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16th June - After a lovely night in a luxury hotel for a change, we woke up to French breakfast in bed and checked out ready to face the day.It's raining quite heavily today so we can tell we have left the south coast and the ski jackets will have to come out later, when we get to our next destination, Bordeaux.Although we are keeping sleeping costs down by using the cheap chain hotel and camping, petrol is as expensive, if not more expensive than Britain, and we are certainly noticing how much we are spending on it - oh for the petrol prices of America again!We arrived for a short stop in Bordeaux and still the rain was pouring.We headed to the Cathedrale St-Andre which is a world heritage site and has some amazing carvings around the doors.They are in the process of cleaning the building at the moment so some parts were covered up but we decided to take the 231 narrow steps up the 50 metre high Tour Pey-Berland which stands opposite.This tower holds the belfry and was built separate from the Cathedrale itself so that the vibrations of the bells did not affect the building.It wasn't a great view that greeted us at the top after all our exertions, as Bordeaux looked industrial and large and it was hard to identify any nice areas.Still I enjoyed kicking the rain off the top into the gargoyle gutters below.Once back down we headed to Place Gambetta which is a small area of greenery in the middle of a busy roundabout, where 300 people were guillotined following the Revolution.The streets between the Cathedrale and Place Gambetta are wonderful in that they are full of one-off boutiques selling everything from clothing and bags to silverware and Star Wars memorabilia and if we had had the time it would have been a perfect place for a spot of shopping.We pushed on to the public garden and had a walk around a large pond they have in the middle, filled with swans, geese, ducks and ducklings.One group of ducklings made my day by coming right up to us and tapping our shoes and trousers with their beaks and walking through our legs, much to the annoyance of their mother who is obviously still trying to teach them the dangers of going near humans.We then decided to leave Bordeaux and, after an initial first impression that it was not that impressive a city, we were converted by some of the Parisian style buildings, open areas and fountains we passed as we left. It's certainly a city that would make a good weekend break if the weather was right.Onwards then, to Sarlat-la-Caneda, in the Dordogne region. So we didn't have to sleep under canvas in the pouring rain, we checked into a hotel about 45 minutes away and then drove to Sarlat-la-Caneda for a wander through the cobbled streets and get something to eat. However, it seemed we had been duped by the Lonely Planet guide (perhaps for the first time only, so far) as this town was not as picturesque as many places we had already seen and maybe not even worth the long drive inland.After another Italian meal in a strange restaurant which only seemed to serve family members and us (lots of people sat outside eating wished us a good evening, which was really odd as there were lots of them, and then we realised the restaurant was mainly cooking for their extended family!).17th - We woke up to torrential, rivers of water running down the roads, rain.Not a great day to spend at theme park we thought, although to get there we had a 3 hour journey through the countryside to Poitiers and the theme park, Futuroscope (a futuristic theme park - a type of French EPCOT), so we hoped the weather would improve. Luckily, as we got closer, the rain stopped, the clouds parted, the sun came out and it even got hot!We now know how the French and Japanese tourists feel when they wander around Disneyworld looking confused and bewildered - a theme park in a foreign language is unnerving at best, terrifying at worst! We were given a headset that was supposed to have an English translation in some of the IMAX shows at the park, but was rather hit and miss, and the rest was left to us to figure out what the hell was going on. Rather than having rollercoasters or 'thrill' rides, Futuroscope has tons of IMAX films (the story of the pioneers of French airmail, a journey on the high seas, a planetarium, etc) and indoor carriage rides that have a huge screen showing a rollercoaster and seats that rock and vibrate to make you think your on a rollercoaster.This did seem a bit strange - why not just get a rollercoaster! Still its safer I guess. It was all good fun and not too much to make me spew, but the weather helped; it was warm and nice to have an occasional sit on the lawns to relax or strategise about our next leg of the tour (no consensus yet). After nine hours at the park (and that's with three attractions closed) we went to the hotel to check-in before the reception closed. That done, we returned to the park for the night show. Oh my God! It's like Jean Michel Jarre did the lasers, with clockwork animation and France's version of d*** and Dom shouting random stuff in French - and they're all clearly on LSD. There was no conversion into English and we were told we had to hand our headsets in before the evening show, which therefore made this a totally bewildering experience.It used all the Disney tricks of projecting images onto watersprays, fireworks and flame-throwers but, maybe because we had no idea what any of it was about, we came away from the evening show more frightened than entertained, but having thoroughly enjoyed our day at the theme park. 18th - We drove 45 minutes into the Loire district which is just west of Paris and is truly beautiful, what many would imagine as typical French rustic areas. Lush greenery, tree-lined roads and pretty cottages filled in the gaps between LOADS of old elegant chateaux (castles/manor houses).Seriously there are so many there are whole books dedicated just to them so that you can choose the ones you want to see. We stopped at the Chateau de Chenonceau which belonged to Henri II and Catherine Di Medici. Like a fairytale castle it has a moat which spans the River Cher like a gigantic ornate bridge complete with symmetrical manicured gardens and a maze. A lot of the furniture inside belonged to the French royal family and there were dozens of old tapestries adorning the walls. Due to the moat and its location on the river, this was my favourite of the three we visited.Then we went to the chateau at Cheverny which is an assault on the eyes. More modest from the outside (but still a palace) than Chenonceau, it is filled with Louis XIII and XIV furniture, fourposter beds, silk wallpapers, tapestries, suits of armour and weaponry of the ages. I thought it was all rather garish and vile - but what do I know about taste?Kirsty absolutely adored it!She was also over the moon because behind the chateau was a kennel that had dozens (probably at least 50) of hunting dogs sitting around waiting to have 'V' trimmed into their fur by a vet/chateau employee, for some bizarre reason. A cross between a beagle and a bloodhound, these dogs were like big and long beagles with a sullen look - Kirsty got to stroke a few and was in her element. Next was the huge chateau at Chambord which is really geared up for tourists as they charge you for parking, entry and have a little twee village to encourage tourists to part with their money there as well. The barrier at the carpark was broken and so they were unable to charge us to park, so we parked up, stuffed our faces with sample biscuits from a 'regional products shop' while the assistant's back was turned, had a look at the castle from the outside and left without paying a penny!We figured that after visiting every part of two other chateaux we had got the gist by now! We checked into our coffin in a small place called Saumur (on the way to Carnac on the Atlantic coast, where we are going tomorrow) and planned on getting a takeaway and watching the football and a film but, unfortunately, every Chinese restaurant we found was closed for the summer?! It did mean we got to walk around a town we wouldn't have done normally (if it's not in the Lonely Planet Guide it doesn't usually get a look in) and it was quite old and had a laid back atmosphere - very pleasant actually. We ended up in our first Mexican restaurant of our French adventure and, even though they serve pungent cheese and no salsa with their fajitas, it was still very nice. We realised that this town seems to have a huge military presence and homosexual population - so we weren't going to get into a fight or start flirting to get better service!Houses around this area are surprisingly cheap, considering how beautiful it is, and this is where you will find your £35,000 bargains that need considerable work to bring them up to habitation standards, but they are bargains with lots of land nonetheless!19th - The rains have come again, although it is still very warm - please let it be dry in Glastonbury for another week! It was a three hour drive to Carnac in Brittany to see the world's largest collection of megalithic stones (even more numerous than Stonehenge) which stretch for 13km and were erected 100 years before their Wiltshire cousins - how do they know this??It's a very strange site as over 3,000 stones are erected there in very straight lines, some knee height and some taller than a person.After a short walk round and ponder as to why they are there (the French have suggested that it was for some sort of sun worship or something to do with fertility, just in case there was any chance it could have been the latter, we kept Kirsty well away from them all!), we headed on to Mont St Michael in Normandy.This is a sort of island surrounded by sands, only joined to the mainland by a causeway.Twice a day at high tide the waters come in and all but cut off the area, so you have to make sure you are there at least two hours before high tide to make sure you can have access to it.It's a pretty island, topped with a lovely abbey with tall turrets.It's a picture perfect place but is somewhat spoiled by the amount of tourists and tourism, as everything here seems to have been done with tourists in mind.The small amount of shops sell every sort of souvenirs and drinks and food is at least twice as expensive as other shops in France - they even charge you to go into the abbey, being as it is the highest point on the island.After a look around we headed back to the car and on to our accommodation for tonight, another Premiere Classe in a town 45 minutes drive away.We decided to have a meal at a restaurant across from the hotel to avoid another late night, but then Ralph stayed up working on his book until 2 a.m. so that idea was soon forgotten!20th - We drove for 2 hours to see the D-Day beaches and arrived first in a town called Arromanches.At first light on 6th June 1944 Allied troops stormed ashore along 65 miles of beaches with various code names by which the beaches are now known.Visiting Arrowmanches was a rather special and moving experience, as you can still see the prefabricated break waters the Allied troops established to make it possible to unload cargo without having to capture one of the heavily defended Channel ports.The place is like a very small seaside village, but there are loads of British and American flags flying, paintings and photographs on walls showing ex-British servicemen visiting the town with captions like "Welcome our liberators…thank you".It was really surprising that a country as proud as France is still flying so many British flags and is still thanking the British troops, some 64 years on.Although we were both moved by this experience there were, of course, the obligatory group of English school children running around the place messing around and having to be convinced by their school teacher that if they were sent back to sit on the bus they would be much more bored than they were complaining they were now.It makes you realise that school trips like this are a waste of time really, as people don't generally get interested in history such as this until later in life, and in the meantime these children, although not realising it, were acting quite disrespectfully to the other visitors and history of the place.We then drove to Omaha Beach, to look at another place where the Allied troops came ashore and found this more like a traditional seaside village, with people windsurfing and walking on the beach, and no evidence, apart from a few signposts put in by the local town, that anything had ever happened here, which is quite different to Arromanches.Just above the beach is the American Military Cemetery, the largest American cemetery in Europe.We then headed on to our final French city, Rouen.It's a nice city, and the nearest to an English city we have seen, with every third shop being a shop name we would see in the U.K., such as Lush, United Colours of Benetton, Footlocker, Claire's Accessories etc.This mix of shops we are used to seeing mixed in with some really nice French shops makes it a really good shopping city, with the added bonus of some historical buildings thrown in.We headed first to the Cathedrale Notre Dame (yes most of the cathedrals in France have that name!) which is what Monet based many of his paintings on and we are told that, in the summer, images of some of those paintings are projected on to the façade of the cathedral.Today being rather drizzly, and the outside of the building being cleaned by stone blasting, we were unfortunately not going to get to witness this.We carried on to place du Vieux Marche, where the 19 year old Joan of Arc was burnt on the stake in 1431, a large iron cross (not particularly attractive or poignant) marks the spot and is mainly used by skateboarders to practise around.We finally headed to La Tour Jeanne d'Arc which is a round turreted tower where Joan of Arc was imprisoned and put on trial before her execution, and which has now been turned into a sort of mini museum to statues and images of her.The funniest part of the visit to the tower was that, as I was walking up the 124 stairs, a cover from one of the lights came flying down heading towards me, which I managed to duck and avoid, and it continued crashing down the stairs, much to the panic of the French member of staff on duty, who thought the noise was us clattering down, and was not helped by the fact that when he shouted up to check that we were okay in French, we did not answer! (Ralph was in a different part of the Tower and did not know what had happened and I was breathless from climbing up all that way!!).We left Rouen and headed to our final French Premiere Classe near Calais (how will they stay in business without us!) in readiness for our ferry crossing tomorrow on P&O.There is just the small business of a donkey sanctuary tomorrow morning near Boulogne sur Mer before the trip back - and yes, carrots have been purchased in readiness!We settled into the hotel and were surprised but pleased to discover that, as we are so close to Calais and the coast, we could get BBC1, BBC2, ITV and Channel 4 on the television in our room and so we went out and got a (quite poor quality) Chinese takeaway meal and went back to the room to eat it, unsurprisingly Ralph got straight back into his normal UK routine and watched Big Brother!Continuing from last weeks blog, other things we have noticed about France are (7) When the French overtake you on a motorway, they indicate out all the way past until they pull in again, but it makes you think, being used to British motorway driving, that they have forgotten and left their indicators on! (8) The speed limit on French motorways is 70 mph when it's raining and just over 80 mph when its not - a much better idea.21st - We woke this morning and headed straight to the donkey sanctuary, called NEDDI (Northern European Distressed Donkey Institute).I had called them beforehand to let them know we were on our way but it had gone to answer machine so we were not totally surprised when we arrived to find that there was no one there.I was disappointed but we could see the field with the donkeys in it and managed to get close enough to throw the carrots to them.Some of the donkeys were in a poor state and could hardly walk, and it was really upsetting to see, although Ralph tried to make up for it by feeding them extra carrots and sugar lumps.We then headed to Cite Europe to buy Ralph's dad some cheap crab (he has to pay a fortune for the same brand in the UK) and found the experience really depressing.The place is extremely sanitised and full of people stocking up on food and alcohol in the mislead impression that they are cheap.We however noticed that the food and alcohol was quite a bit more expensive than one of the local French chain supermarkets, called either Champion or Casino.Getting out of there as quickly as possible we moved onto Calais town centre for our last French lunch, and found quite a pleasant cafeteria type place with a friendly jokey French waiter.Our stomachs full Ralph went and bought his last bottles of cheap wine at the local Champion before heading to the car ferry ready to take the P&O ferry back to Dover.We were unsurprised to find that it was running 40 minutes late, exactly the same as when we came over to France.An easy ferry crossing, made that way because we watched a film on the laptop, and we were back on British soil.After a quick pull over by Customs and Excise who wanted to check the boot etc (seriously how much stuff do they think you could smuggle in a Nissan Micra!) we drove onto central London and checked into our beautiful hotel in Earls Court - this was not Premiere Classe - we are living the good life again!A very quick change and we headed to Leicester Square to meet up with Kariss for tea at Chiquitos and then decided to go to a comedy club (one of those they give you leaflets for in Leicester Square) which was actually held in a conference room at the Thistle Hotel!The venue was rubbish and we couldn't sit together because they had packed way too many people in and I was sat behind a pillar and couldn't see a thing, but the comedian was quite good and we had a good time.Leaving there we realised the tubes had closed for the evening so we had the unenviable task of flagging down a black cab, luckily my Sunday newspaper (you can buy Sunday's newspapers on Saturday night in London!) came in handy as I eventually snared one and we went back to Kariss' flat in Battersea.After checking she got back okay we were thrilled to discover that our day travel cards for the tube were still valid on the night buses that run throughout London all night, and we got back to the hotel without any trouble.22nd - We woke and left the hotel and met up with Kariss at Embankment tube station to get the Northern line to Camden Town, where we all fancied a look around the market and Kariss wanted to see an exhibition called Proud Camden, which, as well as everything else, has some stuff on one of her icons, Sid Vicious.We had a good look around the market stalls which are a mix of modern handmade stuff and alternative clothing and then went to get something to eat from one of the many food stalls at the north end of the market area.Being as it was a gloriously sunny day we decided to eat the food sitting at the side of Camden Lock and we even got to meet Prince Albert, famous for being the guy with the most tattoos and piercings (in the world?).Anyway, he was a lovely old Cockney guy and a total sweetie and Kariss was thrilled to have her photo taken with him.We then left Kariss to enjoy the rest of Camden and the exhibition and got the tube back to Earls Court, collected the car and started our drive back to Barnsley, stopping in at Ralph's parents on the way to drop off some crab we bought in France for his dad and collecting my raincoat for Glastonbury (just incase!).Carrying on we got fish and chips on the way home (really terrible ones but what can you do, its Sunday night?!) and then went back to my parents where my mum was also just arriving back from a weekend away in London and we had a good old catch up before going to bed, which is why this blog is being updated a day late!
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