Oct 26, 2012 - Perpignan, France

Had a bright sunny apartment in Perpignan a few minutes from the train station and about 5 minutes to town centre. After a balmy day on arrival, a vicious northerly gale (55kph) hit and hung around for 2 days. Even though the skies remained beautifully blue it was very cold and hidious to walk around in. Day three, the wind had dropped so we took a bus out to the coast to Canet. Probably a 10 minute drive in a car but 45 in the bus which only cost 1 Euro each way. What a beautiful beach. Not many people around but you could see in summer...

Jul 30, 2011 - Perpignan and laundry

Saturday was our day for the Catalan city of Perpignan, the nearest big city and one we had only skirted around going to and from Barcelona. We were only really interested in visiting the old town and I foolishly thought if we drove around we would simply land in the middle. Not! Rather we found ourselves heading out of town so decided to reverse the order of the day’s plan and go to the beach first. Argelés sur Mere was recommended by Val and John so off we went. Well not so fast there! Too quickly we were part of a crawl of traffic for...

Apr 15, 2011 - Heading to the cruise ship

The kids finished their next 6 weeks of school, so it was time for another 2 weeks of vacation. We had had 5 great weeks of visitors, but have now seen most of Aix. So it was time to start exploring. We have a cruise booked starting Saturday in Barcelona. So we picked the kids up from school and started driving toward Spain. A nice little Petit Déjeuner roadside motel made for a good overnight destination. 3 Euros for a buffet breakfast for the kids is a deal. Have we mentioned www.booking.com? It lets you search for hotels that actually...

Oct 30, 2010 - Perpignan

We are up and out of Sitges early, heading north towards France. The topography has changed considerably with the Pyrenees and the growth of trees. We stop at Figueres to see the largest surrealistic object in the world: Salvador Dali’s personal museum. It opened in 1974; the Dalí Theatre-Museum was built upon the remains of the former Figueres theatre. It contains the broadest range of works spanning the artistic career of Salvador Dalí (1904-1989), from his earliest artistic experiences and his surrealist creations down to the works of...

Sep 29, 2010 - paris to barcelona

Our wonderful plan of having a sleeper to Barcelona, complete with shower and toilet, and arriving refreshed in the morning ready and raring to go, didn't quite work out. we arrived early at the station be told there was a general strike in Spain on our day of arrival . We were asked to wait as they hoped to come up with an alternative. While we waited we found a few other english speaking people an Australian mum dad with two primary school aged children, and two Americans. As only one official spoke English, and not too well, we all put...

Jul 9, 2009 - Moving South !!

On the road again -- I decided to stay another day (wednesday) at the lake side sun and the constant breeze proved a great laundry opportunity !! So great day relaxing reading and HEY I GOT HOT WATER -- eating great food and finishing my wine stocks -- Need to replace ! This morning my newly invented shower dance was useless -- ( the shower dance is done when you are naked and in a 24"Long and 12 "wide shower tray that has a drain at one end and the Van is angled in such a way that the water is at teh other -- So you take your right foot...

Sep 1, 2008 - A hitch-hiker's guide to the South of France.

It all started when we stepped off the train and into the reality of signs marked only in French. Of the few French words I have learned, Sortie (exit), is one of them; therefore I followed the signs. That Sortie brought us to a deserted, ugly, completely non-French town that burned our expectations and left us walking aimlessly up the street in hopes of a helpful taxi. The aimless walking lead us to a SUV of men (whom I realized were drunk only after I got in the car) who wanted to take us to the nearest hotel. The nearest hotel was a...

Jun 26, 2008 - France (Port Bacares)

Camping “Pre Catalan”, Port Barcares, France. Had a shower which I shared with a nosey little green tree frog. I first noticed it as it crawled up the shower door. Then it sat on the top of the door and waited patiently until I had finished and vacated the shower. Then it wandered off across the wall towards the shower head. Maybe I had jumped the queue and it was its turn. We decided to stay an extra day here as there was the promise of a local market at the Port Barcares Beach. Although this turned out to not be the case there was a...

Sep 16, 2006 - France..........

Well today could be our very last day in France...at least till we have to go back through it to get to the UK. We look like heading out to Spain today. Mum has had enough of the French language. Unlike the Italians that always sound like they are arguing, some of these one`s just don`t stop talking! The hotel we stumbled into last night and from where I am now writing this, is a nice way to end our time here. Over the last few days it has been a lot of stuff ups and only one of them was ours. That was only due to the fact that we thought...

Aug 6, 2006 - Perpignon, the Med and Jimmy Cliff

The next three days could be summed up nicely as: Lazed around. Walked into town. Played with Josh and chatted with Irene. Drank wine. There was one variation today though, hence this entry, because we took a drive up the coast to Perpignon, about 90km from Quillan, to watch Jimmy Cliff - the king of reggae cheese - perform. Had my first swim in the Mediterranean for about 15 years which was a blessed relief from the sweltering heat. Perpignon`s beaches are lovely, if not quite built up with hotels and holiday apartments, but the funniest...

Jul 17, 2005 - Somewhere in France

After getting up fairly early for our long trip ahead of us to Spain, we packed up and headed out. We stopped in Lauterbrunnen to do some last minute souvenir shopping and then headed north out of the mountains towards Bern. I had always envisioned Bern being in the mountains, but it is on a plain with the mountains rising up behind it. I know some of my ancestors came from close by Bern, so I guess they probably weren't mountain folk. They probably farmed the plains around Bern. From Bern we took the autobahn southwest to Lausanne and...

Jun 25, 2005 - France

A bit of a nightmare getting through France as i was planning to go to Nice and work along the south coast but on arrival at the station i was told by a thoroughly helpful Frenchman that the only place i could go was Montpellier. And so from there i went to Peprpignon where i met some great people. I planned to go to the beach for the day on route to Barcelona and then to some other area of Spain. This time though the train didn't even show up so i had to stay the night and when again at 5 in the morning no train after i finally showed up...