My day started badly by queuing in the cold for croissants and bread for fifteen minutes with wet hair, gad dammit! But the croissants were good and after the crowded campsite had mostly cleared, we set off west in to the town of Arras. We found our way to Place de la Vacquerie and Place de […]
Showers, boiled eggs, fix bike, clean bikes, check emails, check weather report, hop on bubbles my bike and off we went, in to Chalons en Champagne, at last. We cycled around and around, saw more brilliant roundabouts, including one that had a very impressive dancing water fountain. We did stop for a two-course lunch at
After three nights at Campéole Le Brabois we packed up, emptied Eileen’s bowels and set off back into Nancy to find the Musée de l’Ecole de Nancy. It’s only a tiny museum set inside a pretty house built by Eugène Corbin in 1911 and contains some fine furniture and beautiful glassware from the Art Nouveau
On Monday, a sleep in our bed until 9am was definitely a good way to start the day and recharge some inner batteries, actually I can’t believe we really did sleep for 10 ½ hours. This resulted in a rather late breakfast, which we ate outside, though with a chill in the air I could
At 10:30pm last night, we strolled in to the centre of town, along with what seemed like the whole of Obernai’s population and we mingled in the car park next to the city wall. There was a live band playing rather Germanic sounding music and lots of people were waltzing around in front of the
When we woke up this morning we both still felt fat. Last night’s fabulous dinner was the biggest we have eaten while we have been travelling, but Max insisted we meet him in their beautiful, new breakfast room. Thankfully it’s a buffet service, so we only ate a couple of mouthfuls and then embarked on
Our tour guide extraordinaire, Maxime, had too much work with the hotel re-opening today, but he very generously lent us his car and sent us off to Strasbourg with a map. Rodney and I both found it really strange being on the right side of the road, but with our front-seat positions reversed. With Rodney
At the start of week twelve and after only five days in Switzerland, it seemed strange to wake up in France again and in a huge city. As Rodney rustled up scrambled eggs for breakfast, we could hear the local industries starting up. We drove up the D52 beside the Rhine, but we couldn’t see the
On Tuesday morning and we packed up and said goodbye to the campsite with the best views so far; mind you, it was also the most expensive campsite so far, but absolutely worth every cent. The sun was shining again on the mountain tops; I know I really will miss this place and I cried
We started the day with a load of washing; it has to be done. Rodney paid and put the washing in, then I went up to load the dryer. The lovely ‘ageing hippie’ on reception, when I asked for directions, suddenly climbed through the window rather than through a door and insisted on helping me!
Rodney woke early and took a photo from our bed of the sunrise just catching the tip of the Eiger. Then while cooking and eating poached eggs on toast we watched the sun, the clouds, the showers, a little bit of everything, moving around the majestic mountains. We saw the gondola move slowly up to
After the first night in ages snuggled up under the quilt, the rain stopped and we woke to a view we hadn’t realised was there. It didn’t last long, the clouds came in again and we couldn’t get a good picture of the Reichenbachfalls, so we put some ‘luft’ in the tyres and drove
I had to start the day with another lovely warm shower in a little wooden hut on the top of the hill; such a pretty spot and a good shower too. Then we headed due east along the Rhone Valley towards Brig. About 5 kilometres out of Sierre we suddenly noticed that the roadside apricot
We managed to leave Sevrier at 8:35am with big plans to cross the border in to Switzerland. I had my money on not making it, as there is still so much to see in France. We drove through the beautiful Gorges d’ Arly from Ugine to Flumet; what a great name for a village, I’d
Rodney cycled off early for croissants and pastries, which we ate with more of my apricot jammy sauce stuff for breakfast. We needed a catch-up morning, so some washing was done, the blog and photos were updated, one cupboard was emptied and re-packed and finally at 11:30am we both set off on our bikes. We
After a quick bowl of cereal, a very quick shower in Eileen and a fast lock down, we set off at 8:20am to get to Annecy as early as we could. The camping car parking spot at the top of the hill by the Basilica de la Visitation had us concerned that we were a
A large group of German teenagers arrived late at the campsite and despite trying to get ahead of them by heading to the shower block at 6:55am I ended up in a 20-minute queue for a 2-minute shower. I should have waited because when Rodney went over later, all three showers were empty…hhmmph! Ah well, it’s
Mushrooms on toast started the day and we were off again. First stop was in the very centre of the hilltop village of Moustiers Sainte Marie, where Rodney managed to pull over long enough to enable me to dash in to the boulangerie to buy today’s baguette. Unfortunately, a tour bus then offloaded a huge