Espanga! Espanga! but more of that later
Each day we have been driving a couple of hundred KM's and seeing "Stuff" along the way, Orleans was fun and the lady at the bed & breakfast was a non stop talking machine. If it wasn't for her fantastic house and delightful pool I may have snapped. Oh and there were giant bees in the garden.
We grabbed some dinner in the old town of Orleans that had some 12th century buildings - they looked nice.
Not as nice as the smoked duck but pretty good.
After Orleans we went to visit Chateau Chambord, a "hunting lodge" of King Francois I and his successors. The grounds were so green (apparently the size of central Paris) and full of deer and wild boar. We really wanted to see a wild boar but the super loud chamber music from the Equestrian show scared them away or perhaps they were intimidated that my back is hairier than theirs.
The chateau was full of tourists but you can see why they go there,
I really wanted to ride these sweet two people bikes (like a tandem but side by side i.e. a golf cart with pedals) but Alycia refused to let me, so I cracked it and organised to get one anyway with the guy but alas I had forgotten my wallet in the car. I hate it when Alycia wins by default!!
We wanted to make it as far south as we could that day, so we could not stop at Futuroscope. Instead we pulled of the motor way just before dark at a very small town called Vivonne. It had 1 hotel, and there were no cockroaches! The whole drive we were flanked by field after field of sunflowers, we loved how they all faced the same way (except it was away from the sun stupid sunflowers)
In the morning there was a market in the main/only street and there was food stalls of all sorts, including oysters that didn't seem to have much refrigeration and a place that could satisfy all your seafood and jewellery needs (take note Skulk-ertons).
Next stop, Cognac Huzzah! After going to the tourist information centre and being sent to Remy Martin or Hennessey, we went to a cognac store called La Cognatech. We asked the guy for a recommendation as we wanted something a little more personal than a big place, he recommended that we go to Segonzac the heart of Grand Champagne the Premier cru in Cognac. For the rest of us that means "drinkie taste good from there".
After lunch we went to his recommendation Guillon-Painturaud and the lady who is the one woman show, gave us a 2 hour tour of all things cognac. Her family has been in the house that she lives in since 1610 and making cognac for 300 years. Lets just say she knows her stuff, and she was super generous with the tastings. I was driving (as per usual) so I had to pour Alycia into the car before we left.
Alycia by this stage has tried all five cognacs. The still they use to distill the congnac was built in 1914
We drove onto Pons to stay, nothing to see there don't go unless you want to hear spontaneous opera in the middle of the night. Now to important things, on a whim - a brilliant, brilliant whim - I decided that we should go to Spain to see the World Cup final. Alycia being wary of all things spontaneous, made us go to St Emillion first.
St Emillion is a medieval town on top of a hill with super steep cobble stone streets, my boat shoes did not provide enough grip so a good time was had by all watching me trying to walk.
With some help from DP we decided that San Sebastian would be the best/closest place in Spain to watch the final. We found a hotel that was on the beach and in a nice part of town. Thought we lost the little camera for about 2 hours, but apparently Alycia is as bad at looking for things as I am. It turned up after we'd had too much Sangria and moved the washing off the bed.
We wanted to hug and dance with the Spanish when they won, but apparently so did every other Aussie in a 100km radius and that is allot since the running of the bulls in Pamplona was on at the same time. The other mistake we made was going to the suedo capital of Basque. If you don't know Basque is like Tibet and Spain Like China, they don't really see eye to eye. The place had a funny vibe to it after Spain won, one of joy but the kind of joy you have when you think someone might beat you up for being happy.
So we have now returned to France but more on that in a shorter more cohesive blog....
P.S. I don't know why everyone goes on about French food, I can order nothing good. I thought go for something simple like a pizza and they burnt it and brought out the wrong type one with piles of mushroom. So I go for healthy - Salmon - but it appears that French salmon swim in cream sauce instead of water over here. Oh and Tapas in San Sebastian kills anything I have ever had before...
Espanga! Espanga!
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