Blogs from Midi-Pyrénées, France, Europe - page 9

We landed in this lovely place called Cognac. We had no idea this was a beaut. It is in the middle of wine country and not that far from Bordeaux. We had time to look around but that was all for we were only there for the night. It was very busy in the city. people doing their shopping and cafe's were full and lively. People sitting at terraces having a glass of wine or a beer. We did window shopping, but were not in any need of anything. We felt a bit flat so we stopped at a place that sold pancakes. A big Kiwi bloke was doing the baking. We talked with him, he wanted to now what two Aussies were doing in Cognac. He was telling us he used to play rugby and ... read more

Le voyage se prépare avec les dernières reservations, notamment le train de nuit Xi'an vers Chengdu avec couchettes molles qui semble bien prisé des chinois et des touristes.... read more

EL CAMINO de SANTIAGO Planning My living room was a morass of camping and hiking gear almost from the moment that my daughter, Lauren, agreed to go with me on this adventure; walking the French Way - 500 miles from St. Jean Pied de Port, France to Santiago, Spain. I thought, with this early start, things would automatically divide themselves into equipment and clothing to carry in my back pack and that which we would leave behind. Preparation for hiking the Camino was also an opportunity to eliminate unnecessary items from our hiking closet. I anticipated wrapping up this part of the preparation in a week or less and then I could enjoy with anticipation, the comfortable, light weight pack beaming at me as it stood against the wall waiting for the big day, the departure ... read more

THE DREAM Walking the Camino I am so far behind on my blogging. I do apologize. Every day I think I will write another blog about my 2016/2017 trip to the Caribbean, South America, and Indonesia. Then the sun goes down on my plan without a single word being written. Now I am so excited about my new trip that I want to jump start writing about it. So I expect I will be entering missing blogs from my last trip while writing about the trip I am planning now. Still in the planning stages, so anything can change - the goal: Hiking the El Camino de Santiago…starting May 20, 2017. I have been wanting to do this for about three years. Finally, my middle daughter, Lauren has agreed/almost agreed to go with me. She and ... read more

We had planned to visit 3 of the most beautiful villages of France: Loubressac, Autoire and Carantec when we stayed at this campsite but I realised last night that we visited them all when we stayed on a site in Carantec on the Dordogne, 2 years ago. Bob quickly reviewed the plans and plotted a new Kisbee trip round other villages instead. This to end at Loubressac as we heard that there was to be a hot-air, (Montgolfiades de Rocamadour) balloon spectacle there at 5pm and we wanted to watch it. We had to go first of all to Gramat as Kisbee was thirsty and refusing to ride further until we fed him some fuel. Had the most delicious patisserie with our morning coffee then set off on our explorations. First to Thegra where there ... read more