Travel day from Pamplona to Bonansa

Yep, that's right and not to be confused with the TV show Bonanza although you have to be pretty old to be able to remember that as a show. The trip here was just short of 300km but took close to 8 hours to complete although that did include a fair number of stops and detours along the way.

We tried to find a garage in pamplona but we kept going into the old city and that is a nightmare to drive in and even when we got into the, correct I think, street there was no garage to be found. We have a nasty squeal coming from under the bonnet which pretty much only annoys us when we start the car and even then not every time but I would like to get i checked out; I think that the new timing/fan belt might have stretched a wee bit. If I press on it it does seem to be a bit loose. On our way through one of the many towns we spotted a tow yard and stopped to ask and he pointed us to the Seat (Seat is a brand of car here owned by volkswagen) dealership which we found but it was only opening after siesta at 15:00 so we'll ignore it until we get to barcelona.

We stopped a Repsol garage and filled up, had some great coffee and bought some sandwiches for lunch. 'Cafe con leche' is really cheap here only 1.80EUR! Continuing on from there we decided to take the longer route up into the mountains and spent about 10 minutes trying to persuade our electronic brain not to route us the 'other' way. Having forced her to give into our wishes, we now understand why she so persistently routed us away from the road we were determined to go on!

Think precipitous drops on a road barely wide enough for two cars let alone anything bigger where 30-40km per hour seemed a little bit fast and taking one's eyes off the road for one second was not an option because it wasn't straight for more than a few seconds at a time. Add to this the sleet and the van's unsure roadholding and Caron had her heart in her mouth for the entire stretch of about an hour. But having said all that it was an amazingly scenic portion of the country although I have to say that living up there is just not an option. Going through this pass we passed a town called Fragin which can only be named that because it is so Fragging cold up here!


But we did manage to catch mellman the abominable giraffe lurking next to one of the many tunnels.

Having finished this detour we then went on another, unplanned, one by choosing the wrong campsite which would have meant another 300km round trip tomorrow. I wasn't feeling up to this so we moved on to the other of the two campsite possibilities and now I only have a 50km round trip to look forward to. Much better!
So, although I could have done without the unplanned detour, if we hadn't had the detour we would have missed the following sights which in hindsight I really wouldn't have wanted to miss.


By the end of the day we were both feeling a bit out of sorts so we pitched camp quickly, made supper and loads of coffee before a nice hot shower and then crawled into bed. We're sleeping with woolen socks and light fleeces tonight because we were a bit cold last night. When we woke up this morning the blanket was all wet because our breathe would condense and fall on the blanket near where our noses were poking out. Hopefully tonight will be better!

Roland does the pilgrimage

Today was one of the days which I have been really looking forward to and I wasn't disappointed. I did a portion of the el Camino which is a pilgrimage (yes, christians have them too!) to Santiago de Compostela and as it turns out towns like Pamplona owe their roots to the pilgrimage because they started out as stops on the pilgrims way. I know it may sound a bit strange as to why an atheist would want to do part of a pilgrimage and I don't have an answer for that; I just do!

Roncesvalles is the first town on the route from France to Spain and as luck would have it, I have a personal interest in Roncesvalles because that is the location where the original Roland met his end at the hand of the Moors while defending Charlemagne's main force. The story is told in a poem called 'The song of Roland' and although I have heard of it before I didn't realise that it all happened at Roncesvalles.

The ride down from Roncesvalles was going to be about 40km but about 20km from Roncelvalles, on the way, Caron suggested that I ride the remaining 20km up to Roncesvalles and then do the 40 down. Sounded like a good idea to me at the time! Riding the el camino backwards turned out to be quit tricky because all the signs are set to be seen by someone going the opposite way so I eventually lost the path but by then I was pretty close to Roncesvalles in any case. The path up was pretty tricky and one section I would rate as unrideable; think slippery mud, wet smooth rocks and roots on a steep path which has a fall from left to right. Although I didn't attempt this particular section I did attempt a similar but much less steep section soon afterwards and was rewarded with a mud bath when my back wheel just slid out from underneath me. All the way along the el Camino one meets pilgrims trudging their way to Santiago de Compostela dressed up in foul weather gear because the weather here just can't make up it's mind.

Me at what is a popular start on the pilgrims road to Santiago de Compostela

I met some kiwi's doing the pilgrimage as well as a french couple and their daughter who was hating every minute of the route, not to mention her parents who basically forced her to join them on it.

The towns that the Camino went through are really beautiful, well cared for and just very picturesque but the people may be a little strange; we saw some people walking their sheep on a leash, just like a dog. Maybe the sheep has a habit of biting people?

At one point the path went right through a ploughed field and even though it wasn't very steep, because of the mud it was just impossible to get any traction. Even where the field flattened out and it was almost level I could only just get enough traction to go forward.

Eventually arriving in Roncelvalles we had some coffee and an potato omelette in 1/2 a bagette which went down very well indeed. While sitting in front of the roaring log fire we met some dutch pilgrims who were doing it on the road rather than on the actual pilgrims road but at 8 or 9 hundred km's who cares, it's a long way! It had snowed in Roncesvalles yesterday so there was snow on the hills and little bits on the ground and I think that it must be quite wet year round judging from the moss on the trees in the square next to the pub.


The way down was quite tricky because it was so slippery and wet and there were a couple of times where the bike was sliding around underneath me which is a very disconcerting feeling. The ride down was punctuated by freezing rain storms followed by bright warm sunshine so it really alternated between miserable and fantastic.


Caron and I tried to meet at each village where the el camino crossed the road but this turned out to be quit difficult and we kept on missing each other but we finally met where I had started riding and had to take a photo of 'pilgrim' mellman and I on the el Camino.


After descending down to Zubiri which was quite hair raising I jumped onto the road and rode the rest of the way back to the campsite mostly because I was absolutely filthy with mud and the thought of getting in the car and then having to clean up afterwards was worse than just carrying on. We saw at least 6 professional cyclists training for the giro or the tour de france going up and down the road to roncelvalles so it is obviously quite a popular training ground. All in all, 60km and 6:03 hours of riding of which 4:30 was actually one the move. Quite a good days ride!

Back in camp it took me the best part of 2 hours to wash my bike, all my clothes and me before life could take on a semblance of normality and the hot showers never feel this good without the pain and cold of a hard ride.

To finish the day we navigated the old fashioned way into pamplona to yamaguchi park, named for the city with which pamplona is twinned, which is absolutely beautiful.

We walked across the park to a supermarket, bought some food for the next couple of days and on the way back a gunshot rang out from quite close to us. I don't think anyone was hit because I could hear the bullet departing but it was not what I was expecting in spain. Two minutes later we heard sirens, I presume in response to the gunhot. Everyone else in the park carried on as if nothing had happened so I'm not sure what was going on.

San Sebastin to Pamplona

Started the day with a luxury breakfast at pension alemana while watching the city wake up, specifically the antics of the moped brigade. It isn't unusual to see girls in short skirts and high heels on their way to work and the way they weave in and out of the traffic would have me reaching for my riding jacket and all they're wearing as protective gear is some kind of a jacket.

A really nice holiday day, all we did was drive the A15 from San Sebastian to Pamplona and set up in the one and only campsite which, thankfully, doesn't seem to be too bad. The showers are piping hot and they don't have the horrible push button taps that other campsites use so you can have a hot shower for as long as you want and the water pressure is great which means awesome showers! I think I'm going to have a couple just because I can.

The road from San Sebastian is spectacular to say the least with load of tunnels and high bridges; I saw one that was 360m high not to mention the cuttings. It really was quite a drive that had our ears popping from the altitude changes. The three photos below were all from the one place and gives a good view looking south of the north of spain.



Other than the drive, there's not a lot in pamplona so once we had set up camp we spent the rest of the afternoon reading and relaxing which makes a nice change after the rush through france. Something we really didn't expect to see in Spain or actually europe was vultures which we could see quite clearly because they were flying next to the A15. We have also seen fair number of hawks and falcons which was also a bit unexpected.

We have decided that we can't keep up the rush, not to mention the 3000km of driving, so we have canned the southern spanish destinations as well as the voting in Madrid. I really would have liked to vote but it is a 1200km round trip to Madrid from here and that is just a bit excessive. Because of this re-arrangement we actually have a few days to spare so we are staying in places just a little bit longer and are maybe going to add a couple of places on.

We thought that we had left the rain behind but not so. It has been raining on and off all day but it has been relatively warm so most of our stuff has dried out. The campsite has washing facilities so we did all the washing which has come in the nick of time as we were down to the last few items of clean clothing.

Travelling like this certainly gets one back to the simple pleasures of life that get lost somehow when living in a house like being warm, comfortable and dry and having clean, dry clothes to wear. Oh, and fast broadband internet and unfortunately I have to admit that iBurst is quite fast compared with some of the experiences here.

Bordeaux to San Sebastian Donostia

It's not raining! Hooray, we get to pack up without being rained on; the ground is still all muddy so it's not that easy but at least the rain has stopped. Today we head for sunny spain, at least we hope it is sunny. We had to stop and take a photo of mellman in the vineyards of bordeaux for posterity, not that posterity would care at all.

It was great to have had a break from long distance driving but it is time to get down to spain. We decided to take a break along the way and see the highest dunes in europe at pilat just next to archachon which will have some meaning for those neal stephenson fans out there.

I, of course, had to climb to the top which is more difficult than it sounds even though it is only 100m high and there is quite a nice view out to sea but other than that; it's a dune. Coming back down I joined Caron for a cup of coffee and a picnic lunch. There were lots of families around and life seems very care free here.

The south west of france seems to be pine tree territory, literally hundreds of kilometres of pine plantations and driving past them there were often trees which have been blown of or sometimes snapped off halfway up their trunks. I vaguely remember something about wind storms in europe and I assume that this must be a result of that, if it as it was some storm!

We took the toll road south which was a little unusual for us but the scenery is so uniform that there was no point in taking the scenic route and the toll road charges weren't so bad, 2 or 3 EUR but in the space of a couple of hundred of kilometres there were 4 tolls so it starts to add up.

Crossing the border was a non-event, there was even a sign telling motorists not to stop; that all borders were like this!.

The sun came out to greet us at the dunes and continued to shine for the rest of the day; Caron the sun baby was lapping it up and even I, the sun monk, really enjoyed the feel of warm sun on the skin.

Arriving in San Sebastian was totally confusing, what they have done to the roads makes them next to undriveable. There are one way streets and two way streets all mixed up, sometimes with signs indicating this and sometimes not. Intersections may have robots, yields or nothing at all and trying to work out if you have the right of way is impossible as far as I can see. Add to this roadworks and bus lanes and kamakazi mopeds and maybe a little tiredness was a little stressful. The information wasn't where the GPS said it was but we eventually found a hotel, Pension Alemana, which was a bit more expensive than we were looking for but frustration was setting in so we took it. At 79EUR what you get and what one gets for a hotel in south africa is pretty much on a par so it's not really that expensive, just for us.

Once we had settled in we went for a walk along the promenade which is spectacular, the bay has two beaches and is shaped like a lagoon with two bluffs and an island between the bluffs. The small harbour is on one side and it seems like the whole town turns out for an evening stroll. There were old people in wheel chairs, children, dogs, cyclists and runners all mixed up together. The cyclists and the runners have a reserved lane along the promenade which is sensible one wouldn't want someone in a wheelchair being run over by an overenthusiastic cyclist! There were also lots of people walking their dogs and in one instance their ferret but there wasn't any dog turds to avoid. Not sure what they do with them but they're nowhere to be seen.

Returning to the hotel we found the lavautomitique to do some washing but it looks decidedly closed or failing that, dodgy so caron vetoed the wash and we head for pamplona first thing tomorrow morning.

Being in Spain, we just *had* to have tapas for supper and went to two different bars and I must say that I really enjoyed it. The bars have plates of tapas on the bar tops and you get a plate and load it up and get a small glass of 'vino' and then stand around and munch and drink. It's very sociable and there were whole families in th bar, along with groups of girls and boys having a night out, along with some less salubrious looking individuals. All mixed up, it was great! Each tapas is 1 to 2 EUR but generally a 2 plates plus the two drinks is about 15 EUR which isn't too bad. We went out later at night and walked, had some more tapas and finished the evening off having coffee and watching some unfortunate's audi being towed away.

San Sebastian by night, it was very picturesque.

St Emilion and a Rest day at last!

It's still raining, it's now 48 hours of almost continuous rain and there is mud everywhere in the campsite. We are very happy that we have brought our blowup camping mattresses since they raise the foam mattresses just that little bit of the floor of the tent and stop, at least mostly, the damp seeping through the groundsheet and then through the tent groundsheet and then into anything we have in the tent. We are starting to get desperate to find a laudromat but they're not so common around here.

Unlike the british who have houses so small that there is a laundromats everywhere, the french have free-standing houses and not need to use laundromats which is bad news for us! The campsites mostly have washing machines but not tumble dryers - go figure!

We are generally getting in about 10 hours of sleep a night which is unheard of; especially for me. Today our only objectives were to go to St. Emilion and have a wander around and to do as little driving as possible. Our first stop was to find a petrol station which proved to be more difficult than expected and it was only on the fourth attempt that we found one open, the french seem to take sundays and easter sunday in particular pretty seriously. Today we paid 0.88 EUR per litre and the first station which was closed thankfully was charging 1.15 EUR which is a huge difference in price; we were quite taken aback. A bit relieved that we now had fuel we drove to St Emilion which is one of the premier regions within Bordeaux and had a bit of a wander around doing a little bit of wine tasting here and there.

We're not sure what these actually are but we think that they are fed by spring water and they're quite pretty albeit a bit cold to actually have a dip in.

We decided to splash out and have lunch in one of the bistro's. We both had omelettes and coffee and plate of chips to share. It was great to eat in a restaurant again but at 32 EUR for what is a fairly simple meal it is no wonder we aren't eating out all the time.

Just next to where we parked the car must be the worlds smallest vineyard but one has to see where they get planted. Just about every available space has vines occupying it and unlike south africa, the farmers are not allowed by law to water them. They have to be rain fed, it seems a bit wierd but that is the way it is.

We finally decided on some wine to purchase to take with us to share with the Naude's when we get to Venice and ended up spending almost twice what we were intending but I am sure that we'll really enjoy them in a few weeks time.

Back at Rauzan, we wandered up into town and paid our 2.50 entrance fee into the antique fair which was just like a giant jumble sale with heaps of absolute junk and the odd bit of really nice stuff at astronomical prices; I saw a 18th centure armoire (big cupboard) for 2700 EUR, yes, that's right - about R35 000.00 for a cupboard albeit a really nice one. We also saw some shadeports - french style which requires a little imagination because it only has leaves on in summer.

We spent most of the afternoon huddled in the bell of our tent hiding from the rain and reading in between cups of coffee and making carons vegetable soup which we had for supper.

Just before bed I walked up into town and took the picture below of the ruined castle.


While we were driving around we passed groups of cyclists and walkers dressed up appropriately and out and doing it; in weather like this south africans just wouldn't be caught outside let alone pursuing the sports which they enjoy. It'll make me think twice next time I cancel a ride or a walk due to the weather, I think we are really spoilt by the weather we have at home.

The electronic brain

Having the GPS has been marvelous but sometimes it's behaviour has been erratic to put it mildly. There was one particular section between Rauzan and St. Emilion just as one crosses the dordogne river where I think the maps and the position were all out of kilter because it had us ploughing through fields or swimming in the river or driving down the wrong street and it took a little while to figure out exactly what was going on and when to ignore the instructions and when not to. At one point, the voice stopped giving instructions because we had made so many wrong turns that I think it went into a sulk.

Rain, Rain and more RAIN.

Ok, it has now been raining for 24 hours and the weather is risking the wrath of Caron. We had a very nice evening in Magaudie which already is and will become an even nicer campsite in the future but had to pack up in the rain which is not so pleasant.

We drove down to Sarlat going through Salignac, yes saligna with a 'c' which had a very picturesque castle shown below but to be honest, there really isn't a shortage of these. Of course the castles make johannesburgs walled suburbs look somewhat trivial and unpreposing.

Sarlat turned out to be fantastic, we happened to hit it on market day which is like a flea market but with a lot more things to buy, specifically food related. We went to the 'easy planet' internet shop to pay our blood money and was pleasantly surprised to be charged only for the 3 cups of coffee which we bought there while we posted and downloaded. 45 minutes of internet time and we were both feeling much better; me because I had caught up with the blog and caron because she had two cups of coffee in her. We walked back through the market just enjoying the spectacle which wasn't dampened by the fact that it was raining quite hard. The people here are so used to the rain that what would have us south africans scuttling for cover is simply ignored as if it wasn't there.

I took several pictures of stalls but I thought that I would show the one all you meat lovers at home would appreciate the best. I know that this will have george salivating!

A short while later I spotted a serious cheese which I needed caron next to to give some relative size. We couldn't help but think of Laurel while we were were walking through, from the people to the clothes to the market itself; this would be her natural home.

When we got back to the car having spent a very enjoyable hour or two in the market this was parked just a couple of cars behind us. Now, I ask you; who would pimp a citroen!

From Sarlat we drove down towards Bordeaux following the Dordogne marvelling at the castles and chateaus that seem to be around just about every bend. We stopped next to the dordogne for a brief lunch of baguette and the brie cheese which we had bought at the market before carrying on down to bordeaux.

After a very pleasant drive and morning the afternoon wasn't so great as we had a bit of a job finding a decent campsite. The one we went to looked like an upmarket squatter camp but a squatter camp non-the-less but we finally found a campsite run by yet another dutchman. What is it about hollanders and running camp sites?

This evening we are camping at the Vieux Chateau campsite just on the outskirts of Rauzan which is very picturesque if a little wet which meant that we had to pitch camp in the rain. The rain here isn't the buckets we are used to at home, it is more like a continuous drizzle; just enough to actually get things wet but we are now warm dry and comfortable after a supper of soup and baguette. We are camped just below the battlements of Chateau Rauzan and we took a stroll into town where they're holding a 4 day antique/junk sale. We had just arrived when we were approached by the gendarmerie who wanted to know if we had seen a tall man with lots of hair come running past about 5 or 10 minutes ago. Even though we couldn't speak french and they couldn't speak english we managed to communicate enough to answer their questions. It would seem that someone stole some of the antiques from the sale! The crime seems to be following us, maybe we are crime magnets.

Tomorrow we are going to see the chateaux around St Emilion which I am really looking forward to.

Good Friday ain't so good!

A long drive ahead down to the bordeaux region ahead but to start the day had some fun with Mellman whom we caught having a wallow in the Loire below one of the chateaus.

We stopped at an intermarche store and filled up with fuel and some things eat over the next day or so. Having real problems finding replacement fuel for the stove which would be a real problem. Even though we have the instruction manual with the fuel described in french, we still can't find it so we bought some 'lamp oil' which the salesman said was equivalent as a good salesman ought to. When we were in the store I saw some bottles with turpentine on them so maybe the 'white gas' I bought last time isn't actually turpentine although it sure smells like it. This evening I tried out the lamp oil and the white gas. Both work but the lamp oil only just, the white gas actually works quite well although you have to be extra careful how one lights it as it takes much longer to heat up. At least it is an adequate replacement although benzine is definitely a better fuel.

Driving through the countryside we left the gentle rolling flatlands of the Loire Valley behind with the large green fields and interspersed forest remnants and climbed onto the 'massif central' which is a lot like the natal midlands but colder. We went to an out of the way campsite but decided not to stay there because it was just a little bit rustic for us. So far we have been just about the only tent in the campsites, there have been a fair number of campervans and caravans but not much in the way of tents. The other thing that is noticeable is that we are by far the youngest people touring around, just about everyone else seems to be ready to expire. Maybe I'm just thinking that I look younger than I really do!

Had another fight with the internet today and came away from the battle having lost by about 55 points to 9. I did manage to download my email and send all the replies which I haven't been able to do at any of the free internet access points and I was almost but not quite, able to post another blog. I got as far as clicking on the 'post' button when the connection died and refused to resurrect itself. This time we had gone to another Formula 1 which, amazingly, did have a wifi hotspot and I thought my time had come but alas it had more tribulations in store for me. At one stage the %^&*( thing would take me to a login page which is fair enough but when I logged in, it would tell me that I was already logged in but wouldn't go to the page I originally requested and nor would it give me the option to log out. A real catch 22 situation and my view of 1st world technology is plummeting by the day.

Finally, we ended up at a very pleasant campsite run by some dutch people who speak very good english and it was such a pleasure to be able to communicate reasonably effectively. In desperation to get the internet back, it really has turned out to be an unexpected security blanket, I tried our sims in the gsm modem but it didn't work. I'm not really surprised but, even at the exhorbitant data roaming fees, it would still have been cheaper and more convenient than using wifi (I think!).

What I never want my bicycle to look like!

The chateau of the Loire Valley

We spent the day visiting two chateau and I think two is enough. We visited Chambord which was a royal chateau and simply huge but not nearly as interesting or elegant as the Chenonceaux which was built by one of the kings mistresses; with the kings money of course! Caron says that you can see the womens touch in the architecture and that quite often mistresses wielded more real power than actual queens which seeing as the queen at this time was Catherine De Medici means that it must have been quite a powerful woman.

In the centre of the Chambord chateau is a double helix staircase which is rumoured to have been designed by Leonardo Da Vinci who stayed his final years in this area. It really is quite impressive and at the price 10EUR per person, it ought to be. When we went across to Chenonceaux we decided not to go into the actual chateau and only to have a look at the grounds but the frenchies were one step ahead of us, we had to pay to get into the grounds and the chateau was thrown in for free so we paid another 10EUR each which brought it to nearly R600 entrance fees for two of us for one day.

I really enjoyed Chenonceaux (below), much more so than Chambord (above), perhaps because it is visually more attractive if a little less impressive in the size stakes.

On the way out from Chambord we caught a 'rare' sight of a wild boar which looks sort of like a warthog but bigger. They seem to get quite excited about this here and there are a number of animal sightseeing venues which, needless to say, we are avoiding like the plague!

Down in the kitchens of Chenonceaux I caught Caron at the butchers block, I don't know whether it was an expression of some unexpressed desire to be a butcher or if it was simply stress relief. It's a bit difficult to see but the butchers block is seriously worn down.

The great electricity and internet access debate rages on in my head. The going price to have both electricity at a campsite and internet access is about 10 EUR per day which I find exhorbitantly expensive but as a traveller, they pretty much have you at their mercy. Imagine paying R3000 per month to be able to charge a laptop and browse the internet! This annoys me but there is little I can do, I thought I would be clever and buy access to orange hotspots so we have access but we can't find any hotspots. In an effort to find one we went out of our way to a Formula 1 but it doesn't have an orange hotspot. The only one in france not to have orange internet access according to the proprietor who was less than accomodating and helpful.

I finished the day of with some stress relief and cycled from the campsite down to the Loire river and then along the river for about 10km which, because it is so flat, is quite hard work. So there I was cycling along the Loire with the fading sun throwing its light over the river and onto the chateau on the other side. There are definitely worse ways to end a day.

Travel day from Mont St Michel to the Loire Valley

Travel day! Although travel distances in France aren't big, we wouldn't think twice about a 300km journey, it takes forever because you can't go more than about 10km before having to slow down to go into a town. On the motorway the speed limit is 110, on country roads it is 90 in general and as soon as you hit a town it drops down to 50 or sometimes even 30. It is a little self inflicted because we have chosen to use fewer motorways and more country roads for two reasons, the tolls which soon add up and one gets a better sense of the french towns and countryside going through the villages; I think!

Our first stop today was Chartres Cathedral which is in, one would never guess, Chartres. The guide book says that it is in the middle of undeveloped farmland. Strangest farmland I have ever seen, loads of asphalt and buildings! The Cathedral turned out to be more interesting than I expected simply because it is just ginormous, the ceiling is 37m in height and the photo below is of us standing next to one of the many pillars. The 'wall' behind us is not a wall but the foot of a pillar just to give you a sense of just how big they really are.

What I found quite fascinating is that the monks had invented a sort of internet/TV equivalent in the 12th century, the labyrinthe pictured below was used by pilgrims in lieu of actually going to jerusalem on a pilgrimage. What they would do was crawl the labyrinthe from start to finish and that was considered to be the equivalent of and actual pilgrimage in much the same way as we use internet or TV in lieu of actually doing the real thing; it just isn't somehow quite the same!

Coming out of the Cathedral we had a stoke of luck because we saw an 'Internet' sign in the tourism office and went in to ask and it was FREE not the typical 6 EUR for an hour which is the normal charge. I am still smarting from paying for wi-fi access through Orange at '30 000' points of access which we have been able to find exactly one. The one at the formula 1 where we stayed after coming off the euro tunnel. So we made hay while the sun shone and published a whole load of days and we'll be making a point of finding tourism offices in future if we don't somehow bump into an Orange wi-fi access point.

We are now camping in the Loire valley between the towns of Blois and Tours at a campsite called 'Parc du val de loire' which is so, so; the showers leave a lot to be desired but at least they are hot. The weather has not been kind to us today and it is wet, windy and cold but we hope that tomorrow will be better!

We had the most awesome supper of onion soup, bread with a camembert like cheese, bordeaux wine and pudding and coffee. Camping like this really makes one enjoy some of the smaller things in life.

The car went much better today for some reason, almost no juddering at low revs so we hope that this will continue. I tried to buy more fuel for the stove but ended up buying turps instead of benzine; it's quite difficult explaining what benzine is here, even trying to do it in england was pretty difficult.

On our way down to the Loire river we passed some towns names that just have to be mentioned; La Sagne, obviously the home of lasagne and Dorat obviously the home town of Borat.

St Malo and Mont St Michel

We were going to go all the way down to Carnac to see the neolithic stones which are very similar to stonehenge just more of them but in the end decided that the 350km round trip just wasn't going to be worth it to see them so we drove along the coast to St Malo. St Malo featured in Neal Stephensons 'System of the World' as the pirate port which, as it turns out, was essentially true albeit state sanctioned pirates.

The old St Malo was a fortified city on an island similar to the photo of Fort National pictured below but on a much bigger scale. The buildings in the town are four or five stories high and only the top floors can peek over the walls. We walked around the wall for a bit before traipsing over to Fort National and back.

The tide was out and when it goes out here, it really goes out. At Mont St. Michel it recedes 18km, from the top of Mont St Michel which is about 600m one can barely see the shoreline in the distance. Back in St Malo, we stopped to have some coffee and a 'crepe nutella' which was every bit as good as I remember it from Avoriaz.

We're not having much luck with internet access, we can't find an orange wifi point anywhere and ended up war driving through towns looking for wifi hotspots. There are lots of them but no orange ones, this is not looking good. While walking around St Malo there was a statue of Surcouf the legendry pirate which was pointing out to sea but some smart alec had put a condom on his outstretched finger.


From St Malo, we went back to Mont St Michel and paid the 23 EUR entrance fee which is exhoritant but worth it at the end of the day. We got these audio guides which talk you around the attraction and give you loads of information about the history and people that have been there. Very interesting but there is absolutely no way I could have been a monk; aside from the chastity thing, to sit in prayer for 8 hours a day, have meals in silence and live in an abbey which is absolutely freezing just wouldn't have worked for me!

By the time we left Mont St Michel, I was feeling decidedly edgy and needed to get on my bike and get some endorphins racing around which is what I did, cycling the 35km to Mont St Michel and back. On the way back I saw this photo opportunity. Holland obviously doesn't have a monopoly on picturesque windmills.


Had another great pasta with pesto meal with wine, I'm really going to get used to this. Shower and in bed by 21:30 - this is the life!

Bayeaux and Normandy Beaches

An early start at Reine Mathilde at about 09:00; we collected our pain chocolat and our baguette from the reception as we were leaving and munched the pain chocolat as we drove. Mmmmm! It was really cold last night and although we didn't freeze we weren't far off it. Showering in the morning was a pain because the water turns off after about 20 seconds and it was really hot so you would be scalded while it was on and freeze as soon as it stopped. Emerged from the shower all pink and clean!

Seeing as we are so close to the Normandy beaches where D-Day took place we thought we would take a quick look at them. I wasn't expecting to find it paticularly interesting but I was wrong, it was absolutely fascinating. Firstly, to say that they were beaches is something of a misnomer; there were some beaches but on the whole it is a line of cliffs with rocky beaches far below. On the tops of the cliffs were fortified gun, mortar and machine gun emplacements and the allies didn't just waltz onto the land unopposed; the battle of Normandy sucked up 100,000 lives in total. Looking at the size of the concrete emplacements is mind boggling; some of the walls are 2 or more metres of reinforced concrete thick. At the first place we went to, Longues-sur-mer, of the 5 gun emplacements only one was really destroyed and another partialy by the 1000 tons of ordnance dropped onto them. That is pretty impressive!

Mellman the giraffe cannon ball gives an idea of the bore of the cannon. 150mm for those interested.

We moved on to Point du Hoc where a group of american rangers had to scale the cliffs and then take the gun emplacements by hand. Of the 250 rangers that landed, only 90 made it through the next two days unscathed although given my recent brush with firearms, unscathed doesn't mean unaffected!

The size of the shell holes is amazing as you can see from the shell hole below, just imagine digging this with a spade and then think that this thing appeared in a second.

We were running a little low on fuel so we pulled off the highway into a town but everything was closed for lunch and I mean everything so no luck there. Once again we were stymied by the french road construction and had to backtrack a bit and while doing so we had baguette and cheese on the banks of the l'Elle river which was very picturesque. Caron is finally learning to sit still and ignore me when I take photographs.

We arrived quite late at Mont Saint Michel, one of the must-sees for me, but decided not to go in so i took a few photo's and then went in search of a blanket and a camping site. We were quite cold last night so we really needed to buy an extra blanket seeing as we're going to be doing this for 3 months. We found a great campsite called haliosis which is too close to halitosis for comfort and finished the day with a supper of pasta and tuna in a tomato sauce washed down with some very delicious red wine.