Alive and well in Avignon, Francee

Using a shit internet kiosk - will try and find a better place tonight and update everything... ok , updqted, here is a dump of where we are now...

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Cork to Roscoff Ferry 30/04/05

We are now sitting a bar on the ferry from Cork, Ireland to Roscoff, France. A very surreal experience, I am supping a Welsh beer, Duran Duran is playing in the background, kids are playing in the pool, everyone is speaking french... A floating 10 storey high night club... a chance to fill you in on what has been going on (note: I should have backfilled the rest of the journey)...

Killarney, Ireland (Wednesday and Thursday).

We spend a day riding down from Galway to Killarney (gateway to the Ring of Kerry), very windy and raining, this is what we expected the whole trip so it is not bad to get it for one day. When we hit Killarney, the weather broke and gave us the usual unusual sunny skys. Killarney is amazing, on the edge of a national park, with a castle, lake, deer, the works. We decide to use it as our base and book two days.

On Thursday we leave out luggage and scoot 160 Km around the Ring of Kerry. This was amazing, we stopped at one point to take photos, looking down a green valley across at another peninsula with hills tipped in mist. Next thing we know, we are on our scooters again, driving up through the mist and then over looking at another peninsula - just like flying - magic. Hope to add a photo or two below...








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Bordeaux, France (Tuesday, 3/05/05)

This our second day in France. So far we have mixed feelings...

Off the ferry at Roscoff, we headed south. Our initial plan was to go to La Rochell but we decided that was too much for one day. First impressions were not that good, we drove to Vannes, everything was shut, I ran out of petrol, motocyclists drove by making kicking actions at us and it was hard to find a hotel in Vannes and it was ugly...

However, we are pleased to say that the first impressions were wrong...

Everything was shut because it was 1st of May (May day) so it was not a typical Sunday. The kicking action is how motocyclists wave of each other as they pass (because th closest hand is on the throttle). Vannes was quite stunning, when we had a walk around, the centre was like very old (1600's) with twisted houses, 3 stories high and amazing twisted streets hiding catherdrals and gardens.

The next day we headed for La Rochell, we decided to avoid the highways as they were boring. We soon found that the back roads were really slow. It took us 9 hours to drive 300Km. We saw lots of great scenery but it was a bit too much time on the scooters. We reconsidered our plan and decided to stay a few days in Bordeaux (and booked in a wine tour).

So far I am finding it OK to get by with French, with the odd stressful moment were someone was shouting at me to move the scooters (in France they park their cars sideways across their driveways and leave the garages shut - so they get very upset if you prevent them doing that by parking either side of a entry way).

We have not been taking many pictures, maybe we will have a few from today's wine tour.



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Avignon, France, Sunday (8/5/05)

We are now in Avignon. For those that have seen our route, you will know that this is not in the plan. Basically the motorways are fast and boring and the non-motorways are slow, so we decided to sacrifice distance for pleasure. So we skipped going to Barcelona and cut across France instead.

The decision has been a good one, you know that you have made the right choice when you see hundreds of motorbikes one the same road!!! We ended up going down the "Tarn" which is a gorge that goes East from Millau. Simply stunning, one hour you are riding looking up at rocks faces towering above you (with the river still far below and no barriers to stop you visiting them too) and the next hour you are on top of the very same mountains looking down at the road we had just travelled. If you are ever in France, do the Tarn!!!

It is not just great roads but every 20 or so km's, there is some magical village. The highlight of one day was buying bagets and Rochefort cheese in one village, then having lunch by a clear river under a bridge in another village deep in a valley (St Enimie).

On the way from Bordeaux we stayed the night in a hostel in Cahors. We have discovered that it is French holiday season, lots of holidays in one week so everything is shut. We have to ask someone to buy us petrol because our cards don't work in the French automatic fuel stations. Another drama is getting a flat tyre on the way (thank god for Vespa spare tyres).

The next stop after Cahors was Millau. Yes another public holiday and all the hotels booked out. The good news is that I have my big tent and camping is easy. So we set up camp just across the river and can walk into town (which just happens to be market day and all the streets are blocked off to traffic and full of stalls).

Now in Avignon we are camping again and have taken a few days. Today has just been walking around the walled city and taking it easy.Tomorrow we hit the road again....