Last couple of weeks in Europe

 This is a quick blog as we are currently on a cruise heading back to America and we grab Internet wherever we can. 

 We spent several days in Cornwall, England had of course to go to Lands End. We were fortunate to have a beautiful sunny day which is not always the case in Cornwall.  

Beach huts along the sea front in a small resort in Devon

One of the many tiny roads we drove- Jack perfected his backing up in order to let an oncoming car go by

Old sea side hotel we stayed at in Torbay, Devon

Land's End, Cornwall, England

We toured  the Geevor Tin Mine. The used to have shafts and tunnels that went miles under the ocean 

We flew into Bristol England and then spent a week in Devon and Cornwall. This is a fabulous place for a holiday as there are so many little road to take one off to a village or unique site. One of the best was Port Isaac the location of the Doc Martin series.  We took a walking tour led by a man who is an extra in a lot of the shows so he would point out a building and talk about a specific scene that was shot there. Of course all of us would nod our heads and laugh as we remembered our favorite Doc Martin comments, such as "Stop talking!" 

Port Isaac(or on the show it's Portwenn)

We spent the last couple weeks of our travels in Bordeaux France enjoying the wine and food of the area.  We took a walking tour of the city and a wine tour of the Chateau the Medoc wine area. These were both offered through the visitors center so they are reasonably priced and very good information

The Chateaus are awesome 

Soil for grapes is rocky!

Bordeaux, France

Very popular to have wedding photos in the reflection pool!

Bordeaux is famous for the metal balconies-they are all so different 

Basque Country

"thank you"

We have traveled for a couple of weeks in the Basque Country of Spain, an area we have wanted to visit but seemed to be so remote!  We stayed in several small Basque villages enjoying the local Basque cuisine such as pintxos (tapas), seafood like hake and salt cod, Txakoli (local white wine), gateau basque, and generally taking back roads to explore the countryside. In this part of Spain, the Basque language, Euskera, is the oldest living lanuage in Europe and so it often made it a challenge to read signs & menus. 

National sport called Peloa- court sport against a wall or two teams face to face

flag on the left is the local flag of Hondarribia and on the  right is the official flag of the Basque Country Autonomous Community of Spain.

old town of Hondarribia

Pamplona was a "must visit" and it certainly lived up to its name. While the bulls weren't running-that happens in July-we did walk the route and the bullring. When the bulls run through the streets they put up heavy wooden barricades to keep the bulls in the center of the street and the spectators on the side, but of course both of the bulls and the people get excited and get together!  The bull ring had a great multimedia display of the run, its history, and of coarse how well the bulls are treated once they arrive in the bullring. There are only about six or eight bulls that are chosen for the bullfight and that only happens once a year during the bull run. I think the best part that we appreciated was that all of the money that is raised from the bull run and the bullfights are used to support a senior housing program for about 600 people in Pamplona!!

 Running of the Bulls

this is all there is between the bulls and spectators!

did Jack find a new hobby?

We enjoyed learning about the wines of the region.  The bright white wine is Txakoli and the red is Rioja which is made from the temprenello grape.  We toured the Carlos San Pedro Bodega underground ancient cave that is 8 metres under the ground and has been used for making wine for hundreds and hundreds of years.  They put the entire grape cluster into huge concrete tanks that sit in perfect temperature, humidity, silence and darkness all year around. 

Had to climb the ladder to look into the cement tank that is fermenting the wine

bottles in the caves

We were mesmerized by the town and Peace Museum of Gernika (Basque name for Guernica) which was bombed by Nazi planes to "test" their terror bombing type of warfare. It was expecially horrible because it involved the bombing of civilians by a military air force.  Almost the entire city was decimated!  Interestingly,  Gernika is twinned with Boise, Idaho.

The original Oaktree where for hundreds of years the Assembly leaders met and it symbolizes traditional freedoms for the Biscayan people and all Basque peoples

Picasso's famous Gernika painting (original is in Madrid)

Sister City is Boise!! Agreements of co-operation in the field of culture, education and industry

We really enjoyed the Basque Country and found the people uniquely friendly and the culture intriguing.

 

A Vacation from Traveling

I haven't written in several weeks partly because we took a "vacation" from "traveling"!!  We traded our time-share & booked a week in Majorca-the largest island in the Balearic Islands archipelago, which are part of Spain and located in the Mediterranean.  

Cuevas del Drach"- Dragon Cave - with one of the largest underground lakes in the world

Since 1935 the cave tour includes a live classical performance on a boat on the underground Lake Mertel

we thought this would be a small tourist spot with some retires and ex-pats living there. Were we shocked when we got off the plane to thousands of families!  Turns out that the airport is one of the busiest in Europe in the summer months and Majorca's economy is totally based on tourism. German and British make up the most of the 10 million annual visitors.

Karen's favorite Watermellon popsicle on a very hot day!

 As we toured the island we saw evidence of the abandoned farming and agricultural industry and now hotels, apartments and houses line the coasts along with shops selling all the plastic and beach stuff a tourist would want!  Needless to say Majorca was not our cup-of-tea but it's a great holiday spot for the families with kids. 

Our next stay was in southwest France in the Dordogne area. This is famous for wine, walnuts, castles and ancient cave art. There are over 1500 castles in the Dordogne and we stayed for a week in the center of a medieval hamlet complete with its own castle. Castelnaud-lap-Chapelle sits on a hill overlooking the Dordogne River. It's history dates back to the 13th century and was mostly aligned with the English throne and was the "rival" to the French Chateau de Beynac castle just across the river.  

The 

 "our" Castlenaud-la-Chapelle  

Beynac Castle

The
One the things we wanted to do was canoe on the Dordogne River.  So on Karen's birthday we  took a 14 km trip past old towns and castles.  There are dozens outfitters up and down the river so a whole lot of canoes and kayaks floating along the relatively smooth water.  It was quite warm and stopping for a beer along the shore seemed just perfect.  What a fun birthday!

Birthday dinner at a French festival 

This area's, however is much more ancient with a series of caves with paintings and etchings dating back 20,000 years. Most of the caves are either closed or have extremely limited visitation to preserve the art. We toured the new Lascaux 4 International Center for Cave Art complex that opened just 7 months ago.  It houses exact replicas of the cave paintings and a fantastic museum center. When the tour started the guide said to expect to spend 3 hours-- most of us looked around with skepticism.  Sure enough it was just over 3 hours as there was so much information!  We were clearly entering a reproduced cave since we walked on a cement path and through a tunnel but once inside it was pretty amazing. After the caves, they have an interpretive room where we could take pictures. Since the actual caves were pclosed in the 1960's and we will never see the originals, this is certainly the next best. 

Over 600 huge paintings that are over 20,000 years old!!

Mostly bulls and horses

Next on to Basque Country and across the Pyrénées.

Destined for Foie Gras

and here it is....

Now in to the Basque Country and across the Pyrénées