Fabulous France

So, by the title, I guess you know we have moved on from Spain and Portugal, where we found eating out, having a drink and buying groceries pretty reasonable, if not downright cheap, even with the NZ Dollar exchange rate.
Now, however, we are in the big league and playing with the French.  The only things that are reasonable here are wine and cheese!  Not too bad, you think - but only one of us even likes wine and we can never agree on which cheeses to buy either!
We had a short flight over the mountains from Spain and landed at Bordeaux airport.  Fun times picking up the rental car and getting out of the airport.  Richard handled driving on the right as if born to it and we got to our first night's accommodation with no hassles.  We had arranged to stay in a 10th century barn conversion belonging to the mother of one of our helpers.  She had turned it into a B&B about ten years ago and it's now a thriving, busy little place with 5 rooms, a lovely pool, gorgeous views (see first pic) and food to die for (hubby is a chef!).  We stayed for three days enjoying all of the above as well as getting lost many times in cute villages with gorgeous old houses ( second pic) and wonderful sights around every corner.  The lovely Brigitte had been able to buy tickets for the Lascaux caves as I had asked her to do early on - what a treat that was.  Beautifully-drawn animals of all sorts in amazing colours from Prehistoric times - re-created inch by inch in a concrete tunnel that was an excellent replica of the original Lascaux cave, closed to the public now for thirty years.  Couldn't take any pix, but worth a look on Google if you don't know about it already.  That was a super highlight and another thing crossed off our Bucket List.

"Allons-y!" was the cry later in the week and, sad to leave our lovely new friends, Brigitte and Phillipe, we set off for a loooooong drive to Brittany.

7 hours and lots of coffee stops and photo opportunities later and we were in Dinge, near Rennes, staying in a 17th century ex-presbytery.  More friends there, Norbert and Emmanuelle and their two little boys, who had also been helpers in Gisborne. We spent a lovely afternoon with them, barbecuing in their garden and making plans for the next rendezvous and also had a couple of days to explore their neighbourhood.  Rich took this gorgeous canal  house shot during one of our strolls - it is my absolute favourite picture of the trip so far.

Mont St Michel next.  We knew it was going to be touristy and very busy but we wanted to go.  We had been to St Michael's Mount in Cornwall and thought it would be fun to compare them.  However, we were too busy negotiating the crowds to even discuss this.  We DID have fun, though and enjoyed  walking over the causeway and then wandering round the top of the town, where there weren't so many tourists.  Did  a spot of shopping as well, and that's always a bonus!

Next stop was the Loire Valley - a chance for me to revisit the area after more than thirty years and Richard's first time there.  As we had been heading North, the traffic had been building and, now that we were getting closer to Paris and the more visited areas of France, we began to see lots more tourist buses and foreign licence plates.  This reminded us that it was July and school holidays in Europe were fast approaching.
The Loire - rivers, castles and romance is what the word signifies to me and it didn't disappoint.  There are several rivers that flow through the valley, not just the Loire itself, and the area is home to hundreds of castles of all different shapes and sizes.  There is also quite a bit of traffic on the river too, with working boats as well as posh river cruisers.  We did our best to find tranquillity while enjoying the efforts of the French Government and the local Councils, who do a marvellous job preserving and restoring not just the castles, but whole villages and lovely gardens and parks.  Too much to see, too little time, but how glorious was what we did get to see.

 
 

We stayed in a great little place in the Loire - very comfy with lovely hosts and another fab pool - as you may guess, lots of the times we were meant to be out and about seeing the sights and being 'tourists', we just hung out by the pool, working on our tans and our French at the same time!

Serious stuff next - Paris.  We dumped the rental in Tours at the station and caught the TGV.  We were at our apartment ( 5 mins walk to pix 1 and 3) by mid-afternoon and spent the next couple of hours planning for Paris.  But, Paris had also planned for us - and not in a good way! First, the heatwave - we sweltered all day and most of the night with no air con and no fan.  35 most days. The only way to beat it was to go to an air conditioned museum or gallery.  Guess who had the same idea?  The second item on the Agenda that Paris had planned - all the sixty squillion others (you can see some of them in pic 4) that were in Paris for July! Yes, I am moaning, but we still had a marvellous time all the same - it will take a lot more than heat and tourists by the tonne to take the shine off Paris for us!  We saw some wonderful Art, of course (including the Monet panels in the Orangerie for the first time - wow!), went for some great walks, lay on the grass in the Trocadero gardens at 1 am with most of the aforementioned 60 squillion to gaze at pic 2, ate some amazing food, lived in an area we didn't know well before, and felt like locals by the time we had to go. Fantastique!

These  mille-feuilles (custard square-ish slices to Kiwis, vanilla slices to Aussies) were on sale at the cafe in the Musee d'Orsay for 8 Euros each.  It would have taken me 6 lady-like bites to have eaten one; Rich would have had one down in 4 - that makes them $4 NZ a bite at that rate!    Ahh, Paris!

Back since Tuesday in the bosom of the family, except they (and their bosoms) are hiking in Switzerland so we are trashing...minding, I mean, their house till their return this evening.  We have cooked up a storm all day today, and it was great to be cooking properly again.  Chris and Mike have a wonderful kitchen with at least two of everything you could possibly need to make anything yummy you can think of!  Have washed the stains and dust of travelling in Europe off all our clothes, Richard has had a bath and we have rediscovered the delights of Tesco's doughnuts.
Tomorrow we're off again ...forgotten quite where but it will come to me, I am sure, by next weekend's blog entry.
Be assured we are having THE most splendid time and are enjoying ourselves immensely.

Beautiful Barcelona

As some of you know, Barcelona is all about Gaudi. For those that don't, Gaudi was a brilliant architect who had his own style, was very hands-on with the actual buildings and who had a huge impact on every aspect of life in Barcelona today. Everywhere you go and whatever you do, Gaudi is there - churches, museums, private houses, bus stops, public seating, stairs and steps, walls, fountains - he had fingers in all those pies. We visited lots of buildings and the park especially to see his work, but found many examples just wandering around. 

 

                We adored the Casa Battlo and were there for a while on the first night, photographing and marvelling at the outside, alnd then spent several more hours there another day touring the inside. We wandered along Las Ramblas, as you do, but didn't spend any money or too much time there, as it was very touristy. 

    
 We had a great hotel with yet another rooftop pool and some of our favourite photos were taken from up here. We had a lovely 4 days here, but were happy to leave the hustle and bustle behind as we headed to the airport for our flight over the Pyrenees to Bordeaux.

Viva Espana!

Here we are then - Spain, on our wish list for so long.
We started our visit to Spain with Merida, just across the Portuguese border. We hopped on a bus in Lisbon and, without any passport or customs nonsense, there we were just a few hours later - in a whole new world. Straight away, the streets were cleaner, the people were more affluent and things generally were more organised, although the drains still smelt!   The bus trip was interesting even if the landscape was very arid, brown and barren.

There were lots of pretty villages to admire out of the windows and a few characters on the
bus.   As so many Spanish and Portugese smoke, most of the passengers tried to mow us down ( we had the front seats) in the rush for the doors at every little stop, so they could grab a few drags on their fags.   Loads of laughs, especially when they then had to finish up quickly and began abusing the poor driver for wanting to leave on time!         
 We chose Merida as it's a World Heritage Site. Back in Roman days, it was a really important city and there is lots of it still left and very well preserved.

 

 

 We loved finding our way through the town from one great ruin to the next - how often do you get to picnic among the remains of a 1000 yr old acqueduct? It was fascinating and we could have stayed there much longer, especially as we had found a great little bar that made fab Sangria and had great tapas, cheap beer and wonderful coffee. We were there several times a day for various beverages, goodies to eat and the odd loo stop. And after all the walking, there was our wonderful hotel, a beautifully-renovated palace with a small, but welcome rooftop pool.

 

Sad to leave but excited about Madrid, where our train took us next.
We had a small glitch the night we arrived when our 'Luxury Bed and Breakfast ' turned out to be a small room with just a bed, shared bathroom across the hall and the pool, terrace and BBQ that had been advertised were 'not available'. It was actually a flat on the 17th floor of a residential building and the woman's neighbours had pulled the plug on so many people constantly using the communal facilities, that were really meant for residents only. However, the woman arranged a booking elsewhere for us and took us there herself...as she should indeed!  After that, Madrid was a dream and we loved walking around and discovering the different parts of the city that our feet, and later the metro, took us to.  We were the ultimate 'anti-tourists' and went past the Prado and not in, ditto the Thyssen and ditto many other 'must-see' sights in Madrid, in favour of the tiny Sorallo art museum, which we both enjoyed, mostly because we had never heard of Sorallo before and also because he had loads of neat 'stuff' in what used to be his house. Very cool. Many interesting but expensive shops about - good to look in the windows, but bad for the pocket and the travelling light thing!

 Madrid to Barcelona happened at great speed as we took the very expensive, but very worth it bullet train. It did the trip at speeds exceeding 300 kph, yet it didn't seem any faster than driving at home. Crap hotel the first night with noisy guests, a rude receptionist, a robbery and the police at 6.30 am, none of it anything to do with us, but as our room was right opposite the reception desk, no sleep was had. We were delighted when our 'real' hotel (the one we had booked when we were staying 3 nights, instead of changing our minds and making it 4)  had a room ready and we were tucked up in bed at 7 am, sleeping through till lunchtime.
We have been for a couple of good walks already, despite the heat, and have been mightily impressed by the Gaudi works we have seen sprinkled around the city so far. There is a palace just down the road, next to the fruit shop actually, with amazing Gaudi towers, even though you can hardly see them as the street is too narrow to get a view! We have been to the immense Sagrada Familial church  which defies description - see pic below - we haven't seen anything like this ever - so exciting and clever and wonderful and we feel so fortunate that we have the opportunity to have these experiences. Tomorrow is more Gaudi - in the park, in a couple of plazas and also two very special houses - one with no corners.

 The  wonders just go on and on...