An afternoon apart

Posted on 16/09/2012 by Geoff

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.

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Back to Chusclan

Posted on 15/09/2012 by Christine

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.

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Back in France

Posted on 14/09/2012 by Geoff

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 7th 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.

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Port Grimaud – South of France

Posted on 13/09/2012 by Christine

After several days we are now leaving Sestri Levante, we have had a lovely time here, very relaxed, and the campsite has been very friendly, we are in no hurry these days, as we are working our way back to Spain, and have over two weeks to achieve this, also Geoff is dragging his heels as he does not want to go back.

We are using an Italian Aries book, which has not been made up to date since 2006, so we pick several places out, and hope we find one.  Geoff wanted to go to Alassio, another place he remembers from his youth, so we went most of the way on motorway, and then we headed for the sea-front, which was a mistake, as now it is all one way systems, and narrow streets.  One road we went down, we both had to look out the windows to avoid hitting anything, we had at least 2cm on one car, and we quickly headed out onto the bigger roads, stopped for five minutes on the seafront then, decided to move on.  We looked for Aries, but then suddenly decided to head for France, so we set Tom tom up, and we were off, back on the motorway, and headed for Port Grimaud, in the South of France.

We had a good journey, but now the roads are far busier, we found an Aries, which we did not like, so found a campsite, after a bit of an effort, with only one place left, we couldn’t believe it, middle of September and everywhere was so busy.  We decided the place they offered us was just too small, and too hard to negotiate Rosie into, so we left, and went back to the Aries.

This Aries, had no barrier, and the machines did not work for the parking charges (13 Euros), apparently a man comes around in the morning!  Well we eventually settled down, took the dogs out for a long walk, and had an early night, which was just as well, as all night Lorries were thundering past.

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A Nostalgic Visit

Posted on 11/09/2012 by Geoff

Portofino from the top of the hill

The last time I visited Portofino was around 1955 when I was 11 and it has always stuck in my memory as it was so pretty and quaint, built at the end of a small peninsular and with an interesting and significant History.  As we were in this part of Italy I suggested we spent a day there as I was sure Christine would enjoy it, albeit not the historical side of things!!

Our Camp Site is about 35 Kilometres from Portofino but as the

Portofina

coast road winds its way through several towns and villages hugging the mountain sides it will take over an hour on our bikes to get there so the first issue is what we can do with Sooty & Bella. Obviously if we wanted to go they would be on their own for far too long in Rosie, so again Christine with tongue in cheek, asked the camp site Manager/owner if he knew anyone who dog sat; well blow me down, he did!!!

Arrangements were made for the “dog sitter” to collect them Monday early evening and return them Wednesday afternoon.  He is a local Policeman and the times fit in with his travel arrangements to and from work and the shifts he does.  During his absence they are cared for by his wife, who it turns out competes in obedience competitions with their collies and has in fact just returned from competing in Scotland.  Anyway I digress: firstly with no dogs pattering about Rosie and waking us up anytime from first light, we didn’t wake ‘till 0830, on Tuesday morning, a real treat.

We had a leisurely breakfast, did a few housekeeping chores, showered and after coffee left on Pinky & Perky.  We had a coffee before we left as we had been warned that a coffee in Portofino could cost up to €20!!!!!!!!!!  I think at this point I would just quote from the Italian “Lonely Planet guide”     Portofino is described as follows:-

A byword for refined luxury, stately Portofino is beyond the wallet-stretching capabilities of most budget-minded travellers

Visitors motor bike park

We finally arrived, parked in the wrong place at first and were moved on by a very friendly female “copper” speaking excellent English.  When we parked in the right place, we were amazed as to how many motor bikes and scooters were parked together in one place, there seemed to be hundreds of them.

We walked down the pedestrianised cobbled street to the

Typical street

harbour. Apart from there being more people milling about, Portofino is very much as I remember but when we got down to the harbour it is not quite the quaint fishing village I remembered; it is now a marina, but worse than that there was a cruise ship moored in the bay and the place was full of Americans.  We now understand why we were warned about the prices of everything, not to mention the cruise ships calling, most of the locals are celebrities, millionaires with some royalty attracting shops that sell very expensive diamonds, jewellery, designer clothes, shoes and fancy handbags.

We wandered up the hill to one of the many churches; this hill also had a castle built on top and as it overlooked the bay and harbour was an excellent look-out used in by-gone days, but today

Church Interior

highlights the very pretty views and well worth the struggle up the hill.  We then headed back down some very narrow and steep steps back to the harbour area and started looking at the restaurant menus as we were both getting hungry.  Yes there were very expensive eating houses but we did manage to find something reasonable, well reasonable for somewhere like Portofino, and though we had only 1 course and wine, and very acceptable it was too; it only hurts when you think that back in Spain we could have had 4 x 3 course Menu Del Dias with ½ a bottle of wine each for the same money!!!!!

After further exploring round quaint streets, up and down the hill and seeing inside numerous splendidly and richly appointed churches, we indulged in another wonderful Italian Ice Cream. Now it was time to start the return journey but we would stop and take a swim in the Mediterranean en route. Walking back to our bikes, Christine agreed this was a place well worth visiting and thoroughly enjoyed herself.

The traffic on our return was horrendous, people returning home from work together with the tourists doing their thing made our bike rides interesting to say the least.  I have decided the reason there are so many motor bikes and scooters is very simple, cost of petrol, it is around €2 litre.

We stopped in Santa Margherita for our swim;  just parked Pinky & Perky, walked onto the beach and into a warn, clear, empty sea, great. This was followed by a walk around town then back to fighting the traffic round the sharp bends and ups and downs of this coast road on this beautiful part of the Italian Riviera.

We made a detour around Sestri Levante (the town below our camp site) Marina and the sea front before setting back up the mountain to our camp site.

We both missed the dogs but would not have been able to have such a great day out if we were worrying about their welfare, thank you Mr Italian Policeman, €30 well spent.

We will now hang around tomorrow waiting for the dogs return, pack up and off on Thursday morning for another adventure

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Sarzane and Sestri Levante

Posted on 09/09/2012 by Christine

Having had a week of really bad thunder storms, rain, and generally grey days, we thought winter was upon us, but now we have moved away from the mountains, everything is back to normal!

View from our pitch

We had a day without doing much, time to get Geoff’s back better, and for me to top up the tan, went for a lovely swim in the pool, and the dogs enjoyed swimming in the river, what a difference when the sun shines again. Moving tomorrow, so have not fully unpacked, but

View from our campsite

thoroughly enjoyed a day in the sunshine. We left early after Geoff upsetting the natives, first he made someone’s stuff wet, and mind you they did put it by the water tap, when he was filling the water tank! Then when we went to leave, we were trying to pay, and the lady wanted us to park no mean feat when you have 11 metres to fit into the normal parking places, so Geoff went out the gate, an Italian coming the way, just blocked the road, we could not reverse, and he would not, so he struggled to get around us.  All good fun!

View by the Pool

Geoff wanted to go on the coastal road, which we did, but the only problem was it went up the side of a mountain, it was S bends, very narrow in parts, and sheer drops, and very scary, I was not a happy teddy, we had to spend some of the time in first gear, as it was so steep, so certainly not a relaxing drive. (Geoff enjoyed it though!)

We eventually found our campsite, and the welcome we had was lovely, so friendly, and so helpful, quite a shock, and such a lovely space, we get ourselves sorted, and I manage to get TV for the first

Geoff in the Pool! Somewhere!

Ready steady………..

time in ages, so we watched the highlights of the Qualifying of the Grand Prix and the ‘Last Night of the Proms’ Brilliant! Today we spent washing, and cleaning up, sunbathing, swimming, and catching up with the website, a lovely lazy day. The swimming pool here is lovely and deep, very big, and also empty of people, maybe because it is cold, but it is a pleasure to be away in September

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