As you can see from the photo at the top of post there has been a lot rain in the last few days. Last night we were talking about what to do today as the forecast called for more rain, particularly in the afternoon. Ton pointed out that we were here for 60 days so we did not need to go out and get soaked. So this morning we slept in. We will head into Ljubljana proper tomorrow.
Another view of the Sava River near our campground. It is high and running really fast.
We finally got up and moving about around 11am, and of course the sun was out, and it hadn’t rained in a few hours. We decided to head over to the nearest grocery so we could see what Slovenia had to offer for food. We were walking down a busy suburban street when Ton saw a couple of apple trees below us on a steep hill. We were talking about them when we heard a voice talking to us in Slovenian from the middle of the tree. It turned out to be an old gentleman who had climbed up the hill and was gathering some apples. He spoke to us in Slovenian, and Ton spoke to him in English, finally sign language prevailed and she got him to pose for a nice picture.
This old gentleman was a good sport and posed for Ton as he was picking apples. The bank the trees are on is quite steep.
While we shopping in the grocery store Ton asked if they had any lactose free milk. Of course I have no idea what Lactose or free is in Slovenian, but one of the grocery store workers heard the question and volunteered that they did and took us to the milk where she explained all of the different options. We ended up buying a couple of liters. She then said if we had any more questions please come find her.
We have a challenge we have done since we arrived on our first trip to Europe. When shopping for wine in grocery stores we have a €2.99 limit on what we buy. Most of the time we get a very serviceable local wine, and occasionally a really good wine. Today we found a very nice Slovenian wine for €2.20 with the bonus that it was 1 liter instead of the normal .75 liters. It went really well with our French sausages from Costco and our Tabouleh from Auchan in France.
Our €2.20 liter of Slovenian wine. We bought it because we liked the label. It is delicious.
Actually the rain did not kick in in earnest until about 4 o’clock, so I felt bad. But once it did it really rained so I felt a little better.
The rainy weather continues to be an issue. Most of our trips during shoulder season we have pretty good weather, but alas not on this trip. Last night we were trying to make plans. We thought about spending a few days in Slovenia, but from what we read, outside of Ljubljana, most of the best activity is nature oriented. Unfortunately it is supposed to carry on raining for another four or five days, so hiking in parks and along beautiful lakes did not have much appeal. So Slovenia is going to have to wait for a future trip to get more of our attention.
We decided to continue heading south with a planned two day stop in Ljubljana as it is supposed to be a pretty city. As we were packing up in Salzburg the sun came out, and for the first half of our trip down the Austrian Autobahn we had good weather and spectacular views. A little bit of optimism about the weather crept into our discussion, until about an hour before crossing into Slovenia the skies opened up again.
The neighbors moved to another site when they returned from town due to the standing water on their spot.
By the time we pulled into the campground for the day, it was pouring heavily with occasional claps of thunder. The heaviest rain we have seen during this week of rain. Any thoughts of getting out and exploring today were dashed. Instead we hunkered down and did some planning for Croatia, and trying to figure out how to pronounce Ljubljana. As we were chatting we realized that Slovenia is our 4th country in 5 days.
We had decided we were going into Salzburg today no matter the weather. The weather was bad as it rained nearly all day and it was pretty cool. Looking on the good side it never rained hard, just kind of drizzled all day.
It was so cool and wet that even the horses had their Gore-tex on!
Salzburg besides being a pretty city is known for two things, Mozart and the “Sound of Music.” Everywhere you go as a tourist you are offered opportunities to experience both of them. We of course joined in, focusing mostly on Mozart.
The statue of Mozart in Mozart square, though we did learn it was not very historically accurate as he was actually left handed and quite short.Mozart’s birth home. It is now a museum dedicated to him.
During the peak of Salzburg’s wealth from the salt mines that gave its name it belonged to the Vatican as an independent city. As a result it has a great many churches for a city of its size. We walked around and took in the exterior of most of them, but didn’t bother to go inside any of them. We often debate paying the admission fees when they are in place for the churches. It is obvious that the maintenance costs for these great buildings must be extraordinary, but we have been in so many now that we usually don’t bother going in when it costs money.
The cathedral in Salzburg reflecting the Italian influence of the Vatican which controlled the city for much of its history. Another of the churches at the end of the very posh shopping street that goes thru town.
The highlight of the day was lunch. Ton had told me that she missed German dumplings so I had picked out a restaurant that was famous (on Trip Advisor!) for its huge bread dumplings. When we arrived they seated us at a table for 8 and said they would be seating another group with us. Luckily for us they were two lovely couples, and a very well behaved dog. I was confused at first because some of their conversation was in German, and then they would switch to proper British accented English. It turns out the older of the two couples were an English-Austrian couple, and the other couple was their daughter who had grown up in England but married a German and lived in Munich. So we had the best of all worlds as they could coach us thru the food and the beer. We had a great time talking to them and helping celebrate the fathers birthday. The food was good, the beer was good, and the company was great. The perfect formula for a memorable meal.
The interior of the restaurant we had our lunch in.
During the conversation they learned Ton was from Thailand, and they laughed and said their dog was originally from Thailand. They had gone on vacation there and the dog was a street dog that hung around the apartment they were using as their base. Over the couple of weeks they were visiting they fell in love with the dog and figured out how to bring her home with them. Her name is now Lucky (actually the German equivalent of lucky that I’ve already forgot.) Ton was tickled to meet another Thai at our lunch, even if she couldn’t talk.
Ton was really taken with this sculpture on the outside of the Cathedral. It was entitled the Cloak of Conscience.
As we were walking around we saw several works of art that we really enjoyed. They varied from the very serious and moving to whimsical and cute.
These two sculptures were part of a series. They were entitled the Man on a Ball, and the Women in a Wall.
We had spent our entire day on the rich side of the river so after lunch we crossed over to the working class side of the river. Historically the ruling class lived on one side of the river, and the workers lived on the other side of the Salzach River. So the side with all of the monuments feels quiet and touristy, and the working class side now feels modern and bustling.
The river today divides the historical preserved side of the city from the modern commercial side.
Our last stop was the gardens that surround the town hall. It was a little late in the year, but there were still some flowers looking a little worst for wear.
Part of the Mirabell Gardens.
Our last stop was the Gnome Gardens. Their were originally 21 Gnomes carved out of stone and placed in the gardens in the 1600’s. In the early 1800’s they were sold off to individuals. The city has been trying to reacquire them and at this point has managed to regain 18.
Today was another long driving day in bad weather. All together we covered nearly 400km’s (around 250 miles). The trip was all on the autobahn. The only issue today was it rained pretty much all day, sometimes heavily. Despite that we arrived at the Stellplatz (RV park) in Salzburg about 2:00.
We are about 15 to 20 minutes by bus from the center of Salzburg. The debate we had when we arrived was whether to head downtown today or wait for tomorrow. That debate was ended by a sudden downpour that told us to wait for tomorrow. About an hour later the rain let up and we decided to head out to a mall we saw driving in.
What we thought was a mall was a bunch of wholesale stores for different fashion labels. We quickly realized it was not for retail customers, but for buyers. On the way back we noticed two other large building that also contained wholesale shops for clothes. So I guess our non-descript Stellplatz is in the center of the fashion design center for Austria.
We walked back to the Stellplatz, and enjoyed watching the arrivals of a bunch of our fellow RV’ers. It is always fun to watch people arriving and parking their RV’s for the night. Even though it is late September and the weather is pretty poor by 5 o’clock the Stellplatz was full, and people were improvising overflow parking.
Tomorrow we are heading into Salzburg for the day rain or shine. Ton is really looking forward to comparing Austrian potato dumplings with their German cousins!
Another day more or less in transit. This is an unusual trip for us as we are spending the first few days focusing on covering ground to get to where we want to start really looking for adventures. Ton saw we were passing by Stuttgart and told me there was a major US Army Garrison there and she wanted to use big American washing machines. So our first priority today was laundry, with some shopping for American stuff in the military stores on the base. These long trips have a different rhythm than one or two week vacations.
When we arrived at the Army base I was startled to see a bunch of Marines running around. When I was a Marine we had very little presence in Europe, but that was a long time ago. Today there is a headquarters for US Marine Forces Europe and Africa right next door to where we were washing our clothes. Somehow seeing the young men and women from the service I served in gave me a good feeling and brought back very pleasant memories.
Herenberg was a pretty sleepy little town, but it did have a nice square. The church in the background had the onion dome roof that seems to be common in this area.
It took a few hours to take care of everything, and we headed for a parking area in a small town near the base. We got the next to last spot in the Stellplatz so we have electricity for François tonight. Our neighbor is a friendly Brit who told us he loved traveling around the western US, particularly Montana and Wyoming.
Ton liked this list of services from the barber shop on the town square.
After we got settled in we decided to head into town to look for some German staples that we liked from our previous trip. The town is cute and has some nice half timbered houses, but overall was pretty sleepy. We found the Lidl Grocery and now our refrigerator is truly stuffed with a mix of French, German, and American favorites to tide us over for a couple of weeks.
We had visited Strasbourg on a previous trip and had really enjoyed it despite the weather being really poor. We decided to give it another look today despite the weather forecast calling for rain.
A statue to Guttenberg the inventor of the printing press. The inscription on the book he is carrying says “And there was light”.
We woke up a little late to some rain tapping on the roof of François, and by the time we got organized to leave it was 10:00. The drive to Strasbourg was 400km’s (about 250 miles) but the road was largely good without too many small villages to slow us down so we made good time and arrived at the campground in the city about 2:30. We were a little surprised to end up in the overflow parking for the night as the main campground was full. As we were having a late lunch Ton and I were entertained by watching a Dutch couple shift their motorhome from spot to spot around the overflow trying to get their satellite dish to work. By the time we left for town they still had not found a spot where they could connect.
Three of the canals in Strasbourg merging. The towers were part of the original fortification system for the town.
The walk to town was about a mile and a half along a nice canal. The old part of Strasbourg is built on an island in the middle of I’ILL River with several canals splitting the island on one end. It is very picturesque. It also has a beautiful collection of half timbered homes.
Some of the half timbered homes along the bank of the I’ILL River.
The cathedral is very elaborate, and one of the larger ones we have seen. While we were walking around it the bells were sounding for quite an extended period of time. In fact they were going for so long that Ton thought it might have been a recording and not the actual bells.
The main entrance to the Cathedral in Strasbourg.
We spent quite a while walking around downtown enjoying the sites and watching the people, which is always fun. Strasbourg is the major city in Alsace and this region has always been a border region between Germany and France, and has changed hands multiple times in the last 300 years ago. It is an interesting mixture of German and French culture and food.
Ton really liked the cute animals representing the types of meat you could get in the butchers shop below.
After a couple of hours of walking around we decided it was time to head back to François for dinner. We got back just as the rain arrived so today turned out really well.
Every French city seems to have a carousel in the downtown. This one dated to 1904.
We also watched the Dutch couple move their motorhome one last time in an attempt to connect to the satellite. As we went to the shower we noticed their dish was locked up, and their TV was glowing inside so the 5th time was the charm for them.
First a disclaimer, the picture at the top is from our archives, we both forgot to take any photos today. As you can tell we have moved on from Migennes. Amazon came thru as promised and delivered the power cord for Greta Garmin, so we are now able to once again navigate in Europe.
Today was planned as a logistics day. We wanted to go to one of the two Costco’s in France to stock up with food for the trip. After that we planned to go to a cellular phone store to get a cell phone with a French number so that we can call locally if we need to.
I was a little worried about Costco as it is on the outskirts of Paris, and well traffic in Paris is famous for not being friendly for tourists. I don’t know if we were lucky or the Costco is far enough out in the suburbs, but the traffic was pretty reasonable and we arrived about 2 hours after we left Migennes. The next two hours were spent in shopping bliss as we bought enough stuff to fill all of the cabinets in François and the refrigerator also. We should have enough food to last weeks, but we will probably have to swing thru a German grocery store to pick up some favorites in the next couple of days. The Costco is an interesting combination of staples from the US, and really interesting local products but on a Costco scale. We bought a few old favorites, and a bunch of interesting European food.
I picked a campground that was about an hour from Costco in the general direction of Germany. When we arrived it was in a very small town in the middle of the country. The app I use for picking where to stay at night said that it had a 160 spots. When we rolled in they were mostly occupied by permanent looking trailers, but there were a few spots for transit RV’s like us.
The owner/manager showed us down a road to 5 or 6 unoccupied spots, I asked Electric? in my best French accent (Electrique?), she hit me with a blast of French and pointed towards the back of the spot, jumped on her bike and rode off. We parked François and I headed to the back of the spot where I found the strangest and most dilapidated looking electric box I have seen in Europe (or North America for that matter). Thinking it must be abandoned I went poking around for a newer one, but ended back at the strange box. Crossing my fingers I cleared the cobwebs away and plugged in, and went to check. The bad news was that of course it didn’t work, the good news is it didn’t short out François’ electrical system. There were a few unmarked buttons on the box so I pushed them randomly, but this did not deliver any electricity. I then went and looked at the other spots to see if there was anything more promising, but they all had the same box. I even threw the power cord over some bushes to try one of the other boxes, but no joy. So back up front to talk to the owner/manger, I again got a very animated and lengthy explanation in French, all of the time with a nice smile, but I was no more wise about the electrical situation, than when I walked up there. Thinking that my inability to speak French in France was my problem not hers I decided to trudge back to our site to see if I could figure out some options, one of which was giving up on electricity for the night.
This was the power cord on our original pitch. Not a very inviting place to plug in, and it did not work.
While I was up having my unproductive walk, Ton had joined in the hunt for a suitable electrical box. When I returned she pointed at a box across from where we were parked, and told me to try that one. I had looked at it earlier and to my eye it didn’t look any more promising than the three I had already tried and told her so. Ton than decided that we would go up one more time to talk to the manager/owner. This time Ton asked the question and received the same enthusiastic answer in French. I looked at her and asked if she understood, and of course she didn’t.(Despite having a degree in French from the finest University in Thailand, but that is another story.) But Ton then asked if she could show us, and the lady said sure, so off the three of us set. As we walked back down to François I kept apologizing but she told me it was no problem (I think, but whatever she said she said it nicely). When we got to François she pointed at the same spot Ton had earlier told me to try, which made Ton very happy. We now have electricity.
Ton had identified this box as having potential, but I did not agree. After consulting with the manager of the campground, this is the one she pointed to and it did work shockingly.
We never did get the cell phone plan, but that is another story of failure on my part that can go untold.
We are still in Migenness waiting for our power cord to arrive and recovering from jet lag. Each trip it seems to take just a little bit longer to get over the jet lag. As much as we don’t want to admit it we are getting older.
Today will be short and sweet as we did not do much. I am still falling asleep early and waking up early and Ton is still falling asleep late and waking up late, though she did fess up to not wanting to get out of the warm bed delayed her getting up this morning. The temperatures have been in the high 40’s overnight gradually warming up to about 70 during the day, which is nice except François is a little cold in the mornings. While we are talking about the weather, it is going to put a crimp in our travels. Everywhere we want to visit between here in France and Zagreb in Croatia is supposed to have rain for the next ten days! We finally decided that we are Oregonians and a little rain is not going to hold us back.
We had a couple of short walks today, and that is about the extent of our activity so there is not much else to talk about. Hopefully the power cord will arrive tomorrow as promised by Amazon and we can get on our way.
There is not a lot to talk about today. Ton and I are both jet lagged but in different ways. I am falling asleep very early in the evening around 8 am and waking very early. Ton is having a hard time falling asleep and ended up waking about 10:30.
Since I was up early and didn’t want to bother Ton I went for a walk into town. It turned out it was market day. Ton usually loves these town markets so I thought I would go back to François and see if she wanted to go. She was still asleep so I went for another walk.
Later in the afternoon we both headed into town, but by then the market was closed, and you would not know it had been bustling with vendors in the morning, just a small cleaning crew putting the finishing touches on washing the floor.
We know we are back in France when we see our first Petanque game.
After a visit to the local Aldi to buy some more groceries we followed the canal the town is famous for and came across a group of seniors playing Petanque. Ton tried to take a stealth photo of the group but one gentleman saw her and began teasing her in a friendly way, until he realized she did not understand his French and it was all wasted on her, so he gave a big Gallic shrug and turned back to the game.
We ended our lazy day with a nice pasta meal, and an early bed time for me.
We have returned to the campground that we spent our last night in France in June. It is located pretty close to where we store François, and we really like the people. Our loyalty was more than paid back as you will read later.
This trip had a little more adventure to it than normal, but nothing too dramatic. We decided to try a slightly different route to Paris than in the past. We had been flying a shuttle to Seattle and taking a direct flight to Paris from Seattle. Portland has a direct flight to Amsterdam, and then you connect to Paris. Since it is still two legs we decided to try leaving from our hometown. Everything was on track until the Friday before we left we received an email from KLM saying they had canceled the flight from Amsterdam to Paris and we should contact Delta to get a new flight. I called Delta and the lady who answered said that KLM had not notified them that they had canceled the flight, I told her I had an email from KLM telling me, she asked if I could wait on hold while she called KLM to see what was going on. After about 30 minutes on hold she came back on the line and confirmed that the flight was canceled, and asked if we would mind being rebooked on Air France a couple of hours later, which was better than I expected. The slight delay however, meant though that we could not make it to Sens in time to pick up François, so we ended up in a hotel near the airport for the first night.
Then after we unpacked I realized I had left the power cord for Greta the Garmin at home in Oregon which is a huge problem because as much as I complain about her she is our second most important tool for getting around over here. We visited 5 stores in an attempt to find a replacement with no luck. Ton confirmed it was available on Amazon so as it was getting late we decided to try to figure out how to get an Amazon account set up in Europe and order one for delivery here. When we checked into the campground I explained our problem to Leo the campground manager, and he immediately volunteered to order one using his Amazon account. So our new power cable should be here on Saturday, and once again the wonderful people at Confluence Campground in Migennes have made us very happy.
The trip home was completely uneventful, with every flight leaving and arriving on time. Just like you like it to be.
Our first trip in two years was a success. During the 59 days we were there we covered almost exactly 6000 kilometers (about 4,000 miles), visited three countries and added one new country to our list in Portugal.
We had target three places for this trip. We really enjoyed Brittany, and Galicia. Portugal was also good but as we talked about earlier, it was closer to OK than wow. Maybe our expectations were too high. There were places we enjoyed particularly Porto. But there were not too many really memorable experiences. We might have to give Portugal another look in the future to try to get another feel for the country.
We are taking a break from Europe until September and have no specific plans for the US, but who knows what might come up. Until then see you.
The cover photo is a greatest hit picture not from Sens. Today was a simple drive up to Sens where we took care of a short list of shopping we wanted to do for some friends, washed François, and returned him to Eurocampingcars.
After that we hung around the hotel and had some Chinese for dinner. The last day is always kind of boring and a let down after having been on the move for a couple of months. But we are already looking forward to the next trip which we are thinking will be Croatia and Greece.
Today was packing and final preparation for turning François in tomorrow. I went for a quick walk in the morning down to the canal to see what boats had put in for the night. There was an American flagged boat, and a New Zealand flagged boat side by side. So there are a lot of different ways for foreigners to see Europe.
After packing Ton asked if we could do a shopping trip so that she could try to find a couple of gifts for friends. So we prepared François for travel and headed into a mall in Auxerre. The shopping trip was a bit of a bust as she didn’t find what she was looking for, so we will try again tomorrow in Sens.
The rest of the day was about preparing for the trip home and eating huge meals as we tried to empty the fridge. We did find time to relax in the evening with a good bottle of wine from Southwest France.
There is very little to talk about today. We spent the day cleaning, doing laundry, and taking inventory. Ton wants to have a written inventory at home of what we have here so we do not pack things that are redundant. Because we had been gone so long we lost track of what we had here, and found several items we had brought over were not needed. Ton decided to make a list of what was here to take home so we can pack a little leaner next time.
The couple who manages the campground love Thailand and when they found out Ton was Thai they went out of their way to tell her how much they loved the country. They are planning their vacation there for latter this year and have already visited before. The manager told us that his dream job would be in tourism in Thailand.
The plan for today was to go to Auxerre. I picked it last night because it was the first city we had visited in France. The first time we visited we couldn’t get into the campground because it didn’t open until two days later, and ended up staying in a campground just out of town. Today we had a short drive on nice country roads until we were about 20 km’s from Auxerre when the dreaded Deviation (detour) sign appeared. This time the deviation took us an extra 35km’s out of our way, but eventually we arrived at the campground. But as we pulled up the place was a zoo with bicycles everywhere. We didn’t know but there is a big bicycle race in Auxerre today, and of course the campground is full. It looks like we are not meant to stay in Auxerre.
Cafe with Burgundy tiled roof in Megannes.
We had planned to move to Megannes tomorrow to work on cleaning up François before our departure. So after a quick look at our options we headed over a day early. Megannes is a small town along the Bourgogne canal. It has a nice dock for canal boats and looks like a popular spot for people to put in for the day.
Part of the canal port in Megannes. The boat in the left side was flying an American flag.
The town is a typical small town in France with a big church, a couple of nice looking cafes and a small grocery. But it does have a really large train station for some reason.
The canal of Bourgogne, now used almost exclusively for recreation.
As we were walking back from town the wind was dead calm and the air was suddenly full with tens of thousands of gnats. For the entire walk back we were in a cloud of gnats, fortunately they were not the biting kind, just the get in your mouth, eyes and nose kind.
We picked Bourges as it moved us in the right direction and had a UNESCO World Heritage Site we could visit. The drive over was easy and today we elected to go across country and avoid the autoroutes. I should say we elected to avoid paying for autoroutes as we spent about 1/3 of the drive on a free section of the autoroute. But today was spent mostly on national roads which are wide and generally bypass big cities so it was enjoyable.
Bourges had one of the nicest collections of timbered houses we have seen.
We checked into the campground which seemed nice before heading to the city center to check out the Romanesque Cathedral. Bourges is not on the typical tourist route and while the cathedral is quite beautiful it is a little rough around the edges. I think for that reason it charmed us and we spent more time than normal walking around checking it out.
The interior of the Romanesque Cathedral started in 1180 and finished around 1320.
Bourges has an interesting city center with a lot of half timbered houses, probably as many as any town we have visited, and you can see where attempts to build a tourism infrastructure have started. But for now it seems to be stalled, a lot of the storefronts are empty, and the ones that are open do not seem to be thriving. The locals seem to be heading to the newer part of town in the evening for fun, and there are not enough tourists to give the medieval town a sense of energy. We both thought Bourges has good bones for tourism and could quickly develop into a hot spot with just a little luck.
It was early but the cafes were not buzzing like in large tourist destinations.
When we arrived back at the campground a large group of about 30 people were gathered around a bunch of cabins near us. They had arrived while we were in town. It looked like a family reunion or a reunion of friends. They were a little noisy but it was early. Then about 8pm a concert started complete with a sound system cranked up to rock concert standards. Our Dutch neighbors and I walked over to see what was going on and there was a poster of a guy displayed on one of the cabins and apparently he was the one singing. Well quiet time in the campground was listed as starting at 10pm so we shrugged and headed back. The concert was over before 10pm, but unfortunately the party carried on until 4:30 am, so we did not get a good nights sleep.
Today we are in Bergerac France which is a beautiful little city on the Dodrogne River. It is linked to the famous story of Cyrano de Bergerac. The book Cyrano de Bergerac is loosely based on the life of a 17th century French soldier, but the actual connection to the city of Bergerac is a little tenuous because while his family was from Bergerac he was born in Paris. That hasn’t kept the city from using Cyrano for marketing.
The Dodrogne River in Bergerac. Ton is rightfully really proud of this picture.
It is also one of the lesser known wine regions in France, but unlike any other wine region in France it produces roughly 50% red wine and 50% white wine, the rest of the regions in France tend to specialize. We like to find these lesser known wine regions and see what we like so that was our primary motivator for swinging in here for the day.
The bridge over the Dodrogne as you cross into Bergerac from the campground.
One of the difficulties in traveling here is figuring out when the reception areas at the campgrounds are open. The French take their lunch seriously and all but the biggest businesses close down during lunch. The problem is figuring out when lunch is. Yesterdays campground was closed from noon to 2pm but fortunately we arrived at about 1:50 so we had a short wait. Today we arrived into town about 12:10 so I told Ton they are probably at lunch so lets go ahead and get gas and make our final shopping run. When we arrived at the campground about 1:15 they were closed as we expected, but when I went to the office to see when they opened it turns out their lunch was from 12:30 to 3:30, which is exceptional even by French standards. So if we had hustled over when we got here we would have gotten checked in before lunch. There was already a Dutch group that had arrived right in front of us, so the two of us found a place to park out of the way and settled in to wait. Ton took it in stride and decided to knock out supper, a delicious clam pasta with pesto sauce. By the time lunch was over another 5 RV’s had arrived for a total of 7 squeezed into a very small parking area and spilling out into the street. Everyone took it in stride, and the third arrival who was Italian took charge of the order for reception based on arrival, and we were all settled in pretty quickly.
Bergerac from near our campsite.
When I checked in the manager said I had never had a customer from the US before, and now I have had two in two days! We found the other American couple who rented a van in Spain and have been over for about the same time we have.
These half timbered buildings look charming but require a great deal of maintenance.
Bergerac is a charming town with possibly the best visitors center we have visited in Europe. Downstairs they have nice information on the region and local products. Upstairs they have a wine room featuring local wines, and daily a different local winery provides tastings. The winery today was very good and we enjoyed talking with the representative once she realized we were not part of the Spanish tour in the building, even though her and I were communicating pretty well in Spanish until I informed her I was American, whereupon she said can we speak English it is much easier for me!
Bergerac is part of another great little wine region we had never heard of before our visit.
There comes a point in every trip that marks the beginning of the end, and that is the day where the first priority in deciding where to go is moving us closer to the airport. That day was today for this trip. Todays destination was based on getting us about 300km’s closer to Paris, and hopefully finding somewhere interesting.
We are located close to Biarritz which is a famous seaside resort in southern France. We are only about 20km’s north of San Sebastian in Spain which is one of our favorite cities. We decided to check on the French side of the Basque country to see how France influenced Pinxtos which is one of our favorite foods.
The campground here had the most elaborate water play area we have ever seen. I expect you would need a platoon of lawyers to write the required waivers before you could use it in the US.
The only problem was Spain had spoiled us with perfect weather for so long that we didn’t check the weather forecast and about 100 km’s before we arrived it started raining heavily and didn’t let up. So our investigation of the influence of French cooking on Basque cuisine will have to wait.
We had a very simple plan today, visit a winery. The Ribera del Duoro area has enchanted us. The river valley with rolling hills is one of our favorite landscapes, and this is a very beautiful valley. On top of that we have not had a bad local wine here so this area is pretty close to our idea of heaven.
Part of the countryside around the Ribera del Duoro.
The winery we visited is Vina Pedrosa and came highly recommended. The drive thru the countryside was scenic and relaxing, and when we arrived we were surprised by the large scale of the winery, for being located in a very small village in the backcountry of Spain it was quite large. A lot of the time in Europe we visit wineries that have been in operation for generations, but in the case of Vina Pedrosa it has been in operation since 1980. In fact a lot of the wineries in the Ribera del Duero are very modern. The region was kind of rediscovered in the 1980’s as a winemaking area. Of course the locals have been making wine here for centuries.
The barrel storage at the winery. A very modern and impressive facility.
We were met by our host for the tour, and we were the only customers. We felt bad that she was taking an hour out of her day to give us a private tour, but she allayed our bad feelings right away, and treated us like a VIP on the tour. The winery only produces wine based on the Tempranillo grape which is one of the major grapes of Spain. They chose early on to specialize in only the grape that has been dominate here for centuries, and to work on producing the finest wine the region is capable of delivering.
A bottle of the official wine of the Vatican personally selected by Pope John Paul II.
The tour was very interesting, and we learned that for 7 years Vina Pedrosa was the official wine of the Vatican having been selected by Pope John Paul II in a blind tasting. During the Christmas mass each year the wine for the communion was Vina Pedrosa.
The wall of fame of celebrities who have enjoyed Vina Pedrosa.
We really enjoyed our tour of Vina Pedrosa and the drive out to the winery. It was a nice ending to our visit here in the Ribera del Duoro. The last stop of the day was to top François with Diesel and LP gas, because tomorrow we need to be heading north as we are running out of time for this trip.
We woke up to Dutch being spoken all around us. The campground here is a mini-Netherlands village. It is a relatively small campground with about 30 spots and 23 of them are occupied by folks from the Netherlands. Apparently it has been written up in a popular camping guide there and is now a must stop place in Spain for the Dutch. Penafiel is part of a wine region called the Riberate and is in the early stages of developing vinotourism. It is a series of small towns along the Duoro River in a lovely river valley.
The castle above Pinafiel in the center of the Riberate wine region. The Duoro River runs at the base of the hill the castle is sited on.
Our plan today was to walk into the town and explore so we stopped in the campground office and asked for some advice on a place to learn about the wines of the region. We were told to go to a wine store in town, they would allow us to taste some local wines and share some ideas. After poking around town and doing the obligatory visit to the church and the medieval tower we headed over to the wine store. When we walked in there were two charming ladies working there and they made us feel welcome. The challenge was that one spoke a spattering of English, and the other none at all. My Spanish can also be categorized as a spattering, and Ton doesn’t speak any so communication was going to be a challenge. It turned into one of the most memorable wine tastings we have been on. Between their minimal English, my minimal Spanish and Google translate we were able to get a feel for the wines and the region. Their passion was clear and in the end we walked out with two good bottles of wine and a wonderful memory.
Our wine tasting at Anagora Vinos. A fun place to practice Spanish.
This area is also known for a lamb dish called lechazo. We received a recommendation from the wine ladies on a good restaurant. The lamb is barbecued and we really enjoyed it. Our lamb for two could feed four, and Ton asked for a doggy bag as she wasn’t going to leave any behind.
Our lamb dish for two.
There were two other interesting sites in town that we enjoyed. The bull ring in town dates back to medieval times and is nothing more than an enclosed square in town with a ring in the middle. The mult-story homes surrounding the square are privately owned but the town has the right since the middle ages to sell the views from the windows in the homes when there is a bull fight.
Since the middle ages the city of Pinafiel owns the rights to sell the views from the windows in the private homes surrounding the bull ring in town.
There is a large castle overlooking the city, and the hill leading up to the castle are covered in what looks like giant barbecue pits. They are chimneys to let air into a large network of caves that run under the hill. Apparently the caves are really extensive. Today most of them are owned by the largest producer in town and are used as wine cellars.
One of the chimneys allowing air into the caves under the hill to the castle. Today they are used for wine storage.
We headed back to the campground thinking we had a pretty quiet day, but when I looked at the Fitbit we had covered over 9 miles wandering around Pinafiel and the vineyards outside of town. So when we got back I took a little nap.
