Thursday was taken up with taking care of a maintenance item on Leuk Seua (Baby Tiger in Thai) and a long days driving. Pretty boring drive without much interesting to see. Once we arrived in Huntsville we decided to spend the next day exploring the area.
On Friday we decided to go to Muscle Shores, and Tuscumbia Alabama. Enroute we passed General Joe Wheelers home. He is one of my favorite soldiers as he is the only person to serve as a General in both the Confederate and US Armies. He was a boy general in the Confederate Army reaching Lt. General. Then during the Spanish-American War he was commissioned as a Major General of volunteers in the US Army. He is famous during one battle during the Spanish-American War for shouting at his soldiers to “Come on Boys, we’ve got those damn Yankees on the run!”
Ton at the famous water pump where Helen Keller spoke her first words.
In Tuscumbia we visited Helen Kellers childhood home and birthplace. We saw the famous water pump that Helen Keller said her first word at “water”. In Muscle Shoals we went to the Alabama music hall of fame. Muscle Shoals during the 60’s and 70’s was a center for recording of rock and R&B music. Artists as diverse as the Rolling Stones, Jimmy Buffet, and the Commodores recorded at the Fame Recording Studio in Muscle Shores. When the Stones recorded here (Brown Sugar was recorded in Muscle Shores) they had to sneak into town, not because they were famous, but because they did not have a work permit. If you see Muscle Shoals you would never believe that at one time it was a source of some of the great music produced in the US. Unfortunately it has seen better times. The museum has just recently reopened after being closed for nearly a year due to lack of visitors. Hopefully, they will manage to keep it open as the story of Muscle Shoals is a great cultural story in the US.
Muscle Shoals is a small town in Alabama that had an outsized influence on popular music in the US.
Today we drove down to the Redneck Riviera as the Florida Panhandle is referred to. The plan is to write about the sites and scenes we see on the road, but frankly so far South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama are a little underwhelming. Pine forests and farms, the only break in the monotony are some small towns with nice old houses.
Ton in the cockpit of a Blue Angel.
Today we ran into another monsoon on the last couple of hours of the trip. Any chance of going out to see anything was lost as it was raining cats and dogs. When we arrived at Pensacola we visited the Naval Aviation Museum. If you are an aviation buff and are in the area do not miss the museum. It is very well done with a great collection of aircraft from all eras. The museum is free and staffed by volunteers who are often former aviators. We met a very interesting gentleman who was trained by the Luftwaffe when he was young to fly the ME-262 jet. It was fascinating to listen to his story and how he came to be a volunteer in Pensacola Florida.
Today was spent at the Wild Bill Western Museum. This museum is a revelation and is actually five museums in one. There is of course a museum dedicated to Wild Bill Cody which is the original museum. The second museum is dedicated to the plains Indians. The third museum is a large collection of western art. The fourth museum is a firearm museum which is supposed to be one of the largest in the US. Finally there is a museum showing the natural environment of the high plains and mountains of the areas.
What is amazing is that in a city of less than 10,000 a museum of this quality can exist. This museum is truly outstanding in all the wings and it is easy to spend 6 or 8 hours in it. Ton and I spent the whole day in it, and actually had to cut it short at the end. We were both impressed and learned a tremendous amount. If you are anywhere near Yellowstone plan a trip to Cody to see this fascinating museum.
Today was about getting off of the freeway and exploring Boise a bit. The primary target was the Basque Town in Boise. Boise has one of the largest populations of Basques in the US. We visited a museum dedicated to Basque Culture in the US and also learned a little bit about Basque Culture in Spain and France. But the real fun was across the street at the Basque Market where they were cooking up Paella on the sidewalk. Ton says it is the best she ever had. After a quick walk around town, it was 102 degrees, we decided to head west.
We had to try some of the Paella.
The next debate was whether to head home from Boise or make one more stop for the night. Ton pointed out that we had never visited Prodigal Son Brewery in Pendleton, so one more night it is.
Around Baker City we saw a large wild fire off to the north. It turns out that the next day they had to close I-84 due to smoke from the fire.
In Pendleton we enjoyed a taster at Prodigal Son, and then walked around town for a while. We visited Hamley’s western wear, Ton was very impressed with the quality of the saddles and clothes. Pendleton seems to be enjoying pretty good times these days. Tonight we decided we needed access to electricity as it was still in the 100’s and airconditioning seemed like a good idea. We ended up in an Indian Casino RV park, nothing special except 30amp electricity.
Pendleton Oregon is famous for its rodeo. This western store is one of the largest in the Northwest.
Today we decided to start our time in Rome by visiting the Vatican. Yesterday after some research we decided to do a guided tour, it was €10 more than the unguided ticket. It was expensive but the other option was waiting in line for an indeterminate amount of time to purchase a ticket as an individual.
Our tour was at 11am but not having tried the public transport in Rome we left about 8:45 to give me some time to get lost. It turns out the trip to the Vatican was a breeze and we were there about 9:30. We used the time until the tour began to wander around St. Peters Square. The square itself is very impressive and we had no trouble killing the time we had until our tour.
St. Peters Basilica from the exterior.
We joined our tour and headed over to the Vatican Museum. The museum was fantastic but the crowds inside were incredible. I am not sure how many people they let in per day, but if today is any indication it is too many. At times you could not stop walking as you were being carried along by the crowds. We saw a lot of beautiful things that we would have liked to stop and admire but were unable to due to the crowds. It also made following the guides talk very complicated as we would frequently be separated from her by a wall of people and were not quite sure what piece of art she was talking about. We later learned that even in shoulder season Mondays and Saturdays are very crowded.
This level of crowd was the norm for the tour.
We eventually made our way thru to the highlight of the trip the Sistine Chapel. Again the place was jammed with people and you were basically herded into the middle of the Chapel and had to stop and stand in one place. There was no moving around to get a better view of a particular part of the chapel. Having complained I know why so many people want to see the chapel as it is absolutely stunning, one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. In the end it was worth the trouble. Sorry there are no pictures from the Sistine Chapel allowed.
This picture is a Raphael from the Popes Apartments. He depicts Michaelangelo sitting in the lower left center. He is in Renaissance clothing unlike the other characters, and sitting working on a list.
The tour finished up with St. Peters Basilica. We have visited a lot of Cathedrals during our time touring in Europe but this one is special. While the crowds were just as large, St. Peters was more than big enough to handle them. While the place is ornate it struck me as more understated, as if it has nothing to prove. We appreciated this, but the art that is in the cathedral is beautiful, and surprisingly to us from many different eras. It is not frozen in time which is also refreshing.
A Michaelangelo from St. Peters Basilica.
In the end our three hour tour took a little over four hours due to the crowd, and we emerged from St. Peters famished. Ton had picked out a place she wanted to try and following Google maps we arrived at the site, sat down and ordered some pasta, when I looked across the street and saw the name of the restaurant she had picked out, we were in the wrong place. The food was pretty good though.
The aire we are staying at is owned by a Spanish/British couple who are RVer’s also. You can tell as they designed it in a way that is really user friendly, their experience shows. They are considering a trip to the US so we exchanged some information with them.
Later in the day we headed into Malaga which is a town we are both familiar with from school. We took a local bus into town, as we came around a point of land we had our first view of the harbor. To our dismay their were 3 cruise ships in port including the largest one we have ever seen. It turns out there was actually a 4th one but it was a sailing cruise ship and did not stand out. We knew then that the town would be packed.
Two of the cruise ships in port, the one in the foreground is a normal sized one, the one in the background is the largest we have ever seen.
Malaga had a really nice vibe to it, and we enjoyed wandering around town. As usual we checked out the cathedral, the castle (Arabic), and some old buildings. The old town is dwarfed by the new town, but it was still quite large. The Spanish do a great job of making their down town cores pedestrian friendly. The walkways are wide, and most streets have very limited access for cars and delivery trucks, so the roads can also safely be used for pedestrian traffic. Ton really loves how they make it easy to enjoy a stroll.
Typical Spanish “street” scene.
The high light of the day was the Picasso Museum. Picasso was originally from Malaga and the museum did a good job of showing the different phases of his development. Unfortunately there are no photos allowed in the museum. It is an excellent museum without having any of his famous works. Because of this they focused more on how his work developed from his early days as a student until his late works in his 90’s.
Interior courtyard of the Picasso Museum.
After that we were wandering down a street looking for the market when we came upon an old bar that looked interesting, it was founded in 1840 and was the official supplier of sherrie for Queen Isabel II before she abdicated and moved to France. They served glasses of different sherries out of giant wooden casks. They had a variety of different local sherries which is a regional specialty around Malaga. They also had a very interesting way of keeping the tab, after you order they take a piece of chalk and write the amount you owe for the round on the wooden bar in front of you. It’s simple and you know right where you stand, and as an Englishman next to us explained you do not have to worry about losing your spot at the bar when you go to the bathroom, because for someone to take your spot at the bar, they also inherit your tab! Unfortunately we forgot to get a liter to go.
Some of the sherrie barrels, a little out of focus after sampling the wares!
When I was 11 or 12 my friend John and I were totally fascinated with the story of Colditz Castle and the allied prisoners of war who were held there during the war. The Germans designed the POW camp at Colditz to hold the most difficult prisoners, people who had attempted multiple escapes or were just a large scale pain to the Germans. John and I read the book by one of the prisoners called Escape from Colditz and spent a large part of the summer pretending to be prisoners trying to escape from Colditz. Today I got to visit the real thing.
It was not on the plan, but when we were traveling from Dresden to Leipzig the other day I saw the exit on the Autobahn for Colditz and told Ton the story and she insisted that we visit it. It was a short drive down from Leipzig with the only adventure being Greta insisting there was a road to follow when there was not one, after 10 minutes or so of circling Greta’s imaginary road we followed our noses and eventually found our way to Colditz.
The castle has been in existence since the middle ages, and was for a short while the home of Augustus I of Saxony. After a while it fell out of favor as a royal residence and became at different times a hospital, prison, and mental hospital. When the Nazi’s came to power it was used as a concentration camp, before being converted to a prisoner of war camp in 1939. During the war it held prisoners from many different countries including Poland, Holland, Belgium, the US, and Britain, with the British making up the bulk of the prisoners.
The courtyard of Colditz Castle, which during WWII was a POW camp for recalcitrant officers.
A formation of prisoners in the Castle courtyard during the war.
Today we were fortunate to be the only ones on our tour of the castle which was led by an Englishman named Alex who had married a local Saxon girl. He did a fabulous job of showing us around the castle explaining the living arrangements of both the prisoners and the guards. He talked about the various escape attempts. The most fascinating was the French tunnel which as you would expect was the work of the French prisoners held there. They dug this tunnel for over 9 months and covered over 500 feet going up and down around the stone that the castle rests on including cutting thru the original wooden supports that were adjacent to the chapel.
A vertical shaft of the French tunnel.A horizontal shaft of the French tunnel that was uncovered during renovation.
The German government has spent a lot of money fixing the castle in addition to the museum they have converted the old German guard quarters/Mental Hospital (under the East Germans) into a hostel. If you are in the area we recommend it. It was nice to see a place that had given me a great adventure one summer when I was a kid.
A very light day for us. After sleeping in we took our time getting going in the morning with Ton updating her friends on Line, and me catching up on what was going on with the Timbers.
Meissen is famous for being the first place in Europe to manufacture porcelain. Porcelain from China and Japan was all the rage in the late 1600’s and imports were really expensive so the local prince told some of his best minds to figure out how it was made. Eventually they successfully reverse engineered the process and in 1710 opened the first porcelain manufacturing site outside of Asia in Meissen. It has been in continuous business since then.
The symbol of the Meissen Porcelain Factory with some examples of their product.
The demonstration of the manufacturing process is quite interesting as actual artisans from the company perform work as you watch them. The work is quite intricate and artistic, so it is fascinating to watch them actually perform the work as it is described to you.
The initial process uses a potters wheel and molds to form the piece.
We really enjoyed seeing the process. The work at Meissen is still largely done by hand unlike most porcelain manufacturers who have automated the process. As a result Meissen porcelain is highly valued and is expensive.
This lady is hand making details for the statues on the right.This lady is hand applying the paint, they apply one color at a time, you can see different stages of the process in the background.
After the demonstration we walked thru the museum with over 3000 pieces from different eras on display. There was a lot of very interesting porcelains on display, and we spent quite a bit of time walking thru the exhibits.
A porcelain clock produced at Meissen in the late 1700’sThis porcelain piece is available for €31,000. The cheapest thing we saw was a cup for €35.
We decided to head back to François a little early for the day after we picked up some things at the grocery. We relaxed for the afternoon, while I tried to have a conversation with our Dutch neighbor. He was quite a character, but also the first Dutchman I have come across who was not fluent in English. As a result I spent a lot of time nodding and smiling while maybe understanding 20% of what he was telling me. Still it was nice, and gave Ton and his wife some time to take care of business without us in their hair.
As I said yesterday we planned to move to Bayreuth to go to the largest beer museum in the world. It was an easy 50km drive in light rain, and we have parked up at the first free aire since we arrived in Germany.
After lazing around for a while waiting for the rain to stop, we headed into town to the museum. The museum is only available by tour twice a day and we wanted to make sure we had a spot so after checking in we were told to come back in a couple of hours.
We headed over to the main street of Bayreuth and found a really nice and wide pedestrian zone. We enjoyed checking out the stores and the people. It was a little quiet since the weather was still unsettled and unseasonably cold. We stopped by the opera house which is a world heritage site to check on tour times as it is also only accessible on tours.
Every town in Bavaria has one of these poles which shows the different services available in the town. By tradition they are taken down and updated every 3 years which prompts a beer festival
After a quick lunch at a Donner Kebab place we headed over to the Maisel World of Beer for our tour. When we first checked in they told us the tour was in German but they would give us an English script so we could follow along. However, it turns out we were the only ones on the tour, so the guide said she would do the tour in English if we did not mind her making a few mistakes as she had never done the tour in English before. It turned out to be a great tour. When Maisel replaced their old factory with a more modern one, they just left all of the equipment in place in the old building. We were able to see really cool beer making equipment purchased between 1890 and 1910 still in working order.
Some of the original equipment from Maisals factory. It was used from about 1900 to the late 1970’s.
The tour much like yesterday included every part of the beer process from grain to shipping. The bonus was it was done in English, our guide was a college student from the local University and she did quite well only stumbling on a couple of technical terms. They also had an interesting display of beer glasses, steins, and signs from over the last 100 years.
Some of the hundreds of beer steins on display.They have over 5400 beer glasses on display from around the world.
They still produce their traditional Maisel Weiss which is the beer that made them famous. But the 4th generation of brewers wanted to expand the horizons a bit so they have a second company called Maisel and Friends which while keeping with the purity laws produces typical microbrews including ales, porters, and IPA’s. The brewery itself looks very much like an upscale west coast brewery. It would fit in very well in San Diego or Portland. It was interesting to see the German take on a microbrewery.
We ended a day with a tour of the Margravial Opera House which was built from 1744 to 1748. This time there were plenty of Germans on the tour, so we were relying on our pamphlet to understand what we were seeing.
The wood carvings on the balcony of the theater are incredibly intricate.The wood carvings on the interior are incredibly intricate and a bit ostentatious.
The stage is really deep and allows for the staging of really large sets with lots of extras. For this reason it was a favorite place for the German composer Richard Wagner to stage his operas some of which go on for 3 or 4 hours with giant casts.
Bayreuth was the adopted home town of the composer Richard Wager so these little statues of him are everywhere.
We were completely lost during the extensive talk about the building. But it is indeed an impressive piece of architecture, and I can see why it works as an opera house even if it is a little over the top.
Bayreuth turned out to be a very nice city and the easiest we have walked around in Germany, with a great pedestrian zone, and extensive walking and biking trails. Though we were in a big city we were mostly isolated from the cars which we enjoyed.
Today was a pretty easy day. After Ton had one more luxury shower at the campground we headed into town to do some shopping at a Lidl and a Rewe that were conveniently next to each other in town.
Once François’ shelves were restocked we headed down the autobahn towards another Frankish town called Kulmbach. While we are technically in Bavaria the area we have been in since Rothenburg are inhabited by a people called Franks who will tell you they are not Bavarian by choice. It appears to be a friendly rivalry, but they do make a point of telling you at every opportunity that while administratively they are in Bavaria they do not consider themselves Bavarian.
We arrived at the aire in Kulmbach after Greta decided to test my driving skills by sending us right thru the center of town complete with narrow one lane roads with cars parked on both sides. After settling in we headed over to the nearby beer museum.
The museum is located on the grounds of Mohnschof Brewery and is really quite a museum. It looks like they built a new brewery on site, and took the old brewery including all of the equipment and built a really fascinating beer museum.
A shot of the interior of the new brewery that replaced the one that became the museum.
The museum winds up three floors of the old brewery and then across and back down three more floors. It covers everything from the history of beer, and variations of beer around the world. It shows everything you want to know about how to make beer from farming the main ingredients, brewing using the old brewery equipment to demonstrate how, to transporting the finished product.
The old brewery equipment that was replaced by the stuff above.
Needless to say we were in heaven. We spent altogether over 2 hours working our way thru the museum even though all of the displays and information are in German.
Really cool storage barrel, not sure if it was ever actually used to store beer.
If the signs were in English we might still be there. The tour ended with a well deserved glass of beer.
They had a great collection of beer steins back almost 100 years.Ton really liked this ad from the beer museum. The caption means The Reward.
As good and extensive as this museum is, it is not even the largest in the area. Tomorrow we will be visiting the largest beer museum in the world according to the Guinness book of world records.
Everyone we talked to over the last few days told us we had to go to Bordeaux. Ron was a little intimidated with the idea of driving into a big city, and there are no official aires or campgrounds in the city. After some research our Dutch Parking App listed a parking lot next to a soccer stadium and municipal pool that had good access to the city by bus.
One of the new trams in Bordeaux, there is a lot of work going on to expand the tram lines.
To everyone who told us not to miss Bordeaux thank you we both enjoyed it very much. It is a medium sized city with a very well developed transit system that was easy to use. The waterfront promenade goes on for a couple of kilometers and is wide and pleasant to walk. The promenade has cafes on one side, and river cruise ships, and one very expensive yacht on the other.
These Buildings fronted the river. Bordeaux is one of the larger ports in France.
We visited the World of Wine Museum which is a little pricey, but a very modern multi-media museum, and the entrance did come with a taste of one wine from their world selection. The different multimedia displays included something to taste touch, and many different ways of visually presenting information about wine. It was interesting to see how curators are trying to integrate all of the audio visual stuff that is available now. We also got a small taste of French humor in some of the presentations which was fun.
A display on Egyptian Wine.Most museum stores have books and t-shirts for sale, this one has wine. My kind of museum.
After cutting ourselves off after over three hours in the museum we headed down town to look at some of the buildings in town. The city center is quite nice, and looks like it was not terribly damaged during WWII despite being a major base for German U-Boats. With a city as tuned into wine as Bordeaux is the cafe scene is quite extensive, and a lot of people were enjoying an afternoon drink, so we decided to join them for a beer. We had a couple of French microbrews and they were quite satisfactory.
Today we reluctantly left Brittany and decided to take a big bite out of our trip to Spain. We covered over 350km today to the city of Rochefort. The roads were generally good and for almost half of the way were limited access free ways with no tolls.
Rochefort is an interesting town. It was founded in 1666 to support a naval yard that was placed here by one of the kings. Unlike any French city we have ever visited it is actually laid out in a grid. The town itself had a kind of mediterranean/California vibe. Ton thought it was kind of boring, but Ron was comfortable in a town he could navigate without getting lost!
Even thought the roads were straight there was still a nice old gate in Rochefort.
We made another attempt at getting a French phone. The guy at the Orange store (the biggest French mobile phone company), was really nice, but basically told us that there were no good solutions to our problem. We could either get a standard French mobile plan and pay the monthly cost, or get a sim card that only works in France and nowhere else in Europe. We are going to keep trying, there must be a way to make this work.
We went down to the old naval yard. It was a major producer of vessels for the French Navy from 1660 to the 1920’s. In addition to building French Ships of the Line (really big sailing battle ships) and Frigates like the USS Constitution, it also built France’s first submarine (scarily named the Plunger). Unfortunately the location was not good for larger modern ships and it was abandoned.
The French Frigate Hermione reconstructed.
Today they have a replica of the French Frigate Hermione. This ship is famous here for being the ship that took Lafayette to the US during the revolution. It is really well done.
After that we took a look around the ropery which was a large factory used to make all of the ropes used in the French Navy. By the end of the walk we headed to an aire for the night and relaxed.
The ropery building at the French Maritime Museum.
The day started out with a visit to the cheese shop under the supervision of Patrick the campsite owner. He also had a French couple in tow who turned out to be from the Yonne department of Burgundy which is our honorary French home, as that is where François the RV is based. We ended up with about 1/3 of a kilo each of three Cantal cheeses, one is called Cantal, one was called Salers, and the last was a blue cheese from the area which one food critic labeled the best he had ever tasted. The Saler cheese is a variant of Cantal that is only produced in two months when a certain flower is in bloom in the region, as the flowers mixed with the grass makes the cows milk that much better, you have got to love the French! We will give you a report later if the flowers make a big difference.
Patrick leading us down the road to the cheese store.
After two days of cold and damp weather we decided to head south in search of sun and heat. We had originally picked out a target of a town that was about 130km as the crow flies. But when Ron punched it into the GPS, the route said it was over 400km’s. Ron cursed and figured he had punched in the coordinates wrong. But after some further study of the map it turned out that this was really a case of the proverbial you can’t get there from here.
This cow is a Cantal which is a breed unique to the area around Salers.Ton likes Cows and this calf is the cutest she has ever seen, it almost looks like a sheep.
After some further study of maps, Ton proposed the town of Albi as a destination. It was south, the roads looked reasonable, and best of all it was the hometown of Toulose-Lautrec which is both of our favorite French Artist.
The bridge in the foreground was built around 1300 and is still used for traffic today.
The plan for the night was to stay in the Aire in Albi. The GPS led us close to the medieval old town down increasingly narrow roads, and only about 500 yards from the final destination we came to an arch that the road was going under, but the road under the arch was filled with construction equipment. After some studying of the map, and a little maneuvering in tight quarters we headed to our alternative route to the aire. About half way there we fell in behind a Dutch RV that appeared to be going to the same place. Again within about 500 meters of the aire we ran into some more construction and the Dutch pulled over and parked. Ron parked up behind them and knowing that almost all Dutch speak English he walked up and asked them about the aire. It turns out that the road to the aire is under construction and while you can barely make it there, it was full anyway. The husband said that they were thinking about parking for the night at a site we had passed on the way in, but the wife switched from English to Dutch and told him no way they were parking there. I don’t speak a word of Dutch but I didn’t need too to understand that conversation.
Ton and I decided to just leave François where he was and head into Albi to have a look around. Albi turned out to be a real Gem. This is why you do these trips without agendas, to find places like this. Our first stop was the Toulose-Lautrec museum. The museum has an incredible collection of his art, because apparently the Louvre turned down the collection when his parents offered it to them. The museum is housed in the Palais de la Berbie which is the old palace of the archbishop of Albi. The building is as impressive as the art collection.
An example of the art in the Toulose-Lautrec museum.The exterior of the Toulose-Lautrec museum which is in the old palace of the archbishop.
Next door is the Cathedral of Albi, which is the largest brick church in the world. We went into the Cathedral and it was as impressive as the outside. We got a break as one half which usually costs 5 euro to get in was open in preparation for a concert so we got a free look at it.
We decided to shift a little south to another part of Provence. The town of St. Remy de Provence was highly recommended to us, so here we are.
St. Remy turned out to be a very nice but touristy town. But it did have an interesting walk themed around Van Gogh. He spent a year here in a sanitarium trying to clear his head, and did some really nice painting. The walk had you follow a road out of town to the sanitarium where he stayed and periodically showed you sites where Van Gogh had painted pictures. It was quite fascinating and at several of the stops you could really see quite clearly the setting he used.
We think this is the setting for this picture.
At the end of the road was the sanitarium where he stayed, and it is still functioning as a sanitarium today having been founded around 1200 AD. The room where Van Gogh stayed is on display, as are the gardens that inspired some of his paintings. We really enjoyed ourselves and found the place fascinating.
Van Gogh’s room in the sanitarium.
On the way back we stopped at the ruins of the Roman settlement of Glanum. We poked around a bit and saw the Arch of Triumph, but decided to pass on visiting the Roman ruins.
Part of the Roman Arc, the Arc itself is a slightly more worn version of the one in Orange yesterday
As we passed thru town we decided that this one of the more upscale towns we had been in, and it reflected in the price of the restaurants. So we decided to postpone our Provence meal, and headed back to François for a very late lunch, and a siesta.
Today we planned to spend at the Louvre. Of all of the places in Paris Ron wanted to spend some extra time there as he had never been.
It is an overwhelming place in many ways. The building is huge, but the vast majority of people are there to see the two or three must see things, the Mona Lisa, David, and the Italian art. Those things are clustered in one area of the museum, and that area is packed. We did see all of those things, but the crowds were a little too much for Ron. The other wings of the building are nearly empty and there is a lot of good art.
This is not the crowded part of the Louvre.
After about 4 hours we had enough and decided to get some lunch. Ton was interested in getting some Moroccan food, and we found a good restaurant. We had our most expensive meal in France, and the meal was good. After lunch we decided to head back to Montmartre, and grab a couple of last minute things we wanted to take back to Oregon with us.
I think we enjoyed walking around Montmartre nearly as much as we did the Louvre for the day. We made a couple of trips to grocery stores in the area, as well as taking one last stroll (Ton would say climb) to the cathedral. We had our final dinner at an African restaurant across from the hotel that Ton had her eye since we checked in The meal was excellent and the spices were really interesting. Ton’s fish was delicious.
The main goal for us today was to visit the village of Essoyes. Essoyes is famous as the summer home of Renoir. He did a lot of his later paintings there, as he spent a lot of senior age years there.
Last night we parked up on a winery in the area owned by the Lameroux’s. It was a nice parking spot for up to six campers including water, and a dump. We walked down to the winery when we arrived to check if it was ok to park. The wife of the owner met us and she did not speak any English, we managed to mime that we were in the camper aire, and she said good. We decided against a tasting and she looked relieved. This morning as we were pulling out her husband happened to be pulling into work. He stopped and thanked us for staying and invited us back if we were ever in the area, and you could tell it was heartfelt. Our experience in Les Riceys was really exceptional, and if an area ever motivated me to learn French it was here, as the people were fantastic.
The road from Les Riceys to Essoyes is on the Champagne tourist route.
The drive over to Essoyes was short, and we parked up next to a new museum for Renoir. In fact it was so new that the main exhibitions were not open yet. The museum included a video presentation about Renoir’s life in Essoyes. It was quite well done and helped us understand the rest of the tour. We followed the walking tour thru the village, and as we approached his home we realized we were going to run into lunch. We went in and did a quick tour, but decided to come back for a more extensive tour after lunch. We saw one of the curators and tried to ask in broken French if we could return after lunch, and he smiled and with a proper English accent said of course. Later we learned he was from the south of England.
The River Ounce as it cuts thru Essoyes.The same view as painted by Renoir.
The home Renoir lived in was exceptionally well restored and supported by one of Renoir’s great granddaughters so a lot of the furniture is family heirlooms. Essoyes is a beautiful village, and if you like impressionists and particularly Renoir it is worth seeking out.
The living room in Renoir’s home.The bed that Renoir used, he preferred simple country style furnishings.Another Renoir to finish the day.
It was still pretty early when we were done so we decided to keep heading east. We picked out the town of Contrexeville in the Vosges as it was generally in the right direction and had a couple of parking options. The GPS said it was 130km so we figured about 2 hours. The GPS had lately been picking pretty good roads where the speed between towns is about 80kph (50 mph), and most towns were bypassed. Today she decided to send us down little D roads where top speed is about 65kph (40mph), but there are lots of little villages where you are creeping thru at 30kph. Our two hour drive turned into 3 hours. We did not mind that much as the countryside was really beautiful, and the roads were nearly empty.
A typical view on our drive today.
Contrexeville is a spa town with a small Casino. They are trying to develop some tourism, but the Vosges do not seem to be attracting a lot of tourism. The campground tonight is really nice and an incredible bargain at €11.
Ton likes sheep almost as much as she likes cows. When we crossed over to look at them they were a couple hundred yards away, they all came trotting over to check us out. The Rue de September 11 commemorates the day the town was liberated from the Germans in WWII.
The jet lag is starting to wear off a bit and we were both up and moving around a little earlier. We were undecided about the day as it is supposed to rain this afternoon, and it was spitting a little this morning to give us a taste.
We did want to visit a winery and after much research Ton decided on Bernard Rion Sarl in the village of Vosnee Romanee. It was a great choice. We were met by the owners wife as we pulled up in front. She assigned us to Bastien who gave us a personal tour of the winery and poured about 8 or 9 wines for us to taste. During the pouring the wife came down and offered us some truffles and bread to go with the tasting from their kitchen. A little later the owner Bernard came in and said hello, and offered us some tips on where to find good beer in the area. We decided to buy only two bottles as we do not have a lot of room. Ron was very tempted by the Grand Cru but at 90 Euro a bottle it seemed a little extravagant for anything we could whip up in the RV. We instead settled for a couple of lessor wines that were still very good, and one we will save for a special night before we leave.
Ron pretending he is a tasting room worker in France.
As we are learning the system here we needed some more supplies so we popped in to another grocery store for some more stuff. After tasting some great wine, Ton was fascinated with the wine selection in the grocery and decided to buy a 1.99 Euro bottle to compare with what we had just tasted. We are drinking it as we write this and it is quite enjoyable, though not up to the standard of Bernard Rion Sarl.
Bird along the Canal De Bourgogne. Not a species we are familiar with.
When we arrived at Dijon the weather was not very threatening so we decided to head into town. It was about a mile and half walk mostly along the river to the old part of town. Tomorrow we are going to explore the town seriously, but today we visited the Musee Del Bel Artes in the old Duke of Bourgogne’s palace. It was a very impressive museum with great medieval art and armaments. The palace itself is massive and reflects the power the Duchy of Bourgogne had during the early Renaissance period. It was under construction so there will be more to see in the future.
The square outside the Duke of Bourgogne’s palace.
We decided to head back a little early as the sky was starting to threaten rain. We made it back just in time before a really large thunderstorm moved thru the area complete with lightning and a real gully washer of rain that would have competed with any thunderstorm in the mid-west.
We are still fighting a bit of jet lag so we had another slow start to the day. We finally hit the road about 1030 for the 120 km trip to Beaune. We told the GPS to avoid tolls so we found ourselves driving thru some really beautiful country on roads that ranged from two good lanes with passing zones every few miles to 11/2 lane roads thru small villages. We probably only averaged about 40mph but it was worth it for the view.
This stretch of road is typical with fields and small villages. This stretch was not particularly narrow.
We arrived in Beaune around lunch time with the intent of checking out the free aire, but we missed the sign going thru town despite the really light traffic. We saw the sign for the municipal campground and decided to go ahead and pay up for the night.
After a nice lunch prepared by Ton we headed into Beaune. It is a well preserved medieval city. Our primary stop for the day was going to be the Hospices De Beaune. On the walk there, and as we were entering the downtown “tourist” core suddenly there were sirens converging on the area in mass. Unfortunately in these times we were worried that something really bad was happening. As it turned out Beaune is hosting a “Police Film Festival” this weekend, and what we heard were a bunch of guys whose hobby is to fix up cars and dress like foreign police. So when we got down town we were treated to the site of a bunch of American Police cars including two NYPD, one California Highway Patrol and one LAPD cruiser. There was also a 1950’s Cadillac painted as an Oklahoma Highway Patrol Car. While the theme was definitely American there were a couple of antique French Police Cars, and a group of guys dressed up like Italian Carabiniere (national police) complete with a Maserati.
One of several “American” Police cars we came across in Beaune.
The Hospice De Beaune was built in 1443 and was active as a Hospital until 1972. The thought that went into it is quite impressive for its time and allowed it to function for over 500 years. But this being France it was partially endowed by the production of wine on site, and the wine from the Hospice is still very sought after.
The roof of the Hospice de Beaune is done in a traditional Burgundian style with colored tiles.
Today was a driving day. There is not much to see between Dawson Creek and Fort Nelson so we got up and headed up the road. We made a short diversion to the last of the WW2 era wooden bridges. It is no longer on the main road and is being preserved by Canada as a historic site. Ron liked it but Ton was not too impressed.
The big change since our last trip is a natural gas boom in the area. There is much more traffic on the road from Dawson Creek to Ft. St. John and a little beyond. It reminds us a little of the Bakken area of North Dakota where Ron just finished up working.
The other change is an overall improvement in the quality of the road. It is much better than we both remember, even though there are some rough patches on it.
We arrived in Fort Nelson around 2:30 pm and stayed in the same RV park we stayed at on the last trip. As usual in these small towns we went to the visitors center, and were told enthusiastically that there was a program on the history of Ft. Nelson in 20 minutes. The air conditioning was good and the staff looked so happy to have someone that we stayed and were the only attendees. It was well done and interesting so we were glad we stayed.
A great collection of “stuff”.
Across the street is a museum that we think is a must see if you make the trip. It is full of interesting stuff and vehicles. We had stopped on our last trip to Alaska and had fond memories. The staff is very proud and glad to answer questions. If you have a chance check it out.
