Day Twenty-One: Paris via the TGV (train) > London > Edinburgh

Brekky, TGV and bye bye to Tours and David and his wonderful family.

Hello to Scotland the Great - so beautiful and green from the air.

We find the hotel - awesome and comfortable (even the bed)!

We are right under the castle.

We went for a walk, got fish and chips, watched Dr Who, had a bath and went to sleep.

Day Twenty: HUGE DAY: Castles, Wine, Yummy Food & French countryside

I think this day tops the lot so far. We did so much and David's family were so generous!

It was so nice to wake up in a home rather than a hotel. The smell of fresh espresso and yummy French bread and jam. After breakfast Gille (sp) David's Dad and Christian (Grandma) arrived at Sylvie's - I hope I got those names right as it's very hard for me to understand some of the French pronunciations!

(I'll be brief and elaborate later as we are about to head out to lunch here in Edinburgh)

We all jumped in the cars and headed out to Chateaux Villandry. Which is a castle with gorgeous renaissance gardens.



A quick stop to grab snacks for Charlie first.

Charlie gives David some of her prized stone. He is the favoured one today. She won't walk with anyone except David or Sylvie lol.

Castle interior.

Peeking at the gardens before we stroll through them later.

David and his Dad.

Then we drove to a restaurent in Touraine where Gille (David's Dad) knew the owner. We had a lovely buffet entre with the specialty of the region which was pork and then we cooked slices of beef, veal and duck on hot stones sprinkled with rock salt at the table. Once cooked there were two sauces to dip the meat into. It was really really yummy and a great recommendation from Gille.

We walked around Touraine, saw the old mill and then we drove through the countryside to Chinon (where the wine from the meal was made). We drank a beer at a little pub and walked through the medieval village, we took photos of the medieval chateux up on the hill.

TBC ....

Day Nineteen: Easyjet to Paris and drive to Tours

OMG that nice looking hotel had the worst bed I've ever been in. A board would have been better lol! So much for the luxury "look" :P

We flew to Paris from Nice and then met David, his mother Sylvie and her partner Bernard at the airport. After a few roundabouts in Paris (sorry Bernard I had to mention it!) we were on our way to Tours!

Tours is a BEAUTIFUL town... one of the oldest (or maybe it is the oldest?). The Loire and the Cher rivers run through it.

We went to the old city and had a beer and I had my first Martini Rouge same as Sylvie (and Charlie had some yummy Rasberry Gelati that Sylvie bought her).

Then back to Sylvie's house for some champagne and nibblies then a gorgeous French meal that Sylvie cooked. I can't remember the name but it was delicious!! We selected various meat slices to put on our plate and then put cheese in a little hot plate and heated it inside a little griller on the table then poured it onto potatoes. Very tasty. We were lucky to sample some cheeses also including a famous goat cheese from Touraine which is made around a stick of wheat.

We had wine with the meal ... and some more wine, then liquer, and some more liquer, and some poire liquer, and some oozo, then some black cherry port ... and Bernard assured us they don't drink that much every night :P I had to decline after the Poire Liquer came out ... 50% acohol was too much for me. Antony loved it of course :P We tasted a little from every bottle in the cupboard! Noice!

Day Eighteen:Glorious Sun Soaked Meditteranean

I work and pack while Ant and Chazza do the laundry and meet heaps of people as I later find out.



The elevator at hotel solaris. About 2 x 3 ft.



View from our balcony.

Swim in the morning ... grab lunch and then we pack up and move to our new awesome hotel. It was so booked out in Nice (summer holiday time) I couldn't find a hotel for the full 3 days.

No sign of floral bedspreads. Hotel Malmaison.

What a glorious day! Lounging at the Mercure private beach. Perfect weather, swimming, drinking beer, collecting stones with Charlie, eating.... soaking up the landscape... relaxing most of all.

PERFECT.

Day Seventeen: Work Schmirk, Up the hill and down on the beach.

I wake early and I'm rearing to go. I have to work today. I order Ant out to get brekky but he takes ages to wake up and get ready. So we all head out ... especially after the neighbour bangs on the wall to shut Charlie up (she's a grizzly bear this morning).

We head out to grab breakfast and find the entire population of Nice are still asleep! Shops closed! We evetually find a couple that are open for coffee to go. It's around 7am. Sunday. We eat on the beach. Charlie has an impromptu swim and then we return so I can do some more work. Ant takes Charlie out again to tire her out ready for her nap so I can keep working.

They swim I work.

We all head out in the afternoon to walk up the mini mountain to see an awesome waterfall and a great view of Nice.

We cheap actually... and take the elevator for 1 Euro each hehe.

Great view when we get out of the elevator! Charlie plays in the park. There's a huge playground up the top. All the kids here seem really bossy and there's lots of bullying going on so Charlie avoids some of the kids this time hehe. We eat icecream, Charlie's falls out so she eats mine next.

We take a wander up the hill further, outside the playground and get a breathtaking view of Nice harbour / Port. Wow!! Are we really here?? Looks like postcard stuff.

Archeological dig happening near the castle.

Charlie scares a little boy by being friendly.

We are at the top!

Walking back to the hotel via the old city area. A carousel (we can't walk past now can we!?).

We grab some food (wishing we'd stayed in the old part of town to eat!!) we have mussells with garlic, parsley and olive oil, plus something called Fritto Misto (?) little fried fish, prawns and calamari. We share a pizza, knock back a wine and beer and then off for another beach jaunt where we meet a French lady, Marguerite, who lives in Nice with her litte son Tony (he's six but looks 9).

It's so cool talking to a French lady and she speaks no English but understands most of what I say and vice versa. I learn heaps of new words from her. It's actually really easy to understand French when you are here. Charlie gets tired and actually says "Time to go Mummy" ... if he is actually asking to leave the beach then she is really trashed lol! Well it is 9pm....We head back to the hotel... Beco her up and nip out for a coffee before retiring for the evening to check out the photos and sleeeeeeep.

This is all so tiring. Full days and lots of walking. So much for the idea of me staying in the hotel and getting some work done. The internet is sporadically slow so sometimes even when I make time to work I can do nothing. At the moment I can't even load up my email. So I'm blogging :) Guilt free :)

The sun sets around 9.30pm here and we've been out late most nights. Every now and then we do catch up and get Charlie back into her routine so she doesn't get too tired. She's coping so well ... does not seem to care at all that we are away from home and is having a ball.

Nice is SO different to Paris. We are seeing some great sides to France. Such contrasts. It's relaxed here but very touristy in parts. We will be in Tours soon experiencing another side again.