It is unimaginable in our today’s world that all these young people went half way around the world to die fighting on a hillside in Italy. We walk the rows and read each of the 457 New Zealand names.

We are at the commonwealth war graves cemetery and there are over 4000 graves here. 290 of them are graves of unknown soldiers. The graves of Canadians and Indians seem to go on forever and then there are the Scottish and Irish and English and South African and probably others. The Polish lost so many men they have their own cemetery. The fern sits proudly on the New Zealand graves and I still can’t believe we didn’t change our flag when we had the chance. It’s instant in terms of belonging. The two graves below sit outside of the rows of fellow kiwis, in amongst the air forces, and their country of origin is clear.

You can see the monastery on the hill in the distance that they finally conquered at unimaginable cost. We drive to the top and it’s like driving up a mountain road to Cardrona or Mt Hutt, steep, narrow and windy. The monastery has a 1500 year old history of presence and community and it ]was bombed so heavily that it was unrecognisable. It looked simply like a gigantic pile of rubble with the odd bits of structure sticking up here and there and yet they have painstakingly rebuilt it. It is quite amazing.

The reason I wanted to come here was because I had heard the river walk was really pretty and so far we hadn’t even found the river. A climb back down and by chance we look down between two houses and spot a bridge where we cross over the a shady riverbank. Whatever I had thought in my head were river balconies I was wrong.

We cross the little entrance bridge and are greeted by the above. The river is more of a stream or at least in this part it is.

The entire walk has all sorts of handcrafted art on display and then on the opposite side of the river the property owners have displayed their own creativity.

The whole walk is really pretty and its amazing what a little village can do to display its talents and add to its uniqueness. I guess it reminded me of Otorohanga and its Kiwiana even complete with its own buzzy bees.

Ups, downs and round and round. I cant believe it’s been a week since I last did a blog. Did I mention the cute town with the river balconies , I will have to go backwards and check. Currently we are four and we are in Italy on the beautiful Amalfi coast. It has been a treasure find after a series disappointing or non existent accomodation.

At first I think I will write about that and get it all out the way then I can focus once more on the tribulations of travel rather than the trials. Discovery is of course not always destined to be great and some discoveries are not welcome or at the very least irritating.

I will go backwards to just over a week ago when we went to Orlean. Our final stop in our road trip. The car was to be returned and we were to spend two nights in a four star hotel in a room with a balcony overlooking the river Seine. The dropping back of the rental car proved problematic with the navlady trying to take us into places we simply could not go and then we discovered the office is literally inside the mall by the railway station and there is no place to return it just the keys. Some difficult translation phone conversations later we arrive in a parking lot where we are able to put the car and walk the keys inside and drop them in a box at the railway station.

We hop in a cab and give them the name of the hotel and as we are driving I spot a Mercure on top of a service station on a busy corner of the motorway and think please don’t let that be it, but of course it is. You can’t see our room from this photo as its not the front but needless to say the balcony is not worth sitting on and they know it as they do not provide a chair to sit on it with. “Never mind” was a favourite saying of my dad’s and this was the start f my using it a lot. It was of course prior to custard which did go beyond the “never mind” saying.

We wander the streets of Orlean and try to get our bearings then head back to our hotel and have quite a nice meal in a windowless restaurant in the hotel. The next morning we venture out and the streets are being transformed with the restoration of the half timber houses in their traditional colours.

Orlean is very focused on Joan of Arc. We follow her story through the town. There is the house where she stayed when she petitioned to have the French King reinstated. There are statues and more houses where she stayed and places she rested and places where she went to church. It’s a fascinating story immortalised all around the city and celebrated annually with parades and events. it’s of course about bravery and heroism but the thoughts of a time where on hearing the voice of go, a young farmer girl is destined to lead a battalion into war (and win) thus freeing Orlean from English rule. She then wins a few more battles until some men decide she is a heretic and burn her at the stake. She is 19.

We wander more and catch a tram because we have sore feet. We wander some more and sit in the square with a drink and watch the world go by. We wander some more and decide to wander back to the hotel for a rest.

We see there is a light show on at the cathedral but it doesn’t start until 11pm and we can’t imagine that we will be still awake. We wait a couple of hours and then we head back to town and after trying about 6 different restaurants where each time we were asked if we had a reservation which of course we do not and I am about to give up when we find one on a garden rooftop of a carpark. Its lovely and we while away the hours and wander back to the cathedral for the light show. Its worth it.

Its been a messy few days wading through the custard, with finding new accomodation and then moving and the other two arriving and sorting everything out. But here we are, three generations, enjoying the sights and sounds of a wonderful city. In amongst it all we do a bike tour that we had pre-booked and meet at the Peloton cafe – where we see flat white on the coffee menu. “Got to be Kiwi” and sure enough it is and I have the best coffee since leaving home over two weeks ago. Biking is a great way to get around and because its a Sunday it’s quiet. We learn lots of fun facts, “that house there just sold for 60 million euro”, Wallace fountains were donated by Mr Wallace several centuries ago in order to provide safe drinking water for all (safest drink prior to this was wine and beer so maybe he was just sick of drunk people.) anyway they are still in use today and you can fill up your water bottle, they even have a couple of sparkling water ones as Paris is just that fancy.

Yesterday we went to the Louvre and did a teenage tour with a guide. It was incredibly busy, I mean incredibly. Even the guide commented on it. The tour guide was really good and I even learnt a few things but when it was over and we were asked if we wanted to go back and stand in line to see the Mona Lisa up close, the answer was a most definite no.

We saw the 1000’s of year old Sphinx and works by Da Vinci up close and Mona Lisa in the distance. We learnt about greek statues and gods. We wander amongst the crowds and go home exhausted. Not the least of the two who had only just arrived from NZ that morning. We catch a Tuktuk home which is a crazy way to travel in the busy streets of Paris but fits 6 of us easily unlike most other modes of transport.

Our new apartment is in a good a location, has leaky showers, is above a boulangerie, is one bed short, has a cute bar on the corner, doesn’t have tea or teaspoons, so good and bad, good and bad Doesn’t really matter as we continue to immerse and exhaust ourselves in this city.

We do a street art tour. I click away as we walk the alleyways, art in corners where no-one wants to be. There is a world that exists in a sub-culture who have there own heroes and villains. Who have 10s.of thousands of followers and in my critique head some is good and some is bad.

We go to the Eiffel Tower. Then we grab another tuk tuk because we are too tired to walk back to our apartment and he says he will take us on a hour tour. Our tired legs oblige and we ask him to drive around the Arc de triumph which is a real experience then to stop so we can buy a sandwich as its nearly 3pm and we have no lunch, which he thinks is hilarious: Picnic in the tuk tuk as we pass the monuments and eat our sandwich and drink our water. Our day is done. Our time is Paris is nearly over and tomorrow we head to Nice.

We are currently in Paris having arrived yesterday. We were meeting one of the kids and grandkids on the day we arrived and another arriving tomorrow so were looking forward to it. We had booked an apartment months ago, right in the middle of Paris. It looked ideal, had the right amount of beds, had a balcony, was in a perfect location, until of course it was custard.

For the previous three days we had sent emails and left phone and text messages to the host yet had had no response. Need less to say we were getting very nervous with the lack of contact yet kept googling and researching and everything seemed legit until of cause it was custard.

Sitting in the hotel bar yesterday evening with very much less than 24 hours left until we were to go there he messages to say that the apartment is unavailable as the owner had covid and has to stay there and self isolate. What a pot of custard. Using Covid as an excuse for days of lack of communication and leaving us with nowhere to stay the very next day.

We start to search: “95% of accomodation is booked for your dates”, “change your dates”, is the common message and the prices are through the roof. Getting 6 people is very difficult as most hotel rooms are so tiny we need three rooms. Sites that we saw months ago when we looking at hotels rather than apartments have more than doubled and in some cases trebled in price and are further and further out of the city. Custard.

We call the help call centre of Bookabach, who we booked through and spend 20 minutes on hold and then are passed through three different operators repeating the same story, spelling my name, spelling my email, quoting booking numbers and finally give up when I am told off for spelling my name wrong, Evidently I said F instead of S. I am sure I know how to spell my name and that maybe they heard it wrong but anyway it was time to give up and go to bed. Custard had well and truly turned.

The hotel we had stayed in the night before could take us for one more night but then they were full so that bought some time. We had booked a biking tour so we set off on that and tried to forget that we would soon be homeless. Then in the afternoon we set about to book somewhere for the next 4 nights. We have done so now and it has cost more money, wasted a lot of time and felt like wading through custard.

in the scheme of things, as long as tomorrow’s check in goes ok the we will be back on track but blog writing time has definitely been spent bogged in custard and will write again soon.

Things to write about real soon when not bogged down in custard

Orlean – getting rid of rental cars, its houses, its food, its history and Joan of Arc

Paris – busy, full hotels, full tours, full everything. Bike tour. Flat white.

That is until I am here and I go to the Pastisserie. How could you not eat cake. Raspberry tarts are a weakness that has to be indulged whilst in France (or Italy or in fact Portugal). Truth be told over the past few days the look of some tarts have not been up to standard and I have taken to WH’s calling of trying a variety, venturing to apricot (Abricot) and also apple (pomme) and whilst I must say that raspberry is by far my favourite there is some stiff competition.

I can even now ask for my raspberry tart in French “tarts aux framboise s’il vous plait”. Sure I still do it whilst pointing and smiling and nodding and saying oui (wee) oui (wee) a lot as my pronunciation is probably not that good, but I do always receive a raspberry tart.

Now aunty V, I know that I have stated that in my quest I shall find the perfect tart so here it is. The perfect one has a thin layer of biscuit base which holds together and does not crumble at the first nibble. (Footnote 1). The best base is slightly darker than golden, more of a burnt butter colour. The custard stuff should just fill the base and not spill over the edges. The first layer of raspberries should be pushed gently into the custard stuff and then piled up in a pyramid as high as they will go and dusted with icing sugar.

Mission accomplished. Now that my quest is complete I will possibly eat far less tarts as my discerning tart tastes have become refined and my longing looks in Patisserie windows have been subdued. Or maybe in the spirit of joie de vivre, I will.

Footnote 1: note to all tart lovers. If someone wants to share your tart then DO NOT try to cut the tart in half. If it is a bad biscuit base it will just crumble in pieces. The raspberries will have to be removed for the cutting and then divided equally and the joy of tart eating will be lost. Just eat half and then hand over the other half in whatever state it may be in.

Don’t really know where to start today there was so much to take in. We set of for Chenonceau to visit the chateau as there are many around and I think that is the one I want to photograph the most.

We arrive in the village and see some boats on the river and as we pull up the boat a boat is about to leave so we jump on and spend and relaxing hour cruising up the river with French commentary and discover the certainty that laughter and crying babies are the same in any language.

We drive around and buy our tickets and I admit to having little enthusiasm for going inside. Palaces or Chateau have never enthralled me from the inside out. I love the architecture and detail and moats and gardens so my head is already back outside from the moment we walk in. Then I discover. Isn’t that what makes the joy of travel “joyful”. Discovery. Whether it s vista or a piece of art or a language or meal. Here in this space it is Louise Dupin (1706-1799).

“illegitimate daughter of Samuel Bernard, (Louis XIV’s Banker), wife of a rich farmer, the very beautiful Madame Dupin recruited Rousseau as her secretary, to help her achieve the major project on which she had set her heart: to produce an Encyclopaedia of the second sex that would demonstrate once and for all the natural equality between men and women. She used all sources from medicine to history, from politics to anthropology, from law and religion, from geography to pedagogy. She spent time in the kings library borrowing very are books and produced 47 chapters that would form her work to provide the most convincing arguments to prove that inequality between the sexes was solely due to male oppression.” Elisabeth Badinter.

The rest is interesting and the opportunity for photographs is endless. It is centuries of woman who have shaped this space, its design, its practicality, its profitability. Then it’s a chocolatier who finally ends up with the Chateau and in the First World War he builds a military hospital and treated over 2000 soldiers all at his own cost. During the 2nd world war it became to sole point of access to the free zone, and the family provided a pathway for the resistance and jews to escape. My history lesson today has been fascinating. People are brave.

We wake in our new home for four nights and the sun is once again shining. We have a slow start to the day and head into our nearest town which is Loches. We had a quick look last night when we headed into the supermarche to get something for dinner, without success I might add. But let’s not go there except to say that Sunday night is not a big night for anything to be open in Loches let alone a supermarche.

We park the car and head through town to the tourist centre and do a bit of browsing. I buy the compulsory Christmas decoration for the tree and still love the surprise on the bored customer service person face when they ask where you are from (it must be customary in tourist info centres) and we say “Nouvelle Zealand”. It always seems to either start a conversation or at least exert a wonderful smile.

We wander some more and stop and buy breakfast (raspberry tart of course) but without the bad coffee. We walk through the gardens and around the ramparts, past towers and of course churches and steeples. It’s nicknamed the strolling town and I can see why.

We decide to head further afield to the garden of Chedigny and it is well worth the visit. It is famous for its climbing roses which have all but finished in bloom and must have been quite spectacular but for us are still very pretty.

Breakfast seems along time ago and we wander past the boulangerie which is disappointingly closed. A little further along we find a little restaurant under a huge wisteria and enjoy a wonderful plat du jour. We start as the only ones and then it begins to fill. Two ladies lunching, a couple with a big old dog who literally sighs with relief and plonks down under the table (the dog that is not the couple) and then three very young priests, kitted out in their heavy black robes in the hot afternoon sun. The tables fill and the food comes and goes and the people and food watching and eating make for a really pleasant lunch.

We finish our wandering and head back to the car along a track that we think is short-cut and ends up being a a very long cut and not at all that interesting, unless you are into bugs and insects. Which you will note I am not.

What a bad sleep in Avignon. Like goldilocks but without the just right. First pillow too hard other one too big and soft, but no just right. Pushed together beds which had the worst downhill slope to the outside which made you think you were going to fall out. Hotel in a great location right above the square but the bottle clang of tidy up at 2am is jolting. Then for one strange reason we wake early just when we need to be asleep.

The early morning makes a nice time to head out in the cool and the quiet and we decided to go to the famous post du Gard. When we reach it we didn’t realise it was something you had to buy tickets to and its closed. We wander down to the river and I clamber along the bank and get the shots of the day.

We walk around in circles and enjoy the sights and sounds of a new day. There seems to be 100s of different varieties of small dogs all out walking their owners. Stall owners are starting to set up the wares. Tables and chairs are venturing out into the square. The thought of a kiwi flat white at this moment nearly does my head in. It would make the morning perfect.

We go back to the hotel and have a cup of machine made coffee and pack our bags and then zoom once more down the avenue of many walks to catch the tourist bus. I am first in the queue.

We take the tour and its a great way to get around as it covers the ks over the bridges, past the towers, castles. on the horizon, markets on the fringes and we soak it all in.

We refuse to yet again walk up the avenue of many walks so we zig zag our way through side lanes until we are lost and then stumble onto a landmark that leads us to where we want to go. The morning is over so we grab our bags from the hotel and make our final journey down the avenue of many walks to the train station. To catch the train back to the TGV car park, to pick up the car to head to Vichy. I can not help what you are now probably thinking, the car park was just right there.

We drive and drive and drive to Vichy. Its not a great road trip. I am not a great roadie sort of person. The novelty of the 130kph four lane motorway wears thin. We drive and we drive. The overhead motorway info signs keeps flashing a message and I look it up on the app (the favourite translation one) and it says beware of extreme thunderstorm and then 10 minutes later it pours and pours and pours. We slow to 110 as per the rules for rain and we drive and drive and drive and it rains and rains and rains.

A couple of traffic jams and a stiff back and butt later we arrive in Vichy.

Its late and we are hungry so we wander to town and find a restaurant where we eat a very average burger then head back (in the rain). There is a light show on at the opera house but we are told it might not go ahead but we are glad we made our way back as we watch the illumination under a tiny umbrella in the rain. We have a wonderful sleep on a flat spongy mattress with a perfect goldilocks pillow.

We wake in the morning and the rain is still steady so we laze around and then decide to walk anyway. Vichy feels like a town trying to get back on its feet. It may be the rain but everything feels a bit down. There are things that are still “temporarily” closed. Others need a lick of paint or two. My shoes are wet and the temperature is cool. The morning is gone so we go back to the hotel and get in the car and drive and drive and drive and it rains and rains and rains.

There is a lot to say about today and even more photos. It was a really memorable one, not to be forgotten, but just in case I am putting it all in here so in years to come I can get it out to jog my memory. It was a day of two halves.

Glass half full

Was the last night in our wonderful little cottage of which I will dedicate a blog to in its entirety when I get the time. It rained overnight and in the morning everything looked fresh and sparkly. I decided to take a morning dip in the pool, just because I could. We pack up slowly and with the joy of having our own place means we leave with no dirty washing, which I love.

We are heading to Les-Baux-de Provence which is just down the road as I really want to go to Carrieres des Lumieres. We saw starry night by Van Gogh in Wellington as an exhibition and to see it in the caves at Les Baux-de-Provence where it was first envisaged was to good an opportunity to miss.

We miss the parking for the caves so carry on to the village where we park at the bottom and meander our way to the top. It is yet another gorgeous spot of alleys and cobbles and doors and rooftops and flowers and door handles and flags. The day is dull so my photographs lack the lustre that the village deserves.

We make our way back down to the car and the sky opens, we shelter under a plane tree hoping it will pass. It doesn’t so we move anyway and once back to the car we are grateful to be able to change our soaking shirts as it is the first time we have felt cold since we have arrived. We arrive at the caves and buy our tickets for the exhibition which does not disappoint. It is full of light and sound and movement and colour and the effort taken to get here is already a distant memory.

After lunch we head to the Avignon TGV station where we have decided to park the car so we don’t have to drive into the city and do the whole parking thing, when our hotel is based in a pedestrian only area. The TGV station is on the outskirts of the city and we can catch a regional train into Avignon, leaving our luggage in the car and just taking an overnight bag.

We arrive at the hotel and Avignon looks amazing and as the day is wearing on we dump our bag and head out with the intention of getting on the last sightseeing bus at 4pm. We miss the bus and sit in the square with a G&T and beer and wait for the little sight seeing train which is more than welcome on the worn out legs. There is so much to take in. Once on the bus we wobble around the inner township and I wish my body was up to wandering some more as there is so much to see.

With a bit of a rest and a couple of Panadol we hop off the train and keep wandering. The evening wears on and we walk until I can’t walk anymore and and find a lovely bistro for dinner where we sit in the warm evening sun at 8pm at night and enjoy the food and the sounds and the ambience.

It was a beautiful day, a day to remember.

Glass half empty

The night was stormy which made for a restless sleep as the thunder seemed to rattle the cottage and the lightning lit it up from the outside in. We had arrived home previous to no water which meant the washing that I had put on before we left was not yet done. We called the host and between WH and the hosts husband they found a leaking tap which meant the well was dry.(or so they thought) Wait they said and we did.The water came back on. The water went back off .

The morning after the storm we have no wifi but at least we have water so we pack up and head to the caves to see an art exhibition in the caves at Les Baux-de-provence. We miss the turn off so decide to visit the village which is delightful yet again but the legs and back ache with another climb and multiple flights of stairs.

WE make our way back down to the car and the heavens open with a deluge that doesn’t want to quit. We shelter under a tree which works ok for a few minutes but as the wind picks up the heavy drops make there way through the canopy and then with the loud rolling thunder and lighting in the sky I decide I will take my chances with the rain rather than what has now become in my head the lighting tree.

When we reach the car the sky is beginning to lighten and we change our tops and head to the Caves. There are yet again no parks so I say to WH we just wait it out and someone will leave, and they eventually they do. In all the excitement of finally getting a park however we forget to buy a parking ticket. We have done so religiously at every other space.

We make our way inside and the exhibition does not disappoint. We have lunch in the cafe and then head towards o Avignon TGV carpark. We have decided to park here rather than drive into the city as our hotel is right by the popes palace which is all pedestrian lanes. I feel smug with my cleverness at having devised such a plan.

On arrival at the station we find enter the carpark and see only red lights above full spaces so when we finally see a green one we take it. We then walk and walk and walk, past numerous other carparks with plenty of spaces I might add, until we reach the station for regional.

On arriving at Avignon central we are glad of our small bag as we walk the kilometre to out hotel. We pass the tourist bus just past the rail station and as the legs feel like they have very few steps left in them decide that is the best way to get around late this afternoon. We ditch the bags and with ten minutes to spare buy a ticket and race back down to where the bus leaves from ready to get on the last bus at 4pm. We wait, and we wait, and we wait. Eventually I go and ask and I am told “not today”. There is usually a 4pm but “not today”. “maybe take the tourist train as it is gong until 5.30”, where does it leave from?, The popes palace of course right next to the hotel. So off we go again back up the street we have now already done twice.

We get to the train and yes its still there but no it is full and we can’t get on. There is only one and it willl be back in 45 minutes. We sit at a table in the square and I see the most delicious looking mojito coming out, full of ice and mint and lime. I’ll have one of those please. “sorry we have no mint or lime left so no Mojito.” I order a G&T whilst WH orders a beer and we sip for 45 minutes until the train comes back. “Its been a funny sort of day” I say and we laugh as we run together all the moments that have just not gone our way. I finish my drink and line up, first in the queue but even that does not work as there is a group of 25 booked who must get on first. We get on the train and wobble and bump around the city and give each other a nudge as we come back around and see a huge hotel car park with perfect access just off the ring road around the back.

It is a day of two halves lucky we chose full.