Blogs from France, Europe - page 7

After being stung at the hotel for breakfast, we were at the meeting spot for our url=https://www.headout.com/versailles-palace-tickets/palace-of-versailles-tour-with-skip-the-line-access-e-6173/Versaille Palace Guided Tourat 9am. There was only four of us on the English tour, so we started off at Versaille palace to meet the guide. Our Tour started with the Kings 8 room suite, then to the hall of mirrors and then finishing with the queens 8 room suite. As with our Blog for the Vatican, every room was so lavishly decorated with paintings on the walls and frescos on the ceiling that the sensors became overloaded and numb to the beauty of the subsequent rooms. Except for the "wannabe Models" who dressed up and in the queens chambers decided they should have the whole room for their impromptu fashion shoot. Once we exited the main building and farewelled ... read more

. France - and a bit more: Episode 5 (Finale) This blog describes our 2023 journey to Europe; specifically France (with the possibility of a small foray elsewhere as both Italy and Spain are 'next door'!). As always, we segment the 'blog' into roughly weekly or fortnightly posts (this being the 5th). Our travel blog has been written for family and friends to 'travel with us'. We now recognise we write the blog for ourselves; it is how we revisit our past adventures and remind ourselves of the the enjoyment. Thus, there is more detail included than merely a brief discourse for family and friends. BTW, if you want to see the picture in a larger size, just click on it. Oh, and if you missed Episode #1, you can find it here, and Episode #2 ... read more

23/6/25 Driving Day heading slowly north. Though it was a driving day it wasn’t too long a drive as we had inserted the Brantome, previous stop, into the originally planned itinerary so it reduced the miles to travel to next stop. A pleasant drive through lots and lots of agricultural land, fields stretching for miles in all directions and full of sunflowers and potatoes and of course golden grain. Harvesting has already started and we saw lots of farmers cutting their crops. We bypassed Poitiers where a massive amusement park Futuroscope is located. We saw some of that as we drove by but were not tempted to stop. Campsite for the night was Camping du Lac de Saint-Cyr at Beaumont Saint-Cyr. Sunday, a big leisure lake and a gloriously sunny day. The turn into the campsite ... read more

Had a choice of directions to explore the area but settled for Bourdeilles 10km away as it promised a chateau. As it happened we didn’t actually visit the chateau itself. Drove down the narrow road through the village to the river and found a parking spot then went across a bridge to the other side of the river. What can I say but it really was a wonderful spot to sit and watch the world, or more precisely, the river go by. Just such a beautiful peaceful spot. The bridge is ancient, vaulted and arched and the river so pretty. Much clearer water here than at the campsite where it is quite brown which could be accounted for by the boats which go up and down there. We sat down to admire the view across the ... read more

We were quite surprised really to find that we hadn’t been to Brantome before as it is such an obvious place to visit, well on the tourist trail. We have stayed not far away, a little further north near Nontron, at Chateau le Verdoyer a couple of times in our very early motorhoming days and remember a lovely visit to Nontron with sister Rosemary and husband Barry when we all met up at the campsite so have very happy memories of the area. I’m including a tiny photo I found of them there as it makes me happy to see it. Saturday is market day in Brantome and the market is enormous. We had no real need of fresh food but a French market is always a delight to wander around so that is what we ... read more