France 2 Part 4

While on the route Napoleon we drove through the Verdon George which was absolutely gorgeous and made the hours fly, I loved driving through the mountains. After we headed cross country through the Camargue. 

The Camargue was great and we saw some amazing sights including some flamingos! That night we camped by a canal and were swamped by mosquitoes. It wasn’t a very good night but the morning made up for it.

In the morning we stopped at a riding stable which had a big herd of Camargue ponies and about 10 Shetlands where dad tried to get a ride for me, but they didn't understand so dad spent about 30 min trying to talk to them while I patted the ponies. Just as we were about to give up and leave an old lady arrived and started feeding the ponies bread. At the last minute after she was on a horse and about to ride off when she asked if I was coming, so I got a nice ride after all. 

We had calculated that we had only about 2 hours to free time, but the horse ride took about 1 hour 40 minutes, so we were slightly behind time. Then disaster hit as we found ourselves in the middle of a colossal traffic jam which we found out later was all the people on holiday in the south of France where it was sunny and warm going back to the north for the beginning of school and work. We thought that there must have been a fuel strike because when we pulled into a servo for fuel there was about 60 cars lined up to use the pumps and only one person working at the till.

This put us seriously behind time so afterwards we just fanged along the motorway and had to skip a couple of things like Carcassonne which is a huge medieval fortified town and castle.

But we got to Jo's just on time so everything was OK.

Driving through the Camargue (you can see mosquitoes on our wind screen)

A picture of a canal and a lake in the Camargue

Me with the lady who got me a ride.

Some of the  horses walking to the feeding troughs

Horses at the troughs

Me heading of on the ride

A panorama of the country we rode on

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this, for some reason all the snails where on this side of this post. I didn't see any snails anywhere else, it was like they were having a meeting.

Camping on the Camargue

France 2 Part 3

After we realised that the school term was starting in France we drove straight to our friends Remy and Jenny in Grasse. Jenny and Remy have to sons of similar age to me who were learning English, so it was a bit hard to communicate but they had a translation app on their iPad so it worked out OK.

Most of the time we played video games and the Wii which was more educational as you think as it was all in French. But to get some fresh air we would jump in their lovely deep pool. They had a really nice house, we stayed in the ground story flat which was also very nice.

I really enjoyed staying with a French family because of the different culture.  At first it was hard to adjust to the different set of manners as I had never stayed with French people before who didn’t have English habits. But when I adapted it was great seeing all the little things that are just slightly different but still smart. I enjoyed the experience and can't wait till I can visit them again.

We had a day trip to Cannes and had a swim in the Mediterranean and compared to the locals I was very white. After that we set of on the route Napoleon to Port De Lann where my Aunty Jo and Uncle Fred live.

I had an amazing time and have learnt a lot.

Playing the WII

Dad and I at the the beach

Having dinner

At the Mediterranean

Driving through Grasse

France Trip 2, Part 1

On Tuesday the 19th of August we caught a ferry across the English Channel to Calais in France. We planned to spend about a month in France and rough agenda was to spend a week getting to Jo's house in Port de Lanne, have a week there before traveling to Remy and Jenny in Grasse. Then spend some time at their house on the Cote d'Azur  and another week driving back to Calais to catch the ferry.

The ferry trip wasn’t that bad because it was only an hour but I felt a little sick. When we were in England our friend Linnit had given us a little red ribbon to tie one the right handle bar so we would remember which side to drive on, even so I still had to remind dad.  We drove for a couple of hours and then camped for the night. 

The next day we visited some First World War memorials and grave yards. This was good because I learnt a lot of history, especially about trench warfare, and which countries were allies. That night we headed to Paris. By amazing coincidence we booked the same hotel as a previous visit, which I thought was cool. It was nice to stay in a hotel, even if it was the cheapest in Paris. We planned to go to the Louvre that night but I was too tired so we decided to go in the morning. 

We slept in and had to queue for a long time, but it was worth it because the Louvre is fantastic. I only got to see a fraction of it because we went to the Egyptian stuff first.We had only done a room when we decided to get an audio guide, which took about an hour including more queuing. I had waited on a bench in the Egyptian section and when dad got back we started listening, but the audio guide was only meant for one person and it was very good so dad went and got another one.

So, by the time we left the museum we had seen the Egyptian stuff and the Mona Lisa, which we raced to amongst the crowds before leaving.

As we left Paris we did a quick ride around the famous places/things like the Eiffel tower and the Arc de triumph before driving on South.

Me walking through 1 of 2000 war grave yards.

Me standing at the edge of a huge mine crater at La Boisselle. The 27 tonnes of explosive used left a mine crater is 30 metres deep and 90 metres wide.

An Australian war memorial with a statue of a digger.

A first world war memorial with bullet holes in from the second world war.

Camping on the front line

Driving down the Champs Elysee.

A picture of us in front of the Eiffel Tower

Getting stuck in a Ferrari race (sorry the pictures on the side).

A real mummy in the Louvre

Funerary servants that would work in the after-life for you.

A picture of the Mona Lisa

The Louvre museum is huge!

A statue of a king that had its arms and legs broken and was tied down because the Egyptians feared it would come to life.

France Trip 2, Part 2

After Paris we had another couple of days driving down south through the Loire  valley and other places. It was all nice driving, often we stopped to see a chateau,eat by a lake, or just admire the scenery, which suited me. For our food we would stop into a boulangerie (bakers) or a big super market. We didn’t take our trangia stove so our food was cold. Which was OK but it did get very repetitive, almost every meal consisted of baguette, butter, cheese, nectarine, salads and occasionally some cold meat. But I survived.

The next big destination in our journey was the Lascaux caves which are caves full of 30000 year old caveman paintings. Unfortunately you can't see the real caves because of preservative reasons but you can have a tour around an exact replica. This is what we decided to do. The tour was fascinating, I learnt lots of interesting things, for example because the paintings in the caves were painted in paints made only from minerals which is very rare they can't date the paintings and the date they gave to them was actually the date of the charcoal that was on the ground (this charcoal was from their prehistoric lanterns).

After the caves we drove on and camped the night amongst wildflowers on some waste-ground near a paddock full of horses. I went and patted them as I am missing my horse lots.We decided that we should go to Remy and Jenny's first because we wanted to catch them before work and school started because in France September is the time the new school year starts!

This is the most common style of art in the caves where the far leg is detached, in flickering light (candle light) they think this horse would have looked like it was moving.

The bull is one of the most common animals painted in the caves.

Also near the caves they have a zoo where you can look at all the closest relations to the animals painted in the caves.

This is a modern fallow deer, the ones caveman hunted where twice as big.

This goat wasn't at the zoo, it was at a place where we stopped at to buy cheese. I put it in because it was funny! :)

The roads we took through Verdon Gorge were absolutely spectacular.

Dad giving me a Geography lesson

A small chateau we stopped at, I couldn't believe it even had a moat.