A Quintessentially British Affair

Royal Ascot, a quintessentially British affair; 

Pimms on tap, Strawberries & Cream by the bucket load, Boys in suits (Top Hats and Tails, if invited to the Royal Enclosure), Girls in smart dresses & headwear, British cloudy weather and Queenie sat in her Royal Box.

British transport was also on full form; the 1st train was delayed & completely full and the next train was cancelled.  So unfortunately we missed the royal procession.  But we managed to get there in time to see the 1st race.

I'm not much of a gambler and it's a good job as I pretty much lost every bet I made, with the exception of one where I won £9.50.  Although considering the £10 bet, I didn't even break even.

The most exciting race was the 3rd, where Aussie horse, Black Caviar won the race, literally by its nostrils.  Unfortunately it was the biggest favourite of the day, so the odds on the horse didn't really rake in the cash.

The day ended with Britain's favourite dish, a good ol' curry.  A perfectly quintessential British day.

Team Sarah or Team Marc?

The big THREE O.  This year it's Marc and Sarah's turn to celebrate a big birthday and in true Burkie style they had a BBQ party.  Although this year it wasn't framed around "Riding the Bus" (a drinking game that had Marc completely incoherent last year).  This year it was themed as a competition.  On entering you had to pick a team; Team Sarah or Team Marc?

Before the games began, the two teams were fuelled with Pimms and well-cooked (...ok burnt to a blackened crisp) sausages and burgers.

The initiation of the games began with Gabby and Tony stripping off to reveal their surprise t-shirts.

The first set of games were with balloons, which Team Sarah just excelled at.  Team Marc had prickly fingers and kept bursting the balloons, which just made it too easy to win.

The second set of games were with hoops and cones.  This is where Team Sarah began to rapidly lose points and soon Team Marc were cheating their way up the leader board.  P.S. Can you tell that I was on Team Sarah?

Team Marc won in the end.  They were more willing to get rope and key burns in the last game.  I guess they were in it to win it.

However there were no real losers in the end.  Everyone got to have lots of yummy cake and jelly.

The night ended with Black Jack, casino style.  I was up quite a bit and then got a bit wreckless.  Don't worry though, we were playing with chips, not real money.  Don't think I would have handed my money over to Marc, who won, quite so easily.

Happy Birthday Marc and Sarah.

x

Paris at Midnight

The last day of our French road trip, at least with me in it, began as many of our days have done so far, with a wine tasting.  However, after Chateauneuf du Pape, we now all have an air of snobbery at tasting wine that is not nearly as exquisite.

After tasting, we then made our merry way across vineyards to the train station to drop off "Robert" at Hertz.  The trip was not as simple as it sounds.  Due to diversions we ended up having to circle the streets of Avignon.  When we finally got to the TGV station, there were no signs or directions leading to Hertz.  We eventually rang them up, only to find out that we had to get a ticket to enter the parking zone, in order to get to their office.  Well Avignon TGV Station, I think better road signs are in order.  We are not psychic you know!

Lunch was more alcohol, bubbly champagne, 2 bottles to be exact.  One whilst we waited for the train and one for the road, with plastic glasses.  Very classy.

The train journey was a bit of a blur, pretty much because all 3 of us slept through it, the effects of the Champs I guess.  But before you knew it we were back in Paris.  With it being our last night together, we decided to get all dolled up and to go somewhere fancy.

Ruth chose the place; Hotel Athena, which we got to by taxi.  The ride was relatively pleasant as we got to see some of the sites, but we also got to see some crazy Parisians.

In particular, there was one lady who was walking down the middle of the road and staring directly at our taxi.  As she approached the car in a drunken stagger, she had this look of pure hate and started attacking the car, hitting the side view mirror.  At this point I had a death grip on the door handle to make sure that she didn't try to get in... She didn't.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of Hotel Athena, but the place was stunning and definitely a glimpse of how the other half live.  As we entered the hotel, there was an entourage of 5 or 6 people standing at the door, who were happy to show us to the bar and to make a dinner reservation for us.  Although I have to say, had we not been dressed for the occasion, I am sure we would have had an alternate scenario of being shown the door.

The bar was lovely, very pristine and full of men in suits and cute bar men.  It has become a theme of this trip.  Here we had cocktails.  I had a twist to my fav cocktail, Mojito, which was made up with Champagne.  Yum.

Dinner was in the garden and was a three course meal that yet again reminded us that the French sure know how to cook.

After the meal, we then walked off our dinner with a stroll along the Champs Elysees and Rue Montaigne.  Personally I think this was a dry run for Mer on the shopping route Ruth had planned out for Friday.  We passed every designer you could possibly think of; Chanel, Gucci, Prada, Louis V.  The list was endless.  It also seemed that the route was marked by starting with the Eiffel Tower and ending with the Arch de Triumph.  I think the purse strings will be crying come Friday night.

Au Revoir Paris.

x

Sweeping Avignon

Avignon is a pretty place in Provence, also known as the City of Popes.  A city that used to be confined by medieval ramparts, but has since branched out over the years.

Tuesday is a big market day; the indoor market stalls were filled with fresh vegetables, meats, spices, cakes etc...  A feast for the eyes.

The outdoor markets were more antiques based selling anything from jewellery to books.

One of the main attractions in this city is the Palais du Pape and it is huge.  So big that I still couldn't get the whole Palais in with my wide angle lens.

The Palais was impressive.  The murals on the wall were stunning and it is amazing that people were so skilled in this art to create something so intricate without the conveniences of modern technology.

As I was walking around the Palais, I happened to lift the bottom of my maxi dress to climb some stairs and realised that my feet were completely black and filthy.  It seemed that my maxi dress was serving a dual purpose; as a dress and as a sweeper of the Palais.  Perhaps I should have asked the city for some taxes.

The Pont d'Avignon was our next stop, which is a bridge that leads to nowhere.  It wasn't always this way.  The bridge was a way of crossing the river.  But the high current of the river kept destroying it and so they gave up trying to fix it.  Now the bridge stops half way across the river.

Dinner was at an expensive restaurant just outside of the Palais du Pape.  We had a 7 course meal that was amazing.  The food was so fresh, light and so yummy.  It was hard not to eat so quickly.

The meal was also very entertaining, as Mer had the Sommelier and Maitre d' trying to decipher a text from her Frenchman in Beaune.  It did have some personal elements to the message and I think I saw the Sommelier blush.

The Winding Paths of Provence

The theme for today, it seems, are the winding streets and roads of Provence.  Whilst it is very pretty; Tuscan like sandy coloured houses with red roofs against a bright blue sky, the roads are still meant for the old days when cars were none existent.  They are so narrow, that "Robert" the car just about fits.  I feel like today I've spent most of my day holding my breath and holding my stomach in, as though that will allow more space for the car to move through these tiny streets.

This morning we started our road trip in Chateauneuf du Pape. A pretty little town with hilly terrain and as the name implies, home to some ruins of a former Chateau.  It is also the home of some pretty pricey red wine.

Our visit of this town began with a stroll up the hill to see the ruins, the aerial views of the vineyards below and to build a thirst for the red wine.  Although the last part really required very little effort from the three of us.

We then went to the Museum du Vin, which had a couple of surprises; one it was free and two I managed to find a red wine that I like.  Apparently I like it spicy!  And typical that it comes with a pricey tag.

From here we tried to go to another vineyard to sample their wines.  But today, unknown to us is a religious day, therefore the vineyard wasn't open.  However, it did give us the opportunity to have some pictures taken of us frolicking amongst the vines, especially as there was no one around for miles.

In the afternoon, our road trip took us to even rockier terrain, Les Beaux.  If the streets of Chateauneuf were scary, then the road to Les Beaux was hair raising.  Tom Tom (our GPS) was adamant that it was a speed limit of 55mph going up the hill.  I was travelling at 19mph and that was pretty scary.  Tom Tom must have got it wrong.  Although, what made it worse was that people were zooming down the hill in the opposite direction.

Les Beaux is a stunning place and so different to what we have seen on this trip so far.  It's set up in the rocks is simply stunning and the view from the rocks is even better.  I now have a billion photos of vineyards, but I can't stop taking pictures of the scenery.

One of the things that I liked about Les Beaux was that you could walk around the fort and explore.  Ruth and I went up to the top of the fort to get an aerial view of the town.  At the top, I have to say, it was a little ropey.  Smooth rock, high winds and flip flops.  Not a good combination.  But we did make it safely back down.

Caught Red Handed

Today is market day in Lyon.  There are several markets and they're all set up on either side of the Rhone River that runs through Lyon.

The first market we went to, which just so happened to be the closest to our hotel, was the jewelry market.  Here I found a fun grey necklace that is like a lariat but not.  My one souvenir for this trip.  The lady that was selling the necklaces was very nice.  And the necklaces were made by here daughter who is very sick.

At the book market, there were lots of old and new books.  Unexpectedly among the masses of books, I found one that was called "Ou Ben Laden?".  Basically a "Where's Wally?" book, but it was replaced with trying to find Bin Laden in different cities around the world.  He had 4 books available for purchase and we each ended up taking one each.  It was too funny not too.

The last market we looked at was the food market, which sold all sorts of fresh veggies.  Everything looked so fresh and colourful.  Randomly amongst all the veg stalls, there was also someone displaying a couple of baby pigs and baby goats; I guess I should really say piglets and kids.  They were so cute.  I thought they were up for sale to begin with, but in actual fact the owners were selling sweets to raise money for their vaccines.  Very random.

After indulging ourselves with Lyonnaise food, we then got back on the road to go to Saint-Laurent, which is near Avignon.  On the road we stopped halfway to visit a winery, Cave de Tain.  Here I got to broaden my wine knowledge by tasting those from the Rhone Valley and I actually found a few that I liked.  Either that or my wine taste buds are evolving over this trip.

At the end of the wine tasting, we decided to take a quick lunch of cheese and bread from the boot of our car; sustenance for me to soak up the wine from the tasting.  For Mer and Ruth. it was to fill up their rumbling tummies and to finish off the wine that we had in the car.  We are all so classy, I know.

Anyway, Mer was enjoying her continental lunch and was washing it down with a swig of wine from the bottle, when a herd of people came round the corner and caught her red handed.  To make things worse, one of the ladies that was in the group said to her in French - "I saw you, you know!"  I think Mer was wishing the ground would open up and swallow her right there and then.

To finish our visit, we decided to go up the hill to visit the chateau and to take some nice pictures of the surrounding vineyards, olive tree orchards and the beautiful scenery that is the Rhone Valley.  It was very pretty and beautiful, even during the  torrential rain that hit us for 5 mins whilst we were viewing the scenery.

We made it to Saint Laurent early evening.  We were shown around the hotel and then to our rooms.  The hotel was very pretty.  Our rooms too, although the layout was a little odd.  In particular, the main bedroom was in the same open space as the bathroom and there was also no shower curtain.  A sure thing that we were all about to get to know each other a lot better than what any of us had anticipated.

After checking in, we headed to Avignon for some much needed dinner.  A quaint place within the confines of the ramparts of the city and in front of the Palais du Pape.  A nice way to end our busy day.