Blogs

We got up early and made our way to St Malo, easily finding the ferry terminal. The trip over was quick & direct to Guernsey & we were the first car to get off.

We got up early to explore the famous garden of Monet. The temperature has dropped today and it was very cold. We had to dig out the thermals again. The garden was stunning, full of colourful bulbs and blossom trees, we think it was the perfect time of the year to see it. Crowds of people though, being only a short distance from Paris. It turned out the garden was smaller than we had anticipated and it really only took an hour to get through, so now we are leisurely heading back to the coast, through beautiful countryside, covered in fields of bright yellow flowers.

We woke after a good nights sleep and made our way into Luxembourg city (not to be confused with Luxembourg the country or Luxembourg the state in Belgium!!). We parked near the city and wandered along streets which were rather amazing because of the deep gully which ran through the town. The banks of which are the remains of a huge castle dating to 920AD. We stumbled across a market and had loads of fun buying food for lunch.

The rain of Sunday had passed and we boarded the train for Paris. We couldn't find a ticket booth anywhere so just jumped on (much to Anna's horror) and bought the tickets at the next station with help from some very friendly French people. Most people here are happy to accommodate our lack of French. We got off the train 20mins later at the Eiffel tower and took many photos before heading off to the Arc de Triumph to take photos of that as well, in fact, the day consisted of walking to one great monument/building after another, each so grand that many photos were required. Anna even took photos of bakery windows. We did a walking tour of Paris going to Notre Dame, we went up Centre Pompidou to look at the amazing view, and wandered around The Lourve castle buildings before heading back to the camp ground. This morning we were sad to leave the camp ground we had grown to love so much, it was a bit of a find, being right in the middle of Versailles, and far better than any of the other campgrounds we had been to. All the staff spoke English a little and our main contact, Emmanuelle, had just been to New Zealand so took extra special care of us. For anyone else travelling in the area, we highly recommend "Huttopia". It took us a long time to get through the urban area of Paris, and we headed east towards Luxembourg. We spent the day on back roads which were as straight as pins (thanks to the Romans we assume), driving through rolling lush agricultural areas and stopping in sleepy little villages. Once again we are at a rest area for the night, having had tinned lentils for dinner!!!