Hautvillers Dagonet 4The honeymoon was wonderful! We flew into Paris and visited Versailles – drove up to Reims to explore the gorgeous villages (and cellars) of the Champagne region – explored some of the chateaux along the River Loire – stayed with a delightful couple deep in the Limoges region of France where we somehow managed a rich conversation with their patchy English and my patchy French – explored the medieval city of Carcassonne… dropped into Marseilles and Aix-en-Provence – met and stayed with wonderful warm and open-hearted family in Cannes – realised a dream in Monte Carlo and on Lake Como – and discovered the Swiss Alps via train on the final leg of our adventure.

 

D2 Reims to Chalon 08 D4 Loire Chateau Villandry 20D5 Loire Chateau Amboise 02D5 Loire Chateau Amboise 05D5 Tours house 04D7 Carcassonne 09D10 Cannes beach 05D11 Monte Carlo harbour 04D12 Lake Como Vistilago balcony wineD13 Lake Como ferry 01D14 Bernina train 40

This is me with my French aunt and a pic of my knight in shining armour when we were having fun in the medieval city children’s store:

D7 Carcassonne 11 L with her aunt D7 Carcassonne 23

It was rich, stimulating, busy, and challenging. (In true ‘Whole News’ style I will acknowledge the challenging things: the difficulties with a hire car; the awful one-way-street-mazes in some of the cities that swallowed our holiday time as we struggled with traffic and confusion; the scary near-misses (twice catching a train with three minutes to spare, our luggage already on one of them…); the difficulty finding good vegetarian meals in France; the crazy lady on our train to Zurich who harassed us for having luggage… She was an entertaining crazy lady, however, and by the end of the experience we had the whole carriage and conductor on our side, and had been defended vigorously by Walter, a genuine Swiss Alps tour guide.)

D8 Marseilles or AIx 06

I love this French sign re disabled parking: ‘If you take my space, also take my handicap.’ True balance, as explained in The Hidden Order.

 D4 Chalon Great parking sign 04