Its My Bag Man!

I like Sitges very much.
It has a lovely ambience about it and there is no sense of menace. I guess it is because Sitges is the Brighton of Spain. There are gays everywhere you look and a quick google tells you the full picture with over 26 gay bars in the tiny centre. Rosie bless her does not possess a gaydar and was unaware of the fact till I brought it to her attention. That in itself though is a good indicator of how chilled out the town is.

Today we cycled every inch of the town, exploring allyways and beaches and finding cool surprises around every corner. The whole population of the town was out walking, rollerblading, cycling or rollerskating. How cool is it to see old fashioned rollerskates instead of blades!

On Tuesday we are heading down the coast to Valencia where we will be visiting a friend.

Love and Peace
Rosie and The Merman

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Rosie and I went by bus yesterday into Barcelona. We alighted at the Plaza Catalunya in 3º of coldness and immediately went into Bracafe a really old and lovely coffee house for a coffee, cake and a warm. We then did a circle of El Corte Ingles the massive department store and were finally warm enough to promenade down Las Ramblas. 

We were taken by how clean everything is and how many recycling bins were scattered around the city. We even saw a council recycling van that was parked up taking everything from waste oil to old fridges.

We simply spent the day rooting down little alleyways and staring up at the great buildings. Talking of great buildings, the market hall in the Ramblas was superb. Not just a great space but the stalls were a work of art and you get the impression that the staff spend hours dressing the stall for business. In the trade we call it ‘Flashing’ and they do it so very well.

Another thing we loved in Barca was the drop and take bike system they have for the locals. You pay a subscription and you can take a bike for ten minutes from a stand and use it to get to a different part of the town centre. Exceeding ten minutes incurs a fee and the max is two hours, but the people take one leave it and then take another. As long as there is 10 minutes between dropping off and taking another, then there is no extra charge. A great and green way of moving around the town.

 
We shall be returning to Barcelona tomorrow but will be going by train this time and taking our bikes so that we can explore more easily. (Taking bikes on Spanish trains is free and very easy, they have special areas on the train and can accomodate 5 bikes in each carriage)

Till then folks pics can be seen at http://flickr.com/photos/17314462@N00/sets/72157610348169886/

Love and peace

Rosie and The Merman

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Hola from Espana. 

We spent last night at Le Boulou a few miles from the border and this morning at the crack of 10 we set off to drive the 200km to Sitges where we planned to stay for a while. I will gloss over the details of how we got lost but suffice it to say that it cost us €18 in tolls to go twice through a tunnel that we had previously avoided by driving over the top of a mountain.

Anyhoo, we are now safely ensconced in a lovely campsite near the sea and 35km from Barcelona. There is a bus right outside the gate that goes to the centre of Barca and take an hour. Rosie and I plan to spend two days sightseeing and a couple more exploring locally on our bikes. We will be cursed for the next few days with daytime temps of around 20º so we might just get a bit of colour in our cheeks. (Mind you it is only 4º at night)

We are here for a week and then will be heading down to Finestrat where a friend of my son lives. The address is the house with the outside kitchen between the mayor and the Belgium rockstar, so given the fact that we got lost on a main road with a modern satnav, I hold little hope of finding Dominic’s house.

Love and Peace

Rosie and the Merman

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Having written a couple of innocuous blog entries moaning about the weather etc, I thought it about time I told you some of the joys of our trip so far.

Rosie has spent little time in France and so we planned the journey south to take in places that I know and love and places that I would have liked to see if I was not thundering past in a 38 tonne truck.

We spent some time in the Charante because I worked there 20 plus years ago. We stayed in Cognac for a couple of days and spent time ferreting around the old town. The electric bikes we bought are a godsend and make it easy to go off and explore. As I said in a previous post, the tourist side of Cognac is closed for the winter and so we decided to move along. To this end we went to St Fort which was a nice place to stop and spend a little time riding our bikes through the vinyards and stopping off a St Palais du Nė to show Rosie where I used to work. 

I said in my last post that we went to Bordeaux, but we did not stop. The plan was to find somewhere close to the city to park and then explore the town on bikes, but unfortunately we could not get close due again to all the camping places being closed and so we went to the coast near Arcachon and watched the sun set over the bay.

The next day we headed off in a south east direction towards Carcasson. The reason we are going that way instead of straight down towards Bayonne, is to avoid big mountains in our quest to spend a few days in Barcelona. The drive took us through the wonderful forests of Gascogne and across into the Cathare region to our stopping point alongside the Canal Du Midi in a town called Trebes, which is just a few kilometers from the beautiful city of Carcasson. The most amazing Medieval walled city I think I have seen.

As we have trundled south, we have been struck by the regional variations. In the UK, go three or four hundred miles and the houses are the same and the people look the same etc. In France just 50 miles can totally change the landscape, house style and the people. Previously I have been dashing through the countryside at 50mph for 10 hours a day and France has gone in a day and a half and all I have interacted with are the staff at a truckstop. It is nice to drift through the land and to cover as much or as little distance as you wish.

As a grand PS, we went for a walk along the canal du midi yesterday and spent 20 minutes watching two otters playing in front of us. Totally unafraid they swam within two feet of me as I grabbed my camera. I will have to try to post some pics on Flickr but my battery is just about to die.

 
Love and Peace

Rosie and the Merman

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So we went from Cognac down to St Fort Sur Né where we stayed for free at a vinyard. The free stay cost us almost €40 after we were professionally mugged by the owners who persuaded us to by booze that we are pretty sure we didn’t need or particularly want. We do however now possess a fine bottle of Grande Champagne Cognac that is 25 years old and begging to be sipped. On the subject of booze, we have found that Saint Lidl of paupers are now all over France and sell a very nice 8% strong ale for only €0.47 which means we can get sozzed for a couple of squid.

We went from St Fort to Bordeaux but the weather was crappy and so we headed south in the direction of Toulouse and are currently stealing wifi from the golden arches in Castelsarrasin before heading to Carcasson for a couple of days.

Peace and love

Mermy and la Rosie.

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Ste Maure de Tourraine in Central France and a couple of days to lick our wounds and do a little make and mend.

We scurried down from the bad weather and decided to stay in an Aire that we found in our great book “All the Aires in France” a big claim and not exactly correct but enough to keep us from running to the publisher shouting ‘Cheat’. Just to explain, there is a rule in France that motorhomes and not caravans are legally allowed to stop overnight for cooking and sleeping as long as no awning or camping equipment is put out. This is fine for R and I as we only wish to do exactly that, and if we wished to do more, we wold find a campsite. Anyhoo, there are over a thousand free Aires de Stationment Camping Cars that are situated in towns and villages that are either free or very very cheap. These provide a way of drifting through the country without forking out tons of Euro for overnight stops. The deal is that you stay and when possible use the local shops and bars etc. We have no problem there especially the bars:) I digress.

We bought and needed to fit two new batteries and this was the best and first chance to fit them, so I did just that. Now to fill in a blank or two, we met an obnoxious Englishman last night who kept saying we must be loaded living the life we live, even though he had a brand new 60 grand motorhome with a scooter on the back and a £2000 satellite system fitted and we have an 18 yr old van with a 10 yr old trailer! The man was in the motor trade and was wearing a gilet and flat cap and no doubt owned a pair of driving gloves. This morning whilst I was struggling to get a non standard battery to fit in the space provided I was suddenly swamped with assistance from two French motorhomers, one who brought his tools and donated several connectors to me. Motor mouth in the meantime fired up his van and drove away without so much as a ta ta. Both French drivers shook my dirty hands and wished me “Bon Chance” The batteries were changed and we are now electrified to the gills.

We have stayed the night again here as we want to go to the town market tomorrow to stock up on fresh veg before heading down to Cognac where we will amongst other things be staying on an Ostrich farm and a couple of Vinyards and visiting Remy Martin and Hennesey distillers…Hoorah!

We have been to the market and it was good to see them selling fair priced and where possible locally sourced produce. Carrots from Nantes, Cauli from just down the road and local game and poultry as well as Charantais oysters (at a very reasonable €5 a dozen). We have now moved to Jarnac and will update soon.

Jarnac and beyond

We could not get a connection to post this blog so I am combining two together. We stayed the weekend in Jarnac in a nice quiet Aire and had a walk by the river and caught up with a few jobs around the home. This morning we moved on to Cognac and are parked by the river opposite Hennessy Cognac chateau. We had lunch then got on our bikes and headed through the old town which is full of half timbered houses and little alleyways. We were heading for the golden arches to check email and update the blog. We are going to stay a day here then move on to use our France Passion card, which allows us to stay free of charge in many vinyards and farms in the region. I want to go towards Archiac as I worked at a vinyard near there many moons ago and want to revisit a few memories.

As for visiting the cognac houses? They are all closed for the winter until April!

Until next time
Love and Peace
Rosie and the Merman

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Hello all.

3 days into the trip and our plans changed slightly. We were planning to stay in Picardy for a few days sandyachting, but the weather was so bad we decided to head south sooner than later.

I was disappointed with the lack of obvious respect for the 11/11. The French have a public holiday but no sign of any of them using it for anything other than shopping and at 11am there was no minutes silence. Is it because we have lost so many troops in Ireland, The Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan that we are aware of the day and it’s significance?

We are currently in McD’s using the free Wi-Fi before we head to Poitiers to visit Futurascope. I hope I get to meet Bender

Rosie is trying to read a French newspaper and pick out words. She has her translator constantly checking the meaning of words she sees on signs and billboards.

Last night we stayed in Marbou next to a park and a little compound with two cute goats. I think they were pygmy and the girl was pregnant. I took pics and video for Stu!

Love and peace
Rosie and Merman

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Ferry booked for Monday 10th November. We decided to go after my burpday on the 8th.

We are going to spend the first week in Picardy which means we will be on the Somme for Remembrance Day on Tuesday 11th. That I think will be a very emotional time for an ex soldier like myself.

Peace and Love
M & R

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