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Bonjour chacun! We are now touring through France, and are presently making our way through a few vineyards towards Spain.
We started this leg of the trip with a ferry from Cork to Roscoff in Brittany, which dropped us off early Sunday morning with very little other traffic around to see our first go at driving on the wrong side of the road. Supprisingly this is not accually as hard as you would first think, as long as you pay attension at round-abouts and go a bit slower at intersections.
We headed straight for Paris as the weather in Brittany resembled that of Ireland, so there was no real desire in place to hang around on the beaches in the fog and drizzle :-( We happily made good time into the afternoon, then discovered a recurring theme with the French retail establishment - they do not like turning up to work. Sunday afternoon saw us rolling through the car parks of closed supermarket after closed supermarket.... We did find them open again Monday morning, but hit the same problem when we stopped for a lunch in a small town midday Monday to find the place almost entirely closed up!
The only resturant open in town did feed us - but we saw them closing up for the afternoon 30 seconds after we had walked out. All this inconvience was forgiven when we went to pick up some grocerys and found shelf after shelf of tasty cheese, pate, breads, preserves, wines and other assorted nibbles at very reasonable prices. What was supposed to be a quick stop for bread and milk took over an hour and filled up our little fridge (and cupboard space) to bursting point :-)
We stayed in a great little camping ground in Versailles quite close to the train into the city (a 30 minute ride away), and proceeded to spend the next couple of days zipping around the city on the metro network. However, as you can see from the number of photos containing raincoats, the weather decided not to co-operate. Our visit did show us why Paris is such a mecca for tourists as the wide open boulevards and leafy greenspaces put most of the large cities we have seen to shame. One of the more interesting spots we visited were the catacombes which hold the occupants of cemetarys emptied to stop the
spread of disease hundreds of years ago. The bones of millions are stacked in huge piles in the tunnels of disused sandstone quarries running right under the streets of southern central Paris - making for a rather spooky walk through about 1-2 km of tunnels. Aside from compulsory stops at the Tower, Arc and Notre Dame we also did battle with the crowds at the Louvre (photos attached). The crowds in front of the Mona Lisa were insane - a huge scrum of tourists had formed who were more interested in getting their photo taken in front of the picture than actually looking at the picture....
We moved on from Paris on 1st May - to discover that yet again we were in the middle of a holiday (French Labour Day), and everything was shut. Thankfully this didn't slow us down too much as we decided on a stroll through the formal gardens of the palace of Versailles. The weather started to co-operate by this stage, giving us long sweeping views of a massive man-made lake preceeded by acres of formal gardens (photos attached). Next we headed south to the Chateau of Fontainbleu to take in the gardens again
(France was still closed), but we did follow up with a visit inside the following morning to check out the miles of gold leaf, tapestries and oil paintings which make the interior rather busy as everywhere you look something is going on.
Over the last few days we have been making our way southwest(ish) following the Loire valley. The sun has finally come in for us, keeping us pretty warm as we float alternately between winerys and Chateaus, following the local tourism board's Route du Vin. The white wines here are pretty different, particularly the Savs which are quite dry. However the red wines are really good - nothing rough on offer, with lovely fruity smooth wines coming out of bottles only two years old. We have had to find new places to store our purchases in the van, but have been doing pretty well at turning over the inventory once we stop for the night - thank God blue cheese is cheap and plentiful around here :-) We have also been breaking up the tasting with the odd Chateau visit as they pop up on our horizon and have seen some really massive places with staggering numbers of
rooms, through to cosy little places of 20 rooms or so snuggled into riverbanks or their own little park lands (photos attached).
France is a great place to go camping as it seems to be a national pass time, and we are finding sites pretty easily in the areas with things to draw in the tourists. The exception to this was last night when we found ourselves half way between the Loire and Bordeaux, where we found a nice rest area well off the main road with lots of leafy trees, picnic tables and rubbish bins. It took us ten minutes or so to realize that all the other occupants of the site were single males sitting alone in their cars, who would periodically do a lap of the area either or on foot or in their car, checking out all the other single guys in their cars....We decided to stick around and share the area with the local gay community, and enjoyed an evening of people watching as the light began to fade. There seemed to be a distinct lull in activity around dinner time, but things really got busy (pun not intented) after dark, which was a
bit annoying listening to all the musical car doors when we trying to get some sleep.
We have now just arrived in the Bordeau region, and plan on continueing to stock the van with the local drop over the next few days before heading on down to San Sebastian in Northern Spain. We can't be too sure when our next post will be as internet cafes have become pretty thin on the ground now all the locals have their own connection at home and have little need of them, so don't worry if you email us and have to wait for a reply - like the rest of France we are execising restricted hours :-)
Au revoir
S&S
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trev
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jealous
Looks fantastic, I think I recognise one or two of the chateau's. Brings back the memories. Make sure you get into the local boulangerie/patisserie as often as possible! It may cheer you up to know the weather has just turned cold here; first snow on the desert road.