Blogs from Picardy, France, Europe - page 7

It's not always easy to convince our kids to discover some culture. Since they're so young, they would rather spend their time on playgrounds ;-) But when we told them we were going to visit Merlin's Castle, they were very excited. And when we mentioned the rumors of a dragon inside the castle, they definitely wanted to search the dragon! The official name of the castle is "Château de Pierrefonds" (Castle of Pierrefonds). But it is better known as Merlin's Castle because it served as Camelot for the BBC series Merlin. Some say it's the most beautiful fortified castle in France. Pierrefonds itself is a rather small village of which the main attraction is the castle itself. It has a nice center where we strolled around and eat a little bit. In this way we were ... read more

Day 9 We leave Paris this morning. Our apartment check I'd some at 0600 so we can get the bond back and have time to get to the station for a 0728 train to Amiens where we then go on a 2 day tour of the Western front WW1 battlefields (Somme, Poziers, Villers Bretenoux, etc.). We get to Amiens without a hitthe wait outside Subway (sandwichery as they call it here) for our 0930 pickup. 0945 and start to wonder - 0955 and making calls to tour group - bugger, that is 1800 in Sydney. Try again and they offer an emergency line but as I am about to hit the buttons, a man that Chris had noticed standing on the corner comes over - our contact who had been on the corner he usually meets ... read more

Forgot to name our very nice campsite : ** L’Aubepines at St Firmin ** Excellent start to our trip. Despite rain on and off all night, when we woke we could see pretty blue sky through the bedroom roof light and it stayed remarkably good and warm all day. Scooter out of the garage and off we went to Le Crotoy. This is just a couple of miles from the campsite and on the northern edge of the Baie de Somme. We parked by the harbour and went for a walk round, along the beach, admiring the lovely, very Norman, architecture. Some very pretty buildings and also a very pretty walk as the sky was blue, the clouds puffy and white and the sun warm. We found our way to the station for the Chemin de ... read more

To continue our history tour of Europe, we took a tour of the WW1 battle fields of France, just outside of Paris. This was a fairly personal tour for Stephanie, with her great grandfather having fought in the battle of the Somme, and her grandfather (mum's dad) having been named after the battle of Mount St Quentin - one of the infamous battles the Australian's won against all odds. It started with an early morning train from Paris, and unlike the American Normandy tour, we were surrounded by Australians both on the train and the tour. But it definitely made the tour that much closer for us, having everything tailored to the Australian stories of the first world war. We started in the memorial for Villers-Bretonneux, one of the forefronts of the battle, where the Germans ... read more

It was raining as we ate our breakfast this morning which did not bode well for our day's riding. Fortunately, by the time we finished breakfast, cleaned out teeth and got on deck to unlock and prepare our bikes, the rain had stopped!! Our first stop this morning was at Ourscamp Abbey, a Benedictine monastery not far from Pont l'eveque. The abbey is on the Santiago de Compostela pilgrims' route and offers accommodation for pilgrims. Out the back is the most incredible ruin that attests to the fact that the site must have been spectacular in its heyday. A team of archaeologists were working in the ruins. They turned out to be American so they were able to tell us that this is their second season at the site (2009 and back again this year) and ... read more