Provence

Hi all,

Well the next part of our holiday was most relaxing indeed, we first had a few nights in Avignon to relax from the previous 5 days of relaxing on the canal boat, and to prepare for the coming week of relaxing in Provence.  Tough work.  Avignon was nice, we had some excellent French food here, and Dane & Ali left us for a few days to ride around on their rented sidecar motorcycle.

Arriving at the house in Provence, just near the small town of St Saturnin les Apt, was incredible!  It was a large restored country home set in a beautiful garden with a view over the valley with everything we could possibly need, very lucky to have stayed here.  John's cousin from Holland, also John, and his wife Tineke joined us for the week here, and Dane & Ali rejoined also with their bike for a few more days, so we had a full house of 8 people.  We spent most days out visiting small towns and castle ruins, shopping, home cooked meals, and lazing about by the pool in the warm sun.  Our tour guides John & John (John squared) did an expert job of planning our day trips, with L'Isle sur la Sorgue (the one with the canals in the photos) being a particular favourite of ours.

The convoy was cut down to its original four as we headed for the French Riviera next for a night in Cannes, which was pretty but also pretty pretentious, and we had to say our final farewell to John & Judi as we went our separate ways.  Big thanks to them for making the last 5 weeks possible, we have had an amazing time in France and has been wonderful spending it with them, Dane, Ali and the Voncks.

Next stop relaxing in Tuscany!

L + D

      Napoleons Trail through the alps

Canal du Midi

Hi all,

After leaving Carcassonne we next headed to the town of Castelnaudary to board our vessel and begin a 5 day journey down the beautiful Canal du Midi.  But we weren't going to be spared from hard work, our first challenge straight after leaving port was to get through a mammoth 4-staircase lock system, which consisted of sectioned off chambers of the canal where boats can be slowly lowered or raised in the water to get to the next part of the canal.  Our team of 'rope monkeys' (Dane & Damien) had to learn quickly how to work the locks while our ever watchful captain steered the boat carefully through them.  Once we got through that it was smooth sailing, the "lock ahoy!" horn (Judi yelling) alerted us to impending locks, and pretty soon we got a good system going.

By the second afternoon we had just reached Carcassonne again and it was quite a sight to travel right through the middle of a big city on a boat, our descent through the city lock drew a bit of a crowd, and our performance did not disappoint them.  We made it a long way downstream, past our drop off port in Trebes, so by the second last day we had to return upstream which meant going up in the locks.  This was a much crazier experience with the water from the upstream lock pouring into the chamber where our boat sat with great force, but was very fun!

We had near perfect weather the whole trip, and it was very relaxing sitting on our top deck drinking, eating and reading, and was nice being able to just tie up along the banks wherever we pleased for the night.

L + D

     The Captains pose

     Lock ahoy!!

     Our exuberant crowd of supporters

     View to Carcassonne Castle from the canal

Journey across the Pyrénées

Hi all,

Much has happened since our last update and we have been sans-wifi for a while too so here are our adventures since.

Our convoy, which now included Lana's brother Dane and his girlfriend Ali, headed south-west to the corner of France and over the Atlantic edge of the Pyrénées into Spain, for a few days in the beachside town of San Sebastián. Exploring the old town and tasting tapas was good fun, although being there on Sunday and Monday nights when Spaniards apparently close all their shops meant long walks attempting to find open restaurants. The long curved boardwalk promenade along the beach allowed for some beautiful views of the sunset, and it was very relaxing walking along there, at one point someone may have fallen asleep in the sun and started snoring too... (Damien). Lana and I took a day trip to Bilbao to see the impressively ugly, but still impressive Guggenheim Museum and a good temporary art exhibition about French art during Second World War was very interesting.

Next stop was the tiny little hamlet of Sos Del Rey Católico for an overnight stay, which is situated just on the southern side of the Pyrénées on the top of a hill. Excellent driving roads around this part of the world and several brand new but completely empty motorways too which were fun.

We next began our expedition to cross the Pyrénées through a treacherous mountain pass and back into France, as we gradually climbed the weather and visibility got worse until we were at the highest point just before the border and it started to snow! An impromptu snow ball fight ensued then we kept on going back down the other side, but was pretty incredible and surprising to have seen snow falling when that morning we awoke to quite dry temperate surroundings in Spain and were at the beach the day before! We arrived in the city of Pau just on the northern side of the Pyrénées for another overnight, and enjoyed a very non-European dinner of Vietnamese which was good for a change, and very delicious. Pau turned out to be a very beautiful university town, which was currently hosting a classic car festival and rally. Much to the boys disappointment, we missed the race by a few days.

Next up was Castres, where we stayed in a beautiful old medieval building covered in ivy right in the old town, and which had medieval themed rooms! Our room was 'imperial themed' which included a giant chandelier and even traditional oriental clothes and wigs (which were slightly creepy). The old town was good for exploring and had some cool buildings and gardens to look at too. We awoke here for Lana's birthday but had a full day of driving to get to Carcassonne, which we explored in the afternoon. Carcassonne is home to a beautiful Castle and had the all important 'fairy tale' factor with its curved turrets. We went out to an excellent restaurant, Chez Fred, for a birthday dinner which had the most delicious steak, baked whole Camembert, and garlicky vegetables.

The next part of our adventure was 5 days on the Canal du Midi, but that will have to wait for another update.....

Au revoir!

L + D