Paris - Barcelona - and things that Woof in the night

Benjamin Franklyn once said "If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail"  Well, two weeks ago I told you we had a plan....   

Now those 2 weeks have passed and we pulled it off without a hitch.   As I write this, we are sitting in our hotel in Southampton, about a mile from where we will board the Queen Mary2 tomorrow.    Two dogs are playing on the bed.    Yes - count em....  two.

We left the Winchcombe 9 days ago and drove to the Holiday Inn in Folkstone.   Close to where the train goes under the English Channel to France.    I dropped Kate and Annie off with our limited luggage at the Holiday Inn and I took the car to Bridge, UK to the VRBO that we stayed at last May.    The owner there said I could leave the car there while we were gone.

At dinner in the Holiday Inn.

Our Pet Taxi picked us up at 0700 and wisked us onto the train and we crossed over to France.   I picked up our left hand steer rental car in Calais, and soon we were off to Paris.

Within a few hours we were driving up to the Arc d Triomphe.

My old New York City driving skills came in real handy in Paris.    We sucessfully navigated our way thru the busy streets to our hotel just a few blocks from the Eiffel Tower.

Our room was pretty large by most standards, but especially so for Paris.

A large room in Paris

We had 2 days to explor a bit so on one morning we grabbed an Uber to take us to the Arc d Triomphe and from there we walked about for the rest of the day and worked out way back to the hotel around 3pm or so.

Each day we would stop at a sidewalk cafe for lunch or dinner.   There are an endless number of places to choose from and to take them all in would take a lifetime.

Our third morning found us leaving Paris just as the sun was coming up.   We had about 8 hrs to drive today, and since it was a Saturday, the streets were empty early in the morning.

Along the way we stopped to check out the Garabit Viaduct.   Built in the late 1800's by Gustave Eiffel, it is as functional as it it beautiful.    Build from Wroght Iron, it still carries rail traffic today.

For me however, the highlight of the day was the Millau Viaduct.    I had heard about this bridge - the tallest in the world -  years ago when I saw a Discovery Channel show about it being built, and the groundbreaking enginering and construction methods that went into its construction.

The tallest pylon of the bridge is almost as tall as the World Trade Center towers were.

The roadway rides about 900' above the ground.

The bridge maintains a slight curve thru its length to help prevent drivers from getting vertigo.

Later in the day we ran into some stormy weather.   Moisture moving up from the Mediterranian was bumping into the mountain we were crossing on our southward journey, and the result was some of the heaviest rain that we have driven thru in a long time.

After clearing the storms we came up upon a real rare creature over here.   A Class A motorhome.   A Holiday Rambler no less.    I pegged it at about 36'.  Just a bit shorter than our coach.   It had tags from Sweden.     On Sunday, after we made a u-turn leaving Barcelona - I saw him pass us by headed in his original direction headed towards Barcelona.

Our stop for the night was La Villa Duflot in Perpignan.  It was like a resort which made it a nice stopover for a pack or weary road warriors.  

Kate and Annie head to dinner

We had a very nice dinner at the resturant along side of the pool.

We were meeting the breeder the next morning (Sunday Sept 17) at 0900 and it was a tad over 2 hrs from Perpignan, so we hit the road about 0600 leaving an hour extra for some cushion in case of the unexpected.

We arrived early so we sat on some benches and enjoyed the last few minutes of calm before the storm

Kate meets Phoebe

Annie meets Phoebe

Within a few minutes of meeting, Annie and Phoebe were already playing.

We finished up the paperwork for Phoebes Pet Passport, then the Vet on Staff gave Annie and Phoebe the required tapeworm treatments they would need to enter the UK on Thursday.    He entered it into their passports and within an hour of arriving, the 4 of us were back on the road heading north.

Our stop for the night was in a new Holiday Inn about 30 min north of Toulouse.

First night as a 4some.

Early the next morning we were back on the road as we had an 8 hour drive to Normandy.

Our destination for 2 nghts was La Ferme de la Ranconiere.    Located in the small village of Crepon we visted this wonderful place in 2008 and I've been dying to get back ever since.

Our room was huge and had this whole medevial vibe with the stone walls and exposed beams.

We also had a nice enclosed back yard to let the dogs run.

The hotel consists of converted farm buildings with lovely landscaped spaces spread throughout.

Our room was the white arched doors in the distance on the left.

There is a fantastic resturant on site that serves one sitting starting at 7pm.   

I didn't want to get too heavy with the food porn, so I thought I'd just show a few deserts.

The vanila mousse and the grapefruit provided some interesting contrasts.

Kate had this Chocolate bomb.    Frozen Chocolate mousse filled with chocolate cream on a bed of chocolate toasted crunchies.

Breakfasts were served in a different room.    As is customary in France, dogs were welcome at both dinner and breakfast.    France is incredibly dog friendly and everywhere we went to eat the dogs were welcome to come without restrictions of any kind.

I'd also be remiss if I did not mention our incredibly friendly waiter Gerard.   He was a man who simply exuded joy from his pores.    Serving both breakfast and dinner shifts, he always had a sincere smile on his face and a song on his lips.    He absolutely adored the dogs and lit up each time he saw them.   He would crouch down and just love them up.    He would come back once or twice during our meals for a dog love refill.  Each time he walked by the dogs he would sing out some sort of greeting to the dogs in French.

Gerard gets a doggie fix

Our two nights flew by and it was back on the road.   Our last stop in France would be Calais where we would return the rental car and spend the night at our old Chunnel standby - the Holiday Inn in Coquelles.

Getting Phoebe has been a great addition to the family.  Especially for Annie.    I think its important for a dog to have another of its own kind sharing its life.    It seems to add a bit of stability to thier lives.

Already best friends.

Our French wheels - a Peugeot 2008

I dropped Kate and the dogs off at the Holiday Inn and turned in the rental car.   One of the guys from the location gave me a ride back to the hotel.    The enterprise location at the Calais Ferry Port was perhaps the best rental car experience I've ever had.    Great on both the pickup and the drop off.

This morning (Thursday Sept 21) our Pet Taxi driver was early as usual, and soon, their Pet Passports cheked,  we had cleared thru the pet reception center, human customs and immigration, and were boarding the train.

Arriving back at our UK rental car, we fired it up and turned our way west towards Southampton and our last overseas home for this trip.    Tomorrow I will drop Kate and the dogs off at the ship, with the luggage.   I will then return the rental car and catch a cab back to the ship, and by 5 or 6pm we should be making our way out the Solent heading for the Channel and the Atlantic Ocean.     I'll have 7 full days with nothing to do.    How sweet!

Little do they know - tomorrow they will be shipmates.

Well my time was short so I had to slam this post together quickly to get it out before we got on board.

Basically I just wanted to say that we've been successful.   We now are returning with 2 pups.

When we get to the states we still have 2 months of traveling in the PartyBus before we get back to Tucson so this is not goodbye,    Simply....    see you down the road.