Les Gorges du Verdon

A bridge across les Gorges du Verdon

Billed as France's little Grand Canyon (how do they get away with that?) the Gorges du Verdon is apparently only second to THE Grand Canyon in USA. Second in what way I'm not sure - size, popularity, beauty? I thought the gorges in Karijini National Park in WA were pretty stunning, and now I would just like to line them up side by side and compare them.

We took the long road home from the coast so that we could take a peek at this spot. Sophie just wanted to get home as quickly as possible, and wasn't keen on the detour.
SOPHIE: I want to get home but all Dad cares about is scenery.
ODETTE: What is scenery?

Sophie at the gorge

On the Beach

Sophie and Bonnie on the beach, with St Tropez in the distance

Odette, Sophie and Bonnie on the beach at Port Grimaud

Beach girls - Odette and Bonnie with St Tropez in the distance

Odette - doing the posing thing

Hugh as a beach dude...

Some pictures of the Prairies de la Mer park

Ramatuelle

Caro and Bonnie, failing to look like rich and famous residents of the Riviera.

Port Grimaud is on the Gulf of Saint Tropez, on the French Riviera, which is renowned as a holiday spot for the rich and famous. We thought we might have spotted some celebrities while we were there, but they obviously weren't staying at the same holiday park as us.
St Tropez is the most famous holiday spot; so the first day we were there we did the tourist thing and headed to Saint Tropez; and we drove straight through and headed out again because we couldn't stand the amount of traffic and people. We really are country bumpkins and don't feel comfortable in crowds ...
The pretty medieval village of Ramatuelle (see the French tourist website or the English tourist website) was where we ended up. It was marked on our map as "one of the most beautiful villages in France" and it did indeed have some very picturesque scenes. And lots of tourists...
It wasn't possible to photograph anything successfully at the time of day when we were there, but you can see some pictures on the website links above.

Mobil-Home

Our mobil-home, with kids...

Dinner time...

After a few days at home - to rest, catch up with the washing, answer emails and do some business over the internet - we hit the road again. On Wednesday morning we set off for Port Grimaud, where one of Stef's friends owns some mobile homes in a holiday park - see www.azurbeach.com.
We travelled for about seven hours, including comfort stops and a picnic, before we arrived at the park in the evening.

The holiday park was huge, and we were glad of the map we were given on arrival. Our mobile home was brand new, with the packing still inside the refrigerator and the microwave oven.

Brand new, with packing still inside

It is amazing how much you can fit into a small space when you only need the essentials. Like two beds in each of the smaller bedrooms, although I wasn't able to reach the kids to kiss them goodnight!

The bedroom where Sophie and Odette slept

We were very comfortably accommodated, and didn't need to use the air-conditioning or the heater, apart from early one morning. Not that we were awake in the early morning very often - we got into the holiday routine of late nights and late mornings. It will be fun to see if we can get the girls up early enough to go to school in the morning!!

Views of Besancon

A couple of photos of Besançon, with and without Odette.

Besançon

When we left Dampierre-sur-Linotte we went to Besançon for the night and stayed in everybody's favourite - an Etap Hotel. This time we had to have two rooms, but only because one room wasn't big enough for all of us. (Only three beds and two pillows in each...) Actually it is not Sophie's favourite accommodation but our budget doesn't fit the style she prefers...
Although we went to Besançon we didn't have much time there, and we didn't explore the town at all. But we caught up with Rowena Putland, the daughter of our neighbours back home, who is living there with her French husband Thierry.

With Rowena Putland and Thierry Morel at the zoo in Besançon

We met them at the Citadelle, where there is a zoo, and spent some time browsing there before the rain drove us home. Apart from the outdoor zoo we also saw the nocturnal exhibit, which was all rats and mice, and the aquarium. I haven't got any photos of the exotic animals, but it was fun watching various types of monkeys and baboons playing around. They exhibit such human characteristics; like the mother smacking her child over the head when he teased the baby. And then when I tried to have a close look into one of the enclosures with glass windows all I could see was my reflection!

I am not sure if Thierry was trying to throw Sophie and Bonnie
over the wall, or trying to stop them from falling...

The farmyard exhibit was something we didn't have to travel to a zoo to see (Nan, check out the peacock...) but there is a photo of Hugh and Odette crawling through a tunnel in the rabbit cage.
We went back to Rowena and Thierry's apartment and had take-away pizza for dinner. The kids watched a DVD, we had wine and cheese, and then left before the kids fell asleep (because I didn't want to have to carry anyone down the stairs...)
Thierry had some ideas for excursions the next day, but we had to decline because everyone was very tired and we had to drive back to Ste Marie d'Alloix.

Rowena and Thierry in their apartment (sorry guys,
I know its a shocking picture...)

Off to the Riviera

We are heading off for a few days to stay in a "mobilhome" in a park near St Tropez on the Cote d'Azur. Sounds very romantic, but with 4 small children we won't be going to any clubs!

Built in 1782

These are some photos of the cottage that Roger and I stayed in in Dampierre-sur-Linotte. It belongs to Stephane's aunty, and it used to be his grandma's house. It was built in 1782, which makes it older than anything in Western Australia. I loved its thick stone walls and heavy furniture. The most fascinating thing about it was the sinuous quality of the thick walls. Nothing was straight, which you may or may not be able to see in the pictures. The walls seemed to get thicker as they got higher, and one end wall, which was not able to be photographed was quite concave at the top.

The story behind the house made it all the more interesting, and helped to explain the less than perfect building skills. (Were spirit levels invented in 1782?) Apparently the house was built by the women, while their men were away at war. My French history is not up to scratch, but I am sure any French readers would probably know which war it would be - was that the time of Napoleon? The Revolution?? Maybe I need to do some more reading...

Aussie Rules

We brought a football to France with us. Sophie is very keen to teach the French kids how to play Australian football, but usually they think it is a rugby ball. The Viennet family got the hang of kicking and marking pretty easily, and Stephan has a pretty good boot on him. (I don't suppose that will translate very well for those using the Babel Fish translation service.)

We stopped for lunch near the river at a pretty village called Pesmes on the river Ognon (yes it means onion). Annick had packed a substantial lunch of bread, cheese, ham, juice, wine, yoghurt, and fruit. It was quite chilly in the wind but once everyone started to play football they warmed up. As you can see in the photos most have shed their thick jackets.

We were already in the Australian spirit playing footy, so why was I surprised when I saw an emu?? Yes, a real emu, walking back and forth trying to get out of its little pen, in the village of Pesmes. Apparently there is an emu farm somewhere near the Grenoble airport too.

Detour

Usually when we have been driving we have gone where the road leads us - we have never been anywhere around here, so everywhere is new and interesting. But on the weekend we got our Tom Tom GPS system set up with a map of Western Europe (the Australian map we had didn't help us much around here...). So we planned a trip for today, while the girls were at school. We wanted to see what was on the other side of this mountain called Chartreuse. So we planned a route which avoided toll roads and took the scenic way around the mountain. Not exactly around, but a little bit over too, with a couple of passes being at about 1300 metres. It had snowed overnight so the scenery was very picturesque, with chalets and pine trees covered in snow, and clear mountain streams cascading down the mountainside.
Mountains are extremely exciting and picturesque, but I am not a mountain girl. I grew up on the farm at Pingrup where you can see for miles and miles - with not a hill in sight, let alone a mountain. I was hoping to get to see out over some sort of flatter countryside on the other side of the mountain. But it was not to be...
During the night some of the mountain had fallen onto the road. And the rockfall had closed the road. So we had to program an alternative route into the Tom Tom and we arrived in Grenoble rather sooner than we had thought.
But not before I had snapped a photo of the scene and of the workers, hanging from ropes, who had drilled holes into the rock to insert bars which would hold the hillside together. Like sticky tape I was told.