There is a vast array of camper vans and caravans at the two campgrounds we've visited to far. By far the most impressive was “Bounder”, which when it was parked as far forward in its allocated space still had a couple of feet hanging over onto the campground access road. In addition to its length, it also sported three extendable wings that retract when it's on the road, but then are spread out when it is in situ. Unfortunately, we didn't get a picture of it, but it really was a sight to behold. The most intriguing caravan so far was the one that parked beside us for a night in Chinon. Before the owners packed up to leave, it was one of the uglier ones we'd seen, but as they started to pack up, we noticed that the tow ball was located at the side of it, rather than the front. Anne and I were both pondering how this could work and how the body could be swiveled around, when the side of the caravan simply disappeared only to appear out the other side being carried by the wife. A quick flick and it was folded in half and stored. With in two minutes, the whole caravan had been dismantled and folded up origami style into nothing more than a small trailer with a blue canvas cover.
Most people we've met at the campgrounds have been very nice and when we arrived in Chinon, the English woman in the camper van that we pitched our tent beside was very concerned that we'd parked on the side of their camper van that had the toilet and that they'd keep us awake at night as they visited the loo. After a peaceful night sleep, we met the man who owned the camper van and he was from Geelong in Victoria and traveled around Europe for 3 months a year during the Melbourne winter – retired of course. He did spend two years traveling Europe with a caravan when he first retired, but now just comes over for a 3 month excursion each year, collecting his camper van from Cambridge and heading straight for France – nice.
Our camping equipment has expanded slightly, since we arrived. Rather than covering the evolution of man in 4 staggering steps (quadra-ped, knuckle dragging bi-ped, staggering erect bi-ped to stable erect bi-ped) as we scramble out of the tent, we've now bought a map and instead come bounding out of the tent, puppy-like, on all fours until we're clear of the veranda, where we can stand up, don our jandals and walk off, head held high with dignity (maybe).
Today's sightseeing is the first of several that we are going to sped visiting the Chateaus of the Loire. The first stop was the chateau at Montsoreau and the troglodite caves and houses built into the rock cliff faces at Souzay-Champigny. We don't go into all the chateaus, there's only so much fine porcelain, tapestries, wooden rafters and walks around the parapets that a person can stand, so we're trying to chose the best ones to go inside and the others just visit the gardens and admire there external architecture.
Next stop was the town of Saumur – quite a large town, with a very impressive chateau on the top of the hill overlooking the town. The chateau wasn't open, due to it being Monday, but we did get to walk all around it, before heading down into the old part of town, through the cobbled streets before buying some snacks for lunch which we then walked back up to the chateau and ate, sitting on a park bench overlooking the chateau and the town.
In the afternoon, we visited the chateau Brézé. The most impressive feature here was the massive deep moat that surrounded it. It's dry now, but it must have been 20m deep. The moat wall has openings that lead into massive underground tunnels and an underground fortress, which is large enough to house a small army. Now two things I can't tell you is how the openings work with the moat (I assume that it had to be filled with water) and how big an army they could house in their underground fortress – maybe I'll google that later. Again, this was an external visit and we didn't go inside the chateau.
Last stop for the day was the chateau at Le Rivau. The walking tour that we did said that the motif above the main door contained the families moto, that “they would never be demoted in rank”. I was interested to read later that the family lost it's wealth and status 300 years ago, when while working in the king's court, the master of the house had had too much of a good time and lost the family chateau by not being able to honour his debts. The chateau had gone into serious disrepair following there downfall, until it was bought by the present owners in 1994 and it has now been completely restored and they have created some amazing gardens with some awesome sculptures (see pictures)
On returning to the campground, we stopped at the supermarket to buy some drinks and nibbles, which we sat down to enjoy by our tent, before heading out for dinner in the nearby town.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Sunday 21st – Week 1 – Drive to Chinon via Rennes
Today we drove from Dinan in Brittany to Chinon in the Loire Valley, via Rennes. Since we reset Jane, she's had this annoying habit of making a bonging sound (you know bong, bong, bong) whenever my speed exceeds the published speed limit by more than 10kms per hour. She only bongs 3 times then stops, but it had got to be so regular that I had to pull over to the side of the road yesterday and reset her, so that she stopped her incessant bonging.
As we began our drive to Rennes today, Anne commented about 20 minutes into the trip that I was doing “123kph in a 110 zone”. I waited for a good minute before commenting “that was so much less offensive that Jane's bonging”. “Wasn't it” said Anne. Oh dear, I thought, that sarcasm went straight over her head. A minute later Anne said “oh, that was annoying, wasn't it”. Since then, we've had no more bonging and no more running commentaries, so all smooth sailing.
Also on the trip to Rennes, we past one of the pesky machines that tells you your current speed. As we approached it, it started flashing my speed, with the word around it “Trop Vite.. Levez La Pied” “Too fast, lift your foot”, which I thought was a rather gentle reminder about keeping within the speed limit.
We arrived at Rennes at about 10am, which is way too early for anything to be open in France on a Sunday. We parked by the town square and went for a walk around the town, past it's basilica, which was in good voice for the Sunday service, the opera house and the famous cathedral, which was ringing out a merry tune on the church bells calling people to service. We found a lovely square in the sun and sat down for a cup of coffee. As we hadn't had breakfast, we asked if he served croissants, which he replied “non”, then intimated that we should go to the boulangerie around the corner and bring them back to have with our coffees. This amazed us, because firstly he didn't serve food, and rather than buy it in, he was quite happy for people to sit in his courtyard and eat pastries from a brown paper bag bought round the corner. This is obviously the practice, as we've repeated the practice since then and it's all very accepted, which seems remarkably relaxed.
Rennes is mainly a university town, that seems to have more shoe shops per head of population than anywhere else I've been. Apart from being a bit scarfy and very shoppy, Rennes also seems to have a good drug trade going, as we noticed on several occasions the tell tale sign of a pair of sneakers hanging from an overhead power line. The one at the back of the church seemed particularly out of place.
After Rennes, it was back on the motorway and off to Chinon. We arrived in Chinon at about 3pm, via a trip to Saumur where we thought we would stay. We didn't, however, like the campground in Saumur, so have come further east to Chinon which has a much nicer campground (even as a 2-star, it was less Butlins like than Saumur – are we becoming campground snobs already??).
The notice on the door said the office was closed until 4pm, and just to find yourself a spot, get setup and come back to the office at 4pm. We duly returned at 4pm, got the site, organised a power adaptor to charge our batteries and then headed off to town to have a look around and eventually go to dinner.
June 21 is national music day in France and every small square was having a band of some sort playing music until all hours of the night. It is also, apparently, the night that the local motor cyclists come into town on mass (maybe it's every Sunday night) and parked on the river bank opposite the restaurant we were dining in, so we got to see a great variety of motor bikes and motor cyclists to while away the evening watching. As for the music, some of it was good, some of it was better appreciated from distance. Returning from dinner, the band at the bar down the road from the campground was belting out A”Eye of the Tiger”, which from a distance sounded passable. On closer inspection, however, it was anything but passable, so after a couple of truly dreadful renditions, we headed back to the campground and “appreciated” the music from a safe distance.
As we began our drive to Rennes today, Anne commented about 20 minutes into the trip that I was doing “123kph in a 110 zone”. I waited for a good minute before commenting “that was so much less offensive that Jane's bonging”. “Wasn't it” said Anne. Oh dear, I thought, that sarcasm went straight over her head. A minute later Anne said “oh, that was annoying, wasn't it”. Since then, we've had no more bonging and no more running commentaries, so all smooth sailing.
Also on the trip to Rennes, we past one of the pesky machines that tells you your current speed. As we approached it, it started flashing my speed, with the word around it “Trop Vite.. Levez La Pied” “Too fast, lift your foot”, which I thought was a rather gentle reminder about keeping within the speed limit.
We arrived at Rennes at about 10am, which is way too early for anything to be open in France on a Sunday. We parked by the town square and went for a walk around the town, past it's basilica, which was in good voice for the Sunday service, the opera house and the famous cathedral, which was ringing out a merry tune on the church bells calling people to service. We found a lovely square in the sun and sat down for a cup of coffee. As we hadn't had breakfast, we asked if he served croissants, which he replied “non”, then intimated that we should go to the boulangerie around the corner and bring them back to have with our coffees. This amazed us, because firstly he didn't serve food, and rather than buy it in, he was quite happy for people to sit in his courtyard and eat pastries from a brown paper bag bought round the corner. This is obviously the practice, as we've repeated the practice since then and it's all very accepted, which seems remarkably relaxed.
Rennes is mainly a university town, that seems to have more shoe shops per head of population than anywhere else I've been. Apart from being a bit scarfy and very shoppy, Rennes also seems to have a good drug trade going, as we noticed on several occasions the tell tale sign of a pair of sneakers hanging from an overhead power line. The one at the back of the church seemed particularly out of place.
After Rennes, it was back on the motorway and off to Chinon. We arrived in Chinon at about 3pm, via a trip to Saumur where we thought we would stay. We didn't, however, like the campground in Saumur, so have come further east to Chinon which has a much nicer campground (even as a 2-star, it was less Butlins like than Saumur – are we becoming campground snobs already??).
The notice on the door said the office was closed until 4pm, and just to find yourself a spot, get setup and come back to the office at 4pm. We duly returned at 4pm, got the site, organised a power adaptor to charge our batteries and then headed off to town to have a look around and eventually go to dinner.
June 21 is national music day in France and every small square was having a band of some sort playing music until all hours of the night. It is also, apparently, the night that the local motor cyclists come into town on mass (maybe it's every Sunday night) and parked on the river bank opposite the restaurant we were dining in, so we got to see a great variety of motor bikes and motor cyclists to while away the evening watching. As for the music, some of it was good, some of it was better appreciated from distance. Returning from dinner, the band at the bar down the road from the campground was belting out A”Eye of the Tiger”, which from a distance sounded passable. On closer inspection, however, it was anything but passable, so after a couple of truly dreadful renditions, we headed back to the campground and “appreciated” the music from a safe distance.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Saturday 20th – Week 1 – Mont Saint Michel, Dinan Sightseeing
Since we last caught up, the bottom seems to have dropped out of the camping market and we have plummeted in net worth from a 4-star campground in Dinan to a 2-star in Chinon (Loire). The tent, air bed and sleeping bag are the same, but the shower cubicle is now more like what I remember from 15 years ago and I have to shave in the open, in view of the entire world. Note to self - “seek out 4 star campgrounds in future”. This campground also doesn't have wifi, so I haven't been able to update the blog for a few days. On the plus side, the tent site is shaded, level and after one night appears free of the heavy dews that we had suffered in Brittany. That is the major plus in moving from Brittany to the Loire – coming inland, the temperature is a couple of degrees warmer and the wind even more so. We ate dinner outside last night and were hot for the first time since Paris, so that is a great improvement.
So back to Mont Saint Michel. It's about an hours drive from Dinan, so we were up early. We're always up early. Tenters rise and fall with the sun, and as nobody else tents, we always have free range of the shower facilities and get a full day in, because the sun rises at 5:30am and sets at about 10:00pm. The campgrounds host an impressive and vast array of caravans and motor homes, but I'll tell you about some of those another time.
Mont Saint Michel is an extraordinary site being an abbey that rises straight out of the sea on a tiny island just off the coast. It is linked to the mainland by a causeway that was built in the 19th Century. It has the highest tides in continental Europe with a difference of up to 15m between low and high tide and the tidal estuary around the Mont is some 250sq kms. This is one of the most impressive things about the Mont. When we visited, it was low tide and it was only from the very top of the Mont that the sea was just visible as a thin blue line on the very distant horizon. There was a sign at the end of the car park saying that “today the sea does not cover this car park” (see picture). Very reassuring!
The town on the mainland just before you get to the Mont is Beauvoir and is Tourist Central and it would not have been surprising to find a Happy Eater and a Tex Mex restaurant. It reminded us a bit of the Niagara Falls or the pyramids at Giza, where the commercial reality of what the tourists come to see is that you get something unbelievably tacky playing as a parasite to a beautiful attraction. Ouch, that was maybe a bit harsh.
The Mont has the abbey perched on the very top of it and houses, hotels and shops on its lower levels. You walk through the houses on narrow cobble stone streets and then climb very steep stairs to get to the Abbey. There has been a building of some religious significance on the Mont since the 8th century and the current abbey was started in the 10th Century. The building itself is rather austere, with very simple lead light windows (no magnificent stained glass here, thank you). It was used as a prison during the French Revolution. There was a very nice cloisters (a small garden enclosed by a double layer of pink granite columns. The dining room was notable because the monks ate in silence – so they seemed to have missed the point of food and wine.
At various times on the tour of the abbey, we were able to see outside to the vast tidal estuary and there were people thousands of people doing tours on the sand – most walking, but some on horseback. We never did find out what the particular purpose of the walking tours was, but with the bitterly cold wind, we weren't tempted to follow there lead.
After several hours on the Mont, we decided that we should stop for something to eat somewhere, as we hadn't had breakfast. We found a small Boulangerie in Pontorson, a small town a couple of ks down the road and less touristy than Beauvoir.
Breakfast consisted of a pain au raisin and a Pepito. A Pepito is two long thin strips of pastry filled with custard and chocolate drops. I'd never seen one before, but new as soon as I did that I had to have one. We took our sugar sensations and went off to find a seat to sit down and enjoy breakfast. There was a couple of seats outside the church just around the corner. Beside the seats were 2 small children who were playing soccer, using the church door as the goal – as you do. When we sat down, two small girls seemed to materialise onto the next seat . Here's Anne and I tucking into this Pepito and beside us are these two young girls looking at us with these sad begging eyes (If you've seen the movie Bolt, you'll know the look). They were well dressed and obviously well fed, so we upped sticks and went and had breakfast somewhere else, without succumbing to their emotional blackmail.
We spent the rest of the afternoon walking round Dinan, before having a delicious meal of Brochettes (skewers) of fish (Anne) and meat (David) at the Atelier Gourmand one of Dinan's riverside restaurants.
So back to Mont Saint Michel. It's about an hours drive from Dinan, so we were up early. We're always up early. Tenters rise and fall with the sun, and as nobody else tents, we always have free range of the shower facilities and get a full day in, because the sun rises at 5:30am and sets at about 10:00pm. The campgrounds host an impressive and vast array of caravans and motor homes, but I'll tell you about some of those another time.
Mont Saint Michel is an extraordinary site being an abbey that rises straight out of the sea on a tiny island just off the coast. It is linked to the mainland by a causeway that was built in the 19th Century. It has the highest tides in continental Europe with a difference of up to 15m between low and high tide and the tidal estuary around the Mont is some 250sq kms. This is one of the most impressive things about the Mont. When we visited, it was low tide and it was only from the very top of the Mont that the sea was just visible as a thin blue line on the very distant horizon. There was a sign at the end of the car park saying that “today the sea does not cover this car park” (see picture). Very reassuring!
The town on the mainland just before you get to the Mont is Beauvoir and is Tourist Central and it would not have been surprising to find a Happy Eater and a Tex Mex restaurant. It reminded us a bit of the Niagara Falls or the pyramids at Giza, where the commercial reality of what the tourists come to see is that you get something unbelievably tacky playing as a parasite to a beautiful attraction. Ouch, that was maybe a bit harsh.
The Mont has the abbey perched on the very top of it and houses, hotels and shops on its lower levels. You walk through the houses on narrow cobble stone streets and then climb very steep stairs to get to the Abbey. There has been a building of some religious significance on the Mont since the 8th century and the current abbey was started in the 10th Century. The building itself is rather austere, with very simple lead light windows (no magnificent stained glass here, thank you). It was used as a prison during the French Revolution. There was a very nice cloisters (a small garden enclosed by a double layer of pink granite columns. The dining room was notable because the monks ate in silence – so they seemed to have missed the point of food and wine.
At various times on the tour of the abbey, we were able to see outside to the vast tidal estuary and there were people thousands of people doing tours on the sand – most walking, but some on horseback. We never did find out what the particular purpose of the walking tours was, but with the bitterly cold wind, we weren't tempted to follow there lead.
After several hours on the Mont, we decided that we should stop for something to eat somewhere, as we hadn't had breakfast. We found a small Boulangerie in Pontorson, a small town a couple of ks down the road and less touristy than Beauvoir.
Breakfast consisted of a pain au raisin and a Pepito. A Pepito is two long thin strips of pastry filled with custard and chocolate drops. I'd never seen one before, but new as soon as I did that I had to have one. We took our sugar sensations and went off to find a seat to sit down and enjoy breakfast. There was a couple of seats outside the church just around the corner. Beside the seats were 2 small children who were playing soccer, using the church door as the goal – as you do. When we sat down, two small girls seemed to materialise onto the next seat . Here's Anne and I tucking into this Pepito and beside us are these two young girls looking at us with these sad begging eyes (If you've seen the movie Bolt, you'll know the look). They were well dressed and obviously well fed, so we upped sticks and went and had breakfast somewhere else, without succumbing to their emotional blackmail.
We spent the rest of the afternoon walking round Dinan, before having a delicious meal of Brochettes (skewers) of fish (Anne) and meat (David) at the Atelier Gourmand one of Dinan's riverside restaurants.
Camping
Another successful nights camping – that's two and two more than many people I spoke to before going on holiday would give me credit for. Some aspects of camping have changed in the 15 years since we last did it – the shower cubicles (based on an exhaustive survey of one campground) are much bigger and have wet and dry areas, so you can have a shower, get dried and dressed without having to hop around so you don't get your clothes wet while you're dressing.
Another thing that's changed is me – I'm 15 years older and getting in and out of a pup tent has not got easier in that time. Getting in involves bending at the waist until your upper body is parallel with the ground, bending your knees and ankles as far as they will go (not very far) so you are as low as possible, then stepping forward in this ridiculous position, until you have started to enter the tent, at which point you drop to your knees and scramble in over the air bed which takes up 95% of the available space on the tent floor. You then do your best houdini impersonation to get yourself out of whatever clothes your wearing (gym shorts and polar fleece) that you don't want to sleep in. One night, I forgot to take my shorts off, so had to perform that de-robing exercise from inside a zipped up sleeping bag – how dignified. Getting out of the tent involves reversing the de-robing exercise, then crawling to the end of the tent, Straining to get one foot out and then doing a lunging uncoiling step to thrust yourself forward past to verandah (grandiose term for the small overhand the protects the door of the tent from some weather) to come to a wobbling stand in front of the tent. You then hobble around trying to get the stones off your feet while slipping in to your jandals which have been specifically bought for trapsing round a campground. How good do you think that $EUR90 6 foot high tent looks when you've completed that. Never mind – maybe on the next trip.
Another thing that's changed is me – I'm 15 years older and getting in and out of a pup tent has not got easier in that time. Getting in involves bending at the waist until your upper body is parallel with the ground, bending your knees and ankles as far as they will go (not very far) so you are as low as possible, then stepping forward in this ridiculous position, until you have started to enter the tent, at which point you drop to your knees and scramble in over the air bed which takes up 95% of the available space on the tent floor. You then do your best houdini impersonation to get yourself out of whatever clothes your wearing (gym shorts and polar fleece) that you don't want to sleep in. One night, I forgot to take my shorts off, so had to perform that de-robing exercise from inside a zipped up sleeping bag – how dignified. Getting out of the tent involves reversing the de-robing exercise, then crawling to the end of the tent, Straining to get one foot out and then doing a lunging uncoiling step to thrust yourself forward past to verandah (grandiose term for the small overhand the protects the door of the tent from some weather) to come to a wobbling stand in front of the tent. You then hobble around trying to get the stones off your feet while slipping in to your jandals which have been specifically bought for trapsing round a campground. How good do you think that $EUR90 6 foot high tent looks when you've completed that. Never mind – maybe on the next trip.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Friday 19th – Week 1 – Saint Malo, Dinard, Rance River sightseeing
Learned a valuable lesson last night – the paraplegics get the normal toilets..... Might seem obvious when you read it, but when your not in the habit of searching out “normal” toilets, it came as something of a revelation. Unfortunately, I only learned this after my second encounter with what I now believe to be referred to as “Turkish style” toilets. The timing of learning from my dear wife that the paraplegic toilets were in fact “European style” was comical due to her delivery being mere moments to late to save me from my contortions, but good for her for keeping herself occupied while I was indisposed.
There we go, always good to start the day with a bit of toilet humour. Now where were we – ah yes, up early, showered and off to find breakfast, but not before stopping at what is now our favourite pass time in France – camping shopping. Decathlon is the sporting megastore in France and it's camping gear is so ridiculously cheap that we should have bought everything when we arrived and given it away at the end of the holiday. Stand up tent - $EUR90, airbed - $EUR20, camping chairs - $EUR11, Sleeping bags (good enough for summer) - $EUR20. All set up for less that $EUR200. Other stuff like polar fleece tops are $EUR15, so it's all really cheap.
Anyway, after the purchase of the two camp chairs, we were off to Saint Malo to start the days sightseeing. Saint Malo is at the easterly end of the Brittany Coast and is a fortified town. In the 17th Century, it was France's foremost port and controlled all the trade to the East Indies. Some people made some serious coin as a result of the trade, but it was then attacked by the British in 1693, which resulted in the fortified town being built. Sadly, 80% of it was destroyed in 1944, but it has been rebuilt in keeping with its former self and so today there are impressive ramparts to walk around.
In addition to the ramparts, there is also Fort National, which is build on a rocky outcrop just out in the harbour. At low tide you can walk out to the Fort. The day we were there, the weather was sunny but cold, so we were walking round in polar fleeces, and jackets – and shorts of course. Inside the ramparts, the town is all stone buildings, but it had a rather touristy feel to it, so we left and headed around to Dinard, a town about 10 minutes along the coast, where we stopped for a lunch of Carpaccio, crab salad and goat cheese salad.
After lunch we drove down the Rance River, which goes from Saint Malo all the way to Rennes(long way inland), which we will visit on Sunday when we drive to The Loire. Our first port of call was Plouer Sur Rance before going on to Vicomte Sur Rance where we did a walk beside the canal and locks. Finally we stopped at Evran, where there were more locks and we saw a great house boat – basically a caravan stuck on top of a barge, with its wheels removed. (see the photos). Lots of the boats we saw at our stops were British, so it's obviously a popular trip to bring your boat over to Brittany and then sail them up the Rance.
On arrival back at the campground, we tried out our new chairs, while enjoying a glass of wine before heading on the river walk (again by the Rance) into Dinan for dinner.
There we go, always good to start the day with a bit of toilet humour. Now where were we – ah yes, up early, showered and off to find breakfast, but not before stopping at what is now our favourite pass time in France – camping shopping. Decathlon is the sporting megastore in France and it's camping gear is so ridiculously cheap that we should have bought everything when we arrived and given it away at the end of the holiday. Stand up tent - $EUR90, airbed - $EUR20, camping chairs - $EUR11, Sleeping bags (good enough for summer) - $EUR20. All set up for less that $EUR200. Other stuff like polar fleece tops are $EUR15, so it's all really cheap.
Anyway, after the purchase of the two camp chairs, we were off to Saint Malo to start the days sightseeing. Saint Malo is at the easterly end of the Brittany Coast and is a fortified town. In the 17th Century, it was France's foremost port and controlled all the trade to the East Indies. Some people made some serious coin as a result of the trade, but it was then attacked by the British in 1693, which resulted in the fortified town being built. Sadly, 80% of it was destroyed in 1944, but it has been rebuilt in keeping with its former self and so today there are impressive ramparts to walk around.
In addition to the ramparts, there is also Fort National, which is build on a rocky outcrop just out in the harbour. At low tide you can walk out to the Fort. The day we were there, the weather was sunny but cold, so we were walking round in polar fleeces, and jackets – and shorts of course. Inside the ramparts, the town is all stone buildings, but it had a rather touristy feel to it, so we left and headed around to Dinard, a town about 10 minutes along the coast, where we stopped for a lunch of Carpaccio, crab salad and goat cheese salad.
After lunch we drove down the Rance River, which goes from Saint Malo all the way to Rennes(long way inland), which we will visit on Sunday when we drive to The Loire. Our first port of call was Plouer Sur Rance before going on to Vicomte Sur Rance where we did a walk beside the canal and locks. Finally we stopped at Evran, where there were more locks and we saw a great house boat – basically a caravan stuck on top of a barge, with its wheels removed. (see the photos). Lots of the boats we saw at our stops were British, so it's obviously a popular trip to bring your boat over to Brittany and then sail them up the Rance.
On arrival back at the campground, we tried out our new chairs, while enjoying a glass of wine before heading on the river walk (again by the Rance) into Dinan for dinner.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Thursday 18th – Week 1 – Drive to Brittany
I'm writing this at 8am in the TV room at our first campsite. The first night went very well – slept like a baby, except when it rained – twice. Anne is getting right into the spirit of things, sitting in the sun reading the Practical Caravan magazine and enthralling me periodically with readers letters about their 1988 Sprite Musketeer caravan, “that still attracts admiring glances from passers by” - oh dear. It's not supposed to be a comedy magazine, but Anne has lost it completely and is in hysterics reading it.
We checked out of the hotel at 9am and caught a taxi around to Peugeot to collect the car. The Paris traffic was absolute bedlam, but we did get to drive round the Champs Elysee, which was kinda cool. We had a couple of dramas when we got the car. The first was very minor, but whoever had delivered the car had managed to give it a Paris paint job – scuffed up rear bumper from bump parking your way into a park.
The second drama was a bit more problematic – I'd left the windscreen mount for our GPS “Jane” (that's the name of her plooty English voice). To compound our problem, “Jane” decided that she wasn't going to find any satellites – none. That makes her rather useless for her only purpose, to navigate us round the place. Fortunately, we had a map, so set about navigating our way out of Paris under our own steam. Even more fortunately, if you have to get lost anywhere, the centre of a big city is a pretty good place, because the first direction sign they give you is how to get out of the place. What seemed at first to be a major problem, was completely solved 10 minutes later as we were out of the Paris limits and on the motorway to Rouen on our way to Brittany. About an hour into the trip after several hard resets (which didn't seem to do anything) and two soft resets, Jane all of a sudden got her mojo back, triangulated of a healthy number of satellites and started telling us where we were. A quick stop at a motorway services had the campground address typed in and then we were on our way to Dinan in Brittany for our first nights camping.
Our tent is a small pup tent that we last used when we traveled around Europe 15 years ago. That was the last time that we did any camping, but we decided it would be a different way of seeing Europe and after 5 years, a change seemed like a good idea. We've come away armed with a list of specially chosen campgrounds – we used a campground guide when we traveled round Europe in the 1990's and all the campgrounds were good, so we've got the newer version of that book and have selected the campgrounds we want to stay in, in the places we are visiting. As well as the campgrounds, we also have a list of hotels that we have researched in the same areas, so that if the weather is bad, or we get tired of camping, we can go and stay in a hotel.
In addition to our tent, we have bought an air bed, air compressor and two sleeping bags from New Zealand. We have bought a mallet in Paris and will go and buy a couple of camping chairs today. We have no cooking facilities as that is what restaurants and cafe's are for.
The trip to Brittany took until 3pm, which gave us time to pitch the tent, sort out all our gear so that what we needed to get at regularly was easily available and then head into Dinan for a bit of sightseeing before drinks and dinner. The walk into Dinan took about 20 minutes by bike track along the river bank. When we arrived at Dinan, it is a picturesque little town with lots of boats moored on the river, with the usual array of restaurants and bars beside the river. There appeared to be a larger walled village above the town, so we walked up one of the steep narrow cobbled streets towards the top of the town. It was only when we got to the top of the hill that we realised that Dinan is in fact a fairly large town, with a bustling town centre, lots of tourist shops, several chain hotels – ibis, Mercure and Best Western, to name a few. All the houses in the town are stone, and with all the flowers in the middle of summer, it's a real picture. After an hour of street wandering, we retreated back down to the river for a couple of drinks and a meal before wandering back down the river path to the campground for our first night sleeping in our tent.
We checked out of the hotel at 9am and caught a taxi around to Peugeot to collect the car. The Paris traffic was absolute bedlam, but we did get to drive round the Champs Elysee, which was kinda cool. We had a couple of dramas when we got the car. The first was very minor, but whoever had delivered the car had managed to give it a Paris paint job – scuffed up rear bumper from bump parking your way into a park.
The second drama was a bit more problematic – I'd left the windscreen mount for our GPS “Jane” (that's the name of her plooty English voice). To compound our problem, “Jane” decided that she wasn't going to find any satellites – none. That makes her rather useless for her only purpose, to navigate us round the place. Fortunately, we had a map, so set about navigating our way out of Paris under our own steam. Even more fortunately, if you have to get lost anywhere, the centre of a big city is a pretty good place, because the first direction sign they give you is how to get out of the place. What seemed at first to be a major problem, was completely solved 10 minutes later as we were out of the Paris limits and on the motorway to Rouen on our way to Brittany. About an hour into the trip after several hard resets (which didn't seem to do anything) and two soft resets, Jane all of a sudden got her mojo back, triangulated of a healthy number of satellites and started telling us where we were. A quick stop at a motorway services had the campground address typed in and then we were on our way to Dinan in Brittany for our first nights camping.
Our tent is a small pup tent that we last used when we traveled around Europe 15 years ago. That was the last time that we did any camping, but we decided it would be a different way of seeing Europe and after 5 years, a change seemed like a good idea. We've come away armed with a list of specially chosen campgrounds – we used a campground guide when we traveled round Europe in the 1990's and all the campgrounds were good, so we've got the newer version of that book and have selected the campgrounds we want to stay in, in the places we are visiting. As well as the campgrounds, we also have a list of hotels that we have researched in the same areas, so that if the weather is bad, or we get tired of camping, we can go and stay in a hotel.
In addition to our tent, we have bought an air bed, air compressor and two sleeping bags from New Zealand. We have bought a mallet in Paris and will go and buy a couple of camping chairs today. We have no cooking facilities as that is what restaurants and cafe's are for.
The trip to Brittany took until 3pm, which gave us time to pitch the tent, sort out all our gear so that what we needed to get at regularly was easily available and then head into Dinan for a bit of sightseeing before drinks and dinner. The walk into Dinan took about 20 minutes by bike track along the river bank. When we arrived at Dinan, it is a picturesque little town with lots of boats moored on the river, with the usual array of restaurants and bars beside the river. There appeared to be a larger walled village above the town, so we walked up one of the steep narrow cobbled streets towards the top of the town. It was only when we got to the top of the hill that we realised that Dinan is in fact a fairly large town, with a bustling town centre, lots of tourist shops, several chain hotels – ibis, Mercure and Best Western, to name a few. All the houses in the town are stone, and with all the flowers in the middle of summer, it's a real picture. After an hour of street wandering, we retreated back down to the river for a couple of drinks and a meal before wandering back down the river path to the campground for our first night sleeping in our tent.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Wednesday 17th – Week 1 – Notre Dame, Jardin Des Plantes, Latin Quarter, Jardin Des Luxembourg
Catching up to the present now, thankfully. Today it's the hottest it's been since we arrived – in the high 20's and not a cloud in the sky.
Our walk today was a lot more local than the previous couple of days and started with a walk to the Seine, over the Pont Neuf and then down to Notre Dame. Saw a cool site at the Notre Dame. There was a group of very young children being taken on an outing to the cathedral. In order to keep them in line, there teachers had two long pink ropes with hand hold at regular intervals. The children were all in a line with one pink rope down one side of them, the other pink rope down the other side. The children then held the hand holds and got marched around the cathedral. Civil libertarians would be having a fit, but it was a pretty effective way to keep them all in check. (See photos). After a walk around the inside of the Cathedral, we headed off to the Ile de St Louis, then down to the Jardin Des Plantes past the Paris University.
We hope that the campus of Paris University is closed for refurbishment. If it's not, then I think there only graduates are drug addicts and taggers, because it looked like it was in an awful state of repair.
The Jardin Des Plantes is one of the many big public gardens in Paris and has a zoo and an indoor tropical garden. It was nice walking around the garden and also nice to get a chance to walk in the shade, because the day was awesomely hot.
After the Jardin Des Plants, our walk took us to the Latin Quarter. We have a book of Paris walks that we are working our way through. We don't follow the walks too strictly and if we see something that takes our fancy, we go off and look at that as well. Paris is a great city to walk around and it's a cheap way of seeing lots of the sites. The Latin Quarter is quite similar to where we are staying in Saint Germain, as it has lots of little streets that are absolutely full of restaurants and bars. After the previous days marathon walk, we were determined that we would stop and have a break and some lunch today. The first stop was a little bar on a tiny little square with restaurants all around it. We only stopped because I needed a comfort stop and the price of $E9 (9 euros) for a small Orangina and a small mineral water seemed fairly steep, but when you need to go....... Anyway, for $E9 you would think that you'd get a normal toilet, not the French “two feet and a hole in the ground”. Never mind, when in France......
Anyway, after the drink break we carried on walking and found a really quaint little street with lots of really nice looking restaurants – you know, cane chairs, white linen table cloths, decent sized wine glasses, so we stopped there for lunch, before continuing on to the Sorbonne University, then a high school that is claimed to be the most exclusive in France. Finally, we walked through the Jardin De Luxembourg, which was really beautiful and full of university students enjoying an afternoon in the sun.
Dinner that night was a light meal (carpaccio and a Pizza to share) in a little Italian restaurant.
Our walk today was a lot more local than the previous couple of days and started with a walk to the Seine, over the Pont Neuf and then down to Notre Dame. Saw a cool site at the Notre Dame. There was a group of very young children being taken on an outing to the cathedral. In order to keep them in line, there teachers had two long pink ropes with hand hold at regular intervals. The children were all in a line with one pink rope down one side of them, the other pink rope down the other side. The children then held the hand holds and got marched around the cathedral. Civil libertarians would be having a fit, but it was a pretty effective way to keep them all in check. (See photos). After a walk around the inside of the Cathedral, we headed off to the Ile de St Louis, then down to the Jardin Des Plantes past the Paris University.
We hope that the campus of Paris University is closed for refurbishment. If it's not, then I think there only graduates are drug addicts and taggers, because it looked like it was in an awful state of repair.
The Jardin Des Plantes is one of the many big public gardens in Paris and has a zoo and an indoor tropical garden. It was nice walking around the garden and also nice to get a chance to walk in the shade, because the day was awesomely hot.
After the Jardin Des Plants, our walk took us to the Latin Quarter. We have a book of Paris walks that we are working our way through. We don't follow the walks too strictly and if we see something that takes our fancy, we go off and look at that as well. Paris is a great city to walk around and it's a cheap way of seeing lots of the sites. The Latin Quarter is quite similar to where we are staying in Saint Germain, as it has lots of little streets that are absolutely full of restaurants and bars. After the previous days marathon walk, we were determined that we would stop and have a break and some lunch today. The first stop was a little bar on a tiny little square with restaurants all around it. We only stopped because I needed a comfort stop and the price of $E9 (9 euros) for a small Orangina and a small mineral water seemed fairly steep, but when you need to go....... Anyway, for $E9 you would think that you'd get a normal toilet, not the French “two feet and a hole in the ground”. Never mind, when in France......
Anyway, after the drink break we carried on walking and found a really quaint little street with lots of really nice looking restaurants – you know, cane chairs, white linen table cloths, decent sized wine glasses, so we stopped there for lunch, before continuing on to the Sorbonne University, then a high school that is claimed to be the most exclusive in France. Finally, we walked through the Jardin De Luxembourg, which was really beautiful and full of university students enjoying an afternoon in the sun.
Dinner that night was a light meal (carpaccio and a Pizza to share) in a little Italian restaurant.
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