Our week in France

Sorry its been a while since the last post. Things have been busy around here. We hadn't even finshed unpacking the boxes in our new place and it was time to head off on vacation. Being over here, we decided to take advantage of the fact that 1) we have a car and 2) France is just across that little channel south of here...so we caught a boat across and spent the week driving around France (and well...a bit of Italy, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Belgium as well.....) All said and done, 3000 kms in 8 days....a bit crazy, but we did get to see a lot.

We started out early Sunday morning and drove down to Dover where we caught a ferry across to Dunkerque. Not wanting to be late, I got us to Dover about 2 hours early, which while disappointing to Alex who would have preferred a couple extra hours of sleep, let us walk along some trails on top of the famous white cliffs....

Two hours after boarding the ferry, we were in France. Now I got to get used to driving back on the 'correct' side of the road, but now on the wrong side of the car. We quickly got lost and ended up in Calais, almost out of gas....a very good start. Eventually that afternoon we made it down to Paris, where we set up shop in a campground in a neighbourhood called Maisons Lafitte, which is in the north-west part of the city. The campground was very, very, very cramped, but on the bright side, was only a 15 minute walk to the train station, from where it was 25 minutes into central Paris. We spent two days there and did as many of the tourist things we could do. I think that Alex may provide some more detail in her post.

On Wednesday we left Paris and drove down to Lyon where we found a campsite just outside of town. What a beautiful city Lyon seems to be (at least what we saw of the historic centre). I intended for it to be an unavoidable stop-over spot on the way down to the mediterranean, and was really blown away by the city. Who knows what it is really like, but in our evening there it really impressed.

The next morning was on our way through Provence to a place just between Nice and Monacco, on the Cote Azur. Of course, I got lost, and we spend far too much time driving the coastal highway (much to Alex's disappointment...lots and lots of curves and ups and downs......) Eventually, perched high, high, high above the water was our campground. What an amazing spectacle. I think that the views over St. Jean Cap Ferrat couldn't be bested by any other campsite in the world. We spent the afternoon on the beach.....no sand on the riviera apparently...just smoothed stones....very odd....and the water was cold, cold, cold....reminded me of Lake Winnipeg in June. Then we spent an hour or so in Monacco (did our groceries there!) and then the early evening in Nice. We settled down for the night with a good curry, some wine, and the views over the sea.

The next day was on to Geneva. I got us off to a bad start by almost running out of gas. We were driving around helplessly with about a litre in the tank and me asking in my long forgotten French, " Ou est-ce que on peut acheter du gasoline"...After about 5 failed attempts at that (and more of that precious litre of gas we did have used up driving in circles...) someone was kind enough to point out that gas or petrol (depending on your English) is actually called Essence in French. That does ring a bell somewhere deep in the cobwebs...After that correction, we were pointed in the right direction and on our way with a full tank. We crossed over to Italy, and rode about on the coastal highway for a bit before turning up towards the mountains. We skirted past Turin and had lunch in a nice little town at the foot of the mountains called Aosta. Fittingly, ALex has Ravioli and I had Gnocchi.

Then further into the Alps...(wow...amazing scenary) and then under Mont Blanc via an 11 km tunnel.

Into France past Chomonix and then over the border in Switzerland. I got us lost again looking for the campground (not sure why Alex lets me take care of directions....) but finally, mercifully before the sun set, we found our place on the shore of lake Geneva, just east of the town. We spent the night in Geneva, which is really a very charming spot. We had fondue for dinner, which seemed appropriate.

The next morning, and early start had us drive up through Bern, where we stopped for a quick look around....this is another place that I would like to spend some more time in, as the historic centre is really very beautiful.

We made it up and out of Switzerland, through a bit of France and into Luxembourg, where we looked around for a couple of hours, and had a bite to eat. Then on to Brussels, which, I suppose like Lyon, I had no expectations of. And again, we found it to be a really beautiful looking place. We strolled around a bit near the Royal Palace, etc... Alex had a Belgian Waffle...and then we had to get to our campsite. We got to a place near Dunkerque called Brays Dunes (very French sounding, non?) just before sunset and set things up in the sand. An odd little resport / campground we stayed at, but an amazing long sandy beach, and one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen.

The next morning, we had time to do some grocery (read..wine) shopping before catching the boat back to Dover. By pure coincidence, the timing of this worked out so that we could see the Tour de France as Stage 1 passed through the south of England. While we spent most of the afternoon out there getting burned (a rare sunny day in England) the race itself was over in an instant. The riders were basically all together, and while we were on a hill, it meant nothing to them, and the whole lot of 'em whizzed by in about 20 seconds. I'd no idea that it would be all over so quickly.

Anyway, that's the quick lowdown on the trip. Sorry for the lack of interesting details. It had been too long since I posted, so I thought I'd better get something down soon.
I hope everyone is well.
Scott.