A tour around Tours, or Cycling in France

Off to the train station to go to Tours when who do we run into?  Dave and Jan.  We knew they were heading to Tours that day from Dijon but did not know they were taking the same train as we were.  Not only the same train but the same carriage, only two seats away!  We get off the train and head to the hotel, oh yeah, the same one as they were staying in.  That night we got to see the last light and sound show of the season that is projected on a beautiful old cathedral.  Dave got some photos, but I did not.  So, here is the cathedral the next day, without the lights and sounds.

We got picked up in Tours the next day by our guides, Louise and Vincent.  We met the rest of the group, two American ladies and a family of three from Australia.  So, including the Vellutini’s and us we made up a group of nine.  Off we went to our first stop for lunch and our first Chateau, the

Villandry.  This was built in the 1500’s and still hosts a gorgeous garden and maze.  Fabulous way to start the trip followed by a short ride along the river Cher.

 

The second day was hot and sunny and I mean hot, 32 degrees hot.  Not exactly expected in the late fall but it’s better than snow which it was doing in Calgary, blech!  This was a 52km ride in the Loire valley but not yet along the Loire river but we crossed it at least.  We ended up in Langeais which of course has its own stunning chateau and very large bottles of wine, yeah!

Dwayne was the Ironman that day and he rode another 25km that afternoon, while Dave and Jan and I went back to our accomadations and had a swim.  We made the right choice, just saying.

The next day we only had a 55km ride finally along the Loire river to the Chateau de Chenonceau.  This is a famous chateau built over the river.  It was the site of duelling women, one the mistress and one the wife.  Interesting people, the french.  We ended up in the town of Amboise at the end of the day.

A 58km ride today through some beautiful vineyards that were being picked by some Bulgarians.  This is not work for anyone with a weak back.  We had some wine sampling in a wine cave which was yummy. Then Dwayne, Dave, Jan and I decided to ride back to the hotel for another 25km ride which made for our longest riding day.

The last day of our biking started with a tour in Amboise of the Da Vinci museum.  Dwayne enjoyed playing with some of his amazing inventions.  We had a fabulous cooking class in the morning followed by a short ride in the afternoon of only 25km where we ended up at an amazing hotel for our last night of this trip.  

We said goodbye to our travelling companions as we headed to Blois and then back to Tours and Dave and Jan were off to St Emilion.  We toured the castle in Blois where there are some creepy gargoylesand then back to Tours to see some seriously crooked buildings.  So, three more days in France before flying back to Jolly old England.

It’s September, that means it’s my birthday, no wait, Holidays!

Yeah, it’s holiday time again, off for a jaunt across “the pond”.   A quick stop in London to recover from jet lag and to catch a show and eat some curry.  Of course, whenever in London, a walk along the Thames is in order and no matter how many times we walk along it, I take pictures.  Here is just one.......

Now after a few days in jolly old, we take the Chunnel under the English Channel and end up in Paris.  We stayed in the central part of Paris on the left bank of the Seine.  Guess where we were close to?

We found a funky french creperie a few doors down from our hotel and had delicious galettes that I could eat for dinner.  What an awesome way to start three days in Paris.  We got picked up early the next day for our trip to Giverny.  This is where Claude Monet lived and painted his famous water lilies.  The garden he and his wife planted was unbelievably lush with hundreds of different types of flowers.  (We were told that she complained to Monet that they spent more on flowers than food) HA! The Japanese water garden he created where he had all the lilies he painted was equally 

spectacular.

This trip to the country was followed by a visit to the famous paintings of the water lilies housed in L’Orangerie.  These massive paintings cover four walls in a circular exhibit. They are almost as big as the garden, ok maybe not but they are really, really big.  (Really)

The photos of these pictures do not do them justice, if you are looking for an excuse to go to Paris, how about use that one?  You know, I have to go to see Monets in person, it might work.......

We went the next day to see another Monet exhibit, though the paintings were not as large in size as these, this exhibit has the most Monets around, that’s their bragging rights.  Another stop that day was to see what this guy was thinking..... (I am funny, aren’t I?  I think I am)

Yes, we went to the Rodin museum and yes this is the Thinker for those who do not know.  (Dwayne does not think I am funny). He wanted me to knock on the Gates of Hell to see if anyone answered, no one did, phew.  We spent my birthday wandering around Paris and having a drink sitting on a  boat on the river Seine, tough life.

A few more spectacular meals and then we were off to Tours for the next part of our adventure.

Four different weeks........

The Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

So it is the fall therefore it must be holiday time.  Last year at this time it was a quick one week to Oregon to cycle and drink wine.  It was decided, after that trip which was good, that a week was not long enough. So, while sitting in the dentist office in August, I was flipping through a book titled 100 must see places.  I got to some pictures of the Orkney islands and decided before getting my teeth cleaned, that’s where I wanted to go, so I called Dwayne and said “we’re going”.  We had been talking about going on a cycling trip in Scotland, so I figured we could add this on. A note was then sent to a number of friends who have made noises through the years about wanting to come on one of our cycling adventures.  Dave and Jan Vellutini decided to take the plunge and come along.  Now realize Dave has not been on a bike for any length of time since he was six.  They quickly went out and bought some bikes to practice on before heading across the pond. We met up with the Velluntini’s in Edinburgh the night before we began to cycle.

WEEK ONE:

A slightly misty morning pickup by our guide Will who introduced us to the other couple on the trip, Paulo and Maria from Brazil.  The second guide, Craig was a last minute substitute who met us with bikes and away we went.  We drove for about an hour into the Scottish highlands.  The slight mist had let up and we hopped on our bikes after a yummy lunch of “Cullen skink” and off we went.  

Some great cycling along skinny British roads through tree tunnels to the city of St Andrews.  Yes, back in the home of golf for a fabulous walking city tour (I think Dave was happy to get off the bike at this point) including the university and the ruins of the Roman Catholic cathedral of St Andrews. 



A couple of nights in an old hotel in St Andrew's where the golfers playing the British Open used to stay.  Fabulous old pictures of some of the greats of golf hang on these walls.  An interesting thing about Scotland.  Famous for its whiskey, the distillers have gotten smart.  Whiskey takes a long time to age and be ready for market.  So, the distillers have started to brew gin, yummy gin as a matter of fact. This includes different types of tonic to mix with this yummy gin.  What would a trip to Scotland be without a taste of whiskey?  A guide tour of a distillery and a taste of the final product was of course part of our cycling adventure.  A stay in a hotel beside Europe's oldest Yew tree (dated at 5,000) and some more cycling (much to Dave's chagrin, doesn't he look happy?).  A stop at the "Queen's View" that overlooks one of the locks, also on one of the Scottish pound notes, some more cycling, yes Dave not much left now.  Then a finally few days staying at a converted castle overlooking the town of Pitlochery.  We rode about 250km, saw some beautiful scenery, drank some fine gin and made some new friends from Brazil.  One of these Brazilians is a famous composer who happened to be 77 years old!  His wife was a mere 63 but they rode pretty much the entire trip.  That is the way to live a life that's for sure.

WEEK TWO:

After an overnight in Edinburgh, with Dwayne sick with a cold and me on the verge of one, we took the train further north than where we had been, to Inverness.  This is considered the "hub" of the highlands but for us was just a one day visit before heading even further north.  We spent the day walking around, seeing the castle and walking up one of its towers for an overview of the city.  The next day we took a plane, a small one, with me drugged up on Gravol over to Kirkwall on the Orkney Islands.  Kirkwall is known for its very old (building began about 1137) Cathedral, St Magnus, and the Earls and Bishops palace's.  These seem very old until you see some of the other archaeological sites on the Orkneys.

The Orkneys are also known (besides the wind, and man it is windy) for the Scapa Flow harbour where a Nazi submarine snuck in and sunk a British battleship in WWII.  Thus Winston Churchill decided that would not happen again.  He commissioned the POW's on the Orkneys to build the Churchill barriers.  Some of these barriers have old ships that were scuttled there to start a barrier and then large concrete blocks were put in place as well.  There are signs when you drive across these that you do so at your own risk.  The waves crash over the barriers and windshield wipers are critical!  So some of the POW's were Italian and wanted a place to worship.  They were given a Quonset hut and were told "here you go".  Well, they had a painter with them who proceeded to decorate the inside of this hut with beautiful frescos' worthy of any Italian church.  You can see from the picture that these are amazing and the walls look like marble.  Since the end of the war the man who did this came back a couple times to do touch ups on the walls.



One of the Churchill barriers with a sunken ship to the right.

The Orkney Islands are also known for amazing preserved stone age sites.  These were the pictures I saw while sitting in the dentist office that made me want to come here.  Now October may not have been the best month to visit but the weather behaved and when it did rain it was quick and blew away just as fast.  There are stone circles on the island that predate Stonehenge and the Pyramid's of Giza.  There are two bigger circles still standing but there are standing stones in a lot of other spots (here read in the middle of farmer's fields).  The smaller one, though the stones are actually bigger is called,  the Stones of Stenness.  It has four stones still standing of the original twelve.  These are Neolithic in age and thought to be the oldest "henge" in Britain.



The other circle is the Ring of Brodgar which has 27 stones standing of the original 60, though some were restored to upright.  They are not the height of the Stenness stones but there were many more of them in this huge circle which is 103m in diameter.  It is awe inspiring when you consider that these are Neolithic or early Bronze age.  I found out after we came back that this was called the Temple of the Sun and Stenness was the Temple of the Moon.

The preservation of these sites is amazing.  Unlike the rest of Britain where the stones were reworked this did not happen on these remote islands.  The next site (Skara Brae) is a good example.  This was found when a storm in 1850 blew away the sand that had covered this 3200 to 2200 BC aged village.  Again, wow.  It is right on the coast, though originally the sea was much further away so it is windy, gale force wind as a matter of fact.  This is a site where you do not need a lot of imagination to see how people lived here. The houses have beds, fire pits, shelves with cooking gear and tools of the time.  There are eight buildings linked together by passages that you can still see!  Check this out!

The last two sites  we visited on the island were Maeshowe and the Tomb of the Eagles.  Maeshowe is a "mound" though called a burial mound, there were no bones found in it.  It is a mound similar to those we had seen in Ribe, that were Viking burial mounds.  This is an elaborate building made out of stone, that now has grass growing over it.  The doorway lines up to the Winter solstice when the light shines in and hits the back wall which lights up with colour.  There are also four large stone slabs incorporated in the tomb which were thought to be part of yet another stone circle.  You cannot take pictures inside the mound so just one looking at it.  It sticks out in the landscape which is what some Vikings thought around the 12th century.  They got caught in a snowstorm so they broke into the mound to shelter from the storm.  They carved Runes into the walls, brilliant sayings like "I am the best Rune drawer" or "my ex-girlfriend is a ....".  You get the idea.  The coolest thing they did carve was a dragon which the Orkney island women's rugby club has on their jersey.  The Vikings wrote about this stay once they got back home, so there is other documented  evidence besides these amazing literary "giants".  HA!

The last site was the tomb of the Eagles.  This one was full of human and eagle bones, hence the name.  On the walk out to the site was another one that had running water with drainage that was still functioning.  It was either a sweat house or a pub, I am thinking pub.  Anyway, off we went to the tomb which is right on some amazing cliffs.  The tomb's entrance is small and you have to crawl or slide in, whee!  I opted for the slide, Dwayne did not.  It is marked by yet another standing stone with a tribute plaque to the couple who found and preserved the site.



Amazing place to visit and see.  Am so glad I saw the pictures in my dentist's office else we never would have come.  The end of the second week.

WEEK THREE:

A flight I was dreading ended our time on the islands.   It had been so windy on the Orkneys that ferries had been cancelled but our flight day was clear and the winds were calm, yeah!  A quick flight, though delayed by three hours over to Inverness with a quick connection which was supposed to be 4 hour layover which ended up being NONE took us down to Bristol.  My cousins Ros and Steve picked us up and off to Cheltenham we went.  A day was well spent at the Cheltenham Rugby club where Steve is president.  Three excellent matches were played including the victorious women's team.  I am wearing my fabulous Orkney islands women's rugby club jersey with the Cheltenham women playing behind me.  When I bought the jersey the women said it was brand new and they needed pictures of people wearing it for their website, so I obliged. Am now famous on their website, I am sure.

A visit with cousin Jonathon and his family included a walk with everyone.  Before I forget my other cousin Hannah, Ros and Jonathon's sister let us stay with her on the way to Edinburgh.  She lives in Leeds's, which is kind of halfway between London and Edinburgh, thanks Hannah! 

A visit to Cheltenham always includes interesting walks.  With the newest addition to the family Bertie the horse, we did some walking close to their home and further away.  Apparently all of the Ratlciffe's animals have to be black and white.  This includes the horse, two dogs and two cats.

The next journey was to the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire.  Fabulous walk along the river Wye, followed by a hand pulled ferry ride (don't pay the ferryman, don't even fix a price, don't pay the ferryman til he gets you to the other side.......ok a little Chris de Burgh for fun.)  Of course there is a pub on the other side where we ate lunch.  Lunch was interrupted, quietly though by two Apache helicopter's doing maneuverers along the river, way cool.  No, they were not looking for me, I have done nothing recently....or in Great Britain for that matter. 

A picture with Ros and Steve's dog Pippa as she has a bad eye just like me but she would not sit still.  Though the other dog, Surtsey (I have no idea if this is the correct spelling) managed to sneak into the shot as well.  Always good to visit and am looking forward to hosting them when they come in January to Calgary.  A two day trip to Bath to visit Zoe, Chris and the kids ended this week of holidays.