Have added photos to last two posts

Having now posted all the photos I intend to, the blog is definitely finished - I have spent all day on it!!!

Keep well

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Jog

Typed in Redcliffe on 26 July 2014

Kenny with a German-sized beer

Well we are home and so I have to backtrack to catch you all up on the last week or so of the trip.

When I left off we were about to go celebrate the Helle Nacht festival in Bad Bergzabern

Minstrels wandering to open the festival

.  All the people that stayed in the night before turned out to celebrate White Night (the longest night - the summer solstice).  The weather was not brilliant.  It was drizzling until I walked back to the van to get the umbrellas - after that there was not a drop!!  People everywhere and booze up the ying yang.  We had a glass/stein or two of the local drop.  We were bemused because all the drinks were served in real glass and one could wander throughout the town, glass in hand.  When you returned the glass you got a €2 refund - consequently everyone returned their glasses - great system.  There was street entertainment here and there and a wonderful festive atmosphere.  Those who know me well will be amused to know that we actually watched native dancing as some of the locals got into their traditional dress and performed local folk dances - it is not something that I usually expose myself to for more than ten minutes at a time!  And there were some colourful characters.

Native dancing

Colourful characters of Bad Bergzabern

Having stayed in Bad Bergzabern so that we could participate in the festival, we moved off the next day sorry to see the end of our first small German town.  What do you know - down the road 5kms there is another cute little German town, and 5kms after that and 2kms after that.  This area of the State of Rhineland-Pfalz is very pretty as far as the towns and villages are concerned.  A lot of them are called ‘Bad’ something.  This does not mean that they are awful, but that there is a spa or a spring that the town has been named after - amazing how many ‘Bad’ towns there are when you are looking at an alphabetised list!

Passing through one nice little town after another, we made our way to Karlsruhe and travelled to Neckarsulm where we stayed for the night poised to move on to Sinsheim the next day to revisit the wonderful Auto Technik Museum that we enjoyed so much on our first trip to Germany.  Neckarsulm was quite a big town but we had no interest in exploring it as the weather was not wonderful and the camping park was a ways out of town.  That night we had a big thunderstorm and had to run the heater next morning to dry out our cupboard as the rain had blown in through the heater vent.  Dried out very quickly - love that gas heater - and we were good to go.

Off to Sinsheim where we parked at the Auto Technik Museum (http://www.technik-museum.de) and spent a couple of hours wandering through the exhibitions. 

Concorde and Tupelov at Sinsheim

Replica of the world's first car

Something for the girls at Sinsheim

Check out the web site to get a grasp of the extent of this amazing place, where you can go into a Concorde and also its Russian equivalent, the Tupelov.  Well worth a visit if you are over that way, and its sister museum at Speyer got rave reviews from young Levi who came home with us (more about him later).

Having done our thing at the museum, we then went searching for the Stellplatz for Wohnmobiles in Sinsheim.  This was tricky as there was a great deal of roadwork going on around the museum precinct and it was by a very roundabout way that we eventually found our spot for the night - one of our fellow campers told us that we could have walked to the museum from the stelleplatz!  Well we walked to the shops instead, and actually had some luck in the great hunt for the Mother Of The Bride’s dress - I now have two options at this stage.  Kenny is very pleased as he is a bit over the hunt.  Apart from the shopping success, we quite liked Sinsheim which was a bustling vibrant city with nice treed streets and lots of those wonderful cosmopolitan al fresco wining/dining/coffee venues.

Kenny and half a cheesecake!

From Sinsheim we travelled northeast the next day to Eberbach, a picturesque village (town really) on the banks of the Neckar River.  Whilst the Stellplatz was on the opposite side of the river to the centre of the town, we drove over the bridge and had a stroll through town in a light rain.  We tested the skill of the local pastry cook and enjoyed some local tasty delights.  The servings were so huge we couldn’t eat it all and the price was a fraction of what a smaller serve at home would have cost - tasty and a bargain too!! 

 Because of the weather we didn’t linger in town too long ad retired to the Stellplatz where we stayed for two nights and I caught up with the book-keeping which was well overdue.  This Stellplatz did not have water as advertised, but hey - we had power for 24 hours for €1 and a very quiet neighbourhood

Riverside village near Eberbach

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The loyal wives of Weinsberg

Leaving Eberbach, we meandered beside the river for quite a few miles and spent the next night at Weinsberg.  Our Stellplatz in Weinsberg was across the road from a school and a five minute walk to the centre of town.  This spot had power, water and a toilet dump all for €1 for the 24 hours - not bad.  We checked out the town which was quite nice and in the Office of Tourisme we learnt all about the loyal wives of Wiensberg.  (“When King Conrad III defeated the Duke of Welf (in the year 1140) and placed Weinsberg under siege, the wives of the besieged castle negotiated a surrender which granted them the right to leave with whatever they could carry on their shoulders. The king allowed them that much. Leaving everything else aside, each woman took her own husband on her shoulders and carried him out. When the king's people saw what was happening, many of them said that that was not what had been meant and wanted to put a stop to it. But the king laughed and accepted the women's clever trick. "A king" he said, "should always stand by his word."- Wikipedia)  lots of paintings, statues, etc. commemorating this legend.  Kenny spotted a Chinese restaurant offering a menu de jour all you can eat buffet for €6 so we gave it a try and had a lovely Chinese lunch.  I mention this because we had an interesting experience with a Chinese restaurant in Hungary (they’re everywhere!!) and vowed thereafter “when in Hungary - eat Hungarian!” which has proved to be a good rule.  Weinsberg Chinese was the exception.

A quiet night then off to the town with the fabulous name of Schwäbisch Hall - we really only went there because I liked the name!.  But what a quirk of fate.  Schwäbisch Hall turned out to be an absolutely beautiful town full of 16^th century buildings set in a deep valley bestriding the river.   It is known for its musical productions, and in fact, one was in (public) rehearsal on the steps of the Cathedral whilst we were there.  We sat and watched for a while before strolling through the narrow streets taking in the atmosphere of this gorgeous place.  As Fiona (the van, don’t forget) came down the very steep road into the town I was having a fit because I thought “we will never get back up this hill”, but she took it in her stride and got us up, up and away with no problem. 

Beautiful old buildings in Schwabisch Hall

16th century fountain in Schwabisch Hall

Lovely street in Schwabisch Hall

Old buildings by the bridge in Schwabisch Hall

From Schwäbisch Hall we turned south to Schwäbisch Gmund - again a destination picked because of its name - all of 30-50kms away.  This town did not come close to its similarly named predecessor.  The Stellplatz was large with all facilities, but full and very close to a road used (all day, all night) by heavy, noisy trucks and also close to the railway line.  It was full of motorhomes because, as we discovered from chatting to neighbours, Schwäbisch Gmund was host that weekend to a Blumenfest - a gardening Expo.  We thought that could be interesting until we also discovered that they wanted €16 each to get in - pass Tony, we were not that interested.  Managed to get a good night’s sleep though despite the surrounding noise.  On our way out of town we saw great evidence of the popularity of the Blumenfest as there were people everywhere.  This was not really surprising as Europeans are wonderful gardeners and every home has a great veggie garden and the streets and public spaces are aglow with floral displays - really lovely.

Enclosed mobility scooter - loved it!!!

This was to be our last night on the road as our next and final stop was Filderstadt (to Stuttgart as Redcliffe is to Brisbane).  This is where Manfred and Marianne live.  They are the parents of Bea who was to take over ownership of our van - the (not so) lovely Fiona.  Bea, a friend from home, lives in Australia where she married an Aussie guy - now amicably divorced.  As we approached Filderstadt we realised that we would miss her and the leisurely, stress-free (well almost) wandering of the past four months.  This trip has been the most relaxed of any we have done and we have enjoyed it more than any other I think.’

When we arrived we were made very welcome and next day joined in the Christening celebrations for two of the family’s children - Levi and Leonie.  We walked to the local church (whose bells had already made an impression) and enjoyed the experience of a robust service in German that we didn’t really understand word for word, but got the gist, and listened to the locals sings familiar hymns with foreign words.  Then we all retired to a nearby restaurant where we were treated to a lovely lunch of traditional Schwäbian food of the region.  Lots of sausage, pork and turkey schnitzels, lentils, and spetzle (spelled something like that) (sort of homemade noodles but more like omelette strips rather than pasta) with lots and lots of salad.  Lots of wine was consumed, after which we repaired to Bea’s brother Dominic’s home for more wine and desserts.  We left earlier than most as we are getting old and finding it hard to hack the pace.

Kenny gone native

Over the next few days we cleaned Fiona and handed her over.  Only hiccup was the gas cylinders.  We had a English cylinder that we inherited when we bought the van, and a French gas cylinder - we had to buy it when our English cylinder ran out, because in France you MUST use a French cylinder.  The day after we arrived in Filderstadt our gas ran out and we discovered that the German system was different again!!!  And all the gas plumbing in the van, legal in the UK, was verboten in Germany and had to be redone.  I bit of a nuisance but we got a gas fitter to fix it for us and got a German compliance certificate.  We can’t believe that in an area as small as Europe, that there are so many different systems  - can’t the EU make everything standard across the board?

Anyway Bea and Peter (her boyfriend) were very pleased with their new little touring home, and Bea’s family are all lining up for a turn.  It was lovely to see that they were all so excited about our ugly little Fiona.

So after almost a week in Filderstadt, Bea drove us to Frankfurt to catch our flight and escort her little boy, Levi (8 years old) home to his Dad in Australia.  She and Peter will stay on for a few more weeks.

Levi is a very bright little boy and kept us on our toes for the trip home (we are out of practice at looking after kids for any length of time) but was very good and easy to manage.  The flight, in three stages  - Frankfurt to Dubai, Dubai to Singapore, Singapore to Brisbane was long and boring, but we arrived home in one piece and 5.15am last Sunday morning, handed Levi over to his Dad and caught a taxi home from the airport. 

Our cat was enraptured to see us, although he made it very clear he was unimpressed by our extended absence.

It is lovely to be home where one has guaranteed good internet (good old Telstra), a piping hot shower in a good sized area with a shower rose that has lots of holes in the right places and good pressure, guaranteed toilet seat and paper - aaah the simple pleasures!  Now all we have to do is get over the jet lag.  A week later we still have not gotten our sleeping patterns back to normal and are dropping off at odd hours during the day and waking up at 2am.  Got to get some more sleeping pills!

Well, this is the end of the blog for this trip, and I can’t say that I am sorry.  Mum is going to have to talk real hard to get me to do it on the next trip - whenever that may be.  Thank you to all who have followed us and paid us some lovely compliments on the blog - Kenneth actually read it once and was surprised and impressed, apart from that his main contribution has been to say “have we updated our blog yet?”  Thanks heaps.

As Bugs Bunny says “Duh, That’s All Folks!!!”

Wendy Griggs Over and Out.

Apologies Before Heading Home

I am sorry that I have not updated for so long, and that the post I have just uploaded is so long.  

We have had a terrible time trying to get internet, and when I finally got around to typing the blog there was a lot to catch up on.

We are now in Filderstadt by Stuttgart at Bea's parent's house, and we are working up to the handover.  Haven't got time now to fill in the last bit - will probably do that when we get home.

We are leaving on here on Friday to travel to Frankfurt and catch the plane home.  will get back on Saturday - please don't anyone contact us till Sunday - I don;t think we will be compus mentis for at least 24 hours.

Looking forward to getting hoe.  See you then.

Barcelona to Germany

Typed Thursday 7 July

The last time I sat down at my computer to update the blog was a month ago!!!  I can’t believe it!  I have done a couple of updates on the tablet, but nothing in detail because when we have had good wi-fi (rarely), I have just not been in the mood.  I know it is slack, but I don’t care, I am over blogging and will never do it again. Kenneth has been consistently reminding me that it was my  idea and I do it s well that I had better get to it - thanks heaps, do it yourself.

Anyway, enough repining, lots of catching up to do.  Forgive me if I repeat things I have said in the tablet updates, but I have 28 recordings on the tablet to put down on paper - for you and for my memoirs  (ha ha!).

OK, back to where I left off in Barcelona.

Wendy at La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona

Two nights in Barcelona and camping Tres Estrella.  We have been there before when we were in Spain in 2006, but it was a lot easier to find this time around as there were no roads in progress immediately outside this time.  The camp is near the beach and nicely run, with lots of trees to offset the hot weather.  Unfortunately rained the whole time we were there, and it put a bit of a dampener on our visit to the city.  We got off the bus at the wrong Placa Cataluña instead of Placa España and that also didn’t help with the mindset for the visit.  We managed to get ourselves into the centre of the city where our only real goal was to see inside the new Cathedral, La Sagrada Familia (The Sacred Family) - Gaudi’s masterpiece.  We got into the enormous queue (there were tourists EVERYWHERE - and it is not even the season yet) and inched along for about 15 minutes, and then the officials came along and told us that ticket sales were closing until 5pm (this was at 2ish!).   To say we were peeved is putting it mildly, and we decided that we didn’t need to see it that badly and bugger it all, we would just catch the bus back to camp.  We then had a bit of a stress attack trying to find where to catch our bus (remember we got off at the wrong stop).  By the time we worked out where it was we were well and truly over Barcelona and all we wanted to do was get out.  (I think we get stressed more easily as we get older).   It was a bit of a shame all round really, as where we first got off the bus was a really interesting area, but we were so keen to get into town that we didn’t explore it.  Oh well - next time.

The city has excellent public transport with masses of buses and a very efficient and extensive subway system.

It is an enormous, beautiful city with some awe-inspiring modern, architecturally unique buildings - apart from the Gaudi ones.  It felt that the designers were creating works of art rather than just functional buildings.

Getting trough Barcelona from south to north was surprisingly easy on a very complex set of roads. We were very impressed with the road system and how easily we managed (with lots of help from The Mongrel - not so mongrel this time) to get through it.  As we got to the north side we saw some terrific brown brick buildings built into to the side of the hills and I commented to Kenneth how complimentary they were to their surroundings - it turned out to be the city cemetery!  Biggest one we have ever seen.  It looked for all the world like buildings with lots of little windows, but the windows turned out to be the doors for coffins which are interred sideways into niches in the walls - we saw this again later on our travels and were impressed with the space saving.  Like the wall of a crematorium but coffin sized rather than urn sized.

Having departed Barcelona, we headed north along the coast on the Autopista De Meresme to the seaside resort of Cullera.  It turned out to be attached to Pineda De Mar where we happened upon the Festival of the South (?) in the streets.  We saw a music school show band doing their thing, a wandering kids percussion band and a group of senior cits in traditional dress doing line dancing! (this last was pretty boring) and wandered around the market stalls.

Got there in the morning and wandered about enjoying the festival, till it started to rain.  We wanted to park on the beach but nothing over 2m could access the beach, so we then we spent some time trying to get away from the beach, dodging the microscopic little streets that the GPS wanted us to take.  Finally found a great parking spot in a quiet little area and only a short walk to the festival.  Because of the rain, we decided to have a nap and go back to the festival later.

Line dancing Spanish style

Wendy enjoying the Pineda festival

We went back out at around 4pm and there was no one around.  It was like it was all over.  We just wandered around the streets until about 5pm when, after siesta finished, people appeared from nowhere.  By about 8pm when we decided to go home because I was getting cold, there were people everywhere!  Even festivals stop for siesta!!  It was nice mixing with the locals though and seeing them let themselves have fun.  We had a quiet night in the van - despite the football game at the nearby (heretofore hidden) football stadium.

Headed out next morning for naturist camping Relax Nat just south of the border, intending to stay for a few days - depending on the weather.  Not many people there and whilst it was windy it was still very hot and we spent two days lounging by the spa and our sun tans now look quite reasonable.  Hope I can make it last till Nadia and Sam’s wedding in November!

Fortress at the port of Sant Feliu de Guixols

The beach from the fortress at Sant Feliu de Guixols

When we left Relaxnat, the Mongrel took us by a narrow circuitous route back to the freeway and we travelled on to Sant Feliu de Guixols, a nice little seaside town with a big harbour, two marinas and lots of boats.  We really like it here.  It is compact and it has lots of character and is only 100k from French border and from Barcelona.  We could rent out our place at home and live here in a unit here for a few months.  We could buy/rent a little motor scooter and get around really easily.  We stayed for 3 days at a terrific, large Aire de Stationement de Autocaravanas which was temporarily populated by a large population of Dutch people also enjoying the free facities.

We lazed on the beautiful beach, topping up the sun tans (I even went for a - very brief - swim in the crystal clear but freezing water) and then did a menu de dia (set 2 course menu) accompanied by a bottle of wine, and then we went back to the van and slept for the rest of the afternoon.  We toured the old monastery which is in the process of renovation and were disappointed that the art galleries within were closed during this work.  When it is finished it will be lovely as the work being done is really lovely.  Renovation of ancient buildings must be making a fortune for the artisans of Europe as there is a lot of it being done - these are tourist attractions in the making.

Because we are in Catalunya (Catalonia) we have the added language of Catalan to cope with.  (Occitan in Basque area)  Signs in both languages and many restaurants have Catalonian names.  Menus are all written in several languages - Spanish, Catalan, French, English, German and Russian.  “Russian”, I hear you say.  Yes we were surprised as well, but a chatty waiter explained to us that many wealthy (of dubious means) Russians were now travelling as tourists throughout Europe, though their class (as opposed to vulgarity) was in some question.  Hints of Russian mafia, with wads of money being flashed liberally.  I am dumb enough not to have noticed anything like that - but I don’t think Kenny saw anything like that either.  The camping park in Barcelona also issued us with a city map in Russian (all they had left).

Beach-side Rambla at Sant Feliu de Guixols

Got some beautiful, fresh from the trees, fruit at the market in the morning.  Nothing coldstore-ripened, and all very reasonably priced - cherries at about $5 per kilo.  We are making pigs of ourselves on the fruit and keep asking ourselves why we can’t get fruit like this at home.  Our farmers grow great fruit and Coles and Woolies insist on it being picked to early and it is all tasteless - and expensive.

Kenny wants it noted that drivers in Spain are much more considerate than in other countries we have been in - except when merging onto freeways.  Then they will not move over lanes to let you on, whereas Kenny always moves over to let others enter the motorway.  In car parks they drive like Sterling Moss.

Left Sant Feliu de Guixols after three lovely days to cross the border and also cross the eastern end of the Pyrenees, do a big circle and travel to the French coast and back to the end of the Pyrenees to go to Banyuls sur Mer - a French holiday town that Kenny read about on some dubious web site. 

On the way we passed through areas that had been burnt out by bush fires just before our last trip to Spain in 2006.  At that time it was a very brown, dry and disheartening.  I don’t know if there has been another fire since, but this time, the trees were covered in newish lush green foliage and the grass was nice and green - it was a whole different landscape, that proves that the occasional fire through an area rejuvenates the vegetation and is not, in fact, a bad thing - unless house and people get in its way.

Kenny at Banyuls sur Mer

Banyuls sur Mer turned out to be a very touristy little burg that was very plastic and appealed to us not at all.  We had intended staying 2 nights, but overnighted at the Camping Municipale (Council Camp park) and hit the trail again.  Felt like we had wasted our time going there and were pleased to leave even though it meant travelling over some very windy uninspiring roads again.

Streetscape in Banyuls Sur Mer

Lost a bit of recording here.  I keep somehow recording minutes of chat that don’t record.  This is - to say the least - very frustrating.  You may be grateful though because t saves you having to read of some other riveting adventure we had had.  I am past worrying about it - less I have to catch up on .  I can’t remember what we did here so I can just say “Oh Well” and delete the blank bit.  (Goody!!)  This is the last trip I am doing a blog for. I seem incapable of brevity and am sick of having to do what has turned into a horrible chore.  Next time, Mum, I will just send you the recordings!! 

Charming park in Lezignan-Corbiers

Mural in side street of Lezignan-Corbiers

Next recorded stop was Lezignan-Corbieres, a lovely little town on the way to Carcassonne.  It looked nice as we drove through and so we stopped for the menu de jour (French version of the Spanish menu de dia).  The lunch was uninspiring, but we found a nice parking spot under a tree in the car park near the library and a little park with a fountain and spent the afternoon reading our books after a quick walk through the old part of the village.  The car park was quiet in the afternoon - it was a Saturday - but crowded up a bit in the evening and by 10pm the place was buzzing.  There was some sort of festivity going on in the main street and at about 11.30pm the crowd gave a rousing rendition of the Marseillaise before they broke up into noisy groups chatting by their cars for half an hour or so before heading off home.  I didn’t sleep well, but Kenny had his ear plugs in - because he heard the doves earlier - and missed all the commotion completely.  I often get a bit nervy when we park in busy places like this, but  am not sure why as all the locals totally ignore the van parked in the middle of their village car park as if we are not there at all.  If we get out and say hi, they are happy to talk to us, but are just as happy to behave as if we are not even there.

Another dud recording - lucky you! (and me)

Wild poppies by the roadside

Kenny makes note of lack of native fauna.  No foxes, rabbits, etc.  We see very few farm animals either and that is because most of them are raised in the enormous barns we see everywhere. 

We do see lots of dogs though.  Europeans are absolutely crazy about their dogs.  They take them everywhere and have them on those stupid leads on a spool so that the bloody things just walk wherever they like and poop wherever they like.  Everywhere you go though there are ‘doggy bags’ - not for taking home food, but for picking up your dog’s poop and taking it to dispose of thoughtfully.  We have seen many instances where the doggy bags have NOT been used - in France doggy-doo is a common hazard on the walkways.  We have seen many greyhounds, particularly in Spain, rescued after a life in racing.  Rarely see them in Australia off the track.  Here you see them - and other breeds - in restaurants and other places we would not dream of taking them.  Who wants to share their eating space with bloody dogs?!!!  Leave the bloody things at home where they belong.

Many of the motorhomes we meet up with - by far the majority - have at least one, often two, dogs in them.  We have seen a van with 3 golden retrievers on board - can you imagine the smell? - and when it rains - ooh  pooh!!!!  Glad Schatzie (our cat) is at home with Janeene, our house-sitter.

After Lezignan-Corbieres we travelled northwest to another little village, Avignonet-Lauragais, where The Mongrel took us down back roads to the Aire Municipale by the Canal Du Midi (the canal that runs north-south from Paris to the Medditerranean) - couldn’t see it but it was 100 foot away.  It was very hot so we parked under the only shade available, near the pumping station from the canal.  It became apparent at about 10 at night that this was an unfortunate choice of spot as the pumping station developed a serious rattle which kept us both awake for most of the night.  I was also kept awake by the smell of the Gorgonzola which had escaped from the fridge the last couple of times it was opened.  (Thereafter our Gorgonzola was stored in a sealed plastic container - containers being so-called because they contain things including smells).  And the fridge got a good clean out in the morning!!!

It was at this point we realised that we were travelling in absolutely the wrong direction.  We were heading towards Toulouse and the Perigord instead of Avignon and the Ardeche.  Kenny kept his cool admirably although it shook up my confidence as a navigator to know that we were now on the wrong side of the country.  We began to retrace our steps - we had plenty of time up our sleeves.  The weather did not look particularly promising, but we thought we would go south again to the beach for a couple of days break - obviously all this travelling and holiday-making is very tiring and stressful.

As in many/most camping parks in France, toilet paper and often toilets seats are lacking in toilet facilities.  In this park there were 3 toilets - two were short drops, and so we had to time communing with nature so that we could get the only pedestal available.  Short drop type toilets (ie two footprints either side of a ceramic hole in the floor) are not uncommon in France.  This park had no toilet paper and this can be quite a problem if you start your business before remembering.  Kenny usually checks out the facilities when we arrive in them and so we are prepared, but I bet a lot of people get caught short.  We now carry a supply of toot paper in our toilet bags so that we won’t be victims of that scenario.

On our way to the beach we decided to stop by Beziers which we had had to miss last time as we had been there in the midst of The Season and couldn’t get parking.  This time we are outside of The Season and there is much more space and less people.  In fact, we got into the heart of the city and found very few people there.  We wandered about and then stopped at a bar for a drink and I asked a lady there if it was a holiday.  Yes, it was the feast of the Assumption (Pentecost) and it was a public holiday and everything was closed - typical!  Still we wandered through the city gardens which were quite lovely and looked around the “Rambla” which filled the main city area.  Very nice leafy, shady and tranquil when there are so few people about.  The whole city has a lovely ambience.

Interesting house overlooking the Paul Riquet Gardens in Beziers

Floral decorations on one of Beziers' bridges

Wendy in the gardens by a very interesting tree -unsure if it is a natural shape or if it has had help

Beziers is also the site of the 9 lochs on The Canal Du Midi, which move canal boats up and down the seventy odd feet difference in the levels of two sections of the canal.  Fascinating to watch as the boats go through and on our last visit there were people everywhere watching the process.  This time there were a lot less people and we got a parking spot in the shade under the Plane trees on the edge of the canal where we stayed the night in peace and tranquillity after all the other tourists went home.

The nine lochs of Beziers - note all the off-season tourists

Then we went down to Marseillan Plage on the Medditerranean.  It was full of tourists and the Aire de Service would have held at least 100 campers and was nearly full.  We managed to snag one of the few olive trees which gave us shade for most of the day.  It was too hot to stay on the beach, so we hung around the camp lying outside in our chairs reading our books.  The town was much like the resort towns in southern Spain and Portugal, pretty tacky and catering primarily for the English tourists.  Lots of shops with English-speaking staff selling all manner of tacky souvenir stuff.  Gold Coast thirty years ago.  We managed to get through it without buying anything - even one of the bikinis which would have fitted me well and shown off my now fabulous suntan - how good was I?  Kenny was impressed and relieved as I have acquired a lot of stuff that will require some ingenuity and heartless abandoning of other stuff to get home within our 30kg baggage allowance.

We were there for 2 days and then with the ‘aid’ of The Mongrel managed to get back to the Autoroute Longedocienne to follow the coast as far as Montpellier and then bid it a last goodbye as we headed north.  This would be our last visit to the Mediterranean coast on this trip.  We are now on our way to Ran du Chabrier naturiste camping for the weekend.  On the way we stopped at a lovely village we stayed at on our last trip, Sommières.  We got there this time in 37 degree heat, and went straight to the Camping Municipale which we knew had a swimming pool - boy did we need it.  We also needed to do the washing.  When we got to the camping, Monsieur was on his 12 till 3pm break.  Consequently, we couldn’t get a token for the washing machine and the swimming pool did not open until he returned!!!!  Not happy Jan!!

When he finally got back to work, we had the washing all organised to go and got it in and then got ourselves into the swimming pool - aaah!!  No dryers at this camping but at least they had permanent communal clothes lines, so I got all the clothes washed and hung out.  Kenny said “you may as well do the sheets and towels as well”, and I thought “OK” so put them in and went back for another swim.  Then we heard thunder!  About 20 minutes later the heavens opened and we had to rush and grab the clothes off the line - almost dry.  Now we had a van full of damp clothes and two plastic bags full of straight from the machine, wet sheets and towels!  We had stuff draped all over the place in the van.  It looked like a Chinese laundry.  When the rain stopped about half an hour later it was going on 7pm and I wasn’t inclined to hang everything back out again, but Kenny said “you may as well hand out the sheets at least”  so I did and they dried overnight.  Got a lots of stuff dry in the van overnight and the rest at the next camping, which was a nudist camp so washing was not a common sight!!

Our planned naturist stop was next.  Northwest of Avignon, and just south of the Gorges of the Ardeche, the road into Ran du Chabrier was horrible to say the least, the van hated it and had we had foreknowledge of the camp and the weather, we would not have bothered, but it was one of those things - gone so far, have to go on.  The camp was at the bottom of a fairly steep hill on the river bank, and was very leafy and green.  However, there had been no rain for some time and it was hot, dusty and the river was very low and the banks were not sandy beaches (when Europeans say ’beach’ do not expect sand - expect rocks), they were large round rocks about the size of a small football.  Many of those who had been there before had brought their blow-up airbeds with them so that they could spread out and sun-bake on the river bank.  Not us, we just had reed mats and beach towels, so lying on the rocks was not an option.  We fought for a place on the tiny little patch of sand available.  It reminded me of documentaries where you see hundreds of sea lions squashed together on a bit of beach!!  None the less we managed to top up the sun tan a bit.  Wi-fi was available if you were prepared to lug the computer to the wi-fi point - I wasn’t - and the phone signal was non-existent.  We were unimpressed with the whole place to say the least and instead of staying the planned week, we stayed only three nights till it started to rain, and then decided to give it a miss.  So we made our way up the rotten, unsealed, rough, steep road out of the place and headed for Toucy near to Paul and Shealagh’s, via Lyon. 

The Mongrel took us on the most roundabout route imaginable to get to the freeway going north-south and we covered a lot of France we would not have seen had we been navigating by map.  This is our new cry whenever she takes us on strange pathways - “at least we are getting to see parts of France we would not have seen otherwise”.  How zen-like and calm is that?

Kenny was impressed that at least on this route we saw a lot of cows out in the fields - Charolais is the breed we believe.  We also saw lots and lots of lovely little villages on windy roads with occasional castles/chateaux just attached to the village.  The whole area seemed quite old.  Cereal growing was prevalent in this area - wheat, oats and barley we think, but really, apart from the wheat, we are just guessing.  Whole area very green with big paddocks rolling hills which we have been going up and down.

Spent seven lovely days with Paula and Shealagh in Dracy and St Maurice Le Viel at a gorgeous old house they manage.  It is a huge, beautifully converted barn with 5 bedrooms, a huge grounds and an enormous swimming pool which we spent a lot of time lying around reading our books.  We also helped in the garden at both houses and really enjoyed getting into that.  A few late nights on the red wine, so lots of late mornings as well.  Great to spend time with them and have them show us around Auxerre, the nearest big town.  Shealagh and I gave the shops the once over, but I was very strong and came away empty handed - Kenny was very relieved as he is starting to worry about how we are going to fit all our extras in our bags.

Ken relaxing with Paul and Shealagh at St Maurice Le Viel

Wendy, Paul and Shealagh in Auxerra

Had a very big night on our last night and were a little slow getting on the road next day, but carried away a lot of good memories.  Thank you both for your wonderfully thoughtful hospitality - you were really very thorough in your efforts for us.

At the market in Toucy - our daily bread

Now we are heading towards Germany and the end of our trip.  We are not, however, in a hurry and plan to spend time exploring small villages.  We took the road through Auxerre heading east north east towards Chatillon sur Seine surrounded all the while by vineyards.

Because we had such a big night at Paul and Shealagh’s we decided not to travel very far day and only went about 40km’s before stopping at Chablis (explains all the vineyards - well we ARE in Burgundy!), where we had lunch in the supermarket car park whilst waiting for the store to open after the standard 2 hour lunchbreak closing - too bad we wanted bread for lunch!!  Thence on about 5km’s further to a village called Tanlay, where we thought we would stop and have a sleep.  It turned out to be a gorgeous little place on the Canal de Burgogne, and we parked under the trees canal-side by the canal port.  We duly slept and then explored the port (tiny as it was) and met a lovely English couple, Chris and Jackie who were lovely enough to show us through their brand new canal boat - gorgeous.  And Chiris turned out to be an ex-firie.  We met up with them again the next day when we did a tour of the beautiful Chateau de Tanlay, and then shared a drink at the bar next door.  The Chateau was exquisite.  Beautifully maintained and furnished with original period furnishing and some absolutely portraits and other paintings.  We stayed in Tanlay for 2 nights and hijacked power from the points supplied free for the boats until a town official came and said “only for the boats”.  A lovely find and we would like to visit there again someday.

Chateau de Tanlay

Whilst in Tanlay we also met up with an Australian couple who were taking a one week first class canal cruise.  The cruise boat had only eight passengers and were attended by 5 crew, including a full-time cordon bleu chef.  All gourmet meals, vintage wines, drinks, daily tours, etc were covered in the cost of $2000 per couple per day!!!!  And they travelled about 20kms per day!  Part of us envied the luxury, but we figured we could see and do more with $14,000 than spend a week travelling 140kms down a canal!!!  We have seen a lot more for our $14,000.

We had a menu de jour Tanlay, which we like to do occasionally to eat as the locals do.  This particular one was comprised of ½ rock melon with sangria for entree, homemade fettucine carbonara, followed by a very rich chocolate slice for dessert and 3 glasses of wine (which weren’t included in the menu) and cost us the princely sum of $30 altogether, and then we went home and had a nap to sleep off the red wine.

Heading now again for, where there is supposedly an Aire de Service, but if we don’t like it we will move along till we fine

Passed through Chatillon sur Seine, where we couldn’t find the Aire - think it was being used and set up for some sort of festival - so we continued on to Chateauvillain - just short of Chaumont.  It looked like a pretty place and Kenny was a bit tired ‘cos he didn’t sleep well the night before.  Kenny is getting to be a whizz at finding good overnight spots.  I would have turned around half way through the town with its tiny streets, but he carried on and found a lovely parking spot just outside the huge park.  There were a couple of old towers in the town, one being renovated with an eye to tourism.  In the huge park they were prepping for a vintage car show at the weekend (this was Friday).  The Season starts tomorrow and want Kenny and I want to get ourselves established somewhere before The Season starts and all the crowds come out and all camping fees go up.  Chateauvillain has some really nice old houses that needed a little/lot of TLC.  They would have been really nice in their time, but have been let go and now I think repair/renovation costs would be too exorbitant to make it viable - so sad to lose such lovely buildings.  We are finding throughout France that maintenance on private buildings is not real crash hot.  A lot of the time a fresh coat of paint would make an enormous difference for relatively small cost, and there are some beautiful old doors and gates that are being allowed to decay when minimal effort would preserve lovely character which will obviously now start to disappear.

Also of interest to us in this little town was a memorial to a local Colonel and 16 men of the village who were executed there by the Germans during the war - very thought-provoking for us.

There is lots of haymaking going on in the countryside we are passing through.  The wheat has been harvested and they are making hay from the stubble and I have hay fever big time.  Hope they get the haymaking done quickly.

Having left Chateauvillain after a great night’s sleep we are heading for Toul, about 70ms away and just short of Nancy (pronounced Noncee). 

It is a lovely drive on this day going from one charming little village to the next charming little village only a few hundred metres apart.   Charming little villages - Chartrain, Longville, Bologne.  This is a lovely area of France.  We are loving this browsing of little villages - something we always planned to do.  Rather than go from large city to large city - we feel we are really seeing the real France now.  There is also lots of dense forest.  France has a lot of forest in patches large and small and in little pockets.  We are travelling through miles of yellow wheat fields, mint green fields of oats or barley, and dark green fields of corn here and there - maize for cattle feed.  We are starting to see sunflowers - not in full flower yet, but it won’t be long until there are gorgeous bright yellow sunflower fields.  Every now and then we pass big/huge wood piles stacked by the side of the road, in a clearing of the forest, and in people’s back yards - obviously the winters are VERY cold here, but Kenny and I cannot imagine ever burning that much wood!

When we got to Toul we discovered that the Aire de Service was by the canal there as well.  We like this as we usually can park and have a nice view at the same time.  Toul itself has an old city within fortified walls and we did a walk around but were singularly unimpressed - it seemed like a fairly depressing place.  We met an Australian couple who were on their canal boat in the harbour - they come over here and live aboard for 6 months of every years for the last 8 years - and they told us that Toul was lovely, but we don’t see it.  They showed us a canal boat that is for sale for a very reasonable price and Kenny got all excited.  Our boat at home would be perfect on the canals here, and I have let Kenny know that when he sells the one we have got we will give consideration to purchasing a European canal boat.  Personally I think it would bore him stiff and I think being limited to canal ways after wandering in a motorhome would be quite dull.

Wendy in Toul

One night in Toul was enough and then we travelled all of 25kms or so to Nancy.  We have been through Nancy on previous trips, but have never explored the city.  This time we are taking the time to stop at the Aire de Service which is again at the canal port just a couple of blocks from the heart of town.  Certainly convenient as we have access to all facilities here.

It took us a bit of effort to find our way to the Aire as we detoured from The Mongrel’s instructions, to go to the supermarket, and then she took us all around the back streets of town to get to our destination (think she is getting snarky because we do that so often).  It didn’t help that some of the final streets - most of which were one way) were barricaded off for road works!  We finally made it though and set ourselves up under the chestnut trees lining the edges of the canal.  This was a much bigger canal port than Tanlay and many of the canal boats looked like they had been there for quite some time.  There are many people living on canal boats and the mooring fees are negligible so I suppose it is a great way to live.  Not sure about in winter though!  We met another Aussie couple living aboard their canal boat here and Kenny was keen to pump them for information on the does and don’ts of it.  I keep telling him “we don’t getting a canal boat”!

It was raining in Nancy when we arrived and a bit depressing. 

When the rain stopped we went for a walk and found the beautiful Place Stanislaus, heart of Nancy, created by Stanislaus Lezinsky, former king of Poland and last Duke of Lorraine.  It is a huge open square surrounded on all sides by impressive matching government buildings.  Each corner of the square has huge, beautiful, ornamental gate and fountains with gorgeous gilt work and there are beautiful, delicately painted black and gilt lampposts.  This square flow through a trip marble arch into the Ducal Palace Quarter where there is a lot more gilt and more lovely buildings bordering an avenue of chestnut trees trained and shaped in a way only the French seem to achieve.  Abutting all this pomp is the green area, Parc de Pepinere where lawns and gardens flow for a few acres.

One of the fountains in Place Stanislaus

Lovely garden in Nancy

We did a bus tour of the city, but it was really a waste of time - unimpressed because the tour was really boring.  Stanislaus Square and surrounds is really the only thing we wanted to visit in the city.  In the evening we returned to the Square where the local government staged a sound and light show of the history of Nancy starting at 10.45.  it was amazing as it used the facade of the Hotel de Ville (Town Hall) and the other buildings in the square as a giant movie screen with animations and music.  It was wonderful and I hope my photos do it justice.

Next day went to Metz, where we tried to park in the police compound because since last lot of maps for GPS there are lots of new bus lanes and The Mongrel tried to take us down a road which is now a bus lane.  A policeman coming out of the compound watched our confusion for a while before advising us to do a U turn (on the bus lane) and go forth.  We were then quite lost as The Mongrel kept taking us around in circles and bringing us back to the same spot.  We ended up asking a couple of local girls for directions and they got us to follow them in their car to get to the camping.  We would never have found it otherwise.  When we finally got there, we realised we had stayed there before.  It was a Camping Communale on the side of the river (not sure which one) and it was not too bad, and not far from the centre of the old town.  We managed to do the washing - finally.  We hadn’t done it for a couple of weeks and it was starting to take up a lot of space in the van.  Then we went walking. 

Looking trough the flowers decorating one bridge to three others on the river in Metz

Lovely church in Metz

Metz is quite a vibrant city with lovely old town wrapped around and between what seems to be two rivers, but maybe it is just one with an island in the middle.  Last time we rode our bikes around, but I am not sure how we did that because it is all up hill.  Having  checked out all the places is of interest, we spent some time wandering through shops looking for Mother-Of-The-Bride dresses for Nadia’s wedding in November.  No joy - still looking.  On our way out of town we checked out the Pompidou Centre, which is a very impressive building which we think is a Convention Centre.  We only think this, because as the new bus lanes impeded our ability to park, we couldn’t get to have a good look at it. 

Pompidou Centre in Metz

Off to Saint Avold a little further east and only the throw of a rock from the German border.  We took a sideways detour on our way to look at part of the Maginot Line, but it turned out to be only a couple of concrete bunkers buried in forest. 

Spent night in Saint Avold after going crazy trying to locate the Aire published in our books.  Turns out it is the Camping Municpale which was in the forest adjacent to the town and a bit cool but with good facilities - most of the Municipale campings have had good facilties. 

This was quite a nice little town.  It is a very flowery town, by which I mean that there are many lovely gardens in the French style and lots of pretty pots planted with lovely groups of flowers.  This seems to  be more than just the local council working hard, but also the shop owners and home owners as well  All they bright flowers everywhere look wonderful, but we often see the municipal workers in a truck driving around water all these floral displays and leads us to comment that we have not hope of getting this sort of thing at home as we are lucky to get the councils to plant garden displays at all in our towns, and when they do, the plants have to be pretty self sufficient.  I also think that the owners of all these floral displays would save themselves a lot of time and - in the long run - money if they installed watering systems that could be controlled from a central spot.  Hand watering twenty odd pot plants every day takes a lot of time! 

Floral display in Saint Avold

Saint Avold also has some good dress shops which we scoured again for MOB Dresses - still no luck, but Kenny is being very patient - not sure if he is actually being helpful with his comments, but he is trying!

From Saint Avold to Bitche (and that is how you pronounce it) where there is an Aire de

Service at the medieval Citadelle above the town.

On our way via Sarraguemines stopped at the Intermarche to get bread.  Saw great dress shop with great possibilities for MOB dresses - this was at 11am - shop doesn’t open Wednesday until 3pm!!  Bugger!  How do they make any money??

Stopped on the way at Rorshach Les Bitche at another part of the Maginot Line.  This one was quite large, in three parts and presented well as a tourist attraction.  It was €6 to go in, but we arrived at lunchtime and the Monsieur in charge was having his lunch and had locked up for a couple of hours.  We looked it over from the outside, had lunch under a tree and toddled off.  We were going to check out another one, but fortunately for me Kenny decided that he had seen enough of it. 

Driving through one of the series of little town on the way to Bitche we again encountered a regular phenomenon - large, high speed bumps marked like zebra crossing but with triangle marking - hazard to navigation.  These vicious traffic tamers are often in need of new painting and hard to spot.  When you come to a group of villages there are often five or six within a few hundred yards.  Last time we failed to notice one we bounced everything out of cupboards and have become fanatical about spotting them. 

Kenny has asked me to note that the driving/drivers in France are not inspiring - little old men and women turning out into traffic from the right (our side) without warning and not moving fast enough for Kenny.

Bitche itself was a fair sized town, but we really didn’t see much of it as we went straight to the Citadelle and parked.  We did the tour of the Citadelle which was built in the fifteenth century and is remarkably well preserved - it was used as a functioning outpost of the French during WWi.  Very interesting and well presented for tourists.

We stayed overnight and replaced our gas bottle in town before departing as this is our last port of call in France and we are unsure of the type of bottle required in Germany.  We also picked the brains of the Germany gentleman in the motorhome next to us in the Aire regarding Aires in Germany.  On his advice we have now purchased a terrific pair of books that encompass free/cheap parking/camping in Germany and throughout Europe.

We left Bitche feeling sad to say goodbye to France but now keen to move into another country where we have seen primarily the big cities and few small villages.  We hope to remedy that.  

We are now in Bad Bergzabern, a very picturesque town not far from the French border and just southwest of Landau.  We came here on the advice of the German man at Bitche and he has done us a wonderful turn.  This is a lovely town with a thermal spa and a schloss and lots of bars and good shopping - still looking, not finding.  The Stellplatz For Wohnmobile here is very clean, well equipped, with good shade and right in the middle of town.  Last night we went to a bar and joined in the excitement of Germany beating France in their World Cup match in Brazil - the town was as quiet as a mouse as everyone was indoors looking at it on TV.  When Germany scored their goal the church bells rang, and at the end there was much rejoicing and car horn blowing.  Tonight we are going back up to the town again to enjoy the essen and drunken (eating and drinking) in the Helle Nacht festival.  Tomorrow we are off to find another interesting little town.

Interesting building in Bad Bergzabern

That’s (finally) it for now.  Only a little over a week until we meet up with Bea who is taking over our van, and then we will share her son’s christening with the family in Stuttgart and have a few days getting ready to go home.  Looking forward to it, but I think we could stand to spend another month or two wandering around over here.

Keep well till next time