DAY 437 - the Royal run around

On the day I was meant to collect my new Maltese passport, I received a call to advise it wasn’t ready and that my new passport could only be issued in my birth name and not my married name and that it would take another week to receive it from Malta.

So after the getting the royal run around from the Malta Embassy we deiced to high tail it and get a last minute ferry to England and hope I wouldn’t be denied entry. 

We had so much to do, sell the motorbike, sell out bicycles, buy a car, get a MOT (compulsory annual roadworthy test – for all you Aussie’s out there), pick up some eBay purchases, service and new tyres for the Motorhome and perhaps a service on the new car.

As with most things we do, everything is last minute and badly planned and upon arrival into Dover I proceeded to tell a campsite we were on our way and to expect us in a few hours! 

What is the Jubilee?  What do you mean double bank holiday??  What do you mean you don’t have any pitches available???  What do you mean everything is shut and everyone is on holidays????  But we have so much we need to do!!!!!   What a royal cock up! 

All’s well that ends well; we found a space for 1 night and just didn’t move for 7 nights.  We made sure we were up and out early in the morning & back late at night so they couldn’t catch up with us.  None too happy with us they were!

So we ended up being in London, during one of the biggest events ever for the Royal Family and didn’t see any of it….how rude! 

The highlight of our lightening visit back to UK was catching up with family (Paul’s cousins) Tony & Nicky and their adorable little boy Jacob.  It’s so good to have someone on this side of the world as it doesn’t make you feel so home sick.

The weather was crap in England, rained the entire time we were there and it was great to eventually leave, but also sad to say goodbye to Tony, Nicky & Jacob.

On our return to Europe, we picked up my Maltese passport and I can now advise that I am officially a Malteser!!  Yay – they can’t kick me out now, even if they catch up with me!!!

DAY 423 - all roads lead to London – via France!

Spring has sprung a leak in France and many of the rivers are swollen (or flooded) which is the case with the Dordogne & Loire Valley.  Dordogne is really different to Loire, more rustic is probably the best way to describe it.

We also made some new friends on this leg of the journey (Hi Jason and Tony) and where delighted to be asked to join them in a day trip (YAY – no motorbike for a day) to check out Gouffre de Padirac cave which is by far the best cave system we have ever seen.

This SMAZING cave system is nearly 2 kms long and after the descending down over 300 steps, then walking underground for nearly 400meters, you then get in a boat for totally amazing an eerie trip along an underground river,  passing through various majestic underground caverns & tunnels with amazing rock formations & massive stalactites which includes 1 giant one measuring over 60 meters.  You then get off the boat for another walk through 2 stories of chambers to view lakes and high vaulted chambers.  So, so amazing and this would have to be one of the highlights of our trip so far and is worth every effort to get too.

Here is the website for the cave - hop on and have a look: 

gouffre-de-padirac cave

When then headed towards Carnac to visit the megalithic alignments with a stop along the way in Cognac, where they have motorhome parking right on the river with a bird’s eye view of Hennessy.  We met another great couple here (Hi Andrew & James) and again got on like a house on fire.  Due to a ‘wee’ bit too much wine & the night before, the obligatory tour and tasting went out the ‘windy’ so we bought a ‘roadie’ to enjoy in the motorhome at a later stage and headed straight for Carnac in Britany, France.

Carnac has one of the largest Megalithic standing stones alignment’s in the world, with over 3000 in the alignment and can be seen from outer space.   Some of the stones are meant to predates Stonehenge with many of the stones weighing up to 40tonne.  It’s unreal to see how modern day man has built itself around this ancient site with peoples drive ways, chicken coops and horse stables right between some of the stones.

The bad weather followed us all the way from Carnac to Loire Valley, Paris & UK.  Loire is so pretty, but after seeing so many beautiful château’s and castles that we’re a bit “chateau’d out” and decided to enjoy some ‘time-out’ at a riverside campsite not far from Tours.  We tried our hand at some fly fishing, however one could go hungry if you rely on this for dinner, so it was just as well there was a Supermarche only 5 mins down the road.

It was also pretty cool to hit Paris again and not have to be in a rush to do all the touristy things.  We saw a totally different side of Paris, which we loved and stayed in an town called Joinville, along the river Marne, which is basically suburbia.  It’s only about 9kms from Champs-Elysees and reminded us of suburbs along the Brisbane river, it’s so different from the Paris we all know and love & we totally enjoyed it.

We couldn’t resist getting the bike out and rode past Notre Dame, Louvre, down the Champs-Elysees, around (and around) Arc d’Triumph who gives way?????  Parked “pole position” at Trocadero & soaked up that amazing view of Eifel tower and Paris beyond for a few hours.  We really like going back to places we have been in the past and not having to run around like a mad tourist to see everything and not worry that you might have missed something.

I’ve also learnt how to cook the perfect Roasted Duck Breast, not sure how French this method is, but it turns out perfect every time.

Perfect Roasted Duck Breast:

• Place the duck breast, skin side down, in a frying pan on high heat & brown for 4 mins.
• Then turn the duck breast fillet over to brown the other side for 4 mins.
• Then place on a try, skin side up, and roast on the middle rack of a pre-heated oven (180-200c) for another 8 mins.
• Remove from the oven, cover with foil and let the duck breast rest for 5 minutes. 

   No need to use oil in the pan as the skin of the duck will be ample when you brown the first side.

   

DAY 414 - sun, sand, vino & aussie’s

After our big drive over the Pyrenees we stopped off for a few nights to enjoy the sun, sand and the lakes around Bordeaux.  Dune Du Pyla is around 80km south of Bordeaux and is the largest sand dune in Europe.  After an exhausting climb to the top your instantly rewarded with some of the best views of the bay and surrounding area.

We stayed not far from the dune on Lac Biscarrosse before hitting Bordeaux itself.  Lake Biscarrosse is a huge, HUGE!  fresh water lake & from our campsite we could see a number of towns located around the perimeter.  I didn’t realize how big it was until on a clear day I could see the other side and realized it would probably take you all day to drive around it.  The whole area had a holiday shack/house feel to it and reminded us of Goolwa & Victor Harbor in SA (but better) and a real relaxing atmosphere about it.

I must admit the excitement was building up as hit the road and headed to Bordeaux.  We were able to escape the camper for a few nights and caught up with some friends from Adelaide, Will and Bea who now live in this amazing city.  After being in the Alps for 3 months and having no one, other than ourselves, to talk too we were so excited at the prospect of being able to get past obligatory “Bonjour” & "Bonsoir".

Will & Bea live virtually right in the heart of Bordeaux city and it’s not hard to fall in love with the place like they have.  Bordeaux is just awesome and the water front promenade is pretty spectacular and especially so on sunset, when they use different lighting & water affects to showcase it.  I think we'll definitely be going back and spending some more time in this amazing city.

An added bonus of catching up with these guys is that Bea works for one of THE top wineries (or should I say Chateau’s) in France and in fact the world!  Many of the wines from Bea’s work range in the Hundreds of Euros per bottle, so understandably we didn’t get to taste those, but  a visit to the Medoc region and a little bit of vino education from Bea, we now consider ourselves to be ‘slightly better informed’.  The Medoc region is beautiful and is home to some jaw dropping fairly tale like Chateau’s.  It certainly put’s old McLaren Vale and Barossa Valley to shame.

Will is Operations Manager for Sports Pulsions which the highly successful official tour leaders for Tour de France.  If your a cycling enthusiast (or fanatic as I call you) then Will &  Sports Pulsions are your man!

Paul and I often laugh over a memory we have of a chairlift ride we shared with a guy in Alpe d’Huez.    He was the first English person we had come across in nearly 2 months and we were talking with him a million miles an hour, that when we got to the top, he took off like lightening (kinda seemed like he couldn’t get off quick enough).  We then looked at each other and said ‘do you think we scared him?’ and burst out laughing!

So we are now a little afraid that we may have ‘talked their ears off’.  Hope their healing well Will & Bea?

DAY 407 - zig-zagging the Pyrenees – SMAZING!

Smazing is our new word for anything that is well – amazing!  The Pyrenees are beautiful and we are glad that we made the effort to come this far south to experience it.  We weren’t sure how different they would be to the French Alps and if we would feel a little disappointed or underwhelmed by it but we are happy to say we enjoyed them just as much & they are beautiful.

Sure the Pyrenees Mountains are not as high as the Alps and the valleys not as deep, but the Gorges & high mountain passes are breathtaking.  The great thing about Europe at this time of the year is that it is  ‘low season’ so you virtually have the road and place to yourself.

For this part of our journey we defiantly had a LOVE-HATE relationship with TOM-TOM.  HATE him for the least logical route he takes us on (ie virtually straight line from departure to destination) and LOVE him for exactly the same reason.  I’m sure we have taken our very large outfit (motorhome talk) many places that people wouldn’t even take their camper van, but we kinda feel that what’s the point in doing a road trip if you’re not prepared to take the ‘road less travelled’.  We do admit however there has been a few heart-stopping moments and on a number of occasions and in the early days had our fair share of ‘un-hitching’ the motorbike trailer to be able to either back up or do a 10-point turn, but for this section of our trip we are happy to advise this was not required.

TOM making an appearance in the Pyrenees

We followed the Aude River Valley in a virtual straight line south from Carcassonne to Spain.  This valley is famous for its beautiful Thermal springs, waterfalls, canyoning, whitewater rafting,  river slalom racing & other adventure sports.  We followed the Gorge down into Spain and it was just beautiful.  The road itself was just wide enough for 1.5 cars, has rock cut outs just high enough to pass under and twists and turns so much that you almost think you’re going around in circles.  It’s a little hairy when a Semi is coming towards you, but if a Semi can get past, so can we!!!!

We took this route to avoid paying a toll to enter Andorra and we are so glad we did.  It’s beautiful and worth the effort and stress trying to dodge the overhangs and other road users.  Andorra was a whistle-stop, not much to report about here, unless you’re into hiking (we’re not) but the drive in and out of Andorra is beautiful.  We did however get cheap booze and fuel which was an added bonus.  (Bombay Sapphire Gin 3Lt for $20 – total bargain). Stocked up on cheap booze and ½ price fuel we were ready for the next part of the journey, headed South again and drove through/over/in and around the Spanish Pyrenees.  We thought we were taking a fairly straight path to our next destination and where a little concerned when TOM-TOM told us to turn right.  We are glad we followed his instructions, because yet again we experienced the best mountain passes, virtually to ourselves.  The only traffic we passed where farmers on tractors & 2 guys on bikes who looked like they were on a “Forest Gump’ experience through the mountains and hadn’t shaved or showered for a few years.

We then, by sheer luck, pulled into the most SMAZING campsite near Graus in Northern Spain, which had a pitch available overlooking the lake and stayed a few days.  I’m sure there is a lot of history in this area (doesn’t everywhere in Europe?) and it looked absolutely lovely but we were happy just to kick back a few days and soak up the view.  The lake changed color every time the sun come out from behind the clouds and was like a mirror in the mornings…so beautiful.

We decided that we’d had enough of high mountain passes that felt like you are on a roller-coaster ride and thought a day of ‘easy driving’ on a motorway would be would nice.  So instead of going North back over the high mountain pass, we took the main road west towards Pamplona before heading North for the 9km Somport tunnel into France.

As mentioned on previous postings, we often don’t do any research, just hit the road and work it out along the way.  This time we can’t blame it on TOM-TOM, we decided to do this route, not knowing that another SMAZING day of driving was in front of us.  Had we had known we might have taken the easy road so I’m glad we didn’t as we would have missed this SMAZING part of the world.

This part of Spain and France is one of the least visited areas by tourists.  It boast’s beautiful remote ski villages, megalithic standing stones, caves and fortresses that have protected the French frontier for centuries.  Oh and the Pyrenees Bear.  YIPES!!!  – be careful where you camp!!!

I would love to have been a fly on the wall (or windscreen – perhaps not) during these days of driving over the Pyrenees as we must have looked like those funny clowns at the show, that have their mouths wide open and heads turning left to right waiting to catch a Ping-Pong ball.

The beauty of this area and what is has to offer is indescribable, these are probably some of our most memorable driving days but you really do have to see it for yourself it just – SMAZING!!

DAY 390 - million dollar boats, million dollar views, a castle & nudity

The drive back over the French Boarder is amazing.  It is one of the best coastal drives you can do in Europe.  The road hugs the coast all the way from Genoa at the heart of the Italian Riviera to just past Nice in the heart of the French Riviera.  We couldn’t believe that the road hasn’t been closed off or re-routed to make way for resorts and houses.  The scenery is amazing and it’s not hard to see why this area is often rated as one of the best views in the world.  As the road is narrow there aren’t many stopping places so unfortunately it was hard to get any good photos.

After crossing the border back into France at Menton, just near Monaco, we virtually re-traced our steps from our last visit here in 2007.  We drove past Monaco, Aze & Nice….who would have thought that 5 years later we would have thrown caution to the wind and be driving wher’dmadaygo’ down Promenade des Anglais in Nice on our 2 year gaunt of Europe?  We didn’t stop in these places as “been there, done that”, but it did bring back some great memories of our 2007 trip.

Antibes is a great fortified town and being on the Riviera has an equally impressive marina.  The annual Antibes Boat Show was on when we were in town and decided to rub shoulders with the rich & famous for an afternoon.  If you have a cool 400million Euro to spend then you can pick yourself up a very nice boat, which comes with a matching helicopter, Ferrari & “James Bond” speed boat.  We couldn't find anything we like that matched where'dmadaygo so decided to not place an order....lol

The drive to Avignon was not the prettiest in our opinion.  TOM-TOM took us via a very windy National Park which reminded us of the S.A. scrub, some might love it, but we didn’t think much of it.  Our reward when arriving in Avignon was a great campsite, right opposite Pont d’Avignon and the Papal Palace – awesome view.  On our journey further south our lunch stop was Arles, this is where Van Gough lived for a few years and produced over 300 paintings and drawings during his time here.

view from our campsite

In true Rose and Paul style we never really know where we are going to spend the night and often do little research, we kinda just hit the road with a rough plan and see how we feel and how far we get.  So we ended up in Agde, which also happens to be a naturist seaside resort (i.e. nudist resort) and hence is nicknamed the "Naked City"…… GULP!   It’s totally acceptable to wear just your birthday suit to lunch, dinner, shopping, getting your hair done, riding a bike – oh can you just imagine???  Where would you put your keys & wallet?  I was a little afraid to get of my bicycle as I didn’t know where to sit!  Thank goodness the weather was coldish so we luckily didn’t see any “francs and beans” or “oranges in footy socks”. 

Cather Country was our next stop for a few days and again we had a great campsite in Carcassonne with a Million Dollar view of the ‘Cité de Carcassonne’ from our pitch.  It’s a “Disneyland Fairy Tale“ type fortified old city with a castle and was used as a strong defense on the French frontier in 1247 against the Kingdom of Aragon (now Spanish) and is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The real highlight of our time here was finding a winery called Rose & Paul.  We of cause did the obligatory taste test and purchased as much as we could fit onto the motorbike.   It’s a family run winery and has an interesting history.  Paul (the grandfather) went off to the war and Rose (the grandmother) had to attend to the vineyard all by herself for years.  Paul returned from the war and they eventually increased the size & quality of the vines.  

It’s a great love story and business story here’s there website if you want to know more about their wines.  

Domaine Rose & Paul

DAY 376 - a taste of Italy

You know you’ve crossed the border and arrived in Italy when the first thing you see is a local’s garden full of concrete and marble statues.  And when the supermarkets have whole aisle’s dedicated to Olive Oil and tomatoes.

We have quite literally eaten our way through this part of Italy and enjoyed every mouthful.  When we first arrived Pizza was often been the food for choice for brekky, lunch and dinner…and we have now expanded our diet to include Pasta, fish & gelato!  Ah how we love Italy…..we love it a lot.  

Turin

Turin is in beautiful Northern Provence of Piedmont which is like Tuscany but without the tourists.  Rolling green hills filled with grape vines, hazelnut & olive groves, hill top villages all boasting a castle and/or massive church, wineries galore and beautiful villages with winding cobblestoned streets full of B&B’s and restaurants.  A lot of people bypass this area, but it really is a gem and a gourmet food lover’s dream.

We didn’t release it at the time but Turin & Piedmont is considered the capital of the food of Italy (however I’m not sure every Italian will agree) but it’s bursting with fresh produce, sparkling wine, rare white truffles, chocolate,  the “Bra Sausage” & is where the Slow Food Movement headquarters are located.

The first thing we stumbled across in Turin was the local produce market, so we stocked up on local wine, tomatoes, meat and bread.  The food is so much cheaper than France and better quality and to our delight it was on daily, so we went back twice.  We didn’t really know what to expect but we liked Turin and found it easy to get around.  The locals are really friendly and with an abundant choice of pizza and gelato shops on every street there was not much of a need to cook in the motorhome.  It’s also home of the ‘Shroud of Turin’ but that’s not really our sort of thing, plus only the Pope & the bishop of Turin can view it so we skipped the big line up at the museums and spent most of our time in and around the produce market.  We made sure we left Turin with full pantry cupboards & a bit of wine to wash it all down.

We then headed south and stopped at an awesome little town called Cherasco.  In the lush Langhe wine district.  It’s apparently well known for its chocolate & snails (we didn’t see any or try any).  We intended to only stay a night as a stopover on our way south, but found it really well situated and ended up staying for nearly a week.  It’s a beautiful village around 1000 years old with 7 or 8 castles (and summer houses of past Kings & Queens from all over Europe) and just as many churches, built on a hill overlooking the hills.

From here we did day trips to Alba (factories for Frerro Rocher, Kinder Surprise & Nutella), La Morra & Barolo (home of Nobbiolo grapes and famous for its red’s where you can do wine tasting in their castles’) Monfortme d’Alba (beautiful village sitting on a hill top ridge) Cuneo & Fossano.  All beautiful, all worth seeing and extremely affordable.  Tuscany gets a lot of attention and so it well should, but if you’re after a less crowded Italian experience, Piedmont is perfect.

We then headed south and drove along a route that Napoleon took and past many ‘Jesus boxes’  as call them (concrete shrines depicting scenes from Jesus life and death)  down to the coast and along the Italian Riviera from Savona ending in SanRemo.  

The weather hasn’t been so kind to us so we didn’t get to see much outside the motorhome windows, but with it’s typical cobblestoned winding narrow street, impressive coastal drive and world class marina’s it wouldn’t be hard to spend a summer anywhere along here.

We could only stay in Italy for a few weeks as we are heading back to France and UK & looking forward to returning and working on our waistlines again for a few months in June.

DAY 359 - le tour de ski resort Francia & Italia

It was a little sad to leave our apartment in Bourg d’Osians but also exciting to get back on the road and check out a little more of Europe.

As our season pass for Alpe d’Huez gave us free access to other ski resorts and with fresh snow forecasted in the coming days, we didn’t get very far, just 20kms up the road is Les Duex Alpes.  We got a fresh dump on the 2^nd night and it continued to snow lightly for the next couple of days. 

Les Deux Alpes is huge and we actually liked it better than Alpe d’Huez.  They have about the same amount of runs in km as each other but Les Deux Alpes in sqm would be bigger.  The runs are huge, really long & really wide and so many lifts and pommers to use, you never had to line up.  Whereas Alpe d’Huez  has long skinny runs which lead into flat return tracks which require you to skate back to the village or lift system and always, always had line ups.

Pole Position camping at Villenvue - Serre Chevalier

10days later we drove to Serre Chevalier.  It’s approx. 1hr drive from Les Deux Alpes and is beautiful.  The chair lift system is really well linked to 5 villages which are situated on the main mountain road to Italy, so you can ski all day on the mountains and then have the convenience of being in a bigger town or village at night or for non-ski days. 

We stayed in Villenvue and really liked it.  It was really pretty, built on both sides of a little waterway that goes straight through the village.  It was full of yummy bakeries & restaurant’s and has a really good vibe about it.  It’s only 5kms from Briancon which is a decent size town, with big brand shops, easy and convenient to get too and thus made it more reasonably priced that Alpe d’Huez or Les Deux Alpes.  We stayed for 3 days here and totally enjoyed it.  It has really picturesque, nice long tree lined runs right from the top down to the village with an excellent lift system.  Not a soul in sight (ie School kids) and with light snow at night we were able to make some fresh lines virtually every day.

We then moved onto the Italian Milky Way (via Lattea) ski resorts.  We ended up staying right on the boarder (French side) in a ski resort town called Montgenevere as they had a really excellent camper park.  The Milky Way is made up of 5 Italian ski villages and 1 French village.  All linked by ski runs and chair lifts and as it was host to the 2006 Winter Olympics, so therefore the lift system, ski runs, services and facilities are excellent.

It was pretty cool to wake up in the morning and have brekky in France, board a chairlift 100m from the motorhome and get off the chair lift in Italy.

Out of all the ski resorts we visited on this trip, if I was to do another season in this part of France or Italy then it would be Serre Chevalier or the Milky Way.  But for next year we are tossing up Germany, Austria or Switzerland.

No major stacks or face plants to report and yes we can confirm we are officially addicted to the snow!