Posts tagged ‘Europe’

Sep 1

Basque Country

From Madiran we head into Basque Country.

The definitive feature of basque country is the architecture; white washed buildings, predominately with red painted timber beams, set amongst lush farmland. The grass is a vivid green, it looks like layers of rich silk rolling down the hillside.

Originally we thought it would be a two night stop over. But after we had rolled through one quaint village, after another quaint village, we decided one night would suffice and we would have covered enough of rural French Basque.

Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port is perhaps the most well known village in this area. It is a popular starting point for the Camino de Santiago, a 780km pilgrimage that people either walk or cycle to Santiago de Compostela.

Besides the spanish influence of bullfighting, Pelota is another particular sport unique to the region. We watch a junior team playing with a long basket scoop attached to their hands, catching and throwing a ball a bit smaller than a baseball and harder than a golf ball. It looks like a cross between squash, handball and lacrosse.

We stayed the night in one of the quaint villages; Saint-Etienne-de-Baigorry in a rural gite, waking to a wonderful view and the sound of sheep being milked – yes, sheep not cows!

Whilst the region is lovely, we felt it was becoming a bit ‘same-same’ for us. There are only so many quaint villages you can stop at!

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Aug 30

Le Prielle

We enjoyed staying put so much in Villefranche, that we decided another week in one spot would be a good idea.

During our stay at the Ryan’s in Switzerland, we met David and Peter Appleby, whose parents run a Gite; Le Prielle, in Madiran. Located in the Haute Pyrenees, South West France.

On the way south from Bordeaux we randomly stop for lunch in Labastide-d’Armagnac, as in the brandy.

We have lunch in the Place Royale, a beautiful town square and well preserved example of 13th century architecture – lots of exposed beams and timberwork. It was a charming village and one of those great unexpected discoveries.

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The Appleby’s have 4 beautifully restored Gites which have been created from renovated barns, in the grounds of an old Chateau, dating from 1745. The 5 acres of grounds include an ancient chapel, moat & woodlands, as well as modern features such as a swimming pool and BBQ’s.

Paulette and Simon warmly welcome us to Le Prielle and we are treated more as friends, than guests, during our stay.

Keen to continue our cycling efforts, we rent bikes again and do most of our sight seeing on two wheels. The Appleby’s share their wealth of knowledge about the area and provide us with great advice on where to go and what to see.

Most importantly, Simon was more than happy to share with Don, his local wine knowledge and the two went off wine tasting one day. The result was another substantial purchase of local wines – lucky we have a car.

Madiran is hosting a Course Landaise. This is an ancient form of bullfighting, but without bloodshed, well at least not the bulls. Actually, they use cows with mature horns instead of bulls.

It’s a game of bull dodging and leaping, with acrobatic somersaults over the animals and where young Matadors in the making, practice their techniques.

Whilst we are not supporters of bullfighting, this is more of an entertainment spectacle and the animals don’t get hurt. They actually get a few opportunities to inflict some pain and bruise an ego or two!

Jumping the bull, Madiran

Ole! Couse Landaise, Madiran

Bull got his horns stuck!

We made a day circuit through the Pyrenees, taking the Col du Tourmalet, one of the highest roads in the central Pyrenees. The Tourmalet forms part of the Tour de France, it is known on the tour as the ‘circle of death’!

We stopped at the Pic du Midi, where we opted out of the gondola ride to the peak, but enjoyed the menagerie of animals wandering freely around the summit base.

A donkey took particular interest in the tourist office and also joined the queue for the women’s toilets! Horses, sheep and Llama’s happily grazed nearby.

Our last stop for the day is Lourdes. Don is not religious by any stretch of the imagination, so we probably wouldn’t have had Lourdes on our list of ‘must-see’ destinations. But, I have a friend from Coles working here, so we decided to come and say hello.

Every year for the past 6 years, Paula spends part, or all of her annual leave, volunteering in Lourdes.

On the surface, Lourdes appears to be the Catholic’s answer to Disneyland, I probably should point out right now, that I am Catholic. I think this gives me some right to comment as an ‘insider’.

My mother would disagree; she’d ask me when was the last time I went to Mass? Anyway, we can have that debate another day.

The streets of Lourdes are lined with trashy tourist shops selling you every religious piece of paraphernalia that you can think of and some you never even dreamed of. Leave it to the Catholics to master the art of selling candles through vending machines.

I can’t wait to see these in churches – credit cards accepted! I’m sure the collection service will soon offer a ‘tap and pay’ function. Come to think of it, that’s a really good idea!

Even regular shops are marketing under the guise of religion, like the designer shoe shop called ‘Mary’s Sandals’.

What I do like, is that once you cross into the Sanctuary of Our Lady Of Lourdes there is no commercial activity and entry is free.

With Paula’s insight we left with a greater appreciation of Lourdes and enormous respect for what she, and thousands of volunteers like her, do. Over 6 million pilgrims visit Lourdes annually to seek physical and spiritual wellbeing.

Religious or not, you can’t help but be affected by what goes on here. It is an example of real faith, something you may or may not believe in, certainly something you cannot judge.

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In between cycling and the odd day trip, we spent the rest of our time relaxing at Le Prielle; we could usually be found on the comfy chairs in the garden catching up on emails.

And yes, me trying the catch-up on the blog. Still failing!

We pointed out to Simon that a little table would be nice, so Simon whipped one up! Tripod the cat, often kept us company. There are a number of cats but she (or he) seemed to hang out with us the most. Real name is Boot’s, but she earned the nickname after she lost a paw in a trap, spent days missing and finally hobbled back home. Gorgeous cat, loads of personality.

Don, relaxing at Le Prielle, Madiran

Don relaxing with new coffee table, Le Prielle

Tripod – 3 legged cat

Le Prielle was a lovely and we had a wonderful week. It’s in a great location from which to explore the region. The Applebys are wonderful hosts, the gites comfortable and equipped with everything you need – yep, that includes my favourite appliance – a washing machine!

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Aug 23

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Bordeaux

“Take Versailles, add Antwerp, and you have Bordeaux” was Victor Hugo’s description of the city, impressed as he was by its 18th century grandeur.

I’d always thought of Bordeaux as grimey, sleazy and unsafe. Perhaps an unfounded reputation, or at least an old one.

The city has been going through a concentrated effort to clean-up; the buildings in the old town were once blackened from pollution, the ochre stonework is now being returned to its original brilliance.

The first glimpse of the old city is as you cross the Ponte de Pierre. Looking to the Port of the Moon, a majestic ensemble of opulent french architecture sweeping along the river front.

Port of the Moon, Bordeaux

Ponte de Pierre, Bordeaux

Claimed a UNESCO world heritage site in 2007, Bordeaux is enjoying a renaissance. It is a quasi-Paris; there are wide boulevards with magnificent Parisienne style buildings, a towering cathederal and a scattering of churches.

Head deeper into the old town where cobblestone streets narrow and the buildings lean, the city is full of character and life. We loved it so much, we stretched our two night stay to three.

We’ve lucked out with AirBnB accommodation in the old town pedestrian quarter. Penny has also joined us for one night.

After being in the countryside for three weeks, we missed the pace of a city and enjoyed wandering through the old streets discovering out of the way bistros and bars.

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However, the main reason for adding Bordeaux to our tour was to dine at Le Gabriel, a Michelin star restaurant. Don received the dinner as a farewell gift from Keystone, his former employer.

Lucky for me, the dinner was for two and I got a gurnsey! I might point out that our vacation may have abruptly ended if I hadn’t!

Le Gabriel is located in a beautiful 18th century building, at the Place de la Bourse. We are dining on the second floor and are shown to the best table in the room, overlooking the square below with views across the river.

The sun is setting as we sip our champagne and toast a thankyou to Keystone!

We are indulging in the 8 course degustation with matching wines. The evening is an exceptional culinary journey, under the direction of chef François Adamski. An experience of elegance and excellence, combining classic with inventive cuisine to create authentic flavors of the highest quality. Please note, some plagiarism from the website may have occurred in this paragraph.

The menu had a summer theme with a heavy seafood accent, which included langoustines, fish, caviar and duck. The only red meat was a superbly cooked rack of lamb. The wine selection was predominately white to match the seafood.

We are not unaccustomed to dining well. However, when you are traveling for a year, it’s a luxury we don’t indulge in too often. We’ve had some amazing meals on our trip, but this was by far the only five star experience. The food was superb, the service faultless and the venue, authentic French.

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Bordeaux almost met with a devastating fate in 1944. Under German occupation, but with the realisation that this wouldn’t be for much longer, Hitler ordered for its destruction.

German demolition expert, Heinz Stahlschmidt, could not bring himself to wantonly destroy such a beautiful city, when the war was clearly lost. Instead, he disobeyed his orders; destroying the ammuniation storage sites instead, saving the city and thousands of lives.

A traitor to Germany, the French granted Stahlschmidt asylum and he lived out his life in Bordeaux. Recognised by the French as a hero in 2000, he died at the age of 91 in 2010.

Bordeaux as a city, was a delightful surprise. The best surprise was at the end of our stay when we went to pay the €49.50 for parking, our credit card wasn’t accepted. Just as I was about to pull €50 out, the attendant simply told us he would let us out for free – bonus!!

Aug 20

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Villefranche-de-Lonchat

This was one of the first legs of our trip that we booked. Knowing that Europe in August is in full-on holiday mode, we didn’t want to be moving around.

At the time, we didn’t know how much traveling we would do prior to plonking in one spot for three weeks. As the time approached, we were very ready to stay put in one place for a while.

Neither of us had much knowledge of the Dordogne area, but I thought it had to be nice, as it was only 20km from Saint Emilion; a wine appellation I am very fond of and a town I had visited 15 years ago.

Our home for three weeks is on a small property called Beaulieu; the owners have converted a barn into two apartments. The other booking failed to show up, so we have the place to ourselves.

The apartment is spacious and well-appointed: a large kitchen, dining and lounge downstairs and an upstairs loft with bedroom and bathroom. After living out of a backpack and staying mostly in accommodation consisting of simple bed and bathroom, this is luxury. The first thing I did was entirely unpack the contents of the car and then my backpack.

Our nearest village is Villefranche-de-Lonchat, consisting of a boulangerie, pharmacy and a little general store. The locals are very proud of the nearby Lac de Gurson. Whenever we mention where we are staying to anyone, they all seem to refer to the lake. The nearby villages got together and created a beach and recreation area. It looks very pleasant, but given we have a pool where we are staying we haven’t taken a dip in it.

The landscape is a patchwork of grapevines, sunflowers and corn fields, interspersed with grassy fields and grazing cows.

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Since arriving back in France I’ve been having an affair…..with french food. It started with duck; duck magret, duck confit, duck salad and the pièce de résistance is of course duck foie gras.

We even visit a local foie gras farm (stop reading if you are a vegetarian or animal rights activist, the following paragraph may cause distress!)

The owners wife was Irish and delighted in giving us a tour, perhaps a bit too much of a tour. Aside from seeing the ducks wandering freely around the yard, we also got to see how they are fattened up in their short (but very happy) 12 week life and how a quickly and calmly that little life ends. We still bought some foie gras!

Foie Gras in the making!

The love affair continues with saucisson, jambon, baguette, croissants, pain-au-chocolate, cheese and more cheese. Then there is the wine; french champagne, sweet white wines, dry rosés and rich reds. The french have a wine to match every morsel you eat!

Many of the surrounding villages have a weekly fête; a local food and wine festival. Rows of picnic tables are set up in the town square, surrounded by local producers selling plates of food straight off the farm. It’s a gastronomical feast: steaming vats of escargot and seafood paella, lamb and pork sliced straight from the roasting spit and of course there is duck in every way imaginable.

But leave room for desert! Don’s favourite is the local ice cream; we even visit an ice cream farm during our stay. He also loves ‘chichi’s’, the french equivalent of spanish churros, served with a rich chocolate sauce. Then there are pancakes and an array of fresh tartes…….Don has a sweet tooth.

I discovered the ‘Jesuit’ (named so, because the shape looks like the Jesuit hat), it’s a cross between a custard tart and vanilla slice, sensational! We’ve checked out a few fête’s during our stay.

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It’s no surprise that the kilos are creeping on. I think we acquired a few sitting around the Greek islands for 5 weeks. Lazing in the sun reading books does not help your waistline, but it was heaps of fun! But, if we are going to keep eating our way across France, I might need a new wardrobe.

So, we decided to hire two bikes and go out riding most days. The bikes have been a great way to explore the local villages and have the added benefit of getting some exercise and hopefully shifting a few kilos. I’m not so sure the later is working, they seem to falsely justify eating more!

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Both of us speak very basic, you could say, pathetic French. Though to the amusement of the French, we are willing to give it a go. But rattling off a well rehearsed phrase like a parrot can get you into more trouble, when they reply back in rapid French. It’s worth throwing in early ” Je suis Australien, et parle un peu Français.”

Lets face it, being Australian does have advantages; we are generally considered the more exotic and preferred tourist, over other English-speaking countries. I say “milk it when you can.”

To date we’ve always experienced people with good humour and enough English, or at least sign language, to help us get by.

One Friday night we find found ourselves at a local tavern in Minzac. There was live entertainment from Jacques and he enjoyed involving guests. He was very excited to discover we were Australians and announced this to everyone.

Suddenly, Don is part of the entertainment. Jacques hands him the mic and wants him to sing Hotel California. Well, it was a laugh and there are times when you are glad you will never see these people again!

Don´s music career!

No way am I singing!

We hadn’t expected any visitors during our stay, but had two friends surprise us. Don’s school friend, Bruce Wymond was in London for work and popped over for a weekend. Penny Arrow who we’d met skiing in Japan, took a detour from a trip to Spain and came to stay. It was lovely to catch-up and spend time with both.

As you should have gathered by now, I am not going to give a day by day description of our time in Villefranche. That would even bore me. In general; we played ‘tourist’ as little as possible.

Most of our exploring was on bike, or through living out our weeks as much as possible like locals. Buying from local wineries and markets at different villages, visiting the village fête’s of an evening.

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Some of the highlights include touring down the Dordogne visiting the towns of Beynac, Domme and Sarlat, on our way to pick-up Bruce. This is the more popular tourist end of the Dordogne.

Numerous medieval towns are set along the banks of the river, or perched above with fortified walls and towering castles. Well worth the visit, but we were glad to return to the peace and quiet of Beaulieu and our surrounding villages.

Beynac

Domme

Dordogne

We took Bruce, on the way back to the airport, to visit the Lascaux II cave. The original cave dates back 17,300 years. This is certainly the oldest ´thing´we have visited on this trip. A bit sceptical at first about visiting a fake cave, until we learn why.

The original cave was discovered in 1940 and opened to the public in 1948, but the exposure to visitors breathing carbon dioxide was damaging the paintings and the cave was closed to the public in 1963.

Lascaux II is a near perfect replica, built 200 metres from the original site. It took 7 years to painstakingly construct and another 5 years to reproduce the art. Not only is the effort of replicating the cave impressive, so is its contents of Paleolithic cave paintings. The paintings of animals are all on the roof of the cave and the detail and colour is amazing.

Well, our three weeks has quickly come to an end. I had great expectations of catching up with emails, completing some boring admin and most importantly getting the blog up-to-date.

I didn’t quiet get there. Somehow time flies by, even when you think you have a lot of it. Before we knew it, we are back on the road continuing our tour through Europe.

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Jul 30

Celebrating in Paris

Our niece, Claire Callander, has been tripping around Europe for the past 8 weeks.

She’s been traveling like any other 21 year old does; on the cheap. Busing around 12 Countries and 24 cities in 53 days.

We have a small window of opportunity to catch-up and take Claire out for her 21st Birthday, which she celebrated on her trip.

Claire is staying at St Christophers backpackers at Gare du Nord. By the way, we are staying at the Hyatt; that’s the difference between traveling in your 20’s and at our age (to be fair, we only stayed here after finding a good deal online).

We treat Claire to dinner at Sacrée Fleur, a quintessential french bistro which boasts about handmaking everything with fresh seasonal ingredients. It’s speciality is beef.

It’s a unanimous decision to share the Côte de Boeuf. When a large 1.5kg fillet of beef arrives on a sizzling plate, I didn’t think we would finish it all, but we did! Following that are two deserts to share between us; a Creme Brulee and Orange Crepes with Grand Marnier. Very french!

The meal was superb, Claire declared it the best meal on tour. Though after the stories we heard, I don’t think that would have been hard. It was a great meal and one of the best we’ve had in Europe.

It was lovely to see Claire and hear about her trip. I think we got the censored version, but she clearly had a fantastic time.

I’m not sure how much of the 24 cities they actually see on tour, but they see a lot of European bars and nightclubs. It sounds like loads of fun and I can remember doing similar trips. It was exhausting just listening to the itinerary, I certainly don’t have the energy for that now.

We drop Claire back to the hostel, she is looking a little weary having just left the Greek party islands of Ios. This is probably her earliest night to bed in months.

We have a quick breakfast together the next morning and ‘FaceTime’ her parents back in Melbourne. Claire has one day left before flying home and is planning to spend it shopping in Paris; nice ending!!

We are back in the car, heading south to the Dordogne region to take up residence in a cottage near the village of Villefranche-de-Lonchat for 3 weeks.