I am officially the laughing stock of my office after being handed a EU50 ticket for running a red light on my bicycle. Apparently it's a "do as they say, not as they do" sort of thing - I pretty much have learned to copy the Dutch on my ride to work. So - looking both ways carefully and then crossing is not okay, you have to ride like a car....Learn something new every day.
I did not want to leave this place - despite being packed with proportionally more tourist than even Rome, it was absolutely beautiful and you still managed to feel like you had some personal quiet time. The locals were great, with one laughing as he watched me wander from restaurant to restaurant before asking if I needed a room...
Nadirah managed to put away enough seafood to keep her going for at least a couple months - and the days were filled with hiking, sunning, and swimming. My kind of vacation. The 5 towns lining the coast each had their own personality, I think we got lucky and stayed in one of the best in Vernazza.
It still is a really striking thing, the scale and grandeur of this ancient civilization - that had concrete and plumbing 1000 years or so before we re-discovered both. My favorite building was the Pantheon, a massive domed structure that really gave you and idea about the beauty of their structures.
And that phrase was all I could remember from 2 years of Spanish in high school - very sad.
Grenada was my personal favorite, with a beautiful old Moorish quarter containing walled gardens. The streets were intricate and full of bazaars, I would have though I was in Morocco. This trip really inspired me to start thinking of that "dream house" I like to delude myself about building someday. I'll try and flesh this out a bit later - but here's a cool video from a flamenco show we saw in a Grenada cave house. These women were intense, it felt like they were mad at you!
Had a great time sailing this weekend in the Fresian (sp?) lakes. In a change from US watersports, they still love sailing over there - the whole lake was full of boats. The nice part about boating here is that all the lakes are connected from their canal system. So, you can make short trips staying in different towns at night. Another wonderful Dutchism
Well, we made it back to the Netherlands after a marathon driving session . We were welcomed back from the 10 hour, 1200km trip all the way from Nice to a 4 hour, 200km trip across Holland. I think they send these road engineers to Bangladesh for school. They not only shut down the main artery to Amsterdam completely, which I have never seen done - but created a 1.5 hour traffic jam at 1am with wonderful traffic control. I already miss French driving...but it's nice to be back!
As we wrap up a wonderful two and a half weeks in France, I count myself an official Francophile. This country is wonderful, and the people just as much so. The roads are perfect, you have to work really hard to get lost – they have signs for the town center and every campsite and hotel, no matter how small the town. The food is wonderful, and the history has been stunning. It has really reawakened my love for history, I keep telling myself “make sure to look that up when you get back” (Check out the family behind Monaco for one).We’ve also gotten used to the French language, and a jarring Texas accent suddenly makes you realize how we must sound sometimes.
Hopefully we’ll have time to make it back, but if not – I don’t think you could possible cram more of France into 3 weeks. Enjoyed every minute of it.
Monte Carlo, Monaco
Well, I felt like Cary Grant (scared that is, I don't think I look like him exactly) in To Catch a Thief, if you haven’t seen it - do. On the drive to
After reaching
There wasn’t much there, I was very surprised how small and “
We did find one site for Nadirah though – the 103 year old “Jardin Exotique”, and entire cliff-side park full of cactus. If you don’t know her well, it’s her favorite thing. It was pretty crazy, some of these things were so old they had tree-like bark. There were entire forests of 20 foot tall monstrosities. Of course, I spent the whole time trying to avoid running into anything – you would have thought Nadirah was in
We’re in Nice, all checked in to our cozy bungalow. All our experiences with campsites in 
There’s a nice little walk in Nice along the ocean called the “Walk of the English”, apparently no one really came here until the English decided this was the place and fronted the money for a lot of improvements back in the 1800s. The beaches are just large pebbles, which doesn’t seem to faze anyone one bit. The water’s beautiful though, so we’re planning on coming back tomorrow for some sun and a dip. 
Oh, and there are lots of topless sunbathers. Disgusted, I tore myself away after gawking a mere 10 minutes or so.
Great day, started off with a visit to an amazing roman aqueduct at Pont du Gard (the most complete still in existence). The thing was massive, and the museum was one of the better ones we’ve seen. Really amazing their water facilities were so advanced, and we decided to forget about things like plumbing for another 1000 years. 
Swung through the town of
Before we settled in for the nights in
The castle was destroyed by one of the French Kings, but the town was left intact (and billed for the destruction). The rulers of the area were famous warriors, from the oldest line of kings in existence. They were ruthless, one guy taking joy in making his prisoners jump off the cliff when he was bored.
Anyway – I digress, but suffice to say I completely geeked out over this place. They bored out the entire plateau for their structures, and at one point you could spy a massive stone hall through a crack in the bottom of the plateau – looked like something from Lord of the Rings.
So…moving on, nice campsite outside
On our way between Carcassone and the Millau Bridge
To top off the day for the guy scared of heights we drove over the tallest bridge in the world,
Aven Armand
Halfway through our drive, we also managed to stop at the Aven Armand caves – the world’s largest collection of stalagmites in the world. Supposedly you could fit the Notre Dame inside.
Driving on to the Provence Cities, stayed the night in
After dropping TJ and Michelle off, we made our way to Carcassone. This fortress dates back to Roman times, and was once the center of a group of “renegade” Christians called Cathars. I had never heard about them until this, but apparently they believed in reincarnation and were vegetarians. They also, important to the Catholic church, were very anti-materialistic. The Catholics wiped out the area during the inquisition, with the
help of the French king who wanted the land. Oh, and there’s a cool board game by the same name. The old fortress is named “Le Cite”, and the town below was where the expelled Cathar populace was forced to settle.
We managed to stay the night within the walls of “Le Cite” in a cute B&B, and had the city all to ourselves that evening. There was also a Jaguar rally that stayed the night, I of course got a little excited.
After getting here on Wednesday, it didn’t take much to convince us to stay a bit longer than we intended. This region is gorgeous - a beautiful river winding through a dramatic gorge with stunning castles crammed on every other hill. We stayed by the most beautiful little town I’ve ever seen, built into the cliff faces - La Roque Gageac. Found another cool little house at a great campsite. The only bad part was that the weather was steaming, and we were taunted by the owner carefully
cleaning the pool every day – redemption arriving with open gates on the day before we left.Cave Art
The area has a ton of caves, including one of the premier examples of cave art in Lascoux cave. Sadly you can’t see most of the caves anymore, but the Lascoux cave was replicated (in amazing detail) – these guys were not drawing stick figures. It was beautiful. Picture is not mine - no cameras allowed.
The best part was one our fellow American tourists that had read the guide at the entry (as we all did), and then would offer "suggestions" as to the meaning of different paintings. Such as, while looking at the painting entitled "wounded hunter" in the guide, she would then ask "Is it possible this was a hunter that was wounded by the bison?". She would also then offer her child's interpretations of the paintings "my daughter thinks the cow is giving birth". We were't sure what she expected as a response (maybe a helicopter flight to the Sarbonne?), but our guide handled it with aplomb. It provided some entertainment.
We also made it to another massive cave which you could view more simplified images drawn deep underground. You got to take a little train all the way down, which was fun. Okay, some of these guys could have used some lessons.
French Cooking is just like Dennys
We had a great day of canoeing down the river. I think cordial relationships and canoeing are inversely related, as both parties begin to wonder why their frantic efforts to control the craft continue to fail. Following our harrowing battle against closing canoe rental facilities and no currents to get us there, we were rewarded with one of the top 5 dinners I’ve had in a random little village. Magret Duck with Black current sauce, Sarlat Potatoes…..good lord it was amazing. I can think of
worse things in life than eating dinner under a grape leaf awning overlooking cliffs full of castles over a sparkling river.
Nadirah had a nightly battle with the demons of the dark, known to you and me as gnats. She is deathly afraid of anything small and moving (not sure about Oompa Loompas). Again, no screens on any windows and you had to have things open given the heat. We had a veritable bug rave going on by our ceiling lights. The best part is that while playing cards below (we’ve decided Michelle has witch-like powers over card games), they would fly kamikaze style into the lights, littering our playing surface and drinks with their sad little souls.
After a wonderful break from our American-style blowthrough of
Coolest Chateau for me was definitely Cheverny – I had no idea until I saw the place that this was the chateau that Herge modeled the one in Tintin after. If you don’t know Tintin, it’s a wonderful Belgian cartoon that’s ridiculously popular everywhere but the
Chateau Chenonceaux was definitely the prettiest, and the one you see in all the photos. Again an amazing amount of history, with a massive number of royalty having owned or lived in the building. Some of the owners were pretty impressive, such as one man who let the building be used as a hospital during WWI, and the prisoners would fish out of their beds. Interestingly, the building was apparently quite useful during WWII, as its front door sat in Occupied France and its back door in
Chateau
Long drive to the south tomorrow for a stay in
The campsite next to ours had these 2 adorable little French girls that thought we were quite funny for being in the car. At several points during the early morning I awoke to the rather unsettling sight of two little blond heads peering over the hood at me.
We wanted to get some idea what
The entire town is still surrounded by a wall, on a plateau over a beautiful river. We stopped to buy some wonderfully stinky cheese and some cured ham for TJ that had been dry aged for 17 months. He verified that the ham was indeed glorious, and we enjoyed the cheese quite a bit – cool note, it’s made from cows that feed on the salt marshes at
Driving to the Loirre valley this evening.
Trip Map
Like something out a fairy tale, 
We had a pretty interesting night in our first European campsite. After setting up the first tent, we started on the second – suddenly realized we seemed to be lacking one little things
– those rather necessary tent poles! I, in my infinite patience, completed freaked out thinking 2 of our 4 would be in the car every night for a week. Then, like a revelation from above we noticed some small buildings on the other side of the site and asked if you could rent one. We officially love camping in
I will note here for the record that none of us could figure out what Europeans have against screens. They seem like a fairly useful invention in these buggy climates, but we have never (and I mean never) seen one on a single door or window. Are they just not bothered? We are completely lost on this one.
Drive to Dinan,
After spending a night at a beautiful little hotel in Bayeaux, we saw the Bayeaux tapestry in the morning. If you don’t know it, it’s pretty much “the” tapestry, and depicts the invasion of England by the Normans. The art is almost a thousand years old, and is in remarkable shape. I was pretty impressed, it was far longer and more beautiful than I expected. It wrapped the entire way around a massive room, and it almost felt like a movie with the detailed story it presented. There was even gratuitous sex and gory violence.
The drive along the coast was still littered with remnants of the huge invasion force, the scale of the false harbor at Port Winston brought it home.
The American Cemetery was stunning, and very haunting. You sit on top of the ocean bluffs, surrounding by beauty – and behind you lies these young men. Below the cemetery was Omaha Beach, and I can’t imagine what it must have been like. Watching children play with their kites on the beach below us where these same men died was an odd contrast for this place. Some people might find it disrespectful I guess, but it seemed rather wonderful to me.
We also went to a nearby German cemetery, which touched all of us as well – there were somber collections of 5 black stone crosses, with one marker for every two men. The Japanese could learn a lesson from this country, as the entire visitors center made sure no German forgets what happened in the past. There were also letters home from these other young men, which made their own sacrifice for a misdirected country seem so poignant.
Near Omaha was the Ponte du Hoc, an imposing set of cliffs which the first American Rangers had to scale with ladders and hooks. This installation was huge, much bigger than I had thought with my reading, and the importance was fairly obvious. They had left the bomb craters alone, and it was like walking on the moon – there were hundreds of them, the size of dump trucks. It was odd how few fortifications had been destroyed by these same bombs, however.
evidence, so don’t let them get culturally elite on you! Not that they do, they are always wonderful to us. We just thought it was funny, driving through these little towns with as much history as our whole country and randomly hitting a massive trailer park.