June 5, 2009 - Saint Martin de Londres, France

Saint Martin de Londres - literally Saint Martin of London - is a village of less than 2000 people located in the scrub-land north of Montpelier and close to the cliffs of Pic Saint Loup. In late 8th and early 9th centuries, during the reign of Charlemagne, the community built the original church dedicated to Saint Martin, a Saint "borrowed" from London, England. There is a small bell, housed in a lantern on the slate roof of the church and this was augmented by a high bell bay added in the 18th century.In the 11th century the monks of the Abbey Gellone (Saint Guilhem) built the priory and defensive walls were erected around the town. Later, during the Hundred Year War in the 15th century, a second wall was added. In the lower part of the town the clock tower is one remnant of the medieval walls, and is topped by a conical turret forming the bell housing. Click here for more pictures of St Martin.

June 5, 2009 - Anduze, France

The National Park of Cevannes is 30 or 40 miles north of the Mediterranean coast in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of southern France. This hilly area is part of the Massif Centrale range and is largely the domain of wild boars and hikers. The river Gardon d'Anduze flows down one of the steep valleys and the little town of Anduze, population 3000, is perched on its bank.
In addition to the obligatory narrow streets, lined with medieval houses and a handful of interesting squares, there is a 1320 CE clock tower, remnants of the original defensive ramparts and a grain hall dating from the 15th century. With a curious pagoda-fountain dating from the 17th century thrown in for good measure, Anduze is a great place to walk around. Our visit was marked by intermittent rain and cool temperatures but was nonetheless hugely enjoyed.
The history of Anduze is forever entwined with the Protestant cause in the ferocious 16th and 17th century Religious Wars that effectively split France. The Duc de Rohan led a group of Protestant force in the area around 1625. and much of this ignominious period is memorialized in a museum in the nearby village of Le Mas Soubeyran.
Take a picture tour right here.

June 5, 2009 - Centras, France

Overnight, we had stopped at a neat site northwest of Ales, near the commune of Centras. Centras has a population of less than 2000 and is another declining backwater village with high unemployment and few accessible prospects for its inhabitants.
From as far back as 1230 Centras was a coal mining town and the Benedictine Monastery, founded there in 950 CE, was running an infirmary for the miners by the early 13th century. Mining has long since ceased and nothing has taken its place while in the meantime, mechanization has reduced the labor required for farming. The population peaked at almost 2,800 in 1968 and has steadily declined since that time. Short slide-show here.

June 4, 2009 - Lussan, France

Continuing our southwesterly ride across southern France, my Main Squeeze noticed another of those tiny knots of streets a mile or so off to the north, this one going by the name Lussan. Ready for an afternoon break, we made the short diversion and parked in a field set aside for that purpose at the foot of the steep climb up into town.
Lussan has a population of 365, plus or minus a few, and seems to have survived for no other purpose than to amuse and delight visitors. The population actually peaked in the 19th century at about 1600, with silk being the major industry. The valley was filled with mulbery trees and silk worms ruled.
Imports from French overseas possessions crippled the trade by the beginning of the 20th century and WWI finished it entirely. Although the entire village is less than 250 yards in diameter it has lots to offer the curious. See here for some sights around town.

June 3, 2009 - Bagnols-sur-Cèze, France

Bagnols-sur-Cèze is a regional center on the Cèze river in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of southern France. From a Roman settlement developed for its baths, by the 13th century Bagnols sported a central arcaded square, now called Mallet Square, and was granted a regional market in 1223 that helped consolidate its growth. Now a town of more than 18,000 people, the market is still held every Wednesday and its fortunes were further advanced in the 1950s when the Marcoule nuclear center was created close by. A mile or so outside town is a well organized campground with a store, a swimming pool and shaded casual sites on the bank of the Cèze. A most enjoyable couple of days in a friendly and compact town. For some market pictures, click here.

June 2, 2009 - Caderousse, France

Trolling along the D17 we noticed a 10 feet high sloping wall obscuring our view to the right. Some serious fortifications we thought, gotta check this out. We traced the wall by turning right whenever possible and, after 270 degrees of such turns began to believe there was no opening at all. Finally, near the northeast corner, we came to the first of two openings, each of which were equipped with massive sliding gates. Once inside the mighty wall, we found ourselves in Caderousse, a village of 2,500 inhabitants, built in a former loop of the River Rhone. We shortly learned that the defensive wall was not for military security but was actually built in 1856 to protect against the foolhardy choice of location that visited frequent flooding on the entire area. The Town Hall, built in 1752, serves the secondary purpose of a depth gauge memorializing the extent of various floods. Beyond a Post Office and a couple of stores, there were no other signs industry or commerce in the village. More pictures here.

May 31, 2009 - Rosans, France

Mooching along the D994 road on the way to our next destination we spied a tiny village on a hill and promptly swerved off the road into a narrow lane to check it out. Turned out that this was Rosans, a village dating back to Roman times, with a current population of just over 500 souls. The area is known as The Baronnies and is thought to have been populated, in large part, by retiring Roman soldiers who were granted small parcels of land - an early form of a pension one supposes. Until quite recently, the area population had been in decline for several centuries due, it seems, to harsh winter weather and a paucity of economic opportunities. Its recent "rediscovery" by holiday home buyers has possibly stopped or even reversed the depopulation trend, as the Mercedes set move in. By and large, Rosans is quite rundown although the stone buildings have survived the lack of maintenance remarkably well. There is an active church in the surprisingly large main square and a bustling cafe in another corner, populated by wine quaffing yuppies. Like other locations in this rustic area of France, Rosans enjoys an average of 300 days of sunshine each year while the altitude of 2500 feet or so, keeps the temperature pleasantly cool in summer. Click here for a quick tour.

May 31, 2009 - Gap, France

In 14 BCE, Augustus, the Emperor of Rome, seized the town that is now Gap from the Gauls, who originally founded the place. In turn, the French Crown annexed the city in 1512 CE and it has been part of France ever since.
2400 feet up in the Alpine hills, Gap has a population of around 36,000 and sits at the crossroads of the D994 and the N85. The city has applied to host the 2018 Winter Olympic Games.

A digression...The N85 is known locally as Route Napoleon from the time that Napoleon I traversed the path as an escaped exile in 1815. In 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte was banished by the Sixth Coalition to house arrest on the island of Elba off the Tuscany coast of Italy, close to his birthplace, Corsica.
Early the following year he made good his escape back to mainland France and embarked on his final odyssey to Waterloo in Belgium. Accounts vary as to the size of the entourage he gathered - somewhere between 50 and 1000 men it seems - but the little fellow and his gang covered 200 odd miles of rugged terrain in just one week to arrive in Gap on March 15, 1815. Here, he printed and distributed thousands of copies of his Proclamation before traveling on to his ultimate defeat at Waterloo in June of the same year. An historical highlight for Gap at the time and the establishment of a popular tourist route along one of the most spectacular lesser highways in France.

Elsewhere in Gap is the Roman Catholic cathedral - Cathédrale Notre-Dame-et-Saint-Arnoux de Gap - a national monument of France. The current cathedral was built between 1866 and 1904 in Neo-Gothic style by architect Charles Laisné on the site of a former medieval cathedral. See here for more pictures.

May 28th, 2009 - Briançon, France

Just three miles west of La Vachette is the vibrant city of Briançon. Built at the confluence of the Durance and Guisanne rivers, its function as an Alpine crossing point between France and Italy fairly guaranteed its historic importance in medieval times. Briançon enjoys an average of 300 days of sunshine each year and, at an altitude of around 4,000 feet, it is the highest town in the entire European Union.
Today there are essentially two cities - the upper one that preserves the 17th century Vauban fortifications and the lower city that extends along the banks of the River Durance and contains, among other features, the market. Total population is around 12,000.Briançon was granted municipal privileges by a charter signed by Dauphin Humbert II in 1343. In 1692 Louis XIV's omnipotent military engineer Vauban, reinforced the town walls and began a sequence of fortified extensions further and further up into the mountains. This trend actually continued into the 1930s when Briançon became part of the Maginot line in preparation for WWII.Two of the major streets in the old town have a sizeable gutter running down the center, known as gargouilles, that originally carried effluents down to the rivers.This less than attractive cargo has since been replaced by wholesome mountain water. Only one other town in France - St Martin-Vésubie in the Alpes-Maritimes - has a similar feature.
If you ever find yourself in this part of France do give Briançon a look. To see more now, click here.

May 28, 2009 - La Vachette, France

After departing Turin we enjoyed a refreshing ride over the Alps, climbing out of Italy and then descending into France. La Vachette, a tiny and, as we were to discover, close to derelict village in the Briancon, Hautes-Alpes, Provence-Alpes-Cote dAzur region was our objective.
Following a couple of dead ends we stumbled onto the intended campsite and parked up for the night. A quick walk around the remnants of the village confirmed that La Vachete was a waypoint and definitely not a destination! Even the Boulangerie was shuttered - a sure sign that death is close at hand.
The stopover was considerably brightened by the arrival of three, late 1950s AJS motorcycles during the evening. These, along with three English drivers, two passengers and their tiny tents, were on their way to the annual AJS rally being held in Italy.
AJS (A J Stevens) motorcycles were originally manufactured close to my hometown in England. During the sixties, AJS combined with Matchless Motorcycles and Villiers Engines to form Associated Motorcycles as a last ditch, and ultimately unsuccessful stand against Japanese competitors. Nice to see. For more picture, click here.

May 27, 2009 - Turin, Itally

The Villa Rey campsite - the only one in the vicinity of Turin - sits atop an impossibly steep hill behind the town and is accessed by a gear grinding switchback road devoid of passing places. The condition of the site was not for the faint of heart and it took all the courage we could muster to slurp the black tank into the insect smothered orifice provided for the purpose, let alone contemplate taking on fresh water. We were glad to be gone once our mission was completed
Turin is capital of the Piedmont region of Italy and is located between the Po River to the southeast and the arc of the Alps separating Italy from Austria, Switzerland and France. With a population of around 900,000, Turin is the third largest metropolitan area in Italy, after Milan and Rome.
In the 18th century, Turin was the birthplace of efforts to unify Italy and actually became the capital city in 1861 before this responsibility was moved, first to Florence and then, finally, to Rome. To compensate for the economic and prestige loss caused by the transfer of government, Turin industrialized itself in the latter part of the 19th century with, among other things, the establishment of Fabrique Italian Automobile Torino better known as FIAT. Lancia and Alfa Romeo automobiles are also headquartered there.
Many of the city's public squares, castles, gardens and palazzi were built by Sicilian architect Filippo Juvarra in baroque, rococo and neo-classical styles modeled after the classical French architecture of Versailles. Turin is also famously known as the home of the contentious Shroud of Turin. See pictures about town here.

May 26, 2009 - Milan, Italy

We had not previously been to northern Italy and had been warned that, apart from the lake areas such as Maggiore, Como or Garda, the region is a none-too-exciting industrial landscape with few redeeming features. As is our wont, "Wet Paint" and similar cautionary labels always develop a fatal attraction in us and the advice simply made us the more determined to visit and check it out for ourselves.

As it turned out, the pundits were correct. Nothing worthwhile in the scenery department - just endless suburban wasteland and scads of traffic. We did accomplish our specific targets, the cities of Milan and Turin, and endured some unique camping experiences along the way.
The Citti di Milano campground, 5 miles west of downtown, was pleasant enough with flat open sites. An unusual feature however, was that it also seemed to serve as a petting zoo with small herds of goats, flocks of sheep, rabbits and tortoises roaming around, and, horror of horrors, about twenty peacocks. These latter creatures randomly emitted loud, piercing shreiks on a 24/7 basis while strutting around the sites like pompous policemen. Were we glad this was just a one night stay.
The weather remained hot and exhausting but the visit to Milan was worth the effort. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million and the urban area is the fifth largest in the EU at around 4.3 million. The entire metropolitan area, by far the largest in Italy, is estimated to be 7.4 million people.

The English word millinery, referring to women's hats, is derived from the name of the city and Milan is renowned as one of the world capitals of design and fashion vying with such places as New York, Paris, Rome and London. 

Gucci, Prada, Versace, Missoni, Dolce & Gabbana, Armani, Valentino, Trussardi, Luxottica and Moschino are some of the renowned companies headquartered in the city. To see some sights, click here.

May 24, 2009 - Verona, northern Italy

The weather seemed determined to vex us. After an extended period of cool, wet weather, it had now turned hot and humid - 95F temperatures are quite trying in a van that has no air-conditioning. We drove down to the Verona area and ended up at a rustic campsite some 10 miles west of town with little pitches scattered among grape vines on a working farm. There was a bike ride of a couple of miles to reach the nearest bus stop from where we caught the downtown bus. We left the bikes chained to a lamppost near the bus stop and everything worked out fine.

The old town of Verona is contained in a loop of the river Adige as it snakes westward toward the Gulf of Venice - a great natural defense for three-quarters of the perimeter. Designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Verona is home to about a quarter million Italians and has worked hard over the centuries to protect its history. Sadly, many of the earliest structures were razed during a massive earthquake in 1117 following which a large rebuilding effort in the Romanesque style was undertaken. Enjoyable city to visit with much to see.

May 23, 2009 - Bolzano, Italy

Until the end of World War I, Bolzano was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and 95% of the population were German speaking. It was annexed by Italy at the end of WWI and, in 1927, with a population of around 30,000, became a provincial capital.  
Benito Mussolini -  such a lovely man - subjected the city to intensive Italianization aiming to triple the population with immigrants from southern provinces to outnumber the indigenous German-speaking population. Fortunately for us, all street and road signs are still in both languages to this day, enabling us to expand our hard earned understanding of German signs with immediate translations to Italian. 
Bolzano is rated as one of the most desirable places to live in Italy. Parking in, or near town however, turned out to be difficult and we eventually found a spot close to a footpath along the River Isarco and were able to follow this into the city center. Enjoyed a pleasant and relaxing visit around the old town area. See sights here.

May 22, 2009 - Onward to Italy...

From Innsbruck, we headed south over the Brenner Pass into Italy. At 4,500 feet, the Brenner Pass is the lowest route across the Alps separating modern day Austria from northern Italy.
Reduced somewhat to a by-way, by the post WWII A13 Autobahn, the old pass is a fairly benign drive offering little excitement. We actually snuck over it illegally since Penny is tagged at 3850 Kg gross weight and the official limit currently is 3500.

The new highway, finished in the '60s, incorporates the Europabrücke, an impressive piece of engineering with one section spanning an amazing 650 feet and the highest spans soaring 620 feet into the air - half the height of the Sears Tower.This bridge carries nearly 20 million trucks each year and, believe it or not ;-), the entire project is of great concern to the environmentalists.

Off to Italy...

Today is the day to leave for Venice, Italy, followed by a boat ride around the Mediterranean to see some sights and then a languid cruise back to the USA calling in at Madeira, Saint Thomas and Puerto Rica.
As usual, the trip east is pretty brutal - pack bags in the morning, fly to Dallas, TX, in the afternoon, on to London, England in the evening and overnight and then connect to Venice early afternoon tomorrow, about 30 hours after we last got up.
Our intention then is to visit Venice on Friday evening to see the city all lit up and do it over on Saturday morning while they polish our boat. We shall see - we have high hopes as always.
Once we leave Dallas we do not expect to use the internet too much until we arrive back on these shores next month - a miserably slow connection on the boat runs at around $20.00 per hour so we have our MP3 players loaded with plenty of books to fill those moments between eating and sleeping.
Being an Italian vessel, there is little more than CNN available in English language and, because of the mix of nationalities on board, all public address announcements are broadcast in five different tongues - Oh Joy.
More Anon.

Grandbaby pictures

Occasionally, when prodded out of our lethargy, we break out the strobe lights, backdrops and related paraphernalia and play at Henri Cartier-Bresson wannabees for a while in the basement. This past Sunday was just such a day. Ready made models were on hand in the form of grandkids, the weather was icky and we needed the exercise so off we went. See pictures here.

And the band played on...

Marching Band season is in full swing. A few days ago, in frightfully frigid temperatures, the Leo High School Band, which includes grandchild #4, was performing at the local High School and we went along to check it out. This time the entire ensemble was sporting their full regalia of plumes, helmets and lots of flair. Check it out.

May 22, 2009 - Innsbruck, Austria

With its 120,000 inhabitants, Innsbruck is the capital of the Austrian federal state of Tyrol and the fifth largest city in Austria. The river Inn runs through town, hence the name Innsbruck, bruck being the German word for bridge. The city's seal and coat of arms show a bird's-eye view of the Inn bridge, a design used since 1267.
From 1420 to 1665, the town was the residence of the Tyrolean sovereigns who left the legacy of a well-preserved gothic Old Town, the Hofburg Palace and the Court Church with the grave monument of Emperor Maximilian I. The Innsbruck University was founded in 1669.
In 1938, Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany in the Anschluss and, between 1943 and April 1945, the city was the target of twenty-one bomb attacks and suffered heavy damage. During the war the Germans located the KZ Innsbruck-Reichenau concentration camp in the city.
More recently, Innsbruck hosted the Olympic Winter Games in both 1964 and again in 1976 - twice in an unprecedented twelve year period. This quirk occurred after the IOC, in 1970, selected Denver to host the 1976 Winter Games. The independent Colorado voters had other ideas however, and, in 1972, rejected a bond referendum to finance the Denver sports fest causing the committee to impose on Innsbruck a second time. To look around town, click here.

One Wedding and a Plethora of Pubs

Phew! Made it back from Olde England and the biggest pub crawl we have ever undertaken. Daughter #2 successfully married - lasted a month already so it looks like a good un - and a wonderful time was had by one and all. 

Until the wedding announcement was sprung on us in June, we had had neither the intention or inclination to troll around the UK again. Ever. One slightly guilty regret over this stance was not having many Public House (pubs) pictures in an era when this singularly British institution is in seriously rapid decline. A serendipitous solution presented itself however, when Marian came across a list of about 200 pubs around the the British Isles that provided some level of camping facilities - what an opportunity! Thus it was that we spent the next month roaming the old country snapping pictures of hundreds of pubs while visiting numerous "must see" attractions that we never quite got around to in the near forty years that we lived there. Killing two birds with one stone is an apt aphorism for this episode, for kill us it nearly did! Net result? Another 20 or 30 blog posts behind, 3,000 more pictures to review and discard and, worst of all , heightened confusion precipitated by all that funny money and those multiple time changes.
A digression: When I started work in England in the '50s, I earned a whopping 1.75 GBP for my 44 hour week - that's 1.75 for the week not per hour. Today, that entire week's pay, before taxes, wouldn't come close to buying a cup of coffee.
With this realization, we decided some R&R was in order to get our heads straight and start some catch-up with the backlog. Accordingly, its off to Venice next week for a boat ride around the Mediterranean followed by a relaxing slow boat to Fort Lauderdale to be back in the USA in time for Thanksgiving. More anon...