Nigel here. I have to say—the only way to really experience a country is to do a house swap. You get to stay longer (~3 weeks) and you immerse yourself in local culture in a way that is just not possible on a hotel excursion. On our annual trips to Europe, we avoid the tourist centres. For example, we are not visiting Paris this trip. By dedicating ourselves to the off the beaten track we avoid the other tourists. We align ourselves avec les vrais français. On mange les nourritures locales. On boit le vin domestique (qu'on ne peut pas acheter au LCBO). On parle la langue (plusieurs personnes qu'on rencontre ne peut pas parler que quelques mots anglais —merveilleuses). On achat du pain là ou nos voisins l'achat. We are in food heaven tonight. Louis ... read more

Le Tour? What, was that yesterday? Shoot! Forgot all about it... Just Kidding. What a day! It will be very hard to capture the thrill of the day's events but I will try...We left the house early - 8am. It was just over an hour to Grenoble on the highways but once we got off the main highways and on the mountain roads the driving was slower (switch-backs) so it took over an hour to get to where we finally stopped and parked the car. By the way, we passed HUNDREDS of cyclists making their way by bike to watch the tour! We missed a critical turn going up the mountain and kept following the lineup of cars. But we did eventually find a place to park 3/4 of the way up this mountain (which turned ... read more

I'll start of by saying: for those of you who are getting this blog for the first time, you can move through the blog to see prior days by clicking on previous entry. Also, you may need to scroll down to see all the pictures and to add comments. Well, started off today with a nice run. Then off to Lyon, this time we knew exactly where to go! We went to the P + R, took the Metro, connected to the Tramway and arrived at the Aquarium well before lunch. The Lyon aquarium was absolutely incredible. Favourites were: sharks, boxfish, puffer fish, wee baby clown fish that had just been born, sea urchins, and the hands-on tank where you could touch starfish and turbot. A really great display. I really must say, of all the ... read more

Well, today was a huge adventure! The high point for Lori was the lowest point geographically. We woke up at a normal time finally and enjoyed a run in the beautiful weather (Scott - at one point Nigel had to "run ahead" if you know what I mean, actually, he did yesterday too now that I think of it...). Then we headed east to the Vercors Regional Nature Park. The destination was Grotte de Choranche (caves). The first part of the drive was quite lovely and then we hit the mountains. Lori literally could not look out the window and had to shield the right side of her face with both hands to avoid seeing out the window. She estimates that the stress of the drive took about 5 years off her life. When we were ... read more

Well, the journey was long as expected. The flights were good and we all managed to get a few hours sleep. Each seat had its own TV with a remote/controller and we could each choose to watch TV shows, movies, play games, etc. on our own screen. It was pretty cool! Needless to say, the flight went fast! Connected in Schipol and recognized the airport right away. Had a 3 hour stopover but got lucky and Nigel and I got bulkhead seats for that flight so were really able to stretch out our legs. Too bad we didn't get that for the long flight... Arrived in Lyon and found the car. Drove to St. Peray using the GPS. We must have done something wrong though near the house cuz we ended up driving up a small ... read more