Bordeaux

Enough is enough,

Now we have finished our globetrotter journey for some while, since we landed safely to Bordeaux just few hours ago. Mum had cooked delicious dinner so the arrival couldnt have been better =)

We left Barcelona on Saturday after the whole nice week there. We left Spain in the best possible way, since Mikael and Sanja agreed to come as our guides and company for a weekend at the Pyrenees. We drove all together from Barna to Ribes, stayed over night there in a spooky camping, and the whole Sunday we spent hiking up to Nuria. What a perfect day - the sun was shining (atleast every now and then), the mountains were as lovely as ever and company was excellent!

On Sunday evening Mikael and Sanja catched train back to Barcelona, and finally after spending hour and half trying to find some bread from the desolated mountain village, we decided to spend also another night in Ribes - on the parking lot in the village center =) On Monday morning we crossed the Pyrenees from Puigcerda and immediately on the other side of the tunnel that went under the mountain there was rain and wet snow and räntä all over the place...

Bravely enough Claire had taken a train to Foix where we picked her up, and we did the remaining two-day travel with her. We went to the Basque country and to the Atlantic sea, and now we are here, in Bordeaux.

One day when i have time and motivation i will load the pictures from the cameras on the computer and then put some of them here for you to see. Now it seems that our next project here in France is to clean and renovate a bit this small house here on the back yard, so i might be busy choosing the new sofa in Ikea =)

But anyhow big *hugs* to you all again, and see you soon - the Christmas in here sooner than you can say "cat"!

photos II, Brunos camera

And some more, a selection of the photos taken by Brunos bigger camera:

Some funny mushroom growing in a tree trunk in Wernigerode forest

another funny mushroom

Extremely tame fox at the top of the hill where we went with the steam train in Wernigerode

crossing a small river/canal on our way from Wittenberg to Berlin

after spending almost a week at Hansus and Renes place in Berlin we ended up spending one more night in the camping where we had the car parked while we were in town. The camping was really close to Tegel airport, and that evening Bruno decided to take his camera and to go and take some pictures from the landing planes...

...and in that same evening Bruno found a new friend doing the same stuff - that is photographing the planes. In the end the boys came to the camper, and Zing ended up being our first guest in the camper. The evening was suuuper nice with never ending apreritivos and one Finnish beer. Next time we go to Berlin we have one more friend to visit =) (by the way this picture seems to be strangely shaped and i dont know why)

after leaving Berlin we stopped by in Tropical Islands, a huge aquapark and beach built in an old zeppelin hall. We didnt go swimming there but biking in the old runway for the zeppelins. Also in the forest there were many old shelters for old bombing planes. Only our bikes were parked there this time =)

biking in the runway with the immense zeppelin hall in the background

typical evening in the C.Car; reading in the bed with the light from the LedItSee. This time the red back light was a bit unnecessary though..

more of these funny stones and cliffs in the national park

photo taken in the corner of a cliff with straight dropping down

not too much space when walking on the edge

Elbe river

And look at this: the broken band of the motor

the people from the Finnisches Haus in Pirna. The lady standing next to me is the lady of the house, and the gentleman was the one smoking the fish in a proper savustuspönttö!

the TV-tower of Prague with climbing babies on the sides. There was a nice view from the top over the whole city.

more of the Slovenian autumn colours - not too nice picture but believe me it was awesome

photos I, Maijas camera

And here we are, some photos for you from the previous months. I will put here as many i have nerves to wait for them to be loaded ;o)

in Berlin we went biking in the Tempelhof airport which is nowadays open as a park for people

Sächsische Schweiz national park in Germany. Amazing stones and cliffs!

there was a Finnland Haus in Pirna, in Germany. We had Lapin Kulta and Olvi beers, but unfortunately the sauna was not heated =)

We went to see ballet in Prague - it was Cinderella, and quite nice one. The Prage State opera was lovely

in Wien we went to Ost Club one evening to celebrate Simons friend who decided to leave for a around the world trip. Simon and Bruno played fussball against the girls. Who won? Dunno..

Here is Lena and the famous haluski in Wien - yummy!!

The magnificent autumn colours in Slovenia.

The view down towards town of Ljubljana. Look at the mountains, ahh...

a cute pink alley in Ljubljana in the afternoon setting sun

The biggest cave with dropping stones in the whole Europe. The name i dont remember at the moment but it was in Slovenia as well. I was totally criminal when taking these photos since it was not allowed at al ;o) And look at these stones, they are like wet cloth hanging from the roof.

This was the major hall which was higher than 40m and bigger than 100m2. In total there was 23km of the tunnels underground, and we walked though 2km. The place itself was a bit touristic and expensive but worth visiting. There was a small train that took us down in the caves, and the track was longer than 2km. Amazing place.

Our first touch to the Mediterranean - it was in the coast of Slovenia. Lovely sunset with the mountains in the horizon

in the campania of Lauras parents. We had nice lunch there and after the lunch the cleaning and leaf+branches burning started

Our first official passangers in the C.Car were Laura and Davide when we went for a lunch at Davides parents place. One more of the occasions when you end up eating way too much =) This was also the first time i travelled in the back seat of the car with Laura

Some belt in the car had to tightened an it was done at Davides parents place. Here under the car we have Davide and Bruno

And here Luca, Bruno and Davide

And finally here is the repairing team, missing dad

La Barna - aqui estamos

Heippa all,

In the beginning of September we were thinking all the possible places we could visit during our eternal atumn of traveling with the camper. We also estimated the amount of kilometers we would drive. Somehow like this it looked like: Kilometers maybe 6000 (a bit over estimation we thought) and time to drive around all of Spain and in Portugal in the later Autumn - like when the weather gets bad in central Europe we would end up in south of Spain for November.

And here we are: 9500km driven, its mid-November, and we made it "down" in Spain until Barcelona... Humm.. Well, our driving hasnt been that straight and we definitely wont make it to any more south of Spain than this since we planned to be in Bordeaux at the beginning of December. The only thing we were wrong was the weather. During all the drive through all autumns in different countries we have had amazingly lovely weather. Just when we thought in Taino in Italy when it was raining and a bit misty (not that we let it disturb us at all) that now the Autumn is here - how wrong we were. Already in the coast of Mediterranean it was lovely and warm and once we were in France the weather was like the best of May/June in Finland. Jubii! And while we drove closer to Spain it became truly warm - like 20degrees and full sun. Nice =) And yesterday here in Barcelona it was a bit misty and rainy in the night but now the sun is shining brighter than ever!

So, maybe it was already in Berlin that i promised to put here photos? Well, i definitely will do it here one day, but now the sun is shining from clear blue sky and we are about to go for a walk close to Tibidabo to have a view to the whole city. I think we will stay here in town till the end of the week maybe, so i have time here at the home of Sonia and Laia to sit on the sofa and put the pictures for you. But not right now, sorry =) And today i think we will go for a dinner downtown and meet Mikalel - jubii, cant wait! But the problem remains that in which restaurant to go, humm... Maybe i have to have some nice tapas in El Tropezon, or then get wasted in Champañeria. Lets see...

But anyway im happy to be here in Barcelona again. Somehow i just love the city =)

*besos* a todos <3

Ferrara - Cinque Terre - Taino - France

Whooooops...

Cordially sorry for everyone for not writing for such a long time – two weeks now or what? And what is my excuse? Well, I have none. Somehow I didnt have a good moment when I had internet and nothing better to do. Butbut, now we are in France in a small camping in a small town (Greoux les Bains), its raining a bit outside and here we have netti. So time to write a small resume about what we have done since Austria.

So, after Austria we drove through Slovenia and spent there three days. What a nice country! Go there now everyone! :) It was small enough to see it all more or less while driving through in a few days, but still it was variable enough to keep the interest. The autumn colours were at their best and all the leaf tree forests were in burning orange and yellow, wow. People were friendly and nice and not yet fed up with tourists, since I think there is not yet too many easyjets and ryanairs flying there. Atleast I had an image about all the ex-Yugoslavian countries to be like poor and broken and smashed and badly taken care of – but thats not true in Slovenia at all! The whole country was clean and well kept and even biking was super easy and nice in Ljubljana. There we had our first touch to the mountains that surrounded the small capital, and in general even Ljubljana was cute. We spent there one whole day, and it was possible to see the most of it in that time. But if we would have spent there longer time then there would have been many outside hiking/biking possibilities in close proximity. And one curiosity about the country is that there the prices of gasoline were fixed since at first we were wondering why all the gas stations dont tell their prices – surely its not necessary since the price was the same everywhere :) In Slovenia we also had our first touch to the mediterranean sea, since the last night there we were in a small village in the coast. We went to eat in some cute restaurant where we had suuuuper nice gambas and squids. And hey by the way Simons squids in Wien became excellent also. Have I now written a good travel commercial about Slovenia? Well then, lets continue to Italy – totally another story that is...

We drove straight from Slovenian coast to Ferrara to spend the weekend with Laura and her family. The first thing that jumped in front of our eyes was of course the traffic and terrible signing of the roads and streets. In one crossroad there is a sign indicating to some city and in the next crossroad that sign is missing.. Well, that was no surprise but it was quite interesting experience anyhow. It was not only one time we got totally lost and off-track, but what to do – it must be part of the Italian charm ;) And the second thing I noticed and which I think was best in Italy compared to all the other countries where we have been is that all the horrible American fast-food chains and non-domestical chain restaurants were missing. And thats great! As a quick snack you go to bakery and grab some foccaccia or slice of pizza or something. Excellent! And not to mention all the lovely oil, cheese, fruits, vegetables... Yummy!

And from where we get conveniently to the topic of our feeding during the time in Ferrara. Lauras and Davides mums were competing who would get the tourists closer to explosion after eating too much too good food. Neither of them succeeded but it was close daily during midday lunch time and in the evening at dinner time :) After a lazy weekend in Ferrara we drove in the evening one hour down to Bologna and slept in the parking lot of Ducati factory/museum so that Bruno had best possible chance to get to the museum next morning – which he did in the end. That day we drove small roads down to the borders of Toscana, stopped by in Pistoia for lunch and spent the night in some small town up in the hills. Lovely view from the roads.

The next day we went to Lucca, and then to the western Ligurian coast of Italy in Levanto. From there there is the access to the five small cities of Cinque Terre where you can go hiking and walking but not biking or driving car (or thats what they want you to think atleast..). The first night we spent int the most expensive camping so far in Levanto, but the next day we found when biking though an old train tunnel that in the next small village (Bonassola) it was possible to park the camper just between the high cliffs and the sea for free. There we spent two more days enjoying the summer – the sun was shining and it was +19 during the days, jubii! One day we took out the kayak and went kayaking in the Mediterranean, that was awesome! The other day we took the train to Cinque Terre and went hiking on the mountains. There was another example of the Italian efficiency since the train ended up to be free for us, hehe.. The ticket machines were out of order in the train station, the ticket office was closed and after asking from one family waiting for the train we found out that we were supposed to buy the tickets from the tourist office. So we biked down town again, found the office and saw the “away for a while” sing on the door... Finally one lady in a tabac shop told us that you should buy the ticket from the train – and its maybe not surprising when I tell that ofcourse there was nobody in the train to buy the tickets from ;) After the more or less same thing happened on the way back we named it as a free train of Cinque Terre. Aijoo, except on the way back there was one bored lady sitting in the ticket office in the train station but she had a big sign in her kiosk window saying that “we dont sell train tickets” :)

But in the whole the Cinque Terre was awesome. Actually heard about it for the first time in Amsterdam in a small restaurant we were eating. In the table next to us was sitting a couple from Vermont and they said the place was lovely. And so it was. I can imagine that the whole place is one horrible tourist trap and a mess in the summer, but like this in the off-season it was really nice. And the same is true actually with most of the Italian coast. The whole country is so popular and crowded, that in the summer it must be a mess. But our timing was more than perfect I might say!

Our temperature dropped with several degrees since from the coast we drove up to Pavia to see Laura in her working town. On the way there I wanted to go to the aquarium of Genova and it was nice as well. There was for example arctic fishes without hemoglobin, manaatti (sorry I only remember the name in finnish) and giant sea turtle. We drove to Genova along the Riviera coast, and huhhuhh the amount of fancy houses and yachts and cars on the streets... We spent two relaxing days in Pavia before driving up to Lago Maggiore to see Ritu in her small town of Taino. And again our temperature dropped with several degrees and we entered for the first time in a proper autumn. Wet rain and yellow leaves in the ground everywhere. But the lake itself was nice and there were awesome mountains just close by. We took Ritus dog Touko with us as a guide and spent one day hiking and walking in rain in the marvelous leaf tree forests and mountains facing the lake. I was thinking that this place must be at its best in the spring time when the forests are blooming but the tourists are not yet :) This time I think we came maybe a bit too much off-season considering the outside activities but it didnt matter – just it means I have to come back another time ;o) And the evenings we spent cosily inside blaablaaing with Ritu and cooking suppilovahvero soup and pumpkin – grown in the campania in Ferrara :)

And then we finally come to yesterday which was the most horrible driving day so far – thanks to the terrible signing of the Italian streets, sorry to say. On our way from Taino to France (or so we thought, its only 200km) we got lost in all the bloody hell city centres you ever can imagine, except to Torino thanks god. And after getting close to cross the mountains to the French coast we drove up 1400m to Col de Tende only to find out that the tunnel is open – except for camping cars... Well, luckily the road was dry although there were heaps of snow next to the road, so coming down was ookoo. Finally we made it back to the coast, but we spent the night in the Italian side in Imperia in some parking space for the campers. It might have cost something but we never ended up paying, hihi :) It was funny to think that one week earlier we were kayaking in the same sea just 150km away, since yesterday the sea was rough and restless with huge waves that broke on the side walks next to the sea.

And here we are, in today. We drove from Italy to France in the Riviera, and then behind Nice to the mountains of the French coast. We drove through the European Grand Canyon – Grande Canyon du Verdon. Awesome view! Hundreds of meters steep cliffs down to the bottom of the canyon where turquoise blue river was running. It would have been nice to spend the night next to the lake on the other end of the canyon, but our battery for the cabin was a bit empty so we came here to one of the only open camping sites in the area. Tomorrow we will continue our way through southern France finally ending up in Barcelona maybe in three days or so.

And thats all folks - this time. Bruno has prepared a nice salad for dinner and I will start munch-munching now. Big kisses to you all, and enjoy the autumn :) 

PS. Remember to feed my five blue fish on the right panel ;o)