Europe trip 2023

We landed in Stanstead, one of those annoying remote airports, made our way into the city on an airport express train, transferred onto the tube, then once further enough toward our Airbnb, ubered the rest of the way! Lugging gear in a huge city is not fun but oh the English language! Oh the British accents! It was a welcome relief after 6.5 weeks to be able to fully understand everything! 

We arrived in an exhausted heap but our hosts kindly let us in and showed us round. The lady was a head teacher and we some how got onto the subject of exams….coulda talked for hours!

After a good solid sleep we walked over to where my Nana used to live, saw her old street and house. I was a bit hesitant and nervous! That was my first home in London when we lived here in 2007 for 5 or so months. It was getting renovated so they had the front door open. We stood and watched for a while, reminiscing lovely memories. After that we popped into her favourite supermarket and then took the bus to Richmond park where we saw deer just wandering around, it was lovely to see all the green wide space in such a big busy city. We ate our lunch and walked back to the Airbnb to rest. 

That evening I missioned into the city to meet up for dinner and a show with my best friend from high school days. It was lovely to be together sans family’s. We enjoyed Asian fusion then went to ‘Hamilton’.
I had seen that show was coming to NZ and expressed to Mum my disappointment to miss it while I was away, so captain obvious announced I should just go see it while I was in London. Ahh the mothership, always there to say it how it is.
You need a pretty good understanding of American politics history…particularly round presidents, to grasp it. I had just enough. There was a lot of rapping and quick talking in rhyme that you had to concentrate on. No singalong songs. Worth going to – yes. Would I go see it again – no.
It finished at 10.30pm so a late night for me tubing back to our Airbnb at 11pm on a Wednesday night! If you know anything about London you’ll know the tube was not empty, there was plenty of people around, i did quick footed it the 12 or so minutes between the station and the house though!! 

The following day we moved up to my friends house. Dumped our stuff and I took the kids out to Greenwich, where time begins! It was a mammoth 70 minute train journey from west to east London then 70 minutes back! They’ll be doing a project on time soon to make sure they learnt something!! We also visited the maritime museum, they had a ship simulator- that was pretty fun!!!! 

After that it was days of museums and shopping!
The boys did the imperial war museum, us girls happily skipped that in favour of Hamleys – a 5 story toy shop, we walked along Oxford Circus popping into different shops for this and that. Little R totally owned the pavement and was not at all fazed by the busyness of thousands of people. I was so proud of her. We found Hyde park which had several sets of people horse riding – that just made our wee girl’s day!  We walked up to Paddington station and caught the train home! For dinner we went ‘down pub’ (you need to say that in a British accent in your head) and had a stroll along the canals. 

The next morning we took my friends wee boy to music class then to swimming class, after that we trained into Covent Garden for the London transport museum. I had wanted to go when it opened in 2007 but missed it, tried again in 2018 but was too exhausted after visiting Buckingham palace so this time it was third time lucky!! It was different to what I imagined but great all the same, I didn’t get a turn on the tube driving simulator! It was home via the massive Lego store and equally as large, the m&m store! 

A pretty packed week after 5 days of walking the Camino!

After a night of packing up all our stuff BK was taking little R to Italy to pick up a lease car as it turns out you can’t just hire a car and drive it country to country then pay a relocate fee. A loop hole is to get a lease which means you own it with guaranteed buy back – this was all organised via a NZ company and paid for in NZD before we left, we used the same company in 2018. BK and R ferried it over to Greece and CK and I flew out from London and met them there. 

We’ve now left Greece and moving onto the second half of our trip with our own wheels!! A brand new Peugeot 3008 SUV that got handed over to BK with 1.5 kilometres on the clock….I’ll be sure to ask what it is when we hand it back!!! 

Onward we go! 

Till next time,

Claire

An uneventful flight into Porto, we got collected by an Uber. The driver was so engaging, we got a lovely lesson on Port wine. His family has a vineyard that goes back several generations so we were more than interested to hear his point of view on the industry. I’d chosen a compact Airbnb which is right in the city centre, as soon as we arrived we dumped our gear and went out to explore, I mean we explored as we found our way to a supermarket to top up on food! Ha!

What a cute as little city and hello Portuguese tarts! Glad to be back with you! 

Paid €1.20 per tart at an expensive bakery with the best google reviews, then bought more at the supermarket for 50 cents and to our untrained taste buds…couldn’t tell the difference! Supermarket ones it is kids! 

We’re only in Porto for a couple of days so it was out the door mid morning to explore. There’s one thing I needed to achieve here in this city. Pilgrim passports!!!
So as we explored we headed past the Porto cathedral. Some friends are coming later in the year to do the Portuguese Camino so along with my 4 pilgrim passports I needed I picked up another 8. The lady selling them at the cathedral thought I was absolutely crazy asking for 12! What she didn’t know HOW crazy it really is that I now have to pack those 8 passports through the Camino and into Santiago de compostela, then fly them home to New Zealand JUST for them to fly back over here to Portugal again and be packed along the Camino again….I left that bit out, I just asked for 12! 🤪

We walked along a bridge called Luis, some times it’s really odd what becomes a well known thing to do in a city and that was one of those moments! Never mind there’s another 5 bridges in Porto. The view FROM the bridge is significantly better than the view OF the bridge.

It’s such a compact city that after a couple of hours wandering we’d covered Google’s top 6 things to do in the city.

The rest of the time was spent milling around. Saw a beautiful bookshop, had an ice cream that looked like a flower, saw a nice park with great views of the river.

BK popped out to do a port wine cellar tour and tasting, the kids and I rested, we needed as much rest as we could get!

We then caught a bus to Vigo in Spain, only knowing we’d crossed the border when my phone stopped working, a quick flick of flight mode on and off again got it reconnected to a new cell tower and I was back on the grid. I love the whole EU roaming thing. Handy! 

Vigo, we achieved no sight seeing. It was all logistics so the following 5 days would be as smooth as possible!  4 loads of washing done – and I got it all dry in an afternoon, GO ME!

I organised the daily transfers of our luggage for when we walked the Camino, not at all interested in carrying it!

Found our favourite supermarket chain, Lidl, round the corner. Stocked up on lollies, I mean chocolate….ok ok, so it was actually biscuits and fruit/nut mixes! 

And with that we taxied to the cathedral in town to start walking our Camino, 103km to Santiago de Compostela…let’s go! 

Till next time,

Claire

As I was lead into an office by a police officer, it was clear I was not getting into the country with my drone!
Yep it was DJI’s fault I was in that predicament! There were big signs everywhere :
DECLARE YOUR DRONE!
So I did.
The most annoying thing is : I was sure I’d researched each country’s drone laws! 😫
I was texting Mum to keep her in the loop but turns out she wasn’t getting my texts or the ones from BK’s phone!
So I handed over DJI, got a document and told to come back to ‘the door’ when I fly out. Who knows what would have happened if I was flying out of somewhere else! …and who knows how I was ever going to find my way back to that office in the arrivals part of the airport.

After getting our bags scanned – successfully because there was no drone, I did hold onto the controller and propeller guards though – we found a taxi to our Airbnb and met up with our host. I rung Mum to download my experience onto her….turns out at 40 years old I’m still worth worrying about, aye Mum! 🤪

The following day was pretty much a write-off, we taxi’d out to a big supermarket to stock up on food, got new SIM cards because our euro ones don’t roam here, and generally lazed about. The pool was closed because “it’s Friday – the religious day”.
Our beautiful riad kept out the 40 degree heat effectively but we did turn on our air con units in the bedrooms to sleep. I don’t normally take photos of our accommodation but this one is so unique that I did and have done a quick edit of it which will post to Facebook in the coming days.

After another quiet start, BK and CK ventured into town for bits n pieces. That evening we went to the Medina. It was sensory overload! I’m not sure how to explain it!!! We’d done markets similar to this “souk” in south east Asia so it wasn’t a new experience but woah I’d forgotten the intensity it! The people, the lights, the stuff everywhere, the haggling, the motorbikes zooming through narrow streets, the uneven paths then adding in 40 degree heat, it was quite the experience but oh the thrill, oh the buzz, one not to be missed!
If you know me well you’ll know I’m not a fan of people or noise! So I was completely done after an hour but who knows where we were and how to get out…ahh yes, my trusty Google maps for the win. I bought a few gifts, got a magnet for my collection, had a French crepe for dinner, inhaled a fresh fruit smoothie ($1.60NZD – a vast difference in price to what I pay at tank at home!) and then we called it a night at 8pm before it got too crazy being a Saturday night!

After a rest day of swimming, Bk doing a little work, and that ever pesky washing – turns out washing dries fast in 40 degree heat! Ha! Monday we went on a tour into the Atlas Mountains. 

We were picked up first at 8.30am then after a couple of other stops we’d got our tour group family and we were off. We drove out of Marrakech, little R looks at the mountains “snow!!” I wasn’t so sure, coulda been sand for all I could make out with my eyesight, so I took a photo and text it to the mothership knowledge base back in New Zealand for confirmation….her reply : surely not?
Helpful 😐
Turns out it actually was! I knew the mountains wouldn’t be the 38-40 degrees we had been experiencing in the city but I wasn’t prepared for snow 90 minutes away! We wound our way past Berber villages. Stopped on the side of the highway several times as we all bailed out to take photos. Then we stopped to have a morning tea of Moroccan mint tea, warm Moroccan pita bread and dips – yum! We learnt how argan oil was made too.
Back in the van and up the mountains we went, next stop was a walk to a waterfall – being from New Zealand, I did NOT have high hopes for a glorious waterfall and thankfully I didn’t because we almost walked past it! A local family was there having the time of their lives in the water at the bottom….which was actually more interesting to watch than the waterfall. Spoilt kiwi much?
I really wished I had DJI – it would have been spectacular footage of the mountains, Berber villages, waterfall. Sigh.
A tagine lunch filled us up then the van came and swooped us all up and we drove down the mountain and into the desert to ride camels.🐫🏜️
They made us dress up and put head scarfs on us all. We all looked the part! ‘For Instagram!’ they said.
The boys got their own camels, little R however could not or would not (I can’t remember which!) go by herself so she came with me. It was a rough ride, really hard on my hips. I think it was only 15 minutes but by the time I got off it felt like I’d been riding all day! More mint tea than it was back to Marrakech.
A full day but wonderful to get out of the city and into rural Morocco.
I took a bunch of photos and video on this day and have edited it into a 2 minute video which I’ll post up to Facebook. 

Soon it was time to pack up our riad. We were off to the coast for a couple of days – to a place called Essaouira. A new bus, definitely aimed at tourists, took us the 3 hours west. Local life is always fascinating to drive past, Africa local life even more so.
We found Morocco has a toll road! I was so surprised!! No idea how much it was but probably not the ridiculous prices they are in Europe!
The temperature dropped from 38 degrees to 24! The sea breeze we felt when we got off the bus was glorious!!!!!!! Definitely reminding us of home when the gulls started squawking!
Our apartment was right in the medina but this one was significantly more manageable than Marrakech so we could move around ok with our gear and thankfully the general noise of people in the market didn’t keep us up at night. 

After a couple of nights we bussed back to Marrakech for a night, then taxied back to the airport – it was time to acquire DJI back and I was nervous! Mum was cheering me on from New Zealand. Surely this was a simple process, surely I wasn’t the first or going to be the last in this predicament!! 

I walked round the airport with my drone document showing any official I could find to direct me to get DJI. I finally found ‘the door’ and was escorted round to the correct office. “Checked in?” They asked me, “no” I replied.
So that was a fail, so close, yet so far!
I was shoo’d through the arrival doors to gather up my family and gear. We checked into our flight and then I went back to ‘the door’ for round two of project acquire DJI. The security guard looked at me strangely and says “again?”  Let’s just say I wasn’t very talkative this time round! 🤨
Back to the office, which I got to enter this time, I saw my drone case, I was so close!
Paid my storage fee and expected him to give me DJI but no! That was not the end of it! I was then given a police escort!
“My family” I pointed at my crew as I again went through those arrival doors!
We gathered up our stuff and proceeded through the normal departure’s security. Mr police officer finally handed me DJI then he went to the scanner operator hopefully to say I was a special case 😇and to expect a drone to come through even though there were signs everywhere saying ‘DECLARE YOUR DRONE!’ 

Once through that, then through customs, we’d made it. I gave DJI a good look over then BK took a very happy photo of me….you’ll indeed see that on Facebook! 

Drone in Morocco saga, complete.

Onward to the next part of our adventure! 

Till next time,

Claire

Side note – I notice I’ve used ‘who knows’ a lot in this blog. Welcome to Africa.

After a great flight into Lisbon, I had a transfer waiting for us – which is not something I do often but this one I had scored for free!
It’s wonderful to walk along a bunch of people holding names, see your own name and know you just have to follow from then onwards. He put us in the back of a black van and we drove through the dark streets of Lisbon…
Sounds dodgy I know but it was a great experience, brand new van with a lovely friendly driver – I was very tired so it’s just what this Mum needed! 

Our first day nobody had any energy for anything!
We did walk round our area mid afternoon, and that, was all that got achieved.

The next day it was time to go into the city centre. I’d booked us another walking tour!  We found a direct bus that stopped outside our door! We were staying in the suburbs so it was a bit of a trip in. Once we navigated ourselves to the starting point we plonked ourselves on some concrete steps in the shade, it was already getting warm and was only 10am. I am not missing my hoody, jacket or beanie!
A lovely Canadian couple asked us if we were there for a tour and we worked out we were on the same one. They were lovely to talk to, a teacher and an accountant from London, Ontario. 3 daughters in their 20’s. She’d taught in Auckland back in the 80’s. We stuck together as we found our guide and started walking. Our guide was funny, entertaining and thee most wonderful story teller! We followed him round Lisbon for 3 hours as we went from monument to monument, street to street, neighbourhood to neighbourhood.
I could write an entire blog post on this walking tour. I’ve done loads and loads of them and never have we ever had such an engaging guide as him. Loved it. Two special stops stood out. On the Main Street he disappeared into a bakery and came back out with a Portuguese tart (just out of the oven) for everyone. Yum!
 (They’re hard to find at home but if you want to try one the Malaysian place upstairs at the crossing does them, not cheap but very nice!)

Then the second to last stop we paused at a grandmother’s house – STOP READING RIGHT NOW MUM 🙈🙉🙊– she made homemade Ginjinha. A cherry liqueur. So our whole tour group lined up at her front door, paid our €1 for a shot in an edible chocolate cup. (It’s not technically legal but the authorities don’t seem to mind.) It was the sweetest and yummest liqueur… so we went back for seconds and bought a mini bottle…not entirely sure how I’m going to get that non labelled, could be anything, bottle back into NZ! 🤔 Actually might not even last that long! Ha!
The tour ended soon after by finishing the story of Lisbon and then he announced “class dismissed!”
If you’re ever in Lisbon please contact me, I’ve got his full name and number. I’d love for you to go on the same tour we did. 

After that I browsed a few souvenir stores to find a magnet for my collection, then it was on the bus towards Belém Tower. Belém is always on those Facebook ‘where have you visited in the world?’ things so I was determined to see it!
(Delwyn – if you’re reading this I’m secretly, or not so secretly, in competition with you on those things! Ha!)
BK needed to hop off the bus early which left me on the bus with both kids. He text to say he’d catch up with us so we carried on our way. We made it to the tower – go me and my trusty stead, Google maps!
A lovely violinist was busking while we sat in the shade and ate a bag of chips, we moved closer to enjoy the music. If you’d like to sit with us a couple of minutes to listen too, I took video for you which is scheduled to post to Facebook in the coming days. Which Disney movie is the song from? 🧞‍♂️
BK did not manage to catch up with us, he ran short on time and had to join a work call from somewhere. It was up to me to navigate getting us 3 back on a bus packed so tight like sardines, fortunately it’s the bus that stops right outside our apartment so once we offloaded the tourists at stops closer to town the bus emptied enough to get seats and off we went, very thankful for air conditioning! If we don’t get sick from being that close to so many people it will be an utter miracle!!We tumbled in the door gasping for liquid, I’d taken some but it hadn’t been enough for the exercise we’d done and or the heat we experienced. We’d bought some extra too but still not enough! Brendan came in a wee while later and it was bed time for everyone! 

I woke up just after midnight to an absolute racket out on the street below us, which is interesting because we’re on the third floor, doubled glazed and it STILL woke me up. A 20+ person drumming and trumpet procession were at full noise walking down our road! Having the time of their lives! Escorted by what appeared to be a police car, not at full noise thankfully! We’d been warned on our walking tour It was freedom day coming the following day and obviously they’d started celebrating at midnight! I grabbed my phone to take video from our balcony, unfortunately in my sleepiness I’ve taken it in portrait rather than landscape but I’ll post it to Facebook for you too see….or hear!!!!

The following day was a work day for BK and an absolutely nothing day for me and the kids. I did manage to find a laundry mat and get a big load of clothes washed. I also managed to schedule a weeks worth of posts to Facebook. Love that scheduling tool, so helpful! Oh we did have an evening walk to see the water and the massive bridge to the other side of Lisbon. If you’ve been to Denmark or seen my photos or other photos of their never ending bridges, it looks like that.

There was really only 2 touristy things I wanted to do in Europe while we are over here and one is 45 minutes by train from Lisbon. It’s a town in the middle of nowhere called Sintra. Many palaces and castles all stuck on a hill. So out we missioned, fortunate to get a direct train from our suburbs train station (€1.65 each) I expected an over full train but due to avoiding the main Lisbon city train station I think we managed to side step the bulk of the tourists, we also went really early! We arrived and the options were : a bus for €11.50 each or very steep walk uphill for 45 minutes or an Uber for €6 – guess which one we choose!
Once I’d secured tickets and a time slot to enter Pena palace, we wandered the gardens. They were well kept and beautiful. We saw horses and a cute cottage. Mini lakes and water features. Soon it was our turn for the palace, it’s a circuit which is really helpful for tourist flow! At the end we sat on the balcony and I fed the fam chips and popcorn that I’d packed in, cause I’m cheap like that! Ha!
An Uber for €4 back down the hill, it was back to the train station….after a couple of no show trains we jumped on one going to Lisbon city. BK bailed out early – spotting a theme here? 😂 – to catch a work call and I managed to navigate me and the kids back into the city, onto the metro, several changes to get onto the line that went to our suburb and back to our apartment! Let’s just say, my brain isn’t going to mush on this trip, it’s not idle in any way! It’s exercising the problem solving gland extensively!
Sintra and the palace we saw were stunning, the architecture so unique! It was most definitely worth the day trip.

Our last day BK packed his stuff and ubered with it to a co working space. This left me to pack up the apartment then get us three and a pile of gear down the road – via a mini mart for Fanta, CK and I have a new addiction! – and onto the metro to the airport. Let’s just say I was dripping with sweat by the time that was over!!! I love my pack, this is its third trip to Europe. It’s wonderful to have everything on my back and my hands free to manage extra luggage or children…or food!If you haven’t seen me recently I lost 17kgs last year, my pack is 19-20 ish kgs, so today the realisation came that I used to carry almost all that weight round, all the time. It was quite a realisation actually.

After a few hours BK joined us, we processed through the airport, getting stamped out of Europe, and onto a plane to our next destination- which is where I write this blog, and like my last one I watched the sunset again. I took video of our take off so keep an eye out on Facebook if you’d like to see Lisbon by sunset! I’ll probably mute the noise as we are on quite the party plane! At least 2 brides on here and the excitement to go with it!

We managed to be almost last off the plane, then after a pause for the toilets almost last through customs, then almost last to the baggage carousel to find our bags just going round and round!
One last hurdle before entering the new country, getting our bags scanned….but before that even happened I was escorted by police to a small office…

Till next time,

Claire

A wonderful bus ride along the coast to Barcelona, I thought the driver was just fantastic! Young Spanish dude but he knew the route, the vehicle and he did not mess about. We ran perfectly to time!
Dumped unceremoniously at a bus station, we grabbed our gear and took an Uber to a hostel. 2 sets of bunk beds in a private room with en-suite is costing us upwards of $200 NZD per night! Ouch! Big city problems!
Once we’d explored our building we set about finding a supermarket and were so relieved to see food prices were cheaper than France. Thank. Goodness.
In the evening we went exploring to find the infamous Sagrada familia – it apparently was 10 minutes walk away from where we were staying.
We found it.
What. An. Odd. Building!
I’d seen photos. I’d heard all about it from others that had seen it, but nothing prepared me for seeing it up close! So quirky. So creative. So imaginative.
We walked round the whole block, looking at it from different angles to try and make sense of it.
We went into tourist merch shops, came back out and looked at it again.
We ate some churros lathered in chocolate sauce and looked at it again.
We waited for it to go dark and watched all the lights come on.
Nope. Still bizarre.
So we walked home in the dark – I thought I’d feel a bit unsafe having the family out after dark but it was all good. Lots of ladies were walking by themselves which eased my fears.

The next day BK decided it was buffet breakfast for the family. Cereal to cheese / ham / raw veges to cooked egg / sausages / baked beans to pastries. The boys tanked themselves up!
We ordered an Uber, and we waited and waited….we were meant to be going in a walking tour and the start time was getting closer!
Stuff it!
We hastily made our way to the metro station, and caught the train, arrived at the correct stop and popped up to the meeting place just in time. BK took a photo of me checking us in with our guide “to add to your story” he informed me. So I’ll add that photo to my Barcelona set on Facebook.
Our guide was called Claire she was from Ireland, she’d been guiding for 6 years!! Must love it??!!
The walking tour was mostly in the gothic quarter and it was fabulous. Absolutely loved it. What a pretty city. What a fascinating history.
After a supermarket run to top up on food for the next 24 hours, and to buy a box of ice creams – yep when you travel with me I’m not going to buy you expensive €3 each ice cream, if you want ice cream I will go buy a box of 4 for €2 from the supermarket and you can have one of those! We went to the roof top of our building and ate them there enjoying the view of the city and the water.
After that it was back to our beds for rest while BK punched out some urgent work.
Touristing is exhausting!

The following day we’d booked a car rental to drive out to a mini country in the Pyrenees mountains, Andorra.
We piled on the metro again, smoothly picked up a random car, an upgrade from what we’d ordered! (The same had happened to us in Amsterdam with our car rental there – how blessed we are.)
It was a bit stressful navigating out of the city but once on the motorway we were all good. The views were beautiful. After 2.5 hours we reached Andorra. It was my 45th country to visit! It’s a city/country squashed between two mountains. Not at all what I expected. We parked, made a beeline for the information centre, got a map and directed on the things to see and then went about it! After a few hours we were done. We had to have the car back by 8pm and just didn’t know what Friday night traffic going into Barcelona would be like. We took a different route back, it was more beautiful than the way up – and it had no road tolls, unlike the way up!!! I know you all loved that cruise along the Croatian coast last time with Salmonella Dub so I took some clips for ya. No SD this time though!
Traffic was non existent so we had the car returned 1.5 hours early. I am glad we did the mission out there, it was a big day but so worth it! 

Our final day we packed up our stuff and took it all out to the beach. Our flight wasn’t till the evening so we had time to fill.
I was going to throw DJI up for ya all to look at the coastline but when I went for a wee walk to see where I could take off from I came across true European beach bather ladies, sooooo decided that wasn’t very appropriate and took a panoramic photo from the back of the beach, avoiding particular ladies, for you all instead!!!! You’re WELCOME!
After a few hours of people watching…the ones with their clothes ON, it was time to head to the airport. I found a limited edition baileys ‘Colada’, ahhh YUM! And smelled all the smells in the perfume section 💕
The flight out of Barcelona had been a bit of a sticky point since I booked it. I had CK as an adult fare but it would not take his birthdate, maybe he should have been a teen fare? I thought maybe I’d booked it incorrectly? I had looked for any contact details or social media I could contact with no luck. When I got to Nimes last week I found a number to call and got thee most lovely guy, who spoke English, to explain my situation to. He informed me it was all good, a system error, just check in at the counter he told me.  “Ok” I replied with great relief “you’ve just made my day!” And then hung up and thought nothing more about it….till I checked in! He had upgraded us to row 2 with ‘space plus’ (premium economy basically) given us priority boarding and extra carry on luggage allowance. He’d made my day, again!
How blessed we are.
A bit of a delay on take off even though we were loaded and ready to go on time! (Something about a busy runway) I watched the sunset and wrote this blog as we flew to our next destination.

Thanks for reading team, means so much to me. Yes I’m moving fast and yes my days can be reasonably full but that doesn’t mean I’m not thinking of home. I’d so love to hear from you and what’s going on in your world. Please keep your comms up, even if just to check in quickly.

Till next time,

Claire.

Nîmes – pronounced Neam.

A bit of background on why we are here.  Our cat is called Nimes. We acquired our cat in 2018 from a family member who had been to Nîmes on a work trip in 2017. Once he got home, the family got a kitten and Nîmes had left such an impression it was decided the kitten would be called Nimes. 

After a late arrival into the city – good ol’ intercity bus links – our wonderful Airbnb hosts rescued us from the bus station and drove us to our home for the week, all the while incessantly chatting to us in charming, broken English. 

An apartment walking distance to everything. Room to spread out, a well stocked kitchen.

Day 1, BK disappeared to a co-working space, the kids and I achieved a supermarket visit to top up on food for the week. 

A comment about French food prices, it’s not cheap aye. You think New Zealand food prices are horrendous, they’re not! It’s been so surprising over here considering how much they grow and how not very far it has to get shipped. Hoping the next few countries are a wee bit easier on the budget! 

Day 2, the kids and I had a ride around the city on a tourist ‘train’ (yes like that one at the mount.) It was good to get some bearings of the city, see what we could explore in the coming days. We then lunched with BK and went to the Nimes “Arena” (a mini Roman-built colosseum). I took some video from my phone for you in which I chat about all things production as it’s used for concerts. (In my previous life I did sound/lighting for events)

Day 3, we decided to day trip out to see a massive aqueduct, Pont du Gard. These day trips seem to be my favourite days, and this day was no exception. A very cheap €1.50 bus for 45 minutes! (You can barely buy a packet of lollies or a nice pastry for that price!)
Such a magnificent structure.
It was used to run water from Uzes to Nimes….downhill because there was no pumps in those days. It took 5 years to build the bridge and along the 50km the water had to run, it only had 17 metres of downhill slope to play with. That’s 34cm per 1 kilometre. Crazy huh! Who knows how they measured that kind of thing back in the day!!??
It was really windy, big gusts coming through the valley but BK decided he was going to risk flying DJI, so you’ll see some aerial footage on Facebook soon! 

The next few days we just milled around, did laundry, walked through some gardens, went to a big mall and shopping complex to get Nimes the cat something from Nîmes, and of course the ever pesky supermarket run. BK made the most of the co-working space and knocked out a few more work days. It was good to slow down, pace ourselves, when you’re on the road for a long time you just can’t tourist all day every day for financial reasons but equally for energy level reasons! 

So that was Nîmes – slow but needed. Busy week ahead, onward we go! 

Till next time,

Claire

Nice + Monaco

Flying to the French Riviera was wonderful.
Oh the sun. Oh the warmth. Oh the beauty.

We’ve seen a lot of France but never the south. We bailed on it last time and went to Disney instead! It was just too far to drive in our little Peugeot 208 with a 6 and 8 year old in the back seat. So we made it a priority this time and here we are. 

After a quick Uber ride from the airport we checked into our Airbnb, it’s a tiny apartment but suits us well for the few days we’re here. We arrived on Easter Saturday so as soon as we could we made haste for the supermarket and topped up on food. We just couldn’t get a straight answer out of Google if the shops were going to shut on us for Easter Sunday, or Monday!
RK and I wondered along the promenade, so pretty! So many roller skaters, runners, people walking their dogs.

The following day we went into Nice central for a walking tour. Our guide was knowledgeable and we learnt a few things, like if you look at the side of buildings closely they aren’t what they seem! I’ll post a photo to Facebook in my Nice set, see if you can work it out! We also learnt Nice is the second most visited city in France, and the second most expensive!
The kids weren’t overly happy, one didn’t feel so well, one was grumpy, so we chopped our visit of the old town a bit short and went back to our Airbnb to rest.

Waking up the next day everyone was in a good mood, we packed the day pack and ventured to a new country, Monaco.
Wow! I already loved mini country’s and have  now added this one to the list. It’s so beautiful.
But wow the wealth! Expensive luxury cars just parked anywhere and everywhere – so surprising!
It was a wonderful day walking the Grand Prix track, the harbour, the old town, the new town and everything in between. I took a couple of videos for you all which I’ll also post up to Facebook.

The most random thing about our whole Nice experience was noticing a particular, familiar, type of tree on our walk to and from our tram stop. There standing on a random bit of land, on a random street in suburban Nice is, a pohutukawa tree – with a little plaque stating ‘originated in Oceania’.  A little taste of home, made us all smile.

Our last full day I took the kids to Phoenix park, bit mini zoo bit pretty planted out gardens. BK found a co-working space and knocked out a days worth of work. He’s been getting up each morning for a 6am meeting (4pm NZT) to sync with his team. So proud of his commitment, but looking forward to him switching off when we Camino next month.

So that was Nice, yes a few of you text me ‘Is Nice nice?’ Ha ha! Yes Nice is nice.
We loved the tram line, so simple, so cheap, so frequent. We loved the colour of the sea. We loved those patisseries. We love the ease of French life – so easy to slot into.

We’re now west bound to our next and final French city. I’ll give you a hint, our cat is named after this city. We’re slowing it down and will be in one place for an entire week. Expectations for touristing are low; Expectations for work and school work are high!
We’ll see how that goes.

Hope you’re enjoying the blogs and corresponding photos! I’m SO glad I’m not a content creator! It’s a lot of work! Hours and hours ….and that’s not including actually being out and about doing stuff! I’m thankful for Facebooks scheduling app. Makes life so much simpler to get all my posts queued to roll out at 6.30am NZT each day.

Till next time,

Claire

We spent 8 days here and it was COLD but we had a lovely social time with familiar faces. It was fantastic to have wheels to get out about.

We based ourselves in the area of Putten for the first 4 days.

The day after we arrived BK made a beeline for an aquarium shop! I know! Who on earth does that?

That afternoon we were invited by some friends to a pancake house. It was Hansel and Gretel themed. It was too cold to play outside but the children had a lovely time playing inside. The building was very interactive. Almost to a Halloween type style actually.

The following day was church – songs in English, message in Dutch but we had earphones with a translator doing really well to keep up! Then lunch and a lazy afternoon with the same friends.

The following day I expected to go into Amsterdam but I couldn’t secure tickets to the Anne Frank museum/house. BK and I went in 2007 and we felt the kids were old enough to go this trip but it wasn’t to be. So we skipped Amsterdam, we had explored it well 5 years ago so went to see the old town of Amersfoort instead. I had forgotten how beautiful old towns can be. We enjoyed warming up in a cafe with hot chocolate and apple cake. Our waitress was very interested that we were from New Zealand as her boyfriend is half kiwi and his Dad lives in Auckland – such a small world.

Then it was back to our Airbnb to pack and move south to the province of Zeeland. A friend came in from London with her 4 year old to stay with us. The Airbnb was a bit of a disappointment, not quite as advertised and not all beds were made up. This made for a pretty grumpy me!

We had a couple of big days. One day we missioned into Belgium to the old town of Bruges. Bruges is known for 2 things. Beer and chocolate! 

We arrived early and just wondered the streets. It. Was. Beautiful. Then the bus loads of tourists arrived. They always busy things up! 

The smell of Belgium waffles and chocolate filled the air. Yum! Once we’d seen the sights, we left BK with CK to do a brewery tour. Bruges has 3.2km pipe underground full of beer!! The brewery wanted to keep brewing on the old town site but as the business was growing they wanted to bottle on the outskirts of town….so came up with a creative way to get the beer out there! It would be interesting to taste the beer before it goes in the pipe and after. Apparently they’re very careful about this but surely it tastes different!! 

The following day we rested while it rained all day – RK and I stayed in our jarmies all day! Glorious!

Then it was off to see the tulips. This whole 15 week trip has planned around seeing the tulips! They’re only active for about 6 – 8 weeks, we’re already 2 weeks into the season. It was an early and cold start! The Keukenhof gardens are vast and beautiful. Not all tulips were out, in another 2 weeks it would be quite the sight I think? But a lovely morning was had wondering the gardens. Lots of information to be learnt. I wanted to get DJI up to take some shots of the fields for you all but I just didn’t come across any to capture! I thought they’d be everywhere and easy to find. They weren’t. So disappointing.

We finished off the day in The Hauge. We met a colleague of BK’s. She was lovely and walked us round a few sights.

The budget took quite the wholloping as we set up phone SIM card’s and did a few expensive things. I hope to streamline a bit from now on! 

We’ve adjusted to the time zone, jet lag only lasted a few days which I’m thankful for. 

As I write this I’m sitting on a plane heading to our next country. I’m looking forward to the warmth. I struggled with the cold! I’m glad I brought my hat. I’ve worn it every time I’ve been outside. 

Till next time,

Claire

It was a good drive down from The Netherlands to a lovely place called Osterspai on the Rhine river. On the way we went through Eindhoven and called into a special beer shop to get a smoked beer BK had been looking forward to trying. We came across a car accident on the autobahn and as we sat in traffic we found that very disciplined German drivers would make two lanes on the motorway by pulling to the side of the road which left a wide lane down the middle for emergency services. Once one emergency vehicle had gone past, nobody moved, they knew there would be more emergency vehicles coming, and of course there was! Nobody decided to be disrespectful and use the wide lane themselves either which I was surprised at.

I had put a week of rest by the Rhine in my itinerary at the very beginning of planning and was so glad I did.

The first day we were there our Airbnb hosts gave us their train pass to use for the day so we went into Koblenz, which is about 15-20 minutes north of where we were staying. We went up a gondola to visit a fortress overlooking the city. There was a Family Day on which was celebrating areas of the world. So I had a German say to me “G’day Sheila, we’re learning our colours in English” it was quite funny! I replied I knew English very well thank you. Probably should have said I lived a 3 hour flight south of Australia.

The rest of the week was rest. A bit of school, a few walks, a bit of laundry, and a visit to a castle called Marksburg. BK found a co-working place in Koblenz and did some good work hours. One day I did drive the kids 30 mins south to a town called Bacharach. My parents had loved it when they were here 11 years ago. We had a walk around but it was a sleepy little village. A lot of the shops were closed 12.30pm till 2pm, possibly siesta time?

On our last full day by the Rhine we took the ferry across the river, it was only going across every 30 minutes not on demand as it had been earlier in the week, so that made us miss our train south. Fortunately I had a back up plan, to catch the next train, which we did, but we got off at the wrong station so missed the boat trip we were aiming to do by 5 minutes. However I had another back up plan to do the next boat trip an hour later. Unfortunately it turns out that one wasn’t running at that particular time that day, so it was back to the train station but as I was buying train tickets to go back to the ferry to go home the train came and we missed that by about 30 seconds! By this time I was exhausted! So we collapsed in a heap at a playground and waited for the next train an hour later. Some days you just can’t quite get it right, it was not helped by the fact we’d run out of data on our phones so couldn’t adjust the plans after things started going wrong.

Despite not doing much we loved the week, the Airbnb house and hosts were amazing. The rest was much needed, and watching the boats go up and down the river from the window or on our walks was fascinating.

On a side note about our accommodation. I heard that someone thinks we’re bunking down in people’s houses, with the hosts. This isn’t the case. Each house/apartment/cottage we rent is exclusively ours for the time we’re there. Sometimes the host lives in the same building (e.g. Berlin and Zagreb) but most of the time they live somewhere else. This was the same in Asia also. So no we don’t come back from exploring and have to make small talk. We’re just a normal family in a normal house.

Till next time,

Claire

Budget : $576 under