Life on the water

If you want a really relaxing holiday (and have someone who can drive a boat and someone else who can do a round turn and a couple of half hitches with their eyes closed) then the Norfolk Broads is the place for you.


The scenery changes all the time. One of the interesting views is of yachts travelling through the fields! Another river of course, but quite a quirky sight.


Then there's the lovely places to park up. That's our boat on the right - le boat. It is called Swallowtail after a butterfly found only in this region. And a couple have fluttered around us on our travels.

We were applauded for coming down this staithe and turning the boat around before mooring up. It's like travelling around in a campervan but without the hassle of driving - although there are some narrow rivers, shallow broads, and then there's the mooring up to keep you alert.


We have seen more windmills in England than in Holland. Look at the colour of the sky! Yesterday was the hottest this summer in England, reaching 30 degrees in some places. And of course, being the day of the big game against Germany, there were lots of boats with English flags and young blokes drinking beer. A lot quieter today! No yacht races either - they certainly make the trip interesting as motor boats have to give way to sail, so finding yourself in the middle of a race is kind of tricky!

;-) Ann-a-Gram

The Norfolk Broads

We did a huge supermarket shop (well, three large ones actually) in preparation for our fortnight on the Broads. It took us quite some time to load it all onto the boat! We puttered up the river for a while until we found a suitable place to moor up. Ann had been shown how to do half hitches but failed miserably at tying any kind of knot that would hold. Still, they held long enough for Graham to bring the boat around and come to the rescue. More practice needed!


The weather was mild and calm, and eventually boats stopped coming past and we were left alone with swans, geese and ducks. The geese all headed for the same spot, following their leaders in single formation. Mum and Dad white swan and their little cygnet paid us three visits., because they were rewarded with bread on the first one.


Many of the houses along the broads have thatched roofs, even new ones are being thatched. Quite a few have their own driveway - for boats!


If anyone has a few spare million and would like to buy one we'd love to come and visit!
;-) Ann-a-Gram

Stonehenge

Our last day in Europe brought a return of the sunshine and a blue sky, a sight we hadn't seen for days. We could see the white cliffs of Dover before the ferry even left Calais, a pretty special sight.


Once we hit English soil we drove south. We had picked up a book on B&Bs, and headed for one not far from Stonehenge. Unfortunately it had no vacancies so we spent an unexpected hour or so exploring narrow roads and small towns before eventually finding a bed for the night.

We saw Stonehenge on the news. It hadn't occurred to us that we were visiting it right on the summer solstice! Instead of spending ages looking for a bed we could've joined hundreds of people at Stonehenge for the celebrations and slept in the car for the night.


We had our own individual commentaries as we walked around. There must have been hundreds of people, but it still felt amazing to see those huge rocks that have been there for thousands of years. And a third of each rock is underground. What an incredible achievement it was all those years ago.


This angle shows some of the arches the sun shines through - a different one every month.

We have spent a couple of days meandering our way towards the Norfolk Broads, staying in small country towns with no access to wifi.


We have passed houses with thatched roofs and gorgeous village pubs, and stopped at one or two of them! Tomorrow we pick up our boat and begin our next adventure. Not sure how much wifi we'll find, so blogs may be a little sparse for a couple of weeks.

;-) Ann-a-Gram

Dunkirk

We headed down the coast from Amsterdam, avoiding motorways and most toll roads. Our route took us over long bridges and an underwater tunnel ( the only toll road and very impressive).


Not the best of pics but maybe you can see the bridge going for miles across the sea. Quite amazing when you are travelling over it.

We decided to stay in Dunkirk, only half an hour north of Calais. We were both keen to explore the history of the area, and a visit to the museum dedicated to the memory of the events of May and June 1940, exactly 70 years ago, was very moving.


We took several photos, but other than the grey from the cold and bleak weather, none really capture the feeling of being on that beach after watching a video of the retreat and seeing the details of how many men were rescued - and how many died. Hard to believe that more than 320,000 men were evacuated from France in just a few days. The bleak and empty sea we saw today was then full of ships, boats, anything that would float and get across the channel and back with enemy planes constantly overhead - and so many were sunk! Imagine the risk involved for those who set off from England in their little boats to rescue some soldiers!

After that we drove down to the ferry terminal and duty free shops to make sure the wine and beer we drink in the UK doesn't cost too much! When we came back to Dunkirk, even with the help of our GPS, it took us some time to find our hotel. Somehow the streets didn't seem to be in the same places!

With the help of wifi and the TV in our room we found that the all whites had drawn with Italy. Awesome! Go the all whites! ;-)

;-) Ann-a-Gram

Foreign languages

As we are about to conclude our journey through non-English speaking countries, we have been reflecting on our experiences of communicating with people whose first language is not English.

We have travelled through parts of France, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Belgium and Holland. In a couple of these (Switzerland and Belgium), we just passed through and managed to buy petrol and groceries, and pay tolls on the basis of little more than gestures and smiles.

In Greece and Turkey we were in tourist spots, and we found that anyone we spoke to responded in very good English. People certainly liked you to greet them and/or say thank you and goodbye in their own language though. In one case, a Greek owner of a small store in a back street in Athens pretty much blocked our way out till Graham followed his lead and said "thank you" in Greek!

In Holland, people mostly just looked at us and spoke in very good English. Much of the signage is bilingual, and it seemed that many people are too.


Even in the tiny town we stopped for lunch today, which had a proper windmill, the hotel owner and girl who served us spoke very good English - and thought New Zealand was beautiful as they had seen it in Lord of the Rings!

We arrived at 12.30, one hour before Holland was due to play in the world cup. The pub owner explained that 59 of the 60 million people in Holland would be watching the game, making it clear we had a limited window of opportunity for lunch!

In Italy, and very much more so in France, we encountered people with little or no English. Ann had thought there might be some link between Latin and Italian but failed to find any. We found in Italy that there was often one staff member who spoke English and the others would back off and leave us to that person.

In France, we frequently found that if we started off, eg by asking for a room, in French, we would receive a response in English, either straight away of after the blank looks if they responded in French! But in many of the small villages, we had to survive in French. In one village, Ann had a hilarious conversation with a man who spoke no English and really didn't want to talk to us at all. The conversation, (at least Ann's version) which took place on a Wednesday, went like this:
"the restaurant, is it open tonight?"
"non"
"so it is closed tonight"
"yes, it is closed on Fridays"
"but it's closed tonight"
"yes"
"is it open tomorrow?"
"yes, because tomorrow is not Friday" (with laughter)

This left Ann double checking her Mercredis and Vendredis, but still completely bemused as to why the restaurant was closed on a Wednesday!

Amsterdam

We left the Champagne region in rain and with a temperature of 14 degrees. Still, we were thankful that several days had passed since we drove through the south of France where the terrible floods have been, so we were long gone by the time they struck.

The first part of our journey was more little tiny roads and cute villages. But as we moved through Belgium and into Holland we found ourselves on huge motorways as they do not have toll roads everywhere like the French, and we had only asked to avoid toll roads.


Our first sight of windmills was a little disappointing, not quite what we had imagined at all.


When we did see a traditional one, it was dwarfed by some new ones.

We had programmed the GPS to take us to the airport. We drove all around the airport area seeing only the Sheraton and the Hilton, not the Etap we were looking for. Without realizing it we ended up back on the motorway, going through a tunnel heading for the city centre, wondering what had gone wrong. However, we took the next exit, and there was our hotel peeping out at us from among the trees! It had a free shuttle to the airport and there was a train from there direct to Amsterdam central.


We spent a day exploring the city, started off with an hour-long cruise around the canals which was really informative. Anne Frank's house, which is now a museum, was very special. Amazing the number of people there from many different parts of the world. But then her diary has been translated into more than 70 languages.


The city, besides being full of bicycles, was also very orange. And there were soccer balls decorating shops and bars wherever you looked. Not hard to guess the colour of Holland's football team!

The photo was taken on the main street of the red light district, near the most popular corner, a pub showing all the games live!

;-) Ann-a-Gram

Moet and Chandon

Today we took the grand tour of Moet and Chandon.


We learned all sorts of interesting things, like that there are more than 23km of tunnels, dug over a period of more than 200 years, begun in 1720. The longest is around 300m.


The caves are all still part of today's production - this one contains 9720 bottles. And at the end of the tour our two tastings turned out to be full glasses of 2003 vintage champagne! A great experience.

L'Avenue de Champagne was fairly impressive, with many well known champagne houses. The 20 minute drive to Epernay (home of the above) was interesting as we were often surrounded by crops rather than vines. There is obviously a lot of attention paid to the terroir and the way it lies to the sun here. Also interesting that all of the grapes are hand picked.

On the way back


we found that last night's champagne was indeed produced just around the corner from the chateau, but we couldn't find anyone there to sell us a bottle! Hopefully tomorrow before we go.

Ann-a-Gram

Le Chateau en Champagne

For the next two nights we are staying in a chateau about 20 minutes from the heart of champagne country. After checking into our room with all modern conveniences, in spite of the chateau dating from the 11th century, we checked out the local village. With just one restaurant and bar (other than at the chateau), it still boasts four champagne producers.

Later we dined at the restaurant downstairs. There were supposed to be 4 courses - entree, main, fromage and desert. But we started off with some tiny savoury things, then bread, and with the little bits and pieces between courses it seemed like we had about 4 deserts. And the fromage! It came out on a huge trolley along with Taylors 1,10 and 20 year old port. The young lad, who looked all of about 12, rattled through the different types of cheeses. There must have been at least 15.





The best thing though, was choosing the bottle of champagne. No choice really, when we found one called Carpe Diem which was produced just around the corner!

Not sure if the flooding in southern France has made the news - pretty bad! Close to where we drove through a week or so! Makes us think the cloud we have often encountered is not so bad after all.

;-) Ann-a-Gram

Heading for Champagne

We had a very pleasant day at La Force and exploring the surrounding area. We managed to dodge the rainshowers, find a laundrette, see some of Bergerac's weekend fête, and have the odd drink or two on the balcony at the hotel. When we left the next morning the owner thanked us for staying and gave us keepsakes, don't think too many foreigners make it into his town!

We are really over the female voice on the GPS, so now Tim, with a laid back but very correct English accent, guides us. After a few random preference changes he is also much more informative about roads and place names.



On the way we found a food cart with a sign which Graham had been looking for, hoping for frittes in a baguette. The woman who served us had no English whatsoever, and so we ended up with the French equivalent of a hot dog and fries,


but it still tasted good. The weather is very variable. Today was a good day to travel with some rain and the temperature ranging from 14 to 20.


Tim eventually found us a place to stay after one false start... and 3 that were already full. No balcony, but still a river view - yes, what you can see between the trees is water!

The false start? We were driving around a lovely little town and saw signs pointing to "Hotel de Ville". We followed them and found a gorgeous building in the town centre with shutters and flowers in the window boxes. We went in and Ann asked in her best French for a room for the night. She was greeted by a startled look and a torrent of French. It turned out that we were in the town hall, not a hotel at all!

;-) Ann-a-Gram

Towards Bordeaux

We sat outside under cover and ate our quiche and salads, washed down with a lovely Provence rose, in the company of a few French smokers, outside an F1. It was pouring with rain but eventually eased a little and there was a rainbow, must be a good sign!

Next day we decided to head for Bergerac, close to the city of Bordeaux but not too close! Again we drove through beautiful countryside and lovely villages, many of which were preparing for festivities, a music festival in one, probably Bastille day in others.


This gives a little bit of an idea of what they are like. Note how close the buildings are to what is the main road through the town. Also note the blue sky (and heat) returned - briefly!



On the way we passed about 40 classic Citreons, mostly identitcal, a weekend car rally maybe.

We found that the tourist information centre had free wifi (hence the last blog), and lots of good information about local attractions and hotels. We headed back out of town


to a little village called La Forte and a cute pub. Our room is the middle of three opening out onto the balcony above. The other two were vacant so we had the whole balcony to ourselves, and a room with ensuite for not much more than the F1!

No one speaks much English, so Ann is beginning to get bolder with her efforts, which is bringing smiles and usually results. When that fails we use her iPhone app, like today when we went into a pharmacy, pushed play and the phone said, in French, to the assistant, "I'd like to buy something for insect bites". She giggled, went away and found just what we needed!


As usual, we had to try out the tap beer, probably only once in this case.

;-) Ann-a-Gram

Wow!

We saw some gorgeous parts of the country today, travelling from Avignon to Cahors via Millau sans toll roads. Chris B, if you are still tracking the route and the km you will see that's a bit strange.

But the small villages, vineyards, moutains, and then some bush/forest areas that could have almost been on the SI West Coast, were just beautiful.
Unfortunately we went from sun and 28 degrees to rain and 15, so we didn't get as good a view of some of the scenery as we could have, but still much better than you would see on a bus trip around France rushing from city to city!


In the middle of the day, we viewed from a distance, and closer, and then drove over, the Millau viaduct. We went right underneath it, and it looked just amazing from down there.


Then we drove over it, which meant paying the toll and put 2 hours on our journey but it was just breathtaking! We almost turned around and went back.



Don't think we have seen images of driving over the bridge before, nothing else to say really. We've seen some great sights, but there are not enough superlatives to describe how we felt driving over it. As usual the pics don't do justice to the vibrance of the whole structure when you are close to it. It's incredibly stunning to see as you drive on to it!
;-) Ann-a-Gram

Avignon

Well, after deciding to stay a few more days in Cap, the weather changed! It may have been 20 degrees warmer than NZ, but the wind and the rain certainly decreased the number of daytime activities and the number of people around at night.

We decided to head over to Avignon for a look at the bridge. We avoided toll roads which made the journey a little longer, but travelled through some amazing countryside. Firstly it was coastal and some beautiful seaside resorts with plenty of camping spots, not that we could see them so well in the wind and rain. Then through lots of vineyard and market garden country, and then through countryside like alongside the rivers of Otago and Southland with willows and birches.


This is to stop the blog from getting boring and as a record of the fact that we did not always drink cheap table wine from a bucket. Speaking of which, you would think, after all these years, that the French could organize a way of pouring from their 5 litre buckets without spilling as much over the table as you get in your glass. And that included the first one!

Anyway, the GPS found us a hotelF1 and our way back into the city, to an amazing ancient town complete with its walls, cobbled streets, and of course, le pont d'Avignon, which is actually not really called that, and people didn't really dance on it, and it's only really half a bridge now, but famous nevertheless.



We took a boat trip on the Rhone which went past it and later walked out to the end, with a phone stuck to our ears giving us lots of info - like how people had to cross it slowly because it was narrow and muddy and easy to slip off! The dancing was apparently underneath the bridge.
The temperature had climbed to close to thirty, but it was very windy on the bridge and we were glad of today's width, cobble stones and railing, though still a little flimsy in Ann's view!

;-) Ann-a-Gram

More time in Cap

Today we were supposed to be leaving Cap D'Agde, but yesterday we went to the office and booked another three nights. It's such a lovely laid back place, hard to leave. And although conversations in shops are conducted in French, the conversations in Johnny Wokkers are definitely in English. We have met a nice English couple who have invited us to visit them in Chester.


We have begun to plan the rest of our time in Europe, but being fairly ignorant about the "must see" places we are thinking Millau viaduct, only an hour and a half north of here, and then the Bordeaux and Champagne regions before heading to Amsterdam. Suggestions/ comments welcome!

It's cloudy here today but still 26 degrees. Sorry about that. Sounds like it's pretty horrible in NZ!
;-) Ann-a-Gram

The people, the place

Cap D'Agde is a holiday destination for people from all over the world. The cars in the parking area have licence plates from Germany, Holland, Italy, Great Britain, Switzerland, Austria, and some others we didn't recognize (what does E stand for?).


Thus is a tiny section of the beach. Probably half of the people are French, but you are never quite sure, until you try to talk to them! The butcher speaks a little English, and that along with Ann's liitle bit of French has got us the meat and cheese we want. The woman at the supermarche speaks nothing but very fast French and obviously doesn't like foreigners, but we have learnt that if you have the correct amount of cash and can say bonjour and merci then you can get served!


Tonight's tea - just kidding! Just saw it on the edge of the balcony.

It's Sunday now, so the last couple of nights have been reasonably lively in the village. We found several spots with live entertainment, and some of it turned out to be us! Surprised? At our favourite bar just downstairs the singer mostly sang in English and honed in on Graham, stuck the microphone in his face and made him sing half an Elvis song.

Then a French woman befriended him and asked him to dance with her, which he did. Later she and the group she was with invited us to head over to one of the nightclubs. There was a guy dancing on a table, with a pole, and it was Ann's turn to dance.

In the evenings people dress up, especially the women. It's a fascinating place for people watching. It rained a little this morning after nothing but blue skies, but the sun is coming out now so it must be time for a walk.

;-) Ann-a-Gram

Wine

We hadn't realized that the Agde area produces about 20% of France's wine, so one day we grabbed a map,


put some clothes on, and headed for the vineyards.
However, we had forgotten that all of France closes down between 12 and 2, so when we arrived at a vineyard to do some tastings it was closed! Still, that meant we explored lots of small towns and drove along some tiny roads with grape vines either side. They often looked more like small trees, with big fat trunks like nothing you ever see in New Zealand.

We drove to the far end of the wine area and sat in the car for a while, and eventually it was 2 o'clock and the towns became alive again. It has taken us a while, but we have now found very cheap but very drinkable table wine.


The rose we bought from one of the vineyards, the white we bought from downstairs. €5 for 5 litres. And they refill the container with a hose. We did buy some good wine as well, found a lovely oaky Chardonnay and a nice vin mousseux - we'll do without the champagne till we get there!

Ann has been improving her French, and has become very good at asking for un pitcher de vin! So much cheaper to buy 500ml at a time rather than by the glass. Graham has not always been successful ordering a large beer though! We have now found cheap wifi a bar, so no doubt le garçon will soon figure out what we like to drink while we're there!

Cap D'Agde

Next day we headed for the apartment we had booked in Cap D'Agde. St Tropez was not far away and various other "must see" places, but after the cruise with all its tours, and what we had seen over the last couple of days, we decided to take the toll roads and get to our destination.
Cap D'Agde is on the "cap" of the town of Agde. The town itself has about 10,000 residents, but in the height of the summer Cap, the naturist resort, can have as many as 40,000 people.

There is no need to leave the "village", as it is called. We had planned to go back out to the supermarket we spotted down the road, but when we realized that within our own apartment complex, just downstairs, there was a supermarket, a very good butcher/salad/cheese shop, a greengrocer, 2 wine shops, 2 bakeries, a nightclub and more, there just didn't seem to be any point in having to put clothes on and leave the village!

It's great to have our own cooking facilities, and our location was chosen because the balcony gets sun most of the day and until the sun goes down. Possibly a mistake as it is quite windy so we can't put the awning out too far and Graham has already retreated inside!



This is a view from our balcony of the apartment complex - one of the smaller ones. The shops are under the green area, and the pool and bars are in the middle.


This is the view looking the opposite direction, with some of the port in view. The beach is about 400m behind us.

We spent the first couple of days familiarizing ourselves with the village. The beach is gorgeous and goes on forever. It is full of hundreds of naked people of all shapes and sizes and various shades of white/pink/brown. The wind dropped a little each day, and the temperature so far has varied from 22 to 30 degrees on our balcony - in the shade. Right now it is Saturday 2pm and the temperature is 29 degrees. We are in the shade along with the thermometer!

We've also realized that this is the first time on our holiday (and in case you need reminding, over 2 months now), that we have several days when we can wake up without a plan for the day! We have begun to read the books we bought in Auckland. A lovely relaxing time.

;-) Ann-a-Gram

Lerici - and Arrivederci Italia

Summer seemed to have arrived during our absence, as the empty beach below us was now filled with loungers, umbrellas and people! We now understood what the rows of white poles were - umbrella stands! It was Sunday and the waterfront and nearby restaurants were packed with locals.

We wandered around for a couple of hours ( without hats which we both suffered from later), and did not hear a single word of English.


After 12 days on a cruise ship full of Americans, Canadians and Australians that was quite a change. The town square was lovely, and the beaches very pretty with their backdrop of houses perched on the hills. We paddled in the water but found it rather cold - who said the Med was always warm?

Next day we stayed off the toll roads, drove out of Italy, through Montecarlo,


and stopped to admire the view and the amazing cars, shops and clothes of the rich and famous - not that we recognized anyone!

We drove through downtown Nice much to our surprise - our GPS seemed to get confused! But then we drove along a gorgeous expanse of coastline either Med just right across the road.


Not much of a pic, but you can see how close we were to the sea.

Then we followed the GPS up into the hills looking for a Formula1 hotel. We eventually found one, a long way from where the GPS took us! €29 for the night, €36.50 with breakfast when we have been paying between €100-140, more in Venice and Rome. No ensuite of course, but very clean and comfortable, a good breakfast, and lots of money saved for wine! ;-))

;-) Ann-a-Gram

On the road again

We got to the platform and jumped on the train even though there was no indication of where it was going. Ann tried to find out with a "Parla Inglese?" which was ignored completely by the first person she approached and greeted with a scowl by the second. Eventually, after much gesticulation, she got a "si" response, which seemed like a good sign. We did arrive at the port, and someone turned up with the key to our car, which we found was parked right outside the railway station.


We were very pleased to see it, loaded our bags into it, and after a couple of false starts found our way onto the motorway.

We had booked a hotel at Lerici, the lovely wee town that we found on our way south. By now it was almost 8, the time we had said we would arrive, and we still had a 3 hour drive. Ann called the hotel to let them know we were going to be late and found they didn't have a booking! So we asked the GPS to find us a hotel about an hour further on. It took us off the motorway, down a dead end street. We tried several other streets and eventually ended up at a nightclub where the GPS said there were three hotels but not a hotel in sight! We gave up, got back on the motorway and found one of the hotels the GPS had said we were at about 10km down the road. It was clean and comfortable, and very cheap. Next day we drove on to Lerici and got a cheaper room rate than they had quoted on the email.

On the move again

Before we left Venice we, of course, took a ride on a gondola. We found a good deal starting well away from the main canals and had a lovely peaceful glide through some small canals.


The gondolier had to duck his head for some of the lower tunnels! It was a wonderful experience, and he even sang to us.

Next day we were up early and caught a water bus to the railway station. We had checked out the times and were aiming for the 8.27am bound for Rome. There was a train every hour so we thought we didn't need to book. Big mistake as we found there were no seats until the 11.27 and only 3 left on that. We bought our tickets, stored our luggage and hopped on the next water bus thinking we could see a bit more of Venice and get a bit more mileage out of our ticket.

It was all good until after about 20 minutes we stopped skirting around the main island and headed off who knows where! Eventually we stopped at an island, found our way onto a bus with a more direct route, and made it back to the station with time (though not much) to spare to catch our train.

All went well till about three stops from Venice. A long one. After about 30 minutes a staff member came through and let fly with a rapid burst of Italian. The only word we understood was "problem". It turned out that there was a problem with the track and we had to go a different way, with an expected delay of 90 minutes.

We eventually arrived in Rome about 2 hours late, saw there was a train leaving for Civitavechia in 10 minutes and raced for it. We were on platform 1, it was on platform 28!

;-) Ann-a-Gram