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Saturday 24 May 2014

Another mad dash through France ...

On Thursday afternoon we picked Emi up as soon as school finished for the half term holidays and headed straight for le tunnel to make our customary dash through France to get home to Spain for a week in the sunshine. Traffic on the M25 was bad. We counted three accidents along the way. Thankfully no one seemed to have been injured.

This jolly little caravan caught my eye as we zoomed past in the fast lane:


It looked like a tear drop, and was perfectly colour-co-ordinated with the car that was pulling it.

We missed our train with all the shenanigans on the motorway, but they allowed us to catch a later one and we made it to France only half an hour behind schedule.

Driving around Paris was tricky. The police seemed to have closed all the exits we wanted to take, which mixed things up a little more than we were comfortable with. It's not totally straight forward driving around the French capital in a right hand drive car, but finally we made it to our hotel in Orléans, and collapsed exhausted into bed.

The next morning we breakfasted on more of those delicious French croissants than we ought to have done, and bombed off to the south.

By lunchtime we were in the Auvergne, admiring the peaks of their now-extinct volcanoes.


We ran into some interesting weather along the way, but the great thing about heading south is that the weather blows over and, if you wait for half an hour, something else comes along.


By the time we got down to the Languedoc things had settled down a bit. The sun came come out again, and we decided that we needed an ice-cream and coffee break, so we pulled into Perpignan.


When we'd sampled the ice-cream menu we went for a stroll to stretch our legs after all those long hours in the car. Maxi seized on the opportunity to check out the locals. They seemed to be friendly.

Bonjour! Do you speak Schnauzer?
Perpignan is a lovely little city. We're always tickled to see any mention of Catalan in France. It makes me think how arbitrary some of our international borders are. This one, between France and Spain, seems to have cut the Catalan nation in half.

Perpignan, France

We discovered this little gem, which used to be the old Sea Consul's house. They told us it had been built back in the fourteenth century.

Perpignan, France

Isn't it a beauty? I have a soft spot for the original gothic.

Perpignan, France

At the other end of the spectrum we also liked the funky, modern theatre. It's great when a city has the confidence to mix things up a bit as between the old and the new, and the traditional and the avant garde.

Perpignan, France

Then we took a turn around the citadel in the middle of town.

Perpignan, France

We went for a walk down the side streets, but the rain seemed to be following us, so we cut it short and took refuge in our car.
Perpignan, France
Views of Perpignan
And then we sprinted the final stretch across the border to Spain, playing catch-up with the rainbows as we went.



Have a great weekend,


Bonny x


2 comments:

  1. Wow a long journey for you but totally worth it for some sun and warmth.....

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  2. Truly beautiful photos, thanks for taking us with you.

    ReplyDelete