2022, July 20th.

Well, we had an amazing 2 weeks in Italy, driving from Frontignan by car to Puglia, Southern Italy, to spend a week with Benji and Claire to celebreate their engagement..

So many pictures- far too many for the blog.And just when we want to post better pictures, the laptop is not downloading properly. 

Decided not to risk flying to Brindisi via UK with all the airport problems - so we drove to Puglia.....1700 kms, (1000miles.).  The first day was a long leg of 1000kms through to Raveena on the East Coast of Italy. 

Raveena is a beautiful old Italian town containing the most incredible mossiacs.  It is a showcase of art, history and culture of rare beauty.  Eight Early Christain and Byzantine buildings compose the UNESCO site. Unfortuately all our amazing videos of the inside of these buildings have failed to down load on our laptop ( I feel a new one coming !!) but may try to send a few via email.

The Basilica of San Vitale.

Inside Bassilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo.

Inside Cappella Di S.Andrea.

Of courses a well deserved Pizza and beer for 10euros and the onto another bar for a wine.

For chocolate lovers- our hotel had bowls of these everywhere - a bit soft in the summer heat I admit!!

Next stop was Trani, about 6 hrs down the coast where we picked up Emma & Jesse who had

flown in from Toronto via Rome, as a surprise for Claire's party..  

We had the most amazing-- long awaited -- thunderstorms that required us to buy unbrellas.

A coastal small town, with lovely old windy streets- again most places not suitable for cars.

 

The Harbour.

Amazing how different the sea is each side of the breakwater. Saturday fish stalls.

Our booking.com room- fantastic but was up 2 flights of stairs.

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And then onto Puglia,( 3hrs) to Benjis house where we stayed for a week. Sunday saw the official engagement cerermony with Benji's family, ours and a few close friends. We do not know much about the jewish faith- but are learning fast. The whole family have been absoltuely lovely and welcoming.

Party night.

Here we decided this beach was a bit crowded for us so stayed cool up in a bar on the cliff.

 

During the week we had various day trips out and about.

After a hectic week we set off again to drive back to the boat, leaving the weekend celebrations continuing as the young ones ( under 40) had 2 more days of festivities planned..

Next real stop was Lucca,  a well preserved historic city in Tuscany. The temperature in Europe hasn't abated at all and its been well over 30 degrees for us for weeks. So all overnight stops had air-con👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

This proves we climbed The Torre Guingi , 233 steps!!   (Tree Tower)

Everyone can make a little outside space if they try!

The Piazza San Michelle and The Vicolo Chiostro della Cathedrale.

And dinner out.

Breakfast out in the cool at 8am, (still 28 degrees)and off back to the boat.

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Trivia.===  so it was a long drive back. 

 And from Lucca to Monaco it was only 340kms.. !!.  And instead of counting cars, or playing I Spy- we counted numbers and lengths of all the tunnels and viaducts.

So, during the 340kms,  we drove through  161 tunnels --- total of 64,540kms, of which 26 were more than 1km long.

We passed over 191 viaducts, total of  50,422kms.. After that we got fed up and stopped, but the coastal highway is incredible..

😞😞😞😞

So only 2 weeks left of our french/italian sourjoine, and we still have friends to catch up with before we leave.  so now we have to head back to Beziers to put Kiwi Rose early to bed for the winter.

 2022,  June, Agde and beyond.  

  Firstly forgot to put in a couple photos from Moissac on the last blog- amazing glass shop and you could watch he artistian make them there in the place.- very lovely and we were sooooo tempted.

 

And the town church square.

Our play ground for the next 2 weeks. Beziers-Agde-Etang de Thau-Sete-Frontignan. 

Its such a big area here (NOT) - Beziers into Agde is 24kms and onto Frontignan is roughly another 33kms.  

But we only have 2 weeks to rest and play now before we have to drive 1600kms to Puglia for Claire and Benji's engagment party week 9-17th July. ( Thats another story!!)

We do so love the Etang de Thau with its wide open space,that feels to us like the sea, endless oyster beds and sail boats although we did have a little beeze and slight chop this trip.

We have found the whole of this area to be really quite- hardly any bumper boats and a few like us about.

So different to last year but it is still early in the season. 

Frontignan and we are really nobby-no-mates as this place is normally packed with boats all summer- especially the bumper-boats doing their 7 day trips on The Canal du Midi.  

Thought for one night we might get some music as they spend along time putting up all the tents--only to find out it was a french book-fair- not much help to us. 

Then a gust of wind suddenly collapsed the first outside teny, flipped the second over the fence and riuned the third. (shouldn't laugh really but with no bumper boats to watch mooring -it was all we had.)

The next fun was the man jacking up his car to change a wheel and he put his jack through his fuel tank!!!! Not a happy chappy as he had to be towed away.

Off for another evening to local cafe for a glass of cold beer, wine and a few oysters- 

and passed this shop. Gun laws so different here:

Now on to our favourite place, Les Aresquiers- a concrete wall in the middle of nowhere- no facilities and meant to be a 24hr only stay. We have stayed here repeatedly over the last 3 years for up to a week, and often we are again , like this year nobby-no-mates , or just one and occassionally 2 neighbours. Most rental boats are on a mission and this isnt one of their stops.

This sunset was more dramatic for the clouds from the unsettled skies during the day. But here you just feel so away from everything- its wonderful!!

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Max had to do a short cycle back to Agde to bring th car up to Frontignan so we can go to Italy.

He said I said "its only 39Km". it took him 3 hours with some wrong turns of which one was as he tried to take a short-cut through the naturist village -- yeh right!!!

My strength is coming back, managing to do 2-3km walks everyday -- this is my route--- straight along the canal.  Can't complain - nobody about.

The extra flexiteek on the swim platform and gunnales looks really good too- worth the waiting in Agde while Jean-Jacques finihed it off during the 35+ temps.!!!.

Again we catch up by driving to Marsellian on the Etang for lunch with Janine. And a quick visit to the Noilly Pratt distillery.

And last- but no least- Max managed to tune into the rugby - all saturday and managed to get all the games - in this photo he is watching the Haka for the first game against Ireland.

Its been a good day 👍👍👍😀😀😀😀

So ours days are pretty simple, mornings Max will go for a cycle, I go for a walk, the after the heat from the sun has dropped we head off to the beach about 4pm- still around 28-30 degrees and sea is lovely.

The beaches near us are only accessable by motorbike, bicycle or foot - nearest carpark is about 2km away-- means its lovely and quiet most of the time. You can see the stairs over onto the beach from the boat. Takes me about 10 mins to walk ---as sadly still not on my bicycle yet. 

our nice quiet part of the beach at 4pm.

Not swimming off the back of the boat today!!!!

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Next stop ITALY  for 2 weeks.