Posts (page 5)
We slept in a bit, ‘til 08.30, as the day before had been pretty stressful with the travel. We got a quick light breakfast at the Mas and then started out toward Pont du Gard. This is an amazing site where roman aqueducts still stand; the aqueduct runs inside a bridge over the river Gard. These were used to carry water to Nîmes for over 500 years. They are very large, and because of their extreme age of over 2000 years are quite awe inspiring to observe. I took quite a few pictures on the bridge as well as from the shores of the river. This is a must-see site.
After Pont du Gard viewing, we walked back along the museum area and entrance, got a Coke and sat and talked. We noted that the French countryside roads (like country roads anywhere) are hard to drive sometimes and it takes us longer to get anywhere than we think. Just like Texas, there are some slow drivers and some really fast ones, and of course the difference is the roundabouts. They are everywhere, and David’s become quite enamored of them… they really give you a chance to go from any direction and even work quite well in high traffic situations.
Here’s a hilarious one. We couldn’t get out of the Pont du Gard parking lot. It’s a pay lot, and we took our ticket when we came in, but as we left we couldn’t figure out what to do next! We placed the ticket into the gate and then placed our regular ‘stupid’ American credit card in the pay slot. No go. It seems that everyone in Europe (practically) has a ‘smart card’ version with a microprocessor in it (and subsequently better security and more reliable electronic query of the card number) so that it can easily be used in such situations. We quickly backed out, and then looked around for the ‘cash window’ and couldn’t find it. We puzzled for a while and then finally figured out that there was a separate small (hard to find) freestanding unit that only takes cash and reduces the value on your card to zero by that cash amount presented. Ahhhh. This was our first real understanding of the parking system used here rather universally. I’ll explain more about this on another day when we begin to really hone our parking skills. With the ticket paid down, we placed it back in the exit gate, and with a owed amount now showing zero, the gate is lifted and we are off. We were both proud to have figured it out without really completely speaking their language. Small success I suppose.
We drove then to Uzes, a small Roman-origins
provincial town. Narrow streets and the center is blocked off for driving, so
we parked outside and walked into the center. By this time, with all the
walking and driving, we were quite hungry. We’ve found ourselves in this mode
of eating a big breakfast, then a very late lunch. Luckily the Europeans eat
dinner very late as well (as I type this, in Italy, we note they eat even later!) but sometimes we eat
lunch too late even for them, due to the sightseeing and timing. We finally
hiked into the city center and stopped at a nice pizza place. They were great
with good fresh ingredients. We figure that eating more economically at lunch
makes things cheaper and gives us a better budget for dinner, and sometimes we
found ourselves not eating dinner at all.
We took the opportunity to get on-line in a bar on a rental computer (internet point) but I could find no WiFi hookups to get online with my own computer; so, I only checked and sent a few emails rather than doing a more detailed upload. We finally went out looking for the promised ‘launderette’. One we found it, we learned through Lindi’s French services that the facility was not self-serve, so we decided to use them anyway. They quoted us 13 Euro for two big baskets of laundry in two distinct loads. Pretty good deal, and later on in the trip we learned that this was one of the best deals we got in washing, even counting self-serve ‘washaterias’.
We were tired at this point, and headed back to the Mas. We had a quick look at the pool, and even put on our suits as it had been fairly warm out earlier… maybe 80 degrees. We quickly figured out that the pool was about 70 degrees, and fairly cold to the touch. We found that by the time we would get back to the Mas, it had already cooled down enough that the pool seemed cold. So, we put our feet in the water and enjoyed the cool – we just talked and caught up on our conversations.
We popped upstairs and had some of beers we bought at the local store. We skipped dinner because of the great late lunch we had, and turned in. That was Day 14.
We got up quite early due to our early train reservations and the need to return the POS rent car we got. More on this in a second.
We were up so early (5am) that we didn’t have a chance to say goodbye or have another nice breakfast, so we said our farewells to Odile the night before. We hustled out repacked and overstuffed bags into the Renault TwinGo and we set off.
We didn’t care for the general torn-up nature of the car, but we had no idea until this morning that its cracked-up state would cause us such trouble. Previously we’d at least considered the car functional, if small (we have to understand that European cars are small – very small!), but today we saw the result of a particular flaw we’d noticed before. This flaw was a dent in the front end that caused one of the headlights to point radically into the air – I admit I just never noticed the headlight angle, so was never concerned – until now.
First, it was foggy in the country, at 06.00. Second, it was the first time we’d driven in complete darkness. We found that not only did the headlight not illuminate the road, but it shone upward and glared into our eyes – very nice. It was a long careful drive back to Caen in the POS. Because we’d been driving a lot, we were much better with the signs and didn’t get so frustrated as we did on the trip out from Caen. Also, starting out with enough time for each situation is something we always like to do, to relieve the stress. It almost always works out as a waste of some time at some station, but that’s OK.
We arrived in plenty of time, but since the office was closed (we always knew this would be the case) we had to park and then put the keys and paperwork in the Europcar drop-box. Because of our concerns over not having a person to check the car over with us, we took a selection of start and finish digital pics, just to validate the state of the car and that we hadn’t wrecked it (more than it already was).
We grabbed our stuff and rolled our bags just across the road to the Caen TGV Gare (TGV is the French version of the bullet train, and Gare means Station). As usual, we were early, and this time it was a fairly good thing. Our train left a little earlier than we thought, and also we had a special task to accomplish. When you travel on a Europe RailPass, it is configured for a set number of days of travel on any number of trains anywhere in Europe. The first step you must undertake is to get the RailPass ‘validated’ at a rail station – from then on, you only need to enter the date for your travel on the pass and then it is valid for that day. The reason for this design, like a lot of other aspects of the pan-European rail system, is that the tickets are policed on a sampled basis, and NOT on a per-entry basis. Therefore, you can walk into a train station almost anywhere, and simply get on a train! Our experiences as I write this (train to Provence, train to Nice, overnight train to Rome, and train from Rome to Florence) was that only once was our ticket and railpass even checked by the wandering conductors. Much of the time they are reading papers, talking on phones or texting and almost never appearing to do real railroad business.
So, we needed our RailPass validated; but, there was no one at the Caen Gare office. We waited for 30 minutes for someone to show up, and at least once we talked to a normal employee who was unaware of the procedure or where the manager was (who should have been in the office). Be ready in Europe for this sort of cock-up and the inefficiency of employees in the trains, airports and other governmental offices. Be ready for some delays, both in tasks you need individually, as well as train schedules. Finally, he showed up and signed and stamped the pass, but didn’t actually fill in all the data that is called for in the RailPass documentation and on the website. Sigh. So, Lindi and I filled out the remaining data appropriately, and set off to the appropriate track.
Our experience in rail stations (gare in France) is that they are organized in at least two different ways: ‘dead-end’, where the trains come to a dead-end at the station itself and all the tracks and the platforms go perpendicular to the station center, or ‘continuous’ where the tracks come past the station in parallel and the platforms are between the tracks. Clearly, in the continuous model you can’t easily get to the platforms in the middle areas, because the tracks and trains are in the way (but the trains can enter and exit from both directions), and in the ‘dead-end’ model the trains must be switched into the station only one way, but all the platforms are easy to get to. Read this for more details, and email me if this doesn’t make sense.
The Caen station was of the continuous type, so we had to descend to tunnels under the tracks and then ascend on to our platform. We had to also decode the display system, for track and platform numbers etc., but it was pretty easy. Note again, that departure times for trains only come up on the big board 30 minutes before the actual departure (presumably for flexibility) and then you can move to that platform. We did that.
Our train was already in, so we boarded our RER car (French intercity railroad) and headed to Le Mans ; this was where we pick up our high-speed TGV for Avignon. The train was on-time and ran well. We sat in the 1st class section of all trains that had 1st class, as our RailPass is 1st class. Just for reference, 1st class isn’t that much better than 2nd. All the cars are clean, fairly quiet, and comfortable. 1st perhaps just has a bit more room, and you can reserve areas with tables for two or four. Some pictures show the layout.
We got to Le Mans, and it was a little chilly waiting on the platform. We were a bit confused because they also call Le Mans “du Mans” – we never figured out why, but it kind of freaked us out that we might be in entirely the wrong place! It turned out everything was fine, and we walked over to the TGV waiting for us for Avignon. This was a double-decker ‘bullet-train’ and is very nice indeed. Well appointed, especially in 1st, and super quiet. You can’t speak over a whisper even at full speed and not be heard by others in the car. Incredible. It runs at approximately 200 miles an hour and cut our trip to under 4 hours, or about how long a plane would have taken, counting security, cab rides, etc. Check out the pics (with Lindi in them) and see the layout and the scenery whizzing past.
Some TGV comments: they never checked our pass; some of the toilets didn’t work; the environment is a little stuffy and could use more fresh air. We ate at the on-board food car, and had a couple of pre-made sandwiches – David’s was a toasted one, and they toasted it right there. Nice, and it was a cheese and ham with the cheese on top, toasted and brown – yum. We also had some fruit salad, 2 beers, and a crème brûlé. It was fine. Lindi got really miffed when they didn’t check our ticket at all, but that’s how the system works. If you mark your RailPass for the day, in ink, then you’ve reserved that day without their intervention or checking needed – if you fail to do so before you board the car, you are up for stiff fines and will be ejected at the next stop. It’s just how it works, but she wasn’t happy, especially because the conductors appear to do almost nothing at all.
We arrived into Avignon TGV station, and went over to the Europcar office. As usual, the office is badly run and there was a line out the door, for people renting cars and also returning them. When we finally got our car, we lucked out – we got a bigger car than we paid for: a Opel Corsa 5-door. Still small, but MUCH better than the POS 2-door we had in Normandy and also better than the promised Fiat Punta (or similar). The Corsa ran better than the stupid TwinGo and we got some nice features such as trip computer, and cruise control. Unfortunately this type car usually gets a 1.2 liter engine, so it’s not really very peppy. We finally loaded up and left for the next farm stay location.
It was clear then and later that Avignon is
a big town. The TGV station is south and west of the center of town, and we
(luckily) were going mainly south from there, so we at least didn’t need to go
through the middle of town. But, once we got going, we were quite put off by the
larger boulevards and throughways that ring the city, including the awful
signs. As in Caen, we couldn’t
easily find the road numbers, and we missed our turnoff pretty badly and
finally had to stop at a store and buy a detailed map and ask for some directions…
which were actually given quite happily and nicely. Once we started off in the
correct direction, we neared the town closest to our stay, Maillane. We followed the directions once
we got close, and then we ran right into some road construction… this changed
the direction slightly and we had to work around it. For such a small town, it
wasn’t a big deal.
We finally pulled into Mas de La Christine, a country bed and breakfast, run by Christian and Carolina. We loved the place – it’s very isolated and quiet, with a great look, and very well appointed. They invited us to dinner that night (one night per week) and we accepted. We went up to unpack a bit and get freshened up.
The dinner was quite interesting! We realized quickly that out of four couples we were the only non-French speakers. In fact, all the guests were French except us! Everyone talked to each other in French and we stared at each other, feeling very uncomfortable. We were politely asked a question every 10 minutes or so, but my inability to speak French and Lindi’s kept us from engaging very well. As most all of you know, I’m never short for words, so this was pure torture for me.
It appears that French people are very uncomfortable with their English even if it’s quite good. This (I believe) caused reticence to talk to us, but as the evening wore on, several of the very nicest of the folks began to try to involve us more in the conversation. As they translated a few things and saw that their English and Lindi’s French were pretty good, the group began to translate some of the best stories and funniest things said, for us. With Lindi having to pick up the bulk of the communication, her French kicked in very nicely, and the owners pulled out an English/French dictionary for the hardest words. It’s unusual for Lindi drive the conversation when she has me there dominating it, but I couldn’t even really speak or understand much at all… (sad look); she communicated to everyone in French very well. I was the quiet one – is that hard for anyone to imagine? Lindi points out that as everyone warmed to us, and talked more, the women made it a point to correct our pronunciation several times. It was almost rude, but we did need to know. By the end of the evening they were laughing with us, telling stories and kissing us both good night. Bonne Nuit!
Dinner was: sweet wines before; for appetizer: olive tapenade, sliced sausage (saucisson), salad with pine-nuts, and a mini-cheese soufflé; main course: lamb, potatoes au gratin (pommes de terre); a fantastic cheese plate; then dessert: grilled melon and ice-cream. And with it all was a great local wine. It was a great evening after all, and we went to bed happy.
Here's more of the Mas de la Christine - hit each picture to get a larger one to enjoy even more:
With our clock now correctly set, we got up at the normal time. We had a coffee but no breakfast. We buzzed out to a little local apple farm called Le Clos d’Orval for some Calvados. Calvados is a strong apple brandy. We picked up a few bottles, one of a brandy-apple juice mix, and a full calvados. We then drove into VB for a nice breakfast and another Café au Lait at a local pastry café – we sat outside and just watched this little town go by.
Finally left VB and took off for Mont St. Michel. This castle and mini-village built on a small close island is unbelievable to see. It sits all by itself just off the coast, but close enough to drive up to. There is a tour where you walk all the way up the steps, but we really just wanted a good set of pictures and not so much to tour the castle itself. Again, we may regret that, but it gave us time to visit lots of other places, and we were able to avoid a lot of tourist action.
We left Mon St. Michel and moved on toward Concale. Along the way I found a number of attractive sights, of castles or cemeteries or the countryside, and I took a lot of pictures of them. One small coastal town I stopped at was Hirel. I tried to get good pics, across the bay to Cancale, but they were a little hazy.
On the way to Cancale, I ran across a little cemetery and took a few pics for an HDR version. I liked it.
Cancale is a French resort town and has a large number of hotels and cafés which face the ocean and the view is quite beautiful. Almost all the restaurants served seafood, as you would expect, and we really just wanted a lighter meal and one that wouldn’t make me ill (you may recall that David is allergic to iodide found in seafood such as lobster, crab, etc.). Finally we found Le Petit Zinc, a small sandwich shop, with a very nice waiter and we ordered some similar sandwiches to the day before with egg and cheese and ham, and it was yummy.
We met a Frenchman there who I was pretty sure was flirting with Lindi, but because he didn’t know any English, we sometimes had some trouble understanding him. It was funny and fun.
From Cancale we drove back through and past a number of small towns with lovely ruins, castles and other sites, and once again I stopped and took some pictures. I’m enjoying having my very small point-and-shoot camera with me at all times, but every so often I am using my SLR. At one point I wondered if it might be worth the effort to bring it all with me… it has been. Once again we were a bit tired, and headed back to the Ferme.
We freshened up and then asked about choices for a light dinner in VB. Our hostess indicated a number of places, but we wanted to go on our own, so we just parked and started walking the streets of the downtown. We ran across a family-run pizzeria, called La Fours a Bois; we ordered a few beers (Pelforth’s) and ordered a few pizzas. The waitress (one of the owners) casually says that the pizzas are individual sized, but oh! She lied. These were big ones… one with egg, ham, cheese and other great stuff. We were pigs and finished them right there. Oink. The kids of the family were also there, and were very cute. They served us some ice cream concoction, and it was pretty good.
We came back early enough to pack everything for our train trip to Provence. The bottles were going to make it even harder to pack, and now we realized we would probably buy some things at our next stop so we would probably need to send a box home and the Calvados would be in that box. As we packed, we also discussed the extra stuff we brought from home that we really didn’t need, and that this could get sent back as well. We would soon be experiencing some mail fun.
First, please recall the end of Day 10 before continuing...
Here’s what happened next and it’s only funny in retrospect: the time zone between UK and France is ahead one hour, and even though we set our watches correctly on the ferry, we sadly neglected our mini-alarm-clock… so, when we went to bed on day 10 we were behind one hour. The reason this matters, is that we had booked a tour of the D-Day beaches, cemeteries, etc. of Normandy for the next day. So, when we woke at what looked like the right time for the breakfast hour we had given to Odile, she was already thinking we were late. We didn’t really figure it out completely until mid-breakfast, and then we rushed to get ourselves to the meeting point in Bayeux. Side comment: Odile’s breakfasts were wonderful. She had apple juice from the region, orange juice, coffee, yogurt, croissants, cereal, French breads, butter, cream cheese, and a huge selection of jams, honey, etc. We had to hurry through this one, because we were so late.
Unfortunately for the tour company, we missed the tour start. Fortunately for us, as you will read, we made our own tour and were very happy.
Once we found that we’d missed the tour, we decided to do as much of the appropriate bits of the tour ourselves as possible. We made a quick plan, then took off from Bayeux toward the D-Day invasion coastal location. Please, everyone who doesn’t know the story of the D-Day landings: please look it up and read about it. The level of courage and sacrifice of the Allied troops was exceptional and the various stories of all the plans and strategies involved is better than any action fiction I’ve ever read.
We drove first to the American Cemetery, overlooking Omaha Beach – this is one of the five landing sites used by the American, British, Canadian and French troops for the landing. The facility includes a very detailed and well organized museum with specific history of the D-Day and Liberation actions, some of which overlaps a bit with the Peace Monument in Caen, but both are very much in the must-do category. The stories of the amazing strategies of the generals and leaders, and the derring-do and courage of the troops is again a very emotional journey. Take it.
The next part after the museum, is a walk all the way down to the beach to see the actual place where the Allies landed, and to see some historically maintained pieces of military equipment, such as bunkers and barbed wire from the German side. This long walk was amazing when combined with the previous stories we learned in detail in the museum. Again, I can’t add much more than to suggest your own review of these amazing stories.
We walked back up the path (Lindi’s foot was still hurting from the ‘toenail incident’ and so we walked carefully and slowly, but otherwise she was fine) to the upper area, and visited the actual cemetery itself. Since we were there on September 11, the main flags were actually flying at half-mast. I took a lot of pictures, and hope to put a better one together once I get back to my big color-managed monitor. We toured so many of the monuments and saw many names.
From here we drove to Pont du Hoc, where American Rangers attacked the cliff-top installations of the Germans, which overlooked the landing beaches, and where large gun installations could fire at Allied landing personnel and ships. These fearless Rangers died in huge numbers to ultimately climb the cliffs and destroy the big guns. "Guns of Navarone" sort of action, but the real thing. Amazing plans and heartbreaking facts. So many died, but the D-Day invasion was a success. I was struck by the statement (by whom, I can’t remember), that all the crazy effort on the part of the Germans to build huge fortifications along the coast slowed the Allies by exactly one day. But, what a terrible bloody awful day.
From here we traveled along the coast roads to the very edge of the tip of the peninsula to Grandcamp Maisy. We didn’t go the other direction from Omaha beach, toward Gold and Sword beaches, as we just couldn’t cover everything. In Grandcamp Maisy we had lunch right on the coast at a little place called Café du Port. Everyone there (like everyone we met in Normandy) was very helpful and friendly and tried so hard to communicate with us in their best English. We note (as we may already have said, and may say again) that the French at least in the country or smaller towns are so very helpful and thoughtful; in addition, they are a bit shy to use their English, as it appears to us that they are concerned about not being fluent or having an accent, and this initially makes a visitor think they don’t speak it. But, they usually do! And our experience was that they do English better than we do French, including Lindi! Had a nice set of Croc (or Croque) sandwiches, which are ham sandwiches with the cheese part (mozzarella?) on the top and then baked/grilled until melted and hot and delicious. Wonderful. We took our lunch late, as we’ve done through our European adventures.
We returned to Bayeux through Saint-Lô. This town was among so many which were savagely attacked and fought over and even bombed, during WWII. We drove through many of the famous sites which are seen in so many movies (including, notably, Band of Brothers) and St. Lo. is one of these. Once we returned to Bayeux, we walked around a bit to shops and such, but it (like a lot of the larger or more well-known places) was quite touristy. We were quite tired again, so we went back to the Ferme (farm) and just ate what was left of the previous nights food, considering our lunch was late and quite filling. Odile added another few bottles of cidre to our table and we hit the sack early again.
We thought it'd be funny to indicate the sort of stupid things that have happened to us, so far.
Date Type of Injury Comments
Sept. 1 Eye Infection (conjunctivitis) Lindi suffered for a day or so then went to doctor in London
Sept. 3 Slipped and cut shin Lindi fell during luggage packing - busted and cut shin
Sept. 10 Toenail 'damage' Lindi toenail torn back, then replaced - now looking better
Sept. 20 Fingernail broken David (poor baby) busted his fingernail a bit
Sept. 22 Sore Throat David took on a week-long sore-throat he refused to let get worse
Sept. 23 Allergy attack Lindi sneezed so continuously in Cortona that we had to leave
Sept. 30 Skinned Knees Lindi slipped on a rock hiking between the cities at Cinque Terre
Sorry again everyone!
We are now in Rome and it's amazing! It's wonderful and i've taken so many pictures that i can't yet upload!
We are currently in the Moonlight cafe (http://www.moon-light-cafe.it/) awaiting our reservation at Ristorante Consolini. Luckily they have a nice wifi.
More soon all!
d and l
Our arrival at the Caen Port (at Ouistreham) (Caen is pronounced ‘cah’ with a nasal ‘n’, somewhat unvoiced.) was uneventful, mostly because so few people were on the ferry. For those of you that have never seen such a ferry, they can carry trucks, cars and people boarding on foot – for at least the people on foot, we only actually saw about 15 in the terminal. This made things quick,and smooth, for both the trip and the arrival.
We set our alarm to wake 45 minutes before the ferry arrived, and we fairly mechanically got up, showered and got dressed. It was nice and well equipped, with a bath in the room. Very nice indeed. We were called out onto deck even before arrival, so be warned: ferries move on very well oiled schedules and they don’t leave a lot of time after arrival for you to dilly-dally about. As soon as the ship touched the dock, they shooed us off and we arrived in France! YEA! It was now around 7am (0700).
Here’s another entry for the Injury Report – the ferry company delivers folks to and from the boat itself via a bus (like many smaller international airports do), and as we boarded the bus to the Caen Terminal from the ship, Lindi caught an edge of the foot of the bag under her big toenail and… uh… basically ripped it off. I even have trouble typing that. She and I quickly pressed it back and hustled her into the terminal for some triage. There we bandaged her toe, added some antibiotic ointment around the outside (we didn’t dare lift it again – urp) and then covered it all. This is a lesson to all lady travelers: open-toed shoes are lovely, but can be dangerous in this way.
After the treatment, we decided to take an opportunity to catch our breath, get a coffee or two and discuss our day. The Caen WWII memorial (called the Peace Memorial) only opened at 9am so we had time to sit at the terminal and plan. Lindi had already determined that the Peace Memorial had a good cloakroom (baggage check-in) and so could hold our bags for us as we came directly from the port. This allowed us to better coordinate the pickup of our rental car later in the day. She’s amazing.
We called for a cab from the ferry port and that was amusing (in retrospect). We waited around until we knew the Peace Memorial would be opened (by 9am), and then called for the taxi. 50 minutes later our taxi finally arrived. No comment, except to say that in Europe one requirement is patience; this is something some of you realize I don’t carry an abundance of. The ride was a lot of fun, as the driver knew a little English and was friendly. He described himself as Mssr. Le Coq. He crowed like a rooster, so re realized that coq was cock. He was very nice and destroyed the idea of all Frenchmen being rude.
The memorial was the beginning of a very touching and powerful experience in Normandy. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that the French play down the role of the other countries of the world in the liberation of France, in WW2. They do not. We found so many streets and even towns named after various American, French, English, Canadian and other military leaders, that we
were amazed. Even though it is true that the attraction value to France of the Invasion force history is valuable, it didn’t really ever appear to be played that way, at least not excessively. And, in all the memorials and museums it is considered and presented very reverentially; it is as you would expect.
Do not miss this memorial. It is packed with so much material on the buildup to World War II and the invasion by Germany, and then also to the ultimate liberation of Europe by the Allies. There were so many stories of tragedy, sacrifice and plain old-fashioned courage, that everyone should visit this place, and the other war/liberation sites here in Normandy. I can’t really add any more, as I would do the entire subject a great disgrace. I dare anyone to leave this place with a dry eye.
We ended the self-guided tour of the Museum with a lunch. It was our first French meal, and served in a cafeteria style – we learned the first lesson of France: even the most mundane meal situations in France yield really good food, and this was borne out on the whole trip (for us).
Once the lunch was over, we called for a cab. The attendant
at the memorial was a bit short with us, apparently to set our expectations,
but then ordered it quite quickly. That cab driver was quietly efficient, and
unfortunately (like all European taxi drivers) was on the cell phone 100% of
the time he drove. He delivered us and our bags to the Europcar car rental
place, across from the Gare (pronounced ‘gar’ and means station). This is the same
Gare we would use later to leave Normandy,
so the exposure to the area would turn out to be useful later.
The car we received was interesting – check the pictures. It had been wrecked several times and/or scratched quite badly, so we took a bunch of pictures before and after to document the condition of the car (espectally as we already knew we would return it quite early on our departure day without benefit of their review and sign-off) – it had a busted in front-end and this, we found out only later, caused exceptionally bad headlight glare as it pointed up into the sky!
The trip out of Caen in our car was wild. It was our first experience together in European and French driving (although I’ve driven in UK before) and the signs are completely different! The trick is to use the signs showing place names and not streets, and then identify the roads by the very small yellow road numbers (like D4 or N104) on the map. In addition, the town signs are color-coded: white is the smallest and worst roads, green are the slightly better larger roads, and the blue signs are the big interstate-type roads (some are toll but we avoided them and didn’t really even need them at all).
And OH! The Roundabouts! Does everyone know about these roads? They connect multiple road inputs to a small loop of road and allow an easy priority system to operate for interchanges of small to medium throughput. A really really busy roundabout it just crazy to negotiate, but I don’t think we saw one of those until Rome, where we weren’t driving (we aren’t that crazy). So the point is: we went around and around a lot of roundabouts, and we used several of them to retrace our steps when we got lost three or four times. The silly thing is that we could have just pointed ourselves quite generally along several similar roadways and still easily gotten to where we wanted. Finally, we got up onto the larger road for Villiers Bocage.
Villiers Bocage is a small village right in the middle of the area through which the American and British troops came just after the D-Day landings. Many of these villages were bombed, or destroyed and nearly all were fought over by German troops, and then by Allied troops on the European liberation actions. Even tank battles happened right inside small towns, including VB (Villiers Bocage).
Our stay was at a farm-based B&B called Le Ferme du Pressoir, and their directions took us right to the place. As you can see, it is an idyllic spot, and as later pictures will show, the inside and outside were beautiful, and functional as well. The rooms were “farmhouse-chic” yet livable. It didn’t look to precious too touch. Our hostess was a lady known simply as Odile. She (like so many French people) actually spoke good English; enough to get the points across and between that and Lindi’s good French, we communicated fine. She told us about the area, and suggested great places to go, but they all were already well understood by Lindi and were generally already on our list. She gave us a nice tour of the farm, including the [pics] battling goats, the horses, the tractors and the chickens. The farm harvests apples (pommes) and they also make cider (cidre), and serve it to guests – it was like a sparkling apple juice and we had at least one bottle every day.
Since we didn’t sleep so well on the ferry and Lindi was a bit injured, we decided to just go to the closest store for a few items for a cold dinner and to bed. We popped into VB and went to our first real French marche (called ‘supermarche’) and picked up some obvious stuff like a banana, a few croissants, some beer, some cheese, some wine etc. But when we went to the fresh meat counter, we had some trouble. The answer to “Parlez vous Anglaise” was “no”. Ouch… we couldn’t figure out how to say ½ kilo. I must have lost my mind, because one of the great things about Europe is the metric system, and the answer is 500 grams. Doh! Or 50 decigrams… sheesh. So we just pointed at the sausage (soucisson – what a great word) and she cut it where we wanted, and we paid whatever it cost. Hilarious comedy. We went back and spread out everything on the big table at the Ferme and our hostess showed us all the kitchen items, plates, silver etc. and she added a bottle of cidre to the mix. We collapsed into bed that night a bit early, or so we thought.
Next morning was breakfast and then off to Bath. This is a very historical place in England and one of the most important centers in the 17th century. When England was part of the Roman Empire, the Romans created extensive roman baths there using the natural spring waters. Also, the city is surrounded by hills and is lovely to see.
We first visited the Bath Cathedral, then wandered into and through the roman baths museum, and then around the city and through the parks, for another ice cream. The baths were quite a treat and there is so much to learn there – it is well run and we really enjoyed it. Throughout the whole trip Thomas was well behaved and seemed to really enjoy it as well.
Mike had agreed to get us to our ferry (leaving from Portsmouth to France), but because its an hour drive from Salisbury, we asked him to get us there early, allowing him to get back early as well. He was kind enough to drive us there and entertain us for a day as well as berth us at his place. For this we really appreciate him and Sadie too. Thanks again, you guys. We arrived around 8:30, for our ferry at 11:15pm. This gave us time to get something to eat.
Here’s an interesting issue – given enough time, we would rather have eaten on the ferry, as it’s run by the French and we’ve been told that the food is a lot better than in the Portsmouth ferry terminal. Having eaten there, I’d not disagree. But, we wanted to get the maximum amount of sleep on the boat, and since the overnight was only 7 hours total, we wanted to hit the sack as quickly as we could once we boarded. So, we ate in the ferry terminal.
If you ever get the chance to ride in a Brittany Ferry boat, do it. It was very comfortable, very well run and was on-time! Our cabin had four cleverly hidden bunks (coming out from the wall, the couch/divan, and two from the ceiling!) and we quickly got ready for bed. We both had trouble sleeping, but not because of the ship. Because the ship is so big, as well as the weather being so clear and calm, we had no indication we were on a ship – at all. Not when the boat left, not during the crossing and not when we docked. We simply never felt one indication of motion or direction. None at all. Amazing.
We boarded exactly on time and so went to bed as soon as we got on board. We didn't really sleep very well, and it's not clear why. So ends day nine, during the channel crossing. Next stop: France!
The day started out with a taste of crime; we were awoken at around 4:30am to the sound of voices and flashlight light probing the darkness in the garden area below our second floor (USA description) flat. We tried to go back to sleep but the sounds got louder. Phrases like: “Come out with your hands up!” and “Don’t make us send in the dog”… we found it distracting at first, then interesting, but we couldn’t really make anything out. I certainly double checked that the door was locked! Once the noise died out, we thought it all was over, but through the next 45 minutes or so we continued to hear the sounds of searching and two more subjects were shouted out and arrested that we could hear! Once it was all over we finally went back to sleep… but fitfully.
The night before we had completely repacked our suitcases for our exit from London, and that morning we had our farewell. We really liked 6 Handel Street and the area was fairly quiet (except for the police action) and easy to get around from. The kitchen was well stocked, the facilities all worked well, there was amble storage and the living room was a nice size. We will miss it.
We took our luggage (80 lb.+ for me and at least 50 lb. for Lindi) toward our local tube station, but not until a quick coffee at the Apostrophe (I think I’m convincing Lindi to at least like café-au-lait!). We’d planned to take a single route to Waterloo station for our train to southern England, but found that route shut down – Lindi quickly determined a single-stop way to get us there and off we went. Note at this point, for all you non-subway-users that all subways are subterranean! Therefore there are huge distances to travel down and up to get to the trains. In some places in London’s underground you go 60 feet or more down to the platforms, and even though most stations have escalators nearly everywhere, sometimes it’s stairs only (or the escalators are broken!) and it’s THEN that the bags are a pain. Another aspect that’s made slightly more difficult is when the trains are tightly packed. Take a set of big bags with you, and try to get squished into a corner of the car without hitting anyone else… well, it’s not fun.
We arrived at Waterloo station with plenty of time to spare. We went through an entire queue (line) to get our train tickets to Salisbury (Lindi can now tell you it’s pronounced “sauls-bree”) and realized that our credit card wouldn’t work in the automated machine! Argghh. The reason: Europe is now using ‘chip’ or ‘smart’ cards, and the magnetic stripe cards are not accepted as readily; at least not in automatic or unattended equipment. We had to get in a line for a real ticket window, but it went fast. We got our tickets to Salisbury for 51 pounds (102 dollars) and were all set. Oh, something else… the sellers of food in Waterloo on the whole don’t accept credit cards at all. Why did I care? I had spent almost all my pounds by this time (so I didn’t end up with spare quid) so I bought a single sandwich between us for the train ride.
We spent a few minutes decoding the British method of displaying train data, and it’s slightly different than airport or other systems. I leave it to the student to find the differences themselves. Once the track number was called, we went to our train, already arrived. We were very pleased to find that our train was underpopulated and this gave us lots of room to spread out for our 1 hour 20 minute ride to Salisbury station. Our friend Mike picked us up there, and spirited us away in his trusty Saab.
We finally got introduced to Sadie (Mike’s girlfriend) and they delightful son Thomas. At 18 months he is so cute and cuddly that I (David) played with him and carried him around a lot. Also, I must have taken 20 or 30 pictures of him during our short time there in the Salisbury area.
We all got acquainted and then quickly headed for Salisbury
Cathedral. Like so many in England
this one is amazingly large and well kept for its age. From here we drove to Stonehenge.
This is an amazing place, but in the process of protecting the stones, the
government makes it a bit harder to get to, as it’s now cordoned off with ropes
and specific paths are laid out and not to be stepped out of. We all schlepped out to
the central area, but not before grabbing a quick ice cream.
I took many pictures. We shall see how they all finally come out. It was amazing to read how old the formation is and how little we really know about it. Here are a few pics from Stonehenge:
We went from there into Tisbury/Hatch area, to see Mike and Sadie’s flower farm. They invite folks there to pick their own flowers for a set fee, and the flowers are lovely. We enjoyed the visit there very much.
From there we went on to a real country pub: the Fox and Hound in the Tisbury area. It is up on a hill and the view is nice during sunset, and the beer was great too. We met some of Mike’s friends at the pub.
Mike had dinner already planned at his house, so we hurried along there after only a few beers. Mike's house is in Dorset county. It's a nice place with a great guest room! He was nice enough to have us stay over one night with him, and to show us the area.
Dinner was marvelous! They started with an amazing antipasto with sliced sausage, olives, peppers with cream cheese and bread. Then for main course we had a chicken with watercress sauce and pureed carrot soufflé. Vunderbahr. It was late by then, and between the food and the great beers, we were off to bed.
Update Two - from Mike Barclay's house in Shaftsbury, near Dorset.
It's been suggested that I share the drinking habits of our trip for boundless ridicule by those who know better, and mysterious entertainment for those who don't. Bloody good.
I think I'll update this entry "in-place" repeatedly so check back here, but I may make a copy and move it to the 'latest' area (the top) every so often. We'll see. So, here goes our recollection, so far:
Where What Details
On the plane in Champagne Didn't note the brand
Balfours Beer (Italian) Peroni Nastro Azzurro
flat (various) Beer (English) Marston's Fourpak including Pedigree, Smooth and Old Empire
Hare & Tortoise Beer (Japan) Kirin
North Sea Fish Beer (English) Spitfire Ale
Comedy Theatre Beer (English) Bass
Indian Depa Tandoori Beer (Indian) Cobra
Flat Cava Waitrose brand Cava (Spanish champagne)
Fox and Hound Beer (English) Location: pub in East Knoyle - "Hidden Potential" from Hidden Breweries
Mike's Place Beer (English) Duchy Original Organic Ale
