Blogs from Picardy, France, Europe - page 6

June 5 The name of Chantilly came to our notice during the previous visit in 2012. Back then, we wanted to go there but somehow our free day fell on Tuesday, when the castle was closed. Nevertheless, this time I had tickets in my pocket before leaving Russia. It took about 23 minutes from Gare du Nord to reach it. I think it is possible to combine the visit to Chantilly and Compiegne because they are on the same train line. In this entry, I will rely on web information to make the narration detailed. The castle is located about two kilometers from the train station. The trail crosses a large park, finally reaching the Chantilly racecourse. I saw a building, called Grandes Ecuries (the Great Stables), and erroneously considered it to be the castle. We ... read more

Our wonderful B & B hostess, Florence, made sure there were plenty of pastries and yummy food waiting for us at the breakfast table, even though it was well before dawn when we got up on Anzac day. We drove to the nearby village of Corby and parked the car then walked the 2kms up the hill to the Australian War Memorial. The road was closed to general traffic but open to the numerous shuttle buses that ferried people from the larger centres like Amiens, Albert and Peronne. Only one lane was open to the buses, the other lane was for those who were walking (like us) and it was well lit up so it felt very safe. We arrived in plenty of time to get a seat - the only problem was that the dew ... read more

I was 34 years old, running my own business in Finland. A racing stable, for almost 8 long years. I had planned to quit everything and move abroad, once again and was growing more and more restless as time went by. In the end of 2011, November, my relationship was a wreck, economical recession had (and still has) a strong hold of Finnish economy so when I got a call and was given a chance to work in France, a final decision was quickly made! So, off I went. Me, a smalltown girl, who never had even thaught of moving to France of all the places, who spoke about 4 words of French and had one or two prejudices of the French. ...so how about that! My employer was a Swedish fella, a real piece of ... read more

4 weeks – the holiday now feels much closer . We are getting more and more excited at the thought of searching out some sun and a glass or two of some decent wine. We had to take the van to Warrington to have the alarm system repaired today. Luckily it did not take too long to identify the fault which turned out to be a damaged connection on the gas locker door. At least it does not peep at us anymore. Apparently the glass was broken inside and this normally happens when it is knocked or damaged when the gas bottles are removed .As we have non removable Gaslow bottles this was not the case and it was repaired under guarantee. Noticed today that there are dents in the van roof. They look like footprints ... read more

Amiens was a city Terry always wanted to visit again after reading his favourite book 'Birdsong'. There is only one campsite and it was not good, expensive with even more expensive WiFi, therefore, we reduced our stay from one week to 3 days. The weather also was no longer good, more like an English summer. First opportunity though we were off to the city centre. 'Birdsong' describes the beauty of the canals built by the Romans alongside the River Somme. The heroes of the book fall in love there whilst travelling in a punt. You are no longer allowed to wander around these canals by boat so we had to take a tour in an electric powered punt, however, this was fantastic. The canals are built within very fertile soil and locals compete with each other ... read more