devon

& & &


the whole point of this visit was to drop off a pool table to an ebay buyer. by coincidence he was called phil berthoud and was a remote relative of ours with the same family crest. so this took us to devon for two days.

we stayed at an organic/vegetarian B&B which was lovely. there was no need to mention that i'd rather not have sausages, as the veggie ones were already on the plate. it was a lovely atmosphere and we even got to speak some dutch. see http://www.dartvillasbb.co.uk/ for more. the breakfast table seen on their website is the one we were actually sitting at.



the first evening we walked from totness to ashprington and this is what we should have seen during that walk. but devon weather can be quite temperamental and we were blessed with two and a half hours of rain for our walk. this is probably to make up for all the rain i missed while down in southwestern france.

after hosing the dogs down, drying them off a little and 'storing' them in our car, elie and i went for dinner at a local pub in totness. apart from having a wet neck and soaked trousers which i dried with the handdrier in the toilet, we very much enjoyed the meal and the fizzy drink (australian champenoise).

the next morning back to ashprington to visit the sharpham cheese and wine makers. follow this link for more information on the products http://www.sharpham.com\ and this one for the actual cheese making place http://www.totnesinformation.co.uk/shops/sharpham.htm




after that we drove to weston-super-mare and sandy beach (kewstone) just north of it. http://www.viamichelin.com/viamichelin/int/dyn/controller/mapPerformPage?strCountry=1138&strAddress=&strCP=&strLocation=weston+super+mare&x=0&y=0
there was a lot of sand and the dogs had a hell of a time. more on www.daisysdogs.blogspot.com




this picture was taken on sandy point, the peninsula reaching into the sea. it is about 1km long but we did not walk to the end completely. next time. there is always a next time.



there was just a bit of land, loads of see, sky and some islands.



isn't he cute ?



and on the way back the night was falling in. there was a wonderful interchange between water, sky, sun, clouds, constantly changing atmosphere and light. i hope we will explore more of the british isles instead of always heading to the continent when we have some time off.

camino - nature

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some mud on the shoes





pipi-stop at the barn while rain favours another area



camino leading between two trees on op of a hill through lovely nature paths.



dog or wolf !!!



this is a rather big bugger here



donkeys and sheep welcoming us at the family gite with view over the pyrennees. we had dinner on the terrace observing the sunset and pink mountains.





our best and heaviest friends


flowers everywhere.

camino - eat as you go

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anyone knows what sort of grain that is ? i ate quite a bit of it and it was nice and tasty. very close to that place, which was somewhere before montreal and the only 10 minutes of rain we've had during the entire 4 days, was a walnut tree producing massive walnuts. they were great and whenever i saw one i took a few nuts along to keep us going.



and of course there were grapes everywhere. regular breaks gave us the opportunity to nibble on small very sweet Armagnac grapes, blackberries, and pick some apples.



huge machines would shake the wine plants and catch all the grapes falling down.


Picnics were always breaks for the feet as well and lasted at least an hour. we had olives, tapenade, cheese, baguette, fruit, chocolate, fruit and grain bars, sometimes bouret, everything you need.


this is the place where they make the bouret, la cooperative. at that wine maker we even got a litre of bouret for free. we had it as our aperitive at one of the hostels before formal dinner. lovely !!!


an organge maching the orange top . . . . .



many kilometers along corn fields. these are the constructions to store the corn just after getting it in from the fields. the system is the same even though the structure has changed over the years. these were just before the village of Latrille.



stealing some corn cobs to bring back for elie. what i had not realized is that there is corn and corn, and this one was the non-edible variety. i cooked it, but it was not much better.




in arzacq-arraziguet we were able to sit down again. this time carole is doing some psycho test on the type of dog owner you are, while having a panache with olives at the Cafe des Arcades.

camino - villages and houses

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so we really had to come all the way to Condom to find a machine that automatically produces pizzas within three minutes . . . . .


after a short walk the first morning we reached Montreal where we had lunch on the Place and discouvered the young wine, or Bouret, as it is locally called.


after spending the night at the 'domaine du possible' we got to Eauze after an hour's walking in the morning. this is carole in front of the church, or the back of the church.

the gentlement with the stick invited us to have a look at 'la maison de l'embassadeur', at least this is what they think it is. carole was doing ethological work even on vacation . . . . just before that we had had a little apple tart drenched in Armagnac from the region.



not well readable, this is the old train station of Bretagne de l'Armagnac.



a lovely house.

i was less interested in the house, but maybe you notice the Renault 5 standing in front of it, elie's long time passion. so every R5 i saw during the trip was captuered, but there were not many.


our gite in Arblade-le-Haut. we stayed in the longish house visible to the left of this large house. we had a room private to ourselves without flees this time, which was nice. we were spoilt the night before in this place with armagnac, wine, good food, and entertaining company: monsieur coquillard, the two sisters (brunette and blond) with one husband and interbagages, helen ex-switzerland, and two more quiet french men. you get to know the crowd on the camino and at night radio camino is running well into the night.


even though we went to bed before 10 every night, sleeping till 7.30 was no problem at all. i wish i could sleep that long at home as well. this is just another house. interesting how they add a modern house to the old one.


just another house that i liked.



carole in front of the village of pimbo. it mainly consists of a very old church, a centre de recueill pour le pellerins, a few mail boxes, a gym with classes and 200 inhabitants. but lunch was lovely and we saw 'turnschuh-tussi' again up there.


this was a gite overlooking a plain with the pyrenneas in the back. the house was huge and inhabited by the family, while guests were accommodated in a purpose-built little bungallow right in front of the view.



this is the terrace of the bungalow where we had our dinner the night before. bourret, cheese, bread, couscous, beetroot salad. fantastic.





i don't quite remember where that was, maybe in arzacq-arraziguet, our last stop.