Barcelona

We are in Barcelona :)  I havent been able to update the blog as the internet hasnt been working properly. We have covered most of the gaudi stuff and are off to have a look at the inside of the church tomorrow. I am very tired and im looking forward to sleeping in my own bed. The food ordering isnt going that well, we stocked up on things we could point at in France (bread & pastries) and now we are saying familiar pizza's - so we have loaded up on the carbs and the pants are getting tighter. oh no. We climbed up two gaudi building's today, simon enjoyed the view but i just walked slowly & didnt let go of the rail. We are hoping to get to under water world 7 the zoo on saturday & then hopefully we will have some free time and we can have a bit of a rest and do a spot of shopping before returning to work.

Gail - the gaudi houses have been wonderful im now at 30+ gig. I also managed to blow up my battery charger and to sets of batteries. I used two sets of regular batteries today - so a good effort from me :)

Give marty a cuddle :)

a few snaps - at last

Catching up from Millau (yesterday's post as i couldnt get the internet working)

Its been a while since my last post as we have been staying in a lot of B&Bs and they don’t have the internet. We have been pretty busy – we have visited Doug & Deni from Grand Designs and saw Chez Jallot in the small town of Vidaillat. The house is amazing, we had the Master Bedroom and it stretched the width of the house so we have views of the back garden & the front. Doug has been busy with additions and was kind enough to give Simon a tour.

We also had a quick stop over at a country house in Noaillic near Bordeaux. We are finding the B&Bs hard to find as we are not familiar with the way the French write their address and often they use the region or department instead of the suburb.

We popped into Spain and spent a night in Mundaka Bay. I found it hard to drive in Spain, I think I am used to the way the French drive and have found it difficult to learn another set of road rules and signs, although I must admit I have no idea what most of the French signs say. Both Simon and I were expecting Spain to be flat & dry – it was very hilly & very green. Mundaka itself is actually a very small village. Our hotel was as close as we could get to the beach and was only separated by a small park. Its amazing to find that everyone still has a nap in the afternoon as all the stores were closed and then suddenly everything was reopened and there were lots of people out & about. We were starving so the hotel kindly prepared us an early dinner and unfortunately they locals weren’t impressed with our early dinner time and not the normal 8.30pm! We will definitely add Mundaka to our ‘places to come back to’ list.

We are currently in Millau. We are staying in an old hotel which has been renovated, the part we are in was once a castle and our room is in the tower. We drove over (& under) the suspension bridge (801 metres about sea level at the highest point). The hotel is beautiful and we just had a lovely dinner in the restaurant overlooking the city lights. We are running very low on clothes, I managed to find a Laundromat in Bourges (tomorrow’s destination) but it means driving into the city center. The city’s are very busy and very hard to navigate. The roads don’t have any marked lines and but up hard against the buildings. To make things a little more interesting I still haven’t worked out how has to give way to whom! 

From Bourges we are driving to the airport to drop off the car and catch our flight to Venice. We spend two nights in Venice and then we fly to Barcelona. I’m a little worried about how much my luggage weighs!

I should also mention that we spent a lovely night at a small B&B just off the highway in between Mundaka and Millau. The B&B was run by a lovely lady named Brigitte.

Chenonceaux

The navman allowed us to avoid tolls which was great, however this added a substantial amount of time to the journey. it also meant that we needed to drive through the middle of Paris to get on the next highway or motorway. poor Lee also go confused and took us to two neighbouring towns which had the same street name as our hotel in Chenonceaux. All of this resulted in a 3 hour, 40 minutes trip being turned into a 7 hour trip. The ballooning that i had booked for the next morning (for Simon's birthday) had been cancelled so we decided to go to bed after dinner and have a sleep in.
today we woke up late :) wandered down to the bakery to get some breakfast which we ate in the park. we then wandered down to the castle which was a four minute walk from our hotel. the castle (chateau de chenonceau) was amazing, built over a river, with very formal gardens.
We are planning on catching up on missed diary entries, the blog and directions to tomorrows destination, Chez Jallot.

Happy Birthday Simon...!

We work up early this morning (7am), had a quick breakfast and took off to have a look at the inside of the castle. It didnt open until 10am so we strolled around the gardens, had a look at the film set and Simon opened his birthday cards.
The castle is massive from the outside but the courtyard is not what you expect, its quiet small. not a lot of the rooms were open so it only took 2-3 hours to cover the inside. there were models and artifacts inside most of the rooms, they also had a large collection of sketches and photos. the castle was very bare ad medieval compared to the richly decorated castles that we have seen so far. the dungeon tour was especially good, although very creepy - it is full of tombs, the lighting is minimal with just a few select tombs lit and there are motion sensors which activate wispering voices as you walk by.
We grabed a roll at the bakery, entered in the next desination and set off.

Driving through the french countryside.....

We picked up the car at the airport today for the driving leg of the trip. Getting out of the airport was a nightmare!! It was so confusing and all the roads are round, like a giant snail. Luckily Simon spotted the right way and we managed to get out (with just a few honks and dirty looks). We had no idea where we were going and it seemed like we were doing big loops, we listed to Lee (our Navman from home) and he managed to take us to Compiegne. We hadnt had lunch before we left and we werent game enough to stop on the motorway so after we checked in we went to McDonalds as it was the only thing we could see that had fish for Simon. They didnt speak English and our French is limited to hello, thank you & goodbye. We managed to order and get what we wanted. It was early in the afternoon so we decided to drive to Pierrefonds and have a look at the castle. Again Lee guided us to the right spot. The motor ways and roads are so confusing, i have no idea how people managed with maps, im asuming the divorce rate has dropped with the introduction of the navigation systems. We arrived at Pierrefornds and it was amazing, a small little town with a massive castle pearched on the hill. Everything was picture perfect. We walked around the outside of the castle and popped into the gift store just as they were closing. We then popped down to a cafe on the river and ordered coffee, hot chocolate and ice-cream. the ice-cream was amazing but very rich! the cafe had paddle boats so we took one for a spin. We popped in to the local store and bakery and picked up some fresh bread, cheese (only 2 euros for camembert!!!!) to take back to the hotel for dinner. Its Simon's 40th birthday tomorrow and we will go back to the castle to have a look inside and then drive to Chenonceaux where we will stay for 2 nights.

Paris.....

We arrived in Paris in the late afternoon by TVG or maybe TGV train. The trains are unbelivable, it has been by far the most stressful period of the trip. We had to catch a train from the boat to Dijon where we had to catch another train to Paris. We almost missed both! We didnt know where to get off in Paris because it wasnt signed so we almost ended up somewhere else. Luckily we had pre-arranged a driver to pick us up and take us to the hotel. He was waiting for us and directed us out a side entrance straight into the car! He was a wonderful tour guide and showed us lots of sights. a few times we werent sure what he was talking about so he kindly drew us a map while driving!!!!!!!! The hotel was right in the heart of the city, in between the Louvre and Notre Dame. Our room was on the 6th floor and overlooked the street. We had a little dorma window which Simon liked, he even sat out side and had a beer. We went to Notre Dame amost every day, we went inside and also climbed up the tower and walked on the roof with the gargoyles. We went to the Opera Garnier (outside only), Palais Royal, Louvre (twice as we went on tuesday and were waiting for it to open when we found out it was closed for the day), Place de la Concorde, Pont Alexandre III, Champs-Elysees, Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower (all the way to the top) and Gallery La Fayette. I think i managed to capute everything. We managed to get a two for one at the Louvre - one of the lovely couples on the boat recommended that we must go to Angelinas (famous for its chocolate) we popped into a cafe in the Louvre to rest our feet and it just happened to be an outlet of Angelina's :) I had cafe creme (coffee with milk) and simon had their hot chocolate. We both had yummy cakes that were really rich!

10 September 2011 - Charlon-sur Saone

It has been a while since the last post as we have been so busy! We have been cruising to two places most days and have participated in the shore outings and the activities on board. it is getting hard to remember what day it is, what we have been up to and where we are. We have seen so many ruins and roman buildings. we began by snapping hundreds of photos of them and now find ourselves saying " oh there is another one....."
We stopped in Tournon a lovely little town very famous for its wine. We went to a wine tasking at a small vinvard run by a 37 year old man and his family. They were very shy! We also went to a chocolate store, it is apparently very famous! many famous chocolatiers train here apparently. There were so many free samples! I also purchased a lovely chocolate cook book.

At the small town of Vienne we saw lovely gardens and more roman ruins. The highlight of this town was their mini train which went all around the city and on the main highway!
We stopped in Lyon yesterday - its the biggest city after Paris. We arrived the day before and strolled throuh the city in the afternoon, simon spotted a lovely cathedral on top of the hill and we decided to take a look. i think we walked up 5 or six very steep and very long hills to finally reach it and find out it was closed for a local celebration! We trudged back down the hill and had a long walk back to the boat. I was exhausted! We atteded the briefing on the ship to find out what we would be doing the next day and found out that we would be driving up to see the cathedral!! we couldnt believe it. It was amazing inside, i will try to upload some photos from Paris as the ships internet isnt great. We had a bit of free time on the tour and we wandered around the small cobbled streets and had a look at the cafes and shops. We also saw C3PO from Staw Wars at an exhibition for small movie sets or something like that, its hard to tell because it was in French.

We had the Capatins dinner last night, it was amazing! There were 7 courses in total. 1 course was snails and i gave it a try. They were chewy and didnt really have a particular taste as they were cooked in garlic butter.

Today we are crusing to our final destination, Charlon-sur Saone. We have an activity this afternoon and then we need to pack ready to leave tomorrow. the cruise has been wonderful, everything has been done for us and the staff have been amazing. We are a little sad to be going & i am a little nervouse about the driving leg!

Crusing through southern France

Today we are spending most of the day crusing. It has been really nice to relax on the comfy sofa's and watch the country side. We went past a nuclear power plant early this morning which was very interesting. We have also gone under some very low bridges - for these bridges the crew are able to lower the wheelhouse and it seems to sink into the floor. Inside the lounge we attended a Q&A session where the poor Captin got asked lots of questions. We also attended a presentation on cheese and then got to taste some. I am going to try & upload some photos later today. the ships internet is quiet slow and has crashed the last few times that i have tried to upload some.

Avignon (yesterday)

Today a 3 hour tour of the city was offered. As we had already spent some time in Avignon we decided to do our own thing. A pass to see the papal palace was available from the boat. The crew had said that the palace had been damaged during the French Revolution and there was not a lot to see inside. We were expecting to zip throught the palace and spend the rest of our time wandering around the city and shopping. We ended up spending three + hours in side the palace. It was massive! It was very well laid out and had a number of posters with the different popes and a number of artifacts and models - each had a number and when you entered it into the handpiece it gave you informaiton. We followed the signs through the palace and we ended up on the roof! There was a tiny roof top cafe and we were about to enjoy a cafe & chocolate while looking at the amazing views. We managed to pop into a few shops and then returned to the ship for lunch (3 courses!) and then we lounged around while we sailed down the river to pick up some passengers who had taken an additional tour to a winery.
Dinner was lovely (6 courses). the crew had planned an evening lantern tour of the next village when we docked, around 10.30pm. Unfortunately we fell asleep and missed the tour.
We have met lots of lovely people, inparticular an elderly couple (80+ is our guess) named May and Walter who are from San Franscisco. We have sat with them for the last two evenings.

Arles

At 5.30 this morning we began cruising from Avignon to Arles. We woke up at 6am and popped up to the sun deck to watch the sunrise. We were travelling at a pretty fast speed. We went through a lock, this was interesting, the water was pumped out of the holding bay very quickly and it only took approximately 10 minutes or less, to drop 12 metres.We had a lovely buffet breakfast (and lots of coffeee) and then went on a walking tour of the city. There is a lot of Roman influences and they have a small colleseum. The town was nice but we both prefer Avignon and are looking forward to returning tomorrow. Most of the shops were shut today, aarently the French party hard and need Monday to recover. We have a three course lunch! and then went back for another look at the town before returning to the boat for cocktails. The new shoes are getting quiet a work out, 17500 steps today and its only 4pm.

So far the french people have ben wonderful, we have found them to be so welcoming and friendly. I'm epecting that this might be different when we get to Paris.

We are the youngest on the crusie by a good 30 years, most people avoid joining our table. We are getting lots of wierd looks.

Tomorrow we cruise to Avignon and we are looking forward to a tour of the Papal Palace (Palace of the Popes) and popping into some little shops that werent open yesterday.

We are in France......

After a long wait in Singapore and an even longer flight we arrived in Avignon in the south of France. The city is very old and is enclosed by an old stone wall with lots of look out points. the streets are very thin and look more like alleyways - not suprising then that we got lost looking for the hotel. We were offered assistance by a lovely young lady. We popped out for a bite to eat and then went back to the hotel for some much needed sleep.

We stayed at Hotel le Clobert, the rooms were lovely & the owners even nicer. We had a lovely breakfast this morning - the meat, potatoe and veg were all cut into small shapes and beautifully presented. We then had a lovely dish which was so simple yet so tasty! it was sliced apple with banana, honey and cinimon! yum!

We caught cab (VW 4x4 with sunroof!!) to the boat and then decided to take a stroll around the city while we waited for the room to be ready. We got as far as the Popal Palace and then turned back as it was raining.

Everyone seems to have small little dogs, we have seen so many cute ones out & about. 

I dont know about the rest of france but  the shoping is amazing! Unfortunately the shops were closed today but I think we are coming back in a day or two so hopefully we will have some free time :)

We have just ordered a beer and a in Fizz.....Cheers!