Visiting Monet's garden

Even in the rain the garden is beautiful!  It really is a lovely place to visit, unfortunately the rest of the world thinks so too.  There really were a lot of people. The village of Giverny is very beautiful and interesting to look around.  I'd like to go back at other times of the year just to see the different flowers

Going down to London town

The best day was our visit to London. Christian and J only live an hour from London by train so we played tourists.

We visited the Bank of England Museum. I chose that one as we had all worked in banks at some point in our lives. It was fascinating! We did go into the British Museum but didn’t stay long as there was so much to see we decided a visit would have to be planned in order to get the most from it.

We had lunch at Borough Market. Venison burgers to be exact and they are delicious! In the afternoon we visited Liberty of London and spent an agreeable hour or so just taking it all in. We could have spend an agreeable amount of money too, but we aren't that rich. We also stood outside Buckingham Palace and watched the WI filing in for a garden party.

My shadow outside Liberty of London

Before our train home we ate at an Italian restaurant which wasn’t too expensive and the food was great. I've written a revue for TripAdvisor.

I hadn’t been to London for about 30 years and was amazed by the lack of traffic. Where we went wasn’t too crowded and the underground was fine too. I slowed us down when there were lots of steps to go down but they weren’t too deep so I didn’t suffer too much.

Needless to say we all slept well after a day like that.

I take flight

Rob's been wanting to go on the ferris wheel for some time.  On Sunday morning it was sunny and calm, the ferris wheel goes round at a slow pace so no travel sickness...

 looking towards the St Nicolas tower

 Towards the Port

 The 'Gabut'

 Towards Rue St Nicolas

Me with railway station in background

All photos by Rob who can be seen reflected in my sunglasses.

Cram Chaban!

I’ve always been fascinated by the name on a sign post we’ve passed over the years when we were travelling North. Cram Chaban sounds like a magic word. Yesterday we set off to visit the village.

In fact Cram Chaban consists of the community, Cram and another part of the village which is either called Chaban or Cram Chaban? It’s tucked away in the middle of nowhere and is quite a pretty village.

As there was nowhere to have lunch there, we travelled to the next village to find somewhere to eat and happened on Basil Fawlty. When we asked if we could eat outside he said “We don’t usually serve meals out side. Do you really want to eat outside? Well I suppose if you must eat out side I’ll serve you a meal outside…” and so on. There was no menu, just the menu du jour which was simple and quite good. He told Rob off for being on his phone at the table (timetable problems – I was secretly pleased though). We were handed a selection of cheese on a plate, each piece wrapped up, but it was all the same goat’s cheese. If he hadn’t reminded us of Basil Fawlty we wouldn’t have stayed – it was quite amusing.

We then enjoyed a good walk around the beautiful, old village and went into the tourist office where there was an exhibition of work by Michel Moro, who combines paint and mosaics. The website does not do justice to the colours. His workshop is open to the public and is in CRAM! I think that we will be returning soon.

All aboard the Transbordeur

Last Friday Rob and I went for a day out and spent some of the time visiting the transbordeur de Martrou (Transporter Bridge) near Rochefort sur Mer. The bridge was built in 1900 by Ferdinand Arnodin, who built several in his time. The bridge at Rochefort is the only one left working in France, The rest were destroyed in WW2. Passengers and vehicles were pulled across on a platform, driven by steam. I was amazed at how quiet and smooth the trip was, although no longer powered in the same way.




Since I’ve been selling vintage postcards I’ve learnt to appreciate bridges. Look at the beautiful patterns of the girders. Mr Arnodin, who didn’t learn to read and write until he was nine because he used to play truant, loved solving problems.

The bridge was in use until 1967 and also appeared in the film 'The young Girls of Rochefort' (new link) released the same year (If you watch till the end you'll see how the bridge works). Now after being restored and made safe since the 1990s, tourists can cross back and forth, visit a very interesting exhibition about the bridge and explore the surrounding countryside.

A busy weekend

Dom and J-M came for the weekend. It’s the first time that they have driven here so on Saturday afternoon they invited me out with them. We went to Brouage which is a fortified village which was once close to the sea. It was a holiday so there were lots of tourists milling a round as there are craft and gift shops and there was a market. It was very pleasant. On the way home we stopped at Rochefort-sur-Mer. I’ve been their several times but only in the shopping streets. We went to see the Corderie royal (where the cordage for French ships was made – a very long building) and the arsenal and wondered around the grounds and other buildings which had been built by the military. It was beautiful, the chestnut trees especially reminded me of England. Both of these were designed at some point by Vauban who seems to have created fortifications in just about every part of France. One of Dom’s old school friends, Q, came with us. He told us a lot about the buildings. His father is an architect so I can imagine Q being shown all of these places as he was growing up. He was a good guide and as he’s spend time in Sweden And Norway has an amazing accent when he speaks English. My voice was disappearing as we were on our way home. I hope I didn’t talk too much.

This evening they’ve driven off and I waved until they went round the corner out of site. It’s quiet and the house seems so empty now. Olivier will be here on Tuesday. The year since last September has gone so quickly.

Dom asks if any of my readers (!) can recommend places to see and things to do in Chicago