The North Coast of Spain & across France

14 October (Tuesday):

This morning everything was completely fogged in.  We were on the road before 9:30 am with the windshield wipers going automatically because of the high density of water in the air.  We were in fog for most of the day, driving over the chain of mountains that sit across the north of 

Spain.  By 1:30 we were nearing our destination and left the main road for another back road that really went up over the mountains, taking us back south.  There is a great look-out (Mirador) on this little road and the fog had finally cleared when we got there.  We could see the beaches on the Atlantic on one side and the extremely rugged mountains we were in on the other.   We drove on south to our next (and final) Parador.  It is in an old Monastery that was started in 730 AD.  This place is a couple of kilometers from the nearest town.  There is a trail from the Parador along a river to the town, part of the Northern Pilgrimage Trail.  We walked into town and around the town then back again and managed to spend over two hours as we investigated the town thoroughly.  the main interest point is an old Roman Bridge that has been rebuilt many times but still looks like an old Roman bridge (see photo).

15 October (Wednesday):

The sky was mostly clear this morning, a good sign for us as today we were driving through the Pecos de Europa National Park to see the spectacular mountains.  They are a particularly rugged section of mountains by the northern coast of Spain.  We headed south from Cangas de Onis and were very quickly going a maximum speed of 40 kilometers per hour (mostly less) on the most curved road we can remember. We were winding our way up a canyon that kept on getting narrower and narrower.  At one point we though that if we stopped and got out of the car we could touch the rock on the other side of the canyon!  The walls were vertical.  How a small river managed to eat such a deep canyon through this rock amazed us.  In places the edge of the road was right at the edge of a steep drop off.  The road was narrow and meeting another vehicle was a dangerous event, especially when the other vehicle was a truck!  Luckily there was very little traffic.  After an hour or so (and 40 kilometers or less) we were through the canyon and driving got a little better.  We found it difficult to take photos as the places with the most amazing views were where there was no place to stop the car.  The pictures we did get give some idea of the ruggedness.  Today we drove about 200 kilometers,the last part on main roads, and took 6 hours!  We are staying the night in Santillana del Mar, an old  town near the coast.  Our pictures show several views of the houses in town, all of which are old and mostly well kept.

16 October (Thursday):

After checking out of our hotel, we drove just a couple of kilometers into the hills to the Caves of Altamira.  These are ancient caves that had prehistoric paintings on them, very similar to the Grotte de Lascaux that we visited in France a few years ago.  As with the French caves, they are closed to the public to preserve them but exact duplicates have been created to five visitors the feel of being in the actual caves.  The Bison drawings in Altamira are all on the ceiling (in France they are on the walls).  The cave was very large in area so there were many animal paintings as they filled the ceiling.  Most of the pictures were bison but a few were what looked like horses.  No humans, just like Lascaux.

From there we headed for the main highway on the north coast, the A8/E70.  The part we were on today was built several years ago and is now under going repair.  It was not a relaxing drive as the road doesn't have a single place where it is straight for 10 feet or more.  It is one continuous snake full of trucks and cars going at maximum speed (and faster) and changing lanes endlessly.  We were heading for Bilbao to see the Guggenheim Museum, the building more than what is in it.  We had partial maps of the town and thought we could get to the museum fairly easily.  Wrong.  I think we took too early an exit from the A8 and kept following signs that said Centro.  We have decided the town(s) we were headed for the Centro of were not Bilbao but suburbs.  We were almost ready to admit defeat and follow the next sign back to the A8 when I at last saw a sign to the Guggenheim Museum.. We were right in thinking the building was more interesting than the items on display.  The building is fascinating.  We have a few pictures from the outside - no cameras allowed inside.

From there we got back to the A8 without difficulty, then drove on for another 100 plus kilometers to the last town in Spain on the coast, right next to the French boarder.  We had investigated the area when we were here, staying in the house for a week.  We had acquired a map so knew where our hotel was.  The problem was getting to the parking area.  We tried and found ourselves driving around the old city wall back to where we started.  We parked near the hotel (illegally) and Hans went to find out how to park in the hotel lot.  He returned with a guide.  A girl got in the back seat and directed us to the parking lot, opening the gate as we arrived.  Settled in at lest we had to rest a bit to recover from what we consider to be our worst driving day ever!

17 October (Friday):

What a difference a day makes! - especially when the new day means driving on French Toll Roads instead of Spanish Roads.  We drove nearly 500 kilometers today, most of it on Toll Roads where the speed limit is 130 kilometers per hour.  Especially at the start where there was very little traffic, we really enjoyed the long almost straight stretches where there were a few long, gradual curves and almost no ups and downs.  We though we would have trouble getting around Toulouse but the signs were so good that we had no problem at all.  We are staying tonight in a suburb of a smallish town called Rodez.  We thought it was a small town but it turned out to be a fair size with a Cathedral as big, if not bigger, than any other we have seen!  Of course the famous Bell Tower was shrouded in scaffolding so we didn't get a picture of it but did get some view of the amazing carving on it.  We had a little difficulty getting to the hotel because of one way streets but it is a very nice place.

18 October (Saturday):

The morning was sunny but thee had been heavy dew over night.  I got out our roll of paper towels and started cleaning the car windows.  I was totally chocked to discover that, out of the sun, the dew was ICE!!!  We got off the Toll Roads today (mostly) and went back to our Spanish habit of back roads to see the Gorges du Tarn.  As you will see from the pictures the gorge was deep and the cliffs fascinating but it didn't come close to the Spanish gorge for narrowness.  The road was not as windy either, but it was very narrow in lots of places, especially where they made short tunnels - they were only wide enough for one car and often were on curves where you couldn't see if another vehicle was coming.  It was nice to get back onto good, fast roads.  We managed to get the right by=pass roads around both St. Etienne and Lyon (the biggest challenge) to the town of Bourg-en-Bresse where we had a room booked.  The whole day's trip took us eight hours.  After settling into the room we drove to town to see the sights.  The only thing worth seeing, a Monastery, was already closed for the day.  We found the best restaurants in our guide book and decided which one we would eat in but had an hour until it opened so we walked all around the centre of town which is the main shopping centre, then went back to the restaurant and had an excellent meal.

19 October (Sunday):

No ice on the car this morning.  We were fogged in.  We started off to Strasburg.  The map we have is quite old and we know there are many new Motorways that it doesn't show.  we really didn't know the best way to go so I started up the GPS again, first time in about three weeks.  I figured that since Strasburg is almost at the German border the GPS would have enough information to get us to our hotel and it did.  It was wonderful.  The fog cleared on the way.  We wanted to stay three days here but could only book tonight when I was doing the booking back in August.  We expected we would find another hotel when we were here.  It turns out the European Parliament is opening tomorrow for a three day session so there is not a space for us anywhere.  We explored a fair bit of the city this afternoon and will finish off tomorrow morning then leave for a town a bit north of here that we want to visit.  There should be room for us there.

We walked into town for dinner in one of the oldest and nicest buildings, right in the heart of town.  I should say we almost ran to the restaurant as it was so cold we walked as fast as possible to warm up.  We really warmed up over dinner and had a much more leisurely walk back to the hotel.

20 October (Monday):

This morning we walked around the interesting areas of the old part of Strasburg.  We spent an hour and a half, taking some pictures of the old houses. (See Kodak Photo Gallery.)  We checked out of our hotel, drove to a nice restaurant for lunch as our main meal then drove out of town.  We had decided the town Hans wants to visit (Haguenau) is too close to Strasburg and would be full too.  We drove to Saverne instead, a town to the west of Strasburg and a bit further away.  We arrived there and found we were still too close.  All the hotels were full. Back on the read, heading north to a town named Sarreguemines, in "France but right at the German border, near Saarbrucken.  We found a room in one of the two hotels in our guide book so are happy to have a warm room and a bed. 

21 October (Tuesday):

We followed the road signs to Haguenau, the town in France Hans wanted to visit.  We were told by Christian Wirth, at the beginning of our trip, that we must go there as one of the Tourist Attractions is the Zuckmantel House.  It is the oldest building in the town.  Zickmantel is the result of misspelling by a person recording the birth of one of Hans' ancestors.  The original was Zuckmantel (with a couple of dots over the u), so this house was built by some relative from the past.  We reached the town with no trouble.  We also found the house easily as it is a main feature on the map of the town.  Hans was all keen to take a picture of the building as it is a very nice old structure.  We arrived at the house to find it shrouded and under repair.  No photo.  He did take a picture of the street showing the houses on the street, including the Zuckmantel House, but the house is the fourth from the right in the picture and you really can't see anything more than the scaffolding.

We drove north to follow the Wine Way (Vineyards and vineries) in Germany.  We followed signs again and reached the German/French border with no problems.  Then, in Germany, we got totally lost as suddenly there were almost no signs.  The only signs were for the freeway so we eventually gave up and got on the freeway and bypassed all the vineyards and came straight to Worms.  Hans had planned on staying hee our last night as it is less than a one hour drive to the Frankfurt airport.  When we couldn't stay in Strasburg we decided to stay two nights in Worms.  Se here we are, settled in Worms where there are plenty of interesting things to see and visit.   We walked around quite a bit this afternoon, including having a look at the Cathedral here.  It was started about 600 AD.  Worms was the centre of government from about that time, through Charlemagne's time, right until about 1640.  It is also the place where Martin Luther was found guilty of heresy and was exiled.  Our hotel is a very modern building right in the centre of the old town.  We are close to everything we want to see so will have a sight-seeing day tomorrow.  It rained lightly off and on through the afternoon.  We hope it is no worse tomorrow!

22 October (Wednesday):

It was raining when we woke this morning.  It wasn't heavy but consistent.  Hans wasn't feeling well - he was having another of his occasional dizzy spells.  I decided I had to get connected to the internet so went to the Tourist information centre and found out where an internet Cafe was, went and checked their price and facility, then came back to the Hotel to tell Hans and get my computer.  I spent an hour getting a few things up to date then came back to the hotel.  The rain had stopped, with occasional light sprinkles.  I called the elevator and when the door opened there was hans just about to come and find me.  He was feeling much better.  After dropping off the computer we went for a walk around the edge of the city, following the ring road and the old wall.  We were heading for a restaurant on the shore of the Rhine River for lunch.  Construction work at the Bridge and Tower (see photos), right next to the restaurant, gave us a little trouble finding a way to get there, but we did and enjoyed our lunch.  On the return walk we saw several pieces of the old wall that was originally built by the Romans and then maintained and rebuilt several times over the next 1500 + years, up to 1689 when the city was destroyed during the 30 year War.  We went to a Museum in the Saint Andrew's Chapter House.  The museum is dedicated to the history of the city of Worms.  It is very well done and has a lot of interesting items on display.  The rain held off the rest of the day while we took a few pictures.  The day was so grey that the photos are very grey too.  We finished our trip to Europe with dinner in an Italian restaurant.

23 October (Thursday):

We were up early and on the road, under the guidance of the GPS system, by 8:30.  This was much earlier than necessary.  We were soon glad we were early because the construction work that gave us trouble finding the restaurant yesterday was on the road the GPS had us take.  The traffic was heavy and very slow.  It took us nearly half an hour to get out of town.  The rest of the drive was uneventful, as was the flight home.   We are glad to be back but did have a wonderful time on the trip.

The Pilgimage Trail, part Two

8 October (Wednesday):

After breakfast we went next door and looked through the church and the Museum.  The church was nothing special but they had interesting things in the museum area.  

We managed to get out of Leon without getting lost - a major accomplishment!  The sky was mostly blue so we were happy.  We drove to Astorga, a town that has been a major stopping point on the Pilgrimage Trail for many centuries.  It was in Astorga that we think we discovered why something over-decorated is called 'gaudy'.  This town has a palace-style building, started in 1889 and finished in 1913, that has excessive amounts of tile and other decorations.  They are tasteful but just too much.  It was designed and built by a man whose last name is Gaudi.  The effect of his excesses is really quite remarkable.  The Cathedral was undergoing repairs and we didn't get to see inside but we did see the Porch with its archway totally covered in intricate, detailed carvings.  

From Astorga we drove into the hills on narrow back roads, some of which turned out t0 be wide and well kept.  Others were extremely bumpy and mostly too narrow for cars to pass.  The roads followed the Pilgrimage Trail so we saw a lot of people walking the trail, quite a few were biking, and one man had a donkey with him.  The road went through several small medieval looking towns that probably only survive by providing services to the pilgrims.  The road and trail went over a pass 1500 meters high.  I'm glad we were in a car!  We next took back roads to what are called 'Les Medules".  The Romans found gold in this area, back in the time of Julius Ceasar, or in that era.  They mined it by using water that they brought to the site by digging tunnels and canals, then placer mined the area.  What are left are amazing chunks of very red rocks.  You have to see the pictures to understand.  Some are taken from the bottom, some from the top.  The later are the spectacular ones.  You might notice in the pictures that by then the sky was totally cloudy with a lot of very dark patches.  We got lightly sprinkled walking back to the car - we had to hike 0.8 kilometres up a hill to see the rocks.  

From there we went to Villafranca del Bierzo where we stayed in another Parador (this one fairly new).  We had no sooner got settled in than it started to pour rain.  Our timing was perfect.

9 October (Thursday):

The storm had moved on by this morning and we had clear skies again.  Spain is far west of England but it goes on European time, an hour ahead of GMT.  We also have daylight savings time in effect so the sun doesn't rise until 8:30 am.  We don't get on the road until nearly 10 am, but that is the way everyone here lives.  We followed the Pilgrimage Trail again today - more back roads and scenic valleys.  The only town we stopped in was called Samos.  We stopped because I saw a sign that said there was something to see that dated back to the 9th Century.  I didn't know what it was because it was in Spanish but we were both ready to stretch our legs and walk a bit.  We drove almost to the other side of town to find a parking place, then had a good look at the Monastery that was right on the road.  It is huge.  (See the photo.)  We followed the sign I had seen and found a small chapel in the woods beside an ancient Cypress tree.  The chapel and the tree were both considered 9th Century.  It wasn't much to see but we enjoyed the walk.  We reached our destination of Lugo by about 1:30 and got settled into the largest hotel in town.  We then walked up the road to the town wall, and through a pedestrian gate.  Lugo is an old Roman town that still has a complete Roman walk-able wall.  A round trip is about 2 kilometers.  We went to a great restaurant for lunch (our main and final meal for the day).  We left there about 4:30 and walked around the wall to get a good view of the town.  It has a few nice buildings and a small area kept in the old style but a lot of the town inside the walls has bee rebuilt in modern style and really doesn't look good at all.  Outside the wall is between old and new and looks better than the new inside.  They have a lot of very nice stores in the heart of town but the areas near the wall are run down and grungy.  We don't know why, but the town must be celebrating something as every Plaza had some sound system set up and a band or something making music at extremely loud volume.  The one nearest out hotel was an orchestra and a large choir of older people, in ordinary clothes, nearly deafening me.  We assumed they were practicing.  Luckily we really don't hear anything from our room, even with the window open.

10 October (Friday):

Another clear sky today,but the valleys were full of fog.  It burnt off fairly soon.  We did our last piece of following the Pilgrimage Trail today.  We didn't follow it for much but drove through pretty country most of the day.  We ended up in Pontevedra, an old Port town that has had the harbour silted in by the river.  We checked into another Parador that is in an old building in the city centre that is on pedestrian only streets.  We were able to drive to the hotel and park in its small parking area where there was lots of room as last night's guests were still leaving.  By the end of the day the lot was full with 14 cars and only the last one could get out.  We will have to leave late tomorrow.  It's a good thing we won't be in a hurry.  We walked around the city to a highly rated (in the Michelin Rouge guide book) restaurant, Casa Roman.  We spent a couple of hours over lunch (everything is closed from 2 to 4, if not longer), then went walking around to the main places of interest which included a small museum in two old houses.  We arrived at the Cathedral just after 5:30 to find it didn't open until 6.  We walked down to the river and along the bank, then sat on a bench and watched the river traffic, mainly kids from a Yacht Club practicing in Kayaks, from one person to four people size.  After 6:00 we walked back to the Cathedral, paid our 1 Euro each and walked the 103 steps up the bell tower.  There were small museum rooms at a couple of levels on the way up.  At the top we had a great look at the bells but the view was of non-inspiring roofs.  Not worth a photo.

11 October (Saturday):

Our car was parked so that it was tricky to get it out of the over-filled parking area.  We had lots of time so after a late breakfast (late for us - lots of others were arriving as we finished) we went for a walk to find out how to drive to get where we wanted to go.  It was a good thing we did as we found a simple way out of the one-way mostly pedestrian streets.  By the time we drove off it was after 11 am.  We only had 53 kilometers to go and went on the toll road so we were in Santiago de Compostela well before noon.  

We found our way almost to the Parador but one-way streets prevented us from going where we thought we should.  We found a parking spot on a side street and walked to the Cathedral and the Parador, which is right beside the Cathedral. We check in and got a better map that showed us how to go from where we were parked up the same road, around a corner and into a parking lot.  We did that then rolled our luggage to the Parador and settled in.  All the streets and plazas were seething mobs of people.  We had to drive a bit on a pedestrian road to get to the parking lot and we had a hard time getting the people to move out of the way.  All the pilgrims go first to the square in front of the Cathedral (and the Parador) when they arrive, then they go into the church.  We moved with the throng into the church for a look at the Cathedral and the special items our guide book mentions.  The first thing was the West Doorway.  It was completely covered with scaffolding and we could see just a few bits of the famous stone carvings.  By now we have seen so many churches and cathedrals that only special ones affect us.  This one was just too much gold and glitter.  We were not really impressed by it at all.  We went from there to a small restaurant Hans had found in the Michelin Rouge book.  It was rated in the book with a happy face which means very good but not expensive.  The book said a complete meal cost 24 Euros.  It was just a block away so we went as soon as they were open to be sure we got a table.  We were the first there.  It was a fixed menu meal, lucky for me nothing had pork in it.  We were served an 'Amuse Bouche' which was delicious but even though the girl told us what it was we never found out.  Mushroom soup was next, then fresh sardines.  Fourth was tuna and tomato, fifth a very tasty piece of white fish.  Sixth was a medium rare veal steak with potato.  Following all this protein came a palate-cleanser that we really didn't know what part of it was.  There was fresh pineapple ice cream with a sauce and fair amount of a frozen substance that was like a pile of small hail stones.  It tasted wonderful.  Then came desert!  It was some sort of puff pastry and cream custard that was a grand finale.  The price in the guide book was well out of date - the meal cost us 60 Euros each, plus wine, water and taxes.  This was by far the most expensive meal we have had on this trip but it was worth it.

After lunch we struggled back up the hill to the Cathedral and had another look at a few things we had missed, then walked through the old town to a museum in on old Convent.  The museum was a history of the people of the area, Galicia.  They are of Gaelic decent and they play bag-pipes that show the connection to the Gaelic people of Scotland.  One fellow plays his (for money) right near our room, out where most Pilgrims pass, and is driving Hans crazy.  We spent a long time at the museum, then went to a contemporary art museum across the street,  It certainly had contemporary art.  A lot of the works were pieces of string hung from the ceiling, maybe some partial balls around the floor, maybe just a couple of dots on the wall behind the strings.  Everything was three dimensional and they had no appeal to me at all.  Back we came to our room to rest up ready for another day of incredible crowds.

12 October (Sunday):

A bit cloudy this morning but not at all cold.  We walked over to a very large park and went around it.  The park is the top of a hill next to the main town hill.  From it you get excellent views of the city.  From the park we carried on going out of town, heading for a small church that dates from the 12th Century and looks strange because in the 18th Century they added buttresses to it.  When you go inside you see why they put up the buttresses - the weight of the ceiling vaulting was causing the inside pillars to spread apart.  The pillars are visibly angled out, away from the centre.  Hans took a picture but the slant doesn't show up so the picture is not included in the Gallery.  We walked on, went into another museum (as Canadians we don't have to pay for most of the museums - nice treatment of tourists).  We returned to the Parador to rest a bit after walking for two and a half hours.  We were both tired.  I lay down and fell asleep.  Hans napped sitting up in a chair.  We woke in time to go to another nice restaurant for lunch - arrived after three pm.  This restaurant should have had the Happy Face as it was very good and the whole meal - three courses for each of us plus 1 litre of water, half a bottle of red wine (for Hans) and an expresso coffee totaled 55 Euros.  After that we had to walk for another couple of hours to work off all the food.  We have now seen everything of interest to us in Santiago and we have one more whole day here.  But we have a plan.

13 October (Monday):

 We woke to a totally cloudy day.  After being assured by the staff here that it was not going to rain, we set our plan into action.  We took a taxi to La Vacolla, a town 9 kilometers away, on the Pilgrimage. Trail.  The taxi driver dropped us off where the trail leaves the centre of La Vacolla and we started our walk.  We were walking in the fog.  We stayed in the clouds for most of the walk.  No views.  The guide sheet for the tour we had signed up for but was cancelled said the walk into Santiago was up hill for the first hour, then down hill for two hours.  We finished the up hill part in 25 minutes, then the mostly downhill remainder in an hour and a half so the whole walk was just over two hours.   We came into Santiago on streets we had not yet been on but they all look very much the same in the old town.  We went to a near-by restaurant for lunch, not expecting it to be great as the best restaurants are closed on Monday.  Surprise!  They handed us the same menu we had yesterday.  The two restaurants have the same owner and we had a repeat excellent meal for even less money than yesterday.  We spent the afternoon looking at the photos Hans' took in the last few days.  We really have to go over them sooner - we don't remember what the first ones on the film are pictures of!  Now I am getting everything ready to send to you as this ends the Pilgrimage Trail section of the trip.  We only have 9 more days to see the north coast of Spain and get back to Frankfurt for the flight home.

4 October (Saturday):

Off we went this morning, taking our usual back roads, and heading into Spain.  we were going to a small town, Puente la Reina, and had to go through Pamplona (Basque name Iruna).  Hans spent quite a while figuring out how to get through Pamplona and came up with a fairly simple route.  when we got to Pamplona we couldn't  find any of the signs or streets he had noted and just followed the signs to the next big town, Logorno.  We went right through the centre of town and had no traffic problems at all!  We arrived in Puente la Reina before noon.  We had no hotel booked but knew where we wanted to stay and Hans figured we had more chance of getting a room if we were early - the hotel is quite small and doesn't have many rooms.  When we arrived we found they had several rooms available and they gave us an upgrade to what we asked for so we had a fabulous 'suite'.  this town is a major stop on the pilgrimage route - it is actually the official start as two routes into Spain join here.  We walked a few kilometers of the route, going backwards.  We found this was not the thing to do as all the signs giving directions were facing away from us and we didn't see a crucial one.  We walked several kilometers further than the 10 we had intended on but did get to see the places we had been aiming for.  No more reverse walks!  The restaurant in the hotel was excellent (main reason Hans wanted to stay there) so we had a great meal, after I had used their free internet access to get my blog up to date and sent.

5 October (Sunday):

Breakfast this morning was a little different as we had two items I have never seen before.  I think one was yogurt with a chocolate sauce and some sort of cereal bits in a small wine-shaped glass.  The other was an express size cup with some other sort of solidified milk that was a but lumpy.  We were told to bup honey on it.  It tasted good.  We also had orange juice, bread, jams and salami but no cheese.  We drove off the main pilgrimage route, in a way went backwards.  The first stop was at a gorge called Hoz (gorge) de Lumbier.  It is very unusual as it just looks like a crack in a huge rock until you are lined up with it and can then see right through.  What becomes a major river eroded its way through.  Right at the view point for the gorge are the remains of a Roman development, dated from the first to the fifth centuries.  there are just the bottom layers of walls but there are a lot of them.  The road we were on follow this river and took us past some fascinating rock formations.  The whole Pyrenees mountain chain is amazing.  We didn't get many photos of the strange effects but there are a couple of pictures in the Gallery that goes with this blog.  The Monastery of Layre was one of the two main things we went to see today.  It was interesting in how they managed the tourists.  We paid our w.w0 Euros each and they gave us a small map that showed us how to go and they gave us a key to the main door into the church.  We were to let ourselves in and lock the door from the inside, then lock it behind us when we came out!  It seemed to work fine, especially as more than half the visitors were in tour groups.  The other place we went was the Castillo de Loarre.  By the time we arrived at the ticket counter to pay our 2.50 Euros each to see inside the castle we were told it closed for lunch in 5 minutes so they wouldn't sell us tickets.  We walked around a bit and left, wondering where we would find lunch.  Driving down the hill we came to a camping hotel/restaurant that is on the Pilgrimage Trail and chose to eat there.  We realized that by the time we were finished lunch it would be 4 pm and the castle would be open again.  This castle was started in the 11th Centruy and used until the 18th or 19th Centruy.  It is partly ruins but a lot is still complete but not furnished.  It is remarkable because it is built into and ontop of a great rock tower.  There are pictures that will give you the idea.  From there we took the fastest road to Sos del Ray Catolico where we had a reservation in the Parador Hotel.  (Pardors are hotels owned and run by the government of Spain.  They are often historic buildings transformed into hotels.  Some are relatively new buildings.  The one we stayed in here was built in 1972.

6 October (Monday):

After breakfast we walked around town, which took us up and up and up to reach the church on the top of the hill.  The towns here are built on hills for safety reasons, at the time they were started - most of them at least 1,000 years ago.  We managed to climb up on one side of the hill and came back on the other side, right to our hotel door.  We were very pleased with ourselves for not getting lost.  We drove to Olite to see a big castle.  It was like a Disneyland palace - towers of all sizes and designs.  We wandered through most of it, including climbing the Keep Tower (130 feet high) and walking on some of the walls.  It is too bad they don't have any furnishings in the Spanish Castles as the French do.  We had intended seeing several places in Estella and walking to a Monastery near by but we got to the town to find that all the places were closed on Mondays.  We drove on to Torres del Rio, another small town on a hill top.  It is directly on the Pilgrimage Camino and has a small church called Santo Sepulcro.  It is a Romanesque 12th C. building, built using Islam workers and designs.  The building is octagonal in shape and all the details are perfect to maintain the effect.  Hans took a picture of the dome,which is round, and how the cross braces holding the dome up form a perfect octagon around the circular centre.  He also took a picture of the carved cross and Jesus that was done in the 13th century.  We then drove on to Laguardia, another important town on the the Camino.  After settling into our hotel we walked through and around the town - another top-of-the-hill place.  The main church has an elaborate door entrance and a fantastic triptych behind the alter, as well as interesting ceiling details.  Hans has finally reached the stage where he takes lots of pictures and we discard most of them.

7 October (Tuesday):

This morning the sky was completely cloudy, in contrast to the last couple of days when we had totally blue sky.  Soon after we got under way it started to rain.  We were glad today was primarily a driving day - our longest day's drive.  We had to go 330 kilometers, to Leon.  At times the rain was very heavy, other times light, but it rained the whole way, until just as we arrived.  We checked into another Parador, this one in the old Convent of San Marcos, a 10th Century building that has been well maintained.  Part of the building is the Parador, the rest is a Museum which we intend to visit tomorrow.  The first two pictures taken in Leon are of this building.  There are two churches i this town that are 'must see' category.  The Basilica of San Isidioro is very old and looks it on the outside.  The main attraction inside are the frescos on the ceiling.  They are very old but in excellent condition.  Pictures were not allowed there.  Hans did take a couple of shots in the Cloister attached to the church.  They have a library full of old books written by the monks a millennium ago, and a Treasury with a few 10th and 11th century artifacts of precious metals, jewels and ivory.

The Cathedral is the second fantastic church.  It has over 12,00 square METERS of stained glass windows.  There is very little stone wall to support the glass and they are inthe process of doing more work to make sure nothing collapses.  Hans took quite a few pictures inside but in spite of his efforts they mostly were too dark.  A few were good enouogh to five you some idea of the place.  There was still a little drizzle off and on during the afternoon but it never got bad enough for me to use my umbrella.  We hope for sun again tomorrow.

The Basque Areas of France and Spain

27 September (Saturday):

after breakfast at the hotel and a few words with the receptionist, we started on our way to downtown Bordeaux.  The instructions were simple but following them was not.  We missed a turn then tried to return to get on the right road.  Almost impossible as the roads were one way or had big barriers to prevent the left turn we needed to make.  We turned in a side road and went back the way we had just come with several cars coming toward us as we went the wrong way!  It was the only way we could get where we needed to be.  After that we managed to get to the old town and park without difficulty.  We strolled around the old town for a couple of hours then had to drive out of town to the Ring Road Motorway.  Somehow we managed it without cifficulty.  Then we drove south on the Motorway to Bayonne, near the Spanish border.  Hans had spoken to the owner of the house we are renting and told her we would be there by 4 pm.  We were later than planned on leaving Bordeaux so travelled as fast as possible on a very busy Motorway.  We arrived at the house at 3:50 so we made up the time very well.  We have the top floor of a typical country house.  It has two bedrooms, a kitchen, bathroom, and a room set up as a dinning room with a few lounge type chairs and a small TV set so it doubles as a living room.  There is also an eating table and chairs in the kitchen.  We decided we would eat there so the dinning room table is now my computer desk.  (But no internet connection.)  The grocery store in St. Jean de Luz, the nearest town, was open until 8 pm so we went there and bought food to feed ourselves breakfast, lunch and a couple of dinners, one of which we enjoyed this evening.

28 September (Sunday):

We awoke to a beautiful sunny sky, a perfect day to start our investigation of the Basque country.  We started off heading down the coast for a few kilometers, saw the ocean and people on the beach!  We thought it was still too chilly for that.  We headed inland and went to and through several small towns.  They seem to run into each other.  You no sooner pass a sign that you have left one town when you see a sign that you are entering the next.  They are very alike, being all Basque.  The houses are similar to Swiss chalets in many ways.  We sent to Ascain, Sare, Ainhoa and St Pee-a-Nivelle (there is an accent over the first e in Pee so it is pronounce Pay).  The names are strange because, of course, they are Basque.  Most of the road signs have the names in both French and Basque.  The names usually don't look like the same place at all so if the name is only in Basque we have no idea where the road goes. The country is all gently rolling hills with mountains in the background.  The roads follow the gently rolling hills - they curve constantly so that passing is impossible.  We returned to our house for lunch (2 pm), then enjoyed sitting in the sun for the rest of the afternoon.  Feeding ourselves and relaxing are very welcome at this stage.

29 September (Monday):

We went to Saint Jean de Luz, just a short drive, to see the town, get our hair cut and have lunch in a nice restaurant.  We did get to see the town but all the hair salons are closed on Monday.  We returned to the house for lunch thinking we would go somewhere else in the afternoon but ended up just enjoying the sunshine, then back to the Carrefour Grocery store for more supplies and another nice dinner at home.

30 September (Tuesday):

We managed to get up and ready to leave by 9 am.  We drive down back roads that climbed to 1,000 metre passes, curving continuously as they went.  We crossed the France / Spain border many times, half the time not realizing we had done so.  The border is as convoluted as the German / Switzerland border near the Wirth's only there they do have check stations as Switzerland is not part of the European Union.  Our main goal was to reach Roncesvalles, a place in Spain where the French Pilgrims heading for Santiago de Compostela gathered.  They had to climb over the 1,000 metre high pass and used this Abby to recover.  The Collegiate Church of Santa Maria, the Chapel of Santiago (St. James), the chapel of the Holy Spirit or 'Charlemagne's Silo' and all the other parts open to the public were fascinating.  We had to take a guided tour to see most of the interesting things and Hans had to translate for me as the guide only spoke Spanish and French.  The place was worth the tortuous drive there and back.  We returned by a different route that took us to St. Jean Pied de Port, an interesting old town an hours drive from Roncesvalles.  We had a restaurant chosen for lunch but our guided tour of the Abbey made us too late - they had closed the kitchen.  We had lunch but not a great one, then toured the town which was very picturesque.  another hour's tortuous drive returned us home.

1 October (Wednesday):

Today was Hair Cutting day.  We chose a business on Monday (when they were all closed) and returned today, arriving about 9:30.  The owner and staff were delighted to see us and took us right away.  The store owner did my hair while one of her staff did Hans.  The owner didn't speak much English but was delighted to get the chance to practice as she is going to New York for a visit in a couple of weeks.  Both of us are happy with the results or the hair cuts.

We then continued our exploration of St. Jean de Luz on foot.  We walked to a park that overlooks the ocean and took a photo of the rock formation exposed by the erosion of the water and winds.  It is in the Photo Gallery as the last of the French Basque pictures.  The whole Corniche Basque coast is like this, we discovered later in the afternoon when we drove along the coast to the Spanish / French border.  We wanted to visit the Spanish town of Hodarribia.  We must have driven around the area for half an hour trying to find the road that would take us there.  There are three towns that seem to be one town as they have very little break between them  The road signs are mostly in Basque and, as I said before, the Basque names for places usually have no relationship at all to the Spanish or French names.  We eventually found ourselves where we wanted to be and what is more we found the Information Centre open and got a decent map of the town.  We have a hotel booked in Hondarribia for when we return from Santiago de Compostela and I said we woudl never find the hotel if we didn't get a decent map.  Now we are set.

2 October (Thursday):

Today was the day we visited some Spanish Basque towns.  We planned a trip that took us to 7 interesting towns.  We awoke to find it raining so we lazed around until things looked a bit brighter, about 11 o'clock.  Off we went in the drizzle.  We stick mostly to back roads as we get lost less often if we avoid the larger towns.  The towns we wanted to visit are all on back roads, most of them following small rivers thus being nothing but curves.  The towns are all very old so the streets are barely wide enough for one car, never mind two!  the first town we wanted to visit we saw the church as we drove past on the main road so we turned right to go around and back to it.  Of course we found ourselves going in many directions except back but finally made it, then found there was no where to park the car.  Every possible stopping spot was already used so we had another look at the church from the car and drove on to town number 2.  Basically the same thing happened there.  Town three, Extalar, had the same sort of church as the first two but this time we found a place to park and got a few pictures that show the difference from the style of the French Basque churches and houses.  We started to wonder where we would find lunch as the towns were all very small.  Leaving this town we saw a hotel with a restaurant, the answer to our problem.  After a nice lunch we decided to drop the next town from our tour as it was several kilometers down a very twisted road and back.  We went to Igantzi and Lesaka, and again found nowhere to park and take pictures - and not much to take pictures of.  The final town, Bera, we again managed to park and got some photos of the older houses.  This town is not too far off a main road and has developed into a town of four-story apartments, all of which follow the old style but don't look as nice as the original houses.

3 October (Friday):

It is our last day in this house and we are using the day to do laundry and connect to the internet (in the owner's house).  I used our landlady's computer so was not able to upload my blog for the week.  Maybe in the next day or so I'll get the chance.  The landlady did our wash for us then gave us the wet clothes to hang on the line.  We had just finished and returned to the house when the clouds moved in and I heard thunder!  We rushed out and brought the shirts and pants that were on hangers inside, out of the HAIL!  The rain and hail stopped fairly soon and the sun keeps coming out so things are drying.  I don't understand why but people in Europe do not have dryers.  the one commercial place we used in Bruges had washers and dryers but we have not seen a commercial laundry since.  Tomorrow it is on to Spain.

The Loire Valley & Bordeaux area

23 September (Tuesday):

Well, breakfast was much better than I had anticipated.  They had baguettes and cheese as well as some cereals so I was happy.  We spent the morning seeing the inside of the Chambord Chateau.  My first glimpse of it was as we drove through the forest yesterday.  The roof and all its towers stood well above the tree tops and looked like the most impossible fairy palace.  You will understand when you look at the pictures.  It is enormous - one source says it has 440 rooms and 327 fireplaces.  Construction was started in 1515 by Francois I.  It kept being added to over the centuries.  They even changed a river to run by and provide a moat.  We spent a couple of hours seeing everything we were allowed to - they have quite a collection of paintings and furniture in it - the French State owns it now.  

We checked out of the hotel then drove to the town of Blois, not very far away, to see the Chateau there.  We drove into the town following the P (parking) signs.  We kept arriving at Bus only parkades.  We actually went around one area three times thinking we had missed  the right road but finally gave up the in-town parking and went across the river where we parked on the street.  The walk across the bridge to town was short.  We found the restaurant Hans and chosen for dinner and eliminated our frustration with a very nice meal in a very old hotel near the river Loire.  We then walked up the hill and three quarters of the way around the Chateau before we found the entry.  It is about a third the size of Chambord.  It was built over many centuries and has four distinct wings, each of a different design.  The pictures show some of the styles.  Again the place is owned by the government and has lots of major paintings and furniture.  We then proceeded to our next hotel reservation in the town of Amboise.  It also has a chateau but not one worth us going in.  We were in this town because of the very nice hotel.  We had an excellent dinner in a restaurant a block away, found the road we wanted to take in the morning, and had a wonderful nights sleep.

24 September (Wednesday):

Two more Chateaus to explore today.  We went to Chateaus Chenonceau and Azay le Rideau.  They are both built IN rivers.  The first spans across the entire river, anchored on one side and with a short bridge to the other side.  The second is on an island and was originally a fort to protect goods being transported up and down the river but is now a very pretty Chateau.  They are both fairly small but elegant.  The Chateau Chenonceau is still privately owned and has an operating farm attached.  It is our favorite after Chambord.  The last one had a lot of tapestries in it and the rooms were kept quite dark to protect the colours.  This made it difficult to see pictures and things.  We went from one to the other using back roads to see the country side.  We were using a map that had a fairly small scale so most of the roads and towns were not on it!  This made deciding which way to go very difficult.  It took us about 2 hours to get from the first to the second.  We got a good map from the Tourist Information office in Azay le Rideau and followed the main roads back, returning to Amboise in 40 minutes. 

25 September (Thursday):

After breakfast we walked the few blocks to town and bought some cheese and a baguette to have for lunch with our apples, then checked out of our hotel and started driving southwest to Bordeaux.  With a decent map and some help from the GPS when we were near the Motorway, we had no problems until we were through Bordeaux and on our way up the west side of the Garonne River.  We were heading for a small town, Margaux.  The GPS took us on the nearest main road, then said we were at our destination when we knew we still had about 30 kilometers to go.  We have a good map of the area so continued with out difficulty until we were actually in the town and couldn't find the hotel!.  We drove around and finally found it, on the coast road we would have taken on our own.  After checking in we drove up the coast road to see a couple of interesting places.   One was a Winery that had a collection of carriages from the 19th century.  They had one from London that could take up to 15 people!  Most of the passengers had to sit up top, exposed to the weather.  They had wax figures in appropriate dress for each carriage.  It was the best part of the tour.  We returned to the hotel for a nice dinner in the restaurant, then a good nights sleep.

26 September (Friday):

This morning we slept in a bit as it doesn't get light until nearly 8:00 am.  (All of Europe - the continent - is on the same time, one hour earlier than London, 9 hours earlier than Pacific time.)  We enjoyed breakfast in a sun-lit room looking at the peaceful fields of grape vines waiting to have the red grapes harvested.  We checked out of the hotel and drove north up the peninsula again, this time to the Estate called Chateau Mouton Rothschild.  They had a tour in English starting at 11 am, about half an hour away.  We walked around the grounds enjoying the variety of plants then went on the tour.  It was excellent, much better than the one yesterday for the same price!  Part of the tour was to the Museum of Wine there.  Everything in it is related to wine in some way.  They have an amazing collection.  From there we drove a couple of kilometers when we found a small park with picnic tables and had our bread, cheese and apple lunch.  We carried on down a back road to see an 11th Century Romanesque church, modified in the 15th century.  It was quite plain but very impressive as it was built in cathedral style.  From there we drove back to Bordeaux.  We didn't even try the GPS.  With some written explicit instructions from the hotel, we managed to get to the hotel without an error and are now set up for the night.

Kirchhain and around

16 September (Tuesday):

I didn't mention yesterday that we returned the rental car.  To have VISA cover the insurance costs for the whole trip we had to break up the rental into 2 parts, separated by at least 24 hours.  When we returned the car we told the agent of the problems we had with the GPS system in Austria and we needed to be sure it would give us directions to precise addresses in France and Spain.  We thought it was just a matter of having the right CDs.  This morning we took the tram from in front of our hotel right to the AVIS office on the edge of town.  They reported that the GPS system in the car we returned was not working properly so they had an Audi waiting for us.  I was a little sad as I had gotten used to what I could do with the system in the Volkswagen Passat and the new one had completely different controls and prompts, though it sounded the same.  We drove back to the hotel for our luggage, entered our day's destination and were off.  The destination was a house in a small town, Kirchhain, one we have visited several times before.  It is the home of Brix Eichinger and her husband Horst.  Brix and her brother Klaus, with their parents, shared a 3-room house with the Zickmantel family for 7 years in the prison camp in Suriname.  The four children shared one bedroom.  Brix is like family, so is her husband.  After catching up on the families onboth sides, we decided to go for a hike.  We did the two-car trip,m parking our car at the end of the hike then driving their car to the starting point.  It was a pleasant hike through forests and past high Burgs.  It took us close to 2 hours.  We drive our car back to get their car, and couldn't find where we had parked it!  The town it was in climbs the side of a big hill and forest is all around it.  It is quite a large town and the roads curve continuously, every junction looking like the last.  We finally stopped and asked some local residents how to get to the start of the hiking trail, and then finally reached the car.

17 September (Wednesday):

We stayed a second day here.  Around 10:45 we left for a trip to see some of the small towns in the area.  The first stop was Bad Wildungen, then on to Waldeck and its Schloss, and finally Fritzlar.  All the towns are old with Tudor style architecture predominant, as you will see when you look at the pictures.  The church in Fritzlar was surprisingly elaborate to find in a small town.  We had a very enjoyable day's tour, returning to Kirchhain by 5:30 pm.  Horst is a wonderful tour guide as he knows History, Geography, Architectural History and any thing else you may want to know about the places he took us.  He is also an excellent chef as he cooked Wiener Schnitzel for dinner.  The evening discussion, including looking at photo albums of our past visits and their trip to Vancouver, went on until almost midnight, when Brix and I went to bed.  Hans and Horst continued talking until 1:30 am!  

18 Septemeber (Thursday):

We left Kirchhain just before 10 am and headed for Aachan, in Germany but on the border into the Netherlands.  I entered our trip destination into the GPS, giving it the address of a Hotel we thought we would like to stay in, then off we went.  It was about a 3-hour drive.  The GPS took us to a place and said this is it but we couldn't see a hotel and found ourselves past the hotel with the G"PS giving us instructions we thought were to take us around and back to the hotel.  The first couple of directions it gave seemed odd and I suddenly realized that it figured we had reached our 1st destination and was now taking us to a 2nd destination which was back to Kirchhain!  We quickly changed direction, got ours selves back to where we found the hotel and Hans went in to get a room and find out where to park the car.  He returned fairly quickly and announced that there was a large convention going on and there wasn't a free hotel room in the city.  Hans immediately decided we would go on to our next destination, Bruges, in Belgium.  We have 3 nights book there and thought we would see if they could put us up tomight, if not, where would they suggest?  (It is a small B^B with only 3 rooms.)  When I tried to enter the address of the B&B in the GPS it wouldn't accept the street name, or the name of any street nearby!  I finally entered Cantre, figuring that would get us near enough.  We drove on for about another tow and a half hours, arriving in Bruges about 4:30 pm.  When we reached the Centre, according to the GPS, we could not find ourselves on the small map we had.  Hans went off to investigate while I waited at the illegally parked car.  I finally stopped a couple walking by asked if they could show me where we were on my map.  (Everyone here speaks at least one foreign language, usually English and French, often German too.)  They had just left after showing me that we were actually off the map of the centre of the city that we had when Hans arrived back to say he had booked us into a nearby hotel and knew where we should park.  We proceeded without the GPS and have a very nice suite for the night.  We walked around the area looking for a nice restaurant and found that our first choices (from the Guide Book) were closed on Thursdays.  We walked a little further and found a very nice place where we got the last unreserved table.  We had a very nice meal and returned ready for a good nights sleep.

Bruges, Belgium

19 September (Friday):

In the morning we took it easy, eventually checked out of the hotel and took our luggage to the car.  We then walked around viewing the sights and got to the Diamond Museum about half an hour before they give a daily Polishing demonstration.  We looked through the museum, then went to the demonstration.  The girl who gave the demo repeated everything in perfect French, then English.  She was prepared to say it in Dutch too but didn't need to.  It was quite fascinating and not at all the process we thought it was.  We then walked to our B&B and found out where to park the car.  We went back to where the car was parked, stopping for a bite of linch on the way, then drove to the B&B (not an easy thing to do with so many one-way streets and VERY narrow streets), left the luggage, parked the car and were settled for the next couple of days.

20 September (Saturday):

The main things left for us to do was to visit some Museums.  The temperature is quite chilly in the mornings so I spent part of the morning getting my blog and pictures organized and posted, waiting for it to warm up.  Then we went for a walk around some canals and ended at the Choco-Museum and watched a demo of the steps to make chocolates.  After that we set out for the main square where we bought two tickets for us to see 5 of the many city museums.  We went into two museums that are in a building on the square and count as one on our tickets.  Portable hand-held guides come with the multi-museum tickets so we each had one and listened to as much about some items as we wanted.  The guide really was good to have in the second museum as it was really just an extremely ornate room where justice was decided by the town council in the past.  To get anything at all from the room we had to listen to most of what they said.  It was very interesting.  Back out in the square we went over to a church and read the signs about what there was to see.  Just as I was about to speak to Hans I felt someone bump my pouch that was against my back (strapped around my waist).  I quickly pulled the pouch to the front and found the zipper open and my wallet and one of our museum tickets gone!  I was totally distressed for several minutes.  After thinking about what had been in my wallet I realized the only think I had to do ASAP was notify VISA that my card had been stolen.   Everything else can be fixed later.  As it was not yet 8 am in Vancouver I decided I could carry on with our sight-seeing.  I hadn't had much money in my wallet so the whole thing is more a nuisance than a tragedy.  We continued and visited 2 more museums.  At the first one I gave them one ticket and said the other had just been stolen.  To our surprise the girl gave us a replacement ticket at no cost! After that we headed back to our B&B where I sent a secure message through the on-line banking system to the VISA people.   We went out to a restaurant called The Stove for dinner.  We got the only unreserved table.  There are only 8 tables in the place.  A man, the chef, and his wife, the waitress, run the whole thing themselves and that is all the clients they can handle.  The food was excellent and the evening most enjoyable.

21 September (Sunday):

After breakfast, about 10 am, we started a walk that took us past 5 old wind mills along the river.  Today is a Special Sunday the town has, I think once a month.  Cars are banned in the town centre and all the city museums are free!  We thus went free into one of the mills that has been turned into a museum.  The stairway in was almost like climbing a ladder.  The mills were used for grinding all sorts of grain.  The one we went into had two grinding wheels so could do two kinds at a time (or double the amount of one kind).  From there we went to the Belfry Tower, used our Museum Tickets (no free-bee there!) and climbed 349 spiral stairs to the look-out.  In the pictures you will see three views from the top.  With the crowds wanting to climb the tower they limit the number of people at one time to 70 and still passing people on the stairs, especially the upper part where it is very narrow,  is a bit precarious.

We walked for a total of 5 hours, going into every city museum we came across.  By then we were worn out and wanted to sit in cafe patio in the sun and have something to drink.  There were so many other people with the same idea that we ended up returning to our B&B so I got to get this blog up to date.

22 September (Monday):

Time to leave Bruges.  We went to get the car to the B&B before breakfast, opened the door and found it was raining!  Definitely time to leave.  We drove off about 10 am with the GPS operating once we made our way to the ring road, which was quite easy.  Then the GPS started telling us strange moves.  We did the first couple and found they took us the long way around to get to the freeway, though not too far.  There was once on the trip to and around Paris where they didn't tell us to go right be we know we had to because we know what road we had to be on.  Once we got near Chambord (our destination) the GPS started giving weird instructions again.  We ignored them and made our way to our hotel, right across the road from the Chateau we had come to see.  We arrived just after 4 pm.  We settled into our room then went for a walk.  The forest around the Chateau is immense.  We walked for over an hour, just down along a river/moat to a bridge and back on the other side of the water.  The only place to eat dinner is at the restaurant in our hotel.  The hotel seems a little run-down so we didn't expect much from the restaurant.  Wrong!  The food was wonderful, especially as, unlike the countries we have been in so far, the French focus on vegetables.  Our dinners were magnificent!  The problem is the we loved the breakfast so far but we know the French have just sweet buns and coffee, so what I am going to have I don't know.  We find out in the morning.