Blogs from Aquitaine, France, Europe

Frankfurt Airport I'm on a four-hour layover waiting for my connection to Marseille, mindlessly following signs, mindlessly following crowds. Occasionally the crowds bunch into queues, queues for shuttles, queues for information, queues for coffee. I've come to accept the dozens of communication failures that happen daily when I'm traveling abroad. My first of this trip came when I summoned my best German to order coffee mit cream and got a cup of thick black ink instead. On the flight I watched a documentary about how we fail to appreciate the miracle of modern aviation. (No doubt produced by some airline consortium.) Each gate in an airport should be seen as a portal, the film suggested, a portal that allows us to step from London to Abu Dhabi, from Montreal to Lima, from Shanghai to Honolulu. The ... read more

This morning we woke from a 10 hour sleep refreshed and ready for another day. After enjoying a lovely breakfast that had been prepared by the Inn keeper, (she lost money on John), we headed out to visit the Chateau of Langeais, first built in 1465 by the King of France, Louise XI. It is the centerpiece of the town and is known to be one of the most imposing looking fortresses of the Middle Ages. It was, however, built mostly for show. The chateau towers over the little town, and has a moat, drawbridge and turrets. It has been said to have been the inspiration for Cinderella’s castle. We entered through the drawbridge and explored three stories of rooms which include all of the period furnishing. After strolling through the gardens, we made the perfunctory ... read more

It was great to catch up with our friends, Sue and Paul in Calella, share a meal and listen to Spanish music with Flamenco dancing. Surprisingly they were the first UK residents we had spoken to in 4 weeks so we had a lot to say! We camped a little way along the coast from our friends, in a delightful campsite. So much better than our last, with a great welcome from the staff, the guy who showed us to our pitch was a dead ringer for David Hasselhoff. The tents, caravan’s, motorhomes with their respective paraphernalia, washing lines, blow up lilos, etc, did give it a cramped feeling-but I suppose it was the peak of the summer holidays. The facilities though were top notch. Apart from swimming pool, kiddy pool it also had a separate ... 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

First stop today was our nearest town, Villereal, just 4km away. Another Bastide town and also another Plus Beaux Villages de France. As it turned out, though it has the most superb market place, the pretty bit really seems to be confined just to that central area so we didn’t find it as lovely as the other villages we visited. Villereal does have the most fantastic covered market, it even has steps up to an inside area under a peaked roof and was a real delight to visit. We did get a little wet as it decided to rain when we were there. We were enjoying a coffee, under cover and felt so sorry for the market traders who as well as getting themselves and their stalls wet, suddenly lost all their customers who ran for ... read more