This rant has us going sub English Channel on the train to Paris, then Bordeaux and on down to the Carmargue on the Mediterranean
Bon jour. How lovely it is to be back in France again. The first thing was to tackle the Chunnel train. It is a little eerie to be 75 meters below sea level in a train, for a relatively long time. One can blow up anywhere in the world, but Joe had a particular slight nervousness about the opportunities to make the headlines for a nutty person to be on this one. Anyway, we arrived safely to the other side, it was a wonderful trip, and with a rather cheeky price tag it needed to be. Travelling along at 250 km, we were flying.
Then Paris. The first encounter was outside the train station, where the sharks generally hover, but we had a plan, but I just out of interest asked a taxi how much it would cost to get to St Germain, and the response nearly blew me over, in fact I had to confirm that he replied 75 Euros. Instead I successfully navigated Uber for only the second time and it only cost 8 Euro, just lucky we are versatile in the style of music we can listen to. After the madness of London, it seemed rather organised and slightly less manic. We feel it seems to be cleaner, and it has so much flair. Our favourite pastime in Paris is to wander through the little tiny streets and watching the Parisians going about their day.
Then Paris. The first encounter was outside the train station, where the sharks generally hover, but we had a plan, but I just out of interest asked a taxi how much it would cost to get to St Germain, and the response nearly blew me over, in fact I had to confirm that he replied 75 Euros. Instead I successfully navigated Uber for only the second time and it only cost 8 Euro, just lucky we are versatile in the style of music we can listen to. After the madness of London, it seemed rather organised and slightly less manic. We feel it seems to be cleaner, and it has so much flair. Our favourite pastime in Paris is to wander through the little tiny streets and watching the Parisians going about their day.
Like the world over, homeless are abound. In France without exception they all seem to have dogs, who thankfully look very well fed, (as I might add do their masters) I don't know if I should be ashamed of this but I don't usually make a habit of handing out, as I think there are many hoodwinkers amongst them I believe. But these two little grannies in their bonnets deserved a little something.
The little fellow on the right is just one of the most beautiful little people we encountered. French "little people watching" is one of my favourite pastimes. |
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We were in Paris for the all important Europe Cup Football. I believe France rather fancied their chances of winning, so the loss that we witnessed had this man on the left completely unconsolable, even his girlfriend couldn't relieve the shuddering of his shoulders afterwards. But I was very happy that I was watching it in St Germain, and not under the Eiffel Tower as the photo on the right, where it had been a fan zone, and the anguish of the French supporters led to mayhem, broken windows and mangled metal fences. It led to a closed Eiffel Tower the next day so that put paid to my much look forwarded trip up the tower.
After lots of walking around Paris soaking in the wonderful sights for 3 days, we tackled the Metro system, which was pretty straight forward, to Charles de Gaulle airport to collect our hire car, which was an abnormally long time to organise, however we couldn't be impatient with an entertaining Iranian Parisian in charge. He would look at Joe as the "professional" was his term, until one of his questions resulted in a blank expression on Joe's face, as I am the travel agent, I have the necessary answers. Finally after much banter, we were in our Renault, and set off to make sense of their spaghetti junctions. First thing was to "ferme la bouche" of the french navigation box in front of us. As a side, the funny thing is that she seemed to have some idea in her head as to where we should be going to, and just yesterday I noticed the poor wee soul is still trying to get us to turn around as we have passed our turn off, hundreds of km away. At least her voice ran out, and I discovered how to get my music to rise above all the indistinguishable nonsense that was coming out. We were caught in traffic jam after another, and finally we made it to La Rochelle, a busy little sea side holiday spot on the Atlantic.
Joe's highlight was Oysters, (they make me almost food poisoning fodder just at the thought
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On the other hand my highlight was the tiny finger nail sized mussels, or moules, they are so sweet, and fun to navigate around.
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But a real highlight of both of us was the wonderful aquarium, the colours and depth, it captivated us both. And of course the backdrop of the towers behind the yachts.
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So on we went from La Rochelle, next stop Arcachon, because from here we were going to climb the biggest sand castle Dune du Pilat. I guess I expected the slushy climb to the top of the 110 meter sand castle to be a bit of a task, and that it certainly was. I have to admit walking through slushy dry sand along the flat is a bit of a work out, but this was like walking to the top of Mt Ruapehu crater lake in thick snow with ski boots on. (Gosh, did I really do that once, carrying my skis??) It is a growing dune, 500 meters from east to west and 2.7 km long north to south, AND GROWING. It has been eating up forest, quite a sight to enjoy, and plenty of room for everyone. Obviously coming down was the best part, now that really was like skiing. It is obviously a good thing they don't so this is very much tongue and cheek, but if they had a chairlift I would go up and up and up again. While we were up the top we learnt more about the mass murder in by the truck in Nice, so again we find ourselves in the general vicinity, this time 800 km away, of a murderous activity. Our good friends in Turkey tell us that they are going to notify NATO as to our whereabouts, but hopefully this is the last time we will be near any trouble.
We have much to see, so we resisted the temptation to stay another night here on the Atlantic as Bordeaux was really the intended destination of this little sojourn, so off we go to the little village of St Emillon, in the heart of the Bordeaux wine growing area, some of the vines grown by the Romans still exist, can you believe that? We stayed in a lovely hotel on the edge of the village so wandering around the tiny streets was a favourite. This is where the snail sceptic in myself discovered Escargot. I am a true convert now. I encouraged Joe to order snails so I could have a ginger try, and WOW, he lost half his entree. It's funny as it is, escargot is a national dish of France, but the French people rarely eat them, so we only find them on the menu in the areas that favour tourists
We have much to see, so we resisted the temptation to stay another night here on the Atlantic as Bordeaux was really the intended destination of this little sojourn, so off we go to the little village of St Emillon, in the heart of the Bordeaux wine growing area, some of the vines grown by the Romans still exist, can you believe that? We stayed in a lovely hotel on the edge of the village so wandering around the tiny streets was a favourite. This is where the snail sceptic in myself discovered Escargot. I am a true convert now. I encouraged Joe to order snails so I could have a ginger try, and WOW, he lost half his entree. It's funny as it is, escargot is a national dish of France, but the French people rarely eat them, so we only find them on the menu in the areas that favour tourists
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I'm obviously a sucker for a horse, and these diesel engines have a huge motor and mushy personalities. They look so happy, waiting for their next shift
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However as solid and big they are and hard they work, the wee fellow behind is working harder than it looks and he is a slight little frame, he works 6 hrs a day, the horse has 3 hours shift. They are less heavy than a tractor, which is favourable for the younger plants
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We set off for a stroll in the countryside, through vines and following directions what were bound to get us lost, and after a while the heat got to us, so after encountering these beautiful working beasts we wandered back to our little village. So time to take to the roads again, around some more roundabouts, they are mad on roundabouts here in France. In fact the roads are designed for safety, and the drivers are very courteous and patient. They are vigilant on the motorways in keeping to the slow lane unless they are passing, and they are also very vigilant in stopping at pedestrian crossings, which is not a common practice in many other European countries. It is simply astounding the labyrinth of tiny roads weaving their way across the countryside, they all have a number, A1 leading up to something like D2002 for example, and the most amazing thing is that our little helper on the navigational phone seems to know them all and apart from the odd exit she omits to tell us about on a roundabout, she seems to get it wrong. I feel a bit guilty on occasion when the operator, that's me, gets it wrong, I blame her. But that isn't often. Though yesterday I couldn't blame it all on her when I found us about 10 minutes out, going in the complete opposite direction. Like in any family vacation I'm sure, it can cause slight marital issues temporarily.
As I said earlier, the French tom-tom has been trying to get us to turn around since we left Paris. She must be quite exhausted and fed up with us
The Dorgogne has been a must return to for us. The scenery everywhere is stunning, the people are lovely and there are lots of sights to see. Farming here is very organised, the countryside is tidy and properly farmed. A lot of wheat, and we are just in time to see the beautiful sunflowers shining out from the fields. We saw some just lately looking droopy and dying, we suspect they are ready for harvest.
The bridges will stay in my mind, with few exceptions they are all picturesque like this one we could enjoy from our hotel room
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Mostly the Dordogne and its friends are very shallow
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Some of the highlights we visited in this region were the Grotto in Domme, with all its stalacnites and stalactites, it was a big grotto going 20 meters down below underneath the little village of Domme. Then there was the grotto of Lascaux, with its prehistoric paintings. The cave was discovered by an eighteen year old boy in 1940, he returned next day with 3 friends, and then they brought back a teacher to look. It was going to be their secret, but obviously it got out. What we saw was actually a replica, 100 percent the same, as with all the people going through the original cave it was being destroyed. What they managed in those prehistoric times was quite mind blowing
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Then there was the truly magnificent La Roque St Christophe where the Neanderthal people lived 50000 BC, and later the Cro-Margnon in 25000 BC, until it was destroyed in religious wars. It occupied 5 terraces, but we could enjoy one of them. We really enjoyed ambling along looking at the ways they managed things way back then. It also provided beautiful views of the Vazere River and nearby paddocks of sunflowers and far away countryside.
Also on the subject of language, at the top of the sand dunes some French people taking photos went "un, deaux, tois, cheese" so I got a chuckle that cheese is fairly international for photos
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Of course there is the hazardous subject of the language barriers. And this becomes particularly hazardous with reading the menu. This day in Montignac, before we visited Lascaux, we thought Tartare de boiuf sounded a safe choice for Joe. Well you can imagine the surprise on his face, and the shock on mine, when this arrived to the table. Now, no mistake, Joe likes his meat rare, but this was taking it to a new level. But actually he enjoyed it more than any meal he has had here before, so a good mistake to make
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And duck is on every single menu, sometimes duck dominates the menu, which isn't such good news for me as I am not a fan
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Then of course there was our other big event where we canoed 28 km down the Dodogne river. It was such fun, the river is unusually shallow, very gentle for a couple of newbies like us, with hordes of families, people with dogs, young and old, all out to have a lovely day of fun on the river. Passing Chateaus, villages, going under 5 glorious bridges. There was of course some dispute over who did the most paddling, when probably the river did most of the work.
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Then there was the day we travelled a long day, relatively speaking, of 3.5 hours, tom tom missed a turn, yes really, so we missed the world heritage village we were to pass by, and then we ended up in a ghastly town, yes, slightly lost again, so this was the only view we got, on the motorway of the worlds tallest and grandest viaduct. I think we will leave that there for now!!
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The French are so funny and relaxed. We made it down to Camargue, the white horse region, a car might just stop in the middle of the road as here, have a chat, the cars held up behind don't seem to make any sort of fuss, they just accept that catching up on a bit of news is an important activity of the day.
Here is our guide with my Heron
Camargue is most known for the placid white horses, and here Joe is sporting a rather fetching sporty bonnet. My horse was called Heron. They were so desperately placid, but in consideration of the non riders they transport, they need to be. Their canter seems to be a bit of a 4 time clomp clomp. We had an opportunity to gallop, a task which was definitely not carried out with enthusiasm, and |
jolly uncomfortable. Our guide was a lovely lady with not a word of English. I do suspect she may have understood a little more than she let on, at the end of the ride, two enormous dogs bounded around the corner, and I said "Oh my, are you dog or horse" and she had a big laugh. The ride took us along the marshlands which we were supposed to see teaming with birdlife. It certainly was teaming with flamingos but that was about all.
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We saw many groups of horses in motion. Here was quite a large group we got close to. We were lucky, as we were only Joe and me.
So that brings the second Wrighteau Rant to a close. We have dodged a bomb in Istanbul, found |
found ourselves 800 km from a mass killing in Nice, and now all the trouble of Turkey is making us so very sad. We return to find out first hand in about the So that brings the second Wrighteau Rant to a close. We have dodged a bomb in Istanbul, found ourselves 800 km from a mass killing in Nice, and now all the trouble of Turkey is making us so very sad. We return to find out first hand in about the situation, but we suspect they might not be so keen to give their true thoughts, there must be a lot of fear and suspicion now.
So until next time when we will be back on Wrighteau, Au Revoir, Bon Journee
So until next time when we will be back on Wrighteau, Au Revoir, Bon Journee
