Archive for the 'France' Category

Day 9; Away from everything

One last night in France. No cities, no tours, no nothing. The final night to be spent away from everything in the countryside. At least that’s what we decided when looking around on “Chambre d’Hotes de Charme”. We needed something north of Reims, relatively close to Calais to avoid having to haul ass the next day and above all, something quiet and peaceful. So we found Manoir Francis. If I could choose only one photo that sums up my experience here, it’d be the below.

We received a warm welcome and got a whole host of information about the area and where is best to go for dinner. All the useful stuff. As soon as we got to the room the boots came off, the jeans went on and I sank into the a bed as comfortable as we’d experience all those miles back in Maison Laudiere at the start of our holiday. Course, that didn’t last long when Julie hoofed me off the bed so she could take photos. As usual with this kind of scene, she’s done it justice and then some.

The property is just beautiful. It sits behind a high wall in the middle of a very small village, about an hours ride from Calais. The nearest town is Montreuil, where we ended up going for dinner in a smallish yet impeccably presented restaurant. The food was bloody good too, including a very, VERY boozy creme brulee that Julie had to finish because I’d have been four times over the drink driving limit if I attempted to eat any more of it than I already did. You could tell we were nearing our holidays end given the number of British tourists that sat around us as we ate.

After one hell of a feed I slept the sleep of the almost dead and awoke to a brilliantly sunny yet pleasantly cool Tuesday morning.

After a traditional French breakfast (and some of the nicest coffee I’d had in a week or more) I set about loading up the bike while Julie chased peacocks, ducks and various other wildlife around the gardens with her camera. I later became convinced that one of the rather scraggly looking peacocks was bent on causing harm, cornering me as I tried to go back into the house to collect some bags. No, I didn’t kick it in case that’s what anyone was wondering.

The speed at which I loaded up the bike directly reflected how much I was looking forward to leaving France. It took at least twice as long as it had been taking on other mornings. I was also considering the journey that lay ahead on the other side of the channel tunnel.

We were waved off by our hostess and got on a mix of D roads, motorways and motorways under construction. In a little over an hour we were checking in at the eurotunnel and leaving behind nine and a bit days of what had been one of the most memorable holidays I’ve ever taken. My goal for this second bike trip to France had been to do it properly this time. To keep off the motorways as much as possible, see the country, eat nice food, relax and enjoy the company. It’s now been about six weeks since we returned and I have only one question; When can we go back?

Published on November 4, 2011 in France, Landscape and X100. 1 Comment

Day 8; Reims again. Champagne this time

As you may well imagine, one of the main reasons for stopping off in the Champagne region was to drink some of the locally produced booze. Imagine!?! Not just drink it though, see all the in’s and out’s of it, to do the tour so to speak. Having done some research online before setting off, it seemed Ruinart was one of the best if not the best tour to do in Reims. So I emailed them and enquired about booking a tour. At the time I didn’t see any mention of tour opening hours or days off or anything useful like that on their website. So I let the email do it’s work and waited for a reply. And I waited. And I waited some more. Then we arrived in Reims. No email back from Ruinart. On the morning of day 8, our second and last full day in Reims, I began to fret about the fate of the Ruinart tour. I rang them. I think I got the gift shop. It surprised me (perhaps only in the way an English speaking tourist can be surprised while in mainland Europe) that the guy in the gift shop didn’t have a word of English. So in my best leaving cert French (and I waited until Julie was in the shower so as not to embarrass myself further), I mumbled through a short conversation with the man. It was Sunday morning, perhaps not the best day to be enquiring about tours. As I said though, I didn’t see any opening hours on the website. No tours today was what I was able to translate. Shit. I’m not leaving Reims without doing this.

I trawled some websites detailing the other champagne houses that existed in Reims and it appeared the closest and most accommodating was the house of G.H. Mumm on the other side of the city to us. I say other side, I actually mean 20 mins walk. I got the tour start times, read various reports that pre-booking was not necessary and we were away. Well, we were away after a coffee and croissant breakfast. Priorities people.

After finding the location of the tour (and making several very poor ‘Mumm’s the word’ jokes), we walked into reception and enquired about two of the top tier tour tickets. I wasn’t coming all this way to do the bargain basement, poor mans tour. Having said that, it was only something like twenty euro each and the tour was exactly the same. The champagne you got at the end was different though. The four women behind the reception desk were seemingly bemused at our arrival. There was some shuffling of papers, some inter-receptionist hushed conversation and finally ‘you want to go on tour now?’ question. Eh, yes. It turned out that although listed for a 2pm start, the tour had started at something like 1:57pm and we arrived at 1:57pm and 30 seconds. Panic! When we finally got our tickets printed and were shown to our seats amongst the tourists that managed to be on time for the tour, it appeared the only thing we’d missed was a minute or two of the bloody introduction video. Having said that, beyond the initial confusion, the staff were very friendly and very knowledgeable.

After the video came the part we were here to see, the long stone staircase down into the caves several storeys underground. We began our underground adventures with an introduction into the three different types of grapes used to make the final product, where the grapes came from, some detail on the vineyards exclusively growing grapes for Mumm and all that kind of thing. Some terms I’ve seen on bottles were thrown around the crowd of about 25 people and along with the backlit posters on the walls, things started to fall into place. Grand Cru, demi sec, brut, bits and pieces to make up a better understanding of where this complex process is rooted. We were brought through rooms like the one on the right that had vast fermentation vessels, storage vats and lots of other stuff that was quickly forgotten about as soon as we moved to what I saw as being the more interesting part of the tour.

We saw the various sizes of bottles and learned that champagne is only produced in bottles up to magnum size (if I remember correctly). Anything larger is filled from separate magnum bottles. Makes sense I suppose.

At the end of the corridor, we paused for another short video and some more of the process was explained. I tried to take as much in as possible, as if there was going to be an exam at the end of the tour to determine if I got to taste the final product or not. The video ended, the tour guide opened another door and we were going down another stone staircase into a distinctly colder level, several stories below where we already were.

I can’t remember how deep underground she said we were, but it was getting quite chilly. Evidence of the change in temperature was on the faces of those that had not thought to bring jumpers or jackets to cover themselves with. Star jumps, you’ll be fine. The end of the stairs opened out into an arched room, racks of bottles in various states of maturity lined the walls. We learned how before computerisation, one man would make minute turns to each bottle in the racks to manage the sediment. Not so amazing until you consider that the man would handle up to 40,000 bottles a day. Suddenly, sitting at a computer for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week didn’t seem like such an RSI inducing chore. The poor bugger.

So the bottles would get gradually turned and in doing so, would start to stand more and more upright in the racks. The sediment was forced to sit in the neck of the bottle with this turning and lifting action, making it easier to remove when the bottles were properly matured and ready for sales.

Photography was quite challenging in the dimly lit cave. In fact the cave was only lit with warm orange coloured bulbs so it also turned colour control into a nightmare. This didn’t seem to bother the other tourists who gleefully lit everything up with a burst of flash, blinding us all in the process. For those who wanted something other than the ‘champagne like a rabbit caught in the headlights’ look, the process was a bit slower and required more thought. That and very high ISO. There were seemingly miles of caves, the racks upon racks of bottles in various states went on forever. Quite an eerie place to be on your own I imagine.


While hanging back to take photos of pretty much what you see above, I missed some vital piece of information. The loss of this information will surely haunt me to the end of my days on earth. It was something like ‘the longest tunnel in any champagne cave’. Sure enough, a fairly long tunnel.

I suppose the plight of any photographer on an organised tour is that we always seem to find ourselves at the back of the group, always playing catch up and being hurried along by sometimes impatient tour guides. Thankfully this tour guide wasn’t impatient, about as far from impatient as is possible in fact. That helped to create a thoroughly enjoyable tour and while I may have missed some information, I made up for it in the photos I got.

So where were we? The bottle is sitting on it’s head in the rack, waiting to be released to the general public. In the old days it took an awe inspiring sleight of hand to quickly remove the temporary cork and the sediment before re-sealing the bottle so that none of the contents or indeed the fizz can escape. These days, they just freeze the neck of the bottle before removing the cork. The sediment, frozen in a small amount of champagne, slips out of the bottle before it’s re-corked and has a neat little wire basket fitted. Like getting the figs into fig rolls, I never fully understood how champagne became carbonated. The tour and the attitude of the tour guide served to dispel any illusions that some people have built up about champagne being a drink only for special occasions. It’s wine. We drink wine with dinner, with sweet food or just because we want to drink wine. I suppose I never really thought about champagne like that until I did the tour. Tell that to the bottle that’s been sitting in the fridge for two years.

All that was left to sink in as we took a lift back to ground level and made our way across the the courtyard to ‘the best part of the tour’. Yes, the tasting. Our super elite mega pricey ‘considerably richer than you’ tickets granted us the opportunity to taste two different champagnes; A rosé and the grand cru. Better still, I got the flute of grand cru that Julie wasn’t too keen on. It was Glenmorangie distillery all over again.

Having been allowed some time to taste and gather our thoughts, admittedly most about what we were going to have for dinner, we were ushered out of the tasting room to make space for the next group. The route brought us through the gift shop and I had to do an on-the-fly bit of calculation to work out if a bottle of grand cru or demi sec would fit in the luggage on the bike. Alas no, it wasn’t to be this time. I started to feel like I could easily enjoy a flute or three of champagne when I wasn’t being a coffee or whisky snob. I still wondered about the likes of Dom Perignon though. Was it all that better or is it just ‘badge snobbery’? I knew the answer to the question ‘would I be able to taste the difference?’ though. A certain and resounding ‘no’.

After wandering through the nearby graveyard and before venturing out for dinner we indulged our newly found appreciation and curiosity for champagne by popping into a shop and buying a demi of Laurent Perrier demi sec. We didn’t get to taste demi sec during the tour but loving all things sweet, we were curious enough to buy a bottle. Long story short, it worked out. I want more.

Wait, what? Graveyard? I don’t know if it’s just a photographer thing or what, but I have an almost unnatural appreciation for a photogenic graveyard. There was one such graveyard on the route from G.H. Mumm back to the city center. It began to rain. Enough said.

Strolling around for a few minutes, it seemed a lot of the most recognisable champagne families had plots here. We spotted several famous names among the several acres of stones. Nothing too exciting for the remainder of the day except a real sense that the holiday was coming to an end. All good things and all that.

Published on November 2, 2011 in France, Landscape and X100. 1 Comment

Day 7; Reims

Leading with a photo this time, this was taken on the way to Reims when I pulled over to get out of the wind for a minute. I will admit to the two nights in Reims being somewhat of a backup plan, the original plan was to stay a night or two in the nearby town of Épernay and spend much of the time rolling between champagne houses. Having looked at the prices of hotels in the area (and picking my jaw up off the floor), Reims became the new plan A. By now the full on ‘not doing anything because I’m on holiday damn it’ mode was in full swing and as such, the photography took a back seat. In fact I should probably just name this post ‘Day 7; Reims Cathedral’ because that’s pretty much all we did on our first day in Reims. We walked around the city, ate, drank and generally didn’t do that would make a very interesting blog post.

The hotel was only a few minutes walk from the cathedral, in an out of the way, middle of a residential area kind of place. It was only a few minutes off the motorway and through a very straightforward series of junctions and sat nav directions. Chosen for it’s safe underground parking, the proximity to the cathedral and the city center was a nice surprise. So as you may have assumed already, we discovered the cathedral. It was nice to get inside the cavernous, cool building on a day that must have been in the low to mid 30′s temperature wise. Definitely one of the hottest and most extreme sun days we’d experienced during the holiday.


So the stitching on the vertical panorama above may not be perfect but it gives some sense of the scale of the building. Just ignore the sheared stone column and the half a tourist propelling himself along without any legs. I had considered asking everyone in front of me to stay perfectly still for 20 seconds but I wasn’t sure how well that would be received. After our first experience of Reims in the Cathedral, we wandered aimlessly into what appeared to be the city center and ate a wonderful al fresco dinner in what appeared to be the busiest bar/restaurant in the city. Some more wandering to work off the full stomachs turned into a general meander in the direction of the hotel as the night drew in rapidly around us.

Something we hadn’t expected, when crossing Rue Libergier, was to see swarms of people heading in the direction of the cathedral. Curiosity drew us in their direction and it was immediately apparent what the attraction was.

If I’d thought about it some more, instead of concentrating on the show in front of me, I’d have actually got the settings on the camera right. Maybe I would have even managed to shoot some vide. Several high powered projectors lit up the front of the cathedral and performed a very impressive light show set to music. I remembered seeing this effect on other buildings around the world but up to now had only ever witnessed it on youtube or elsewhere on the internet. Speaking of which, you can watch the entire nearly half hour light show thanks to some intrepid youtuber here as long as you can handle the hand held shaky camera thing. Best to watch in 1080p in full screen if your broadband and/or computer will allow you. This youtube user has just a snippet of the show but managed to get to the front of the crowd with a tripod. It was amazing.

With the smug sense of feeling like we’d accomplished something of cultural value (or at least I did), we headed back to the hotel to snack on the sweet stuff we’d bought in Riquewihr before departing.

Published on October 31, 2011 in France, Macro, People and X100. 1 Comment

Day 6; Riquewihr

I suppose technically that’s not true, given that we arrived in Riquewihr on the afternoon of day 5. For the sake of continuity, lets imagine all these wonderful events took place on day 6. Riquewihr is a strange place, it didn’t quite match up with the photos and descriptions I’d seen of it before we arrived. It’s as if Disneyland suddenly became a working farm. Or perhaps like a long forgotten set piece from “The Sound of Music” was just suddenly dropped in the middle of rural France. It’s a walled town, or at least the part that’s inside the wall is. It seems to expand far beyond the wall in at least two directions, every other direction is taken up with vast grapevines. Everything has taken a decidedly German feel about it. From the buildings to the food even to the people (no, I’m not counting the masses of German tourists). It seems to be a very hard working town intent on fulfilling the requirements of only one industry; Wine.

The winding D road that brought us up to the town was lined for miles with fields of sun drenched vines, a sight and smell that will linger in my memory. The entire portion of the walled town is cobbled and I admit to being more than a little puzzled on how best to attack it on the bike, given that our hotel was right in the middle of it. The whole thing is very pedestrian focused, I suppose that can’t really be helped with the amount of tourists that are still around at this stage in September.

Of course at this stage I hadn’t seen how the locals do it. Pretty much just take the most direct route to the destination and the tourists will move. So I found a slightly less busy side street and after some twists and turns down cobbled lanes, we were at the hotel unloading the bike. This was another two night stop so pretty much all the luggage was stripped off and brought up the stone spiral staircase to our room in Hotel de la Couronne. As you can well imagine, there was plenty of exploring. Julie donned her best stripey jumper to fit in with the locals and we were off out amongst the madness and grapes.

Yes, I think I’ve already mentioned there were some grapes in the area. This was taken only about a 5 minute walk from the hotel. It wasn’t hard to find photogenic grapevines in the area. Turns out it was a lot harder to find a can of coke in the area but the less said about that the better in case I launch into yet another long-winded rant. On that, I still hadn’t fully gotten the whole ‘small French town’ thing. Despite Riquewihr being a tourist attraction and having numerous hotels, there wasn’t a convenience store to be had after about 6 or 7pm. The odd evening I take a mad notion for a bottle of coke and it’s been known for me to quaff the odd bottled or canned beer after a hard days touristing. No. Not here. Even the only bar in the town closed at an palette-dryingly early hour. I still hadn’t learned to stock up during the day, as if there was some storm or mythical creature roaming the streets at night that delighted on poking fun at those who found themselves thirsty. Ok, I’m done.

Yes, the town is nice, there’s no denying that. It’s even relatively quiet for such a tourist attraction. Having said that, I’m sure a lot of the visitors were on day trips because at night, it cleared out considerably. So we found somewhere to have our dinner and perched ourselves on the plastic patio chairs in the courtyard of one of the numerous restaurants in the town, all of which seemed to be serving the same food anyway. Julie’s fine as long as there’s something with chicken on the menu. My many attempts to have her try something a little more adventurous have failed up to this point. I can’t remember what I ate on the first night but I’m sure it was something fantastic. Not memorable in the slightest but fantastic all the same.

Day 6, the actual day 6 mind you, started with not knowing where the hell we were going to go get breakfast. We settled (Julie went ‘ooh’ and I wasn’t too bothered either way) on a place pretty much right across from the hotel and had the standard French breakfast consisting of bread, preserves, croissant, orange juice and bad coffee. It is worth noting however that the coffee here was better than any of the previous attempts. Satisfied, we set out back on the same grapevine lined road to find something suitably German sounding in the middle of the French countryside. After a fill of extortionately priced fuel from an unmanned station in the next town over, we found Chateau du Haut-Kœningsbourg. No, I still haven’t figured out how to do the thing over the A in Chateau. It wasn’t really hard to spot the site, it’s nestled high in the mountains overlooking the town in which I’d just been swearing at petrol pumps. When we did finally get up there after yet more impressive switchback turns, the view was quite something.

Just before this was taken, there was a mass of white fluffy cloud obscuring the view. As it moved off to the left I tried in vain to get a photo of it. Needless to say, it didn’t come out as expected. It looked nice anyway, take my word for it. I don’t have any way of accurately describing the size of the castle/Chateau/whatever you want to call it. I’ll just have to settle on ‘feckin huge’.


By the time we had finished all the climbing throughout the many staircases and hallways in the Chateau, we found ourselves in one of the turrets, surrounded by cannons, catapults and other bits & pieces that seemed as if their days of intentionally causing harm was over. Just unintentional these days, having witnessed another tourist stub his toe on one of the smaller canons cast iron wheels. The entire turret was a quite impressive wooden construction, very open and airy. Especially when I walked close to the edge and you could see directly down to the ground many, many feet below. The turret windows did offer views as impressive as the one I posted above in pretty much all directions. Sadly, some of the castle was under repair at the time we visited so you’ll just have to imagine the below photo without the scaffolding or the crane peeking out.


It was the perfect day to visit, slightly misty rain when we arrived and fine when we left. After risking a hernia pushing the bike out of the space I’d parked it in (still haven’t entirely learned to always park facing out), we set off back down the mountain towards Riquewhir. So back down the switchbacks, through the forest and past all that wonderful scenery that I seemed to be growing accustomed to at an alarming rate. Would there be withdrawal symptoms when we left? Hmm…

Back on that same old grapevine lined D road and Julie wanted an excuse to practice her French. Well, it was more a means to an end. I’m sure if you’ve already read her blog post you’ll know where I’m going with this. There were dozens of people out harvesting grapes, big yellow buckets, tractors, jumpers on fenceposts. That kind of thing. Meanwhile, I took the more sedate and less challenging route of photographing an object that I didn’t have to ask permission of and that doesn’t usually talk back.

It was warm. If I didn’t know any better I’d have thought there was a huge storm rolling in. After pictures of friendly farmers had been taken, we returned to the hotel for a much needed afternoon break. Well, and to get out of the heat for a bit. Being Irish on the continent is a hard job. We’re just not built for this kind of weather. So back out into the streets of Riquewihr and while mumbling things like “Ohh I’m not sure” and “I don’t know if I can pull it off”, we wandered into the outlet shop for one of the towns wineries. After tasting some of the recommended wines (almost like we knew what we were doing) and being the uncultured swines that we are and not spitting out the mouthful of wine after tasting (woo, free wine!), we settled on three bottles to bring home with us. Three bottles which sit in the cupboard, waiting for a ‘special occasion’. Much like the bottle of Tattinger champagne that’s sat in the fridge for the last 2 years waiting for a similar occasion. We’re going to have to come up with something to celebrate fairly soon.

Some more farting about looking at tourist tat shops and eating ice-cream ensued after the traumatic wine buying session and before long we were settling back to looking for a place for dinner. As the evening drew in and visitor numbers in the town began to drop, we took a seat on the verandah of a restaurant around the corner from the hotel. Hell, pretty much everything was ‘around the corner from’ or ‘across the street from’ the hotel in this place. It’s not like you could get too lost. Being the sometimes adventurous sort that I am, I went for something new; Chocroute. Back to the uncultured swine thing, I’d never before seen or even heard of this seemingly wonderful sounding dish. What appeared some minutes later was a veritable feast of meat, potatoes and more sauerkraut than one man could (or should) possibly eat in a single sitting.

Having had my fill of sausage (careful now), I pushed aside the remaining sauerkraut for fear that the amount of it I’d already eaten would make my innards rise up against me and stage some kind of overnight coup while I was sleeping. It was then and only then that I noticed a strange sight across the road from the restaurant. I’ve already said that Riquewhir is very much a wine town, a farming town. So no surprise that it’d be inhabited by a French version of the farmers we have in Ireland. So imagine if you will, the sight of an Irish farmer in his early 40′s off out for a drink after a hard day in the fields. He’d have a pint of stout of course. Maybe a pint of Smithwicks or something similar. While his French counterpart, looking much the same, is holding a decorative glass full of red wine. Ok so maybe it looked funnier than it’s coming across here. I just tried to imagine ‘the boys’ in any rural Ireland town going for a few drinks after all the daily chores are done and choosing a nice cold glass of pinot noir.

The chilled red wine thing threw both of us. After some investigation it appears to be the norm in Alsace but the first time we thought the staff in the restaurant were having a laugh at the tourists. Again with the uncultured swine thing. That’s coming up all too often I fear.

We packed up to leave the next morning after having breakfast in the same spot and I had to fight off the urges to take the scenic route back through the mountains. This is an area we will almost certainly be back to, although we may pick our hotel a little more carefully next time. The Vosges are amazing (as you’ve seen in the last post) and the many small towns in the foothills are picturesque and thankfully, full of accommodation. It’s to be expected of course, given the alternative route from Thann to Riquewihr and beyond is the famous ‘Route du Vin’. The next stop is Reims, another city I’m not even going to attempt to pronounce properly.

Published on October 23, 2011 in France, Landscape, People and X100. 0 Comments

Day 5; Route Des Cretes

After getting out of the road works mess that was Dijon (twice – long story), I decided to give the scenic route a miss in favour of getting to the mountains early in the day. So it was a couple of hours on the motorway instead. I’d never been this far east in France before and it was starting to feel more and more like Germany with every passing mile. German, Belgian and Austrian cars, trucks and motor homes outnumbered French registered cars by a not insignificant percentage. To cut what could be a long, boring story quite short, the motorway was long and boring. The most eventful part of which was me deciding to take my gloves off an hour or so out of Thann to enjoy the heat and sunshine. More on that later.

So the ‘little town of Thann’ which I can only assume is an ironic name came and went. Then it came and went again a few more times before all the wrong turns and GPS burps were worked out. We got on the right road, out of the town. How did I know it was the right road you ask? Well, because it was at a 45 degree angle of course. We climbed and climbed, then we climbed some more. The dense tree cover on the roads had the GPS in a poor mental state. I think the order was something like, climb climb climb, switchback, climb, motor home, switchback, climb, motor home, car, motor home. After only about 5 minutes it was picnic time. We stopped in a shaded spot and much to the disgust of a few somewhat dodgy looking French people in a motor home, proceeded to eat the food we’d bought just down the road. They looked miffed and threw the odd dirty glance over at us as they prepared their picnic table outside the door of their motor home. The wine came out, then the cheese, then the bread. A traditional French affair. Then some other mad stuff. I was half expecting a guy in a stripy jumper to appear out of the depths of the picnic basket and sing me a song of ennuyeux.

Onward and most definitely upward. Several more switchbacks and we passed Grand Ballon at an altitude of 1423 meters. The road which up to now had been thickly tree lined opened out into a landscape so vast and impressive, I almost automatically pulled over to the side of the road just to take it in.

This was the first of the European mountain passes I’ve been on and while not as high or as long as some of the Alps, it was amazing. I only realised after the fact that I really didn’t take many photos. I was far too busy either staring open mouthed at the peaks and valleys or enjoying throwing the bike around the numerous randomly placed switchbacks. It instantly gave me a taste for more. I knew right away that the Alps will be the next European adventure. It was perhaps fortuitous that we came here when we did. The traffic was quite light (or at least lighter than I had expected) and the weather was absolutely perfect. The sometimes blustery wind wasn’t even putting off some of the hardened cyclists that were fighting their way up the impossibly steep hills as we thundered by them.


I did find myself wishing I wasn’t on such a fully laden bike on the way down. It was possibly as much the fault of my relative lack of experience being back in the saddle as it was the weight on the bike, but I just couldn’t bring myself to fully throw the bike into the corners. The fear of one of the large aluminum cases grounding was ever present. If that happened, we would almost certainly be next seen sliding sideways into an unforgiving tree.



So we stopped at one stage near the top of one of the peaks and it had gotten rather cold. Gloves had to go back on. Only now I noticed that riding without sunblock on my hands for the last couple of hours had graced me with large red rectangles of sunburn. Lovely. Pretty much like something I did the last time I was in France. Over the next few days that’d linger just long enough to remind me to keep my bloody gloves on at all times in future. We pulled in every now and then and reminders of the changing weather were all around us. Most often in the form of ski lift cables overhead. It wasn’t hard to spot some of the spots that would be ski slopes in a few short months when the barriers go down over the roads and the whole mountain range turns into a resort. After what seemed like only a few minutes we arrived at the end of the route at Saint Marie Aux Mines. I’d have happily turned back around and headed in the direction of Thann. Only to turn back around on reaching Thann and return here. Repeat as necessary. Next time.


From Saint Marie to Riquewihr and a few more twisties and impossibly well cambered corners along the way. Bloody hell. Wicklow county council,  resurface the Sally Gap quick.

Published on October 11, 2011 in France, Landscape, People and X100. 2 Comments

Days 3 & 4; In transit to Dijon

Given the amount of ground we were covering, there were always going to be a couple of ‘down’ days. Days where the aim of the game was to get to the next 2 night stop and get to places where we’d already researched the area. From Maison Laudiere to Dijon is roughly 580km, not an impossible or outlandish distance to do in a day but for the sake of Julie’s sanity and my aging bones (and that it’s been a while since I did big mileage days on a bike), we planned to take an overnight pit stop in Troyes and do the remaining relatively short distance into Dijon the following morning. Troyes is a city that I refuse to pronounce correctly. From what Julie discovered, it seems it’s correctly pronounced much like the number three; i.e. “trois”. No, sorry, I’m going to keep calling it Troyes. As in multiple wooden horses.

Having no route in mind was probably a mistake. All I really wanted to do was avoid most of the motorways (and huge toll charges) on the way. We took mostly back roads thanks to the GPS (which at this stage I became sure was trying to kill us) and tried to find Chateau d’O, alas without success. That’s one we’ll have to add for the next trip over. Sign posts people, put up sign posts. We stopped in Sées briefly to orientate ourselves without much success. Oddly enough, Sées is the seemingly small town that my motorbikes saddle had been manufactured in some months previous. I’d brought it home, even if just for a few short minutes. Failing to find d’O, we put Chartres in as a destination. The objective now was just keep heading east.

We had the opportunity to see a huge vase. Bloody massive. Julie’s boss told her she should go see it. I can’t remember where it was but we passed a roundabout on the way into a town that had what must have been a replica of it in the middle. As far as I was concerned, that was us seeing it. That was further reinforced when we were riding by the place it was housed. Dozens of coaches filled with bored looking French school kids, dragged in to see this thing like we were all dragged in to see similarly ‘awesome’ and ‘educational’ stuff in Ireland. No ta, on we go.

On reaching Chartres, it seems it wasn’t so much a town as a whopping great city. Balls. I don’t much like riding around in unfamiliar cities. Countryside is fine, small towns no problem. I just don’t tend to do too well in big cities that I have no direction bearing or final destination in mind for. We fought our way through the city until Julie spotted a quiet place beside the Ibis hotel for food. Funnily enough, an Irish pub. Predictably enough, it was about as Irish as well, a not very Irish thing. They did however have a great old photo of a group of workers outside the Beamish brewery in Cork though. Lunch consisted of mystery meat we were told was ‘poulet’. I doubt it. If anything, I’d have said it was meatloaf. I didn’t really give it a second though, my past frequent trips to Spain (and not speaking Spanish, therefore unable to decipher menus) has taught me that whatever the locals eat probably won’t kill you. It might make you wish you were dead and give cause to have a freshly refrigerated toilet roll, but you’ll probably survive.

Chartres came and went and Fontainebleu came and went. Well, after a diversion around some road works that brought us through an amazing and unexpected piece of forest. It felt odd riding around within a couple of hours reach of Paris and not venturing up to see the city again. We had already decided that Paris was best left to another trip, one where we can fly in and fly back out without wondering how much stuff we can carry home.

A few wrong turns and some swearing at the GPS later, we arrived in Troyes. Good timing really, the light was just beginning to fade and come night fall, the wrong turns and subsequent swearing at the GPS would have increased a hundred fold. I should have taken the opportunity early on to explain that the maps on my GPS are over three years old at this stage and so are completely befuddled by new roundabouts, changes to junctions and pretty much any modifications to the road system. We got into the hotel, a rather standard cookie cutter Mercure and after some swift peeling off of sticky bike gear, we made our way to the restaurant. We’d only been in France a few days but our proficiency at ordering food and generally communicating in French seemed to be increasing every day. The amount of wild hand gestures and ‘drinky drinky’ motions I was making had decreased to a satisfactory level, thankfully.

Pretty big day in the saddle, a bit over 400km. I don’t know exactly how Julie was doing with it but I was starting to feel the stiffness and general ‘sitting in one position for too long’ feelings. I was also getting tiny pangs of guilt for not using the camera at all today given some of the amazing countryside we were in. But I suppose as I said above, there were always going to be down days. Days where the objective is just to get from A to D via interesting points B and C. Thankfully, the next day’s ride south into Dijon was going to be a shorter one, only about 170km.

We set off early so we’d get to our nights destination at a reasonable time. The chosen spot for this stay was Hotel Le Sauvage and after negotiating the third circle of hell which was the road works that had most of the outer city dug into a state of post apocalyptic bliss, we arrived. The photo says it all. I opened the window in the room to look out on the courtyard and was greeted by what seemed to be half grapevine, half berries. No idea what kind of berries and I wasn’t about to taste one to figure it out. The hotel was reasonably cheap and very well situated; in the red light district.


Or at least that’s what we were told. If it’s true, I guess Dijon doesn’t have a very lucrative or exciting sex trade. We were surrounded by a good variety of restaurants and only a 10 minute meandering walk from what appeared to be the city center. After Julie got some of the ‘spicy bread’ she had told me about (Pain D’epice), we found lunch. Hell, it was so good I would have found it twice more if the kitchen hadn’t been closing.

We wandered the city until dinner time then surveyed menus on our way back to the hotel, recoiling in horror at what some places appeared to be serving. Mice? Really?!? No, not really. Holiday kinda stuff really. Nothing I need burden you with now that you’ve fought your way past that epic monolith of text above.

Dijon really is a beautiful city. The weather was perfect for sitting around in the park watching the world go by, for walking down the narrow streets finding (at least in Julie’s eyes) interesting architecture (I wouldn’t know an art nouveau from the back end of a bus) and for following little metal birds set into the pavement at regular intervals. It’s not my fault, the damn birds appeared to be pointing at something. It seemed a shame that we only had a short time in Dijon and alas, I never even got to try lapin a la moutarde. Neither did I get to try moutarde au lapin. I’m reliably informed (by a postcard) that both are marvelous. Having said that, I think we saw a nice slice of the city and got out before we were hanging around wondering what to do with our time.

In a rare event, postcards that were promised before we left were actually purchased. What’s even more strange is that they were written and had stamps placed upon them. No, I didn’t have anything to do with this process. My usual method for acquiring and distributing postcards is to buy them in the airport/ferry terminal on the way home and hand them to people on my return. Unwritten of course. Julie, as always, was as good as her word and set about documenting the previous few days of our trip in detail to several different people. Yes, even my family.

So another couple of days down and the feeling I had before arriving that I had been on the holiday just to get to our next destination had vanished. I think I left it somewhere near Mont Saint Michel on the evening we returned there (yes, just before the bat incident). We were on our way to the ‘little town of Thann’, at least that’s the description I had read on a website somewhere. The start, or end depending on how you look at it, of the route des cretes. Forget the freebie back roads, this was a 230km blast down the motorway to keep traveling time to a minimum.

From the winds of the Loire valley on our way to Troyes to almost running out of fuel on our way to Dijon, it had been an interesting trip. Julie’s first experience of leaning at a steep angle into the wind while going 80mph and being wildly buffeted about by passing trucks. Who says biking is all relaxation and not thinking you’re possibly going to die at any moment?

As usual, I’ve been beaten to the punch posting about the trip. You can read Julie’s account (and marvel at her far more impressive photos) on her blog post.

Published on September 27, 2011 in France, Landscape, People and X100. 0 Comments

Maison Laudiere

Before I move on, I need to write a little note on our first two nights stay. I found Maison Laudiere (as many people do) on the UKGSers website. They have a seemingly very loyal following and everyone that posts about them leaves glowing reviews. Their location was put into a google map at an early stage and any route was planned in the understanding that their property would be the first nights stop. In the end we decided on two nights but I think the next trip will be longer again.

We’ve been up since 6am. Or was it 5am? Damn time zones. On the road since a little after that. It was a pretty sedate journey across the north west tip of France, passing through St Bruic and St Malo as I’ve already detailed. By the time we got to Mont Saint Michel, I was ready for a break. Instead of further diversions, we headed the shortest or possibly fastest route that the GPS decided on and I naively followed all the side roads, dirt tracks and mountain passes (of which there were none of course) that the route led me down. By the time we got to Domfront, I was dying for a cup of tea. Almost literally. That cold that eventually finds it’s way in had found it’s way in.

I think we arrived at a little after my predicted time and immediately Carole put a mug of tea in my hand. I don’t think I even had opportunity to get the luggage off the bike first. It was a fantastic afternoon and after settling in and changing out of the bike gear, we had a short stroll around the area. It feels a little strange, the B&B is right off what I’d call a ‘main road’ but it’s quiet and has that secluded feeling about it. In fact, when we went out for the walk we turned the opposite way up the lane and were immediately on a grass track surrounded by curious farm animals and general picturesque overgrowth.

As the next couple of hours are a blur (I’m reliably informed that my head hit the pillow and that was it), the next thing I really remember is two more guys from the UK arriving via the port in Dieppe and then sitting down to have an amazing home cooked dinner. Fed, watered and entirely satisfied, I returned to the comfort of the bed in the Lotus room to read the stack of information leaflets on local attractions. You’ve already seen a bit of what is in the area, that was about a tenth of what was in the book.

Breakfast the next morning was a case of ‘what do you want and how much of it do you want?’. On both mornings, Carole went to the local boulangerie and bought fresh bread and pastries. Julie went for the almond croissant and as I usually do, I just said ‘same for me’. I did however make the mistake of saying ‘two’ when asked how many I’d like. For anyone in a similar position, I recommend one. There was much groaning and general complaints of eating too much. After breakfast, we got some hand written directions to the locations that Carole had suggested the previous night and we were back on the road to what you’ve already seen at this stage.

Staying at Maison Laudiere for our first two nights in France and indeed Julie’s first experience of traveling to France was an excellent choice. The location is perfect, the welcome guests receive is as if they’re family (using the term ‘warm welcome’ would be grossly underestimating it). I don’t know how to describe our stay properly without sounding like an over excited school girl. It’s not so much that I’d recommend you stay there, more that I will be staying there again several times so I don’t want to start sending masses of people over in case it’s booked out when I’m looking for a room!

All that for a very decent price too. It was a pity we didn’t get to meet Nigel, he was away in the UK for the duration of our stay. Next time I’m sure. Or the time after that. Or even the time after that.

Published on September 25, 2011 in France, Landscape, Macro and X100. 1 Comment

Day 2; More Normandy!

We must have been another hour and a half on the road from Mont Saint Michel before we reached ‘home’; Maison Laudiere, on the edge of a very large forest full of wildlife that yearns to frighten the piss out of you. More on both the wildlife and the accommodation later. Having received some superb directions and recommendations for where to go and what to see in the area, we set out on a day that looked like it could and possibly would dump a large quantity of rain on us before we had even reached our first destination.

As Julie has already de-catted the bag in her usual style and substance, I can only repeat that the destination was the seemingly sleepy town of Carrouges and it’s impressive Chateau (no, I don’t know how do to the little hat thing over the a). Parking up at the church on the top of the hill was both a blessing and a curse. 60% blessing on the way down, 90% curse on the way back up. While strolling down we were treated to a dog who seemed to be barking en Francais (no, I dont know how to do the c thing either) and to the melodic repetition of school children floating down from a 3rd floor window. The noise was floating, not the children. That’d just be mad. Down the hill to the chateau, then down another hill then down a further hill, while all the while I couldn’t help but think of the walk back up. Lazy bugger that I am. Having walked all the way down to the quite understated gatehouse (below), we found that there was a large and practically empty car park that the bike could have been left in.

The grounds were well manicured as one might expect, there was even a gardener that looked somewhat like a French OPW worker doing the rounds. The place was practically deserted apart from a few other tourists, very much like the town we parked in at the top of the oh so numerous and steep hills. Three menacing looking geese followed us for much of our stay, possibly the quirky chateau residents alternative to guard dogs.


The hills menaced further but we triumphed, despite the sun coming out and beating down upon us for our return journey. All loaded back up and ready for the off, I double and triple checked the directions we’d been supplied with by Carole in the B&B then made several wrong turns anyway. Yes, by the end of this holiday, I would be master of the u-turn. The general direction was south and eventually (after a few more wrong turns) we ended up in the chocolate box picturesque town of Saint-Céneri-le-Gérei. There were strange rumblings from the back seat which I put down to the cobbled road surface at the time. Having found a suitable parking place a couple of cars down from some very confused looking elderly British people, we proceeded towards the church on the top of the hill. The rumblings returned but I thought nothing of it. As we passed the church and came to a field full of wild flowers with a small chapel in the end of it the rumbling returned again, somewhat louder this time. All that rumbling eventually culminated in an explosion of “ZOMG!” or similar and on turning around I spotted Julie in a state of excitement that almost had her hovering above the long grass and wild flowers. I’d have assumed the cause was too much coffee/pepsi/sweeties but it was still quite early in the day.

The church on the hill (before the chapel in the field that is) was a bit odd. Outside it was a traditional sort of church type building but inside it was full of what in my primitive understanding of all things arty I’d refer to as ‘modern art’. Paintings hung from the walls where I would have expected to see assorted religious paraphernalia. Even the familiar stations of the cross were being acted out by little steel sculptures that also had a very modern feel to them. We did some further rambling around the small town before taking a shaded spot at a small bar/cafe (the only thing open in a town of 2 other shops/restaurants). It was nice to take ten minutes out to soak in the complete, perfect calm of the town, the incredible amount of flowers and the overall ambiance only broken by infrequent passes of tourists and the odd tractor. Coffee sipped and Coca-Cola downed, we strolled down to the river where several eastern Europeans made it look like they were hatching a cunning plan to harvest trout. We left them at it and got back on the road to the gardens up the hill. This was another one of the suggestions we got from Carole in the B&B and it was spot on. The area was great and the person I assumed to be the owner (or at least the lady behind the desk at the time) was very friendly despite the language barrier. Oh and they had a walnut tree. Lunch for the price of an entry fee.




As mentioned in the last post, Julie was eager to get some photos of Mont Saint Michel all lit up. We made the trip back out taking a slightly different road (mainly because I was quite lost) and made it in perfect time to enter the dedicated motorcycle parking spots in the main car park. The Mont itself was surprisingly quiet, the only movement outside was hotel staff laden with bags making their way up the hill to their respective properties. It seems many of the days visitors had already departed as the main attraction at the site had already served it’s last tour group of the day. Even the numerous postcard stalls and tourist tat shops were closing up for the night. It seemed to be perfect timing then, we’d already been warned earlier that morning about the horrendous crowds that the attractions brings in and we were keen to avoid all that. Having walked as far as we could (given that half the place was closed up for the day) I couldnt help but think that the place was like a cross between Temple Bar in Dublin and a film about the horrors of the black death. On any given Saturday night, I’m sure the place is rolling with drunk tourists falling out of the many restaurants. All with a quite medieval slant though. We had dinner inside the Mont walls in a restaurant that all seemed very samey-samey. What I mean by that is all the restaurants seemed to be serving the same dishes. Naturally, we chose the place that had a pair of shouty 16 year old girls serving.



Stuck without a tripod, there’s not a whole lot you can do with long exposure photography. I settled on using the bike as a tripod by parking on the causeway, putting the bike on it’s center stand and sitting the camera on the luggage. Worked so well I may get a tripod thread with a sticky ass and affix it permanently to the luggage. My long exposures and photos from farther down the road were sadly lacking however. One of the limits of having a fixed 35mm lens I guess.

The road back to the B&B was a challenging one. Not only I have not ridden a bike on the other side of the road for a while, I’ve never been on the wrong side of the road in the dark before. The challenge was compounded by the daft as a brush GPS sending me down all kinds of side roads, tracks and generally not perfectly surfaced highways and byways that I’d requested. Anyone that rides a motorbike (and possibly anyone that cycles or rides a horse) will know that when something unexpected happens, the natural response is to grab the saddle with ones cheeks. About 20 minutes out from the B&B, the bloody GPS routed me through dense forest on a winding road best suited to a scene in a horror film. In the pitch black night we rode along cautiously around bends while giant crunchy moths pelted the windscreen and the visor on my helmet. On a relatively straight stretch of road I cracked open the visor a notch for some fresh air and *WHAM*. That, I told myself instantly, was not a fucking moth. What it was however was a bat about the size of a large kitten. It bounced off the windscreen, narrowly avoiding hitting me in the shoulder. I gripped the saddle with such ferocious intensity that had there been mineral deposits twixt my cheeks, I would have created several karats of diamonds. Hell, there nearly were mineral deposits between my cheeks. The speed of the up to now somewhat sedate ride increased dramatically and later on it became clear that the odd irregular banging noise in the back of my mouth was my heart pumping it’s last. Almost 10 minutes later we were at the B&B and I proceeded to mentally dry-heave. No, I don’t like bats. I’ve never liked bats. I’d sooner kick an alligator in the balls then attempt to French kiss it than be in the same room as one single small bat.

I went to bed, doused in holy water and with a crucifix under my pillow.

Published on September 19, 2011 in France, Landscape and X100. 5 Comments

Day 1; Normandy

Day 0 began at about 5:30pm on the Friday with loading up the bike for the approx 256km trip to Cork. By the time we were on the road (and a few km beyond the M50 interchange) I already felt like I was on holiday. Julie wasn’t so easy to sway, she had an exact demarcation point of where the holiday would begin. I’d decided some time ago to take the Cork to Roscoff ferry route and although unsure about how my stomach would fare on a 14ish hour boat journey, it had to be better than hoofing it down the motorway from Holyhead to Plymouth. Anyway, it was an excuse for a night in Cork.

We were scheduled to leave at 4pm Saturday afternoon and made the very short journey to Ringaskiddy to check-in and get on board. One of the many benefits of being on a bike is when it comes time to board ferries. Usually you’re one of the first people to board and more often than not, one of the first to disembark at your destination. No surprise then that after showing documents at the check-in desk, we were pointed to a boarding lane with nothing in it and from there, ushered immediately into the ship to join the other two dozen or so bikes making the journey. Overnight clothes removed, bike strapped down and off to find our cabin. The boat left promptly at 4pm and after standing in line to book dinner at the ‘fancy’ restaurant, we made it out on deck to see Cobh, the outer harbour and Roches point (below) passing by.

The weather was outstanding, somewhat adding to the immediate feeling of being on holiday. Julie had passed her ‘point of no return’ and also agreed that yes, we were in fact now on holiday. We lazed in the impossibly low and unfathomably reclined patio chairs that were strewn around the deck, which at this stage in the journey were being shuffled around by the increasing wind. The feeling of total relaxation swept over me, joined almost right away with the feeling that I wouldn’t be able to stand back up even if I wanted to. We killed some time (i.e. I watched a few rows of a new knitting project being added) before retreating inside to explore the ship. The Pont Aven is quite impressive, at least compared to the only other ferries I’ve been on. The staff were friendly and unlike only being able to stroll from bar at one end of the ship to cafe at the other, there was quite an expansive amount of space for the passengers to spread out over to while away the crossing.

I busied myself with drinking a couple of mid-afternoon pints and we pretty much did nothing except eat and drink until the next morning. There was a little bit of a ‘WTF?’ moment when we first found our cabin. I’d booked a two berth but on entering the cabin only found one small berth. No, I’ve never been on an overnight ferry crossing before. After searching long and hard, I did eventually find the other bed hidden in the ceiling. No prizes for guessing who ended up scaling the ladder to sleep in the ceiling bed.

I’ve never much been a fan of waking up or getting up early at the weekend. An exception had to be made this Sunday morning when we were politely invited to vacate our cabins at the eye watering hour of 6am (that of course being 5am Irish time). Once the ship docked in Roscoff it was still dark outside, something I hadn’t entirely anticipated. We made our way down to the vehicle deck, loaded up the bike and then had to wait about another hour before being allowed to disembark. What was that I said earlier about first on, first off? Never mind.

Out into Roscoff, down to Morlaix and pulled in rather sharpish after Julie noticed a boulangerie we passed was open. Sharpish like on the wrong side of the road, hopped a footpath and streaked across a pedestrian crossing. Thankfully it was still too early for any French people to be awake so potential fatalities caused by my urgent need for breakfast were non-existent. Or at least those that don’t work in or own a boulangerie. Something that never failed to surprise me throughout the duration of the trip; Rolling through a dead town, shutters closed and not a soul on the footpaths, you’d usually still see a boulangerie open. Our first of many pastry breakfasts over, a dash down the motorway and some side roads later and St. Malo was chosen as a spot to stretch legs.

It was warm, threatening to rain and ever so slightly windy. After a few photos and putting on a show for the locals (not a very interesting one, we didn’t actually do anything to warrant the open mouthed stares) we pressed on to Mont Saint Michel. We did eventually make it out as far as the causeway, passed the hordes of tourists, the souvenir shops and the numerous hotels in the area. Unsure as to what the parking situation was and having seen several groups of UK registered bikes turned away, we took our photos and made the decision to return tomorrow evening.

Special mention for the first crappy cup of coffee I had in the trip at a sandwich bar. Made tolerable only by the truly awe inspiring sandwich stuffed with pickles I also picked up. I started to notice how friendly French bikers are. Practically every bike we rode by gave a wave. Bikers in Dublin could stand to learn a thing or two. We did also get the odd nod and nervous ‘hello’ from UK bikers, unsure if you can speak their language to return the hello until they see the country stamp on the license plate.

Anyway, homeward bound! Or at least home for the next couple of nights…

(the writing will get better. Err, hopefully)

Published on September 18, 2011 in Black and White, France, Landscape and X100. 4 Comments