Paris

October 15, 2013

We were flying out of Paris, so we spent the afternoon of our last day in Europe being tourists. Our first stop was to the Père Lachaise Cemetery. The Père Lachaise is not only beautiful, but the resting place of a number of famous people including Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison of The Doors.

Jim Morrison’s grave

Grave of Oscar Wilde

It was fascinating walking through the cobblestone paths lined with mausoleums and above ground graves. The placement of graves seemed to be completely random. Graves from the early 1700s were right next to a graves from the 2000s.

Above ground graves

Mausoleums

I think a person could spend all day at the cemetery, but we had limited time. Next we headed to the Eiffel Tower. Our route took us by the Louvre and L’Arc de Triomphe. We might have stopped to look around, but there was a massive traffic jam that took awhile to get through.

A little traffic around the Arc de Triomphe

We opted to battle the traffic to find parking near the Eiffel Tower. We walked around for a bit and even got a few photos without anybody else but us and the Eiffel Tower.

Eiffel Tower

The required kissing photo

Finally, it was time to return the rental car and go to the airport. Everything went surprisingly smoothly. Chandler was able to convince the ticket agent that we did in fact get 2 free bags and would not need to pay for extra baggage. Our flight to Mexico was overnight but on an airplane so old, there were still ashtrays in the armrests. I thought the plane might come apart a few times during the flight. It was “fun”!

French roadtrip

Nov27

October 11 – 14, 2013

Not wanting to leave the farm just yet, we stayed through the morning milking. Once last time with the ladies, Alex and Matilda before it was officially time to be on our way. We didn’t really know what we wanted to do, so we decided to head to Chamonix-Mont Blanc.

Our roadtrip turned out to be a little less exciting than planned. We spent 2 days driving to Chamonix which turned out to be cloudy and snowing. We were unable to get a clear view of the mountain and were not able to camp in the area, because we didn’t have gear for camping in the cold weather. We figured we would keep driving until we found a place to camp and went up and over a mountain, into Switzerland.

The Aiguille du Midi

A dam high in the hills

Our first view of Switzerland

The filter brings out the colors

It was raining really hard once we got down out of the mountains in Switzerland, but beautiful. There were absolutely no campgrounds open so, we figured we would just do a little loop around Lake Geneva and head back into France.

On our way towards Paris we headed to Riems. Riems is a historically important city. The unconditional surrender of Germany to General Eisenhower and the Allies occurred in Riems in 1945. We spent an hour or two in a small museum dedicated to the incident. The room that the actual event took place in has been preserved and we were able to get a good look at it.

The Map Room

A surrender souvenir

Airplane remains

Riems is also home to the impressive cathedral, Notre-Dame de Reims. The current cathedral was built in 1211 to replace an earlier version. The previous cathedral was built in the 400s. It is crazy to imagine that a cathedral has occupied the same site for almost 2000 years.

Notre-Dame de Reims

Gargoyles

Beautiful details

After a lovely afternoon in Riems, we headed in the direction of Paris through the Champagne region to pick up a bottle of bubbly.

Champagne region

We had a hotel room for our last night in Europe. It was nice to have a dry, large area to make sure our boxes were properly packed and strong enough to handle a few flights.

Chèvres encore

Nov25

October 9 – 10, 2013

After a lovely 3 weeks in the UK, it was time to head back to France. We took a quick flight to La Rochelle, rented a car and drove back to the farm. We needed to pick up our bikes, return Alex’s suitcase and spend one more day on the farm. We had missed the work on the farm while we were gone.

It was great to see all the goats, some of them seemed to remember us. The ladies were immediately affectionate, whereas it took a week before we received that kind of attention when we first arrived. We were surprised to see a noticeable difference in the size of the babies. Isatis, our favorite little one, was no longer able to escape by squeezing through the slate of the fence.

Chandler and some friends

We were able to spend a lot of time catching up with Alex and Mathilde, an intern, and we all worked together very well. It was nice that everyone knew the routine, so we could get the work done quickly and focus on having fun with the goats.

Leisure afternoon

I also had the opportunity to watch the “marriage” of several ladies with two of the billies. At one point, Alex had explained the mating rituals of goats to Chandler and I, but the act sounded strange enough that I needed to see it for myself. To attract the females, a male will urinate on himself, slap the female’s belly with his hoof while simultaneously tickling her ear with his tongue. Not the most romantic courtship, but it worked.

Gangster, the lucky groom

We also made sure to eat enough cheese to last us a long time. Alex makes the BEST organic goat cheese! I would highly recommend that if you are in her area, check out her farm, La Ferme des Croq’Épines, and get some of her cheese.

Being on the farm was a great choice and a highlight of the trip.

Alex, Mathilde, Me and Chandler

Prime time in London

Nov21

October 6 – 8, 2013

We only had a few days left in England so we spent one day with my niece and nephew and the other day going to the Prime Meridian.

Again, we arrived just on time to help out Alyssa and Martin with a nanny emergency. As usual, we had a great time with the kids. Sorry, the photos were taken on the tablet, so not the best quality.

Luc the mouse

Lea looking too cute

Lea likes her Uncle

On our pirate ship

That night, Alyssa and I went out to dinner and a movie for some sister bonding. Chandler and Martin spent the evening with the kids and Martin gave Chandler a cooking lesson. The menu was grouse!

Meal fit for a king

While in London, it was my goal to see the Prime Meridian and we were able to finally make that dream come true the day before we headed back to France. However, first we spent some time at the National Maritime Museum.

National Maritime Museum

The museum had a lot of interesting displays of model ships, ancient navigation instruments and a history of the British navy and East India Company. The museum did kind of gloss over the American Revolutionary War, which we found interesting.

Model ships

Astrolabe

Lions and Unicorns

After a few hours of wandering around the museum, it was time for what we came to see. We headed around the back of the building, climbed a big hill and stood on the Eastern hemisphere and the Western hemisphere AT THE SAME TIME!! As usual, we were too cheap to pay to stand on the fancy line and made do the less exciting line in the side of a wall.

Prime Meridian

Stone circles

Nov18

October 4 – 5, 2013

After our day of distilleries, we didn’t know what else to do. Chandler had read about a stone circle that was more accessible than Stonehenge, so we figured we would head in that direction.

We ended up driving all day through Scotland and back into England to get to Castlerigg. This stone circle was probably constructed around 3200BC which makes it one of the earliest stone circles in Britain. Castlerigg consists of one large circle made with large stones and a smaller inner circle made up of smaller stones. None of the 40 odd stones were taller than Chandler.

Castlerigg

The inner circle

The entrance

The location of the circle was incredibly beautiful and we took a lot of photos. We had a fun time running around the stones, in and out of the circle. We couldn’t believe our luck, because we were the only people around.

Fun with filters

The next day we started headed back towards London. We originally weren’t going to go out of our way to Stonehenge, but after the one stone circle, we had to see the famous one. Again, we drove most of the day after a leisurely breakfast.

View from the road

Stonehenge is visible from the highway and we knew we had made the right choice. The entrance fee was £8 per person just to walk around other monument at a distance of about 30 feet. We opted to not pay the fee and just admire the view from behind a fence. We managed to get a few good pictures.

Stonehenge

Chandler, the fence and the view

Stonehenge

Up close

Sunset

We had trouble finding a campground, so we headed back to London. It was a good idea too, because Martin treated us to a memorable night of head banging, snakeskin boots and hair!

Head banging

Martin

Martin and his hair

A Few Days Off

the things that we do

Category Archives: The Bike Trip