Kyriad Beauvais

... br>I drove into Fruges a few km away for lunch. The only place I could find was the café du centre. They only offered two choices for a first course and two choices for the main course, no menu. So I had quiche and beef bourguignon. The food was ok but not great to be honest, but it was inexpensive and as I finished the main course the waitress asked if I’d had enough. She would have brought more if I were still hungry. That’s unusual for French restaurants ...

... queues for the tower were massive and the card included a tour of the Arc-de-triumph so we climbed that instead, I have been up the tower before and have to say this view with its elevated position on the top of the Champs Elysees was as good if not better.<br><br><br>The week had been exceptionally hot and buy the end of the week we were stuffed full of culture, hot and sweaty, tired but happy and in need of some real r&amp;r, we had seen everything we wanted so unfortunately ...

Je pouvais partir directement à l'aéroport et m'envoler... mais au lieu de cela j'ai décidé de tester l'accueil des Français! Après un départ en TGV à 12h54 de Vannes, une escale à Paris le temps de changer de gare, mon terminus est à Beauvais en Picardie à 18h33, chez une demoiselle prénommée Anne-Laure. Arrivé à l'heure, mon hôte est là pour m'accueillir à la gare et m'amène chez elle. Elle a un gros chat siamois qui ...

... plane. Ryanair claims to be the "always on time airline," and we were on time, but we figured out their scam; they overestimate the time of the flight so that they can always be on time, very sneaky. So we finally arrived in Valencia at about 11. Sunny and Anne met us at the airport and we dropped off our stuff. We were all hungry, and unfortunately Burger King was the only place still open, so my first Spanish meal was Burger King. Afterwards we headed back ...

... dined" us as if we were favorite old friends. They shared 20 year old wine with us! (In the US, we buy wine and drink it that night. The French buy wine and save it for a later date.) I was speechless that they were willing to share such a treasure with us. We enjoyed a very special afternoon with them. Before we left they shared some ...

... and I was exactly 9 minutes late to board. Without exception they only offered me a flight 12 1/2 hours later, to arrive in Rome at Midnight and for a fee of 75 more Euro. SO in addition to the 75 Euro I already paid for my original flight, this stupid fiasco is costing me almost 400 Euro ($650 USD) and that does not include the taxi fee to get to my hotel in Rome. I could not reach Brian at all since his cell phone did not work in Holland and I had no ...

I have always been interested in France. Also in the most beautiful villages of France. One of them is Gerberoy. Close (300 km./180 miles) to my home we went to visit it. It was desolated and abandonned until Henri-Eugene le Sidaner decided to reside there. He was a painter and other artists came and restored the village to its beauty it is now.<br>

... in the woodwork.  One of the chapels holds a lavish astronomical clock built in the 14th century, originally designed to signal the different offices of each day.  It accounts for 700 years of time keepsake and is probably the oldest chiming clock still in working order.   It was getting bitterly cold inside so we exited ...

... to London. It worked out perfect because we will get to London Monday morning, which means we won't miss any of the orientation and room selections. We also tried to book a hotel for Bari the Sunday night before the cruise leaves. That was a little bit of a problem because every hotel or hostel in Bari is booked. We may be sleeping at the train station. The rest of the day Sarah and I went and saw ...

... museum. And with that we were off to Paris... We filled up the car with gazole one last time. I think we spent 75 euros altogether on gas for the week! We had no trouble getting to the airport but once we got in the garage we couldn't find where to return the car. It was so frustrating and Darin was not happy. We eventually parked in an empty National spot and wandered around the garage for about 15 minutes (we lost each other). Then we took the elevator to the ...