Southern France Camping Trip

Hello Everybody,

One of our trips this summer was going camping in Southern France near Narbonne.  We stayed at two camping sites, the first one being the one in the picture below and the second one near another smaller village who’s name has escaped me.

I won’t write too much because there is quite a few pictures for this post. 

A little scrabble playing followed by some nice Tomme cheese and wine, if you happen to come across this French cheese I do recommend trying it.

 

Taking a walk to the small bay near our camp ground.

 

Heading to Leucate for some nice Mediterranean swimming.

We had a great time at this beach and hardly anyone was around, I guess it was still a bit cold for the locals, but not for us. The water was fantastic.

 

In the city of Narbonne for some grub, notice the chorizo in our salad, well it’s because we are in the part of France where Spanish and French cooking hold hands like back in middle school when you held hands with your first crush, but didn’t really want any of your friends to know, sort of like that. No one really mentions how good the food is in Southern France…Frenchies, they like to keep the good stuff for themselves.

L basking in the warm summer sunset

 

boss di plane.

 

and some more wine.

Then we had a visitor in the dead on night and yes it had me jumping around the camp site like a little sissy broken hand…help,help,help me L.

Leaving Narbonne and heading to our new campsite.

Below is a picture of the Catalan flag proudly flying in France.

don’t be scared, it’s not really that bad of a drop off.

 

Some sightseeing. Below is the oldest lookout point/Fort that kept getting a change of ownership between the French and Spanish.

As you can see…he who posses the fort has eyes of a thousand troops.

An Abby we visited, which name I can’t remember, I’ll ask L and update the blog later.

 

 

Below is the longest and tallest aqueduct built by the Romans, Pont du Gard.

Can everyone see L standing below the arch.

 

Our new campsite and I’m just pretending to be passed out.

 

Walking in town.

 

I told you they like the Spanish down here.

 

Oh Yeah, olive trees everywhere…well almost.

Back at the campsite relaxing

 

A village in Provance that Mr. Brumley wanted me to walk through

Mr. Brumley maybe you should post the name of this place.

For those of you that like a pocket utensil

Heading towards the city of Avignon

 

 

The City of Avignon

 

Pont du AvignonI think I have to mention that L lived in Avignon and never knew which river the bridge crossed…or should I say tried to cross, I don’t think they finished this bridge.

 

 

L was telling this city on a hill is where all the fancy French movie starlets come to hang-out. 

Onto Orange and the lavender fields.

 

And home…

this concludes our tour…until next time.

-hugs

M&L

Belgium in a flash and Einmal Jahre

Hello Everybody,

It’s been quite a while now hasn’t it…well I’m glad to report that I will be posting more now that winter is around the corner. I’ve been busy riding my bike, entertaining guests and visiting places.

Since last I wrote - we’ve visited Southern France and Slovenia, which I will be talking about in future posts. But first let me finish Belgium and start anew.

Months are starting to fly by now, before we know it, we’ll be having to pack our cardboard crate and head home.

Well onto Belgium.

Plus a congrats to the Noodles and their shiny new baby.

Plus another congrats to the Stilcho’s for their shiny new baby.

And another congrats to my sis for their shiny new house.

hugs,

M&L

Belgium : Part 1

Hello everybody,

As some of you may know, we were in Belgium a couple of weeks ago and had quite a few pictures to sort through well, its done now so on with the sharing.

We spent most of our time in the city of Ghent and we visited Ostend, Brussels and Bruges.  All were  nice cities, but I really liked Ghent. 

Ghent, Belgium

City Center

We arrived to Ghent late in the afternoon and walked around the city getting acquainted with our surroundings and of course, because we were hungry, we were also on a mission to find Belgium fries and beer.

Below is Rene taking in some sun as we walked towards town. The weather in Ghent was fantastic – when we left our village it was rainy and cold, so we were quite glad for a change in weather.

One of the city parks in Ghent, located near the university.  Ghent is also the largest city in East Flanders and though one will hear French and German spoken in this Flemish part of Belgium, their main language is Dutch.

Ghent has a great history: Romans briefly wrote about it, Franks lived here, Vikings plundered, had a wool industry, the Dukes of Burgundy ruled it in the 1400s, Philip the Good was very bad, has ties to Juana the ‘loca’ of Castile, went through a religious war, was a Calvinist republic, but of course the Spaniards put an end to that…plus much, much more. 

 

Ghent is also packed with young university folk on bicycles. Seeing so many people on bikes was great, I heard a rumor that Ghent will be passing a law that does not allow motor vehicles in the city. I think that would be a wonderful idea for downtown Portland.

 

Look it’s Mr. Marcy on drums.

 

Manteca???

 

Here’s what I meant about folks on bicycles and I thought Portland had a big bicycle population…now I know.

Below is a picture of us walking underneath the St. Michielsburg Bridge towards the Graslie.

I guess every afternoon people gather on the staired banks of the Graslie talking, drinking and smoking. 

 

The Graslie

 

 

Castle Gravensteen

I’ll talk about the castle in a later post, remember this is just an introduction post.

walking along the rivers that run through Ghent.

 

Looking for food, I won’t mention any names, but someone was getting hungry.

 

Belgium Fries, soooo good.

With our bellies full of potato goodness and beer, we headed back through town towards our hotel for a good nights rest.

 

Ghent at dusk.

 

Goodnight Ghent

 

hugs,

M&L

more on the way, plus someone leaves for Hong Kong this weekend, not me, the other one.