Mont-St-Michel is another of France’s major landmarks, and a very distinctive image. I’ve seen the photo numerous times; an island close to the mainland which has stone buildings leading up a hill with sharpe spires rising above it. I didn’t realise it was actually a town, albeit a minuscule one at that. The vast majority…
Tag: culture
Quaint villages and quirky cafés in France
After the festive markets we drove north to Vitre. The town looked like a movie set; wonky half timbered houses were leaning towards the narrow alley and slanting down the roads. Roofs were rickety and all various shapes and sizes. We followed some cobbled lane ways and arrived in front of a huge gothic chateau….
Christmas markets in France
I adore Christmas, but we’ve ended up having quite a few of them abroad in very un-festive, sweaty and smelly countries eating a variety of curries and drinking iced coffee, not that thats a bad thing, we just prefer snow and mince pies. Europe has a lot of fab Christmas markets though and annoyingly we’ve…
Tapas, Churros and Crazy Bulls
Pamplona is home to the San Fermin festival, otherwise known as ‘The Running Of The Bulls’. It all takes place in summer, along with the animal rights version of ‘Running Of The Nudes’. It’s December, so clearly we missed that boat, but it sounded like a nice city to visit and I fancied doing some…
Incredible rock formations and deep canyons in northern Spain
After some thought we have decided to head home for Christmas – our first with the family in 6 years. This has meant shortening our trip slightly, and we won’t see as much of Spain as we’d hoped, maybe we’ll come back in the future, it’s a huge country to explore. So what we will…
Storm chasing our way to Andorra
We experienced one of our worst storms the other night that seemed to just torment us and circle around Pablo for hours. Flashes of lightning were beaming through the cracks in our curtains and the rumbles of thunder became louder and more frequent; I barely got to ‘one Mississippi’ before the next one hit. The…
Villages lost in time and the stubborn French
The south of France is proving to be quite the catch. The villages we’ve visited have been extremely rustic and untouched. The houses are made of stones with chipped wooden shutters, lots of narrow alleys and cobbled roads. Gordes was a very interesting village, it was tiered and built on a rocky hill. The houses…
A slice of the American Midwest in Southern France
Europe’s largest canyon, Verdon Gorge slices through a limestone plateau for 25km. It’s deepest point is 700m and it’s narrowest at a mere 8m, it’s not quite the Grand Canyon, but it’s a good runner up. A scenic road leads around the canyon offering view points along the way. We passed the large Saint Croix…
From the French Alps to the Sunny South
We strolled around the medieval old town of Annecy with its sweet canals cutting through the town. Archways led from the narrow cobbled streets across to bridges. Under one of the archways was a load of rubbish all piled up with plastic bags, then we saw a face staring at us amongst the bags. She…
A city with bears and the home of Gruyere
Lonely planet described Bern as the planets most underrated capital. It also said that the 15th century old town was ‘pretty enough to sweep you off your feet’. I was pretty excited as I thoroughly enjoyed the festive shops in Lucerne, surely the Capital would be ultra Christmassy too. It wasn’t though, and it most…
NON STOP TRAVELLING 