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Published: July 27th 2019
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It was time to leave the beautiful mountain scenery behind as we headed closer and closer to home.
Before arriving in France we had to make our way through Germany, we spent one night in Titisee Neustadt, a small town in the Black Forest. It seemed very green and lush after the high mountain peaks we'd been travelling in recently. Pine forests covered the hillsides. The little town left a lot to be desired unless you can count an Aldi store that is! We stocked up on a few groceries and 'self catered' there. A party of 70 British school children were due to arrive at our hotel later that day so I think we'd been bumped off into the annex in a dreary, dusty room. I have to say the children were well behaved but as we were told we couldn't take breakfast until they had finished next morning we declined. I mean, do you really want bread rolls that have been handled by numerous children? We again 'self catered'.
So bright and early we were off on the road to France. Once over the first stop was Ribeauville a medieval town with buildings that looked as if
they were straight out of a picture book. Narrow cobbled streets and plenty of street cafes all buzzing with life. The temperature had by now crept up to 26 degrees and we could well and truly tell we were back in lowlands. The whole area was laces with vinyards.
Our hotel for the night was in another small town; Saint Hippolyte. It was tiny and had buildings similar to Ribeauville. We had trouble finding the hotel as the sat nav kept taking us to a huge posh looking place with not much else around and it certainly didn't call itself 'Maison Hum' the place we'd booked into. Eventually, after several trips around the narrow streets and getting nowhere we followed the sat navs directions again and ended up back at the big posh hotel. In desperation ( it was now over 30 degrees and we were melting!) we went into the reception of the big hotel and showed him our booking, " This is here" he said. "The Maison Hum is a house in the grounds" Oh no! not another annex!
He showed us to our room and it was lovely and what's more we could use all
the hotel's facilities. Things were looking up.
Before dinner we had just enough time to drive up the nearby hill to explore the chateau. In the cool of the evening we strolled through the town and saw all the painted bikes decorating the streets showing where the Tour De France had come through.
Final stop over in France was Laon. The drive there had been a bit problematic as the sat nav insisted on directing us around and around Riems town centre several times, so much so that locals sat in street cafes began waving to us as we passed by, again!!
We arrived in Laon, located somewhere to stock up on wine before getting back into Britain, then went out for dinner. The town was a bit uninteresting but they had done their best to 'jazz' it up!
Next day it was the final drive to Calais, we made good time and managed to get on the ferry at 12.45pm, the one before the one we were booked on which was just as well as that was delayed for over an hour.
By 4.30 pm we were arriving at Gary and Milena's house for
a few home comforts for a few days. Thanks Gary and Milena, it was a lovely way to end an epic trip. 2.622 miles in total
And that's it!! We are now back home and slipping into the old routine.
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Home and Away
Bob Carlsen
I've enjoyed following your journey...
so until next time!