France
- 19 posts
Bordeaux at Night
It’s not a long walk from our hotel to the Garonne river, but after a day of walking, we decided to make the trip by tram. We got off at Place de la Bourse where we found a young violinist performing a jazzy version of “Killing Me Softly with
Out and About in Bordeaux
Bordeaux is called the Paris of the South. It’s not as large, of course, and notably lacks a tower or pyramid. But it’s elegant, beautiful, clean and interesting. We will return. This is going to be one of those “mostly pictures” blog posts because I don’t have
Château LaTour-Martillac
Have you toured a winery? If so, you’ll see a lot that’s familiar in this post. Winemaking is like many other things – brain surgery, for instance – everyone does the same thing; some just do it better than others. Château LaTour-Martillac is a small producer run by five brothers
Le Tour de Géants
Pau is a small town just north of the Pyrenees often used as either the beginning or the end of a stage of the Tour de France. If you’re a fan of the Tour, you’ll know Pau. imagine my surprise to discover this monument to Tour winners in
Pigs and Fishes
The main reason that we came on this trip, the founding principle if you like, was to visit the Basque Country. We’ve been in and around it for a few days now, but today we headed into the heart. Before I show you what we found there, let’s
Among the Basque
We cruised through Euskal Herria (Basque Country) today. The Basque are an ethnic group that lives in an area that spans France and Spain on the Bay of Biscay at the western end of the Pyrenees. We stopped in three places: the small fishing village of Getaria, the large and
On the Road to Andorra
Andorra is a tiny country of about 80,000 souls tucked into the Pyrenees mountains between France and Spain. It has a reputation as a place to live if you want to avoid paying tax, but this may be less true these days. Quite a few professional bike racers call
Not Collioure
There’s a joke about places that are quiet in the evenings and on weekends, it goes: “I went to xxx once, but it was closed.” When I lived in New Zealand, you could fill in the name of anyplace in the country. Today we had a similar experience in
