Bonn – Wednesday 14th October 2009

First frost of winter today! It was freezing outside but from behind the glass, next to the radiator and in the sunshine, it was heavenly!

We decided to have a nice easy day today so we went off to Bonn.

Bonn is just below Koln so about 40 miles away but the roads were pretty easy and we made good time. The journey was quite lovely, dipping in and out of the low cloud and bright sunshine, frosty all the way. Nice.

Bonn was the birthplace and home to Ludwig van Beethoven so the place is pretty much all about him.

As German towns go it gets an A* for the shopping. If you need a mobile phone, you can go down one of the streets and see 3 different Vodafone shops almost right next to each other. It has a Karstadt and a Kaufhof and two H&M stores that we found. Parking was plentiful and easy and right in the middle of the town.

The shops were awesome, I need to go back there to buy all new kitchen stuff, and they even had lilac Le Creuset! They were just starting to put out the Christmas stuff too and we were quite tempted by some of the pretties, but Andy kept trying to make me walk near the scary nutcracker men which I dislike even more then clowns. They are evil, no question.

The other thing that I find odd (but lovely) is the number of tea shops over here. Not the cup-of-tea-and-piece-of-cake tea shops back home, but specialist tea shops with blends, fruit teas, green teas, all kind of tea implements, far more impressive than the Whittards type of thing which is all I’ve ever seen back home. Most department stores seem to have a tea section, and most cities have a couple of individual tea shops. In the Karstadt, we were called over by the staff to try the three teas they had on offer, and as they were such nice people (and the teas were lovely) we bought one, and we got two small sample packets thrown in as well. I’ve decided I’m going to start trying more fancy “gay”  tea from now on, it’s a whole new world to be discovered! And I get to have more cake and biscuits. Everyone knows you can’t have tea without cake and biscuits.

We parked at Kaufhof underneath the Munsterplatz right in the middle of everything really. As big towns go, it was pretty small actually and everything was in easy walking distance.

Dominating the Munsterplatz was the giant cathedral (although not as big as Koln by any stretch of the imagination). It really was a lovely building inside and I could have spent hours taking photos, but I didn’t get to take any as there was a man scowling at any tourists entering and disturbing the worshipers. We left pretty quickly.

Bonn is also a university town and the main campus building is contained within a palace, it was pretty cool, a massive yellow building surrounded by bikes and ‘the youth’.

We had a good look at Beethoven’s birth house, it was quite interesting, loads of very small doorways and more scowling guards not liking the photographs, therefore none were taken.

We got to see some pretty cool stuff though. I didn’t realise that LvB was actually pretty much deaf in the end and used ear horns, and they had them in a glass case for all to see! Also various instruments he had actually used and a lock of his hair. Now I don’t proclaim to be a fan, but it was pretty ace. I might actually dig some music off of one of the hard drives and culture myself….

We ended our trip out with a drive along the Rhine down towards Koblenz then headed back to Sunparks via the shops to get some rolls, bockwurst and curry sauce. Yum!

The Vulkan Express (Brohl Lutzing) and Andernach - Tuesday 13th October 2009

I was very excited today about this little trip out. I can’t help it, it must be a boy thing. The Vulkan Express is a private railway that runs from the Rhine at Brohl Lutzing to Engeln, a small town in the volcanic national park. Chuffachuffa chuffachuffa poooop pooop!

Three trains run on the line, now, I’m not going to be able to list what they are, I’m nowhere near to that level, but one is a small steam tank engine, another is a small diesel and the last one is a diesel which has a carriage incorporated into the actual train.

We got to the station a little early for our train, it seems that for most of the summer they run trains on Tuesdays, Thursdays and at the weekend, twice daily. We were a good couple of hours early so we had a little wander round Brohl Lutzing. It was a quick wander. There were a couple of coffee shops and a large (very nice) church, which was about it. For its size it was odd as it had a huge station on a main line and motorway access. Leaving Brohl Lutzing we decided to head down the Rhine a little to Andernach.

Andernach is an old walled city that has just been modernised over time and before anyone realised what had happened, they had made a couple of architectural mistakes, the new town hall (Rathaus) for example. It looks a little bit inside out. It is a steel and glass building which, in the 70s and 80s was probably very modern, now it just looks dated and very ugly. Other than that the town is quite pretty. It’s a nice place to wander round and shop. Don’t miss the town square and the old town hall as they are very pretty.

We stopped for a little while to get some lunchables in the form of currywurst before heading back to Brohl Lutzing to the train.

On our return we found that the small diesel tank engine would be pulling us up the mountain. Attached were a small freight car, the passenger carriage and a dining car.

The passenger carriage was split into two halves. Both halves were the same and were wood panelled with wooden seats with overhead luggage racks.

The trip was about 1 hour, twenty minutes each way. The train took us up the hills through loads of little towns and stops and through the countryside, fields and meadows. I think that in May, if you get good weather, it would be even more pretty. All the alpine flowers would be out and the fields would all be green rather than ploughed. Never mind, the views were still outstanding. There was a man turkey-herding!

On reaching the top there was a small exhibit about fossils found in the area and a tea shop. Coffee and cake for us! Today’s cake was a cherry cheese cake, baked with icing on the top. As we found from our Black Forest trip, we only ordered once slice, which was more than enough for the both of us!

The fossil thing was rubbish. They’d carved some shapes into some rocks and then had a very badly designed “giant frog” and “iguanodon” made out of concrete.

After playing peek-a-boo with a small German child we got back on the train for the return journey. The sun was shining, and it was warm inside the carriage so the return journey was nice and relaxing.

It costs €12 per adult for the return ticket and I think it would be an ace way to spend an afternoon with kids. The company run a Christmas Service to meet Santa and they also do party nights where there is live music and dinner at the end of the train ride and endless amounts of booze. These are quite expensive but undoubtedly very fun!

The drive home was clear and we made it in about 45 minutes. Realising we actually had no food we decided to go over to the complex to the pizzeria, expensive but nice food the menu was not very exciting and the drinks were over priced but not a bad meal to be honest.

Vianden and Luxemburg – Monday 12th October 2009

Happy Birthday to ME! And for my birthday, a trip to Luxemburg was on the cards. It took us about an hour to get over the border due to our junction on the motorway being shut. This was not really a problem, we just had to go cross country and the scenery was stunning. It is a bit like Bedfordshire, travelling along roads where you can see the landscape for as far as the eye can see to the volcanic mountains in the distance.

It was a bit wet and rainy but this cleared up when we left Germany and got into Luxemburg, travelling through Diekirch (where they mainly make beer) to get fuel (at 86.1 cents per litre) and then on to our first stop, Vianden.

I’d seen the name on the map and it rang a bell, I don’t think I have ever been there before but we were not disappointed when we arrived. It was a very quaint little town in the bottom of a valley with a river running through the bottom. The old town was classically cobbled with lovely old buildings, good for a wander should you wish to.

Above the town was a dominating castle which was in the process of being renovated however it had got past the stage where scaffold was needed so it looked quite pretty actually.

The castle was a complete ruin up until the end of the 1970s when funding was found to bring the place back to life and work continues to this day.

In the cellar of the castle all of the archaeology was on display. The ancient Roman walls of a fairly modest outpost that were originally there had been built on top of over the centuries until the large castle was formed.

Much of the renovation consists of concrete replacement pillars in the darker more rough areas where the servants would have existed, but in the real places that mattered the stonework has been recreated to the original specifications and the castle looks pretty much as it would have done when brand new.

Probably the most impressive thing about the castle I can think of was a large gallery in the main building. It is covered by the pitched roof and is as wide and as long as that section of the building. With a flagstone floor and large open windows running along each side it was a sheltered, light room that looked like it belonged in “Theed” from Star Wars (Where Queen Amidala is from in Episode 1)

We were at the castle for just over an hour before we left and continued the drive to Luxemburg.

It was our second trip to Luxemburg. We went there with Sean and Laura this time last year but this time the weather was completely different. Today we were blessed with puffy white clouds and sunshine. We could see the whole valley and the park at the bottom of the old city ramparts.

We wandered round having a look in the shops. Anna found an H&M which (by being in Luxemburg was tax free) and they had a 50% off sale, score! I didn’t buy anything though!

We also caught some things we missed the first time like the beautiful park below the town and we also went to have a look at the court complex.

The courts were very interesting. It seems that they have county, magistrates, high and youth court all in the same courtyard opposite each other. The site looks very new as well. It has polished stone floors and the buildings were Daz white.

We grabbed a couple of Geocaches whilst we still had light and we headed off to Prüm for my birthday dinner.

I love Prüm, mainly for its Post hotel Restaurant but it has a lovely looking Abbey. To my despair and disgust, the Post Hotel had been made into a coffee bar and a chaps fashion shop, RUBBISH! We shared meals at that place with Sean and Laura and Chris and Faith and the food was always brilliant, home cooked and in man size portions. It was the kind of place that locals would come as a complete family for a regular meal. The other thing we liked about then was they sold really nice Schnitzel in every style known to man, veal, pork or turkey with creamy mushroom, Jager and cheesy sauces to name but a few.

With no glory food of wonder and joy, we had to find another place to eat as we were starving. We happened upon a place next to the Abbey called “The Old Abbey”.

Inside the bar was pretty cool actually. It was wood everywhere and furnished as if it were an old brewery with copper pipes and drums everywhere. One of the booths had been cut out of a massive copper vat and seated about 8 people inside.

It looked ace, so what about the food.

We Anna had a pork schnitzel with cream and mushroom sauce. It was pretty nice actually but it didn’t come in the same quantities as before. I on the other hand had a turkey schnitzel with a cheesy sauce. It had some chip shaped vegetables in the sauce but we couldn’t work out what they were. I think they must have been turnip or some such. It wasn’t obvious from the menu but hey, it tasted nice so I wasn’t overly bothered.

The whole thing, including drinks and coffee came to about €30, which was very reasonable!

We left Prüm after food, and made our way back to Sunparks where we discovered that most of the world had descended for ½ term week, joy!

Burg Eltz and Cochem – Sunday 11th October 2009

Another sensible get up time for us today meant we had a full day ahead of us to get out and about. We decided to head down the road to Burg Eltz, probably the cutest castle in the world.

We parked up near to the castle and went on the ‘Wanderweg’ through the forest along the side of the valley. After about 20 minutes of walking we rounded a corner to see our destination.

The castle is a proper fairy tale one in the middle of the valley on a rocky outcrop with a river running at the bottom. It has round turrets and it looked (as we found out later to be true) like it was a mix and match of buildings joined together.

As we got nearer, it was clear to see that the Sweeney Family curse was once again coming into effect. Probably one of the most beautiful places of the holiday so far had an entire wall covered in scaffolding. Frustration set in as we got closer and we found that the entire castle was being held together with giant pins to renovate and stabilise the schloss.

The scaffold was there for a reason and I was happy with the reason, without it, the whole place would fall apart and it would be lost.

We had a good look round. I would, when taking a camera, make sure you have a decent wide angle lens (a 10-20mm would be ideal) or make sure you have panorama software to get the inside courtyard shots.

The team at the castle do tours in German, Dutch and English, we had to wait for ours for about an hour but it was worth it in the end. We spent some of the time looking at the treasure collection; it was full of very pretty shinies!

We were taken round the castle with a large group (which was a little too large to be honest) and we were forbidden from taking photos, (boo). There was little to take photos of really. Most of the rooms inside were covered in plastic sheets as the interior was being renovated.

Hopefully in time, when the works are finished, the place will be awesome and we will have to come back. There is no expected finishing date for the work.

All in all, it is a lovely place to go. The parking is €1.50 and the adult entry fee is €8.00. It’s not so bad but probably worth waiting a few more years for the work to be finished.

Anna got us an ace little fridge magnet for home and we started the long walk back up the roadway to the car. I’d say, it is easier to park and do the Wanderweg both ways as the gradient is a lot less steep.

Knackered and back at the car, we decided to pop over to Cochem.

Cochem is a very pretty town with lots of nice Tudor style buildings and cobbled streets. It is on the banks of the Mosel River, one of the most important waterways in the area. Also, a lovely wine region, yum!

It was packed. Hundreds of elderly people shuffling round looking at the tat shops, lace and leather merchants and going for coffee and cake. It was brilliant!

We had some Currywurst with Bratkartofflen and then we stopped for some coffee and cake with some of the elderly populous.

Once the rain started, we headed off quickly to the car and back home.

It was a shame when we realised that Cochem, (being a staging post for German forces during the war for the Ardennes), was completely flattened by the RAF during the 1940s. The town has since been lovingly re-created in a similar style to the original.

Why could Stevenage, Hertfordshire, UK not have been done this way! It would be beautiful!

Even the large Burg that overlooks the town is a re-creation as the original burnt down in 1689.

The rough guide describes Cochem as “Averagely uninspiring”, I kinda agree but it is a generally ‘nice’ place to go. There’s just not that much there apart from the food places and crappy shops. Bit of a shame. We didn’t fancy sitting on the chairlift in the rain to get to the top of the hill to look over the town either. Ah well. At least I saw a dog that looked like an ewok, so it was pretty cool in the end.

Blankenheim and Bad Munstereifel - Saturday 10th October 2009

After going to bed at child o’clock we got up at OAP o’clock, we were awake at about 6 but dozed until 7ish.

We decided to head out to Blankenheim, we had a leaflet for it that we picked up somewhere so decided to have a look and see what it was all about.

Arriving pretty early on a Saturday we thought that it was a bit quiet, it looked like it could be a pretty busy coach party style town so we got on and had a good wander about before the expected crowds rolled in.

I suppose I would describe Blankenheim as a bit like Monschau but smaller, a lot less touristy and it is not permanently Christmas. It has lovely cobbled streets and only one building, albeit a lovely one, was covered in scaffolding. The rest were a mixture of Tudor style white with beams and more modern, shapely concrete, 50’s style ones which are common as post war rebuilds in West Germany.

The town has a large “Berg” or castle overlooking the town. This one unfortunately was not open to the public and was instead a youth hostel (inhabited today by the local scout group).

The castle’s once ornate gardens were now a meadow inhabited by local horses (who were very pretty indeed). The region has a large amount of sandy/light brown horses with really blonde manes and tails. There’s a field of these sandy ponies not far from Sunparks, I reeeeaaaaallly want to go and see them. When we drove back today, they were walking over to investigate a carload of hikers that had stopped near them, so I think they’re very friendly!

We went for a short nature walk and saw some pretty little snails all over everything, we had to be pretty careful as most of them were very young and VERY small.

I’m sure Anna will chip in with some more! Oh the snails! They were brilliant! There were loads of them, in all kinds of colours – yellow, orange, swirly stripes and all kinds of sizes from a couple of centimetres down to barely five millimetres! There were so cute! The path we found them on also had some proper fairy sized mushrooms and some very odd snails that were quite oddly shaped – they were small with very narrow conical shells, we tried getting a photo, but they were so small the camera had trouble focussing on them.

Back into town and the coach parties had not arrived, nor had anyone else really, I’m sure towards Christmas time the place will be heaving but October is good if you want a hassle free wander.

Bad Munstereifel is on the river Erft and is also similar to Monchau but bigger. The streets are wider and there is a definite route through where Monchau is a bit twisty with loads of little snickets.

Munstereifel is the place to go for food and shops. There was far greater choice and it was a lot busier than Blankenheim.

I can imagine the place being completely mental come Christmas as thousands of little old ladies from miles around are shipped in one coach at a time to spend their hard earned retirement monies on useless tat that they will never use and try to palm off on unsuspecting family members.

There was a cool little ninja kitty on our walk through town – he was trying to get in a closed window, as I don’t think he’d realised it wasn’t the one he came out of. As we watched he was doing that crazy look that kitties do and I was a little worried that he might jump off the windowsill after whatever bug had caught his attention, but then he managed to figure out the way back over the canopy to the open window. He was a silly kitty.

We stopped off for lunch at a place called Amadeus where we both ordered the food of glory and wonder, schnitzel. This was Champignonrahmschnitzel to be precise which came with a starter salad and a huge side of chips. YUM YUM YUM YUM YUM (repeat till fade).

After basking in the glow of awesome and joy for an hour, and trying a new non-beer called Stauder (from Essen), we left and made our way back to the car to come home.

The way back was rainy, sunny and foggy (all at different times, duh!) and was on some of the best roads ever. They seem to have resurfaced everything recently and we made rapid (but safe) progress down to Nurburg (where we got a crate of Bitburg for Katie and various non-beers for me).

Nurberg is great but no ring today as there was BMW racing on (which could be heard from miles away echoing round the valley).

About 15 minutes later we were in Sunparks and snoozing. Tonight we went to the swimming pool, which is a lot smaller than Vielsalm, but it was worth it to fill an evening and wake up a little before heading back to the flat for dinner and bad comedy on the TV.

Sunparks – Gunderath – Friday 9th October 2009

And off we go on another trip to Germany! I’ve been really looking forward to this one. We are staying in a Sunparks in Germany this time as opposed to the one in Belgium.
The park is in Gunderath which is in the Eifel region. This is on the western border with Luxemburg and is a volcanic area with loads of hills, valleys and craters, awesome!

It was a nice early start (but late for us at 0630hrs). Got to the chunnel in plenty of time and were across in no time. We did a quick trip to Auchan for fuel and munchies (most importantly Lion Bar cereal and milk!)

The drive itself was nice and quick, about 5 hours through France, Belgium and into Germany. We didn’t stop for lunch as we had loads of sweets and pastries to tide us over.

We arrived, got our key from the check in lady (who looked pretty tired and cold by the time we got there (but she had just been filling her happy German face with sweets!) and found our pad. We pretty much have a studio apartment with a small kitchen and bathroom. Just what we need for the two of us.

The buildings are older and look worse on the outside than the Vielsalm houses but on the inside they are a lot more cozy. In stead of being cold and tiled throughout, there is carpet in the entrance hall and laminate in the living room and it has some of the largest radiators I have seen in AGES! Huge bed too!

The centre of the site is a lot busier then Vielsalm with much more to spend money on. The site prices are a lot more than the local shops so we need to do a trip out tomorrow for supplies.
I am looking forward to going there and having the all you can eat German Buffet though, sounds ace!

We went for a walk round the site and down to the Stausee, a small dammed lake at the top end of Gunderath. I think we went there at just the right time, the sun was setting and the reflections on the lake of the sky and autumn colours were a photographers wet dream,… (except for doing a nude shot of Girls Aloud - lol). Don’t forget the crazy fish! I shall explain…

As we were walking around the lake getting some photos we heard a heavy splash and saw some big ripples spreading out, but none of the ducks looked like they’d moved, so we ignored it and carried on round. Then, as we were just passing over the dam we just turned to look at the water at the right time and saw a fish jump fully out of the water! Twice! Not sure what type of fishy he was, don’t think it was a carp as it was slimmer and quite silvery, perhaps a trout? I dunno, I’m not much of a fish person, but it was certainly big enough to feed a couple of people quite well. I think it was trying to catch the bugs on the surface. We waited for a while in case it did it again so we could get a photo, but it didn’t. Shortly after we met a man and his excellent dog. It was big and hairy.

Gunderath is a very small town that has a couple of restaurants supplying people that need to get out of the prison camp with normal German food at a reasonable price. Everything was below €10 and from the menu looked TASTY. Will definitely be going there for din dins soon.

On the way out we saw some gentlemanly graffiti saying “Gangsta” and some pretty little ponies. We thought the place would be excellent for our mate Mr J. He really wants a small holding and almost every home in the town has a paddock and access to a stream. It was brilliant, and really quiet as well.

We headed back to our flat and had a sit down with some tele before, at about 2000hrs, my eyes closed and didn’t open again until the following morning, lightweight.

It rained super hard during the night and woke me up once or twice, but it sounded very cool.

Beziers - 22nd July 2009

We did LOADS of things today and are quite proud of ourselves actually for being super ace!

Our first stop of the day was at the 9 Locks of Bezier on the Canal Du Midi.

The locks are a set of 'Staircase' locks on the canal and it consists of 8 chambers that raise and lower boats up and down through the set. Due to the limited size of the chambers, only small boats were able to pass through so a plan was divised!

A giant multi wheeled contraption that looked more at home emerging from the belly of Thunderbird 2 was created. The vehicle was set upon runners above a large slope from the high point of the lock to the bottom. The idea would be that the large boats were attached to the vehicle which was used to stabalise the boat and water would be allowed to flow down the slope. The vehicle would then tow the boat slowly to the bottom.  This was a French invention that has only ever been used twice since (1985?) due to insurance reasons - FAIL.

Beziers was next on the list. I quite like this town and was dragged round it a lot when younger. As usual for French towns there was a lot of dog poop on the ground but other than that, not too bad.

I would recommend staying away from the lower old town, It is very shabby and run down and there is not a great deal there apart from drunks and hobos. As you move up towards the theatre and the old town the streets become cleaner and more welcoming.

We popped into a church to have a look round and ended up having a tasty omelette outside the theatre in the main avenue.

After leaving the city we went to a feature known as the Oppidum d'Enserune, this is a hill top settlement, founded by the Romans in 6BC. The hilltop has views over the former Swamp of Montady. This circular swamp is now cut up like pieces of pie after it was drained for form farmland in the 13th C.

In a very cool coincidence we met a couple of Geocachers here from the Netherlands. We were both standing, looking out over the view, GPS in hand thinking to ourselves “Who are they? Are they geocacheing? Should I speak to them or will they thing I am mad…?” In the end, we spoke and climbed down a cliff face to find a cache. Awesome fun!

Andorra - 20th July 2009

It’s a bit like LA, but prettier, smaller and built in a valley, and with less Americans. It is a long strip, most of the way through the country with shopping malls, cheap petrol and garages.
It being a tax haven, if you want booze, fags or fuel, here is the local place to go.
The fuel really was the only interest for us out of that list so we went for an explore.

The trip over quite frankly took forever, driving along winding roads through gorges and up and down mountains. It was beautiful but very tiring, trying not to drop off a ravine or become crushed against the side of a cheese grater rock face. After what seemed like forever we stopped at a town called Livia, a town in Spain, but in France, but in Spain. It’s an enclave of Spain that is an island in a sea of France. Due to a legal oversight in 1659 within the Treaty of the Pyrenees between France and Spain, all villages were given to France, Livia unfortunately was classified as a city due to it being an ancient capital, so it was declared part of Spain.

There was a frog in the tree stump hole that should have held a cache, so it wasn’t a completely wasted journey.

Leaving here we continued to Andorra. We had a look in the shops and were completely uninterested really. A lot of the stuff was tacky, to be smoked or to be drank, so we left it. It is a shame really, if we were shopping for items for a new home etc then it would have been wonderful there was plenty to buy, we were just completely in the wrong mood.

Had a great pizza though in one of the department stores. Even if the ordering system was completely nonsensical. Make your choice, pay at the hidden and not signposted till, take your receipt to the bar staff, who then shout over to the pizza chef, who was the first person we’d spoken to in the restaurant. Ridiculous.

As we drove north, through Andorra, the roads widened a little and the traffic lightened. The houses thinned out and the Pyrenean countryside opened up, well, it was pretty mountainous still but hey, we could see green stuff. As Andorra is a tax haven, the customs control at the border is quite stringent. As Brits, the guy looked quite disappointed and a little disbelieving at the fact that we’d only bought a Toblerone. Ah well, maybe next time.

The drive home was a little lighter, there were a lot less cliffside roads and more driving through beautiful (alpine) meadows. We had a short rest stop at the top of a pass, the Col de Chioula, and there was a girl on a donkey. And some very pretty flowers that I’d seen a short report on Countryfile shortly before we came away. I felt very knowledgeable.

Arriving home absolutely shattered, I worked out we had driven about 175 miles in about 8 hours, crap really, but very pretty.

We went for an evening stroll in the town of Lagrasse and I managed to get some ace looking night time photos and then to bed, broken.

I suppose I should mention the thunder and lightning before I get a telling off. We had lots of them, laying awake with the windows open listening to the rain and having the occasional flash of lighting, awesome!

Carcassonne - 19th July 2009

Today we got up really quite early again. Anna swears we are turning into our parents.

Our trip today was to Carcassonne, a medieval walled city about 30 mins away from Lagrasse.

A beautiful Gothic fortified city in the region, it was not always so pretty. The settlement has been around as an important city for trade etc since around 6BC and reached it's height in medieval times. One thing led to another over the next several hundred years and sadly by about 1850 the city was in such a bad state it was condemmed to be demolished. It was saved by public outcry and rebuilt and repaired to a former glory over the next few years.

Now the city is a tourist hot spot. Excellent photographically and it is a lovely place just to walk around and take in the atmosphere.

We got there nice and early and had a look round before the hundreds of coach tourists arrived and spoiled everything, it is very much worth while getting into town early at about 8 or 9am, the air is much cooler and there are a lot less people about.

Giving up with the crowds we explored the town around the city and found a few more Caches.

I’m really starting to get into this Geocache lark, its actually really good fun and it takes you to places that you would never have usually found unless by accident or being guided by a local.

I was less than enthused with essentially trespassing across someone’s vineyard as it was a shortcut to the next cache, but apparently, our defence of “We’re English” would be sufficient to save us from pointy, hurty death. I’m glad that we’ve yet to test this theory, as I’m sure it might not be quite as effective as we think.

Anyway, lovely place, well worth the visit again!

Millau - Friday 17th - Saturday 18th July 2009

Right, I’m getting a bit sick of this Anna,… 4.30am,… this is a little bit ridiculous now, I mean 4.30!... oh, hang on, it was my idea….

A very fast drive to the Shuttle, and early tunnel crossing to Calais, in an effort to save time, we even went without our traditional trip to Auchan (a decision we would later come to regret).

Generally the trip went very well, we got to Calais at about 8.30 local time and drove, and drove. This time we went left out of the tunnel in stead of right, it felt quite odd actually. We drove south on the A16 – A28 to Rouen, south to Chartres, south some more to Bourges, further south to Clermont Ferrand.

It was a very long, grey and mainly rainy trip with a couple of driver changes with Anna so that I could get some kip and not kill us.

The end of the toll road at Clermont Ferrand brought us our first real challenge of the holiday, other than trying to stay awake while driving 800 miles on boring motorways; we got stopped by the Gendarmes, just after the toll booth, I had tanked it a little and saw the oh so familiar lights, little flashing blue ones on top of a Peugeot, “dammit, was it us?” the flicks pulled up behind us and moved to overtake, “phew!” I thought to myself, noooooo, pulling up alongside us I saw a haggard looking policeman pointing towards the side of the road. The car pulled in front of us and we followed him off the motorway at the next junction, finally coming to a rest at the side of the road.

Engine off, got out and watched as the aged policeman walked towards me with his (very impressive) moustache and a strange pair of binoculars. Coming towards me he said “Speed” and pointed to his binoculars. There was a small display on the back and it read “134”, immediately I thought “Well that’s fine! The limit is 130” (as it was dry). I gestured with four of my fingers (not in a rude way) at the chap “Quatre?” The policeman explained to me that after the tolls it was 110 and that I owed him €45 for the fun of it. The policeman didn’t like us not having cash with us (we had €10 and a UK £5) when we asked him if he took card he wasn’t so sure. I gave him my wallet and said “Suivre a l’ATM”. The policeman looked at my wallet, opened it and saw my drivers licence, then my work ID. He walked over to the police car and came back moments later saying to me “Il’ya un cadeux, a gift, where you go?” I told him we were going to Millau and he said “Follow me to main road”….

I got my wallet back and got back in the car before he had a chance to change his mind. I briefly explained what happened to Anna and we drove off, being VERY careful not to obliterate any more speed limits, at least for the next 200 miles.

Sometimes I hate my job, but its good being part of the club!

The journey was partially familiar as we headed down further to Millau. Exhausted, we arrived but decided to head on over the “Viaduct De Millau” and have a look, designed by Norman Foster and completed in December 2004. It’s bloody big too.

It was beautiful (so my Dad would say), all crisp and white and very, very long.

Dropping down the hills from the other side of the valley into town gave us outstanding views of the hills, city and viaduct.

We finally arrived at our hotel, the city centre Mercure. I have stayed here before but not for about 10 years. It had changed a lot since. Our room had an EPIC view and all was well with the world.

Hungry, we left the hotel in search of food. This is where our luck just plain gave out on us.

A short wander round town led us to the only place that sold pizza, and having a craving for said tasties, this seemed like a good plan. I’m sure I have eaten there before and I’m sure that it was good.

Well, we had to wait about 30 mins to be seated, fine we thought, it was a busy night. Then, having waited for over an hour and only receiving one of our pizzas we decided to cut our losses and leave, which was a shame as the pizza that we did get was actually very good! Just to elaborate, we’d worked out that Andrew’s coke (I’d had to make do with just water, as he’d run out of everything else) and the one pizza we did get came to about €12, so we threw down a €10 note on the table and left. As we made our way down the road, little Monsieur Panic McUseless called after us and gestured disapprovingly for us to come back. He said “Is not enough” to which we responded “No, it’s not is it” and told him just how angry we were with the distinct lack of service, having watched what we know to have been our pizzas served by the waiters wife to a table right next to the kitchen as they’d complained that their kids hadn’t eaten and they’d been waiting ages, and then looked rather surprised at what they’d been given as the

y weren’t what they’d ordered and the resulting panic this caused in the kitchen. The wife’s offer for us to take away the remaining pizza was responded too with “Well it’s a bit late now and we don’t want to pay you anymore. BYE” was met with rolled eyes and a look of resignation. Thoroughly disheartened and a bit hungry we went back to the hotel to feel sorry for ourselves.

We returned to the hotel and slept very well until the morning.

The following morning we woke fairly early and went for a walk in search of breakfast. Not wanting to spend about £7 on a croissant and a coffee in the hotel, we went back into the old town to the bakers. A Brioche and two Pain au Chocolats for under €3, bargain!

Before leaving Millau and continuing our trip to Lagrasse we found a couple of Geocaches. One of which was only a mile from the town centre (as the crow flies) but in reality is about 6 miles on switch back roads up to the top of one of the mountains that surround the town. The view from the top was awesome, it was very windy and cold but it took a while to prise ourselves away from the view and on to finishing our trip.

The second cache was at the viaduct visitor’s centre, at the top of the valley where we had begun our Millau experience the day before. Outside the centre is a Norman church that overlooks the valley. Kinda unused for worship today, the simple structure had been reconditioned and was manned for visitors.

Apart from a few traffic jams o the last stretch of motorway full of people visiting the beach, there is not a lot else to report for the rest of the trip to Lagrasse,… oh and it was really quite hot…. And there were roadside whores on the N9… nice. Oh yes! Actual real life, middle of the day ladies of the night! In negligee and everything! Dirty! Now where’s a smiley to indicate a dirty lecherous grin…

We arrived in Lagrasse at the end of a weekend music festival. We went into the town and there were lots of crusty hippy types and they were setting up for the all night party in the town square. A short walk about and then up to the house as the family had finally arrived.

Titisee - Friday 16th May 2009 - Our Last Day.

Our last day in town before the long drive back home.

We thought it might be quite nice to, you know, see the town we were staying in rather than driving for miles. The sun was out and it was a beautiful day so strolling was in order.

We saw the local ice rink, a lake that (in May was far from being frozen) and Anna made friends with small animal!

Triberg Falls - Friday 15th May 2009 - Wet, Really Wet

The Triberg Falls are the tallest waterfalls in Germany, and as we discovered, if you go on the wrog day, they are certainly the wettest.

The day started out okay, a little bit grey and just as we arrived, the sun came out. Brilliant, ditch the fleese nice wander round in the sun,..... well,... we got most of the way to the falls, about a ten minute walk before the heavens opened. The pathways became streams and everything started to steam.

I made the error of going back to the car to get a brolly, i came back soaked.

We climbed down the falls to almost the bottom, it was definately photo pr0n for Katie and myself.

After the falls we headed into Triberg town to get some food. We settled in the only place that seemed open, an underground bierkeller style restaurant for pizza and pasta.

Awesome!

Konstanz - Thursday 14th May 2009

We took the long drive out today to Konstanz and the Bodensee today. I seem to have developed a nice cough,... meh.

Konstanz on the other hand is lovely, its a bit like Geneva but with less banks but it is still filled with rich looking people.

Konstanz is situated on the western edge of the lake where the Rhine enters Lake Constance. The Rhine exits on on the other side of the Bodensee. The city was created in the stone age but takes its name from the Roman emperor Constantius Chlorus. The town is split down the middle on the border with Swtizerland and, at the time of its creation was the only place in the local area with a bridge across the Rhine.

Anyway, back to the day, we had a wander round the city, taking in the sights. There seems to be quite a lot of construction going on at the moment so once again, lots of scaffold.

Amongst the sights were the cathedral (with an interesting masonic symbol on the ceiling) and the harbour (containing some very expensive boats).

It was once again, just a really nice place to be. We ate some food by the harbour bumbled about and had some coffee and cake in the centre.

Andy (who had left his passport at home) had managed to leave the UK, travel through France, Belgium, into Luxemburg, Germany, then France again before ending up in Germany, had no problems wandering over into Switzerland, get in, 5 countries in as many days!

We finished our day with a (cold and windy) boat trip onto the lake.

About an hour later we were in the car on the way back.

Feldberg and Titisee - Wednesday 13th May 2009 - A Day Off.

After the trauma of using public transport and too much walking we decided to have a mid week 'non-day".

We drove a little way up through the hills to the mountain and ski resort of Feldberg. It is a typical small ski resort with a couple of decent looking runs and more to the point, they have cool goats to feed and pet. They're a bit "enthusiastic" about getting fed, though, nearly lost a finger.

Got to stamp about in some of the last grubby snow patches right at the bottom of the hill, so perhaps wearing flipflops was a bad idea!

Browsed around in the couple of souvenir shops full of some disturbing tat and bad booze, all overpriced and crappy.

Deffo worth a trip to again if there is some snow and we are down that way.

We spent the afternoon relaxing by Titisee, watching ducks, dogs and people wandering about. Lovely day!

Freiburg - Tuesday 12th May 2009 - The Cambridge of the Black Forest.

Freiburg is awesome, it is on the western edge of the Black Forest and was only a short train ride away from Titisee, thats right people, i took the train somewhere.
Another cool thing about Freiburg is that it is twinned with Guildford.

We took one of the DB red double decker trains. It was clean, exactly on time and smooth. The view was awesome as we passed through little meadows and over bridges along the edges of mountain streams and rivers until we the land opened out and we entered civilisation.

Freiburg is a university town and also is a Free Market town, which is where the town gets its name.

At the centre of the city is the market place and the cathedral which date well back to the 1500s. When we got in we went straight to the market square to find a craft market up and running selling everything from wooden toys to plants and flowers.
Dominating the market is the cathedral, the sweeney curse was in play as the thing was covered in scaffold,... as usual. I swear one day im going to go somewhere where they have completely renovated a building and it will be gleaming and beautiful, on that day, i guarrantee that i will have forgotten my camera.

We spent the morning wandering round taking in the sights and then we headed over to the hills to the east and began to climb. We climbed and climbed and eventually reached the top. At the summit we found a spire, a tower of doom, step after step after step. Shattered, our group reached the top and looked out, absolutely beautiful. The clouds had cleared and the sun was out and the view went on for miles.... Katie wasn't too keen on the height though!

We returned home tired, shattered and happy at a day well done.

Höllsteig - Monday 11th May 2009 - Cuckoo Clocks, Water Falls and the Freaky Bar.

That a day! It was superb!
Höllsteig is a small place just on the road and rail in the direction of Freiburg. It has a large Best Western hotel on site and is essentially a place for coach parties to stop off, buy glassware and cuckoo clocks and also, as we found with most places in the Black Forest, a place to walk. It is also home to Germany's LARGEST cuckoo clock! (We sweens know how to rock and roll).

The first thing we looked at were the clocks, they were just simply amazing. The intricate details on them really impressed me and almost every one was completely different with different characters and ornaments. One of them even, as part of the workings, had a water wheel on the side with actual running water,... very odd and over the top, also deafening on the hour as all the little hatches opened and the cuckoos appeared.
Under the clock shop was a glass blowers, nothing really special here, loads of lovely, very expensive vases and ornaments.
The main reason for our visit was to walk up the water falls and valley of the local river. The trip took us up gangways and ladders, over tall drops and through thick woodland. The whole trip smelled of wet pine forest and at times the crashing of the water on the rocks was deafening. There is not really much to say about it, have a look at the photos, i took enough of them!
At the top of the river, as it opened out from the forest we came across a bar and guest house. We decided to stop and relax for a bit. Just as we were tucking into our very sexy plum and apple cake (by this time we realised that two portions could feed the four of us) the owner came up for a chat. He was a scary looking fella with tatoos on his arms, a thinning mullet and a biker mostache. He spoke in a very thick accent and i could not make out a single word he said, he would bang on the wall as well, it scared all of us quite a lot, mainly becuase the chap looked absolutely plastered. Luckily he had a friend closeby who was able to translate. Aparently there had been an earthquade in the region two nights before. The owners friend gave us directions and we left pretty quickly, stopping only to blaspheme on the way out.

The rest of the walk took us mainly down hill back to Hollsteig where we rested before the trip back to Titisee.

A Bitche of a Journey - Saturday 9th - Sunday 10th May 2009

As we have with all our holidays, a REALLY early start. This one was an 0530hrs get-up. We got out of the flat as quickly as possible and left to get our new travel buddies Katie and Andy. It was Andy’s first trip outside of the United Kingdom and there was some apprehension as we approached the Channel Tunnel as Andy did not have a passport. We won’t go into it but after a traumatic series of events, he did not have one.

As usual, it didn’t pose a problem at all. Waved through by French border control we continued our onward journey down thorough France, a bit into Luxembourg, a bit into Germany and finally ending up back in France at the beautiful city of Bitche.

Bitche is a lovely town on the eastern fringes of France. The town which was formed by the joining of the villages of Rohr and Kaltenhausen in the 17th century, gets its name from the old stronghold Bytis Castrum. This stood on the rocky hillside 80m above the town.

This stronghold was destroyed by the French and a new Citadel was built in its place in 1740. This citadel was proved impregnable until WW2 when it was occupied by the Germans as a control centre for the area.

The city was liberated by the yanks at the end of the war – History Done!

The city today is very quaint and more akin to being occupied by coach tours of elderly people from all over the region. There is only one decent hotel in the city centre, Hotel l’Strasbourg. We stayed there and it was lovely, expensive, but lovely. The hotel backs onto the gardens that sit in the shadow of the citadel.

We had a quick wander through these gardens, a quick walk that turned into a long stroll with loads of photos! The colours were amazing and there were a number of small art type gardens with lots of different themes.

After the gardens everyone was getting a little hungry so we went in search of food…. Worryingly there was very little to do of an evening in Bitche. There was the over-priced restaurant at the hotel and apart from that there was only a kebab shop in town,.. so,… dirty burgers it was! It was such a shame, the place really needs a nice place to eat and drink of an evening, there is so much potential but it was generally rubbish.

We retired for the evening and the next day we decided to storm the citadel.

Now, the citadel is completely ACE! It is really high up and you can see for miles around, it is a perfect place to defend the town and the local area. The place could exist for months on end under siege; it had a massive reservoir for drinking water and huge grain stores. On site was a bakery and a network of underground tunnels meant there was ample room for cold stores.

We were amazed by the local inhabitants, not the people but the Herons. Circling the citadel, coming into land and having a wander around, I have never been so close to these amazing birds, they are huge and look incredibly powerful.

We collected a quick Geocache and then left the city behind us to make our way over to our home away from home, Titisee!

Titisee on first glance is a lovely little german town, on the edge of lake Titisee and, like Bitche, is FULL of tourists and coach parties. In the heart of the Black Forest, people come from miles around to go on walking, driving and spa holidays, also to row and sail on the lake.

We were staying at the Hotel Alemannenhof, they have some blocks of apartments just up the hill from the main hotel that would be our base for the week. The appartment was huge as they go and the views from the balcony were astounding. You could see all the way left to town, to the right into the Black Forest with the lake stretching from one side to the other in front. With mountains and hills on each side the air was pretty still and and reflections off the water were beautiful.

We explored a little and walked down to the waters edge, where i made a promise to go for a swim, a promise that i would later fail to keep.

We had a quick beer and a bit of cake at the hotel before heading up to the room for a sleep.

Monday 29th December 2008 - Saturday 3rd January 2009

WALES - NEW YEARS ! - Monday 29th December 2008 - Saturday 3rd January 2009

For new years this year we all decided to go to Amsterdam, due to credit crunching issues and a general lack of money all round, we moved it to a small barn in Wales. Cwmpiban is a converted barn on the side of a valley surrounded by fields and trees. It is SO far in the middle of nowhere that there is no mobile reception of any kind, AWESOME!

The barn is near Rhulen, and its main town is Builth Wells.

Builth is a small town with all the essentials. It is one of those places that has a really slow pace of life. It still has independant local butchers and grocers.

We had a week of relaxing, taking photos, eating and drinking. Also Singstar, just to feed the Karaoke Hunger that had developed with no local bars to release the withdrawl.

Sean began had 365 Days of Meat challenge, more of it can be seen here:- http://365daysofmeat.blogspot.com/ .

Im not going to write a full and in depth blog about this trip as we didnt actually do a great deal but we all took some awesome pictures!