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30th May - We've had a two week break from the blog as we have only been waiting for the car to pass its MOT (thanks to my dad, not as expensive a thing as it should have been) and helping my parents clear things out of the house, as part of the extension and renovations they have being carrying out for quite a while now.We did enjoy a trip to Northampton to see the newly engaged (and much smaller since they have both been losing weight with Weight Watchers) Michelle and Andrew.We had a lovely meal with them and Michelle's brother Justin and it was great to see them again.I also went to see the new Sex and the City movie with my sister Kariss and had a night out with Jenny that ended up in us drinking two whole bottle of spirits and being violently sick, my mum holding my hair back and Ralph sleeping next to me (I was on the sofa) on the floor to make sure I didn't choke in the night!Anyway, once we got the car back we were deciding what to do with the 3.5 weeks before the Glastonbury festival at the end of June, and we had decided to travel around Scotland and Ireland to use the time up.However, once we looked into getting a hotel in Edinburgh we were shocked - I know we have finally become more used to the UK's prices since returning from America but these were ridiculous - we were struggling to find anything cheaper than £80.00 per night with extra to pay for parking, and in America we were paying around £20.00 per night with parking included.This got us thinking whether it would be worth travelling around the UK when its obviously going to be so expensive to see places we weren't too bothered about in the first place.The quest was on!We had to think of somewhere else to spend the 3.5 weeks, and then it came to me - France!We realised we could get the ferry from Dover to Calais for £32.00 for both of us and the car and so we booked it, together with a hotel for tomorrow night in Dunkirk at £28.00 for both of us, and we were set!
31st May - We got up early and said another goodbye to my parents before setting off in the old blue Nissan Micra for our journey down to Dover.On the way we got a call from the landlady of my sister's flat for her London summer placement at the Royal Court Theatre, she would only let her have it if I paid some money into her Abbey National account before noon today!Not what we needed when we were on our way to catch a ferry.We therefore took a detour into Northampton and ran around like absolute idiots taking cash out of one bank and then waiting in a very long queue to pay it into another.After a phone call to the landlady to confirm it had all been done, we were on our way again, but racing against the clock to make the ferry.Luckily we made it in time (it may have helped that the ferry was running some 30 minutes late because of the French blockades!) and we drove on board.The ferry crossing was good as it was sunny and we got to see the white cliffs of Dover, and then we were in Calais, with Ralph at the wheel driving on the wrong side of the road in a car with a steering wheel made for the other side!Anyway, after initially going to the wrong hotel we managed to find the right one and were bemused to find the car park absolutely filled with police, on some sort of operation, according to the receptionist.We have never felt so at ease leaving our car in a hotel car park before!The hotel was a large corrugated iron building and the room itself was so small the "bathroom" was no bigger than an aeroplane toilet with the addition of a shower.Having a shower in there would mean every part of the "bathroom" would get drenched.However the place was clean and, as there are only two of us, we didn't need much room and we were sort of pleased with ourselves at finding somewhere so cheap.We went to a local restaurant for our first taste of French cuisine and fell asleep exhausted in our corrugated iron tin!
1st June - We woke up to a cloudy day in Dunkirk and headed out to the seaside resort of Malo-les-Bains.This area is not at all pretty and is definitely a practical area as opposed to anything of beauty, but the beach is long and wide and is where the hundreds of thousands of allied forces were evacuated during WWII.The beach is actually called Plage des Allies and is named in honour of these troops.The place looks a bit like Bridlington, but with some history behind it.We then headed on to the British Memorial, which honours more than 4,500 British and Commonwealth soliders and were amazed at how immaculate and well kept this area of land is, which the French have given to the British in honour of these servicemen.There was a small minibus tour of ex-British servicemen at the Memorial while we were there, and its obvious that people visit from all over the UK to see it.Heading on we went into the town of Calais to look at the amazing town hall which also has a Rodin sculpture in honour of 6 local citizens who held off the English forces for more than 8 months in1347.Although people come here just to look at the Rodin sculpture (which is good), we preferred the architecture of the town hall.We also took a quick look at the nearby war museum which is housed in a concrete bunker which used to be German naval headquarters.We then headed on towards Amiens, as Ralph wanted to see the battlefields of the Somme.After 2 hours driving we had reached the place (quite a pretty town) but there had been no indication as to where the former battlefields might be (a definite lack of tourist information) and so we headed onto Reims, our stop for the night.The sun had finally come out in the middle of the day and then got really hot, and so we were happy driving through the seemingly endless countryside.We arrived at our hotel and were concerned when the car started making a screeching noise everytime we turned the wheel.Getting out confirmed our fears, we were leaking power steering fluid all over the place.We decided not to risk driving the car any further, as a quick call to my dad confirmed that the steering would start to become heavy and tight, and thought the best we could do would be to find a garage who could hopefully fix it in the morning.We went out for a Chinese meal and came back to our hotel, concerned about what tomorrow might bring.
2nd - As the mechanics in this region start work at 8 in the morning, we had to get up at an ungodly hour (for us anyway) so that we could locate one and get up and running before too much of the day was wasted. Watching Kirsty try and explain that the car was leaking power steering fluid was fun (I didn't even attempt it). It seems that no one in the Rheims (Champagne) region knows any English at all and they never taught us anything about any vehicular defects in French lessons at school. Still, he did tell us to go to the main Nissan garage about five miles away as he only works on Peugeots, Renaults and Citroens (and yes, Kirsty did manage to understand all that in French!). The Nissan people (who also spoke not a word of English) looked surprised that we were intending to tour France in a little old hatchback with 118,000+ miles on the clock and said something like: repairing the leaking pipe properly would mean changing the entire system which would cost more than the car was worth, and did we realise how rusty it was. At this point we were getting worried although they didn't know this as we don't know how to tell a Frenchman that we are worried (unless they speak English - which, here, they don't). But fortune was smiling on us as a mechanic with surprisingly cool hair for an older guy sauntered over with a couple of friends and by-passed some of the system with a piece of rubber hose and suggested that it might last a couple of weeks. As this was not a permanent fix the garage refused to charge us - result! With this done, we were on our way an hour before we would have if we'd been able to stay in bed. We made our way south of Rheims to the pretty town of Epernay, the home of most of the great Champagne Houses (Moet & Chandon, Mercier, Laurent Perrier etc) for a spot of lunch and then a tour of the Mercier caves where over 10 miles of underground tunnels house 16 million bottles of aging bubbly. Epernay is a town above a town, with 200 million bottles in 90 miles of tunnels underneath the town above. Mercier alone sell 4 million bottles each year based on the 1899 recipe and the elegant buildings and gardens of all the Champagne Houses show just how profitable this game is. We are starting our own vineyard and label when we're done travelling! After a champagne sample at Mercia, we pushed on to Nancy towards the East, in the Alsace and Lorraine region to see the neoclassical Place Stanislas, known as one of the most beautiful public spaces in Europe.It is, as everything is in France, perfectly symmetrical, with ornate fountains, golden gateways and opulent buildings enclosing a square area.It was lovely to sit in the square for a while and once we were ready to leave we realised we had enough time to push onto Strasbourg, the French city on the border of France and Germany.Travelling towards Strasbourg we were surprised to note that everything suddenly became much more German, with German restaurants, German place names, German houses and, sometimes, even the language on the shops etc. was in German, a real surprise.Once we arrived in Strasbourg and checked into our hotel, we headed into the city for our evening meal.First impressions were that the city is quite beautiful, on a river with a huge cathedral staring down on it.We found a great Italian style restaurant where Kirsty was served spaghetti carbonara with a raw egg in its shell in the middle of it, for her to empty into the pasta and mix in.The look on her face was a picture ("have they never heard of salmonella?!!).We then headed back to the hotel ready for a day of exploring tomorrow.
3rd - Strasbourg has a really good, cheap and modern tram system that got us into the city centre quickly for a look around the huge gothic cathedral of Notre Dame (it was especially cheap for us as we couldn't find anywhere to buy a ticket before we got on and assumed that we had to buy tickets whilst onboard.Turns out we were wrong and so we ended up fare dodging all the way there and back!). Strasbourg is so densely packed with buildings that the cathedral seems to be rather hemmed in and towers over everything. It is without doubt the prettiest city we've seen in Europe (except, of course, Paris, which is very dear to us), and has a beautiful fusion of French and German cultures - thanks to many French and German conquests of the Alsace region. We saw the Astronomical Clock chiming inside the cathedral (you can give that a miss) before walking seemingly endless steep and narrow steps up to the viewing deck where we could see the Alps and Germany in the distance. As it was so hot we decided to take a boat trip for an hour (wearing headphones for the English (well Irish) commentary) that took in the European Court of Human Rights, Council of Europe, European Parliament buildings and Petite France district as well as the city's historic abundance. Almost as soon as we left the boat it started to rain and we walked through the wet streets of the Little France district to a city viewing area that we found was shut for renovations. Oh dear. After a few minutes of sanctuary from the rain we walked to the other side of the city (Grande Ile) for some early dinner of Dijon Ham and Stew with sauerkraut.Kirsty's meal was the strangest thing we have seen in a while, and horrible!She wanted to order fish but they told her it would take at least 50 minutes and suggested she choose something else.She therefore decided on bacon pasta, a fairly simple concept, or so we thought.When it arrived it was thick pieces of ham smothered in mustard sauce (Kirsty hates mustard) with some pasta on the side which had been fried, like chips!Totally gross!However the sun had come out once more and was really hot again and so we were able to eat outside.Having seen everything we wanted to of Strasbourg we headed back for a relaxing evening at the hotel.
4th - We got up early and drove to the town of Besancon in the Franche-Comte region. It looked quite a run down old town but has a citadel high above the town that was built for Louis XIV around 1700, which is rather nice. The citadel is a huge fortification that houses a zoo and half a dozen museums and exhibits ranging from the French resistance to an aquarium. There is also the street that Victor Hugo (author of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Miserable) and the Lumiere brothers (pioneers of film making) were born. Other than that there is not a great deal else here and so we moved on to Dijon in Burgundy- famous for its mustard, of course. Thanks for the recommendation, Claire; Dijon is a beautiful place and vies with Strasbourg in our view as the prettiest place in France so far. As we are covering so much distance it was nearly dark by the time we arrived in the city, so we had a quick look around the centre, which is filled with beautiful 17th and 18th century buildings in pristine condition, and then went for a Burgundian meal of snails and beef Bourguignon in a place that turned out to be in the Michelin guide- magnifique!5th - A chance to take a good look at beautiful Dijon. We got some breakfast from a Boulangerie and sat and ate it in the Parc Darcy which has nice statues and a centrepiece sculptured waterfall. We then took a walk through the historic streets and noticed that near the city's giant archway there were some bronze arrows with and engraved bird pressed into the streets every five feet or so. Naturally we followed them and it turns out the good people of Dijon have created a scenic trail to see the best of the city. It passes balconied and colonnaded backstreets, a 13th century church, the grand Place de la Liberation with its fountains and open plaza area, an indoor market - with wares that looked so freakish (dead ducks with heads and beaks still in tact) that it quite scared Kirsty, and beautiful buildings everywhere.We called at a church where legend has it that if you rub the owl carved into the outside wall, you will have luck and happiness, so of course we had to give it a go, especially with the risk we are taking with the car! We have found a real gem in Dijon. The weather was starting to threaten rain again - it has been really hot the past few days but there has also been a lot of rain - so we made our way slowly to Lyon, passing through the gorgeous Burgundy vineyards that stretch away to all four horizons.You can call in at these vineyards on the way to purchase cheap bottles of wine, but we figured the car was laden down enough with all our things and so we passed up the opportunity. The heavens opened on the drive to Lyon and haven't let up yet, so we ventured out of our hotel with our winter coats on to find a restaurant. After a couple of miles walked in the rain we decided the hotel was in an area with NO restaurants and trudged back to the hotel to get the car. The hotel car park was jammed full of cars and we thought we'd lose our only space if we took the car out… until Kirsty found a couple of Gendarmerie (Police) cones and stuck them in our vacated spot! After our first taste of Le Big Mac and Une McChicken (avec frites, of course) in six visits to France, we found our parking space, naturally, empty. Our clothes are now hanging up in the hope they'll dry. After a bit of text-gloating to Kirsty's mum about how hot it was in Strasbourg in contrast to the crap weather in the UK, it's barely stopped raining since and the forecast is rain for the next 5 days at least. Kirsty gets the last laugh with her irremovable ski jacket!We found out today that Kirsty's Uncle Barry and his girlfriend Mary have got engaged - so congratulations to you both x6th - We drove to the nearest metro underground station and parked the car and got a day ticket for Lyon's metro system.We headed to the Vieux Lyon area, which is classed as old Lyon, all cobblestone streets enclosed with medieval and Renaissance houses, a truly lovely area filled with beautiful shops and magnificent bakery/cake shops (we couldn't resist calling in for a little breakfast at one of the bakeries where they continue to bake fresh throughout the day as the demand requires).We then too a VERY steep walk up literally hundreds of steps to the top of Fourviere, which is topped with the Basilique Notre Dame de Fourviere, a totally over the top 19th century basilique.There are amazing views of Lyon from way up there and it is worth the effort, although there is a funicular to the top if you want to take the easy route.We were hoping to climb to the top of the Basilique for some more stunning views but unfortunately it was closed today, and so we took a look inside and then made our way to the Theatre Romain.This was quite an impressive open area theatre built around 15 BC and enlarged in AD 120 to hold an audience of around 11,000.It can now hold an audience of around 4,500 and is used for open air concerts and theatre shows in the summer months, a lovely venue as you also get a lovely view of the city from here.From here we headed to look at the WWII headquarters of Klaus Barbie, commander of the Gestapo.The building now houses the museum of the history of the Resistance and Deportation.We then headed to the city centre to see the place des Terreaux which has a large 19th century fountain sculpted by the same guy that created New York's Statue of Liberty.Following a quick Starbucks break (first one we have found in France) we headed north to the Parc de la Tete d'Or.What a totally unexpected pleasure this place turned out to be!It's a 117 hectare park, complete with a lake, botanic garden, alpine garden, rose garden and zoo.We headed towards the zoo not expecting too much and were thrilled to discover that the zoo is just part of the parc and is therefore free, there is no dividing area where the parc stops and the zoo begins, so we turned a corner and were looking straight at a spectacled bear and three elephants (in their happily large enclosures I should add!).We also saw lots of monkeys, panthers, lions, tigers, giraffe etc.all for free.The monkeys were so funny, banging really loudly on with windows of their enclosures so that the children would throw some nuts into their habitats through the net roofs - it worked too!They then sat there and cracked them open, quickly eating the nut and discarding the shell faster than I have ever seen before.Leaving the park we headed to look at the site of the former home of the Lumiere brothers, who shot the world's first motion picture.A museum to their achievements is now open in this area, together with a building housing the original film set for the first ever film which they made in 1895, which is now used to show classic films.It was quite amazing to see that in the early 1900 these guys were already taking still photographs in colour.We then headed back exhausted to the car, with still a drive to Annecy ahead of us.Luckily it was only about an hour and three quarters drive through cloud covered mountains and tunnels cut straight through the mountainside and we arrived at the hotel.We then headed straight into Annecy for dinner as it was getting late and our first surprise was how busy it is!!The place was absolutely packed with cars, bumper to bumper everywhere in town, and much through we begrudge it we had to give in and agree to pay to park in a town run car pack.Seems though it was some sort of student rag week as there were teenagers running all over the place dressed in bin bags, stinking of booze and in some instances covered in shaving foam.They were so loud you could hear them from wherever you were in town!We found a local Italian restaurant still happy to serve us and mid dinner some of the students piled into the restaurant and started a huge speech at us in French.When we explained we were English they moved on to the next table until finally they found someone to entertain them.Seems they all had to complete certain bets and they had to eat part of someone else's dinner whilst having their picture taken doing it.Luckily some poor French guy agreed and they came back when his pizza was served to have their picture taken eating a piece of it, all the while loads more bin bagged students waving at him through the window from outside in the rain.We left finished our meal and headed back to our hotel, the student yells still ringing in our ears!
7th - We drove into Annecy and managed to find a tight but free parking space about a mile from the centre and took a walk in.Annecy is a lovely town on a stunningly blue water lake that goes on for about 17 miles.The place has more shops than I have ever seen in one town before, and we couldn't believe the amount of fresh produce, food, accessories, clothing etc. on offer.We took a walk through a couple of large parks at the side of the lake and then had a good look around the town, which has some lovely buildings and heritage.We then left Annecy and headed onto Chamonix, a popular winter ski resort in the French Alps, enclosed by Mont Blanc.The main road to Chamonix was closed as so we had to take the diversion route, which meant going over the mountain as opposed to through it.We climbed higher and higher with one tight bend after another, until eventually we hit the clouds, and emerged through the top of them, so high up we could see the source of many natural water springs where bottled water starts its journey down the mountain.There was no way you would want to go over the edge of this road, and so I tried to take it carefully, with not so careful French drivers driving up to my bumper the entire way.Still Ralph grimaced a few times at the tight turns I had to make.Finally we reached Chamonix and it was a bit of an anti climax.I am sure that in the winter with snow covering everything it looks beautiful, but on a drizzly day it didn't look so great, and everything we wanted to do was closed!There is a cable car that takes you within 8 km of the summit of Mont Blanc, but the clouds were low and so we would not have been able to see any of the stunning views usually afforded.Not that Ralph was that disappointed, a return ticket (who is going to pay for a single?!) would have cost us around £33.00 each!There is a similar cable car up the mountain at the other side of the town which looks onto Chamonix, but this was closed for repairs.We then tried to go on the summer luge, a sort of plastic version of the ice shoots that are part of the winter Olympics, but for some reason these were closed too.Finally we tried to get the mountain train to see the ice caves, but although the train was going you could not see the ice caves as they are still being worked on and do not open until 14th June.All a bit of a disappointment, especially as Chamonix had been quite a bit out of our way on the journey we have planned.Still, we saved quite a bit of money we would have spent if everything had been open and available so we decided to push on to the last place we want to see in the Alps before we drive to the south coast, Grenoble.We arrived and checked into the hotel and then headed straight into the town for dinner.We found the same problem tonight as we did last night, the place was packed with cars and it took us more than 20 minutes before we found anywhere to park and even then we were concerned about leaving the car there and decided to be as quick as possible.This turned out not to be difficult as Grenoble has an unsafe air, and we certainly didn't feel at ease walking through the streets, we think our visit here tomorrow will be a short one!Many of the restaurants were full but we managed to find an Indian restaurant with a free table and had a lovely meal there before returning to the car as quickly as possible, relieved to see it was still there and in once piece!
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