France roadtrip - part 2 'Where are all the jersey cows?'

There was a big group of schoolkids on the ferry trip back to Calais so needless to say Lily enjoyed the ferry trip since she got to watch all the kids run around and even sat with the girls for a little bit.

From Calais we took the Cote D’Opale (Opal Coast) route along the coast to Boulogne sur mer. It was a 40km drive seeing cliffs, sand dunes and beaches. We stopped off at Cap Gris Nez again to marvel at what Michael had achieved a few months before. It is just amazing.

We were told by a few people to visit Honfleur in Normandy. It’s a lovely little seaside town and was perfect for a lunchtime stopover. Lily now likes the car which is great but she needs to stretch her legs after about 90minutes so it’s nice to be able to stop at little towns and villages on the way rather than Quick (France’s answer to McDonalds) on the roadside.

We hadn’t heard of Bayeux before but we needed a place to rest our heads for the evening. Turns out it’s a beautiful little town with an impressive cathedral and a very very old tapestry – supposedly ‘the worlds most celebrated tapestry’ according to the Lonely Planet. The 70m Bayeux tapestry tells the story of the Norman conquest of England and is only about 1,100 years old!

Cathedral Notre Dame in Bayeux

One place I have always wanted to go to was Le Mont St-Michel on the Normandy coast. Just amazing – did not disappoint at all. We stayed on the Mont at an inflated price of course since they prey on tourists like us! The restaurant charged €4.50 for a glass of Coke, that’s about AUD7.50! The Mont only has a population of 42 people but walking through the narrow streets you can tell it is a tourist trap. The tides are quite phenomenal – depending on the season the difference between low and high tide can reach 15m which is more than five times what it is at home! At low tide you can walk around the Mont on the sand banks but as the tide comes up it even engulfs the car park! This bus had a lucky escape!
We walked up the steep stairs to the Abbaye Du Mont Saint Michel although I had it easy since I only had the backpack, Michael had Lily! It was great to be at the top to see the tide coming in although it got a little too cold for us so we headed back to the room before it hit high tide. Of course I sent Michael out in the cold night air after dinner to take some photos of the Mont all lit up – I had to look after Lily!
St Malo is one of the prettiest places we have visited. It has a walled city which is set against the ocean but then also has a long stretch of gorgeous beach. Once again we strolled around town and bought Lily more clothes.
View from our room at low tide
and high tide
I must admit Lily is very well behaved and happy given every day she is somewhere different with no set routine but every now and then she is a little monster, especially when we want to eat dinner – ok, so it may be her bedtime (or what would be of a normal child) when our mains arrive but it’s our holiday too! Since it was a really cold night we thought we’d have dinner at the hotel restaurant and it looked really nice with a delicious menu. The restaurant was busy and that always helps since Lily loves to people watch and as long as she is getting attention from anyone she is a happy little girl. But no, our little monster appeared that night and we took turns at taking her for walks and entertaining her so we basically ate on our own on rotation. By the end of our meals she had the few diners who were left wanting a cuddle so we got to enjoy our desserts while she was flirting with everyone. That was one night we probably should have eaten take out in our room!

It was only a 90 minute ferry ride from St Malo to Jersey so we thought why not?! Michael’s friend Paul Berghouse lives there and Michael has wanted to go back to Jersey following his drunken pub crawl there many years ago. What a beautiful place – the scenery is absolutely breathtaking. It reminds me a little of Ireland as everything was so green and yes we did get to see a few jersey cows!
Lily made a new friend on the way over to Jersey. Since she has loads of toys already and we need to somehow get them back to Sydney, Michael said ‘only a small one’ and then they walked out of the shop with the biggest toy there – a 60cm labrador named Monty. She absolutely adores him. Unfortunately Lily got quite sick with a cold and a really bad cough so our two night stay extended to five nights. We took her to the hospital and the doctor checked on her and it was a case of Lily just having to weather the storm. It meant that we had a few quiet days which is what we all needed – it allowed Michael time to do all of our washing!

Had a great Sunday roast with Paul and his wife Yvonne plus some more shopping! Thank you to the both of you for spoiling us while we were in Jersey. It has been getting very cold lately so we thought we would make our own little marshmallow baby….As revenge for dressing her like that Lily has persuaded Michael to buy her a car for her first birthday.

France roadtrip – part 1 'The landing spot'

Although we had every good intention of leaving first thing in the morning we eventually got on the road in the late afternoon. So instead of driving through the French Alps to Lyon we took the expressway so the passing scenery paled in comparison.

Lyon is a beautiful city – the city centre is on a 500m-800m wide peninsula bounded by two rivers, the Rhone and Saone. Walking along the river reminded me of Budapest but on a much smaller scale. By the time we arrived in the late late afternoon we found that Lyon was completely booked out on a Monday night but we did managed to get the last room in the city centre not priced over €200. It did cost us €100 for a two star room that was very small with a smelly bathroom and had not been touched since 1972 but it was in the centre of town.


There was a huge moment that morning in Lyon – Lily’s first tooth appeared! We celebrated with a morning stroll around town and after Michael bought three pairs of jeans to add to his collection we headed to Dijon, the home of mustard. I was craving Asian food so we headed to the local Chinese restaurant for dinner. As usual Lily wanted our full attention as soon as our meals arrived and as usual I was going to have to eat cold rice but then a hungry tour group came in for dinner and Lily was taken around to every table by the Taiwanese tour guide and we got to enjoy our hot meal! Just brilliant!

It was here in Dijon that we spotted a divine piece of art for Lily’s bedroom – it was a huge canvas covered in a patchwork of 390 little squares of japanese paper. It was ‘impossible’ to be sent back to Sydney so we ended up buying a few boxes of paper instead! I have a huge job ahead of me but well worth it…whenever I finish it!

The thought of creating this piece of art made me think of champagne. I had penciled out Epernay as our next stop since it was in the Champagne region and it is the home of Moet and Chandon. On the way we went to Troyes for lunch which was long enough. The lonely planet describes the town as what ‘Europe would have looked like back when William Shakespeare was alive’ – to me it felt like we were in a theme park.
I was happy to join the champagne route to Epernay straight after lunch. In Epernay we didn’t get to stay at Monsieur Chandon’s previous residence since it was completely booked and we are not that organised so we stayed at a very far away second, the Kyriad (it is about 10 steps below an Ibis hotel and was once again the only hotel room available – thank god Michael beat the traveling toy salesman to the door even though he had to help my beloved open the front door since he couldn’t work it out!).

The three of us went on a tour of Moet and Chandon. I don’t think either Lily or Michael were as excited as I was being so close to thousands and thousands of bottles of champagne. Lily had her first taste of Moet but I think like her mum she prefers Veuve. The one bad thing about the hour tour was 10 minutes in I smelt something. Without wanting to change Lily’s nappy in the cellars of Moet and Chandon we stayed at the back of the group hoping the smell of champagne was not being overtaken by something else.

There is over 20,000 bottles of Moet in this cellar cave alone
As you can see Lily is growing although she is still smaller than the largest bottle of Moet. The third bottle from the right is the normal sized bottle.
A couple of hours north of Epernay is the town of Arras. We drove out to the Somme although we did not intentionally stay here for this reason but after we arrived we realised that it was less than an hour away. We visited the Australian Memorial Park in Le Hamel, which still has some trenches, and the Australian National memorial – carved in stone are 10,982 names of the missing soldiers who have no known grave. Also went to the Franco Australian Museum in Villers-Bretonneux. The museum was on the top floor of a primary school and was given as a gift to the schoolchildren from primary schools in Victoria.


The Australian Memorial
As we have been heading north the weather has been getting cooler and there is certainly no need for those t-shirts I packed. It has been about 12degrees during the day but still clear sunny days.

The main reason for our roadtrip was a Channel swimmers reunion on the French coast. We spent the night in Wissant since Des was made an honorary citizen after landing there so many times on his swims. I wanted to stay at the Hotel Bellevue as that was where Michael had stayed with his dad in 1974 on one of his swims but when we arrived it looked like it was stuck in a timewarp so needless to say we stayed somewhere else. I like old world charm but I’m not a fan of smelly old hotels. Wissant is a tiny little town and even though the French were playing Argentina there were no places showing the match and our room didn’t have a tv so Michael used his broken French and they found a tv for us. That night we ate very expensive and very ordinary pizza on the floor of our hotel room lit up only by the glow of the tv since Lily went to bed early for a change and we didn’t want to wake her.

Wissant before a storm
Every year a group of Channel swimmers get together to tour the French coast to see their landing spots, have lunch at Cap Gris Nez (which means the grey nose) and of course to chew the fat. We met the group of about 40 people (15 swimmers and their entourages) at Sangatte then drove along the coast stopping at Cap Blanc Nez, Wissant and finally Cap Gris Nez. The coastline was absolutely beautiful and certainly worth the drive if you ever find your way to that part of the world.

Sangatte beach
View from Cap Blanc Nez - you can see Cap Gris Nez in the distance

Road to Wissant
It was wonderful to see where Michael landed on his swim and to steal a few pebbles as a memento. It was a beautiful clear day so you could see the White Cliffs of Dover and it made you think ‘why on earth would you want to swim across it?!’.

Cap Gris Nez
The landing spot (or around abouts there since it was dark on the night of 01 August)
A big thank you to Cliff and Laura for organising the day – it was a memorable one.

We caught the ferry to Dover and watched the rugby world cup final that night - it was hard to watch since I didn’t really want either team to win. But I did get to have KFC so I was happy enough (I know it is very bad for you but there is something so special about the colonel’s 11 herbs and spices!).
Michael finally got to meet Kevin Murphy and his wife Jane who he hadn’t seen since Kevin raced his dad across Sydney Harbour in 1977. Kevin is the current King of the Channel with 34 crossings! He is arguably the greatest endurance swimmer of all time having spent 52 hours in the water during a three way Channel attempt.
Kevin and Alison Streeter (queen of the Channel with 43 crossings...yes 43 crossings!) were both at Hubert House being interviewed for a book on Channel swimming so we got to hear some great stories of their swims. One funny story was on one of Alison’s swims and involves the restaurant where we had lunch which is right on the beach at Cap Gris Nez. After swimming from England to France, Alison kept walking up the beach to the restaurant, ordered a beer and pulled some money out from under her swimming cap - of course they didn’t let her pay for her drink! I mainly went along to enjoy THE best club sandwich ever only to arrive to find out that the gas wasn’t working so I had to have a pain au chocolat instead.

We went to the Dover Museum and saw the King of the Channel trophy on display. On Sunday afternoon we were in search of a dream cream tea and we were tipped off to head to St Margaret at Cliffe. The Bluebells Tea House is located in the old coast guard station and overlooks the Channel. The Johnstons would have been jealous since they had loads of plain and fruit scones served with homemade jams and cream. Lily enjoyed her first taste of a traditional cream tea. Absolutely delicious – I could easily survive on cream teas, hot chips and bacon…..mmmmmm.

Do you think I'm sexy?

Well do ya?

Just the three of us

Time really flies when you don’t do much! Can you believe we have already been away for over two months?! We are now thinking of maybe staying away a little longer – Michael is enjoying unemployment and Lily wants a few more stamps in her passport and more so because we are really enjoying ourselves. We’ll see…..

Our stream of visitors has come to an end after six weeks of only having the place to ourselves for five days! Mum left this morning after coming back to us for a few days after tours of Scandanavia and Italy and we took her on a road trip to Avignon and St Remy de Provence this week.

Gorgeous little street in St Remy de Provence
Belinda, Vinh and Ollie left on Friday and it was great to spend the week with them after not seeing them for a few months. Ollie has really grown since we left and loves a chat and a sing song. The best part of their stay was that Ollie kept Lily entertained and of course Belinda and Vinh were good company as well. Vinh treated us to rice paper rolls…..mmmm. It has been so long since we’ve eaten them. I am now on a mini mission to find yum cha over here – I’ll let you know how I go.
There is a great coast drive along Cap de L’Esterel from St Raphael to Cannes. The scenery is really stunning with rust coloured hills rolling down into the water which is very different to the rest of the Cote D’Azur coastline. We go to the beach at Agay which is on this strip of coast as it is one of our closest beaches but I personally prefer Antibes.
While Belinda and Vinh were here we went to the fresh produce markets at Aix en Provence. I love going to the markets and I’ve even bought a wicker basket so I look more like a local although as soon as I open my mouth it’s pretty obvious that I am not but I’m sure I look very frenchy – me with my basket filled with fruit and veg and a couple of baguettes poking out walking along eating a croissant!

The fresh raspberries were sooo delicious especially dipped in my hot chocolate (which was literally a cup of pure hot chocolate…I had to order milk to have with it since even I couldn’t drink it straight. Alana would have loved it!).

Lily in Cannes

We had a lovely dinner in Cannes – a huge seafood platter, the ‘royale assortment’. Must admit Michael and Vinh ate most of it since I am not too keen on oysters or mussels ala naturale. I have a new found respect for Vinh – the way he manhandles a crab is really impressive and makes eating crab a much more enjoyable experience when you don’t have to do all of the hard work.

Went to the beach at Antibes over the weekend. Spotted the Arctic P anchored offshore – James must be in town for the rugby or the festival of hand run musical machines. Perfect timing for a visit since he was featured in the paper about his ‘disgraceful’ €10,000 donation to the Antibes council for his civil wedding ceremony. Apparently the cost of police escorts is very expensive.

We are now planning a big road trip next week to northern France to have lunch at Cap Gris Nez – it is an annual event for Channel swimmers and Lily and I will get to see where Michael landed.

Thanks to all of our visitors for taking back Lily’s 2008 winter collection.