Western Europe

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Revisiting Mont St Michel

Getting to Mont St Michel I woke early after an awesome uninterrupted night sleep, without having to descend the steep ladder for use of the toilet. Today, I head to Mont St Michel for a revisit after 18 years.  I bought a fresh baguette and prepared a packed lunch to bring along for the daytrip. […]

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Walled seaside city

Going separate ways Today, Kim commences his journey back to New Zealand with a flight from Paris CDG to Haneda on standby while I take the train to St Malo. My train is at 1030 while his was at 1300.  He walked me to the station where we said goodbye.  The 2h journey from Le […]

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Roadtrip from Blois to Le Mans

Chateau de Blois   We packed up and left around 0800, telling the hotel that we were very disappointed that their aircon wasn’t working properly.   Since we had missed Chateau the Blois last night, we drove into town to have a quick look.  Parking was still free at this time, with charges starting at […]

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Roadtrip from Bordeaux to Blois

Bad start Today, we start a two-day road trip from Bordeaux to Le Mans via a short section of the Loire Valley.  With the rental car booked for 0830, we set the alarm for 0630 and were out the door at 0730 bound for the airport, where the rates were far cheaper than from a […]

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Sightseeing fails

Sightseeing fail #1 This morning, the hotel’s cheapest breakfast option at EUR2.50 (placarded inside the room door) tempted me.  It comprised of a coffee and a pastry.  It turned out to be EUR2.30 actually, but in retrospect it wasn’t such a good deal.  A pastry across the road at the supermarket was EUR0.45 and I […]

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Short outing to Arcachon

Going to Arcachon The alarm went off at 0715 but we fell asleep till 0845.  We woke surprised at the time but the 1h time different towards the east must have contributed to it. We readied ourselves quickly before taking the bus to the train station for the 1005 train to Arcachon. Buying the tickets […]

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Arriving into an oven

Departing Madeira We woke at 0715 and were out the door at 0820 after some breakfast and making sandwiches for the flight to Bordeaux. The car return went OK and we were dropped off at Funchal airport around 0900 for our 1030 Easyjet flight. It wasn’t a long wait as I killed time looking for […]

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Shipwreck Beach (again) and three swims

Boat excursion again With time to kill before our 2015 flight tonight to Vienna, we had decided to repeat an excursion to Navagio Beach but this time from Porto Vromi so that we took in slightly different spots from the trip we did two days ago from Agios Nikolaos. We had paid up yesterday for […]

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More DIY

Above: A pretty spot in the residential area of Valognes. As sightseeing in the region had been gotten out of the way, yesterday was spent mostly on DIY at Valognes apart from a fancy lunch at Brasserie Marcel along the way, including foie gras including foie gras served in three ways: The first was perhaps […]

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Cite de la Mer

Above:  Eight missile hatches on each side visible. Chores and DIY It was a morning of chores, starting with the laundry before calling into a great hardware superstore called Leroy Merlin on the way to Valognes for more DIY. Today I started masking the attic windows for painting.  It was all good until I realised […]

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