nederland

vanaf 24 december tot 6 januari zijn we in nederland;

nu zijn we in haamstede bij mijn zus jeannette en familie.

wij wensen al mijn blog volgers prettige feestdagen en een gelukkig nieuw jaar !

seine maritime

the host of our chambre dhote gave us lots of wine, kir and calvados,
and also tickets to go and taste the calvados for free,
but we descided not to go to the calvados factory, because we had a long way to go today,
and we rather travel on country-roads then high-ways, so it takes some time.

the weather was beautifully clear, and we started with finding a toll-free bridge over the seine,
starting near le havre; and the 3rd bridge (rather a long end east !) was free.

 

we looked at falaises (falez in turkish) and even found near honfleur a lighthouse on some falaises but on land, we presume the seine filled the land later with alluvium...

and some nice villages we visited; as f.i. fecamp

and again we saw lotst of houses with "stripes" and "pruikebollen" trees.

around 18:00 we arrived in dunkerque our last stop before holland.

bretagne & normandie

we started in dinan

and went to st malo

then mont st michel (we looked form outside, because it was raining)

and colleville sur mer to see omaha beach (word war 2)

and then via bayeux

to our 2nd chambre dhotes of this trip in valseme in an elegant house dining together with our hosts.

bretagne

this day started with beautiful weather but went later from drops of rain, to a lot of rain and dry again in the evening. not ideal weather for a lot of site-seeing.

we walked around in the centre of nantes

and later had a quick look at st nazaire, but rain made a long stay impossible.

then we went via rennes to dinan, where we sleep tonight in a cheap but comfortable room in a campanile hotel.

south of france

after sight seeing in bordeaux on saturday, where we used P+R (park and use the tram to go to the city centre, which was cheap and very comfortable)

 

 

we said goodbye to henri&jeannette on sunday morning

and went along country road first to aubeterre with a monolith church (build from one rock)

and then to cognac ( between bergerac and cognac nearly all village names end with ...ac  why? )

and ended at our chambresdhote la vallee in xanton, where we had our pineau cognac, because on this sunday we could find it nowhere else !
 

we have a wonderfully large room and had a very nice dinner but... we discovered that our hosts were not real french but an expat english couple! 

france

no custom control on our way from spain to france and a nice trip through lowlands and forests with small cities as f.i. DAX,

broughed us to the last part of the dordogne and bergerac with low hills and lots of wine-yards. the weather kept on being very good and at the end of the day we arrived at the house of my brother in pinceguerre.

the first day in bergerac we posted my drivers license application and solved internet problems and had a walk around town and in the garden more leaves had to be burned. a quite day again..

the last day in spain

from comillas we made today our last spanish kms; first we past by santander and had a quick look.

then we went into bilbao, a nice city with a bit parisian feeling, nicely decorated older looking buildings and buildings of a modern architecture and a enormously big and beautiful dog made of flowers (a nice birthday present for toffie !) and it was warm! 25 degrees.

then we walked through san sebastian, the bascque city, with a beautiful beach around a bay in the city centre; and for the first time we found a statue of don quichot.

only a few km further is the village of hondarribia, where we will stay our last night in spain,
we sleep in a casa rural a little bit above the village with france and hendaye on the otherside of the bay.

comillas

never heared of comillas. it is a bit off the beaten track, but we could really recommend it to you !

stay in one of the nice apartments of casa luisa or it is also possible to stay somewhere on a camping, and comillas will offer you a lovely village in nice. surroundings, at sea with a sandy beach and with a lot of sites to be seen close by.

 today we started with a short trip again through this austrian landscape to the museum and caves of altamira and admired the cave drawings and all explanations given.

then we went back to comillas to look at all the beautifull buildings there. 

with as the best : le capricho of gaudi, one of his first buildings made when he was 30,

 surrounded with a garden and a cave (at that time 130 ago the altamira caves where just discovered).

in the village centre we had a 3course menu de dia for only 10 euro !

afterwards we sat in the sun on our balcony with all that comillas has to offer in view.

 

north of spain

today started with rain, what seems to be normal in coruna, but after half an hour it stopped, the sky cleared and when we arrived in comillas it was around 20 degrees.

the landscape in northern spain is unexpected beautiful, it is bit like austria but then near the sea. we made a lunch stop in aviles, a lively town with a lot of industrie and a niemeyer cultural centre!

before me my passport had arrived at our apartment in comillas, so we are complete again! we have been upgraded to a bigger apartment, with terraces, balkonies and wood decorations everywhere. we drank our apperitive on the balkony that was still in the warm sun.