Day 18 (ARRIVAL)

Yes... we have finally arrived more than 4500Km later :)
We were anxious to arrive this last day so we almost did not stop during the trip. We started at 9am and 8h30 later we were in Portugal.

Before crossing the Pyrenees everything was green...

...after crossing the Pyrenees into Northern Spain :P dry...

and rocky LOL

Crossing the border :)

Well, everything went OK, more than OK actually during this journey. Great weather, great views, no problems whatsoever during the trip (we were a bit worried especially since we had the car full of stuff :P

All that is left is to which GOOD LUCK...for us and for everyone that has been following us ;)

Day 17 (Around Arcachon and the big walk on the Dune du Pilat)

Last day of vacations, tomorrow is the big drive straight to Portugal. These last days we have been taking it easier, otherwise we would arrive to Portugal and would need another 15 days just to recover LOL.

Thus, we went to the town of Arcachon and just walked a bit in the streets at late morning. It is a small place and as expected it seems to be only alive during the summer. There are some nice restaurants close to the water (as usual).

Beach at Arcachon

 A curious thing with this town is the presence of some curious looking houses in some streets. In the old days this town was base for many rich merchants that built very ornamented and colorful houses.

"Disneyland style" almost

The last thing we did was as we mentioned before to walk to the highest part of the Dune du Pilat (around 117m). The photos are not so different from yesterday although we went sooner this time, around 17h. The walk on the dune itself is a nice one due to the views, but requires some physical activity :P

Walking through the "desert" :P

Halfway and looking at our starting point (the small peak further away)

Finally we reached the peak LOL

Then it was time to descend it towards the water :)

At the base of the dune :)

And that's it folks :) Thanks for watching. Tomorrows journey is the longest one (842Km) since we decided not to stop in Spain and go straight to Portugal (Guarda first stop) (it's time to start the new life :)

Final route

This journey was also our "official" honey moon since we did not have time to do one after our wedding a bit more than a year ago :).

The final conclusion: we are happy with our choice of places for the time that we had :)

Day 16 (La Rochelle – Arcachon) - 253Km

We left La Rochelle in direction to Arcachon today. Since the main attraction for us is the Dune du Pilat (the tallest sand dune in europe with the highest point at 107meters) we actually stayed a bit out of the town of Arcachon (closer to a place strangely called La Teste-de-Buch??!).

Full view of the Dune du Pilat (wikipedia LOL)

We were lucky to discover a quite nice place with big discount at our destination. It is a quite cool hotel with very futuristic design (maybe not for everyones taste but funny nonetheless)

Hotel hallway (space ship design :)

It also had a SPA so today was relaxation day (meaning less photos LOL).

Still before the day ended we decided to go to the dune and check out the sun set. We were not disappointed!!! The place is amazing and so are the views. I leave you with some pictures. We did not walk/explored much on the dune we just climbed through the easy way up today (the stairs LOL).

The easy way up (stairs)!

After reaching the top of the stairs :)

On one side... the sea...

On the other side... thick forest :)

"Floating" at Dune du Pilat :P

Cool spot to check the sun set!

Tomorrow we want to go to the highest point of the dune :) The Dune has a total extension of 3Km so it is going to be quite some walking in the sand...

Pointing to the highest point-107meters (almost 3Km away actually..ufff)

Day 15 (Discovering Ile de Ré)

Our main objective in this area (La Rochelle) was to visit Ile-de-Ré. I guess the reason for this was that we read the book series ("A year in the merde" and "Merde actually") describing the misadventures of a young english man in France (Paris mostly). One of the chapters of the last book describes Ile-de-Ré (an island that is now connected to land permanently by a bridge, very famous among Paris people that come there to the beach or to relax over the weekends. It seemed very picturesque by the book descriptions and we were curious to see it.

We were not disappointed. A drawback which is also pointed out in the book is that it is 9 euros!!! to enter the island (crazy french).

The 9euro bridge to and from Ile-de-Ré!!!!

Anyway, the island is quite big. It can take 30min by car just to reach the furthest end. We went to a place called Ars-en-Ré first (which in the book the character jokes with by comparing it to the english word arse / ass ).

It is a small place with narrow streets and mostly white little houses along. It also has nice small shops with local products (artisan and bakery type).

Street at Ars-en-Ré

One of the details that can be found in the streets of Ars

Like described in the book the place is a haven for bicycle riders and indeed there were many groups of people on bikes.

We continued our drive further to the tip of the island to reach the lighthouse and check the view over the Atlantic.

The new lighthouse!

The old lighthouse!

Almost lunch time (13h) we headed back to the middle of the island to see the UNESCO world patrimony village of Saint-Martin-de-Ré and its fortifications. It is a bigger place than Ars with a nice marina area where one can get quite nice french food at relatively good price. The fortifications are well preserved and  make for a nice visit.

The marina of Saint-Martin-de-Ré

The walls and the sea

A view of the town seen from the bell tower (and old church arcade ruins)

The french cuisine at St-Martin ;) (it was "canard" / duck)

We were happy with our visit to Ile-de-Ré. Just one final thing before we finished our day... We found out that close to La Rochelle (a bit to the south) is located the famous Fort Boyard (anyone remember the adventure TV game show? LOL)

We were not able to go there but at least one can see it from shore. It was just a curiosity that we wanted to check out.

Fort Boyard is the small thing in the center :P

Zoomed LOL

And close by another Fort (Fort Vauban). This place is infested with Forts LOL

Tomorrow is time to move again (our last move in France before the big departure to Portugal, in principle). There is a last minute change of plans. We are not going to pass by Bordeaux. We are tired of busy cities and need some relaxation before finishing our travel. We are going direct to a place close to "Dune Du Pilat" (which we really wanted to check out) and get some deserved rest there :)

Day 14 (Leaving Trégastel - Carnac - La Rochelle) = 454Km

Today we left Trégastel, Hotel Bon Sejour and its delicious breakfast (all homemade food... yumii). We said goodbye to our speedy but very nice hotel hostess and took off to La Rochelle.

We also left Brittany region and it is definitely a place to visit a second time if we have opportunity. After all it is the place for the growth of the legend of King Arthur and Merlin ;)

On our way we had decided to stop at a location in the south of Brittany called Carnac. The reason was a visit to the site with the worlds greatest concentration of mégalithes (3000). It is an interesting location to visit if one is somewhat close by.

An endless field of mégaliths

They are called "Alignments of Carnac" (here you can really see why the name)

A "dolmen" (collective burial chamber)

Also it was more or less halfway to La Rochelle so it was a perfect stop for a lunch break before continuing our journey.

After another 3h30 drive we finally reached La Rochelle. This place seems to be a famous beach place amongst Parisiens and is close by to Ile de Ré which we wanted to visit. It is also very close to a very small island known for the TV game show FORT BOYARD :) I am not sure if we will have time to visit that place though.

We arrived quite tired after a total of 6h30 drive so there is not much to report about La Rochelle. From what we have seen by a short night walk is that it has an attractive sea-port area with some night life that in high season must be really buzzing (it is October and there were still quite some people around).

 "Street arcades" in La Rochelle

Nightlife still buzzing in October

Tower overlooking the port

Remains of old fortifications...just by the port area

Here is an excerpt of Breton music by the way LOL

P.S. Getting close to final destination now :)

Day 13 ( Trégastel and the "sentier de douaniers")

Today was all about relaxing at this cozy and quite unique family run hotel (will explain better in a while) and doing a bit of promenade along the "sentier de douaniers" (former coastguard footpath) to really appreciate the beauty of the pink granite coast.

Just before lunch we went to a town called Ploumena'ch by car to see if it would be worthwhile to walk the full coastal path until this place (that would be a 5h walk tour). We took some photos but we decided it was too far and it did not seem to be much different from what we are finding closer to where we are staying now (besides we have been walking around for 13 days now LOL, it is time to take it easy :P )

Pink granite windmill at Poumena'ch

Sculpture park at Ploumena'ch

So the shorter walk (around 1h30) presented again really amazing views and details of the coast line and we would recommend it to anyone fan (and even not so fans) of such types of walks. Some details we caught on camera like amazing rock formations resembling (with some imagination) human or not so human faces... quite funny.

The area that we covered by walking (along the coast)

"The FACE"

"Equilibrium"

Why walk when you can "float" LOL ;)

The queen's trone ;)

After the walk it was, of course, time to relax again at the hotel.

Reception area at our hotel

The hotel as a selection of several games like chess, dames, and backgammon at the bar, reception area. Before dinner we decided to play some chess :) (all of this while viewing the sea - ahh the good life - if only it could be always like this (LOL just joking)

Ahhh, and then we come to the hotel itself. It is like we said before, a small family run hotel. We changed rooms today because there was a small misunderstanding on the booking and they upgraded us to one with a terrace - fine by us :) It seems all rooms are different here.

Another of the bedrooms in the hotel

Another experience that we had here is the complete refusal to speak any other language other than french LOL. The owners (husband and wife) clearly understand English but they only use it as a last resort. For us it is fine, we are remembering our lost French learned in school maybe when we were 12-13 years old. It does however give rise to major linguistic chaos with french mixed with english sometimes in the most odd ways.

The name of the hotel is "Bon Sejour", by the way. So, from what we have seen the husband works in the bar area most of the time and the wife is taking care of most other things it seems, the reception itself and the restaurant. We have learned that the restaurant is actually a Michelin guide recommended restaurant, and today we confirmed that she can really do good food (already the breakfast in the morning was giving such indication).

The husband is a very strange man...he can seem very nice and half a second later he can seem completely bored by the customers or annoyed at something (be afraid, be very afraid LOLOL). The wife is the opposite, she is always nice, but speaks of course almost only French with the added feature of speaking it at the speed of sound (which you can imagine makes it quite interesting for us to try and decode what she is saying :)

We understood that if she is the one taking care of most of the hotel and additionally being the "chef" she must have developed this type of speed...

It also seems that we are the first Portuguese EVER in this hotel... unbelievable we thought!!! Most of the foreigners are English, Spanish and Italian.

Tomorrow it is time to leave again... now we will really start to get closer to Portugal. We are leaving Brittany and really heading south finally :)