Last days in Nantes + Driving around Northern France

The first part of our journey was 5 days driving through France- what a fantastic way to start off. The freedom of a car was amazing! After being so tied to the infrequent bus and tram schedule this felt so freeing.
Below are some pictures of our last morning in Nantes as Josh said goodbye to his class friends.



Here is a google map of the route we drove: (click on it to see it in detail)
















From Nantes we first drove to Vannes (B on the google map above). We spent some time exploring the city (eating the best crepes in the world!) and then made our way to see the Morbihan region's neolithic blocks. They date back to 5000 BC! To be honest we thought these would be bigger... but hey how they even hauled all these rocks here is impressive enough!



We then made our way to the northern coast up to Saint Malo and Mont St-Michel. If you ever get the chance, these are must see's!

Here are some pics of the abbey of Mont St-Michel:


Here are some pics of the port of Saint Malo. Inside the walls it's quite touristy, but nonetheless still beautiful. The moules et frites (mussles and fries) run rampant here as well- I think josh and I ate this at least once everyday! (Roquefort was the best!)



Here when tide was low (apparently here they have a fluctuation of 15m between low and high tides) you can walk out on the causeway to the fortress- but if the tide starts to come in you have to stay there until it's out again!





We spent the next couple of days on the Normandy Coast (D and E on the google map above) exploring the D-day beaches. Josh and I felt very proud to be Canadian as we visited many of the sites where Canadians fought bravely and fell. There is a city called "Bernieres-sur-Mer" where the Canadians first landed and liberated the house shown below. Needless to say when the lady from the tourist office found out we were Canadian she was very excited.



We visited the Juno Beach Museum:



As well as the Canadian cemetery:



And American cemetery (the largest in Europe- 9387 soldiers. This is where they also filmed the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan):




and just for contrast, the German cemetery:


Josh and I both got a little chocked up reading the epitaphs at the Canadian cemetery, some of these boys were just 17 years old..

Further west of Juno Beach sits Omaha beach (where some of the bloodiest battles took place). Here you have the opportunity to visit the war torn site "Pointe du Hoc Ranger Memorial" which has been mostly left untouched and shows the battle scars- bomb craters, and gun emplacements- and the 30m cliffs that the American soldiers had to scale.




At another site called Arromanches we sat on German tanks and explored bunkers. I was surprised at my stamina during these days as i'm not much of a war-buff and this was the most war I have ever seen (I feel like my dad would have been proud! lol). But it was really worth it- as I am much more knowledgable about WWII and seeing all of this first hand was really powerful. But after 2 full days of this I was war-ed out!




Our road trip was now nearing the end and we made our way along the coast and explored Etretat (F on the google map). We stayed here for 2 nights. Etretat is a small fishing village that is known for its twin cliffs. It's a very cute french village (again slightly touristy but less so than other places) and as well this area is known for it's seafood- here we continued our mussel binge and in total over this week I ate more mussels than I have in my entire life! The neat thing too is that getting to this village takes you through all these other small French villages. That in itself is a real treat to just drive through all these towns. Much different from Canada where you have large sprawling cities and then nothing, but in France there are tons of small villages separated by just a few miles. There were moments when we would get so lost (our map was not as detailed as it needed to be for driving!) and just keep stumbling upon these small villages.
Here are some photos from Etretat:





Our last day we spent the day in Rouen, where Joan of Arc was tried for heresy and burned at the stake in 1431 (thank you lonely planet for that date). This city is also a must see- It's architecture is very unique, and the food.. very yummy. It was here that we had something called "oeufs cocottes" (eggs with grated cheese baked in cream in a small dish) which was absolutely amazing!





That night we drove to Beauvais (just north of Paris) for our early flight the next day to Prague.
Traveling around France was amazing. It is a country so rich in history, food and wine- definitely top on my list (and I haven't even explained to you my love affair with Paris!) So saying goodbye to all of that was extremely bittersweet. But, Josh and I were very excited to see what Prague would bring.




Here is the route through central Europe that we took for the next 25 days:

France and Central Europe Trip: July-August 2010

Dear friends and family!
I hope this email finds you well! This update is loooong overdue- I have been meaning to write this for some time now, was even planning on blogging throughout our travels in central Europe, but time just seemed to slip away! So here now I sit, one week into this next leg of our journey, in our studio apartment in a very happening area of Stockholm, waiting for Josh to arrive in a taxi with all our luggage that has finally arrived- But i'm getting ahead of myself.


It seems like so long ago now but we left Nantes on the 27th of July in a rental car (the photo above is us in the main square in nantes, to the left is our dorm), after 1 full day + half a night of cleaning our place. There was a moment was I was even on my knees washing the floor (mom, Becky, Sean and Ian, you would have been so proud!).
We sent 7 pieces of luggage to Sweden (how did we have that much??) in a truck that one of josh's classmates organized.

For me, leaving Nantes was met with utter joy and elation as I could not wait to be far far away from that isolated campus and to finally have some time with Josh to just "be" without the stress of school.
But I did become quite the chef! Here is my baked brie with homemade cranberry chutney and our favorite strawberry spinach salad- I think that entire brie cost 5 euro? I will miss the cheese...

And speaking of food, we also managed to make our own sushi and got pretty good at it!

For Josh though I think leaving was a little more bittersweet as this meant another chapter of his Masters was closing, and he would again be leaving a place and a language he had come to know, just to have to restart in another month. But, there was no doubt that we were both very excited about our upcoming month of traveling and for Josh this was a much deserved month off.

We had to be in Stockholm on August 25th, so this left a month of exploring. We chose to drive around Northern France for a couple of days and then fly to Prague on Aug. 1st- From there we would explore the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria and Poland.

A common question i'm getting asked is "what was your favorite city", or what did you like best about this trip, and to be honest, that is so difficult to answer as it was all so wonderful and unique. So over the next couple of days i'm hoping to recount our "top 10" of each of the countries and show you some of our favorite photos.

New pics

Hey all,

We just posted a couple of new pictures, so click on the photo to the right and it will take you to Picasa :)

d

We found a home!

So great news :) We have found a home!  After much searching, we decided that it would be best if we rented a room in a shared apartment, this way it would be much cheaper, and then Josh would have ppl to talk to and learn Spanish from. 

We found a place that is about 2 metro stops away from his school. It is the top floor of an apartment building, 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. We will be in the largest room, and the 2 ppl living there are really really nice. They speak a little English, so this is good, but there is also a great opportunity to learn from each other. 

What a huge relief!!! How nice it is to have some time in the day to do some sightseeing etc., instead of running around looking for places to live! wooohoooo!

We took some time and went for a jog in Retiro park (they say that madrid has the most green space out of all the European capitals), and it was amazing. Huge park with tons of paths, and large water fountains. We look forward to exploring this more!

We also took advice from Frommer's best of madrid guide and bought some pastries from a little store that has been there since 1830! They use an antique cash register, and wow, they were awesome- this is definitely a place to visit again and again..  and then I dragged Josh into some clothing shops and had just a taste of what madrid has to offer.. dangerous ladies.. there are some really neat shops, beautiful dresses and jackets.. if only i could spend 230 euros on a coat eh?? 

So it's Josh's first day of his masters tomorrow, I think he is excited to get it started, and now that we have found a place, things are less stressful.  We have also been hanging out with another of his classmates who is also from Canada, funny enough was working in Trail, BC, at the same company Josh did a co-op term with.. small world eh??  He is the one who helped us find our place (translated for us on the phone, and physically went with us to all these places), and we have a really good time with him- so it's good to know that Josh will have some great classmates!

We are thinking of taking a day trip to Toledo over the weekend, but we'll see how everything pans out.  I can't believe I have to leave on Tuesday, but at least I know that josh is in good hands!

We will post some pictures later.. we haven't actually taken that many, but just today we took some of the surrounding architecture and wow, amazing.

Hope everyone is well.

Take care,

Dan

   

Hey everyone!

Sorry that it has taken so long to write, it literally has been go go go.. 

It is Sunday morning here in madrid, and it's looking like it will be another beautiful day.  Josh and i have been so lucky, the weather here is gorgeous, warm nights, and hot days, but not too hot or humid! We thought it might be similar to the Philippines, (josh went through 2 sweat towels a day!), but it's not, so we are so happy!

Two things i have come to know for sure: Spanish women really do dress to the nines, everyday- the clothing here is beautiful, and i can't wait to actually start doing some shopping! i salivate as I glance at the mannequins in the windows.. wow.  and secondly, the city never sleeps.. no seriously it doesn't.  Somehow we ended up with a hostel facing just off a busy street, so sleeping has not been the most fun, but we are switching hostels (yet again) today, so hopefully it will be a little quieter! Josh and I have now gotten in the routine of going to bed around 3am.. is it the jetlag, or the extremely strong 8pm coffee??  But we spend the majority of our nights scouring over rental apartment ads, using "google translator" (our new best friend) to help us understand. We are getting to understand some spanish, ambluembas, means furnished, which we recognize quote fast now.  it's actually quite surprising how little english is spoken here!!  we were shocked. Every time we ask, do you speak English, the response is usually no.  So we struggle through, with my poor Spanish (but actually better than i thought) and our mix of french, somehow we are making it.  We are trying to learn new words everyday, and we are able now to have short spanish exchanges.  At the gym yesterday (this was very exciting for me!!) we bought a day pass, and this occurred mostly in spanish. 

Other random adventures include lugging our massive amount of suitcases on the metro our first day-this was not fun, and someone actually tried to scam us! We were going up an escalator at one metro stop and these two guys hit the stop button and come up to us and asked to carry our luggage up.. i immediately said no and waved them away, thinking, huh that is wierd, why did he stop the escalator? we then realized that they were trying to scam us, and unfortuantely we had to lug our suitcases then down the escalator.. we were extremely annoyed, and one of the metro police then came up to us (speaking only in spanish) and I think asked us if we had all our bags, and for me to hold my hand bag close..  that was like one hour after getting to madrid..  an interesting welcome!  but we were lucky, my gut immediately said get these guys away, but we heard from Josh's program coordinator that other students weren't so lucky and one of his classmates from pakistan had already been pick pocketed!  So we are very careful, everything is always zipped up and close to the body, so i'm not worried. 

But we went to Josh's school on Friday, and got to meet the two coordinators that he has been doing email exchange with for the past 4 months. They are such nice ladies!! offered to be our translators for finding an apartment, etc.  His school is in a really nice part of madrid, older, as everything is here, and we have already eaten at the student cafeteria.. haha.

So as the apartment hunt continues full steam ahead, we take some time to walk and sit at cafes and drink coffee and sangria.. but it definitely has not been a touristy vacation so far- as we expected. we spend a lot of time in our room on the internet looking at ads.  So we are hoping that maybe tonight or tomorrow we will get some time to do some walking tours and wander the city more, possibly even meeting up with some of his classmates later tonight.

So overall, we are loving this city! so vibrant, and quite multicultural, the older madrid has these windy cobblestone streets and old stunning architecture that i just love!  There are always people in the street, eating tapas (which we have yet to really get our hands into), and chatting-  there is a lot of life here.  It is a relaxed, laid back atmosphere and getting around with the metro is amazing. I can't believe I am leaving this place to go back to vancouver.. but i guess i should go graduate eh?  I will hopefully be getting feedback on my project tomorrow, so after I get the greenlight, I should feel better about everything.

OK well, phew, sorry about the book, but I had a lot to say (and didn't even cover all of it!).

I will write sooner next time and post some pictures.  Hope you are well!

We'll have a glass of sangria for you!!

Dan 

we are here!

We are here.. wow, what an adventure so far! But we made it in one piece, and actually made it till 5:30pm before crashing.    I have so much to say...  but my eyelids are closing, so it will have to wait. but i wanted to let you know that we are safe and sound (and loving it!!! just had a 9$ pitcher of sangria at a wicked restaurant)

till tomorrow!

dan

On our way...

Hey everyone!

We thought it would be fun to blog about this first trip to Spain! So keep posted to hear about all of our wacky adventures.

This trip is going to be interesting as its purpose really is to get settled and find josh a place to live, and open bank accounts etc.. very different from the other traveling we have done recently. 

But I'm thinking there will also be time for some sight-seeing and fun (apparently in one of our madrid books there is a recommended 'tapas' tour), so i'm hoping we will be eating all sorts of wonderful stuff, and of course shopping (and there is a huge flea market so josh is happy)

Our spanish is poor, but I think we will get by just fine.. nothing can be as bad as japanese characters, so I know we will be fine!

We love you all, and wish you the best over these next months!

Danny and Josh