When we were looking for a place to call “home” in France, we had a spreadsheet that included must-have items such as, “train station, market town, supermarkets, seaside…” As often happens, compromises are made, so “must-have” turned into “nice-to-have” for that waterfront location. Carcassonne does have a river and a canal but we’re still 50 km (31 miles) from the sea. Consequently, when we have the opportunity to vacation on the coast, Bill tries to find an accommodation that provides that outlook that we sought for our house. Today’s featured photo above across the top shows you the view that he found. Not bad at all!

Continue reading “Antibes in 5 days”

It’s hard to miss a structure that towers 60 meters (197 feet) above you and stretches left and right as far as the eye can see. You can get an idea of the size of the viaduct in Morlaix in the photo above across the top of today’s blog post. We initially scheduled a visit there as just an overnight stop on our circular rail trip around Brittany. However, our map route changed when we tried to book trains with guaranteed seat reservations. The schedules forced us to backtrack to Rennes first. Rather than rushing through, we turned this quirk into an advantage by extending our stay in Morlaix to several nights, using it as a base to explore nearby Brest via a local train and Roscoff by bus.

Continue reading “Morlaix, Brest & Roscoff”

If you are a fan of the bicycle race, Le Tour de France, you will have heard it referred to as La Grande Boucle or in English, The Big Loop. Although these days the race doesn’t necessarily make a geographic circle, sometimes even starting in another country, it did indeed complete a grand circuit around France when it was created in 1903. About every two years the riders pass through Carcassonne so we get to see them regularly—as long as you count a two-second glimpse as they all whiz by as “seeing” them! Using that concept of a big circular trip, we’ve just returned from our own grand tour by train around Brittany.

Continue reading “La Grande Boucle of Brittany”

There was a British TV series called “Coach Trip” where a busful of passengers traveled around Europe and each day they could vote off one couple that didn’t fit in with the rest of the crowd. We had our own version of that show when our neighbor brought us the paperwork for a 4-day bus trip—one day to get there and one day back plus two days at the French theme park, Puy du Fou. They skip the rollercoasters and other rides in favor of massive, historical, live-action movie set productions ranging from Roman coliseums to 17th-century villages. We set off for our long weekend adventure early on a Friday with the promise of a pause café and lunch before we got to our hotel just before dinner.

Continue reading “Coach Trip to Puy du Fou”

We’ve crisscrossed Europe by rail for decades, discovering countless destinations. For us, train travel is all about the convenience: a quick walk to the station, a relaxing ride (often with a picnic lunch!), and arrival just steps from our hotel. Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, Lisbon, Madrid—with more to be discovered. We’ve even explored Italian treasures like Milan, Turin, Bari, and Venice; yet, one iconic place remained unseen: the Eternal City. All roads (or in our case, rails) lead to Rome, but somehow, we’d never taken that particular route. We decided to change all of that by embarking on a special train journey from Paris (we joined it in Lyon) to that fabled destination for our 40th anniversary.

Continue reading “All trains lead to Rome (part 1)”