Cote D'Azure - What must these people do for work?

If you ever wish to feel ordinary, come to the Cote d’Azure (French Rivera)... From the beautiful houses, cars, boats and people to the crystal turquoise colour of the Mediterranean Sea this place is everything you will ever see in a magazine designed to sell people dream holidays in rich-ville. There are of course only two ways that you should visit this exquisite location; by flying in your own helicopter and landing on your recently acquired several hundred foot ship (penis extension), or of course arriving in your 1989 Volkswagen Transporter motorhome conversion that is being held together by very conspicuous but very sturdy black tape (more on that later).


Our first stop in this part of France was St Tropez, a fairly small town that seems to have a fairly hearty hatred of campervans touring the area. Unfortunately we struck St Tropez in the middle of what seemed to be the busiest day that the town has ever experienced with traffic slowed to a ridiculous crawl and Buck’s chance of getting a parking spot for a car let alone a much longer camper. After a little swearing and a declaration of hatred from Jamie against the town, we made it back out again and finally found a camp ground which we were happy with. Quite excited, we jumped out and went to speak to the reception where they told us that there was a three night minimum stay without exception. This renewed Jamie’s feelings about the town so we told them politely that we wouldn’t be staying, and moved on. Finally we found a camp ground that looked to be someone who owned a farm, but wanted to cash in on the tourism aspect of the place. We crashed there for 21Euro and drank away the tough times that this town had given us. The next day was much nicer, we were able to find a car park in town and have a walk around to see the sites. It was quite nice, and I would say the town would be much more pleasant if we were travelling by train and staying in hotels, we can’t have it our way all the time...

Next stop was Cannes..... well it was Cannes. We drove through this town hoping to find a spot for some free camping but the local Council was pretty strict on Campervans as well, so we ended up driving straight through the town. Although we drove through, we still saw what an amazing place this is. Yes, it’s famous for the Cannes Film Festival that draws all the A-list celebs from around the world, but this place is much more of a beach town and general holiday destination for Europeans. It’s comparable to the Gold Coast, but without the high rises on the beach, and with more rocks instead of sand.

We ended up stopping at a town between Cannes and Nice which was just perfect. We were 500m from the beach and 400m from a supermarket which is like gold to us. The camp ground was really nice and full of young people, which was cool. We also had 24 hours use of the WiFi which was the icing on the cake as we’ve been relying on McDonalds to provide us with their free WiFi for most of the trip and I think the McFlurrys are having a direct effect on my ability to put my boardies on without undoing the drawstring, think I’ll have to buy new ones.... Anyway, getting up early and going for a swim in the ocean has to be one of my favourite things about holidays and is becoming a habit. It’s fairly easy when the water temperature is around the 27 degree mark, kind of like jumping into a big spa!

We caught the bus into Nice and had a look around town. It’s much like we expected, and seemed to be the poorer cousin of Cannes, in saying that, it had its fair share of Ferraris and Maserati’s driving around. The sea again was an amazing shade of blue that is reminiscent of the colour of the alpine lakes in New Zealand but was obviously so much more pleasant to swim in. We had lunch out at a water front restaurant which was bloody ordinary and left us wishing we’d stuck to our staple of baguette with an assortment of meats and salad, nevermind.

After a couple of days chilling out, we moved on to Monaco. There are not enough superlatives to describe this place. If Nice is the poor cousin of Cannes, then Monaco is that rich cousin that puts the rest of the family to shame by arriving by helicopter on the previously mentioned penis extension. We have never seen such a concentration of expensive, high powered and simply astonishing cars. Of course this drew slight embarrassment as we were driving through Monaco in Callum, although he’s a great little bloke, he seemed to shrink as we were driving through these streets of gold. We found a car park on the side of a main road which we decided to use as our camp ground for the night knowing we’d be safe, but probably wouldn’t get much sleep. After a day of walking around the marina’s checking out the endless lines of multi-million dollar boats we did what every person should do when they go to Monaco. We went to the Monte Carlo Casino. This was THE spot for the cars to be seen. There must have been 50 of the most expensive cars in the world from the lowly Porche to a couple of Maybachs and even a Bugatti Veyron. Thats right, for anyone who watches Top Gear (Rickie J Cook), we touched a real live Veyron, and yes, it looks incredible!

Anyway, I’ve dribbled on enough for this session. Will try and put something up sooner this time, and will speak more of the sticky tape issue with Callum.

A&J xoxo

What a few days we have had!

We left San Sebastian on Saturday morning on route back to France as we’d heard some very dodgy things about the road around Barcelona. The decision has been made to complete Spain, Portugal and Morocco on our next trip to Europe and dedicate more time to them to experience them on the same level as we’re seeing much of the rest of Europe. Although we can understand people focussing on specific tourist areas and completely understand how hard it is to get time away from work etc travelling in the way we have been has opened our eyes to what you see when you dedicate more time to the lesser known areas and really get in touch with local people. One of the best examples of this has been the France Passion subscription that we’ve been using. This has really allowed us to see how locals live, especially when we’ve stayed on farms where people live and make their living. Anyway, back to it...

We stopped on Saturday afternoon at Lourdes which is a pilgrimage town for Catholics due to miracles taking place in the town dating back hundreds of years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lourdes). We were lucky enough to witness a procession of what had to be about 5000 pilgrims, hundreds of which were in wheel chairs and hospital beds. To see these pilgrims arrive to the place that they’ve travelled so far to see, and hold so much faith in was a beautiful thing. It truly was an amazing experience and something neither of us will ever forget. When we got back to the camp site we spoke to an Aussie guy who said that we were really close to the Tour De France and showed us a great spot on the map to see the race! Brilliant!

Sunday morning we headed off to find our camping spot for the night on the side of the mountain. After a few stops to help Callum get his breath back, and a few stalls we found a brilliant spot 10km into the 19km climb of Mt Mee (which is one of the climbs of the tour that is too hard to rate). Due to a slight angle that we’d parked on, the fridge stopped working so we used the stream behind our van to cool our beers which actually worked heaps better than the fridge anyway... We were joined by a couple of Aussie brothers from Perth who pulled up and had a couple of beers with us before Andrew and one of the lads, Matt attempted to ride some of the course on Goose and Gander (Jamie has finally named her bike, I wanted her to call it Maverick!). The ride wasn’t terribly successful but certainly gave me more respect for these people that ride these mountains. I can also now say that I’ve ridden the Pyrenees. Monday morning we woke to the sound of more spectators arriving and amateur riders making their way up the course. We saw some brilliant efforts by people riding the mountain including an old bloke struggling up the hill with a young guy beside him pushing him in the back to assist which was just brilliant. Getting closer to the race coming through, there were about 20 floats that passed throwing out shirts, food, bags, hats and other useless things that will no doubt clog up the van, but we obviously needed to get to prove we attended. When the race finally arrived, the excitement and atmosphere was at fever pitch. The riders were yelling to each other but they were drowned out by people screaming for their teams and the sound of helicopters. Andrew, Matt and Dan managed to run with the riders for about 80 metres before they pulled away, to keep up the speed the bikes were doing after they’d already done 150KMs that day was super human! It was really a stroke of luck that we got to see the race but is another one of the biggest highlights of the holiday so far!

A&J xoxo

San Sebastian

First of all our drive from Biarritz to San Sebastian through the foothills of the Pyrenees was absolutely amazing. Probably some of the most beautiful country we’ve seen on the trip so far. We had a nervous Jamie in the navigators seat driving into Spain as she had heard a lot of warnings of crime in the Basque country which is where we were driving into. It didn’t help when we saw a man being taken out of his car and arrested in the middle of the highway, four police cars pulled up in the middle of the highway!

We arrived in San Sebastian with high expectations after Lana told us it was her favourite part of the world. The first day delivered on expectations brilliantly. Once we found our camp ground which is about 5KM out of town up on top of one of the mountains, we took the bus into town and walked around the narrow pedestrian streets. The architecture of all of the residential units is absolutely stunning, Jamie said she could easily live in a building like that. That afternoon we went to a couple of tappas bars and enjoyed some of the local food. The Tapas in this area is a little different to what we thought we would get. A lot of it has a bread base and is topped with meat, we’ll upload some photos of this. Most of the tapas was very nice, but we hit a couple of small bits that weren’t all that great, so we had a few more drinks of local beer and Sangria and made our way back to the camp ground.

The next day was an absolute stunner. The sun was shining and it must of reached low-mid thirties. We went into town with every intention of walking up the mountain to the statue that overlooks the city, instead we ended up spending the whole day lazing around of the beach and finished the day with a couple of Sangria’s on the beach before making our way back to the camp site. Once we got there, we had a few drinks with some guys we met from NZ which turned into a fairly late night.

Friday was another great day. We got into town just before lunch and walked up to the mountain where the castle and statue is. On the way up we passed about ten riot police that had balaclavas on and were carrying heavy weaponry, they looked as though they were ready for battle. Without actually finding out what was going on, we left the area straight away and headed up the hill. The view from the top was stunning, and there was a great little bar at the top where we stopped for a break and to enjoy the scenery. The rest of the day was spent on the beach with the not so self-conscious locals. Last night was one of the bigger nights we’ve had so far. We again had drinks with kiwi boys up the road, and ended up at the camp site pub. This is where one of the lads attempted some Spanish while ordering us beers and instead of asking for 4 beers, apparently asked for 8. So there we are, with two pints each about half an hour out of closing time. This made for an interesting evening to follow. After we left the pub, we made some 2am spaghetti, then went to bed at the insistence of the camp ground security guard... again...

Today we’re heading off towards the east coast, and the south of France.

Love A&J xoxo

Wineries and more beaches!!!

So a couple of days ago we stayed on the most beautiful vineyard near Bordeaux as part of our France Passion deal. When we arrived we walked to the front door and were greeted by the owners mother who was very nice and told us where to park the van, right in the vineyard overlooking acres of grape vines with a little village and river in the distance, it was stunning! After parking we went back into the house for a tour and tasting. The owner (who was about mid thirties) showed us around the wine production area and gave us an explanation in very broken english. He then invited us into the kitchen for what we thought was going to be a quick taste but we were greeted by his mother providing some nibbles as well. We met the owners son, who has a wine named after him, and who will take over the operation of the farm when his father retires. We then sat down at their kitchen table and had a couple of glasses of wine while the owner joined us and we fumbled our way through conversation about where we are from and what we're doing in Europe. It was an amazing experience to be able to share a glass of wine with the owner on more than a purely customer/owner experience but more of an invitation into their home and what seemed like a real experience (if you know what we mean).

The next day we drove down to Biarritz which is a real surf town. The beaches although crowded with thousands of tourists, are more like our beaches than anything else we've seen on our trip.... They actually have real waves! This town is known as one of the surfing capitals of Europe and because of this, is packed with tourists chasing some decent waves. Most of the beaches however have waves dumping straight onto sand banks about 5 metres from the shore line. We saw several ambulances in one day picking up people that had been smashed into the sand like rag dolls. Jamie managed to pick up a lovely ring at one of the local jewellers which she's in love with and will give her something to remember the town by. At the moment there's a "Roxy Jam" surf carnival happening in the town with Music, Art and Surfing contests. Last night we went to a party that was held in a carpark overlooking the Atlantic which was great. Roxy had set up quite an amazing stage for a DJ and had bars surrounding the whole area, very cool!
Early this morning before breaky Andrew went for a swim in the surf and noticed that the council must use a tractor every evening to smooth the sand out before the crowds the next day arrive... imagine doing that in Australia? They'd be going for months!

Today we're off to San Sebastian in Spain as recommended by Lani. Tonight we'll be eating the local version of Tapas with cloudy white wine, which we've heard about via Lonley Planet. Can't wait!

A&J

France - West Coast (Beaches!!)

Since our last update, we arrived in Les Salles on the West Coast of France.  We pulled Cal up on the side of the beach and thought we had found a perfect spot to camp for the night, however just as we were taking our bikes off, the Police came carrying a fine book and after Andrew assured them he was just "securing" the bikes, they just moved us along.  Apparently towns on the coast don't like campervans!!!  We eventually found a parking area in the middle of town, which was a 5 minute walk to the beach.  We bought some fresh prawns and sat in the sand and went for a walk down to the pier.  We sat at a local bar on the beach and had a beer while we, as Andrew puts it, "people watched".  (He's a little freaky haha).  The beaches are lovely, though nothing compared to our beaches.  They did have sand, but also lots of rocks close to the waters edge.  It was quite strange to be sun-baking at 8pm as the sun goes down so late!!

The next morning, we woke early at 8am (well early for us) and we went for a long bike ride along the beach, and found a lovely cafe to have coffee looking over the ocean.  We went down and sun-baked again for a couple of hours, then had a quick lunch then back on the road, heading for Le Rochelle.

It wasn't so much of a beach town as we were expecting, but this town seemed to have more life.  Great restaurants and cafes which were surrounding a marina guarded from the ocean by a wall and watch tower that must have been hundreds of years old, quite a spectacular site.  At night, they close off the main streets and have local markets and live entertainment.  We walked around the streets and took in the local nightlife then made our 5K bike ride back to our campsite (Jamie with no glasses in the dark!!). We did visit their "beach" the next day, however instead of sand, it was more like white dirt with rocks which made the water look dirty. We left the beach and did some more sightseeing.

Jamie had been complaining for days that the French won't make meat pies for her, so we found a irish pub that had pies on their menu. A VERY excited Jamie sat herself down at the pub, and ordered a beef and onion pie with chips. She was all ready to eat a lovely big Irish style pie, when what looked like a frozen Four & Twenty arrived on her table. Andrew has never seen Jamie more disapointed  then when this microwaved piece of slop (her words exactly) arrived in front of her. All at a price of 10Euro. We should have known better.....

Last night we were going to ride into town again to watch the world cup final, but were warned that a "Huge" storm was on the way and we should stay at the camp site. They even showed us where to evacuate. We watched the football at the camp site with some Dutch and Spanish supporters which was OK, except for the result. The storm wasn't any worse than what we get in QLD every afternoon during summer.

Today we're on our way down to Bordeaux to stay at a couple of Vineyards then after that, down to Spain!

More soon,

A&J xoxo

    

Loire Valley

Yes, it’s been a few days since we wrote, but we’ve been in the most relaxing place in the world, the Loire Valley. Although it’s been a few days, we don’t have a lot to report as we’ve been lazing around more than anything else. After we left Paris we got to Blois which is a lovely town with a camping spot right in the centre, AND even better, it was only 5Euro a night. We’ve found in France that a lot of smaller towns have “Municiple Camping Grounds” which are run by the city, and are often very cheap and clean. We spent the rest of the day in Blois chilling out and walking around a little. The next day we walked around more, saw the Chateau and did a horse and cart ride around the town. It’s really quite nice, but rather small so we decided to move onto the next town.

We arrive in Ambroise about half an hour after leaving Blois. Ambroise seemed to be a little livelier than Blois. We again relaxed for the afternoon, read our books and settled into the camp ground. That night we went to the camping ground bar and watched Holland beat Uruguay which was incredibly satisfying. The next day we explored Ambroise a little more which has an abundance of beautiful little cafe’s surrounding a massive chateau that towered over the whole town. Again in the afternoon we laid on the side of the river and read our books some more. We met a lovely Dutch couple that we had some drinks with that night and got to bed at around 12:30. A fairly early one on our standards over here at the moment.

Yesterday we drove for quite a while and didn’t seem to get all that far. Unfortunately we stopped at a camp ground that tried to charge us 63Euro for one night, then the girl behind the counter couldn’t understand why we laughed at her as we walked out. We kept travelling and found a little spot which again was put there by the town for campervans to stop. It cost us..... nothing. Last night was very stormy and incredibly hot, we think it must have been around low to mid thirties most of the night. How’s the weather in Australia? We hear a little chilly... HAHAHAHA

Today we’re trying to get to the coast and get some salt water before heading along the coast road down to Spain.

A&J xoxo

More of Paris

First of all we’ll start with Andrew’s birthday. What a place to spend a birthday, the morning started with Jamie making pancakes in the van which were beautiful. We got into town at about mid-morning and strolled the streets of Paris for a while in 34 degree heat. We walked from the Arc-de-triumph all the way down to the Louvre which was amazing. It’s definitely a street full of beautiful people and expensive coffee’s. We had a picnic for lunch looking over a lovely piece of grass that we of course weren’t allowed to sit on, however it was still beautiful sitting on the benches.

The afternoon was spent walking towards the Eiffel Tower until we found a pub that was playing the Holland Vs Brazil world cup game. This is the part where we had our first dose of French price hiccup. The beer price was really quite reasonable on the board above the bar (2.30Euro), or so we thought.... We asked for a beer from the bartender which he replied, would you like to take a seat, Jamie said “yeah , sure”. When we sat down, they bought our beers over with a bill of 16.40Euro!!! After the initial shock, and a few expletives, we made our way back to the bar, used our Aussie charm and negotiation skills to bargain our beer back down to “Sitting at the bar” prices. We enjoyed a few extra beers and watched The Netherlands destroy Brazil with a lovely couple from Holland who we hope to stay in contact with. After the game we made our way to a local restaurant for some French food for dinner. We had Snails for Entre (absolutely brilliant!), Andrew had Steak Tartare for a main, Jamie had Duck, then we shared Creme Brulee for Desert (Topped with a firecracker and bought with the French version of Happy Birthday thanks to Jamie being sneaky!). After dinner we had a quiet stroll under the Eiffel Tower on the way back to our camp ground.

Yesterday we caught the train to the Palace of Versailles. We went into the Palace itself which was the home to the Kings and Queens of France. We’ve never seen such an opulent residence than this one, the 75m long hall of mirrors was stunning. The Palace was only topped by the gardens outside of it. These are really a MUST SEE if you come to Paris. They are the most manicured gardens we’ve ever seen and are topped with fountains everywhere! We were lucky enough to be in the gardens while they had all of the fountains working and also had classical music playing all though out them. We were shocked at the loudness and quality of music which managed to cover such a large area and you couldn’t even see the speakers, they were hidden amongst the hedges. Hate to think what they would cost!

Yesterday morning (being the first Sunday of the month) the Louvre had free entry for all. As we LOVE free things, we decided to get into town early and try to beat the rush. We arrived just before opening time and were greeted with a 300m line for the entry. Amazingly (because there was no ticket checking) the line dispersed within 10-15 minutes and we were into it. This place is ridiculous! We spent 4 hours walking around, and hardly scratched the surface. We managed to see all the things that were on our list, and got out of there just as the after lunch crowd was arriving (apparently an hours wait in line). This afternoon we went to, Notre Dam and the Catacombs which we unfortunately missed out on by 5 people because they shut! SHIT! Doesn’t matter, we’ll see the one in Rome... After that we (Jamie) did a little shopping on the Champs’ Elysee and purchased a couple more dresses (cause she’s obviously in desperate need for it..).

Today we've done the drive down to Blois which was nice. We're now having a relaxing afternoon getting ready for more sight seeing tomorrow.

A&J xoxo

Touring Champagne Country...

Since we last wrote we've done one of Jamie's most favourite parts of the trip.... Champagne... On route to the Champagne region, we came across one of the French peoples favourite pass times.... a strike. We were driving quite happily down the road to a nice little village when we found a roundabout that had been completely blocked by local tractors. Apparently the farmers had the shits about something so decided to cut off the town in every direction. We spent the next 45 mins working our way around the tractors and driving onto footpaths etc... We eventually made our way through although Tom (our TomTom) was not all that impressed with our handy work. We arrived in Bouzy (how appropriate) the first night and stayed on one of the vineyards that are part of the France Passion deal, the name was Remy Galichet. They produce champagne so it was brilliant to be able to turn up, have a few taste tests, then buy a bottle and enjoy it in the vineyard. The town Bouzy was really quite small and most places were closed once we arrived, so it was a fairly early night.


The next day we headed to Eperney which was recommended by Mum and Dad Griffo. Jamie was very excited to see the biggest champagne houses in the world. On arrival we were surprised at how down to earth the town and people were. We went in expecting that there was going to be a certain pretentious feel and everyone would be dressed up with nowhere to go. What we found was a town that was very proud of their champagne heritage, but not full of themselves. We did the tour of Moet & Chandon (and learnt that YES, the French do pronounce it with the T!) which was brilliant. We didn’t actually know that the Moet & Chandon house also produce the more expensive Dom Perignon. The tour included a walk through the caves which in total cover 100Km. When asked the question, “how many bottles are actually down here?”, the tour guide explained that they were not allowed to tell people, but she could say that there were more bottles in that cellar then there are French people in France (Google it :)).
After visiting Epernay, we stayed the night in another vineyard that produced champagne. Once again we taste tested, then purchased another few bottles. We enjoyed another bottle (this one was even nicer) in an orchard of cherry and apple trees that the vineyard have for their private use. They told us to pick whatever we wanted which was lovely of them. Words couldn’t describe how beautiful this night was, sitting in the vineyard grounds drinking champagne and watching the sun go down over acres of vines. We highly recommend it. :)

Today we managed the dreaded Parisian traffic and made it to our camp ground 8km from the centre of Paris. The camp ground is fairly ordinary, but still manage to charge 37Euro for a powered site as they are the only camp ground within 100km of the city. Jamie is disgusted in their lack of customer service so far and keeps talking about how it would be different if she was in charge..... Whatever... Today we’ve spent the day wandering the Champes Elysees which has been wonderful. Tomorrow, being Andrew’s birthday will be filled with spoiling him with gifts and kisses (being the most romantic city in the world).
Love A&J xoxo