Jun 26th - Sarlat to La Rochelle

 Travel day

A longer than normal travel day today as we’re ‘doubling-back’ on ourselves having to go back to Bordeaux before heading off to La Rochelle.  Must admit though doing that first leg again was no issue as following and crossing the Dordogne (must have been about 10 times!) makes for a very pleasant train journey. 

On arrival La Rochelle, known locally for its three historic medieval towers and its deep water port, seems like quite a nice place but, as we only got here late, we didn’t have much of a chance to look around. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

September 1st - Lake Ohrid

Image
  Out on a boat trip on Lake Ohrid this morning to visit some of the sights along the coastline.   Straddling the border between Albania and North Macedonia and with a surface area of 138 2 miles (358 2  kms), larger than the island of Malta, the lake itself is enormous.   It also happens to be one of Europe’s deepest with a maximum depth of around 300 metres.   First visit for the day was for a swim just off the shore at Villa Biljana, a complex of villas formerly owned by ex-president and dictator Josip Tito.  Due to the security (the buildings and beach are now owned by the government) landing was a no no which is a shame as a beach-side elevator apparently takes you right into the middle of the villa.  Our next stop was to the Church of St John at Kaneo, a Macedonian Orthodox Church dedicated to John of Patmos, author of ‘Revelations’ (and apparently the same person as John the Apostle!).  Built in the 14th century, this little picturesque...
Read more

September 5th - Bitola to Kastoria, Greece

Image
  Heading further south again today to the town of Kastoria in Greece.   Situated on a hill on a peninsula on the shores of Lake Kastoria, this picturesque town is bit ‘down at heel’.  With many, what would have once been quite upmarket, empty waterside properties Kastoria has obviously seen better days.  It’s a shame as basically the town’s quite nice and is in a great location but there really is not a lot to do here.  Apparently most young people here are leaving for the bigger cities, leaving their family homes vacant, which is just adding to the town’s decline.  On our wander around it was interesting to note the large number of churches and religious memorials, far more than we’d seen in previous towns.  However, we not sure if this means Greece is more devout than the other countries on this trip as most of them were closed!
Read more

Aug 28th - Kotor to Tirana, Albania

Image
  A real slow day today as it took nearly 7 seven hours driving time to cover the 200 kms (125 miles) to Tirana!   We did have stop on the way however, a break to visit Roxafa Castle, the remnants of a 15th century fortress.  From the castle there were some really nice views of the surrounding countryside but sadly very little information about the castle and its history.      A little bit of amusement on our long journey today was the name of the company at the servo when we filled up with petrol.   With a name like that we wondered if they had the correct logo! 😆
Read more