Mai 2 –
A beautiful Saturday here and we spent half the day restocking the fridge and cupboards! I got to task downloading photos and starting on my blog. The girls were happy just to chill out, Nev went running and we all enjoyed being home.
Mai 3 – Dimanche
We were invited out to a BBQ lunch – Wahoo, first BBQ in quite a while! Not a gas BBQ either but a good old charcoal variety.
John, being ever so nice came and collected us and took us out to the village, Auxon Dessous. We had a fantastic time, wandered around to their new house to look at progress and made it back home at 8:00.
Mai 4 –
Nev went to ‘work’ – Christelle picked him up as she dropped the children off and he went out to help John for the day with moving furniture and sanding ready for painting.
I spent the day catching up on blog entries – they take ages!
In fact we spent the next 3 days doing these things in amongst the normal routine.
On Wednesday night, I went to the Gare and met Alison – another NZ teacher who is in Poitiers doing the same AFS language immersion as me! It was nice to have a visitor.
We spent Thursday doing touristy things around here in the lovely heat. We decided to do the River Cruise, 1hour 15 minutes on the Doubs river. The boat was leaving at 10am so we raced to get there. We arrived and were the only 2 but were informed they were waiting for a group and we would be a bit late setting out. Alison and I took our seats and waited.
All very peaceful….then…….we heard screaming kids!! The group was about 70 primary school children who quickly clambered on board and were excited. Oh YAY!!!! The operators struggled to get the speaker to go correctly without screeches and static but finally it was sorted.
The ride was very noisy in particular as we went under a bridge the children would yell nonstop until they had passed through. Then we made it to the lock which was at the beginning of a 185m long tunnel under the Citadelle – oh joy!!! Instead of screaming the whole way – it was just at every runner, blader and cyclist that went past.
We even went past Nev on his run around the river and we could at least wave to someone!
We made it through to the other side of the hill when the boat turned around and headed back to the lock!! What? Not even up the river for a bit? Very pointless exercise except for watching the magical marvels of how a lock system operates.
I wish I could have expressed my disappointment with the tour but unfortunately my French isn’t quite up to it! We think we probably had a shorter specialised tour because of the kids, but maybe they should have told us! It was still full price! We also probably wouldn’t have gone if they had told us it was a school group, we had both pictured buses pulling up of older people on tour!
We met Nev in town for lunch after this and we sat in the sun in Place 8 septembre. At 2:00pm Alison and I decided to do the Petit Train. Big Mistake!!!!
However the Petit Train was such a rip off, 50 minute tour but we spent 25 minutes at 2 stops with nothing really to look at. The commentary didn’t start and then when it did was out of synch, then after 1 of the stops it just repeated itself! Thumbs down! However all the other Petit Trains we have done in other cities have been really good and normally give the lay of the land and a bit of history.
The Musee des Beaux Arts was next on the agenda then home for tea!
Seph got a lovely surprise parcel from Liisa – This certainly put a smile on her face!
Vendredi was 8 Mai – a public holiday as it celebrates Victory in Europe for WWII. We spent the day at the Citadelle, Nev and Alison spent about 3 hours in the Musee of Resistance and Deportation while the girls and I went to the Zoo and spent ages with the monkeys,especially the little Squirrel monkeys who can get out of their cage and be really close to you.
A beautiful Saturday here and we spent half the day restocking the fridge and cupboards! I got to task downloading photos and starting on my blog. The girls were happy just to chill out, Nev went running and we all enjoyed being home.
Mai 3 – Dimanche
We were invited out to a BBQ lunch – Wahoo, first BBQ in quite a while! Not a gas BBQ either but a good old charcoal variety.
John, being ever so nice came and collected us and took us out to the village, Auxon Dessous. We had a fantastic time, wandered around to their new house to look at progress and made it back home at 8:00.
Mai 4 –
Nev went to ‘work’ – Christelle picked him up as she dropped the children off and he went out to help John for the day with moving furniture and sanding ready for painting.
I spent the day catching up on blog entries – they take ages!
In fact we spent the next 3 days doing these things in amongst the normal routine.
On Wednesday night, I went to the Gare and met Alison – another NZ teacher who is in Poitiers doing the same AFS language immersion as me! It was nice to have a visitor.
We spent Thursday doing touristy things around here in the lovely heat. We decided to do the River Cruise, 1hour 15 minutes on the Doubs river. The boat was leaving at 10am so we raced to get there. We arrived and were the only 2 but were informed they were waiting for a group and we would be a bit late setting out. Alison and I took our seats and waited.
All very peaceful….then…….we heard screaming kids!! The group was about 70 primary school children who quickly clambered on board and were excited. Oh YAY!!!! The operators struggled to get the speaker to go correctly without screeches and static but finally it was sorted.The ride was very noisy in particular as we went under a bridge the children would yell nonstop until they had passed through. Then we made it to the lock which was at the beginning of a 185m long tunnel under the Citadelle – oh joy!!! Instead of screaming the whole way – it was just at every runner, blader and cyclist that went past.
We even went past Nev on his run around the river and we could at least wave to someone!
We made it through to the other side of the hill when the boat turned around and headed back to the lock!! What? Not even up the river for a bit? Very pointless exercise except for watching the magical marvels of how a lock system operates.
I wish I could have expressed my disappointment with the tour but unfortunately my French isn’t quite up to it! We think we probably had a shorter specialised tour because of the kids, but maybe they should have told us! It was still full price! We also probably wouldn’t have gone if they had told us it was a school group, we had both pictured buses pulling up of older people on tour!
We met Nev in town for lunch after this and we sat in the sun in Place 8 septembre. At 2:00pm Alison and I decided to do the Petit Train. Big Mistake!!!!
However the Petit Train was such a rip off, 50 minute tour but we spent 25 minutes at 2 stops with nothing really to look at. The commentary didn’t start and then when it did was out of synch, then after 1 of the stops it just repeated itself! Thumbs down! However all the other Petit Trains we have done in other cities have been really good and normally give the lay of the land and a bit of history.
The Musee des Beaux Arts was next on the agenda then home for tea!
Seph got a lovely surprise parcel from Liisa – This certainly put a smile on her face!
Vendredi was 8 Mai – a public holiday as it celebrates Victory in Europe for WWII. We spent the day at the Citadelle, Nev and Alison spent about 3 hours in the Musee of Resistance and Deportation while the girls and I went to the Zoo and spent ages with the monkeys,especially the little Squirrel monkeys who can get out of their cage and be really close to you.
In the end we spent the whole day here and arrived home about 6:00pm.
Saturday morning Alison and I went to the Historical Astronomical Clock – it has over 1500 working pieces.
Quite a giant thing really, it can tell you the tides, the astronomical sign and where the planets are, the time in over 10 countries, the day, date, year, and leap century ( this only moves once every 400 years, last time was in 2000!) plus other things.It didn’t have a lovely chime, in fact none at all but it did have moving figurines! A bit of a disappointment really but if I could understand French better it certainly would help.Next we went off out to Chateaufarine for a bit of a look at the shops, had lunch at Buffalo Grill, another disappointment – waited far too long and for what we had was expensive.
Home for the Last Supper with Alison before she departs on an early train in the morning!
It was very nice having a guest and it was great to swap stories, I think Nev really enjoyed it as he showed off his culinary prowess the whole time and I believe he loved having someone else to watch soccer with and to talk to another person other than me!!
Alison in Eglise St JeanSunday the 10 – Alison departed early, Nev went for a run, Seph started the immense job of scrapbooking about Italy – Hermione had long since given up, all she did was pick and cut up her photos!
I managed to get my blog up to date!!!!!! Next is naming and sorting the photos!
Monday again tomorrow!!
1 comment:
You summed up our adventures well. You could rename the blog entry - Tales of the River Cruise, Petit Train and Buffalo Grill and How They Must Have Known We Were Coming! I think actually it was just to give us things to write about, but I do think that the Tourism Office should know about the train in particular! It was a great weekend and thanks again. xxx
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