Blogs from Franche-Comté, France, Europe

Digestion faite... notre déjeuner chez Georges Blanc restera une fois de plus un très bon souvenir... On ne s'en lasse pas.. cet homme à les étoiles qu'il mérite ! Merci encore à lui... Au retour dans Pollux, 50° nous attendent... à l'intérieur, je précise... Après cette belle étape nous reprenons la route tout doucement vers le retour. Nous nous arrêterons au camping de Parcey, malheureusement un peu trop peuplé à notre goût... et surtout très bruyant. Ce sera le premier camping que nous trouverons bien occupé depuis nos petits périples de cet été... Nous sommes au bord de la Loue. On ne peut s'y baigner car une bactérie s'y est installée... La piscine est bondée... On se contente pour le peu que nous restons au camping de se passer de temps en temps sous la douche... ... read more

It’s time to start the drive back to London. It’s over 600 miles so we’ve divided it into 3 chunks. Our first overnight stop is Besançon. We set off from Zurich with musical accompaniment for 4 hours of driving/culture. By the time we reach our hotel, we have covered Tudor history (Six), Greek Mythology (Hadestown) and American history (Hamilton). The hotel is difficult to spot, requiring 3 (increasingly irate) circuits of the one way system to locate it. I briefly hope our arrival will stop daughter no 2 from reciting the lyrics of every musical in the world, but we’re in the birthplace of Victor Hugo. It’s mid afternoon, so locating a restaurant that’s still open takes a while, but we find a crêperie which serves an awesome Roquefort pasta. Besançon is a fortified city in ... read more

Auch die 11. Arbeitswoche verlief wieder problemlos. Ich habe meinen Lohnzettel für Juli bekommen und der Steuersatz war wieder toll. Auch das Gehalt nach Abzug der geringen Abgaben. Gestern habe ich meinen dritten in H2 2018 geplanten Ausflug in die Franche-Comté gemacht. Die bergige Grenzregion zwischen Frankreich und der Schweiz erinnert mich an die letzte Folge der sehr interessanten Filmreihe "Die Baskenmütze", in der der Titelheld (ein ehemaliger deutscher Kriegsgefangener im Nachkriegsfrankreich) über die Grenze flüchtete, um ein neues Leben zu beginnen. Leider konnte ich die Reihe wie so viele andere sehenswerte wegen meiner Eltern nicht komplett sehen und in meiner damaligen Lieblingsbibliothek gab es das Buch nicht. Für so etwas habe ich großes Verständnis und meine persönliche Flucht aus einer unangenehmen Jugend in einem kleinen unangenehmen Ort in Bayern führte 1995 nach Ber... read more

As mentioned we are now in Gray with plenty of things to see and do here. With arriving on July 12th and Bastille Day being on July 14thwe decided that we should stay put to check out their celebrations for the holiday. In the meantime we planned a day trip by bus to the town of Dijon. It was a full day checking out the architecture of the area, visiting an art museum in the Duke’s Palace, visiting their Notre Dame and the crypt. Never thought we would be checking out crypts on our travels, but in fact they are quite interesting as well. Yes, and before you ask, there is plenty of varieties of mustard for sale here in Dijon at the markets and souvenir shops – more varieties than we could ever have imagined ... read more

A more leisurely start today as nothing like as far to go and Bob had chosen a scenic route starting south east then pretty well due south. An absolute pleasure of a drive and a good thing we only had 220km to drive as we had to keep stopping to admire the sights. Sights which we would never see if we took the motorway. The back roads of France are the way to go and the reason we enjoy driving round this so varied countryside. At one point Bob commented we hadn’t passed another car for 15 minutes so quiet were most of the roads. Apart from the endless but colourful fields, some very pretty stretches of forest, all with verges neatly trimmed, and some lovely villages along the way (which I always approach with window ... read more