Hola!
We are finally just over the jet lag... What an incredible journey! The highlights according to the children - "meeting Janet and Paul", "seeing the cave dwellings", "meeting Guy and Tessa", "it was the best holiday ever!", "seeing the actual cave paintings", "spending time with new family"...
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Tessa trying out her flying wings
at the Science Museum |
The conference in Valencia was great and Adrian learned heaps! Many of the sessions were appropriate for the work he does and the ones that were not were well done. We had fun at the opening night dinner - Adrian was the best New Zealand recruiter! He did not enjoy his paella at all as he was speaking with new radiologist friends about the wonders of New Zealand and how terrific doing a long term (one year) locum is! He is right of course. The closing dinner and flamenco dance performed by an xray tech and her partner - why she does xray I do not know -
was terrific. We really had a nice time.
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| Arts and Science Center buildings |
While in Spain we were met by Guy and Tessa! Adrian was thrilled to see two of the three (Alex is busily working so could not join us). They seemed very happy to see their father. The girls and I enjoyed it too. We were able to spend some time in the city and at the hotel pool together. We shared meals and good conversation. Adrian took them all to the Science museum while I was learning to make paella and they all had a really good time by the sound of it. The Arts and Science Centre in Valencia is an architectural marvel! Gorgeous inside and out. Enjoyed time walking around the old city of Valencia The Central Market was something to see with a huge array of meat, fruit and veg and chicken heads and chicken feet, nuts, whatever you wanted. The architecture in the old town and the Cathedral were awesome.
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| old town Valencia |
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| in the Cathedral - statues of kings |
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| fun! |
Guy and Tessa left on Friday to head to Barcelona for some young adult fun and we left on Saturday to drive the 7 hours to our gite in Domme in the Dordogne region of France. This region is at the heart of the prehistoric cave painting and dwelling area. There is evidence there of human life dating back 35,000 years - yes that is thirty five thousand years! - shocking and amazing and really quite hard to grasp.
The last 45 minutes of our travel from Spain was spent on tiny roads not intended for automobiles but for knights in shining armor...
We eventually found our gite down a farm track past an abandoned car and a hungry horse. The gite was a converted pig sty and had been done out well by the British owners and their son in law Ben. That night we drove the two miles into Domme through a 13th century castle gate and found what turned out to be our most frequented restaurant, the Auberge de la Rode, in the tiny village square of this ancient hill bastide. The Knights Templars were imprisoned here in the 13th century. We had a great prix fixe meal. Foie gras is the local specialty - the girls love it! It was walnut season as well so the salads and desserts reflected the abundance.
Adrian's sister, Janet and her husband Paul joined us for the first week. What a treat!!!!! This was their first encounter with the girls and a great time was had by all. We spent the week exploring the local chateaux and ancient caves while having some good evening meals. We loved seeing Castelnaud and the jardin de Marqueyssac (gardens). During our travels, Paul even stopped the car to let me take photos! While not so great for the traffic situation it was great for me.
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| dinner in the gite |
Highlights of our time in this area included visits to Lascaux II ( the original caves have been closed to the public but not before Adrian and Janet went there on a family trip as children), Rocamadour where miracles occurred as recently as the 1600's and the cathedral is built into the rocks, the Chateau at Commarque, a ruined 13th century castle built over troglodytic dwellings in an ancient river valley, and seeing 13,000 year old cave paintings at the Font de Gaume. We waited for almost two hours to get tickets to one of only a few viewings daily. What an incredible experience. We went by gondola into the depths of caves at Gouffre de Proumeyssac to see the Cathedral de Cristal's huge stalagtites and stalagmites - mites go up and tights come down(;-) thanks Janet...). We also went to the Chateau des Milandes, the former residence of Josephine Baker - a french obsession. We can highly recommend a visit to this area by anybody. We were worried that two weeks would be too long but in fact we could have stayed much longer. You know I could go on for a long time and use lots of words but I will spare you and just say - What a great time! What a learning experience for all of us!
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| Domme |
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Adrian and Janet overlooking the valley from the
cave dwellings at La Roque Saint-Christophe |
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| cave dwellings at La Roque Saint-christophe |
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| La Roque Gageac from the Norbert River Boat |
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| Dordogne River |
The trip back started with a six hour drive through near hurricane winds down to Barcelona.
Followed by a 48 hour epic journey with almost enough Dramamine and not nearly enough sleep. We have come to love the bustling Dubai airport which at both 2 am and 6 am is heaving with people. The shopping there is world class and there were many people going at it full throttle. We, however, were the zombies moving through to find our gate. Kuala Lumpur was just a blurrrrrr. Melbourne was very quiet from 2am - 7 am and Auckland was a great place for a short nap. Again my driver did a stellar job from Wellington to Palmy under very brutal conditions of lack of sleep, grumpy family and there are more conditions of note but I cannot remember them.
We had a wonderful trip even with some rough spots and it was certainly one that we would do again even now with suitcases still holding special treats. We really must spend more time in France.
Au Revoir...
