Part 1 : Our 6 Month Vacation

Mar 5, 2011 by Alan Short

Posted under: France, Holidays

After months of planning, weeks of preparation and several days of Jo deciding just how many shoes can fit into the back of a large 4×4 we said goodbye to everyone, well at least an au revoir, as we were going to meet up with family and friends along the way. We slept our last night in the quirky apartment in Ashtead, with the crazy drunken old lady downstairs, sleeping on our inflatable mattress (us, not the old lady down stairs), a mattress that would get much use in the coming months, (a mattress that would see an undignified end, expiring with rapid deflation in the middle of the night during a huge thunder storm in Sicily) having decided that when not in the five star hotels (Jo is a five star kind of girl) we would try our hand at camping (a tent person Jo is not)… With all our possessions for the next 6 months squashed into the back of the car, we set off in the general direction of France.

Ahh… of course not to forget that just days before leaving, Jo discovered her passport was about to expire…

Days One & Two

We left the UK via the Channel Tunnel on April 22nd wishing my brother a Happy Birthday as we were parked up waiting for our train. We didn’t have too long to spare, however did find time for Jo to have a much needed coffee break (a sign of things to come), our last English coffee for six months, and to grab all the things we had forgotten to bring with us from the small shop, warning triangles, spare bulbs (all of which are apparently legal requirements in Europe) for the car and travel scrabble were quickly purchased.

Passport control didn’t prove too much of a problem, however the officer did look at us quizzically upon asking us where we were going to which Jo responded “France !”.

Our first night was somewhat lacking in luxury as we slept in the car in a French “la station-service” somewhere on the E9/A20, somewhere between Paris and Limoges, somewhere in France. It was cold, it was foggy, it was raining, it was the start of our six month holiday.

Night two was spent at Prieuré du Puy Marot, just outside of Limoges. A “16th century priory overlooking the valley”, the “bedrooms are comfortable and attractively decorated”, they were. “The owners will be delighted to share their passion for Limoges porcelain”, they did. “A charming address in a refined setting”, it was.

More information for Prieuré du Puy Marot can be found :

http://www.gites-de-france-charme.com/Prieure_du_Puy_Marot-Feytiat-g87_9713.html

I seem to recall that food that evening was hard to track down, it was either a French Bank Holiday, a day of celebration or just that nothing was open. Jo’s bloodhound nose was successful once again in sniffing out the only establishment serving food that evening, a very nice lady in the Pizzeria Chez Framboise served us up a very tasty “diner” for which she was rewarded a rather nice tip, a tip which she tried to hand back to us as she thought is was a mistake…. Thanks to Jo’s generous generosity that was two weeks of my spending money already gone…

Before leaving Limoges, we had to purchase some Limoges for Muvva in honour of Meryl Streep in Out of Africa, one of the many of Muvva’s favourite movie quotes… !

Day 3 : Heading into Andorra

Andorra is hilly, then somewhat steep, then mountainous, then it begins to snow and then it gets much colder than you’d expected on day 3 of a 6 month summer holiday.