Oldies On Tour

Pool at Camp site

We have had a lovely time here, we have used the pool, paddled in the sea, although today I think I could have gone in, it was lovely and warm.  I have enjoyed it here, it

Morning and evening walk

is so easy for the dogs, we walk along the beach in the morning, which is really relaxing, and in the afternoon they are allowed in for a swim, what a life!

Friday we went into Town, and looked around all the boutique shops, and saw the old cathedral, which I walked up another spiral staircase, the views from the top were amazing, the bells were chiming, which was almost deafening,

Inside the Cathedral

we then went for lunch, Geoff had his 6 Oysters, I had Calamari, followed by Spaghetti Fruit De Mare, very good.

Camargue Nature Reserve

On Saturday, we also went for a ride on the bikes, and found lots of the horses that are native to this part, I call them white, but I am told they are greys, anyway, they are just like the New Forest Ponies, they roam the countryside here.  It is a lovely part of the world, it is mainly a Nature Reserve, with

Just like England with better weather!

the Petite Rhone meandering alongside the road.  We went over the bridge, one way, and on the way back we had to catch a ferry, which would have been fine, but we had over an hour to wait, just by chance, there was a rustic restaurant and bar, where we could wait, alongside the Ferry, so we had a glass or two whilst waiting. Some riders came by, and tied their horses up, settled in to a nice lunch, it was a very unusual but pleasant place.  I wished

Andrew good luck for tonight, as JLS are officially opening his new club, in return he asked

Hmmmm…. Shall I go or not….

if Geoff would like to go to Canada, to help crew his new boat, back to the Caribbean, well you can imagine, Geoff hesitated for a nanosecond, and is now looking forward to a

On the Ferry

three week sail in October down the Eastern Seaboard of America, via   Bermuda, to probably Antigua, whilst I get the job of re-filling our Villa, do I have a problem with that! Certainly not. We are now going to head back to Spain probably quicker than we

The Ton-Up Kids!

intended, although on route we have booked ourselves into a vineyard, in the Cava region, so we are hoping to buy the sparkly for the wedding.

Sooty entertaining a family on the beach

Sunday we will be spending packing up, watching the Grand Prix and hopefully Hamilton winning! we will not be on internet for a few days.

Woke up to blue skies, and sunshine, but a bit breezy, still nice weather though. It had rained in the night, and somehow the rain is coming in, on our bed, but we cannot seem to cure the leak yet!!

I did another load of washing, and started ironing what was dry, Geoff was pottering doing

Geoff drooling ‘If only’

his manual tasks, by lunch time all washing had been dried, ironed and put away, so we decided to go for a ride.

We went into the local seaside resort, and Geoff spotted some oysters for sale, so suspect we will be going there at the end of the week again. We walked past a marina, where Geoff was seen drooling over the yachts, sadly I have past that stage.

Inside the Bull ring

We came across an old bull ring, which we thought was being used for a horse show, so we went to look in, but to our surprise it was still being used for bulls.  Not sure what was happening, there were eight men, wearing

Connecting with the bull

white, distracting the bull, and then running away, with the bull in pursuit, they had something on one hand, and we think if they could touch the forehead of the bull, they scored points, but we are not sure, we watched for sometime, it was quite funny, sometimes, the bull actually

Cows coming to get the bull

jumped out of the ring, and into the outer ring, where the judges were, and sometimes when the bull refused to leave they bought on two cows to encourage them to go out with them.

We then made our way back to the bikes, and home.

We watched television, but as the wind was getting up, it kept going off, so we gave up, and played cards.

Having enjoyed our stay back in Chusclan, I think if the dogs were asked for their favourite place on our journey, it would be here.  They love it!

Bella

Bella  comes back a drowned rat, and Sooty is just very tired, we have been throwing sticks up river, and there job is to get it, the river runs very fast here, and it is funny watching Bella trying to tread water and make progress, sometimes she does, other times, she rushes down with the water. They are then tired for the rest of the day.

Geoff loaded his bike, and we left about midday, we are going to Arles (40 miles) so no rush, we thought!

Tom tom set, off we went, the problem we have with the brilliant bit of technology, she does not understand that we are over 11metres long, so when she said turn sharp left, we looked, and it was a physically impossible, and even the road did not look wide enough to take us, so I quickly put another site in, which was supposed to be in Town, well when we got there it was miles away, so we decided to leave Arles for another day.

We have learnt not to expect to get into all these Aries and campsites, because of our size,

Stes-Maries-de-la-Mer

so we had another place logged in, which is in the Camargue National Park, Stes-Maries-de-la-Mer.

We stopped for a quick lunch, and a walk for the dogs, and then continued, only another 25 miles so not too bad, we arrived at the site, and quickly booked in.  Struggled to find a place, as for some reason they have closed of half the area, but we squeezed ourselves in and sorted ourselves out. I quickly did a load of washing, as we haven’t done any for a while.

Dogs enjoying the beach

Lovely spot, and just outside the campsite is a lovely sandy beach, where we walked the dogs, and they had there normal swim, no notices around for ‘ no dogs on beach’.

I didn’t realise there was so much History to Chateaunuef-du-Pape so one reason we came back to Chusclan was so that I could return to have a look round and visit the Museum.

This morning we did nothing to report other than get Perky off the trailer and ready to go

Wine Museum in Chateauneuf-du-Pape

but as the Museum closed for lunch I was in no hurry.

Remains of the Popes Chateau overlooking Chateauneuf Du Pape

Firstly I visited the remains of the “Pope’s” Chateau set high up on top of a hill with commanding views over the Rhone Valley then the Museum.  I am sure this was a very interesting museum but as everything was only in French and as my command of French is limited, I didn’t get the full benefits of this visit.  I did however find one curator

The Main street in the Old Part of Chateauneuf Du Pape

who spoke a little English so between us I found out a fair amount about this wine growing region.  I now understand why Chateaunuef-du-Pape wines are so expensive compared to many others.  A quick walk around the old town, interesting in so much as it has strong connection with the Popes of bygone years, but little else to spend too much

The local Church in Chateauneuf-du-pape

time here.  I think Christine made the right decision and not join me on this occasion.

Back on Perky for the ride back to find Christine sun bathing after her walk down to the river to give Sooty and Bella their swims in the river.

We had TV to-night so could catch up with the news and watch a couple of programs; this makes a very nice change.

Chateau Cabriéres

The wind is still howling, and when I took the dogs out, it was bitterly cold; autumn is settling in, I love it here

Mouthwatering Grapes, they are very tasty!

though; we are in the middle of nowhere, with only vines and rolling hills, so peaceful.

Today we are going back to Chuslan, an Aries we came to earlier in the year, we can take the dogs to the river again, and hopefully just relax, Geoff wants to go to Chateauneuf Du Pape, to see the museum tomorrow, so we need to get the bike off.

We arrived at Chusclan to find it quite busy, I guess it is because it is the week-end, anyway we found a lovely spot, right in the corner, we can let the dogs straight out onto a vineyard.  We were all very comfortable, when a German came and parked almost on top of us, I was fuming, there is so much space here, we put the generator on, and we also let the dogs out, but that changed nothing.  In fact he proceeded to get his dog out, and his b….. Parrot, which squawked and screeched, worse than that he put his chair down, and commenced to stare at us…. I kept my cool, and we took the dogs to the river.

Sooty back at the Weir

Both Bella and Sooty have not forgotten their stone tricks, and although the water was colder, we had a paddle, and a lay on the river bank, a lovely afternoon was had.

We had treated ourselves to some steak, so tonight we thought we would try a bottle of wine with it, just to check that what we had bought was ok for the wedding.  Geoff made a good job of cooking the steaks on the barbeque, and the wine was superb, just hope everyone else enjoys it!  We finished the evening of with the last of our very posh cognac ‘Serenity’ that we had bought in Cognac.

Sun rise Port Grimoud

Up and at-em early, well 0700hrs and like the French left before breakfast to ensure we weren’t around when they came for the overnight money: Well we have to draw our horns in following so many camp sites that we were charged high season tariffs. We then stopped a few miles along the sea front for breakfast whilst watching the sunrise; this makes a change as we are normally asleep!!!

Dogs watered and fed, breakfast cleared away and off to

Chateau Cabriéres

our next stop, a vineyard in Chateaunuef-du-Pape that is listed in our “France Passion”.  Apart from the farms and vineyards listed in this guide being free, we are also on a mission to find suitable wines to be served at our wedding on the 7^th April.  We want something “different” from the normal table wines supplied at functions.

We arrived at the Chateau just before lunch and were made very welcome by owner and told to park anywhere we wanted, and when we said we wanted to “degust” his wines, he suggested we came back after 1400hrs when they were open.

We reversed Rosie and trailer into a disused farm track right in amongst the grape vines, very appropriate for the mission we are on.

Back into the wine cellar and after much tasting and head scratching we are pleased to inform everybody we have selected a rather nice red from Chateau Cabriéres, a vineyard right in the heart of the Chateaunuef-du-Pape region.   Not only is it made at this vineyard, it is also bottled on the property, and you can’t get better than that!

Vines for miles and miles

The rest of the afternoon was taken up walking Sooty and Bella amongst the vines and relaxing with some dozing in between as we had had several glasses if you totted up all the tastings.

No TV this evening, so watched a DVD as firstly being under trees, this would block any signal  but more importantly it was so windy we thought we were  back, sailing between two islands in the Caribbean on Anam Cara; the van rocked quite badly, how the grapes stay on the vines I don’t know. Me thinks we are in for a difficult night.