We have been unto a lot since my last blog, we had another 3 days in Paris, which we spent eating a lot of baguettes, drinking a lot of wine, we went to the top of the Eiffel tower, lazed around in the parks drinking wine and people watching, saw all the sights, i think we road about 100km crazy i know. We went to the Catacombs which was really bizzar, there were hundreds of thousands of peoples bones all arranges in patterns and stacked neatly around a labyrinth of caves under the city its absolute crazy, in total you walk for a bout 2km around under ground, its so amazing to see you can actually touch the bones, theres nothing separating you from the bones its kinda eerie. We have a really good time just taking it slow, although Paris is amazing after a week we were a little over the crowds, there are just so many people around, so we headed off the see the D Day beaches.
The D Day beaches were pretty cool we stay at a campsite on Omaha beach which was one of the main beaches and the first beach the allied troops landed on in the war. The place we stayed at was really cool we were on the side of the cliff looking down to the beach. There are war bunkers scattered everywhere, we had several on the campsite and they had converted two of them into a stable for goats and geese, we went and checked out the beach and on low tide you can see where the man made pontoons that they used to bring in the tanks, guns and supplies were. Its crazy how many bunkers you come across just walking around they are everywhere and some of them still have big machine guns still inside. After the D Day beaches we headed to Mont St Michel, this place is absolutely amazing, its a small walled town with a massive church onto, we went for a walk inside, there is one very narrow road well more of and alley way leading up to the church and along the road are heaps shops, bars and restaurants, there is even one of frances top restaurants here, you will pay 17.90 euros per 100 grams of on omelet but you have to buy a minimum of 300 grams (this must be an amazing omelet). As we were walking up to the church it stated to poor down rain so we popped into one of the bars, this place was really cool, inside was all wooden beams and stone, and all of the wood had different carvings it was amazing, after the rain had stopped we headed to the church and walked around the city walls. The weather here is really strange it will rain then be sunny then rain again its gets kind of annoying after a while.
The next day we headed to St Marlo which is on the west coast of france, we were hoping for better weather but no it was still freezing cold and raining but we mad the most of it. The place we stayed at was an old forte and right next to our van was an old bronze gun bunker, you could still see the gun inside but it looked as though it was pretty shot up in a war, there was even bullets still lodged into the side of it. While we were there, there was a music festival on where they had stages set up all around the town and you could walk around and watch different bands play, some of then were pretty good but others were absolutely terrible. The next day we went for a walk into the walled city of st marlo, this place was pretty cool it had small cobblestone streets and on the outside wall you could walk around the entire city. Next we were off to Carnac, this is a small beach town that happen to have 1100 large upright stones all in lines that go for kilometres, these are supposed to pre date stone henge by 100 years, it was cool to see but they weren't as impressive as stone henge. We went for a ride around the town and along the beach it was so nice the weather is finally starting to warm up.
The next day we got up early and were on our way to Nantes, when Hans decided to snap a fan belt, we stopped on the side of this small highway in the middle of no where, we did manage to stop in front of a house but the old couple that lived there spoke no english and pretty much had no idea what we were saying, we spent about half an hour playing charades just to get an address, we finally just call the roadside assistance people they they managed to find us, we spent the next 8 hours waiting at the mechanics, Fun Fun. we finally got onto the road again about 4.30 in the arvo and decided to give Nantes a miss and headed to a a place on the coast called La Roche, we arrived there about 8pm and were both absolutely exhausted. After an awesome sleep we headed to La Rochelle this place was really cool, it had old cobblestone streets and an old harbour, the streets here are a bit narrow though and it was a bit of the tight squeeze with hans. We wondered around for a while got some lunch and ice-cream and then headed to la cote savauge which is right on the beach and there is suppose to have surf there, we arrived and unfortunately for mike there was no surf.
Next we were off to Bordeaux, it really cool driving through the county side there are massive fields of grape vines and sunflowers everywhere, we stopped the other day to get some photos in the fields of the sunflowers, its crazy how big they are, they are the same size as me. We arrived in Bordeaux mid arvo and wen for a look in town the place were were stay at wannest far about a 15min tram ride, the city centre its self was really busy it was like a massive open air shopping centre, with streets everywhere of just shops. we only sept a few hours there on the first day just looking around. the next day we headed back to check out all the sights, we walked around for hours its really cool you can be walking down a random alley way and when you pop out you are at some amazing little square full of restaurants or markets lining the streets, Bordeaux was cool but as the weather is finally heating up we needed to get to a beach so we headed to lacanau. It was lunchtime by the time we arrived and we got set up,as it was 35 deg we headed down to the beach, it was awesome finally hot weather and surf for mike. Its really strange it was 35 deg outside but the water was freezing, it was nice to go for a quick dip but you couldn't stay too long in there. One thing i have noticed about europeans is that they are not shy at the beach, you will find not only topless girls everywhere but stark naked men and women just chillin with there families having a good old time, it kind of makes you feel a little uncomfortable when you look behind you and there is old man butt naked chucken the biggest leg spread, not a sight you want to see. We have spent the last few days just chilling at the beach its been so nice the weather has been amazing around 35 deg.
The next day we met up with our friends Paul and Courtney at a winery, the winery was really cool the owner Alex showed us around and how they bottled and made the wine, alex was really nice and let us park our vans on the property for the night, that night we drunk a few bottles of wine and hung out amongst the grape vines. it was so amazing to be able to just chill out at a random winery in the middle of france. the next few days we have pretty much just been hanging out with paul and courtney making our way down to pamploma for running of the bulls in the next few days.
Well i better be off to have a glass of bordeaux's finest.
until next time.
