The weather in Bayeux stayed fine long enough for us to take a leisurely stroll around the Saturday morning market but by noon we had started on the 90 mile drive to Mont St Michel. It was fifty-fifty as to whether or not we made the trip to MSM because the weather forecast for the north west of France was not good – thunder storms over the next four or five days. I was in Mont St Michel some two years ago and, nice as the place is, I was all for driving south for the better weather but Vanya really wanted to visit the place and so we went – and very pleased I was too. The weather wasn’t good but it wasn’t as bad as predicted and it stayed dry most of the time we were outside and, more importantly, we had the place almost to ourselves.
The bad weather held off while we walked the causeway.
During my earlier visit the weather was warm and sunny but the place was packed with people. This time, because of the bad weather and Covid restrictions, the place was almost deserted.
We didn’t stay long because the weather was closing in on us all the time but there was always going to be time for me to look in on the St Michael Chapel…
… and walk some of the outer walls..
Then it was time to head back. Thankfully, because it started pouring with rain, we had parked up inside the MSM complex (well worth the nine euros charge) and it wasn’t too far back to the Van.
Time enough for a last photo.
One final thing, I’m often asked about tide times here. Some people want to visit the island at high tide and others at low tide. Some, like me, want to do both. I reproduce below a tide table downloaded from tideschart.com. One word of warning, if you want to walk around the island, don’t wear shoes (you can easily sink up to your ankles in the sand) and do take a small cloth to wipe your feet afterwards.
Normandy is one of my favourite parts of France but until a couple of days ago neither Vanya nor I had visited Bayeux. That has now been put right and we both love the place. Sitting on the Aure River, Bayeux is a small compact city where just about everything of interest is within easy walking distance. We parked the Van at Camping des Bords de l’Aure in the north of the city and within 15 minutes had completed a delightful walk south along the river bank to the old town centre.
It was a delightful walk along the banks of the River Aure into Bayeux
The streets in the centre are lined with a mix of beautifully preserved half timbered houses and elegant mansions and towering over almost every part of the Bayeux is the impressive Norman-Gothic Cathedral of Notre Dame. More about that later. For those wanting to know more about the city there are a series of bronze studs in the ground which if followed will lead you around the city for a mile or two to some 20 plus information panels – You can take a self guided walking tour.
The streets in the Old Town are enchanting
After a brief look around the old (medieval) part of the city we made for a small restaurant which Vanya had read about and where I had subsequently reserved a table – Le Moulin de la Galette, a Creperie on the Rue de Nesmond. The restaurant is in a beautiful setting alongside the river and it was this as much as the menu that attracted us both. There are three parts to the restaurant – inside, outside and upstairs (by an old waterwheel). We were inside. Not the best place for the views but perfect for catching the eye of a waiter whenever our glasses required filling. Vanya was on the wine but I went for the local cider (and very nice it was too). The galettes we ordered were not the best we have eaten in France but they weren’t bad. The place was packed with locals but service was good; attentive without being overbearing and; we’d eat there again.
Le Moulin de la Galette
Over the next couple of days we did all the things expected of visitors to Bayeux, such as checking out the Cathedral of Notre Dame and visiting the Musee de la Tapisserie to see and learn more about the Bayeux Tapestry (and they were well worth visiting – see below) but; equally enjoyable was our simply wandering the whole city and; perusing the local Saturday morning market on Place Saint Patrice and; people watching and drinking local beers in the city centre outside ‘Le Montmartre Bar’ on Rue Saint-Jean. Wonderful.
The Crypt
The Cathedral of Notre Dame is Norman-Gothic and dates back to the 11th century (the church was first consecrated in 1070) but only the crypt survives from that time. Much of the current building, including the 77 metre tower was constructed in the Gothic style during the 15th century. It’s most impressive from the outside.
The famous Bayeux Tapestry was first housed in the Cathedral although it is now to be found in the Musee de la Tapisserie de Bayeux on Rue de Nesmond. Part of the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme, the Bayeux Tapestry is in fact an embroidered cloth and not a tapestry at all. It is nearly 70 metres in length (and almost 2 feet wide) and in a series of some 70 richly detailed and colourful scenes portrays events leading up to and including the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. For just a few Euros it is possible to follow the ‘tapestry’ around the museum with a hand held Auto-guide Commentary which explains each scene. Unsurprisingly the story is told from a Norman perspective but, for me, it brought the tapestry to life and is truly enthralling. It was well worth the admission fee of 9.50 euros.
Just around the corner from the Musee de la Tapisserie in the very centre of the city on the largely pedestrianised Rue Saint-Jean is ‘Le Montmartre’. A small local bar with limited outside seating Le Montmartre is invariably packed (especially late afternoon and early evening as the locals make their way home from work). This is hardly surprising given the warm and friendly service, a good range of local beers and delicious tapas style food. We spent a couple of hours there during the early evening of our second day in Bayeux, just drinking and people watching. I could repeat that again and again.
The local market is another great place to people watch and the regular Saturday morning market on the Place de Saint Patric is no exception. It is a typical (albeit fairly large) French market at which you can buy just about anything from calvados to goslings. Particularly appealing was some of the fast food (take a look at the paella in one of the photos below) and the fish stalls (which consisted of super large tanks full of live crabs, lobsters, crevettes, etc).
EUROPE TOUR 4 BEGINS – Finally, the Covid situation seems to be improving! It is June 2021 and France has re-opened it’s borders to tourists and we have begun another tour of Europe. Hurrah!
All aboard and let’s go…
The original plan was that Tour 4 would commence late March or early April 2021 and last until the end of Summer, with us exploring some of France, Austria, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Georgia (and perhaps even Azerbaijan) and then finding our way home again. The new Brexit rules limit the amount of time we can spend in EEC countries to just 90 days in every 180 day period, hence we developed an outline plan that would see us divide our time evenly during the first six months of the tour between EEC (France, Austria, Italy and Greece) and non EEC countries (Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan). The delay caused by Covid lockdowns has put paid to that plan and as of now we have no fixed agenda. We are back in France with the Van and our two dogs and that is all that matters. We’ll make plans as we go.
… an early stop at a Motorway Aire while we determine where to overnight
The paperwork necessary for us to get back to France was enough to try the patience of Job. If Covid wasn’t bad enough with vaccinations and vaccination certificates, Antigen tests and associated certificates, etc; Brexit rendered our pet passports invalid and … Sod it! You don’t want to know! We’re here.
During previous tours the trip through the Chunnel went very smoothly but on this occasion there was a delay for the best part of two hours because of a train breakdown – frustrating but no real problem. We can live with two hours out of a tour that will hopefully last a number of months. In real terms it meant only that when we finally arrived in France we decided to park up sooner rather than later so as to find a decent restaurant and bar.
Brexit has well and truly arrived – French immigration insisted on stamping our passports. The last time they did that was early in the 1970’s
A little town called Wimereux delivered on all counts. It’s a fairly quiet seaside resort on the French Opal Coast just to the east of Boulogne. We found a well priced municipal camping site on the edge of the town, stocked up on essentials from a local Carrefour store (i.e. bottles of Cotes du Rhone, Picpoul de Pinet and, of course, Vanya’s favourite Cremant) and not long after were sitting on the terrace of a reasonably priced beach restaurant eating oysters and mussels with carafes of particularly good Muscadet and a not bad Chardonnay.
We were soon sitting on the terrace of a seaside restaurant (dogs settled quietly under the tables) and tucking into copious carafes of wine, fresh oysters and large bowls of mussels…… and we stayed there until the sun went down
Wimereux was a pleasant enough place and it served our purpose but, except for the beach it offered little to warrant staying on and in the morning we elected to move on to Bayeux in Normandy.
One interesting aspect to Wimereux are the countless beach huts stretching the full length of a fairly long promenade; all of them named and many painted by local artists Beanie liked the place
It is Friday 25 June 2021 and it is only now that I discover I didn’t complete and post the last blog of Europe Tour 3 during 2020! Silly me. Here it is…
Our last night of the third tour was spent in France at a small two star campsite in the hamlet of Presles-et-Boves on the Aisne River and it was some time early in November. An increasing number of Covid lockdowns throughout mainland Europe had finally prompted us to conclude the tour and head back to the UK and we broke the journey from Colmar to Calais at the ‘Camping Le Domaine de la Nature’. No, it wasn’t a naturist campsite!
The owners of the campsite were wonderful in that they were quite happy for us to stay over in the event the Anglo-French border was closed because of Covid but, no problem, we secured a place on the Shuttle back to the UK the following afternoon.
Sadly, no interesting photos; just two snaps of the River Aisne, where we walked the dogs. A disappointing ending to a really great tour.
We arrived late at our campsite on the edge of Colmar by the River L’Ill but the receptionist, bless her, had stayed late to check us in. I stopped at the same campsite two years ago for a few nights and knew it would be open this time of the year but, because of the National Covid Lockdown starting the next day, I wasn’t sure if we would be allowed to stay the two nights we needed (we had to get the dogs seen by a local vet for tapeworm tablets before they would be allowed back into the UK) but, I needn’t have worried. The receptionist told us that whatever happened we could stay the extra night. Again, bless her.
The camp site on the River L’Ill – (Camping de L’Ill -GPS: N48. 4′ 51″ E7. 23’12”)
We were happy staying over, it gave us a chance to wander around Colmar, a small town in the Alsace Region of France not far from the German border. Vanya had never seen the place. I walked the largely pedestrian old town on my own that first morning and I have never seen it so quiet. It was the first day of the Lockdown in France and the place was virtually deserted. It was much the same in the afternoon when I showed Vanya around the town.
The old part of Colmar is a labyrinth of cobbled streets and timber framed chalk box coloured houses with steep pitched rooves and wooden shutters and it is truly beautiful. When I last stayed there, in 2017, it was packed (not least because it was the day of the town’s annual 10 km run) and I arrived as the runners were finishing. Not so this time.
What is particularly sad is that prior to our arriving the local authority had been putting up the town’s Christmas decorations. Ordinarily, Colmar has 5 weeks of Christmas Markets which are supposedly amongst the best in France – I suspect that will not happen this year.
The Little Venice area of ColmarTwo more photos of Little VeniceI sat and had a pint of beer on this little square in 2017. Nobody drinking today because no bars were openThere were very few people about. I didn’t see more than two dozen people during the whole morning in the town and during that time I twice entered the covered market.
I probably mentioned this in my earlier blog on the town in 2017 but, amongst other things, Colmar was the birthplace of Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi who created the Statue of Liberty. The house he lived in is now a museum dedicated to his work and there’s a statue of Bartholdi in the Parc du Chateau d’Eau with him holding a small replica of the statue of “Liberty Enlightening The World”.
The statue of Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi in the Parc du Chateau d’Eau in Colmar and a photo (not mine) of his masterpiece
Oh, and we made it to the vet. Would you believe it, he charged a staggering 91 Euros for administering two tapeworm tablets?!? Robbery!
Situated at the southern end of the Romantic Road, within walking distance of the Austrian border, Fussen is a small, pretty town on the banks of the River Lech with a history of violin and lute making (you can learn all about that in the town’s museum). Don’t get too excited about the Romantic Road – there is nothing in the least romantic about the road(s). It is simply a 300 mile mix of roads between Wurzburg and Fussen, stylized by a group of travel agents in the 1950’s who were out to promote Bavaria.
None of the above is to suggest you shouldn’t visit the area and especially Fussen. Fussen has it all – a medieval old town complete with it’s own castle (the Hohes Schloss), sitting in the shelter of the Ammer Mountains amongst numerous lakes. It is a very pretty town and well placed for visits to other similarly pretty towns and, of course, to at least two very famous castles, the Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau Castles.
I walked from Brunnen to Fussen along a good path on the banks of the Forggensee, passing through the villages of Schwangau and Horn on the way. The weather was brightening all the time and the walk was delightful, taking no more than an hour and a quarter even allowing for photo stops. A walkers path goes all the way around the Forggensee but I imagine that walk would take about 6 hours. It’s a sizeable lake.
That’s the view towards Fussen from near Schwangau at the beginning and the end of my day
The old town in Fussen is small but enchanting. It could probably be walked in an hour or so but I was keen to make the most of it and took the best part of 4 hours strolling the old town, the castle, the Lechtfall, the Baum Garten and the town’s principal churches.
The Old Town with it’s narrow lanes, cobbled streets and pastel coloured buildings is almost perfect
For me, Die Heilig Geist Spitalkirche (the Church of the Holy Ghost) stands out from the others in the town as being one of the most unusual and impressive churches I have seen. The original 15th century church was destroyed in a fire in 1733 and when it was rebuilt a few years later, it was constructed in the style of the monastery church of the Franciscans of Dillingen and with the exterior being adorned with colourful frescoes.
The Heilig Geist Spitalkirche (Church of the Holy Spirit) – Only small but packed with colour, inside and out. Not easy to see in my photo but the Holy Trinity feature in the upper part of the frescoe while the Saints Florian (on the left) and Christophorus (on the right) feature in the lower part.
The high point of the town (quite literally) is the Hohes Schloss, a one time retreat of the Bishops of Augsburg, which sits alongside St Mang’s Abbey. Access to the castle courtyard (which is a masterpiece of illusion) is free but there’s a charge of 4 Euros to go inside the castle. It is worth 4 Euros for the views over the town alone but from inside you can also access the state art gallery.
Now that’s a castle!
I found a cafe-bar before leaving Fussen and, while reflecting on the numerous photographs I had taken during the day, enjoyed a particularly good Apfel Strudel. That was always going to help me cover the ground back to the Van in no time.
That’s the Schwangau church steeple… I’m parked a mile or so further on… and there’s the camp site with the Van parked by the waters edge
We opted to stay for a couple of days at the 5* Camping Brunnen at Schwangau in the Allgau region of Bavaria. The campsite is almost equidistant between Die Konigschlosser (i.e. the castles of Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau) and the town of Fussen. Two days would allow us to catch up on some chores and visit both castles and the town.
The Van is parked at the waters edge…… and that’s the view from the VanThe camp site wasn’t cheap but it offered all the facilities you would expect of a 5* camp in Germany and we were situated right on the Forggensee. The views were great.
Because of poor weather the dogs had been denied their regular exercise and I took them with me on the 12 mile round trip towards Neuschwanstein Castle, passing the Hohenschwangau Castle and the church of St Coloman on the way.
The first castle we saw up close was the Hohenschwangau (no time to dwell here but in any event it looked closed) and then it was on to St Coloman.
Hohenschwangau Castle together with a picture of Ludwig II of Bavaria who was brought up there as a child and who subsequently had Neuschwanstein and various other prominent buildings builtSt Coloman Church with Neuschwanstein in the backgroundSt Coloman – I didn’t go inside because I had the dogs with me
My primary target that day was Neuschwanstein, a most elaborate castle sitting on a rock ledge over the Pollat Gorge in the Bavarian Alps. It was built by order of Bavaria’s so called “Mad King” Ludwig II; construction beginning in 1868/69 but not being quite finished before Ludwig died in 1886. Ludwig II was a great admirer and supporter of the composer Richard Wagner and much of the castle was inspired by Wagnerian characters. Indeed, Neuschwanstein is German for New Swan Stone and the Swan Knight is the principal character from Wagner’s Opera Lohengrin.
Neuschwanstein Castle in the Ammer MountainsThe Ammer Mountains
Neuschwanstein is a fairy tale castle in a truly beautiful setting. The best place to take photographs of the castle is from above but I didn’t have time to climb above it and, besides, our little dog (Beanie) was getting tired.
While Neuschwanstein’s look is that of a medieval castle, it was equipped inside with 19th century state of the art technology. For example on every floor of the castle there were toilets with an automatic flushing system (water being supplied from a spring some 200 meters above the castle) and an air heating system for the whole castle. Today, it is one of the most visited castles in Germany and one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe with over 1.3 million people visiting. It is said to be the inspiration behind Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom.
Another quite remarkable project of Ludwig’s was the Linderhof Palace. This then very private palace was designed as a refuge for an increasingly reclusive king to hide away in. Being designed for just one person, Ludwig himself, the palace was tiny with just 10 rooms (4 of which were for servants) and the dining table was designed to accommodate just one person. If you think Neuschwanstein is a fairy tale palace, Linderhof has to be seen to be believed.
The Linderhof Palace, not far from Ettal.
Ludwig II’s situation was tragic. It seems he became obsessive about his personal projects and indifferent to state business. It is said too that he was unable to rein in his excessive spending; so much so, his government advisors started plotting against him and, very suddenly, had him diagnosed as clinically insane, and therefore incompetent. Although he had no prior diagnosis of ‘madness’ he was declared mentally insane by four separate, government-sanctioned psychiatrists and removed as King. Historians don’t know for sure how ‘Mad’ King Ludwig died but not long after, his body was found floating in Lake Starnberg alongside the body of his personal psychiatrist, Dr Gudden.
Now if that is not material for a Netflix Movie, nothing is. Time to head back to the Van. The dogs are wiped out.
Oberammergau is a small town of 5,000 people in the Ammer Valley at the foot of the Kofel Mountain. The town is known primarily for it’s Passion Play which is held every 10 years and to a lesser extent for it’s woodcarvers (there are lots of them) but it deserves a mention too for once being the home of a certain Franz Zwinck.
Franz Zwinck was a house painter who focused mostly on exteriors and who lived in Oberammergau during the late 18th century. It was he who started painting the frescoes, common throughout Bavaria, which so enhance the appearance of the Region’s pastel coloured buildings. The frescoes are known as Luftlmarelei and are named after the house he lived in and presumably painted: Zum Luftl. Not many people know that.
Almost all of the buildings in Oberammergau are covered in Luftlmarelei. Many depict religious scenes from the Passion Play while others reflect local pastimes or are simply decorative. All are striking and do much to enhance the buildings’ appearance.
As already strated, Oberammergau is best known for it’s Passion Play which was first performed in 1634 and has been performed during every year ending in a zero since then with exceptions only of 1920, 1940 and 2020. The play in 1920 was postponed to 1922 because of post World War 1 austerity. The play in 2020 has been postponed to 2022 because of Covid and the play in 1940 was cancelled because of World War 2 but, countering that, extra productions were staged in 1934 (300th anniversary) and 1984 (350th anniversary).
The Play came about after a man returning to the village in 1633 for Christmas brought the bubonic plague with him. He and countless others died until the surviving villagers made a pledge that, if God were to spare them any more deaths, they would stage a passion play every 10 years during which they would re-enact the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is said that the deaths stopped from that moment and that those then sick with the plague all recovered.
So began the Passion Play which now directly involves over 2,000 actors, singers, instrumentalists and technicians – all of whom must be residents of Oberammergau – and which nowadays attracts the best part of half a million spectators to 100 performances during the period May to October.
First held in the local church, the Passion Play is now performed in a modern theatre capable of accommodating some 5,000 spectators. If you’re thinking of going, you might consider learning some German. The Play is delivered only in German (although I’m told there is an English translation available for those who do not speak German – How does one read the translation in the dark? The play goes on for hours with no less than a 3 hour dinner break)
Like so many places we have visited during this tour, Covid has seen to it that most places are empty of tourists. That proved to be the case in Oberammergau too. After a very pleasant wander around a remarkably empty town, Vanya and I adjourned to a baker coffee shop and enjoyed some quite wonderful cakes with our coffee – If I’m honest, I ate all the cakes.
Lot’s of lovely cakes – Mine! All Mine!!
I’ll finish with a few random photos of the town…
Oberammergau sits in the Ammer Valley on the banks of the Ammer River and under the Kofel Mountain. That’s the Ammer River in the above photos with Kofel Mountain in the second photo.
Garmisch-Partenkirchen is not the town it once was and proved a big disappointment; so much so we were in Ettal before noon.
Our next stop after GaPa was to be Oberammergau and weren’t going to stop in Ettal but it is such a beautiful little village and it was on the road to Oberammergau, the Alpine road, that we simply had to pause.
The biggest surprise about Ettal is it’s Benedictine Monastery. It dominates the village and I parked up to investigate this magnificent building (well, it’s a collection of buildings really) and…
The front of an abbey which turned out to be a monastery with a difference
Ettal Abbey was founded in 1330 by the then Emperor Ludwig but is now a Benedictine Monastery with a community of 50+ monks. What is unusual about this monastery is that in 1618 the Duke of Bavaria granted a concession allowing the monks to produce and sell beer and since then increasing sections of the monastery have been given over to the production of beer on a commercial basis. Parts of the monastery are now a brewery!
That’s quite a range of beers
And it doesn’t stop there; it also has a distillery! Indeed, Ettal is almost as renowned for its spirits (as in spirits for drinking) as it’s beer; some made with or at least flavoured with local fruits (e.g. various brandies and of course Kirschwasser) and others made with neutral grain spirits (vodka). What a find!
We couldn’t stay long but there is a museum within the complex that I would very much like to visit when next passing through. I would also consider staying over in Ettal given it’s close proximity to both Oberammergau (5 minutes drive) and the Lindhof Palace (10 minutes drive).
Ettal and the surrounding countryside was a delight. Last night’s snow was very obvious on the mountains
Our next stop was to be Garmisch-Partenkirchen and we made it to Garmisch, passing through some pretty villages as we did so, and we did pause in the centre but parking was difficult and the weather was closing in (with snow forecast for the late afternoon and evening) and so we headed for a highly recommended camp site some 14 km down the road with a view to returning to GaPa the next day.
There were no shortages of churches in Oberau (all within 100 yards of each other) and, such a small village
The site was five star and while not cheap appeared to have everything we could possibly need. The shower block was unreal; sparkling clean and with underfloor heating, numerous separate shower cubicles, unlimited hot water and even a bathroom with a bathtub! I suppose I shouldn’t have been so surprised given that the camp site is geared up for winter camping and skiing.
Impressive camp site with all mod cons including a dog bath
It’s restaurant had plenty of good reviews and we decided to eat there that evening – the food and wine were good and not silly expensive.
And so to bed and, yes, it snowed throughout the night but it was that horrible cold slushy snow that fell and that was when camp site fell right down in my estimation. The Van wasn’t parked on hardstanding but on soft mushy ground that became a cold shallow pond.
