travel

travel

Quiet times in Cassis

I mentioned in an earlier post about the quiet walks around the town of Cassis in the south of France. Here are some pictures. Most of the side streets in the old town near the harbour were very pretty, with lovely flowers, quaint entrances and cobbled walks. For more activity, there were several beaches close […]

travel

Creme de Cassis

For a small village, Cassis has an extensive list of “things to do.” I remember telling a neighbour, who had stopped in Cassis for lunch while on a tour of the south of France, that we had stayed there for a week. She was amazed that we could find enough to entertain us for that

travel

Les Calanques

Les Calanques is the name of the national park between Cassis and Marseilles, which was created to preserve the limestone fjords that jut into the sea at this end of the Cote D’Azur. With their magnificent white cliffs, azure inlets and rugged vegetation, Les Calanques are a national treasure well worth keeping in their natural

travel

Cassis 2015

We decided to spend a week in Cassis on a whim. Actually a friend had given us a calendar by an artist who painted beautiful pictures of places in France and Italy. Cassis was one of the prettiest. I decided that it might be a nice place to spend some time based entirely on an

travel

Amsterdam to Marseilles

Somehow, I have always felt that there is a conspiracy between hotel clerks, taxi drivers, restaurateurs and tour guides. When we checked into our hotel on Friday night, we asked when the shuttle train to the airport left in the morning. Our hotel clerk immediately said that the train was not running on Saturday because

biking, travel

Good Bye Gouda….

This would be our last day in Gouda and our last day of biking in Holland – sigh!! I do love putting down roots, staying for a while, blending into the woodwork, as it were, and pretending that you have lived in a place all your life. Well, even three days, in a small place,

biking, travel

Is that Moordrecht or Mordor?

Although Holland is technically a flat country, there are head winds. As one cyclist put it, “In a country that builds windmills, you have to figure there is going to be wind.” So it was that we peddled back to Gouda into a driving force that kept pushing us back from whence we had come!

biking, travel

Oudewater and the outer limits….

We had cycled to Haastrecht on a bike path that ran parallel to a busy road. No doubt our GPS, had it been working, would have taken us along a pretty country lane that also ran parallel to the road but far enough away that you barely saw or heard the cars. Sigh! Anyway, as

biking, travel

GPS and how to get lost very quickly…

Our train left for Gouda from Utrecht at precisely the time our tickets said it would. There’s something to be said about northern Europe’s stoic adherence to the mechanics that make things work. There is no throwing up of hands, when trains do not arrive on time – Paris, cursing coach doors that won’t close

biking, travel

A Train to Utrecht

I think before it’s all said and done, I have to ride the Orient Express, because I love travelling by train and I love Agatha Christie!! There is something about going down to the station, with it’s spectacular glass ceiling, imposing iron girders, and maze of intersecting tracks that says, “awe.” From our apartment, we

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