Bay of the Somme

It's the last day of our tour of France. Tomorrow we head back home. There are lots of well marked out circular bicycle routes on tarmac paths here but we didn't want to do anything to strenuous.

Instead, we decided to have a drive around and do some exploring. We visited St. Valery-sur-Somme which is on the south side of the Somme Bay and is a very pretty town which has a stop for the local stream train. Here, the engine is rotated on a turn-table to head back up the track. You can walk on the track and it's amazing the amount of people standing in the way completely oblivious to the hissing, spitting train heading towards them. We also watched as a woman fell off her bike while riding over the track. Lucky the train wasn't around.

We then went to the other side of the bay to Le Crotoy. Easy to get to but we completely missed the signs to the aire de camping car (the motorhome car park) twice, which isn't good because Le Crotoy it made up of narrow, one-way streets.

Idea for a new new kids book; Where's Herman

Eventually, we found the aire de camping car. It is massive with hundreds of campers. I'm amazed how we could have missed it, it's the largest camper park I've ever seen. You can see it from space!

We spent our time in Le Crotoy walking around, eating ice-cream and sitting on the lovely beach. The weather was bright and hot and so much so that Zoe managed to catch too much sun. She was very pink but she hasn't burnt thank goodness.

To the Valley of the Somme

You couldn't guess what woke me up this morning at around 6:30. It was the gentle rising of a graceful hot air balloon. What woke me was the sound of the burner. It sounded quite close so I had to jump out of bed to have a look. It was very close, about as large as my fist at arms length.

Today we travel further north towards Calais. I wanted to avoid Paris and stop off in the Somme but it seemed a bit of a drive. The sat-nav took us through the west side of Paris. It looked good on a map, motorways and dual-carriage ways but Paris is a massive nightmare to drive through. My advise is to avoid it even if it adds 30 miles to your journey. I thought London was bad. Paris is like driving in India but with more motorbikes and scooters and less elephants. Zoe drove the Paris section (again) and she kept really calm even when the sat-nav was too slow, sending us in the wrong direction and almost causing two accidents.

We made it to the Valley of the Somme in one piece. We had our evening meal outside; sun, heat, wine and salmon, where we were paid a visit by a wasp. Now this wasp was the biggest f***ing thing I've ever seen and it freaked me out. It must have been the length and width of my middle finger from the tip to the second knuckle (4cm?). It made the low buzzing sound like distant thunder and had the yellow and black markings like a zebra crossing and as it hovered there, over my wine glass, I could see the pilot! That last bit I made up.

Leonardo da Vinci

No, really, it was too hot today to do anything. I fancied relaxing or going on a short cycle ride but instead we went to Chateau Clos Lucé in Amboise. This is where Leonardo da Vinci spent his last few years.

da Vinci's bedroom

The chateau has some great models showing da Vinci's inventions and the gardens have working full sizes variations that kids can play on. Loads of information and history to be soaked in.




On the way back we came across another wine cave. This time it was a farm house with a proper cave. It was such a relief to escape the heat and enter the coolness of the cave. We tasted a few of the wines which were a lot better than those from the other cave and ended up buying twelve bottles! Four each of côt red, sauvignon white and rose. Herman is getting a bit full of wine.

This evening we had a marvellous BBQ overlooking the river with chilled white wine and cuckoos off in the distance and where at one point a thundercloud rumbled slowly past heading for Paris.

Chateau Chenonceau

Chenonceau is famous for it amazing chateau, one of the grandest in France. The campsite is about 15 minutes from the chateau so we decided to walk there in the blistering heat.

The gardens and the buildings are spectacular and the rooms are well kept with tapestries, paintings and renaissance furnishings. There are so many bedrooms I started to get bored of them. Don't get me wrong, they are all decorated differently, it's just there were a lot of them.

Later in the afternoon I cycled to the local wine cave which is basically a building where the local wine is sold by the bottle or by the litre. I sampled their white, rose and two reds. The white was very nice. I cycled back with a few bottles in the rucksack.

As we settled down to have another BBQ a flock of air balloons sailed over. A very pretty sight without a cloud in the sky. The campsite is busy and everyone seems friendly with the weather being very warm and the insect are very hungry. I've got 15 bites on my legs and Zoe's ankle is swollen with them.

Back to Loire Valley

After we said goodbye to Ken and his party of Yorkshire men we headed back north to the Loire Valley. We arrived at a lovely campsite in Chenonceaux near Amboise with a pitch right next to the River Cher. The weather was hot and sunny with no clouds.

Domme

We planned to do very little today. The weather is getting hotter and we are getting lazy. Today is our last day in the Dordogne and I don't really want to go. It's a very pretty location, the people are very nice and the campsite is great. It's lunchtime when we decided to go out and we headed to an ancient walled town called Domme which is up on the tallest location just a stones throw from the campsite.

The view from Domme is spectacular and it looks over the whole valley. We could see La Roche Gageac, the restaurant we ate at last night, where we cycled, the campsite and the river as it twists and turns in and out of view.

One week to go and we run out of bog paper

Later on we do some grocery shopping at a local supermarket which is really good fun as we try to work out what the products are, attempt a little French lingo (Execuse moi s'il vous plaît. Avez-vous un lait frais?) and got to try what the French eat.

Apparently, Ken and Philip are members of a group of Yorkshire men free-masons who are meeting up at our campsite. That evening we were invited round to have a drink and some nibbles. It was good fun and everyone was very friendly.

Rocs and Holes

Wow, it's getting hot here.

The river is still high and so we head to Rocamadour which is a town built into the side of a tall rocky hill. It has a few churches, a chateau and many shops and restaurants. We had a wonderful cassoulet maison (direct translation; home made casserole with three types of sausage and a duck drumstick) in one of the restaurants over looking the valley.

Ad with his cassoulet and new t-shirt from Super-U

After a stroll and soaking in the sights we headed to Gouffre de Padirac (Chasm of Padirac) which happens to be a massive hole in the ground followed by an underground river and many wonderful, large stalactites and stalagmites that looked like stacks of plates.

The driving today was away from all the fast motorways that we've done so far. Instead, it was twisty country lanes and up and down the valleys. However, on the way back the sat-nav decided to take us on a "fast", as-the-crow-flies, direct route down narrow slow roads which added an extra 45 minutes to our journey.

Being tired and a little fed up we decided to eat in a local restaurant and postponed our BBQ for another day.

La Roche Gageac

This morning we woke up feeling the effects of the alcohol and I could still taste the Leffe.

After yesterday we had to get out and start enjoying the holiday again. So instead of driving, we went for a bicycle ride and ended up in La Roche Gageac which is a beautiful village on the Dordogne river where some of the houses are built into the rock that is looming above.

We wanted to take a boat trip to see the sights along the river but the water level was too high for safe passage. It must have been due to all the rain they've recently had. We stopped off at a patisserie for lunch. For some reason we didn't take our cameras but later on that afternoon we went back in Herman and took some good shots.