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Published: October 12th 2009
Germany
Our final day in Berlin was uneventful - full of museums - we visited 3 museums in one day - a record for us - the Pergamon, the Antiquities museum (the Altes) and the National Gallery. I was devastated to learn that the collection of Egyptian stuff was being transferred to the New Museum and was closed until the 16th October.
The weather was just gorgeous - everywhere we have been at least one day has been considered as an ”Indian Summer” and this was one of them. We enjoyed our day. This was made more special as it was Election Day in Germany - Angela Merkle as we said just lived around the corner at Schloss Bellevue and the Reichstag was not far away… we watched the final count on TV.
The next morning, were easily ready for the trip to the airport - in fact we were early and made it about one hour earlier than we anticipated - not bad when the flight only left at 9.15 and we arrived at the airport at 6.50!! But that was because we were scared that the transport system was going to let us down - but we caught
our bus early and so made the earlier train to Schonefeld and the walk was a piece of cake.
France
Alex picked us up, and we went to Paris for the day. I must say that we haven’t “done” Paris for at least 30 years, so we thoroughly enjoyed our revisit. The following days we toured Etrat on the coast along with Honfleur and Rouen. Each day was different, and we had a terrific time.
The three days with Alex, Damien and the two kids, Viktor and Paul were characterized by lots of eating!! I don’t believe I have eaten so much in many years. Alex reckons that the French know a thing or two about eating, and I think that as we didn’t see too many fat French people, she may be right!! Nevertheless, we ate three course meals at lunch and dinner for the 3 days we spent there, and one night we had Nadine, Alex’s mum bring us a tray of seafood to die for!! Langoustine, prawns, crevettes, crabs, and all sorts of snail things as well as loads of oysters. A meal fit for a king and as we already had a huge lunch of
mussels and fish, we made little pigs of ourselves! Did I mention the cakes and chocolate? No, well we didn’t miss out on those either!! Burp!!!!!
Alex and Damien had just moved into their new house the previous night, and had been scraping, painting and renovating the house until the moment of our arrival, so we felt very privileged to spend some time with them. Their hospitality was boundless!! Thanks so much!!
We left Alex to continue our own journey southwards with our hired car, with Karen our GPS to guide us, unfortunately we didn’t always give Karen adequate instructions, but she tried valiantly, sometimes getting very exasperated with us for losing the way yet again!!
We somehow managed to mess up visiting Le Mans, ending up way south of the city before we gave up and went on to Angers. This time learning from our experience, we programmed Karen better and she made it into the centre of town OK. With some help from the girls at the Information Centre, we toured the town and managed to have a good lunch. We used the Info girls to book us into a lovely Guest house at Thouarce, south of Angers,
in the middle of the wine district. Karen was very good about getting us there without too much mishap, and we have spent some time looking around the small village. Delightful! The Guesthouse was terrific - an old house of character about the 15th century…
La Rochelle the following day, was interesting as the town boasted old fortifications going back to the early 8th century. We found a Supermarket later in the day to do a good shop before picking up Maura and Tony from the minute airport. They were early, so we just managed to get there on time. We motored down to Pignaud and got home by 7.30 which was a good thing as it became dark by about 8 and we needed to find the place!! As we were unloading the car, the local cat came to say helloo and we were kind to it and gave it a pat - the last one!! It repaid our kindness by stealing one of our lovely cheeses, and making off with it across the neighbour’s fence, locked of course!! After much swearing, we gave up on the cheese, and now, should the cat dare show its face, it gets
the stones throw!! Dinner was salami, cheeses, bagette and salad followed by chocolate - no we didn’t miss out on any wines - we had quite a few the first night!! We followed the rest of the week with lovely food, wines and beers whenever we were at home, bought at the local markets or at the local supermarket
We spent some time the next day at the market at St Jean D’Angely looking at the foods on offer and finally making some purchases. The best of the day had to be the most fabulous tasting strawberries and rock melons ( they tasted of honey) and we bought some terrine of jambon and herbs. We spent the day quietly eating, snoozing and the men went into a fit of work and cleaned up the garden and mowed the lawn and snipped the hedge while we went for a long walk through Pignaud and Aumagne. We had 2 chateaux within cooee of us and assorted small country houses with cute shutters.
Sunday found us on the road again, but this time it was a little wasted journey as the locals shut up shop by lunch time and go home to
eat drink and sleep. We couldn’t find anything open except the indoor market in Cognac, so we ended up driving around Cognac, Matha and various small villages that Karen sent us to whilst trying to find the ‘shortest way’ to Angouleme.
Monday was a tad more successful, although the day started with rain. We went straight to Saintes (the quickest way) and spent some time looking at the lovely street market where we both(Maura and I) bought a French tablecloth. The Roman ampi-theatre that we went searching for later, took us some time and effort to find, but it was a lovely walk in the beautiful sunshine.
Home again to more beautiful food and excellent cheap wine, cheese, chocolate and desert cakes.
Tuesday October 6th. We wended our way to Migron to a Cognac maker - the L’Ecomusee du cognac. The old lady who looked after us was the mother of the owner - she didn’t speak a word of English, so translating all her gushing tour was a little hard, though the artifacts on their own were very interesting. We slipped up a little later in the day by taking a short snooze or read in the sun, but
made up for our slovenliness by visiting the Aulnay Eglise de St Pierre and the Donjon or Keep, both seemed to be from around the 12the Century. Lots of photos later, we took off for home and our last meal in the salubrious surroundings of Pignaud. On the final day of our stay, we cleaned out the house and took off for the Ile de Re, near La Rochelle. This island is about 30 km long and has a long history of fighting off the invading hordes, as well as oyster farming on dry land (in long rectangular ponds). We ate a leisurely lunch of fish, fish soup and whelks and having stuffed ourselves full, we took a quick peak at the rest of the island during the afternoon shower. Our plane from La Rochelle to Stansted was as quick as it was uneventful. The end of France for us!!
Outstanding points: Lots of lovely bagettes and pastries from patisseries and boulongeries; little villages and narrow streets with stone houses and innumerable churches, cathedrals and abbeys; Many vineyards and open countryside and lots of lovely and cheap wine.
Karen’s pronunciation was also one of the highlights as she mangled her
way through the many street names that were extremely long - like the 8th October 1945 - in French….. especially if we had missed the turn and she repeated herself almost to apoplexy before ‘recalculating’ and giving us another mangled street name… what fun we had as we wended our way through the French countryside!!!!
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Weggs
Judy and Rags
Welcome Home
I think this means you are home after a great adventure. We loved the markets in Europe too.