promenadingpeacocks

A straightfoward drive up and we sailed through the ‘bouchon’ black spot. We noted getting stuck can add an hour to the journey so starting that bit earlier was a good plan! the weather which had been pretty gloomy turned really wet and nasty so a stop at baie de somme was very welcome. I bought yet another chrimbo heart in the tempting gift shop. At boulogne we filled up with cheapo gasoil and found the hotel. A meal in the nearby buffalo grill restored us and we ended up lingering over the cafe gourmand we had said we wouldn’t have room for……we did! Then a catch up with the fam via facebook and chat followed by a quiet night in a comfy bed and the prospect of blighty to come. Hope yesterday’s strong winds have died now a bit or we maybe in for a bumpy crossing!

a row of sparkly carrier bags, tins full of cake and mince pies….must be christmas coming and us going across le manche. the kent sisters decided we are too noisy to inflict ourselves on some poor pub and its customers yet again so have hired a hall for our ‘do’. family coming from the south west and north west and from various points around the m25. the hilton is the bed stop of choice and sunday breakfast there should be jolly….let the fun begin! 🙂

a lovely jaunt. we left at ten o’clock as planned and drove through sunny countryside, stopping around eleven thirty for coffee in st andre de najac. a stone house with a pretty terrace outside and a bar that reminded us of an english pub.  dotted about the place were flyers for a fish and chip night the following evening. clearly an english affair! 🙂

moving on we looked for a likely place to eat our sarnie lunch and plumped for a lane just before laguepie leading to an aire which we didn’t find but which led us down to a campsite on the river viaur.

passing cordes sur ciel and surprised by the lack of traffic on the road we soon arrived in albi and easily found the car park – google earth plus its photos is really helpful! a short walk across the place du vigan to our hotel and our very green room overlooking a side alley.  next time overlooking the place, lou said.  ooh, goodie, there will be a next time?

the lady on the desk had given us a map of the ‘vieux ville’ and we strolled to the palais de la berbie (the toulouse lautrec museum) via the covered marketplace.

(it is not lopsided, that is the effect of my wide angle lens!) at the palais there was a very jolly chappie on the desk who asked everyone for their ‘code postal’. on hearing my 46 he joked about the strange accent of les 46s. oui, i replied, tres unique! the art work was as stunning as i remembered it from ages ago but the palais has undergone a lot of expert refurbishment and uncovered some stunning architectural features. i was particularly taken by the 13th century tiled and painted floor in the grand salle and a painted corridor ceiling discovered under layers and layers of chaux. amazing the lime in it didn’t ruin the colours! no photos allowed but i found a post card of the ceiling.

a pause for tea and pie (no patisseries on offer!) with a view of the cathedral draped in nets

the weather was still bright and sunny, how lucky was that?  the cathedral looms above everything and i still thought it looked like an enormous grain silo!  we decided to go inside as lou didn’t last time we were there and i was keen to see the marvellous painted ceilings and walls, becoming a recurring theme? 🙂  our day pass tickets we had bought from the tourist office next door to the palais entitled us to visit the choir but half of it was closed for refurbishment.  this happens to us a lot on our promenades!  i’m sure gav and i didn’t pay last time we visited but it was only a few euros for anyone even without the passes. we strolled and took photos (no flash allowed) and then sat outside for a bit before heading back to the hotel.  who knows how long this wonderful weather will last?

walking back i dived up some steps to a cloister (i love to read any tourist signs on walls and had already learnt from one about the ‘pastel’ trade that made albi rich in previous centuries. ‘pastel’ turned out to be woad! ).  the cloister was the cloister of saint salvi, a church that still survives but only a part of the cloister is left after the destruction following the revolution.

back at base i brewed up a redbush tea and we pondered where to eat later.  the wifi was weak and i gave up trying to update this blog!  the lovely lady on the desk had several places that might suit but each turned out to be closed for toussant.  finally she remembered a little bistro across the square called le petit boucher which sounded just right.  we decided to check it out but on the way i had to pop into eurodif, a shop filled with christmas goodies so, despite my protestations about chrimbo coming too early,  i bought a festive heart to swing from a door handle!

the bistro was fine but le patron asked me to come back at seven thirty so we went back to the square and took aperos outside a big bar facing down the ‘place’.  the tables were dressed with candles in pumpkins and the waiters were halloween face painted.  groups of infant witches and ghosts accompanied by mums came by to trick or treat and were offered a basket of sweets from which to choose .  the fountains played and the people of albi passed by or sat down to share chat and drinks.  i reflected that town life can have its compensations in a pleasant place such as albi.

then we headed to the bistro for a sumptuous meal.  entrees, then a huge jarret de porc – each – followed by the best creme brulee i have ever tasted.  note to self, check what exactly the chef means by jarret du porc, in this case it weighed in at over a kilo each according to the waitress!  we slept well!

we slept well enough in our green room with the squeaky floor (not old floorboards, rather laminate laid on top) and went down for breakfast.  i had read on one review not to bother going out to the brasserie on the ground floor but enjoy the copious hotel offering.  so we did despite still feeling a tad bloated from the porc of the night before!

checking out we discovered that we had been given a third off the car parking price but didn’t need to leave until after lunch so a bit more time in a lovely town and the sun was still shining.   it being a jour ferie/bank holiday a lot of shops were shut but the tights shop i has spotted the day before was open and i bought a couple of lovely pairs.  i had first seen this chain in sienna in italy a few years back and never found them in france…result.   as we strolled down for one last look at the cathedral we spotted a market all around the covered one.  so photo opportunities as well as purchasing ones!

however, we had two photo exhibitions we wanted to see in toulouse, our next stop, so we rejoined the car under the place and headed for ‘toutes directions’.  an easy drive to toulouse down a road that is mostly a new motorway so we were soon in familiar territory and, happily, found an empty space in the car park right next door to the edf espace bazacle on the bank of the garonne and nothing to pay due it being that bank holiday.

i had seen the edf expo featured in the depeche, a mine of information, which is why it was added at the last minute to our trip. plus, it had the added advantage of being open from eleven o’clock and on through lunchtime. the other place we were going to only ever opens at two in the afternoon.  what is more, it was free!

it is not clear to us if the bazacle is still a functioning hydro-electricity plant or not. there is a turbine hall with moving turbines but due to maintenance work we couldn’t go in…the promenading gremlins strike again!  the views inside and out are pretty spectacular if you like an industrial context.

we crossed a platform with various bits of industrial kit placed like sculptures and went into the exhibition space. the upper floors were devoted to portraits from china, a country with whom edf says it has strong links. the staging of the expo was jolly and many of the faces unforgettable.

down another level we came to the story of edf and its connection with water, very interesting if i had been looking for a school visit but a bit finger waving about the environment. i wondered if they do all they say they do!  but the information about fish in the garonne was good and, later, down yet again, we saw into the fish pass that noisily churns the water below a sunny terrace overlooking the garonne and the far bank.  in this almost subterranean gallery there was an exhibition devoted to the monuments to the dead of the first world war around toulouse with photographs of certain memorial features. was it only me who found it a bit macabre to put this so far down in the earth?

coming up for air we asked the chap on the desk for the nearest cafe for lunch. he sent us off down the riverbank towards the place saint pierre where, indeed, we found places to eat and were able to eat lightly!

we decided to cross the river via pont st pierrre to find the chateau d’eau, our next rendezvous, and circle back over the pont neuf to the car. so we did.

a pleasant walk over the river, making sure to sidestep the dog poo, and then along the back streets to the chateau d’eau, another old waterworks. i love galleries in old industrial sites.

the expo we were hoping to see was of doisneau and dieuzade, two photographers and friends.  the idea was to show companion pieces by each photographer.  i have to admit to being able to spot doisneau’s work from each group, only making a mistake once.  hard to say how i did it, just that, for me, doisneau has something extra in his work, a comment enshrined in the image somehow and not always a happy one.

whilst there we saw a poster advertising an evening dedicated to vivian maier with a film show.  would it be alan yentob’s we wondered. 🙂

all gawped out, we wandered back over the pont neuf and along the quai de la daurade. the toulousains were out in force in the sunshine. people strolled, took cruises on river boats, lounged on the grass, sat along the water’s edge, played instruments….and smoked a lot of weed if the smell was anything to go by! 🙂

back at the car we set the gps to find our way out of the one way system and to the autoroute.  on the way home i spotted a multicoloured hot air balloon rsing slowly into the late afternoon sky….a last summery sight.

had to abort last sunday’s trip to albi but there is a silver lining! we are set to go to albi on friday to see the exhibition at the toulouse lautrec museum and then onto toulouse on saturday to see two photo exhibitions…exciting!

meanwhile a walk in the sunshine…..

No, I wasn’t all sight see-ed/sight saw-ed out. nimes is lovely. A small town where every alley and street you wander down invariably brings you back to where you started from. Our hotel was very welcoming despite us arriving too early for normal booking in. a car park place was allocated and a room ready. A map was provided and a recommendation for lunch with a discount if we showed our b and b bill.

A straight walk down the rue de la republique (isn’t it always?) and we came to les arenes. Dirtier than the one in arles but possibly more impressive at first sight as we saw it across a wide square, empty except for a sculpture of a toreador.

As one of the three main sites of nimes we had to visit it but spurned the audio guide. This meant we were able to follow the arrows for the ‘visite’ without becoming one of the many people cluttering up the place, handset glued to one ear! I was sad to see less stone seating than in arles but then read a helpful panel, one of many, that explained that in the middle ages the town of nimes moved wholesale into the arena so forming themselves into a fortified town without the hassle of building walls.

So the stone must have been recycled! We walked up and down and round and round but were not allowed to stand on the top level which lou was keen to do in the interests of a good photo, comme d’hab.

From there we had coffee and pondered the next move. Then the rain started. We were equipped with raincoats and wearing jeans, a precaution many tourists hadn’t taken. Perhaps they are not avid readers of the meteo as lou is! We looked for the place du marche as that was where the recommended restaurant was located. The menu looked good, the rain continued to fall and so we opted for an early and long lunch, last day and all that! 🙂

across from where we sat was this fountain with a broken column and a crocodile….why?(After the Egyptian campaign, some of the soldiers of Augustus moved to Nimes. Their victory was symbolized by a crocodile chained to a palm tree, then a recovery representation on coins minted in Nimes and become much later (in François 1er) arms and the emblem of the city. In the 1980s, the combination palm / crocodile is reinterpreted by Philippe Starck. Present everywhere in the city, the illustration of ancient origin does not fail to pique the curiosity of visitors …) this quote is a translation, (not mine!) of why there are so many crocodiles in nimes! 🙂

suitably replete and with the rain stopped temporarily we headed off into the alleys to find the maison carre, rather an odd name for a roman temple, another of THE sites.

We didn’t find it but came out eventually onto place st antonin.

I had been diving down side alleys to read specially composed panels (french, english and spanish) on specific old buildings.

St antonin is the beginning of the quai de la fontaine. A pretty canal with plane trees on either side which we strolled along towards the jardin de la fontaine.

Another of THE three sites with the t­emple of diana on one side and the tour magne on the hill above. We looked in the temple and quacked at the ducks in the elaborate stone pond swimming with gold fish.

The clouds were threatening and black so we decided against climbing the hill to the tour. Another day, another visit!

walking back towards the centre of town we managed to find the carre d’art and the maison carre. One is a modern art gallery and the other a roman temple, facing each other across a square at the top of boulevard victor hugo.

We noticed lots of police and security around as well as crash barriers and lots of hazard tape. Clearly there was going to be a bit of a do happening later on! Bars and food stalls were going up all the way down the road.

We knew there was a cours camarguaise happening in les arenes that evening which we fancied seeing (as no bulls would be getting hurt). The ticket office asked us to go back at five o’clock as a decision about whether it would be taking place would be made then in light of the storm warning in force. I bought a local paper and discovered we had arrived in nimes at the start of the feria des vendanges, four days of bullfights, music and boozing as far as we could make out!

Not long before six we walked back to the ticket office but found notices saying the cours had been cancelled. A ‘fanfare’ was playing in front of the arenes but no sooner had I sat down to listen but the rain started and we quickly moved over to the shelter of the nearby building.

It turned out we were standing in front of the local radio station and lou noticed a sign on the door advertising a free photo exhibition so we spent a few minutes looking at the work of one of the radio journalists. A personal collection of photos of nimes life. Back outside the rain was still falling and the evening became something of a damp squib.

The newspaper’s list of events didn’t appear to be happening and after a couple of drinks in different bars and a sandwich from one of the many stalls doing little business we called it a night. We walked home passing the police car that had been patrolling the virtually empty streets and the music playing to empty buvettes. I hope the next four days of feria are more successful!

i wondered if i was getting sight seeing overload while wandering around avignon. i found myself disappointed with the town. i’m trying to explain it to myself. maybe because the song learnt so long ago left an impression of a pretty city with a bridge and that image has stuck. the reality is a lovely set of walls and gates with plane trees harmonising beautifully with the mellow stone but inside those walls not a lot to please the eye. the enormous palais des papes is a thumping great monstrosity bearing down over a square which has a garden up high on one side.

there is a church as well, equally imposing. i didn’t have any desire to go into any of it which isn’t like me.

after arrival and easy parking plus coffee we found the tourist office where an enthusiastic chap gave us a map and told us about the exhibition we had seen advertised on various trees! it is in the old prison, not the normal venue for this art gallery to use and not a building that is often open. we soon found out why! the maison d’arret was down several flights of stairs under the walls of the palais and hidden in a narrow back street. we gulped at the entrance fee which was more than we had paid so far this holiday but soldiered on in high expectation.

oh, it was grim. not just the building but the artworks. the cells were the exhibition spaces and there were a lot of them!

nothing had been done to them since the last inhabitants left (only ten years ago)  to enhance the experience! even the toilet was in one. claustrophobia had got to me by then and i crossed my legs rather than use it!

we pushed on but i have to admit that up on the second floor i suddenly felt very bad and had to walk very fast past the open cell doors and stand, breathing deeply, at the top of  a flight of stairs that promised to take me down the ground floor and, hopefully, the exit. lou went on looking into cells and spotted there were some andy warhols. the title and frontispiece of the exhibition should have warned us, i suppose, but it didn’t. the inspiration was an article by pasolini in 1975 who noticed the fireflies had disappeared in his home due to pollution. hence the outpouring of gloom! the whole lot is enia righi’s private collection. rather him/her than me.

after that we were very pleased to be back in the sunshine and hungry! the restaurants around the place de horloge and the square in front of the palais seem over priced and not very special. we found a little square called the place des calmes with plane trees and a couple of cafes.

they seemed friendly and local so we plumped for one of them. a big bowl of fig, mozzarella and jambon cru salad and i began to feel less hunted.

then we wandered back to the car through narrow and apparently unloved side streets and main roads full of shops. in the square next to les halles, an extraordinary building covered in dark foliage, there were some brocante sellers with their goods spread out on the paving slabs.

so some bright moments but i still didn’t feel much affection for the place. this morning as we drove out to find the road to nimes we drove along the side of the rhone and past the bridge of the song and it is very pretty, i’m glad to say!

a slow start to our full day in marseille. the breakfast baguette tasted like yesterday’s bread but slathered with butter and apricot jam you almost didn’t notice! from the open window in our room we can hear a bird singing. we assume it is a bird. some sort of songbird but the constant whistling is a bit repetitive. ‘bet that pleases the neighbours’, lou said.

our french neighbours in calvi, on hearing we were coming to marseille, recommended that we visit the new museum, mucem, as it is ‘fabuleux’ and it was. we strolled down the quai de la jolliette past more buildings being refurbished for ‘commerces et restaurants’. with the ongoing ‘crise’ one wonders where all the entrepreneurs who are going to set up businesses will come from. further down the quay another big ferry from tunisia had arrived and was offloading. the threatened bad weather didn’t seem to be arriving either and i began to feel quite hot in the sunshine.

as we approached the area where mucem is located we found a big open area housing another museum as well. the ‘villa mediterranie’ is housed in a magnificent cantilevered building, maybe inspired by the prow of a ship, i wondered?

mucem is covered in curly wire mesh (sounds awful, looked good) but wasn’t open until eleven o’clock.

we used the time to take photos of the sea, the harbour, the church behind us, the boats…….

in the museum we got a reduction due to age, not something that happens that often in france.  mucem concentrates on the history of the peoples around the mediterranean and looked at three main areas; cultivation, communication and religion. finding water has always been a concern and there were various models and artifacts used to find and pump it. we spent ages touring all the exhibits and reading the notices which were thoughtfully translated into english. there were no temporary exhibitions so we moved on upstairs to the roof terrace which has a ‘passerelle’ across to the fort st jean.

there were more exhibitions spaces over there as well as a lot of steps and paths all round the different buildings inside the fort. we went into an exhibition of five young artists and their conceptual (always a warning in that word!) video work concerning today’s casablanca.  oddly there was an exhibit of puppets- why do they always have such scary faces?- and a large model of circuses/circii? a bit random, we thought.

it was now well into the lunch hour and the sun was beating down (we both had raincoats in our back packs!) so we left the fort and walked along the vieux port looking for a menu that would suit. one offering salad nicoise with fresh capers sounded just right.

afterwards, lou asked where i was taking him. he is well used to my study of places we visit and he traipses along ‘following the flag’ as he calls it. (today we saw a group following an umbrella!). so off we went to look at the three buildings the germans didn’t blow up when they blew up the ‘le panier’ area in 1943 and deported 15, 000 inhabitants to camps at frejus. i can quote accurate figures because it was written into the street surface as we left the fort.

personally i couldn’t see why the buildings had been saved. they are pretty ugly although one had the distinction of being lifted on jacks and turned through a 90 degree angle when the road was relaid.

the next landmark turned out to be a steep flight of steps called ‘accoules’. no idea what it means but up them we toiled and down the other side.

then a winding walk trying to follow the map and the road signs to the hospice de la vieille charite. it contains a couple of museums but both were closed on mondays. the building appears enormous even if you weren’t approaching it through narrow streets of very tall, thin buildings. a peaceful place where people loitered in its cloisters and pigeons pottered.

by now we hankered for a little pause in our day so walked back to la jolliette and snoozed a bit having decided we would go back down to the vieux port in the evening and try our first boullabaise in the town that made it famous.

which we did and very good it was too. we looked at several menus but went for a reasonably priced one (prices ranged from 24 to 69 euros!) at a restaurant doing roaring business, always a good sign. we sat inside as the terrace was full but that only meant we got to see a lot of the backstage action and were still close enough to the open doors to hear the evening buzz of the harbour. we both suffered the ignominy of having bibs tied around our necks as did all the other customers!

a stroll back up rue de la republique which started its fete yesterday. the pavement carried printed signs heralding 150 years of business and earlier there had been announcements over the street tannoy about upcoming events. odd thing to celebrate when all the shops fronts are boarded up!

i would love to come back and see how la jolliette looks when it is all finished. a good excuse to revisit to such a lively place!

well it had to happen. we’ve had glorious weather for the whole trip but today has started grey and lou says the meteo is forecasting storms this morning and showers this afternoon. good job we’ve planned a museum visit!

we arrived yesterday after following the coast from toulon rather than the motorway. tom tom had a few wobbles, like taking us through the centre of st cyr la mer and its wonderful but narrow plane tree lined main street and not being able to count the number of exits on some roundabouts. the views of the bay at bandol were pretty and from the forest behind the calanques approaching cassis quite spectacular if we weren’t all sceneryed out by corsica! before marseille we came over la gineste, a wild and open landscape that has an army firing range in the middle!

tom tom did his best to find the hotel but was frustrated by a number of closed streets. we noticed a lot of police around and then spotted a few tired runners with numbers on. we had arrived at the tail end of a city marathon! down a back street off a wide boulevard with trams lines down the middle (rue de la republique, of course!) we found the b and b hotel with its teensy car park under the building. we did the booking in bit and then went off to find drinks and plan the rest of the day.

a lively brasserie just across from here in the place joliette was doing good business so we sat ourselves down. watching large plates of huge burgers with chips made our mouths water so we ordered two ‘chessy’ burgers with chips and salad but mine ‘sans fromage’. with a cinquante of rose we sat under a blue sky and enjoyed the view.

across the ‘place’ was the old building called ‘les docks’, former dock warehouses now being turned into shops, offices and restaurants. across from there was a huge modern building called ‘les terraces du port’. we went to explore after lunch and found an enormous and very modern shopping mall over three floors boasting 190 boutiques and restaurants.

amazingly, it was all open even though it was sunday and doesn’t close until 10pm and 1 in the morning for the restaurants. we sailed up on the escalators and wandered around ‘window licking’ as the french call it. up on the top floor we found the real ‘terraces’ which stretch the length of the building and overlook the docks.

we watched a ferry arrive from tunisia and could see others away to our right.  back downstairs we decided a little sieste wouldn’t do any harm and we hadn’t yet collected our stuff from the car and settled into our room up on the sixth floor…no, sad to say, no view of the water!

later, armed with a map we had been given by the tourist office desk in ‘les terraces’ we walked straight down the rue de la republique to the vieux port.

the boulevard is lined with blocks of six storey apartment buildings all in the same style that are being renovated; some are still lived in, some in the process of being gutted and some with signs saying ‘new flat for sale’.  i wondered where the old tenants are being housed while all this urban renewal goes on. walking back later we popped into a small corner shop and bar to buy some bits and bobs. outside elderly arab and chinese men and women were playing cards and dominoes at pavement tables. a young man came up to the till while we were waiting to pay and asked for ‘deux’. he was given two single cigarettes and paid three euros for them. what a contrast with the shoppers and diners in ‘les terraces’!

the vieux port is huge and lively. rows and rows of bars, cafes and restaurants everywhere you look. on the water rows and rows of boats of every size, ferries leaving regularly and a busy metro station in the middle of the enormous concourse between the water and the road at the innermost edge. its roof is mirrored on the underside and you get a disorienting view of passersby as you gaze up at it.

we walked on around the port following the notre dame de la garde walk without any intention of climbing up to notre dame itself, a church that can be seen from every point in marseille.

we climbed as far as abbaye saint victor, a rather austere fortress-like church towards the eastern end of the vieux port.

from there we walked down some steps to the quay and back along towards the rue d’orves, a wide street that was more like a ‘place’. full of bars (as is everywhere!) we sat in the shade of one opposite the art and craft museum, closed mondays!  sipping a cool glass of rose and people watching was very pleasant as the whole range of marseille life passed by. multicultural, multiracial and all ages and groupings sat and drank or walked and talked or did a bit of all four!

well, this holiday i have gobsmacked lou by managing to get up BEFORE 5 o’clock to catch the ferry to calvi and then getting up yesterday at seven, breakfasting,showering, drying hair, putting on the slap, packing the last bits, cleaning the chalet, chatting to the neighbours as we gave them our last perishables and getting away by 9 o’clock….mmmm, maybe not such a good idea as i may have set a trend i’d rather not continue! 🙂

a bit traumatic waiting to get the all clear re the state of the chalet from the chap who zooms around on his buggy and uses a walkie talkie to tell the girls in the office if i did ok. i did, so got the ‘caution’  (300 euros) and cleaning deposit back. well, really, 70 euros to clean a 16 square metre space…andy, take note!

we drove straight to l’ile rousse as planned and parked up in the car park right by the dock gates so we wouldn’t be caught out in a long queue. then it was off to find coffee, comme d’hab and then explore the town.

the dock is out on a spur of rock behind the marina and the walk revealed the first genoise tower that i have seen close up. small and the same colour as the rock upon which it sat, no wonder i haven’t been able to spot them in long distance views.

ile rousse is a pretty town, full of alleyways and steps and with a pentaque competition going on in every conceivable space.

in the town square there was even banked seating where you could watch the goings-on. we sat on a bench in the shade for a time.

we had already found a market under the halle and i had bought a slab of tarte aux herbes (well, bletes and onions) and a small chestnut cake to keep the hunger pangs at bay on the crossing.

we had read a sign that said the dock gates opened two hours before sailing so we strolled back to the restaurant that we’d had coffee in and ordered two jambon and mozzarella panini. with a ‘pression’ and an orangina we felt ready for the foray that loading might be. and it was! four lanes of cars, that we could see, that had waited in the boiling sun (i had festooned everything i could lay my hands on the keep out the heat) all keen to get on board.

oddly, when the ferry arrived, late and loading started, they waved on the latest cars to arrive. strange, we thought. then lou decided they were probably putting them up on the ‘shelf’ and indeed they had. so we might get off quickly then, we thought. mistakenly, as it turned out!

the crossing was calm and sunny and the canned music repeated itself constantly. we managed to get the last bit of banquette seating along the side wall of the bar so could lean back when not reading, playing word games, going out to look at the sea or buying drinks. we guarded it jealously and opted to stay put and eat the sandwiches i had made as it was clear that we would never find a place to sit again if we left. the same passengers walked round and round pathetically and their numbers were swelled when the cabin passengers were told to leave their cabins an hour before we docked which turned into an hour and a half as we were late getting in.

no spouting whale!

a major excitement was suddenly spotting a whale spouting water. we both turned at the same moment and glimpsed it. i went out a bit later and saw it again…magic! lou went out with his camera but it is not the sort of thing that happens on cue! 🙂 sadly the ferries are built to get you across the water, not to look at it and viewing points are few and always crowded.

we were told we would dock at 9.40 and maybe we did but by then we were jammed in a corridor (oh, the claustrophobia) trying to find the way to deck 3, zone 5. we knew where we had to go but the signs were non existent. finally lou realised that next to the sign that said deck six was a door to the stairs that led to deck 5, 4 and three!

at the car i climbed across lou’s seat to get into mine as we had been directed to park so close to the wall i couldn’t get out of my door. ‘avante, avante, gauche, gauche, droit, droit’ the chap yelled. i’m surprised lou didn’t slap him!

the usual (we now realise) mayhem to disembark. we think the priority loading people came on at the absolute last minute and parked facing everyone else. we watched as they all had to reverse and turn in a limited space plus some drivers hadn’t even managed to find their cars when the ramps eventually went down. as we drove off i saw that the other side of the boat was already empty!

but finally we were off and driving along the dock, part of a huge stream of traffic. i was amazed to hear crickets chirping on a concrete dock and in the dark!

tom tom got us back quickly to the b and b hotel and i sank gratefully into their lovely, comfy bed…with a cup of redbush tea, bien sur! 🙂

Wifi packed up in our area of the camp site and despite reassurances from the office that it is working again…it ain’t! So we’re writing our blog bits to post later. After a bit of a tidy up and packing we walked along the boardwalk to calvi. The threatened bad weather hasn’t arrived except for some spectacular clouds out to sea and over the mountains and we hope it stays that way for our last evening.

In calvi we drifted around the souvenir shops, well, I drifted and lou muttered. After beer and cappucino we looked at boards outside restaurants and cafes (there are loads!) and plumped for the one we had eaten in last sunday as we liked the sound of the ‘menu corse’. A table for two, still near the loo but with a better view of the marina, for me this time!

A platter of capaccio of lonzu, a local ham, with sanglier pate and salad, followed by seabream with grilled veg, square chips with aoli and then chestnut cake for me and crème brulee for lou. back to the diet next week! 🙂

a wander to find a bank and some reading matter for the boat tomorrow and a quick pop into the pretty church hemmed in by restaurants in place santa maria. i was surprised by the huge domed ceiling as it can’t be seen from the outside.

A stroll back along the beach from where we saw a ferry leaving…for where, we wondered. then back to the cleaning of the chalet. Nice! 🙂