Tue 29th Aug The drive from Bordeaux to Carcassonne was pleasantly uneventful and we arrived at our hotel at around 2.30 pm. Our accommodation for the one night was at the 4* Mercure Carcassonne La Cité hotel and our room was nice enough and totally adequate but, after our recent 4* hotel stay in St… More

Sun 27th Aug It was another beautiful morning so Mark went for a bike ride and I took another walk along the river. There were more people out today which was surprising given I had thought a Sunday would be more quiet around here. Our only activity for the day was a 3.5 hr Bordeaux… More

Thurs 24th Aug:  Loire Valley ⇒ Bordeaux It was a rather sultry morning for our last walk around Saumur and we actually had a fair bit of rain on the first part of the drive down to Bordeaux. It cleared up for the second past of the trip though and we then clocked 410 degrees… More

Mon 21st Aug It was a bit overcast in St Malo this morning but I still ventured out for one last walk. Our drive to the Loire Valley was about 3 hours long but we stopped off along the way at Chateau d’Angers to fill in some time before our 3 pm check in. Chateau… More

Sat 19th Aug Bayeux, Normandy ⇒ St Malo, Brittany It was a beautiful sunny morning which made for good traveling weather and ideal conditions for visiting the island of Mont St Michel, one of the most popular French tourist sites after the Eiffel Tower. The general advice had been to avoid the place during holidays… More

Wed 16th Aug: Honfleur  ⇒ Bayeux Today was a day of travel from Honfleur to Bayeux. The journey was only about 2 hours but we were filling in the time between the Honfleur check out and the Bayeux check in with visit to some sights along the way. Our first stop was at Beuvron-en-Auge  which… More

Mon 14th Aug: Lille, Hauts-de-France  ⇒ Honfleur, Normandy Our journey from Lille, in Hauts-de-France, to Honfleur, in Normandy, was just over 300 km but it would take us through some areas with significant WW1 memorials. Knowing this I had planned a few stops along the way so we could pay our respects to those brave… More

Friday 11th Aug: London ⇒ Paris ⇒ Lille Our night at the Sofitel, Terminal 5 went smoothly but we were very surprised to see the place so busy; the hotel was choc-a-bloc full of travelers. We had an early dinner booking for 6 pm and the restaurant was full of other folk eating at this… More

Wednesday 9th August Our visits to Bath was not initially scheduled on this RTW trip. Our revised plan involved us leaving Bristol one day earlier than originally scheduled so that we could have an overnight in Bath. Hindsight is very clear and I should never have allocated as much time, maybe not any time, to… More

Monday 7th August: Tewkesbury and The Cotswolds It was a gloriously sunny morning so Mark got out for a ride and I did some yoga before we set off for our day trip to Tewkesbury  and the Cotswolds. The plan was to head to Tewkesbury and take a Voice Map self guided walk and then… More