europeandogs

London, England and Edinbrough, Scotland-Off to meet JD in London after his 3 week tour of Europe and before his month of Spanish in Madrid. London: We flew "first" to London and met JD at Hotel Sofitel early on the 19th. That was Father's Day. We walked around through Picadilly and Carnaby square and had fish & chips at a pub for Father's Day. We spent Monday aclimating and shopping at Harrod's with "french widow" champagne, followed by Indian food. On Tuesday, we took the "Hogwart's Exress" to Edinbrough. The train ride was quite enjoyable with great countryside and free wi-fi. Edinbrough: It was much cooler and raining when we arrived. We stayed at a suite at the George Hotel. Visited the Hard Rock Cafe across the street and we walked the city and admired the ... read more

Today was cleaning day as we will be packing up in the morning and heading for a day in Toulouse tomorrow. Then we will stay at the hotel by the aiport after our "leaving France" dinner and leave VERY early on Wednesday morning. We also went to Gimont today to have lunch in a little cafe and pick up pastries for breakfast. Visited a church built in 1331 and then came back early to enjoy the villa one last day and relax. We haven't heard anything else yet about the air traffic controllers strike, so we are hoping that everying is on schedule! Bonjour (I mean bon au revoir) and Bon Voyage!... read more

Today we went to a market in Saint Andre de Sangonis. It is called brocante .. a festival to sell items at the market. This was at the church square. There were antiques as well as other items. We shopped for antiques and had wine, sausages, & bread at the festival. Then we stopped again in Auch for extra suitcases! and the last days of groceries as well as some gifts between Pavie and Auch. Saw a wedding at the town square on the way home.... read more

July 14 was Bastille Day and we went to Auch to see the local parade. They honored soldiers returning from Afganistan, local firefighters, police, and other dignitaries. Then we went to Le Chateau de Caumont. It was built in 1535 by a renound French architect in the Italian Paladian style. Henry IV slept there as a baby. Robin finally drove home from this chateau as it was a holiday and there was not much traffic. Driving a stick is like riding a bike .... except for the rotaries!... read more

Off to Andorra-la-vella in Andorra. Andorra is its own country - on the border of southern France and northern Spain. After staying at the party until 2 am, we had a late start to Andorre. We stopped to fill up with gas on a Sunday. There are no attended stations on Sundays and none of our credit cards would work at the gas pump. In addition, the gas cap was locked and we couldn't get it open with our key. Many thanks to the nice frenchman who unlocked the gas cap and filled up our car with gas on his credit card so we could just pay him cash! We made the hotel reservation the night before but are not attached to a printer and did not write it down. So we stopped at an Internet ... read more