Thursday, April 20, 2006

FROM MADRID

As we suspected, we were not able to navigate on the Rhone the week we were in Valence, so after three days with our friends we took our car and drove to Provence where we visited the beautiful towns of Gordes, Lacoste, Roussillon and others. The weather has been glorious since we left Valence. On Easter Sunday we happened upon the Feria, which was taking place in the ARENES or Roman Colosseum. Although we had no tickets for it, we experienced it all by sitting outside the circus eating a great paella listening to the music and watching all the people enjoying themselves. We drove through the Pyrenees to Lerida through some breath-taking landscape. We are now in Madrid where we have been for three days seeing friends and the spring. Yesterday we went to an exhibit of Rembrand´s engravings at the National Library. It was an incredible show. Tomorrow we will leave Madrid for SanSebastian via Burgos.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

IN VALENCE

We arrived here in Valence after 2 days of travel, one night which was spent in Chartres. We had the privilege to attend Palm Sunday High Mass at the Cathedral. It was a sung mass officiated by The Bishop with procession and all. As you know,Chartres is one of the largest and most impressive cathedrals in France with beautiful stained glass work and the largest laberynth of any church in Europe.
We have joined our friends Willemijn and Kess here in Valence in order to travel with them on their yacht to Marseille from where they will leave on a cruise through the Mediterranean. Right now the Rhone River is rather flooded, currents very strong, so it looks like we will not be leaving this week. We must decide what to do tonight, but since we have our car with us, we will make our way down to Spain stopping at new places and eventually we will meet our friend Paca in Madrid around the 20 of April. Since we will be bringing our boat south this summer, on the way back to Cambrai, we shall be scouting for places to moor our boat this coming winter. Right now it is still pretty cold and windy, but we hope to have warmer weather in Spain.

Sunday, April 09, 2006

BACK IN FRANCE

After a great flight and a good night's rest, we are back on our boat. Although this has been a severe winter, the boat shows no sign of wear, and not a leak was found at all. Because of the fact that the water tanks were emptied before our departure, we tried to get a hotel room for the first night, but not a room was to be found anywhere. The people at La Chope, a small hotel where we spent a few weeks when we first arrived in Cambrai, offered to let us shower there until our tanks are filled. The friends who kept our car in their garage for the winter had it all sparkling and clean waiting for us in the parking lot. We are so lucky to know such kind people. It is a shock to feel cold--45°after 90° in Miami-- however it is sunny, so no complaints there. We will leave for Valence tomorrow to travel to Marseille with our Dutch friends. We do hope to be able to do some postings from there

WE'RE BACK!

We had a great flight on Business class, great food, and a few hours sleep. We rented a car in Brussels and drove to Cambrai, dropped off our luggage and drove to Lille where we had to return the car. We took a train back to the boat and had a great night sleep. All is great there, and it is sunny. Today everything was covered with ice, but now it has warmed up to about 9°.