Arctic Monkeys - Finsbury Park

Arctic Monkeys is one of the biggest English bands around at the moment.  They were playing in North London and I went with some of my work mates to see them play.  It was a really cool gig, with my first experience of an almost music festival.  There was a little rain in the morning and I had no idea how muddy that would make the park.  Amateur.  I had wellies (gumboots) at home that I would have worn had I known how muddy it would be! I can tell I'm getting old because when I saw a guy pee into his cup and then throw it on the ground I thought it was bad taste - a few years ago I would have been amused by that. 

 

B is for Belgium

Our long weekend started with a delayed eurotrain crossing into France.  After a 20min delay, in which Kat and I sampled whiskey shots from the duty free shop, we were on our way. Our first stop of our mini Belgium roady was Bruges where we had our one and only waffle, the first of many beers for the weekend and a sandwich for lunch. It was lovely walking around the canals with the sun shining. It was cool to be in Bruges when there wasn't snow on the ground and we could enjoy walking around the beautiful town.

 On we drove to Antwerp - our home for the night.  We were pleased we didn't have too much time to spend here as it wasn't overly pretty and there wasn't a lot of touristy things to do.  We did however find a really cool underground beer cellar where we spent our evening drinking kwak beer from awesome glasses.

 

The next morning we headed to Ghent - my highlight of the weekend. Ghent was very pretty and had enough things to do but still left time for beer drinking.  We did a city walking tour, looked at the castle, and did a canal cruise in the afternoon.  We bought some beers at a local corner shop and drank them back out our hotel which had a nice outdoor area. 

We walked back into town for dinner and ate a restaurant that specialised in 'all you can eat' ribs.  It was so much fun! I barely managed the one rack that came on my plate, but Nath triumphed, eating 5 racks of ribs in one sitting!

Bank holiday Monday and time to make our way back to London. We stopped at WWI battle sites in Ypres to see trenches and guns, and visited Tyne Cot cemetery which is a Commonwealth cemetery and has the most graves of New Zealand soldiers burried in Europe.  After the sobering war visits we found an Abbey that makes the Trappist beer Westvleteren.  We had lunch sitting in the garden with great beer & sunshine. The beer can only be bought from the Abbey shop so we bought a box home with us - would be rude not too! A lovely way to end the weekend.

Lorgues to Home

Day two based in Lorgues started with a stop in Nice. It is a very big city of over 300,000 people and I cant understand why people come here on holiday.  It is very busy and the beach has massive stones on it - not my idea of a holiday!  We did not spend too long in Nice (partly because we were dressed for summer and the weather was quite cool) and left at midday for our next destination of Eze. 

Eze is the complete opposite of Nice - quiet and tranquil and very few tourists.  Eze had beautiful little narrow streets that wound their way through the town.  It didn't take to long to circumnavigate the town as it was rather small. 

Our next stop was Saint-Paul-de-Vence  - very much a tourist trap. We did not like this town as it was over run with tourists and expensive shops! We stayed for about an hour, eating a crepe for lunch as we walked around the town.

The last stop of the day was Tourtour (& a chateau stop to buy wine) which our B&B owner had recommended.  It is on the list of the most beautiful villages in France. One stipulation for making the list is that the villages population must be less than 2000 people - so as you can imagine the village was very cute and tiny.  We had a lovely dinner here to end our day.

The next day we made our way across to Avignon.  Along the way we stopped at Verdon Gorge which had such beautiful blue water.  If we had more time we would have liked to have hired a pedal boat and explore deep into the gorge.

 We then stopped at Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, perhaps my equal top favourite village with Eze.  We spent quite a lot of time at Moustiers - we walked up to the church on top of a hill that looks down on the village.  We had lunch here before moving on. I must mention Moustiers is on the list of most beautiful villages.

Roussillon was the next stop. Again this village made the list for the most beautiful villages of France.  The buildings here are made from the red clay that is found in the surrounding cliffs.  The buildings are painted in very bright colours.  We had an ice cream stop before moving on.

As we had visited so many villages we could not be bothered to get out of the car and visit Gordes.  We went to a scenic stop and took photos of the village.  It looked amazing carved into the rock face.

The last stop before reaching Avignon was Abbaye de Senanque.  In the summer when the lavender is in bloom it makes for a famous photo - but we were there at the wrong time of the year unfortunately. 

I was rather man down for our only day in Avignon.  I should have learnt by now not to eat pizza that had been sitting in a hot car all day.  I was up vomiting during the night so wasn't up to doing much in Avignon.  Our only plan was to visit the Papal Palace which I just managed to make my way through before having to head back to our apartment for rest and recuperation.  I must say chocolate éclairs are magic at making you feel better though. 

On Saturday we spent the day in the car travelling from Avignon all the way up to Epernay, the heart of the Champagne region of France.  We left Avignon 10:00am and arrived in Epernay at 4:30pm.  We went straight to the information centre and they recommended booking cellar tours with the champagne houses. 



















So Easter Sunday was spent tasting champagne and learning how champagne is made.  I am happy as Nathan has decided he likes champagne more than still wine so I hope that means we will be drinking a lot more champagne in our house from now on.

Sadly, the last day of our holiday is upon us.  We had a 3.5hr drive up to Calais to catch our ferry at 6pm.  To draw out the day we made stops along the Somme at WW1 battle sites and at memorials and cemeteries to NZ and Australian soldiers.  Quite fitting that we started our holiday with WW2 sites and finished with WW1 sites. 

 

 

Blois to Lorgues

We had a long 7.5hr drive from Blois to Carcassonne.  Along the way to break up the drive we went to Oradour-sur-Glane.  On 10th June 1944 SS Officers came through this town and for some unknown reason killed 642 people.  Only 100 or so people managed to escape or hide from the SS officers.  After the people were killed the town was set alight and razed to the ground and has been left that way ever since.  It is a very eerie place to visit. 
On arrival in Carcassonne we checked into our hotel and went out to explore the UNESCO protected walled city & castle of the old town.  It seemed very similar to Mt St Michel in terms of little narrow streets.

We had a very full on day on Monday with the first stop being the Pont du Gard Roman aqueduct.  It is another UNESCO protected sight. The bridge spans 55m, but is part of the Nimes aqueduct which is 50km long!! The bridge is really huge and it is mazing to think how it was built without modern technology. 

We had a lunch stop in a gorgeous town called Les Baux-de-Provence where we scoured shops for lavender products and olive oils.  We spent the night in Arles which is another old Roman town.  There is a big amphitheatre and forum which we looked at, and we ate our dinner under the forum ruins.  Van Gough lived in Arles and did lots of paintings of the country side, plus a painting in Arles itself, so we saw the actual garden he painted.
Today we spent the day in the car but only covered 200 miles (340km approx.).  We have been driving little country roads and getting stuck behind tractors and trucks.  In fairness we spent 30min just trying to drive into St Tropez this morning.  The buildings there were nice, but there was no beach close to the town and I cannot see what all the fuss is about.  In summer it would be madness trying to drive anywhere and why would you be bothered with that when you are on holiday!

St Tropez

We then visited many small towns and sights including Abbaye Thoronet, and the towns of Carces and Cotignac.  We walked to Sillans-la-Cacade (a waterfall) before ending up our ridiculously cute b&b in Lorgues for the night.  We are loving Provence.  It has a very Italian feel to it (obviously as it is so close to the boarder).  We have been having excellent weather and have had our white legs on show in our shorts! Tomorrow we are going to see more of the French Riviera.
We were real gutted to discover a black mark has appeared in all our photos from today.  We are not sure if its a hair or dust or even a crack in the lens, but we cant wipe it away and it seems to be there for good.  Looks like we will be buying a new camera when we return to London.

I love the shutters on all the buildings!

Chateau'd Out

1st stop - Cheverny

Today we visited 3 chateau's in the Loire Valley region.  They are magnificent!  Chambord was not even lived in because it was too cold as it was too large to heat! Even a Polish King in exile didn't live there very long. 

2nd stop - Chambord

Last stop - Chateau Royal De Blois

Tomorrow we are leaving Blois and have a really long 6.5hr drive to the next town of Carcassonne.  After tomorrow we will only have long drive left at the end of our trip to get us back to England.  We are breaking up the car trip tomorrow with a stop in Oradour-sur-Glane - a town that was heavily bombed in the war and has been left as it was at the end of the war.

Mont Saint Michel

 

Today we visited Mont Saint Michel.  It was an awesome site on approach and it did not disappoint.  We wandered little narrow streets that made their way to the main Abbey.  We spent an hour looking around the abbey before making our way back down to the car park.
We then had a 4.5hr drive ahead of us to reach our next stop of Blois.  Along the way we pulled into a rest area where we ate our lunch.  The drive in some parts was quite beautiful - passing through cute villages and fields of canola.

Chocolate éclair - no cream - choc mousse

Upon arriving in Blois we struck it lucky with getting a car park right out front of the hotel.  We then walked around Blois Chateau and the old town.  We had some beers and dinner before returning to the hotel for an early start tomorrow to explore the Chateau's in the region.

From Portsmouth to Normandy

On Tuesday night we had the lovely experience of spending the night sitting upright in a sleeper seat whilst on the overnight ferry from Portsmouth to Le Havre.  On arrival in Le Havre at 8am we drove to the ruins of Jumieges Abbey.  We could see the ruins from the road side so did not pay the €6 entry fee.  From here we carried on to Bayeux where we saw the famous Tapestry that was woven 1000 ago.  The tapestry is 70m long and depicts the Norman conquest of England, hence William the Conqueror became King of England.  We then went to the Normandy Museum which gave a good history lesson into the D Day landings.  The video at the museum put me to sleep! We decided to check into our hotel for Nana naps, but alas it was 4pm and we couldn't check in til 5pm - so I had a sleep in the back seat of the car.

Today we drove around the beaches of the D Day landings.  The beaches are beautiful white sand and it is hard to imagine them stained red with blood.  We enjoyed climbing through gun batteries and exploring bunkers.  The American cemetery was amazing - perfectly manicured lawns and white marble crosses.
We are spending the night in a tiny town called Beauvoir.  Tomorrow morning we are going to see Mt St Michel, before a long 4.5hr drive to Blois - in the heart of the Loire Valley.
Highlights so far are stopping in Patisseries to buy fresh croissants and ham & cheese baguettes.  YUM.