About to turn the big four oh and lucky enough the be going on an extended trip from our home in Perth Australia through the UK, a bit of France then road tripping around the US for a couple of months. Thought by blogging our trip we might remember it a little better in years to come!
On Wednesday we cycled to Sarlat which is another medieval town - it was market day but we got there at about 1 and most of the market stalls were closing down - still good for a look at the huge cheeses etc. This is such a big Foie Gras area - lots of Duck and Geese products for sale. We ended up having a two course meal for 11 euros which was nice in a restaurant built on the side of a cave basically. Again beautiful views on the cycle. Thursday was the toughest ride - 50 km to Rocamadour - was a lot of up and down hills through mostly national park - bit of Voltaren gel got me there. The destination was another unbelievable place - an ancient church on top of a ... read more
We arrived in Gourdon at 3 on the train from Paris on the Sunday - I was not feeling too good as the train rushing past all the close greenery when cutting through the hills had made me a bit travel sick. John from the cycling tour was waiting on the train station and we found out we had traveled down with another aussie who was doing the same tour as us, Pip. The area is absolutely beautiful - obviously a good time of the year with everything green and fresh = particularly after spending time in Mykonos and Paris. We drove through Gourdon village itself which is a lovely village with lots of stone buildings - there was a bit of traffic around because they had a farmers/trade expo or fair on. John and Aileens ... read more
We left Paris on the Tuesday morning - the flight was at 1pm so we originally planned on taking the train out to the airport but our host at the bed and breakfast informed us on the Monday night that there was going to be a train and taxi strike in the morning and that we should definitely try to book a taxi. So we booked one for 9am which would leave plenty of time for any traffic delays. Tues morning we are sitting around having a coffee and at about 8.20 she gets a call from the taxi driver saying he was outside and that he had come early due to the strike ha - it ended up only taking 40 minutes to get there which is less than what we had been told is ... read more
Today was one of the best drives for scenery yet - it took about four hours to drive from Edinburgh to Windermere in the lake district. Kept stopping to admire the views - also stopped for a while in the little village Paul’s dads descendants had emigrated from - found the local graveyard and there was a lot of Armstrongs buried there. I have had the worse day yet flu wise - once we got to our B&B at about 2.30 I pretty much just jumped into bed and had a few hours sleep. Would have loved to be able to go with Paul for his walk around the village but decided to try and get rid of this head cold. Later we ended up going into the next village down by the lake for a ... read more
Did the fairly quick trip from Loch Earn to Edinburgh via Perth. Had hoped to stay with Rob Erskines Uncle and Aunty who have a B and B outside the city but couldn’t get them on the phone all week so ended up booking into a hotel in Edinburgh for a couple of days. Was one of those “mystery hotels’ was pretty pricey but it’s the festival here at the moment so it’s all expensive - it ended up being the Hilton right next to the castle - vvv noice. It was great to have a couple of days in the one spot. Heaps of people around for the festival. We ended up going to a few comedy shows - including Jimeoin who was really good. Weather got better on the Wednesday although it was still ... read more
