Archive for the 'X100' Category

Bealach Na Ba

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Bealach Na Ba, once the only road into the remote western shores town of Applecross. Now a ‘must ride’ road for those that prefer the two wheeled mode of transport. Think of the road like any country road around Wicklow, except on steroids. Oh and with a perfect surface. Oh and with no cow/sheep/pig shit in the middle of the road just as you carve through a bend at speed. Oh and… You get the idea. I’ll spare you from the ‘if we pay so much road tax, shouldn’t the roads be better’ rant.

Just like the panorama you’ve already seen except not a panorama. Next time we go up here, we’re bringing a picnic. Very entertaining watching the bikes sweep around the hairpin bends, followed by the cars almost having to perform three point turns to get around them. Not long before we started the climb up to the top, we all (six bikes) overtook a vintage truck crawling out of a nearby town. Some time later, and while standing at the top admiring the view, a local passed by in his car informing us there was an old truck coming up the road and if we wanted to ride the rest of the road in style (my words, not his), now was the time to leave. I was quite tempted to hang about and see exactly how someone in a 30ft long truck was planning on negotiating the switchbacks. My guess; Slowly.

So you get down to Applecross eventually and you do what pretty much everyone else does. You go to the Applecross Inn for lunch. The above is taken from the car park of the Inn. Apparently rooms are expensive but from what I can see, they’re worth it. The problem now is that as Bealach Na Ba is the only good way into Applecross, it’s also presumably the only good way out. You can travel back the way you came or as we did, you head north about 13 miles, then east about 11 miles until you get back to an A road.

When we came back to Dublin, I checked the price of land and/or houses in the area. Although I think I’d have to change career; I take it there isn’t much in the way of demand for network engineers up there.

Published on May 13, 2012 in Landscape, People, Scotland, Video and X100. 2 Comments

Across Scotland in six panoramas

Or, well, up the west coast anyway. I can never seem to leave Scotland without either taking a whole load of photos with the intention of stitching them later in photoshop or (now that I’ve got the X100) using the built in panorama mode. Before you scoff along the lines of ‘pah, built in panorama mode indeed’ it’s not actually that bad. Yes it does sometimes do things that only the processor of the camera will understand or would be able to explain but overall it’s a less involved means of producing a panorama. But back to my point. Those that have been to New York or any other large American city will understand. You get into the city and the first thing you do is gawp skyward at the tall buildings. Scotland is like that, except the gawping is done horizontally, not vertically.

Once in the highlands, you could stop pretty much every five minutes and stare at a brand new landscape that has all the right ingredients. Foreground interest (usually lovely rocks, oh yes) and whopping great hills/mountains in the background. You just can’t go wrong. So like the last trip over in 2010, I end up with a few dozen images to heave into photoshop on my return to Ireland. Slightly less this time actually, mostly because we didn’t actually stop every five minutes and that we’d already done (for my benefit of course) all the majorly tourist spots a couple of years previous.

In an attempt to present something other than a series of squished landscape shots that will have any viewers squinting and straining to see what’s going on, I’ve made all the below clickable. A quick click and as if by magic, a better view. Although unless you’ve got the monitor of the God’s, you’ll be scrolling. Sorry about that.

No, I didn’t remember to bring the Lomo/Diana/other contraption. I’m just messing around. I thought the odd flare + photoshop stitching was worthy of a bit of preset madness.

Somewhere on the way to Fort William. I couldn’t swear where exactly but I have vivid memories of trying to get a decent shot (video) while crossing the bridge to the left of the photo. This was taken at a petrol stop.

Ahh Bealach Na Ba. All those photos I’ve looked at and read various reports of people that had ridden this road. It’s like the ring of Kerry on steroids. It was also surprisingly quiet on our trip up there. Unlike the ring of Kerry, it’s no place for nervous tourists in rental cars. Much of the ‘road’ was only just about wide enough for a very small car. Most of the time the narrow road was paired with a drop of 10+ feet on each side. A road made for bikers if ever there was one. Well, one closer to home than the Alps anyway.

After descending from the madness of Bealach Na Ba, one simply has to stop at the Applecross Inn. Seemingly the only pub in miles and happily serving tasty food and what looked like a tasty local ale. No, I didn’t sample it. This time.

When so far from home, it’d be rude not to ride the rest of the way up the coast. Miles upon miles of perfect tarmac winding its way up through the hills and around lochs. I wouldn’t bet my life on it but I think this was Loch Torridon. Either that or Loch Shieldaig. Either way, the photo doesn’t do it justice.

“If you don’t like the weather in Scotland. Wait five minutes.” However, if like in the photo above you do like the weather in Scotland, you’re going to be pretty miffed in about 4 minutes and 30 seconds time. We saw it all on our trip. Sun, wind, rain, sleet and snow. More on this in later posts.

Published on May 10, 2012 in Landscape, Scotland, UK and X100. 0 Comments

The Proving Grounds

IMMA has become more or less that; A place to bring new or recently dusted off camera gear for a stroll around the grounds. No cat photos and not a focus chart in sight. Just a few from this visit before I drag and drop the set into the abyss that is the 2011 archive.

Published on January 30, 2012 in Black and White, Dublin, Macro, People and X100. 0 Comments

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