Hotel Durand Ales

... across the street – La Palette Gourmande (29 Rue Roussy), but we thought we would wander around and see what else was on offer. However, while we were doing our washing in the nearby launderette, it started to rain. At first it was just a gentle refreshing shower, but became a thunderstorm lasting for hours. By dinner time it was still lashing down, so we ran the 5 metres across the road.

We were rewarded by one of those ...

... last sight we thought we could see for the day was the Jardin de la Fontaine. It is fed by a spring that provides quite a lot of water, but not quite enough for a whole city. There are Roman pools, some temple ruins, gardens and statuary. Since it was a beautiful day the place was busy with lots of French folk enjoying the open space, but because the garden is so large, exists on several levels and has many twists and turns, almost ...

At the Chateau de Malerargues, surrounded by trees everywhere, Sebastian has voice training for the next couple months. The work consists of a mixture of breath, movement, and massage, as well as singing, sounds, and group work. It's hard to describe exactly what goes on, and each day is different. But the isolation, beautiful weather, and delicious fresh foods make for a great place to work, relax, and reflect. So why do so many people have so many nightmares here?

I leave the hostel early, about 7 AM. I meet a women, Mardi, who is backpacking through Europe. She said that she had done that for 6 months in China. Pretty amazing.

With tickets in hand, I am off to Nimes. It is a small town with some great Roman ruins. I take a bus to the closest spot for my hostel, Hostel Nimes. The .5 km walk to the hostel is straight up a steep hill. Exhausting on a hot day. The hostel has a gorgeous courtyard. It is far enough outside of the town that ...

... out to be an excellent cook...he rustles up some great vegetarian pasta in a kitchen that would not look out of place a centuiry ago....His mum lays the small wooden table and we drink tea and chat about life..later we go out and eat ice cream in the old square as its too late to order wine. Theo tells me about his last girlfiend, his passion for travel,his quest to find his Dad and his desire to help his mum...and I tell him about my my failed marriage and my ...

... was eigenlijk gewoon een lapje vet waarin het zoeken was naar vlees. Dat vlees was dan echter wel vrij lekker, maar de worstjes (de saucisses dus) waren wel een stukje beter, hoewel het toch niet helemaal was zoals wij dat kennen. Maar het was wel gezellig. Gisteren, zaterdag, zijn we naar Salavas gereden om er met de kano te gaan varen. De auto gaf op een gegeven moment 34 graden aan dus u ziet maar..na regen komt zonneschijn. De ...

Well, it's been an eventful couple of weeks. First of all, many thanks to Liz for the last blog entry. Nice work with the interspersed photos by the way, I particularly liked the cheesey sunset shot. Nice. After dropping Liz off in Naples we then dashed back up to Tuscany where it suddenly turned bitterly cold. That, and the fact that most campsites have now closed for the season ...

... living in the castle since 1107, but they had only had running water since 1956. The castle was fully furnished and had everything a proper castle has, private chapel, dungeons and underground tunnels to be used in the event of a seige. My favourite part was the kitchen, full of ancient and unusual trinkets like warming pans and a mincer used specifically to extract blood from the offcuts of meat in order to be given to the iron-deficient children. In among all these ...

... sight unseen, and somewhat unnecessarily nervous, we discovered it was a great place, just out of town at a farm that had been converted into a cluster of gîtes with a communal pool. We were soon joined by my aunt Roz who flew in from Florida and her friend Delia from Marseille, we all quickly uptook the challenge of discovering some of the restaurants and wines of the region, the pool and our books. Life's tough eh? Amazingly, despite all the ...

... We then journeyed on to Uzès. That night we had to call home to our parents and tell them what happened. My mom didn't want me sent back early, but I think she was just happy to hear the trip was going good. Afterward most places in the town were closed so we walked around a little bit and then just hung out back at the hotel.