, plus an excellent commentary from our French guide who kindly did a second English commentary for us. Stalactites and stalagmites of all shapes and sizes from big fat pillars, to “candlesticks” and “spaghetti”, “curtains” of deposit hanging in folds like draperies, some so fine the light glowed through and further on bear scratching’s and cave drawings from 20,000 years ago!!!!
The Dordogne region also bristles with châteaux and we were near to the Chateaux de Puyguilhem so made that our first. Almost too late to gain entry was great as we felt like we had the whole place to ourselves and really enjoyed a few laughs and quirky photo opportunities in the great hall with its huge fireplace, the huge bedroom with four poster bed and the whopping kitchen with its massive fireplace and table.
Chicken good for dinner and more planning and bee sting bathing.s
June 26 Saturday Narbonne - St Pardoux Riviere
Thanks to Bruce and Diana who had found the train station in Narbonne and picked us up when our train arrived last night at about 9.00pm. They’d settled in at our Etap Hotel and whizzed us back there to a very welcome cup of tea and munchies. Still a rather average hotel, but inexpensive and cleaner than the last Etap in Menton and well located for getting away smartly for our big day’s travel this morning.
Heading West on a major route through rolling country with grapes, villages on every rise, knoll and vantage point and wind farms on the horizons. We pulled off to the first stop for a stand-up brekkie and fuel up and then on to Carcassonne.
We’d decided to take the time to visit this amazingly restored Medieval City and despite the fact that there is some criticism that the restoration has it all looking a bit too perfect, it is an absolutely captivating spectacle. It’s so much easier to get the feel of medieval life in such a well restored city without having to look at ruins and mentally restore them, though within the walls today the City bulges with tourists and eateries – we found that often the only way you could distinguish where one restaurant finished and the next began was by the different tablecloths and table settings! We found a little patisserie outside the walls where a very elderly, twinkly eyed French baker took pride in crafting us a beaut jambon and fromage roll.
Gretel the GPS was telling us five and a half hours to St Pardoux, so leaving Carcassonne it was Fred at the wheel with head down to tick off the miles. Miles of motorway and several toll gates, increasingly rugged country but easy driving with huge viaducts spanning any steep gorges and all so well treed with wonderful coverings of oak forests.
My turn to drive as we headed into the Dordogne district. Slowly but surely Gretel took us off the main highways and on to minor roads and in fact sometimes we thought make-believe roads, especially when there was grass down the middle. However, we’d chosen to follow her directions, so carried on through fascinating farmland with mown hay, big round bales, crops of grain and walnut groves, all the while with great swathes of oak forests.
And then; St Pardoux here we are! A weir on the river, a quaint stone bridge, past the petanque grounds and clubhouse, then the camping grounds and finally to Liz and Peter’s St Pardoux Cottage. What a wonderful place and how lucky we are to be able to stay here for a week! A stone farm cottage where the full basement once housed the animals (now with a concrete floor and used for laundry and storage) and the upper level housed the farmer and family. Set on a couple of acres of lush pasture sloping up to forest behind there’s a picture book French scene to look out on when the shutters and windows of the bedrooms are flung open.
But, there was no immediate flinging open of shutters and window in our bedroom as a hive of bees had decided that the 20cm wide space between the shutters and the windows was a great place to build their hive! How does one deal with that predicament in France?
On our arrival we’d had a cheery “Bonjour” from a neighbour across the road so he was our first port of call. He had no idea what we were, with much buzzing and miming of flying etc, trying to explain and I think he was feeling a little cautious when dragged into the cottage by a bunch of jabbering, gesticulating kiwis! But he was quickly to the rescue, dashing off to engage our knight in shining armour, the 80 year old, ex-farmer from next door. In no time at all he appeared, clad in his apiarist gear, ladder under one arm, smoking canister in the other hand. Diana and I left it to the blokes and popped into town to stock up with essentials and check out the pizzeria for takeaways for dinner. Meantime, back at the cottage, our wonderful neighbour had brought an empty beehive and placed below the window and teetered at the top of his borer infested ladder with brave Freddie holding the ladder steady for him and for his efforts sustaining an angry beesting right on his eyebrow!!! (photos one day I hope!). Slowly but surely the puffing of the smoke encouraged the bees to move out and eventually we were all at the kitchen table sharing a well-earned drink. A lot of talking but very little comprehension, though I’m sure we managed to convey our gratitude!
Heading West on a major route through rolling country with grapes, villages on every rise, knoll and vantage point and wind farms on the horizons. We pulled off to the first stop for a stand-up brekkie and fuel up and then on to Carcassonne.
We’d decided to take the time to visit this amazingly restored Medieval City and despite the fact that there is some criticism that the restoration has it all looking a bit too perfect, it is an absolutely captivating spectacle. It’s so much easier to get the feel of medieval life in such a well restored city without having to look at ruins and mentally restore them, though within the walls today the City bulges with tourists and eateries – we found that often the only way you could distinguish where one restaurant finished and the next began was by the different tablecloths and table settings! We found a little patisserie outside the walls where a very elderly, twinkly eyed French baker took pride in crafting us a beaut jambon and fromage roll.
Gretel the GPS was telling us five and a half hours to St Pardoux, so leaving Carcassonne it was Fred at the wheel with head down to tick off the miles. Miles of motorway and several toll gates, increasingly rugged country but easy driving with huge viaducts spanning any steep gorges and all so well treed with wonderful coverings of oak forests.
My turn to drive as we headed into the Dordogne district. Slowly but surely Gretel took us off the main highways and on to minor roads and in fact sometimes we thought make-believe roads, especially when there was grass down the middle. However, we’d chosen to follow her directions, so carried on through fascinating farmland with mown hay, big round bales, crops of grain and walnut groves, all the while with great swathes of oak forests.
And then; St Pardoux here we are! A weir on the river, a quaint stone bridge, past the petanque grounds and clubhouse, then the camping grounds and finally to Liz and Peter’s St Pardoux Cottage. What a wonderful place and how lucky we are to be able to stay here for a week! A stone farm cottage where the full basement once housed the animals (now with a concrete floor and used for laundry and storage) and the upper level housed the farmer and family. Set on a couple of acres of lush pasture sloping up to forest behind there’s a picture book French scene to look out on when the shutters and windows of the bedrooms are flung open.
But, there was no immediate flinging open of shutters and window in our bedroom as a hive of bees had decided that the 20cm wide space between the shutters and the windows was a great place to build their hive! How does one deal with that predicament in France?
On our arrival we’d had a cheery “Bonjour” from a neighbour across the road so he was our first port of call. He had no idea what we were, with much buzzing and miming of flying etc, trying to explain and I think he was feeling a little cautious when dragged into the cottage by a bunch of jabbering, gesticulating kiwis! But he was quickly to the rescue, dashing off to engage our knight in shining armour, the 80 year old, ex-farmer from next door. In no time at all he appeared, clad in his apiarist gear, ladder under one arm, smoking canister in the other hand. Diana and I left it to the blokes and popped into town to stock up with essentials and check out the pizzeria for takeaways for dinner. Meantime, back at the cottage, our wonderful neighbour had brought an empty beehive and placed below the window and teetered at the top of his borer infested ladder with brave Freddie holding the ladder steady for him and for his efforts sustaining an angry beesting right on his eyebrow!!! (photos one day I hope!). Slowly but surely the puffing of the smoke encouraged the bees to move out and eventually we were all at the kitchen table sharing a well-earned drink. A lot of talking but very little comprehension, though I’m sure we managed to convey our gratitude!
June 25 Friday Spain back to France
A leisurely start today and after phone calls home we set off to provision for the weekend. A special weekend for Gemma and David with Gemma’s Mum and Dad arriving today and her sister and family plus aunty tomorrow, to celebrate her Mum’s birthday.
Firstly into Rupia for two little loaves of bread plus a big crusty artisan loaf, next the Carnisserie (and this one didn’t specify execucionnerie as well, as some did!) and finally to the “grocers” for the newspaper then off to the market in nearby La Bisbal. En route we passed out best field of sunflowers to date so with great delight snatched the photo opportunity.
The market at La Bispal was absolutely fantastic! Trestles groaned under towering piles of cured meat chunks and slices, with legs of meat hanging like draperies around the stalls, while mountains of fruit and veges glistened and glowed with rainbow colours and a challenging array of varieties (including, to our patriotic delight, some NZ kiwifruit!). Lots of looking, lots of tasting and lots of buying!
Keeping a car even moderately clean with no garage in dry, dusty, rural Spain, is not high on the priority list of locals and we were wondering how Gemma managed to see through her windscreen so, to Gemma and David’s amusement, Fred decided he must repay some of their kindness with a quick car wash which he tackled as soon as we were home.
Next thing Gemma’s Mum and Dad arrived and in no time we were gathered around the table in the shade on the terrace with a magnificent oxtail stew (with tomatoes, bayleaf, wine, onions and mushrooms), fried potatoes, home-made meatballs and rice, plus bread, salad and Cava!! It was so nice to meet Gemma’s parents as we felt like part of their NZ family and were greeted as such despite them having no English and us no Spanish (though we did have good interpreters!)
Then back on the train and goodbye Spain. No Trevi fountain to throw a “come back” coin in here, but Catalonia and the Catalonians we met certainly impressed us.
Firstly into Rupia for two little loaves of bread plus a big crusty artisan loaf, next the Carnisserie (and this one didn’t specify execucionnerie as well, as some did!) and finally to the “grocers” for the newspaper then off to the market in nearby La Bisbal. En route we passed out best field of sunflowers to date so with great delight snatched the photo opportunity.
The market at La Bispal was absolutely fantastic! Trestles groaned under towering piles of cured meat chunks and slices, with legs of meat hanging like draperies around the stalls, while mountains of fruit and veges glistened and glowed with rainbow colours and a challenging array of varieties (including, to our patriotic delight, some NZ kiwifruit!). Lots of looking, lots of tasting and lots of buying!
Keeping a car even moderately clean with no garage in dry, dusty, rural Spain, is not high on the priority list of locals and we were wondering how Gemma managed to see through her windscreen so, to Gemma and David’s amusement, Fred decided he must repay some of their kindness with a quick car wash which he tackled as soon as we were home.
Next thing Gemma’s Mum and Dad arrived and in no time we were gathered around the table in the shade on the terrace with a magnificent oxtail stew (with tomatoes, bayleaf, wine, onions and mushrooms), fried potatoes, home-made meatballs and rice, plus bread, salad and Cava!! It was so nice to meet Gemma’s parents as we felt like part of their NZ family and were greeted as such despite them having no English and us no Spanish (though we did have good interpreters!)
Then back on the train and goodbye Spain. No Trevi fountain to throw a “come back” coin in here, but Catalonia and the Catalonians we met certainly impressed us.
24 June Thurs Exploring ex Rupia
God bless shutters! When did you last sleep in till 11.00 a.m.! I can’t remember when I last slept in that long, but with the darkness of shutters closed and the silence of the day after the party, no one stirred till very late.
Both Gemma and David were on holiday today and wanted to take us sightseeing so we’d suggested a meal at our expense somewhere along the way. After a leisurely start we headed for Pals a delightful medieval hilltop village which new research suggests could be where Christopher Columbus prepared for his trip which discovered America rather than Palo which has always clained fame for this fact. Fascinating detail has been adhered to in the reconstruction here, right through to the “street lights” which were firewood fires lit in metal containers on metal poles. An aperitif (beer or a tasty aromatic white wine) and tapas at a friend’s café was a great start for lunch; my tapas choice a large anchovy/small sardine and Fred’s some cured duck, Mmmmm.
Then for lunch proper, to Calella-de-Palafrugell, a seaside town with 3 tiny bays tucked between rocky outcrops. Here another friend has a Restaurant on the beach. We suggested Gemma and David order for us all and we were very happy with starters of steamed mussels, tasty shrimps and a simple but scrummy tomato, white onion and tuna salad, followed by a Paella made with local rice and brimming with locally caught mussels, shrimps, lobsters, squid and sausages plus a robust stock. Yes, I know sausages sound a weird addition to a seafood paella and yes, we did ask why. The explanation was that this is a traditional village recipe born from the days when there was no refrigeration, so that if Mama had bought sausages for dinner but Papa came in with a good seafood catch, no worries, it all went into the paella and so the dish became common practice. An interesting combination and a distinctively hearty paella. Matched with a beautiful Spanish white wine and positioned so that we could watch the rigid inflatable ferry owners to and from the myriad of craft moored in the Bay, it was a wonderful leisurely Spanish lunch finished with good coffee and then a generously offered complimentary muscatel dessert wine.
After lunch was time to take a walk along the beach above the sunbathers, topless or otherwise, crammed on the coarse, golden sand (reminiscent of Golden Bay sand but not quite as golden). The path lead around the rocky headlands linking the three little bays here on the Costa Brava so that the views unfolded as we walked. It's easy to see why mussells are such a staple seafood here; the craggy rocky coast is perfect for mussell growing and we felt as if at any moment we might spot a smuggler or a pirate hiding amongst the rocks.
Big juicy cactus defy the conditions and flourish amongst the rocks and Gemma told us that once the buds had flowered the fruits were edible, if you can manage to get past the prickles and through the skin. The picturebook villages in each bay are crammed with typical white and terracotta Meditterranena style houses gazing out over a few pine trees and incredibly clean blue sea. This beautiful area is rapidly being "discovered" by tourists and the locals are very concerned to maintain it's prisitine condition and protect it from pollution and litter, so tarriffs are high here.
By the time we reached home again everyone was ready for a late siesta which saw us awake in time to watch the Japan/Denmark World Cup Soccer match with nibbles of bread, ham, salami, hard tasty goats milk cheese and their butcher's yummy pork and mushroom roll.
Both Gemma and David were on holiday today and wanted to take us sightseeing so we’d suggested a meal at our expense somewhere along the way. After a leisurely start we headed for Pals a delightful medieval hilltop village which new research suggests could be where Christopher Columbus prepared for his trip which discovered America rather than Palo which has always clained fame for this fact. Fascinating detail has been adhered to in the reconstruction here, right through to the “street lights” which were firewood fires lit in metal containers on metal poles. An aperitif (beer or a tasty aromatic white wine) and tapas at a friend’s café was a great start for lunch; my tapas choice a large anchovy/small sardine and Fred’s some cured duck, Mmmmm.
Then for lunch proper, to Calella-de-Palafrugell, a seaside town with 3 tiny bays tucked between rocky outcrops. Here another friend has a Restaurant on the beach. We suggested Gemma and David order for us all and we were very happy with starters of steamed mussels, tasty shrimps and a simple but scrummy tomato, white onion and tuna salad, followed by a Paella made with local rice and brimming with locally caught mussels, shrimps, lobsters, squid and sausages plus a robust stock. Yes, I know sausages sound a weird addition to a seafood paella and yes, we did ask why. The explanation was that this is a traditional village recipe born from the days when there was no refrigeration, so that if Mama had bought sausages for dinner but Papa came in with a good seafood catch, no worries, it all went into the paella and so the dish became common practice. An interesting combination and a distinctively hearty paella. Matched with a beautiful Spanish white wine and positioned so that we could watch the rigid inflatable ferry owners to and from the myriad of craft moored in the Bay, it was a wonderful leisurely Spanish lunch finished with good coffee and then a generously offered complimentary muscatel dessert wine.
After lunch was time to take a walk along the beach above the sunbathers, topless or otherwise, crammed on the coarse, golden sand (reminiscent of Golden Bay sand but not quite as golden). The path lead around the rocky headlands linking the three little bays here on the Costa Brava so that the views unfolded as we walked. It's easy to see why mussells are such a staple seafood here; the craggy rocky coast is perfect for mussell growing and we felt as if at any moment we might spot a smuggler or a pirate hiding amongst the rocks.
Big juicy cactus defy the conditions and flourish amongst the rocks and Gemma told us that once the buds had flowered the fruits were edible, if you can manage to get past the prickles and through the skin. The picturebook villages in each bay are crammed with typical white and terracotta Meditterranena style houses gazing out over a few pine trees and incredibly clean blue sea. This beautiful area is rapidly being "discovered" by tourists and the locals are very concerned to maintain it's prisitine condition and protect it from pollution and litter, so tarriffs are high here.
By the time we reached home again everyone was ready for a late siesta which saw us awake in time to watch the Japan/Denmark World Cup Soccer match with nibbles of bread, ham, salami, hard tasty goats milk cheese and their butcher's yummy pork and mushroom roll.
June 23 Wed Barcelona and St Johns Festival
David was working today and Gemma enjoying a day off and preparation for the Festival of St John, Catalonia’s biggest annual festival. Each year this festival celebrates the shortest night of the year and welcomes in summer and the longest day. Communities gather, bringing food for a shared meal (if four of you come, you bring food for six!) which doesn’t start till sundown (9.30ish). There’s a small fee which buys wine for the tables plus generous helpings of their St John’s cake “Coca” , (a cross between bread and Madeira Cake, decorated with glace fruit and pine nuts) which is washed down with Cava. Cava is what we would know as French Champagne (Moet). Same grapes, same terrain, same process, same company; just not allowed to be called champagne since the border shifted between France and Spain! The festival is a great celebration, with fireworks, bonfires (if you’re on the beach or somewhere safe) feasting, drinking, music and dancing till dawn (if you’re still on the go when the dew falls in the morning you’ll grow younger – wait till you see me next!!!).
With a day at our disposal Fred and I headed for Barcelona for a brief look at this exciting City. We also needed to buy tickets to travel back from Spain to Narbonne early on Friday to link up with Bruce and Diana. Thankfully we had Gemma translating with the woman at the ticket office as the only words we could understand were “bloody French” as she explained that we’d need to try for tickets in Barcelona, but that the French rail workers were on strike till Friday morning, which in fact wiped out any train service from Spain to France till Friday lunch time. So, to Barcelona, where after three discussions with the ticket sellers, three times in the queue and a couple of phone conferences with Bruce we were sorted and off to explore the City.
Barcelona is amazing! What a vibrant, energising City! Wide tree lined streets with totally specific cycle lanes and bikes you can buy an annual pass to use! Once again plane trees march architecturally down the streets, but being interspersed with palm trees moves the image from the European cliché, to a much more southern Mediterranean look. Once again it’s a city with history but a city of fascinating shapes and colours. The city was originally laid out thoughtfully and then modernised completely with the refurbishment for the 1992 Olympic Games. 100,000 volunteers gave time and labour in the lead up to the Games; no wonder the City hums with a sense of pride and worth! Apparently one of the biggest challenges now is how to deal with the huge numbers of tourists and visitors attracted here, while still keeping Barcelona a comfortable and pleasant home and workplace for its own residents.
With just a few hours here we opted for a bus tour through the City. Fantastic seats on the open top deck gave us great views and the commentary was fantastic so we managed to cram in many of the sights plus lunch of filled and folded flatbreads cooked on a huge hotplate (four cheese filling for Fred, mozarella and spinach for me) before our time ran out. By this stage one of Fred’s sandals had fallen apart and my need for a haircut was becoming pressing so with a detour through a monster department store we sorted both problems and were back on the train for Rupia (or Flaca actually – the little station nearest to Rupia).
Our timing was ideal with just time to freshen up before heading into the village with our plates, cutlery, glasses and pot luck dish for the celebrations. What a buzz! Every local, man, woman and child was there, plus most of the weekenders who had come up to Rupia for the weekend (tomorrow is a holiday and most people have taken Friday off to make a long weekend). Crackers - mostly bangers, including very big bangers which are now unavailable in NZ- were going off intermittently, most of them let off by the children. The biggest impact ones were let off resoundlingly in the stone “tunnel” made by an arch about 25 feet long over the lane! If you ever come to Spain Dan I really think you should aim to be here 23rd June!
As darkness fell the “pretty” fireworks came out and the littlies had fun with sparklers. As with any pot luck meal there was an amazing variety of dishes and so we were very fortunate to have an opportunity to sample all sorts of wonderful dishes and the coca was yummy and the Cava supreme!
Then the music started and soon everyone was up dancing. No one went home. Parents danced and socialised with babies in front packs, preschoolers were tucked up on the warm stone benches as they fell asleep, the junior school girls danced and cartwheeled on the cobblestones while the bigger girls teased the boys who then terrorised them with crackers.
Dew or no dew, we were home well before dawn though we did need to shut all doors, windows and shutters to keep out the noise of explosions! Gemma and David enjoyed the company and fun considerably longer, leaving at dawn as others were doing a Trinny and Susannah on the barman.
With a day at our disposal Fred and I headed for Barcelona for a brief look at this exciting City. We also needed to buy tickets to travel back from Spain to Narbonne early on Friday to link up with Bruce and Diana. Thankfully we had Gemma translating with the woman at the ticket office as the only words we could understand were “bloody French” as she explained that we’d need to try for tickets in Barcelona, but that the French rail workers were on strike till Friday morning, which in fact wiped out any train service from Spain to France till Friday lunch time. So, to Barcelona, where after three discussions with the ticket sellers, three times in the queue and a couple of phone conferences with Bruce we were sorted and off to explore the City.
Barcelona is amazing! What a vibrant, energising City! Wide tree lined streets with totally specific cycle lanes and bikes you can buy an annual pass to use! Once again plane trees march architecturally down the streets, but being interspersed with palm trees moves the image from the European cliché, to a much more southern Mediterranean look. Once again it’s a city with history but a city of fascinating shapes and colours. The city was originally laid out thoughtfully and then modernised completely with the refurbishment for the 1992 Olympic Games. 100,000 volunteers gave time and labour in the lead up to the Games; no wonder the City hums with a sense of pride and worth! Apparently one of the biggest challenges now is how to deal with the huge numbers of tourists and visitors attracted here, while still keeping Barcelona a comfortable and pleasant home and workplace for its own residents.
With just a few hours here we opted for a bus tour through the City. Fantastic seats on the open top deck gave us great views and the commentary was fantastic so we managed to cram in many of the sights plus lunch of filled and folded flatbreads cooked on a huge hotplate (four cheese filling for Fred, mozarella and spinach for me) before our time ran out. By this stage one of Fred’s sandals had fallen apart and my need for a haircut was becoming pressing so with a detour through a monster department store we sorted both problems and were back on the train for Rupia (or Flaca actually – the little station nearest to Rupia).
Our timing was ideal with just time to freshen up before heading into the village with our plates, cutlery, glasses and pot luck dish for the celebrations. What a buzz! Every local, man, woman and child was there, plus most of the weekenders who had come up to Rupia for the weekend (tomorrow is a holiday and most people have taken Friday off to make a long weekend). Crackers - mostly bangers, including very big bangers which are now unavailable in NZ- were going off intermittently, most of them let off by the children. The biggest impact ones were let off resoundlingly in the stone “tunnel” made by an arch about 25 feet long over the lane! If you ever come to Spain Dan I really think you should aim to be here 23rd June!
As darkness fell the “pretty” fireworks came out and the littlies had fun with sparklers. As with any pot luck meal there was an amazing variety of dishes and so we were very fortunate to have an opportunity to sample all sorts of wonderful dishes and the coca was yummy and the Cava supreme!
Then the music started and soon everyone was up dancing. No one went home. Parents danced and socialised with babies in front packs, preschoolers were tucked up on the warm stone benches as they fell asleep, the junior school girls danced and cartwheeled on the cobblestones while the bigger girls teased the boys who then terrorised them with crackers.
Dew or no dew, we were home well before dawn though we did need to shut all doors, windows and shutters to keep out the noise of explosions! Gemma and David enjoyed the company and fun considerably longer, leaving at dawn as others were doing a Trinny and Susannah on the barman.
June 22 Tuesday Spain here we come
Was it the soothing effect of the lavender that made us sleep like the dead last night? Very good anyway and so we were well refreshed to pack up for the next leg of our adventure, 3 nights in Spain with Gemma and David who had boarded in Nelson with Dan and Andrea for several months in 2008 when they were at NMIT improving their English. Once again we minimised our bits and pieces to a little backpack each and left everything else with Bruce and Diana and the car so that we could travel lightly on the train.
Over to Tarascon, a town of 11,000 on the Rhone. It’s symbol is the Tarascon – ½ fish, ½ animal monster - which apparently terrorised the villagers for years until Saint Martha befriended and tamed it at which stage the villagers promptly killed it anyway! To this day they hold an annual celebration in its honour!!! Very weird.
Anyway; our train duly left from here at 12.45 and we headed South on our best French train to date. 20 minutes to Nimes, 40 to Montpellier, traditional plaster and tile houses, ochre and terracotta colours as the land flattened out in the Languedoc/Rouissillon district. Here vineyards stretched for acres and acres, sheltered by windbreaks of cypress, occasionally interspersed with stone fruit groves, artichoke gardens, kiwifruit and many wind farms. Narbonne, Beziers; on we raced through land which provides the season's earliest French apricots and cherries plus ½ of France’s table wine, though apparently changes are happening here in the wine industry as they move away from the couple of varieties traditionally grown, to a greater variety of more aromatic style wines.
On we went toward the Coast - much of the coastal land here has been developed from mosquito infested marshland to productive land with beautiful family friendly seaside resorts. Here on the Coast, are huge salt farms. Then suddenly train tunnels heralded the approach of the foothills of the Pyrenees and the proximity of the French/Spanish border.
Crossing the border here required a passport check by French police in Cebere, then a check by Spanish police in Portbou, plus an adjustment to the train wheel gauges as the Spanish train tracks have a wider gauge than those in France.
With glimpses of the rocky coast of the Costa Brava we raced on through tiny villages and little towns to our destination, Girona; the nearest centre to Gemma and Davids that we could leave this train.
And there they were to meet us, 8.15 as planned. Looking great; exactly as we remembered them from NZ and so welcoming! Both of them speak such excellent English now but I guess for us the biggest change was with Gemma's English which now is so fluently conversational! Both of them still so full of life and fun, so you can imagine what a cacophony it was driving the 20 minutes to their new home town of Rupia!
Since Christmas Gemma and David have opted for the rural life. David has had a change of genre with his reporting and is very busy with that, plus overseeing a team, but able to do so from home which he finds just great. Meantime Gemma commutes daily by train into Barcleona for her work - two and a half hours each way, but managing that OK. They've let their Barcelona apartment and rent a three bedroom, 2 bathroom, three level apartment in Rupia (an old but beautifully refurbished home). The living, dining and kitchen take up the first floor and all open out on to terraces with wisteria and other climbers tumbling over the pergolas to provide much needed shade and temperature control.Gemma is really enjoying having pots brimming with geraniums, cactus, herbs and flowers here, while in the courtyard on ground level she's created a raised vege garden with some great veges coming into production.
Rupia is a tiny medieval town with ancient stone buildings crowding in on narrow cobbled streets and lanes. It boasts a bar which opens on to the square, a bakery churning out delicious breads and pastries all cooked in a wood fired oven, plus a butchery which has existed there for generations and concocts the most delicious cured, vaccuum packed meats (my favourite was their pork and mushroom roll and Fred's the cured sirloin!). The village has just 200 permanent residents with over half the properties owned by out of towners as holiday homes (weekend escapes from Barcelona often). The bar is the centre of the community offering appertives from midday till 2.00, then opening again about 4.00 after which locals gather for a chat and a drink. Euro 1.50 for a stubbie of beer and Euro 1.50 for a glass of wine. All residents live within a two minute walk of this Placa/Square.
By the time we'd driven home, popped our gear inside and had a quick tour of the premises, the day was at its best with the scorching heat gone and everyone gathering at the bar for a cold refreshing beer. Fred always love sampling different beers so enjoyed David's choices, while I went with their recommendation of wine which was very yummy.
Eventually a relaxed amble the 100 metres home for David to whip up a scrumptious Catalonian chicken dish brimming with the biggest mushrooms you can imagine! Mushrooms are a prized ingredient in Catalonian cuisine and we were lucky enough to enjoy them several times while here. Dinner was at 10.30, which in summer in Spain is pretty standard and makes bedtime around 1.00 and a siesta a good idea!
Over to Tarascon, a town of 11,000 on the Rhone. It’s symbol is the Tarascon – ½ fish, ½ animal monster - which apparently terrorised the villagers for years until Saint Martha befriended and tamed it at which stage the villagers promptly killed it anyway! To this day they hold an annual celebration in its honour!!! Very weird.
Anyway; our train duly left from here at 12.45 and we headed South on our best French train to date. 20 minutes to Nimes, 40 to Montpellier, traditional plaster and tile houses, ochre and terracotta colours as the land flattened out in the Languedoc/Rouissillon district. Here vineyards stretched for acres and acres, sheltered by windbreaks of cypress, occasionally interspersed with stone fruit groves, artichoke gardens, kiwifruit and many wind farms. Narbonne, Beziers; on we raced through land which provides the season's earliest French apricots and cherries plus ½ of France’s table wine, though apparently changes are happening here in the wine industry as they move away from the couple of varieties traditionally grown, to a greater variety of more aromatic style wines.
On we went toward the Coast - much of the coastal land here has been developed from mosquito infested marshland to productive land with beautiful family friendly seaside resorts. Here on the Coast, are huge salt farms. Then suddenly train tunnels heralded the approach of the foothills of the Pyrenees and the proximity of the French/Spanish border.
Crossing the border here required a passport check by French police in Cebere, then a check by Spanish police in Portbou, plus an adjustment to the train wheel gauges as the Spanish train tracks have a wider gauge than those in France.
With glimpses of the rocky coast of the Costa Brava we raced on through tiny villages and little towns to our destination, Girona; the nearest centre to Gemma and Davids that we could leave this train.
And there they were to meet us, 8.15 as planned. Looking great; exactly as we remembered them from NZ and so welcoming! Both of them speak such excellent English now but I guess for us the biggest change was with Gemma's English which now is so fluently conversational! Both of them still so full of life and fun, so you can imagine what a cacophony it was driving the 20 minutes to their new home town of Rupia!
Since Christmas Gemma and David have opted for the rural life. David has had a change of genre with his reporting and is very busy with that, plus overseeing a team, but able to do so from home which he finds just great. Meantime Gemma commutes daily by train into Barcleona for her work - two and a half hours each way, but managing that OK. They've let their Barcelona apartment and rent a three bedroom, 2 bathroom, three level apartment in Rupia (an old but beautifully refurbished home). The living, dining and kitchen take up the first floor and all open out on to terraces with wisteria and other climbers tumbling over the pergolas to provide much needed shade and temperature control.Gemma is really enjoying having pots brimming with geraniums, cactus, herbs and flowers here, while in the courtyard on ground level she's created a raised vege garden with some great veges coming into production.
Rupia is a tiny medieval town with ancient stone buildings crowding in on narrow cobbled streets and lanes. It boasts a bar which opens on to the square, a bakery churning out delicious breads and pastries all cooked in a wood fired oven, plus a butchery which has existed there for generations and concocts the most delicious cured, vaccuum packed meats (my favourite was their pork and mushroom roll and Fred's the cured sirloin!). The village has just 200 permanent residents with over half the properties owned by out of towners as holiday homes (weekend escapes from Barcelona often). The bar is the centre of the community offering appertives from midday till 2.00, then opening again about 4.00 after which locals gather for a chat and a drink. Euro 1.50 for a stubbie of beer and Euro 1.50 for a glass of wine. All residents live within a two minute walk of this Placa/Square.
By the time we'd driven home, popped our gear inside and had a quick tour of the premises, the day was at its best with the scorching heat gone and everyone gathering at the bar for a cold refreshing beer. Fred always love sampling different beers so enjoyed David's choices, while I went with their recommendation of wine which was very yummy.
Eventually a relaxed amble the 100 metres home for David to whip up a scrumptious Catalonian chicken dish brimming with the biggest mushrooms you can imagine! Mushrooms are a prized ingredient in Catalonian cuisine and we were lucky enough to enjoy them several times while here. Dinner was at 10.30, which in summer in Spain is pretty standard and makes bedtime around 1.00 and a siesta a good idea!
Tuesday. More posts at last!
Sorry it's been such a long time since I put anything on herebut we're finally settled in St Pardoux Riviere and I've caught up with my diary, so here goes!
:-) Olwyn
:-) Olwyn
Thursday, June 24, 2010
AKL Coe's
0640 on Friday 25 June
Bruce & Diana had a very full day yesterday.
We set out to explore the lavender growing areas of Provence. As has already been said the season is late this year but we had our fingers crossed to see more.
We ended up doing 190 km's through the Apt, Sault and Gordes areas including the famous Cistercian Abbey. lovely countryside, windy roads, ultra small villages and plenty of lavender fields but not in full bloom!! Also saw miles and miles of grapes as well as cherries, apples and pears.
Heaps of cyclists around because apparently Mt Ventoux is a cyclists heaven! heaven if you want lots of hills that is!
Trivia: A "group" of old MG's and an Austin Healy, Sat next to a Swiss couple at lunch in Sault who had a little English. They were from Basel and in France for a few days break - 6 hours drive to Provence. Loved there wine. He said that when he was young he had a ticket to come to NZ to emigrate BUT then met his wife so tore up the ticket.
Gretel the GPS was mainly good to us but did end up in one village on a wrong turn that had the wing mirrors almost touching the walls.
Weather was good to us and in fact was up to 35 outside in Gordes as we left there at 1800.
A good day but a bit longer than we thought at 9 hours so had dinner at our place and got ready for our departure today to Narbonne to rejoin Fred and Olwyn. Missed the NZ Paraguay game but saw so much more.
Weather looks like it will be good again today so a last explore of St Remy/Glanum before we leave town.
We have loved our accommodation at Les Sources and special thanks to Allan and Elizabeth Edie for putting us on to it. Avern the manager says that they love NZers and have them coming though all the time. They are full right now including 4 NZ families. Pool still too cold to tempt us yet but it was all so good that we would like to come back.
Au Revoir for today
Bruce & Diana had a very full day yesterday.
We set out to explore the lavender growing areas of Provence. As has already been said the season is late this year but we had our fingers crossed to see more.
We ended up doing 190 km's through the Apt, Sault and Gordes areas including the famous Cistercian Abbey. lovely countryside, windy roads, ultra small villages and plenty of lavender fields but not in full bloom!! Also saw miles and miles of grapes as well as cherries, apples and pears.
Heaps of cyclists around because apparently Mt Ventoux is a cyclists heaven! heaven if you want lots of hills that is!
Trivia: A "group" of old MG's and an Austin Healy, Sat next to a Swiss couple at lunch in Sault who had a little English. They were from Basel and in France for a few days break - 6 hours drive to Provence. Loved there wine. He said that when he was young he had a ticket to come to NZ to emigrate BUT then met his wife so tore up the ticket.
Gretel the GPS was mainly good to us but did end up in one village on a wrong turn that had the wing mirrors almost touching the walls.
Weather was good to us and in fact was up to 35 outside in Gordes as we left there at 1800.
A good day but a bit longer than we thought at 9 hours so had dinner at our place and got ready for our departure today to Narbonne to rejoin Fred and Olwyn. Missed the NZ Paraguay game but saw so much more.
Weather looks like it will be good again today so a last explore of St Remy/Glanum before we leave town.
We have loved our accommodation at Les Sources and special thanks to Allan and Elizabeth Edie for putting us on to it. Avern the manager says that they love NZers and have them coming though all the time. They are full right now including 4 NZ families. Pool still too cold to tempt us yet but it was all so good that we would like to come back.
Au Revoir for today
AKL Coe's
0900 here in St Remy-de-Provence on Thursday 24 June which is our last day here. Weather is gorgeous and expected to reach 27 or higher. Skies are blue and very little wind after the Mistral of earlier in our week here. A brief note on our day yesterday. 0900 off into town as it was market day. The market took over most of the town and you should have seen the food - cheeses of all kinds, sausages, fish, salami, nougat, nuts and heaps more. Plus the usual lavender thingy's and cloths and knives and bric a brac. it took us 5 hours to get back to our motel but it did include a caffe break and a sandwich lunch break and a visit to the Van Gogh museum as he spent a year here before he died and did 150 paintings here. Fred called during this to say that because of a rail strike they would not get to Narbonne until 2015 on Friday. This meant a cange of schedule so we will stay in narbonne for the night rather than Toulouse
By the time we did the market and sorted out the schedule it was siesta time so into bed.
Got up about 1700 in time for pre- dinner drinks/nibbles and met new neighbours from Browns Bay before going off to dinner at la Cignale? Diana had pork and I had steak/scallops with a half litre of wine. Got home at about 2200 for strawberries and nougat on our terrace. Hit the sack at 2345.
By the time we did the market and sorted out the schedule it was siesta time so into bed.
Got up about 1700 in time for pre- dinner drinks/nibbles and met new neighbours from Browns Bay before going off to dinner at la Cignale? Diana had pork and I had steak/scallops with a half litre of wine. Got home at about 2200 for strawberries and nougat on our terrace. Hit the sack at 2345.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Avignon and Lavendar Farm
North out of town today with Gretel our GPS taking us the most direct route along narrow little back roads past apple and pear orchards, and tunnel houses full of whopping zuchini plants and tomatoes almost ready for their summer crop. Once she linked us back on to a more major route we found each intersection (even if only a T intersection) is managed by a roundabout which is an interesting feature of traffic management in these parts.
A straightforward trip to Avignon and relatively easly into the centre of the the historic city and a carpark building. Our Puegeot 5008 has been a perfect size to comfortably cart us about and discreetly carry our luggage but if you're thiking of hiring a car in Europe I'd definitely suggest the smaller the better as country and inner city roads as well as the carpark buildings are designed for very small cars (and very clever parkers! Well done Bruce and Fred for some awesome efforts!)
Avignon is a very attractive City on the banks of the Rhone (in fact many times in its history it's been under the waters of the Rhone) and for a few hundred years was the seat of the Papacy so has all the fabulous trappings Papal money brings such as magnificent Basilica and Papal palace. Our first visit to a church where someone has been playing the organ - just the organist having a practice but fabulous to listen to!
We decided to take an orientation ride on the little tourist "train" which meanders through the narrow streets with a commentary on points of interest. Well worth it as it gave us a great overview before we split up with two hours to explore. Bruce and Diana took a tour through the Palace while Fred and I went to the Bridge of Avignon with a wonderful audioguide about its history. Even thought they didn't really dance on the bridge,but under the bridge, we still followed the custom and sang Sur le Pont de Avignon (as best we could remember) and danced, though rather briefly as we thought we may be blow away by the Mistral which was still howling today. I've read more about the mistral and the word means "masterly"!
From Avignon we headed to a lavendar farm we'd plotted the GPS for. The 20 kilometres ended up taking us an hour and half after Gretel being very confused helping us exit the City and then being diverted because of an accident on the route we were using. So Mel it sounds like you biking for miles to see lavendar, we drove for miles and when we arrived it was really just a lavendar museum as opposed to lavendar fields! However, there was lots of lavendar growing around the complex, the display of farming the lavendar and distilling the oil was great and the museum of stills etc very interesting and then, of course, was the shop with the products! We asked the young woman where the fields were and she said 40km away in the mountains, very narrow and winding and the lavendar wouldn't be flowering till August this year.
Dinner at home tonight and an early night. Tomorrow fred and I are off to Spain; Gemma and Davi'ds in Catalonia, then day trip to Barcelona Wednesday but back to Catlonia to join the Annual celbration of St John's Day - the big Catalonian celebration.
I'm leaving the netpad with Bruce and Diana so may not add any more posts till we meet up and settle into St Pardoux. Will still clear emails. Take care everyone. Bye for now
A straightforward trip to Avignon and relatively easly into the centre of the the historic city and a carpark building. Our Puegeot 5008 has been a perfect size to comfortably cart us about and discreetly carry our luggage but if you're thiking of hiring a car in Europe I'd definitely suggest the smaller the better as country and inner city roads as well as the carpark buildings are designed for very small cars (and very clever parkers! Well done Bruce and Fred for some awesome efforts!)
Avignon is a very attractive City on the banks of the Rhone (in fact many times in its history it's been under the waters of the Rhone) and for a few hundred years was the seat of the Papacy so has all the fabulous trappings Papal money brings such as magnificent Basilica and Papal palace. Our first visit to a church where someone has been playing the organ - just the organist having a practice but fabulous to listen to!
We decided to take an orientation ride on the little tourist "train" which meanders through the narrow streets with a commentary on points of interest. Well worth it as it gave us a great overview before we split up with two hours to explore. Bruce and Diana took a tour through the Palace while Fred and I went to the Bridge of Avignon with a wonderful audioguide about its history. Even thought they didn't really dance on the bridge,but under the bridge, we still followed the custom and sang Sur le Pont de Avignon (as best we could remember) and danced, though rather briefly as we thought we may be blow away by the Mistral which was still howling today. I've read more about the mistral and the word means "masterly"!
From Avignon we headed to a lavendar farm we'd plotted the GPS for. The 20 kilometres ended up taking us an hour and half after Gretel being very confused helping us exit the City and then being diverted because of an accident on the route we were using. So Mel it sounds like you biking for miles to see lavendar, we drove for miles and when we arrived it was really just a lavendar museum as opposed to lavendar fields! However, there was lots of lavendar growing around the complex, the display of farming the lavendar and distilling the oil was great and the museum of stills etc very interesting and then, of course, was the shop with the products! We asked the young woman where the fields were and she said 40km away in the mountains, very narrow and winding and the lavendar wouldn't be flowering till August this year.
Dinner at home tonight and an early night. Tomorrow fred and I are off to Spain; Gemma and Davi'ds in Catalonia, then day trip to Barcelona Wednesday but back to Catlonia to join the Annual celbration of St John's Day - the big Catalonian celebration.
I'm leaving the netpad with Bruce and Diana so may not add any more posts till we meet up and settle into St Pardoux. Will still clear emails. Take care everyone. Bye for now
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Look in older posts
Well I'm not having a lot of success adding pics here and seem to have to add each one as a separate post, so I'm going to give up as it makestoo many entires. If you've lost the diary entries you'll need to go back to "older post"
Chrz everyone. Mistral howling again today but we're off to Avignon anda lavendar farm as well!!
Chrz everyone. Mistral howling again today but we're off to Avignon anda lavendar farm as well!!
June 15-16 Sat, Sun. St Remy de Provence, Carmague,
The town of St Remy-de-Provence, mid way between Arle and Avignon, is a wonderfully central location from which to explore Provence and the South of France. It's also a town fiercely proud and protective of its Provencal way of life, to the extent of refusing to let any chain store or franchise set up in town, so that all accomodation, dining etc is authentically local! Great move!
We also had St Remy highly recommended as our Provence base because of the great accomodation here at Les Sources owned by Avern and Jeanclaire. Smart, standalone, self contained units with fresh and modern French inspired decor nestle comfortably into manicured leafy grounds. They're well laid out and equipped and our hosts have been very helpful - even washing and drying the mountain of laundry we'd acculmulated over the last week.
Saturday was a "housekeeping" day. Checking and dealing with emails, (great wifi connection here!) bank balances and blog entries, before taking a walk into St Remy to orientate ourselves and check out the supermarket. The town was buzzing with Saturday morning activity - wonderful pastisserries filling the streets with irresistably delicious smells, vege shops brimming with fresh produce from tomatoes, courgettes, peppers, lettuces, radishes etc to fresh dates, figs, cherries and strawberries. The butcher shops are fascinating to visit with fresh slabs and cuts, a fascinating array of value added products from stuffed fresh rabbit, bacon wrapped quail, to iffy looking sausages, while their ready to eat products such as hams, proscuittos, roast pork and even potato and cous cous salads sit right alongside the fresh products. A wedding ceremony was just completing as we walked past the church and it seems that part of the tradition is to load the bridal party into the cars after the ceremony and wend through the crowded streets with horns blasting!
We took on the task of providing for lunch, so went with the French bread stick, cheese and salami idea. Two different bread sticks and then a big mission at the deli with a totally French speaking deli assistant who tried to "explain" the various bries, blues and goudas we asked about. She was so wonderfully happy to try to help and we were very happy with our purchases on consumption!
After lunch Fred and I drove through to Varascon, the nearest train station, to book our seats to Spain. We had the dates and destination written down and the French phrase book at the ready, but the young woman here was very helpful with enough English to make things work, so the job was done very easily. We'd got familiar with a few Italian words and phrases to help us get by in Italy, but of course now we're doing a crash course on trying to get the odd French word or two to roll easily off the tongue (none too easily yet, though I'm good at "bonjour" and "merci" and even "merci beaucoup" and today threw in the occasional "voila".
We decided a BBQ at home would be nice, so off to the Supermarket again for ratatouille veges and NZ lamb chops which were by far the best value meat buy!! Avern's BBQ was a bit of a dead loss, but we got there in the end and it was nice to just be relaxed at home making plans for the next day. The wine selection here is amazing and the prices just riciculously cheap! So many Roses here and we've had a couple of beautiful Cabernet Sauvignons as well as a Voignier which was similar to what we're used to and much enjoyed, a light delicate Sauvignan Blanc and even a ver scrumptious dessert wine.
Today Sunday saw us on the go early heading for Arles in a howling Mistral. This cold, furious wind (named after the poet Frederic Mistral who wrote in the native Provencal Language and won a Nobel Prize) howls across the flat countryside lashing crops of wheat, sunflowers and more, and leaving even the trademark avenues of big old Plane Trees with a windswept lean.
Arles is a really great place to visit. As soon as you arrive, the huge amount of Roman history here is apparent and yet, in comparison to trying to take in history in Rome, the compact scale, great preservation and excellent services for visitors here in Arles (everything from clear road signs to great restoration projects, tourist information and packages) seems to make it so much easier to deal with.We really enjoyed our visit to the partially restored Amphitheatre where, to this day, they hold bull events (not fight to the death). The Roman Theatre is wonderful and once again,currently used for shows! There are also Roman baths and the inspiring St Triophimes Cloister of Arles.
After lunch we headed further South across the delta formed by the mouth of the big, wide Rhone River to Carmague. This is vastly different countryside; still flat, but now often marshy (sometimes rice growing) with a Spanish influence; white horses, cowboys, bull events and a haven for a huge variety of seabisrds including flamingo who winter over here. If we'd stayed till 4.30 we could have watched a bull "fight" but our next destination called.
Drivng North again we entered limestone country with massive outcrops and cliffs towering above plunging valleys. Last on our visit list was Les Baux-de-Provence a tiny perched village centred around the Chateau de Baux thought to date from around the 10th Century. The village is very quaint with delightful shops plus a couple of churches. The smaller church has really lovely painted murals depicting Provencal shepherds looking after their sheep then involved in the Christmas story. But the big ticket item is the Chateau. Once you've paid the eight Euro entrance there is a free audio guide explaining the excellent displays and a fantastic video flying over the towns and countryside of Provence. Views from high up in the chateau are awesome over the valleys below and the breathtaking olive groves, vineyards and orchards. Olive growing in this region is very highly regarded and while France cannot compete with the quantity produced by big olive oil producing countries they work very hard on making a niche in the market with quality.
If anything, the wind velocity increased while we were here making our walk high up in the ruins of the Chateau even more overwhelming by roaring around and beating on the rocks and crumbling walls.
To top the lot, as we drove home we say flamingoes! So what a day of amazing variety which I guess must sum up this extraordinary place.
We also had St Remy highly recommended as our Provence base because of the great accomodation here at Les Sources owned by Avern and Jeanclaire. Smart, standalone, self contained units with fresh and modern French inspired decor nestle comfortably into manicured leafy grounds. They're well laid out and equipped and our hosts have been very helpful - even washing and drying the mountain of laundry we'd acculmulated over the last week.
Saturday was a "housekeeping" day. Checking and dealing with emails, (great wifi connection here!) bank balances and blog entries, before taking a walk into St Remy to orientate ourselves and check out the supermarket. The town was buzzing with Saturday morning activity - wonderful pastisserries filling the streets with irresistably delicious smells, vege shops brimming with fresh produce from tomatoes, courgettes, peppers, lettuces, radishes etc to fresh dates, figs, cherries and strawberries. The butcher shops are fascinating to visit with fresh slabs and cuts, a fascinating array of value added products from stuffed fresh rabbit, bacon wrapped quail, to iffy looking sausages, while their ready to eat products such as hams, proscuittos, roast pork and even potato and cous cous salads sit right alongside the fresh products. A wedding ceremony was just completing as we walked past the church and it seems that part of the tradition is to load the bridal party into the cars after the ceremony and wend through the crowded streets with horns blasting!
We took on the task of providing for lunch, so went with the French bread stick, cheese and salami idea. Two different bread sticks and then a big mission at the deli with a totally French speaking deli assistant who tried to "explain" the various bries, blues and goudas we asked about. She was so wonderfully happy to try to help and we were very happy with our purchases on consumption!
After lunch Fred and I drove through to Varascon, the nearest train station, to book our seats to Spain. We had the dates and destination written down and the French phrase book at the ready, but the young woman here was very helpful with enough English to make things work, so the job was done very easily. We'd got familiar with a few Italian words and phrases to help us get by in Italy, but of course now we're doing a crash course on trying to get the odd French word or two to roll easily off the tongue (none too easily yet, though I'm good at "bonjour" and "merci" and even "merci beaucoup" and today threw in the occasional "voila".
We decided a BBQ at home would be nice, so off to the Supermarket again for ratatouille veges and NZ lamb chops which were by far the best value meat buy!! Avern's BBQ was a bit of a dead loss, but we got there in the end and it was nice to just be relaxed at home making plans for the next day. The wine selection here is amazing and the prices just riciculously cheap! So many Roses here and we've had a couple of beautiful Cabernet Sauvignons as well as a Voignier which was similar to what we're used to and much enjoyed, a light delicate Sauvignan Blanc and even a ver scrumptious dessert wine.
Today Sunday saw us on the go early heading for Arles in a howling Mistral. This cold, furious wind (named after the poet Frederic Mistral who wrote in the native Provencal Language and won a Nobel Prize) howls across the flat countryside lashing crops of wheat, sunflowers and more, and leaving even the trademark avenues of big old Plane Trees with a windswept lean.
Arles is a really great place to visit. As soon as you arrive, the huge amount of Roman history here is apparent and yet, in comparison to trying to take in history in Rome, the compact scale, great preservation and excellent services for visitors here in Arles (everything from clear road signs to great restoration projects, tourist information and packages) seems to make it so much easier to deal with.We really enjoyed our visit to the partially restored Amphitheatre where, to this day, they hold bull events (not fight to the death). The Roman Theatre is wonderful and once again,currently used for shows! There are also Roman baths and the inspiring St Triophimes Cloister of Arles.
After lunch we headed further South across the delta formed by the mouth of the big, wide Rhone River to Carmague. This is vastly different countryside; still flat, but now often marshy (sometimes rice growing) with a Spanish influence; white horses, cowboys, bull events and a haven for a huge variety of seabisrds including flamingo who winter over here. If we'd stayed till 4.30 we could have watched a bull "fight" but our next destination called.
Drivng North again we entered limestone country with massive outcrops and cliffs towering above plunging valleys. Last on our visit list was Les Baux-de-Provence a tiny perched village centred around the Chateau de Baux thought to date from around the 10th Century. The village is very quaint with delightful shops plus a couple of churches. The smaller church has really lovely painted murals depicting Provencal shepherds looking after their sheep then involved in the Christmas story. But the big ticket item is the Chateau. Once you've paid the eight Euro entrance there is a free audio guide explaining the excellent displays and a fantastic video flying over the towns and countryside of Provence. Views from high up in the chateau are awesome over the valleys below and the breathtaking olive groves, vineyards and orchards. Olive growing in this region is very highly regarded and while France cannot compete with the quantity produced by big olive oil producing countries they work very hard on making a niche in the market with quality.
If anything, the wind velocity increased while we were here making our walk high up in the ruins of the Chateau even more overwhelming by roaring around and beating on the rocks and crumbling walls.
To top the lot, as we drove home we say flamingoes! So what a day of amazing variety which I guess must sum up this extraordinary place.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
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Friday, June 18, 2010
Friday June 18th. Cote'd'Azure to St Remy de Provence
Yeehah!!!!!! Friday 18th June now, good internet connection again so I've just posted all the diary entries I've compiled since last posting!!(Will that keep Mum happy Pauline? :-)
We woke to brilliant blue skies above and an equally brilliant blue Medditterranean Sea and after quickly departing from our rather average hotel popped in to the nearby Supermarket to select goodies for breakfast - our first purchase of the real French croissants and pastries. I'd loved the italian vesion well enough, but try adding a heap more butter and a much greater melt in the mouth texture and Mmmmmm!Especially when eaten on the beachfront in Menton, a gorgeous strip of coast crowded against the sea by towering cliffs and rocky outcrops. The gateway to the French Riviera/ the Cote d'Azure.
The next resort we'd come to would be Monte Carlo/ Monaco the world's leisure capital with skyscrapers, glamorous hotels, apartments and the famed Casino - home to the highest proportion of wealthy residents anywhere in the world. Driving options through here are any of three Corniches / the three Coastal Routes; seafront, middle or high on the motorway. With a long day's travel ahead we chose the middle route which avoided waterfront congestion but still afforded wonderful views down to the Coastal resorts and sparkling sea. We marvelled at the tiny perched village of Eze set in the Jardin Exotique and looked down on the deep water Port of Ville Franche-Sur-Mer before heading down into the big bustling City of Nice beach and on then to the home of festivals, Cannes. Here we found ourselves a park on the waterfront (no mean feat!) and enjoyed our picnic lunch.
From here the bay curves back a half circle to give the most wonderful views back along the the Coast and its seaside resorts before you negotiate the point and suddenly the red rocks and soil of the Massif de la Esteral are crowding in down to the sea again giving spectacular vistas with bold reds and blues of land and sea.
On reaching St Raphael we turned inland, took the A80 and headed at high speed across this rural stretch of Provence till we reached our destination of St Remy de Provence.
Here we have a very pleasant stand alone, self contained unit,in a small "motel" complex set in delightful grounds. Have stocked up with goodies from the nearby supermarket and will be very happy to settle in here for 4 nights and explore the surrounding area - lavendar, lemons, Van Gogh .....
We woke to brilliant blue skies above and an equally brilliant blue Medditterranean Sea and after quickly departing from our rather average hotel popped in to the nearby Supermarket to select goodies for breakfast - our first purchase of the real French croissants and pastries. I'd loved the italian vesion well enough, but try adding a heap more butter and a much greater melt in the mouth texture and Mmmmmm!Especially when eaten on the beachfront in Menton, a gorgeous strip of coast crowded against the sea by towering cliffs and rocky outcrops. The gateway to the French Riviera/ the Cote d'Azure.
The next resort we'd come to would be Monte Carlo/ Monaco the world's leisure capital with skyscrapers, glamorous hotels, apartments and the famed Casino - home to the highest proportion of wealthy residents anywhere in the world. Driving options through here are any of three Corniches / the three Coastal Routes; seafront, middle or high on the motorway. With a long day's travel ahead we chose the middle route which avoided waterfront congestion but still afforded wonderful views down to the Coastal resorts and sparkling sea. We marvelled at the tiny perched village of Eze set in the Jardin Exotique and looked down on the deep water Port of Ville Franche-Sur-Mer before heading down into the big bustling City of Nice beach and on then to the home of festivals, Cannes. Here we found ourselves a park on the waterfront (no mean feat!) and enjoyed our picnic lunch.
From here the bay curves back a half circle to give the most wonderful views back along the the Coast and its seaside resorts before you negotiate the point and suddenly the red rocks and soil of the Massif de la Esteral are crowding in down to the sea again giving spectacular vistas with bold reds and blues of land and sea.
On reaching St Raphael we turned inland, took the A80 and headed at high speed across this rural stretch of Provence till we reached our destination of St Remy de Provence.
Here we have a very pleasant stand alone, self contained unit,in a small "motel" complex set in delightful grounds. Have stocked up with goodies from the nearby supermarket and will be very happy to settle in here for 4 nights and explore the surrounding area - lavendar, lemons, Van Gogh .....
June 16th St Margherita via Italian Riviera to Menton France
Ciao Italia; Bonjour France!
Fred drove the 3 hour trip today, with the first 2/3rds on the autostrada. He did a great job, staying on the right all the time, managing to cleanly pass about 60 huge trucks and to keep up with the traffic (apart from two Maserati’s, a Ferrari and a Bentley). What an amazing feat of engineering and traffic movement this road is! Through such unforgiving rugged terrain two or three lanes in each direction just sweep along, through tunnels and over viaducts following the coastline of the Italian Riviera but staying well above the roads leading in and out of the thronging tourist meccas we were reaching.
At San Remo we decided we’d like some lunch and also to be down nearer the sea enjoying the views, so we left the autostrada and joined the Coastal route. San Remo had Fred gaping at the beach activity and the opulent super yachts. The sun came out and the Mediterranean began showing off her renowned azure blue but still with huge cumulus clouds tumbling about above.
By 3.30 we’d reached our next Hotel at Menton and so the afternoon has been very leisurely with a late afternoon walk along the promenade enjoying the expanse of beach and ocean, the huge stretch of hotels and apartments along the waterfront with backdrop of the gnarly Massif behind.
A big travel day through the Cote d’Azure and more tomorrow so a quiet night tonight.
Fred drove the 3 hour trip today, with the first 2/3rds on the autostrada. He did a great job, staying on the right all the time, managing to cleanly pass about 60 huge trucks and to keep up with the traffic (apart from two Maserati’s, a Ferrari and a Bentley). What an amazing feat of engineering and traffic movement this road is! Through such unforgiving rugged terrain two or three lanes in each direction just sweep along, through tunnels and over viaducts following the coastline of the Italian Riviera but staying well above the roads leading in and out of the thronging tourist meccas we were reaching.
At San Remo we decided we’d like some lunch and also to be down nearer the sea enjoying the views, so we left the autostrada and joined the Coastal route. San Remo had Fred gaping at the beach activity and the opulent super yachts. The sun came out and the Mediterranean began showing off her renowned azure blue but still with huge cumulus clouds tumbling about above.
By 3.30 we’d reached our next Hotel at Menton and so the afternoon has been very leisurely with a late afternoon walk along the promenade enjoying the expanse of beach and ocean, the huge stretch of hotels and apartments along the waterfront with backdrop of the gnarly Massif behind.
A big travel day through the Cote d’Azure and more tomorrow so a quiet night tonight.
June 14-15 TuesWed Santa Margherita & Cinque Terre
Goodbye Venice; we could easily have used another couple of days here, but feel so lucky to have seen as much as we have. Now on the train from Venice via Milan to Santa Margherita at the North of the Cinque Terre.
No sooner had we left Venice than the rain started, but no worries as we flew along the tracks at 300 miles an hour - so fast that often it's impossible to focus on the countryside you're passing through, though each time I did look up from the computer which I was able to plug in and use, most of what I saw were acres and acres of corn fields which we decided were to feed the cattle kept in feed lots.
Milan is a very big bustling railway station but we found the train systems (apart from the weird seat numbering sysyem which sees consecutive seat numbers sitting in different rows!) and stations very straightforward to use and soon we were on the Regional train wending our way South through Genoa. This was our fist experience of a compartment of six (thought of you travelling Rail Italia with your bikes Link and Mel!) and the company was mixed; a delightful and very interesting Hong Kong Chinese couple doing a spur of the moment trip and an Aussie couple in the middle of an extended trip. Since leaving Tuscany and being in more tourist locations we've heard a lot more English speaking tourists and met several Aussie and Kiwi travellers.
Santa Margherita, (near Portofino) with population 10,000 (swelling to 100,000 in peak season ) is a coastal holiday haven with many villas owned and used only occasionally by their wealthy Italians owners. Bruce and Diana kindly met us at the station and walked with us to the little hotel we were all booked in. Here we were enthusiastically welcomed and shown our pleasant room by our host Guisseppe and his adult daughter Christina and son Jeanclaire.
There was plenty of time before dinner to quickly explore this very pretty town of stucco villas and apartment with terracotta tile rooves and all painted in corn and brick colours with green accents - some even boasting paint jobs done to resemble ornate Greco/Roman detail!
For dinner we sat outside at a little retaurant which offered a lot of fish dishes. I still had a picture of those clams from Venice in my head so had Spaghetti Vongolese (had to do it Lincoln and while this was delicious I have to say yours stacks up very well in comparison!) while the others had various other fish meals.
Wednesday was the day we had available to take in the delights of the Cinque Terre which is a National Park along the rugged coast South of here, with a walk along the cliff faces between 5 tiny villages which have clung for centuries to their rocky promontories. This is a World Heritage site and only relatively recently has the infrastructure been set up to enable tourists to visit and take in the spectacular scenery and appreciate the valour and tenacity of the locals who have built these villages, catching fish from along this wild stretch of Meditteranean sea and growing grapes and veges on the terraced gardens and vineyards they've hewn out of the steep hillsides.
Our hotel tarriff included a breakfast which is unlikely to be surpassed anywhere we go! Unlimited servings of yoghurt, tea, coffee or hot chocolate, croissants (brioche here), chunky bread, packets of toast, and spreads, plus slabs of cheese or a boiled egg! All the while we were hovered over by Guiseppe to ensure everything was to our liking.
So, we were well fortified when we set off(in teaming rain!) on the train for the Cinque Terre. The combination of schedules for the two train services running through the area is a real mind bender but we managed to get ourselve safely to the park and then on to the next train to ride through to the last village, Riomaggiore. With only one day to make the most of the area we'd decided to start from the far end then work our way back by foot or train spending as much time as we wished (or could afford) at any of the villages.
Riomaggiore is a tiny fishing village with a cluster of old brick or stone and plaster homes perched precariously on the cliff face above the sea. The homes are linked by the narrowest of streets which often are just very steep steps with the tiniest of treads and no handrail. Most homes then have their own narrow access of more steps! By this time the rain had cleared but the exploration was treacherous; amazing to think that so many of the inhabitants here are very elderly! We were fascinated by this amazing place and the people who live here. We explored it thoroughly, from the tiny Marina, up past the cottages, through the town and to the terraces of vineyards, citrus and fruit trees and gardens before setting off along the cliffside path to the next village Manarola.
This famous part of the walk is known as the Dell d'Armour, The Walk of Love and is breathtakingly beautiful with stunning views to the sea below as well as along the Coast and close ups of the amazing variety of hardy, colourful vegetation which survives here - from all sorts of cool cactus about to burst into flower to fragrant herbs and dainty flowers. We were intrigued by the collections of padlocks locked to seats and protection netting everywhere and eventually realised this it's tradition of commitment on the Dell d'Armour to make this walk with your partner and lock and leave the padlock here on the trail (we hadn't got that worked out early enough to take part, but heaps of others had!)
Manarola is an even tinier village and being right on a promontory and on the sea edge is constantly buffetted by the any wind. Out picture of the Meditterranean had been calm, serene and dreamily blue, but today and in this location we saw a different face; grey and strong - more like on a rocky NZ West Coast. Here again the way of life revolves mainly around fishing and terraced gardens came later.
The next village, Corniglia, on the other hand is up the hillside a little (a little being 323 brick steps......you remember that and the lemoncello don't you Emily and Paddy!) and was originally based around horticulture with the homes and industry gradually creeping down to the sea.
Time was running out and we didn't really do justice at all to the last two villages Vernazza and Monterosso; once again we needed another day, but were thrilled to have seen as much as we did. We have come away with such a respect for the hardy, tenacious, proud people of this region!
When we eventually arrivde back to our hotel Bruce and Diana had spent some time exploring outside the usual tourist areas of Santa Margherita and had lined up a restaurant they though tmight be good for dinner. Great choice! It was superbly authentic Italian food and cooked beautifully. Diana had pasta with smoked salmon and asparagus, Fred had lemon and saffron pasta with shrimps, Bruce had a kebab of scampi and calamari and I chose the fish chowder which was whole steamed mussels and clams in a tasty tomato base - I'm not a huge fan of mussels in NZ dishes but the Meditterranean mussels are half the size of our green lipped mussels and very tender and sweet!
No sooner had we left Venice than the rain started, but no worries as we flew along the tracks at 300 miles an hour - so fast that often it's impossible to focus on the countryside you're passing through, though each time I did look up from the computer which I was able to plug in and use, most of what I saw were acres and acres of corn fields which we decided were to feed the cattle kept in feed lots.
Milan is a very big bustling railway station but we found the train systems (apart from the weird seat numbering sysyem which sees consecutive seat numbers sitting in different rows!) and stations very straightforward to use and soon we were on the Regional train wending our way South through Genoa. This was our fist experience of a compartment of six (thought of you travelling Rail Italia with your bikes Link and Mel!) and the company was mixed; a delightful and very interesting Hong Kong Chinese couple doing a spur of the moment trip and an Aussie couple in the middle of an extended trip. Since leaving Tuscany and being in more tourist locations we've heard a lot more English speaking tourists and met several Aussie and Kiwi travellers.
Santa Margherita, (near Portofino) with population 10,000 (swelling to 100,000 in peak season ) is a coastal holiday haven with many villas owned and used only occasionally by their wealthy Italians owners. Bruce and Diana kindly met us at the station and walked with us to the little hotel we were all booked in. Here we were enthusiastically welcomed and shown our pleasant room by our host Guisseppe and his adult daughter Christina and son Jeanclaire.
There was plenty of time before dinner to quickly explore this very pretty town of stucco villas and apartment with terracotta tile rooves and all painted in corn and brick colours with green accents - some even boasting paint jobs done to resemble ornate Greco/Roman detail!
For dinner we sat outside at a little retaurant which offered a lot of fish dishes. I still had a picture of those clams from Venice in my head so had Spaghetti Vongolese (had to do it Lincoln and while this was delicious I have to say yours stacks up very well in comparison!) while the others had various other fish meals.
Wednesday was the day we had available to take in the delights of the Cinque Terre which is a National Park along the rugged coast South of here, with a walk along the cliff faces between 5 tiny villages which have clung for centuries to their rocky promontories. This is a World Heritage site and only relatively recently has the infrastructure been set up to enable tourists to visit and take in the spectacular scenery and appreciate the valour and tenacity of the locals who have built these villages, catching fish from along this wild stretch of Meditteranean sea and growing grapes and veges on the terraced gardens and vineyards they've hewn out of the steep hillsides.
Our hotel tarriff included a breakfast which is unlikely to be surpassed anywhere we go! Unlimited servings of yoghurt, tea, coffee or hot chocolate, croissants (brioche here), chunky bread, packets of toast, and spreads, plus slabs of cheese or a boiled egg! All the while we were hovered over by Guiseppe to ensure everything was to our liking.
So, we were well fortified when we set off(in teaming rain!) on the train for the Cinque Terre. The combination of schedules for the two train services running through the area is a real mind bender but we managed to get ourselve safely to the park and then on to the next train to ride through to the last village, Riomaggiore. With only one day to make the most of the area we'd decided to start from the far end then work our way back by foot or train spending as much time as we wished (or could afford) at any of the villages.
Riomaggiore is a tiny fishing village with a cluster of old brick or stone and plaster homes perched precariously on the cliff face above the sea. The homes are linked by the narrowest of streets which often are just very steep steps with the tiniest of treads and no handrail. Most homes then have their own narrow access of more steps! By this time the rain had cleared but the exploration was treacherous; amazing to think that so many of the inhabitants here are very elderly! We were fascinated by this amazing place and the people who live here. We explored it thoroughly, from the tiny Marina, up past the cottages, through the town and to the terraces of vineyards, citrus and fruit trees and gardens before setting off along the cliffside path to the next village Manarola.
This famous part of the walk is known as the Dell d'Armour, The Walk of Love and is breathtakingly beautiful with stunning views to the sea below as well as along the Coast and close ups of the amazing variety of hardy, colourful vegetation which survives here - from all sorts of cool cactus about to burst into flower to fragrant herbs and dainty flowers. We were intrigued by the collections of padlocks locked to seats and protection netting everywhere and eventually realised this it's tradition of commitment on the Dell d'Armour to make this walk with your partner and lock and leave the padlock here on the trail (we hadn't got that worked out early enough to take part, but heaps of others had!)
Manarola is an even tinier village and being right on a promontory and on the sea edge is constantly buffetted by the any wind. Out picture of the Meditterranean had been calm, serene and dreamily blue, but today and in this location we saw a different face; grey and strong - more like on a rocky NZ West Coast. Here again the way of life revolves mainly around fishing and terraced gardens came later.
The next village, Corniglia, on the other hand is up the hillside a little (a little being 323 brick steps......you remember that and the lemoncello don't you Emily and Paddy!) and was originally based around horticulture with the homes and industry gradually creeping down to the sea.
Time was running out and we didn't really do justice at all to the last two villages Vernazza and Monterosso; once again we needed another day, but were thrilled to have seen as much as we did. We have come away with such a respect for the hardy, tenacious, proud people of this region!
When we eventually arrivde back to our hotel Bruce and Diana had spent some time exploring outside the usual tourist areas of Santa Margherita and had lined up a restaurant they though tmight be good for dinner. Great choice! It was superbly authentic Italian food and cooked beautifully. Diana had pasta with smoked salmon and asparagus, Fred had lemon and saffron pasta with shrimps, Bruce had a kebab of scampi and calamari and I chose the fish chowder which was whole steamed mussels and clams in a tasty tomato base - I'm not a huge fan of mussels in NZ dishes but the Meditterranean mussels are half the size of our green lipped mussels and very tender and sweet!
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