Well hello again, it is quite some time since I updated my Rant, so here goes. It seems quite a long time ago since we straddled the little white horses and went out to spot pink flamingos. From there we ventured further north into Provence, staying first night in a beautiful little town called Saint Remy de Provence. It was here that we enjoyed the walk of Vincent Van Gogh, which started in the centre of the little town wandering up the slopes, stopping every short while to see another image of a painting he made and a letter home to his parents, and often Theo his brother, and ending in the psychiatric hospital at the top. It was a sad tale really, he suffered much psychiatric instability, the painting must have been a great help.
It was exceedingly hot, but we very much enjoyed our visit to Pont du Gard, it was built in the 1st century AD to take water from a spring in Uzes to Nimes, it is the highest ever Roman aqueduct. The figures are amazing if you would like to Wikapedia it. Surprisingly with so many people out to enjoy this UNESCO treasure, it didm't seem so crowded, and really enjoyable.
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After we left Pont du Gard we had a special hotel to stay at out in the countryside from Uzes, trouble is we went round and round to find it. As we sailed by a sign that looked like the name of our hotel, we took our Navigational guru on the phone to her word, and ended up a little dirt track with nothing resembling a hotel. So we went back to the sign post, and tried their way, this time attacking the possibility of a hotel from the other side. This was getting increasingly annoying, and there didn't even seem to be anyone to ask, when suddenly as we were backing in to turn around, we spotted the little insignificant sign covered in foliage. It was lovely so well worth the effort. From here we visited another suggested hill top village, but we concluded this was a bit of waste of time, the effort of battling with the crowds, we decided to be a bit more cursory in suggestions we take up from now on.
Next Provence stop was Gordes. Another hill top village but we attacked this one in the earliest hours of the day, and it was a very pretty village to enjoy. It is also a village where we struck something of a mini disaster. We had just been to visit the beehive houses, or the little village out of Gordes where Village de Bories showcased about 20 little dry stone huts of the 18th century, including killing houses, cooking house, houses, little sheep yards etc, and in those days they were very small people, for us they required a lot of bending down. Anyway, anxiety hit a great height as we decided to pop back to the place on the edge of Gordes which gave a lovely outlook onto the beautiful village, when our beloved Renault came forth with some extra ordinary noises, and power was diminishing quickly. Fortunately we made it to the viewing park, where we had to organise the rental company to rescue the situation. A nightmare one doesn't want to live, never straight forward. A renault dealer arrived about an hour later with a tow truck, loaded her up and we went back with him to his starting point. Now we thought this might be straight forward, but we waited there for another hour and half, meanwhile they were (with no English amongst any of them, but somehow with google translation and charades we got the gist, they were accusing us of putting petrol in our diesel tank. Well I can tell you that was seriously red rag to two bulls. I chiraded out that we were farmers with a tractor and we know the difference between diesel and petrol. We remember the ma and pa outfit we filled up with in Saint des Maries was filling up its diesel tank while we were there, so unfortunately we obviously got dirty diesel. None of this was their concern, fortunately we had taken full insurance, I urge anyone to do the same, as otherwise we may have had an expensive little bill to pay. Finally we were delivered by taxi to Avignon, where we had had no intention of travelling into, big city, and then it was on knock off time, 4.30pm. The rental company guy made a rather foolish mistake of making the same little suggestion, and not prone to violence, Joe, at the end of his tether bared his fist, and said that anyone else suggesting that might get a bit of this. Well he didn't look that convincing to me, but the rental guy thought so, and quickly set about diffusing the situation. Spirits were struggling, but we managed to get out of town very well, and didn't stop until we reached Sault. I had a hotel lined up for us, but Tom Tom got us to a place 1/2 an hour from the destination, so it was back to the drawing board. We were in the tiniest of villages, and pretty fed up, when we found a dear little insignificant hotel room, with the greatest of delight. And our next car was a brand new Rennault Megane, AND I managed to get her to speak English, so with two navigations working there was to be no more confusion, (or was there?)
Next Provence stop was Gordes. Another hill top village but we attacked this one in the earliest hours of the day, and it was a very pretty village to enjoy. It is also a village where we struck something of a mini disaster. We had just been to visit the beehive houses, or the little village out of Gordes where Village de Bories showcased about 20 little dry stone huts of the 18th century, including killing houses, cooking house, houses, little sheep yards etc, and in those days they were very small people, for us they required a lot of bending down. Anyway, anxiety hit a great height as we decided to pop back to the place on the edge of Gordes which gave a lovely outlook onto the beautiful village, when our beloved Renault came forth with some extra ordinary noises, and power was diminishing quickly. Fortunately we made it to the viewing park, where we had to organise the rental company to rescue the situation. A nightmare one doesn't want to live, never straight forward. A renault dealer arrived about an hour later with a tow truck, loaded her up and we went back with him to his starting point. Now we thought this might be straight forward, but we waited there for another hour and half, meanwhile they were (with no English amongst any of them, but somehow with google translation and charades we got the gist, they were accusing us of putting petrol in our diesel tank. Well I can tell you that was seriously red rag to two bulls. I chiraded out that we were farmers with a tractor and we know the difference between diesel and petrol. We remember the ma and pa outfit we filled up with in Saint des Maries was filling up its diesel tank while we were there, so unfortunately we obviously got dirty diesel. None of this was their concern, fortunately we had taken full insurance, I urge anyone to do the same, as otherwise we may have had an expensive little bill to pay. Finally we were delivered by taxi to Avignon, where we had had no intention of travelling into, big city, and then it was on knock off time, 4.30pm. The rental company guy made a rather foolish mistake of making the same little suggestion, and not prone to violence, Joe, at the end of his tether bared his fist, and said that anyone else suggesting that might get a bit of this. Well he didn't look that convincing to me, but the rental guy thought so, and quickly set about diffusing the situation. Spirits were struggling, but we managed to get out of town very well, and didn't stop until we reached Sault. I had a hotel lined up for us, but Tom Tom got us to a place 1/2 an hour from the destination, so it was back to the drawing board. We were in the tiniest of villages, and pretty fed up, when we found a dear little insignificant hotel room, with the greatest of delight. And our next car was a brand new Rennault Megane, AND I managed to get her to speak English, so with two navigations working there was to be no more confusion, (or was there?)
There were hundreds of cyclists imagining the Tour de France climb, very few of them looked comfortable to me, certainly not one of my dreamed endeavours. Apparently this last one, it was too windy to get right to the top, that would have been a disappointment.
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The sounding area of Sault are known particularly for two things, the lavender fields, which last time we were here in 2000 had all been harvested, so with many fields not harvested it was a visual joy, and secondly cycling, especially up Mont Ventoux, which is part of the Tour de France.
There was a mayhem of bicycles and exhausted and delighted faces at the top, with a long stall of sweets to give them all their sugar fix.
Another thing we did was against the odds find the beautiful hill top restaurant called Les Lavenders, where we had lunch 16 years ago on a tree filled terrace, and a beautiful fountain where 4 horses stopped by for a drink, in the tiniest village called Monieux |
It was time to move on from Sault and Provence, next stop Chamonix, and the big mountainous region with Mont Blanc towering above. We decided to take the quickest route, toll roads. But we hadn't thought this through, it seemed to be the first day of the French holidays, and the roads were clogged up, and to add to this, there was an accident on the motorway. Our rennault navigation said it could take us an alternative route, which at one turn we were convinced would take us into someones back yard, and on from that not much more convincing, but we ended up back across the other side of the motorway, in another tangent, but we did see a huge back log on the motorway, so she did a good job, sort of. We made it to Chamonix, and unfortunately our two days there were a little closed in, we didn't see the top of Mont Blanc and there was no need to take the chair lift and lift to the top, but we had seen it before, so we just imagined. Chamonix has a very Swiss flavour about it, and the first evening there was a music festival and it was frighteningly as busy as Prague, but that died down. Nearly every second person, or 8 out of 10 people,were wearing hiking boots and hiking sticks. Of course I could have donned them to look hikey too. But in all honesty, I would really love to return here, I'm not very good at going up big hills, but the lift takes many up, and then it's all a beautiful down hill. It's back on my bucket list.
We had one more stop, this was Chalons en Champagne, where was one of our camping sites in 2000. Strangely enough we remembered it as a nice small town, but it was the one disappointment of our trip. But this was not a worry, as it was mostly a good place to kick off from to be on the right side of Paris and to get to the airport trouble free, which it turned out to be.
One other thing that happened in Chalons en Champagne, we dined at a restaurant where there were 3 people on the table next to us, one of them diagonally opposite me gave me the most evil stare down I can remember receiving. I held his gaze for as long as I could, then I gave up for a wee while, but I was feeling most uncomfortable and in a completely hostile space. I decided to throw in the New Zealand line. We no French, and they no English, I planted a beamy smile over my face bravely and announced and pointed to myself saying, "We Nuveau Zelande, New Zealand" The transformation in demeanour was unbelievable. Suddenly the whole table was falling over us. That was the most obvious example we have experienced of the favour NZ over perhaps Britain, I guess especially after Brexit
So that was the end of France, one stop to go, Prague for 3 days. Joe thinks he has worked out where all the people are going who are too frightened to travel through France and Turkey because of disturbances, they are ALL in Prague. It was teaming with people, and unfortunately this absolutely ruined our Prague experience. The architecture, for which it is largely known, is definitely beautiful, colourful and beautifully restored, but if you were to trip up, you would become a squashed carpet very quickly. I think this was reflected in many of the people working there alsoThere was a lot more curtness amongst the waiting staff we encountered. As in London we decided there were too many tourist double deckers clogging the streets, in Prague it was the masses of walking tours. On the day we left it happened to rain, so the lead brolly had to be lifted higher to distinguish itself from the rest, dark glasses would have been a must this day, as one would sure to have eyes poked out by a brolly.
Unfortunately there was a strike in France and our flight was cancelled, so instead of flying direct to Prague, so we got a later flight that took us through Warsaw, which was such a quiet airport, it was like a deserted looking outfit.
We were keen to get back to Turkey as the coup had dominated the news while we were away. We just hovered around Marmaris for a few days, it was so hot, nothing was getting done in a hurry. We gathered various perspectives, and I'm not sure if it was because they were frightened, but most seemed happy with the situation now, there was calm and a settled situation. We rather gathered that the alternative would not have been an improvement, and it was most unfortunate that this happened at all. But I better not say any more than that. Suffice it so say, we are finding a lot less boats around, and we feel very sorry for the lovely Turkish people who are driven by tourism, as some countries are suggesting it isn't safe to visit here, and apart from our little near miss at the airport on first arrival in June, we have never felt safer.
We had a lovely Turkish man as a neighbour in the marina, but a problem arose one day when his black tank was overflowing, the stench was ghastly. He did have a conscience, though this didn't help our sinuses at all, but one day after we arrived home from town, and a lovely lunch at Pineapple, and clearly no room for any more, he arrived with this big plate of Turkish morsels, all homemade by somebody and still warm. It was such a nice touch, and it worked, because we could never think badly of him again about his black tank issues
We finally mosied out of the marina and farewelled Marmaris Yacht Marine for probably the last time. We enjoyed a night at Bozukbuku under the castle, then around to Dirsek, where we met up with our English friends, Lyn and Geoff Russel and Casey. And of course their two stowaways, Asenna the white alsation and Vodka the little rat. Asenna jumps in the water at the first opportunity if someone appears to be drowning, and as I would swim back to our boat she would jump in and it was a must to hold onto her tail and let her take you back to the safety of her own boat. Getting back home for me was a lengthy business. And then at Marti, we were parked beside them and they both loved to come across our parsarelle and visit. They are such beautiful dogs.
We finally mosied out of the marina and farewelled Marmaris Yacht Marine for probably the last time. We enjoyed a night at Bozukbuku under the castle, then around to Dirsek, where we met up with our English friends, Lyn and Geoff Russel and Casey. And of course their two stowaways, Asenna the white alsation and Vodka the little rat. Asenna jumps in the water at the first opportunity if someone appears to be drowning, and as I would swim back to our boat she would jump in and it was a must to hold onto her tail and let her take you back to the safety of her own boat. Getting back home for me was a lengthy business. And then at Marti, we were parked beside them and they both loved to come across our parsarelle and visit. They are such beautiful dogs.
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Casey is being homeschooled, which is working very well, they can be flexible with their learning hours, so they put a lot into it in the winter. When they had to go back to England for a couple of weeks Lyn put him into school, which he hated because they were all noisy and didn't want to learn. He was way ahead of them all. So a good story. He writes a very interesting blog, https://adventurerintrainingblog.wordpress.com. Well we had a couple of rather hectic nights with them, then a hectic day with the Dirsek Bay Olympic Games. Sports included the last person to stay on the paddle board, two on top, without human contact, jumping in the water catching a ball at the same time, diving competitions. It was all pretty exhausting, with various levels of success by all participants.
There seems to have been more wind this year, they had been around Greek Islands, and the wind has been relentless, so we think we will stay around here. We had a night at Selimye, and a couple of nights at Marti Marine which we love. So we will now just be milling around for a few weeks until September.
And that brings this last big Rant to an end. The next one will not have so much new news. I hope you managed to wade through this alright.
Until next time, Gorusurus.
There seems to have been more wind this year, they had been around Greek Islands, and the wind has been relentless, so we think we will stay around here. We had a night at Selimye, and a couple of nights at Marti Marine which we love. So we will now just be milling around for a few weeks until September.
And that brings this last big Rant to an end. The next one will not have so much new news. I hope you managed to wade through this alright.
Until next time, Gorusurus.