On the road (3) A (hopefully) sunny September road trip to Spain COMPLETED - Page 2 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Well, I´ve finally had time to get on the boards. I have been updating on Facebook, as it´s so much simpler when you´re pushed for time to get on there - and so far all my Internet access has been grabbing computers in public areas of hotels whenever I can.
We´re just about to leave Madrid, having had a wonderful day there yesterday. It´s a beautiful city and we loved it. Mark loved the Segway tour that I got him as part of his birthday present and I had a lot of fun with it as well. Fortunately, the ankle stood up OK to it!
The drive down so far has been fine, but I think we´re both glad that I planned a day of a lot of driving, followed by a day of not doing very much. Bordeaux was beautiful and we loved the wine tasting tour to Saint Emilion, even if the wine wasn´t much to write home about!
The weather has cooled down from the highs of the mid 90s we saw in Bordeaux (too hot for us) to a much more pleasant high in the mids 80s. Well, better dash, as it´s the last leg of the drive now to the villa!
OMG so happy we found this. The Art History professor and I are set for our morning trip reports. He so loves seeing your photos. We can't wait for the trip report and photos!
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Well, we're back and, thanks to it being a relatively quiet for vacation, the trip report is ready to go:
Friday 3 September: where is everyone?
This was one seriously unusual start to a vacation for us. Although we often head up to an airport the night before we travel, usually that’s all we do the night before we go away, with flights usually programmed to leave the next morning. Even our previous road trips, we’d booked to leave in the morning, so that we could have a full day’s leave when we got to continental Europe.
This time though, we were working a full day (well, almost, with both of us heading out at around 3pm) and then we’d be off on our third – and last – road trip of 2010. We both made it back reasonably on time, with me doing slightly better than Mark. That was definitely a good thing. It was his birthday the next day, and although I’d bought his main present last December (!), I had been going backwards and forwards about whether to book a Segway tour for him in Madrid.
First, the high temperatures a fortnight ago had put me off, as it was showing mid 90s originally but then those went down to the mid 70s, which was much more manageable. Then I twisted my bad ankle the Sunday before we were due to leave, so I decided to hold off a bit longer before buying it, to see how it was doing. By the Thursday morning, I felt it was doing well enough to book it, knowing I’d have a few more days to recover before the tour, so I went ahead and booked it. The only problem? You had to have your booking confirmed and get a voucher for it and I didn’t get one that night or on the Friday morning. I came back from work on the Friday afternoon, hoping and praying that the voucher would be in my inbox. Thankfully, it was, so it was duly printed and put in Mark’s birthday card for the next day.
The next hour or so was spent finishing up tidying the house and putting as much water as was humanly possible into the houseplants and hanging baskets, as they’d have to do until we got back. The only thing I’d asked Mark’s sister to water was the greenhouse, with its abundant supply of both strawberries and tomatoes. Hopefully she’d have a good crop while we were gone.
Eventually, we were ready to leave just before 5pm and we headed out on to the motorway. We had a very quick drive down to Folkestone and the Channel Tunnel terminal in beautiful early autumn sunshine. Finally, the weather had turned, after a wet, relatively cold and miserable August. Almost as soon as September had arrived, the weather had dried out and warmed up and suddenly the sun had become a familiar sight again, which was a very pleasant change.
We made it to the terminal by about 5.20pm and, when we checked in, we were offered the chance to change to an earlier Shuttle. We were booked on the 6.50pm one and could go either at 6.20pm or 6.43pm, so we opted for the earliest possible. As we pulled into the car park outside the passenger terminal, we could immediately see why there was so much choice. The place was deserted, with literally about three cars in the car park. We’d never seen the place so quiet before. :
We headed in and bought some books, although annoyingly I couldn’t find the one I wanted, an autobiography of athlete Usain Bolt, despite me looking everywhere. A few books purchased to keep us occupied while we were away, we headed to get some food. I opted for a mozzarella cheese and vegetable Panini, while Mark went for a burger from Burger King. As we sat there eating, we got the first call for our train, so we quickly polished off our food and headed for the car.
We sailed through customs and passport control, enjoying the sight of the Belgian car in front of us being pulled over for a search, just glad it wasn’t us. We got in line and were surprised at how many cars there were here. There still weren’t many, just more than the car park had suggested. It was only a few minutes before we were boarding and, annoyingly, we ended up upstairs, which is not our favourite way to travel, as usually you feel the movement much more. Fortunately, that actually wasn’t the case in today’s journey, and apart from one lurch, it was actually very smooth.
I set about eating the last part of my dinner that I hadn’t had time to eat before we set off, this adorable sheep gingerbread:
Just 35 minutes later, we were arriving in France, and off we came from the upstairs section of the train:
The sun was slowly setting and casting some wonderful light around everywhere. It made a pleasant change from being greeted with rain, as we often are when we come off the tunnel in France.
We headed for the motorway that would take us to Arras, our stop for the night. Again, the roads were absolutely deserted. I have no idea where everyone was, but it was very pleasant to almost be on our own.
A hot air balloon we saw on the way down
On the way, we spotted various groups of cows. For those not familiar with the new Pendry way of spotting cows, devised on our trip to the Loire Valley in France in June, here’s a quick refresher:
1 – 5 cows = a moo
6 – 10 cows = a moos
11 – 20 cows = a mooey
21 – 30 cows = a mooey mooey
Anything over 30 cows = a mooey mooey mooey!
On the way down, we were inundated with cow sightings, although Mark was the one spotting the majority of them (bit worrying, considering he was driving! ) and we saw, in total, two moo, three moos, three mooeys and two mooey mooeys! Not bad for just over an hour’s journey!
As we approached Arras, we both commented that we were very glad we’d got on the earlier train, as my goodness, suddenly it was getting very dark and I know Mark was finding the driving tough. Fortunately, it was relatively simple to find the Ibis Arras, which it turned out was literally about 30 seconds walk from the centre of Arras. We went round the block once, looking for parking near the hotel, but lucked out, with someone pulling out of a space, just as we came back for a second time. Although it said it was a paid parking spot, some investigation showed that charges only applied between 9am and 12pm and 2pm and 6pm, which worked perfectly for us.
We parked up, unloaded and went in to check in. The match with France in their first European qualifier for the 2012 championships was just kicking off against Belarussia. It ended up 0-0, not a good result for the French, who were expected to trounce their opponents.
We got our room and headed up to it. Small doesn’t begin to describe it. It was a tiny place with very little space for anything, apart from a bed. In that respect, it reminded us of the hotel we’d stayed in in New York on our honeymoon, which had literally been just off Times Square. Mind you, again judging by this hotel’s location, right in the middle of the city, you could understand it.
We put our stuff down and headed straight out, as we wanted to explore the main city square, which we just driven through. It was absolutely beautiful. According to my guidebook, this and another square, which had a funfair on it, date from the 17th century and are surrounded by Flemish style buildings, something which we spotted immediately, as it looked just like the main Grand Place square in Brussels. There are 155 buildings surrounding the two squares and the starring role in the square we visited was given to the town hall or Hotel de Ville, which was beautifully lit, as you can see from our photos.
A little bit of England in the square just outside our hotel Our hotel, with the square just to the left of the photo
Once we were done with photos, it was back to the hotel and we had an early night, as we wanted to be on the road early in the morning, as we had a long drive ahead of us tomorrow down to Bordeaux.
Today we drove 104 miles. The weather today was warm and sunny, with temperatures in the low 70s. The best thing today was being able to leave on an earlier train. The worst thing today was being upstairs on the train. Today we tried staying the night in Arras And the result was it’s a beautiful city. The most magical moment today was exploring the square in Arras.
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Claytrgtshooter (Minnie Lor's Hubbie)
PassPorter Guide Author
Parlor Panther in 'stalking mode'
And I'm with you on the hotel thing. I always book them in advance, too.
Holly: 
but then those went down to the mid 70s, which was much more manageable. Then I twisted my bad ankle the Sunday before we were due to leave, so I decided to hold off a bit longer before buying it, to see how it was doing. By the Thursday morning, I felt it was doing well enough to book it, knowing I’d have a few more days to recover before the tour, so I went ahead and booked it. The only problem? You had to have your booking confirmed and get a voucher for it and I didn’t get one that night or on the Friday morning. I came back from work on the Friday afternoon, hoping and praying that the voucher would be in my inbox. Thankfully, it was, so it was duly printed and put in Mark’s birthday card for the next day. 
: 
A few books purchased to keep us occupied while we were away, we headed to get some food. I opted for a mozzarella cheese and vegetable Panini, while Mark went for a burger from Burger King. As we sat there eating, we got the first call for our train, so we quickly polished off our food and headed for the car. 
Not bad for just over an hour’s journey! 
the pictures, especially the city ones at night!
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