France: Bourg D'Oisans Plan D'Eau and Col D'Ornon

Bourg D’Oisans was bathed in sunshine this morning. It took awhile to get the sleepy family up and about. Once we did, it was time to explore this beautiful mountain range. The view out of my bedroom window was calling. After a brief chat with Melanie, our illustrious land lady, we opted to go up the Col D'Ornon. Everywhere we went, there were Tour de France signs and as we twisted and turned our way up the Col, it was with a lot of sympathy for those cyclists. And yet, there were masses of cyclists on the road that were cycling this immense mountain… for fun?!

The car drove on looking for a family friendly destination. The villages were gorgeous but we didn’t stop the car until we reached Plan D’Eau. This lovely wee lake had monstrously large fish but was very swimmable. The water was warm and surrounded by a grassy shoreline. The clarity of being in the mountains with wonderful views was priceless. There was a restaurant and paddle boards, but we opted to swim and then wander around the lake for exercise. After the rain tried twice, we drove back.

On the way, we stopped at the top of the Col D’Ornon. Here there is a bar and restaurant that was perfect for ice creams and café au lait. From here, we walked the road to the waterfall and then headed up what turned out to be a ski slope. The alpine meadow was full of flowers and some moth/butterfly creatures that we had never seen before. The scent in the air from the wildflowers was heavenly and the bees we saw made us wonder where the honey patch was.

Around supper time, we went back into Bourg D’Oisans for a wee wander. I had forgotten my jacket back at home, so I needed some sort of fleecy. While shopping, we had an education in sudden mountain storms as a torrential downpour complete with thunder and lightening tore through the village. Shopfronts were soaked and lots of rapid French was heard, sounding rather miffed. We finished with the tourism office and made plans for tomorrow. Stay tuned. 

France: Lyon Arrival and Finding Heaven

Traveling Hits and Misses

As blog titles go, this one is rather elusive. How do you sum up two days of travel to get to Lyon France from the northern climes of Canada? Stupid is a word that comes to mind. Daft. Unreasonable. Exhausting. Mind meld.

The trouble with living so far north, flights are limited and airlines are limited. We have two choices: WestJet or Air Canada. The ordeal of travel comes from me having a bright idea of some place fun to go. Then, we book airline seats in good faith and pay arms, legs and mortgages to pay for them (not really, but it sure feels like it.). This is after watching for seat sales that are for the rest of Canada, but not us. So, in the end, we have the privilege of waking at 3:15 am. to head for the airport for a 6:00 am flight.

We landed at 7:15 into Edmonton and wandered through the airport to find a place to curl up. Fortunately, this airport has comfortable curved benches that were perfect for miserable teens to sleep on. Five hours later, snacking and shopping our way through the time, we get the awesome news that close to boarding, our flight will be delayed for an hour plus for routine maintenance. Don’t worry, they are rebooking people as needed. Question: how can they not know that this routine maintenance needs to be done and why was it not scheduled properly? We were fortunately that our flight from Montreal to Lyon was also delayed so we had no trouble running to the gate. We left at 10:00 (it was delayed) to fly to FRANCE.

Lyon, for the traveller, and a jet-lagged traveler to boot, was a wonderful experience. We landed, and deplaned smoothly. Customs was small and simple. The airport had a shuttle to the rental cars that was easy to find. We had landed and found our car within 1.5 hours and were on the road with EuropeCar. First note: France has toll roads. Second note: they take credit cards for payment so not to worry if you haven’t found currency yet. I was excited to see the sunflowers in bloom just outside the car rental depot. 

Our final resting place of this two day travel was Bourg D’Oisan. Sat Nav (GPS for the North Americans) doesn’t not know this place. So, we drove towards Grenoble (did I mention grumpy teens?) where we had to get out to find food.

Grenoble is stunning. It settles into the river valley with beautiful buildings and sweeping mountains. We found Pizza everywhere so settled on pizza for lunch at Pizzeria de Vieux Quartiers. Trust me, every restaurant seemed to be a wee pizza place along this strip of the river. The pizza was authentic and delicious. We also managed to find a patisserie to get breakfast for the morning so armed with a baguette, croissants and pain au chocolat, we headed for the car.

The girls were finally girls again and not being awful, so instead of driving on, we opted to go up the Bubbles. The Bubbles are the funky gondola that take you up to the Bastille. It is possible to walk up but the sweltering muggy heat and jet-lag made that option not viable. We road the bubbles for 7 minutes and found ourselves at a nifty historical adventure. We walked to the caves and explored them. It was lovely and cool. From the caves, we saw the contemporary art exhibition, had ice creams and enjoyed the view. This was about a two hour stop altogether before we bubbled down and walked through the gardens and back to the car.

Our destination was still nowhere to be found on Sat Nav, so we set it for Alp D’Huez and drove on. The mountains in this part of the Alps are stunning. We weaved our way through the mountain valley and finally arrived at destinations sent to us by Melanie, our land lady for the week.

Thanks to Home Away website, we are staying at Ferme Noemie in Le Sable in the Middle Barn. This place is incredible. We have the middle barn apartment which sleeps five people comfortably. It has two bedrooms upstairs and on the main floor is has an open concept living room kitchen and bathroom. Balconies on either side allow access to the mountain views. I will let the images speak for themselves. It was heaven to fall asleep here and wake up with the sun streaming in the windows. Altogether, we are up and about to go adventuring. 

 Ferme Noemie

 Grenoble

Wedding Bells: Frederick to Atlantic City

This is it! The day we drive to Atlantic City for some quality girl time before the wedding. But, before that, we needed food and in order to have some quality time with the groom, we all went out for lunch at a charming Vietnamese restaurant in Frederick. After a delightful lunch, we have some equally fabulous coffee at a local brew house before heading as fast as we could go to Atlantic City.

Vroom. Lurch. Stop. Go. Stop, go. 

You got it. Driving in the USA's east coast can be an adventure with google maps and gridlock. After a few hours of not getting very far, we opted to swing onto the local side roads and away from the incessant tolls. (Note to those renting a car, get the EZ pass. We didn't and wished we had it on more than one occasion as we scrambled for cash, exact change, and the worst $14 for a bridge toll.) 

We arrived early evening to the newly named Atlantic Palace, formerly Blue Green Palace. Our room was gorgeous and had wicked sea views. The staff were friendly and helpful throughout our stay. The room had a small kitchen and my favorite place to perch was on the wide window ledge that gave me a perfect beach view of the piers.

I think in my head I had pictured Las Vegas on the beach. It isn't really all that, but it was great for us. There aren't the shows and theatre, but it does have the board walk with the souvenir shops, food aplenty and all the casinos. Renovations are in progress along the boardwalks and the outlet malls are nearby. You can walk from almost everywhere to where you want to go.

Our first night of the bachelorette weekend, we checked into our wonderful hotel. It was right on the strip and very easy to navigate to. It has since changed names so naming it now is irrelevant. The girls and I strolled the boardwalk until we reached Chickie and Petes. I wasn't impressed by the menu or food but I was hungry. I would recommend going into the casinos to find good food. The music played up and down the boardwalk, while cabbies walked their push-cabs up and down seeking fares. We stopped to see the lights show and visited the Miss America statue. 

The overall impression of Atlantic City is that of an old world playground that is being forgotten in favor of other locales. There is a sense of a yesteryear that is trying to be recaptured through bringing in concerts and events. Nothing was playing while we were there. We were very surprised by how quiet it was. 

The following morning, we opted for pool and beach. Our hotel had a lovely pool that we could sit and watch the waves, the people and the activity. We had comfy deck chairs, a sun umbrella, access to the water and towels. Perfect. Later, we walked the boardwalk, did some shopping and gambled a bit before heading out for supper.

The bride and pal wanted hard shell crabs and the nearest place was Mays Landing. This was fine until we started driving for a long time...and google maps talked us to a side road in the middle of nowhere. Now 9:00 pm, our restaurant of choice was closed so back to mays landing we ventured. There it was...a sign that said crabs. We pulled in to The Watering Hole. 

The Watering Hole had a pool tourney on the go and we were about to breeze through and leave when a local stopped us and offered to clear a spot. So, we stayed. We stayed in our nice dressy clothes and stood out like a sore thumb. That lasted 5 minutes, then we moved to the bar. The bartender was warm and friendly, and made us laugh. Even better, the food was tasty and exceeded our expectations. I don't think we could have done better. It was local, earthy and great people that all called this place home away from home. It was awesome and unexpected. 

For a bachelorette party, it was unique...a toast to the road less travelled.

Wedding Bells: Flying in for the Epic Day

Packing for flights is never my strong suit. I tend to overpack at the best of times and on this significant adventure, I have one suitcase with five pairs of shoes. Five. I hereby commission someone to invent a comfortable pair of shoes that can covert from sexy little flip flops to a elegant heel with a slide on and off sole. It would minimize the damage. I have two flats, one pair of heels for the wedding, flip flops for the beach and another pair of heels for the little black dress. This is where being a girl can be challenging. All for the bachelorette to the wedding of a dear friend. Here we go...

Except Toronto Pearson workers are on strike...so at meant a long two hour call to Air Canada who bumped my first flight up by 18 hours and I left the house in a hurry. They were great but it was tiring as the flight was delayed six hours and nothing was open for caffeine intake at the airport. Toronto was packed with people and flights were cancelled due to the strike causing chaos. Instead of flying to Harrisburg, I was detoured to Baltimore. This meant a change of plans and I was frantically texting my peeps to let them know.

End result? We went to the bride to be's house instead of a hotel and participated in the 4th of July festivities in Frederick, MD.  We dropped off bags and proceeded to a lovely historically preserved downtown with a wide open field full of vendors selling fair foods at Baker Park. This was my first Maryland crab cake. We sat on a bench and watched an ever changing game of kickball. Basically, it resembled baseball with a soccer ball. The teams kept changing and evolving, with adults taking a lot of bruising as they tried to keep up with the kids. Late evening, the sky lit up with fireworks. People were swarming everywhere while fireflies flickered in the darkened evening.

Still, we didn't head back and instead, wandered into a local pub to sample some beer at JoJo's tap house. If nothing else, it was supposed to help me sleep. Tomorrow, onto Atlantic City.

Hooliganting: Costa Rica: Tamarindo

Hooliganting: Costa Rica: Tamarindo: Tamarindo was scorching hot again today. This is a place where people come annually. We met several folk today that make coming here their v...

Costa Rica: Tamarindo

Tamarindo was scorching hot again today. This is a place where people come annually. We met several folk today that make coming here their vacation every year. I can see why. The lounge chairs are plentiful, and the surfing is great. The beach is full of colorful shells and the sand rivals Rathtrevor Beach for sculpting and sandcastle art. Drawing in the sand is a local habit here. You can tours, or do what we did, sit happily by pools and beaches pretending to do nothing.

Now, I don't do "nothing" well. In fact an hour in the sun and I get twitchy, wanting to do something. Having barely made it to breakfast before they closed, I sat on my opinions and left the kids in the pool for a lengthy stretch, only hauling them out when I saw shades of pink on the shoulders. We had a sketchy lunch in the room and then, I pounced.

Thanks to some "expert" tourists, I opted to walk along towards the river. Despite the complaints, I stuck to my guns and found boats at the river, willing to take passengers. We bargained and got seats on the boat for $60 for our group of four. At the resort, a tour would have been $35 per person. We had a shady canopy, and up the mangroves we chugged. It was lovely. The operator stopped for photos as we asked, and found us a group of howler monkeys. It was a great way to spend two hours in the heat of the afternoon. We walked back along the beach and then plunked down by the beach pool.

Dinner was at Witches Rock. If you want hamburgers that are thick and juicy, this is the place. They had a large campfire, and jugglers came by top form. This place is on the beach and is accessible from both sides. Amusingly, a dog came a begging. Even funnier was the demand for ice cream by two hopeful faces...of course we caved.

Now, I am listening to the Friday night crowd and dance music blasting from the clubs. Not having a barely there dress in my repertoire, it is likely better that I  dance on my balcony. Friday night in Tamarindo, I don't ink you can beat this...sorry Mexico, I have a new favorite place...on this side of the Atlantic anyway.

Popular outing

Howler Monkey

Tamarindo on Dwellable

Hooliganting: Costa Rica: El Diria Hotel and Tamarindo Beach

Hooliganting: Costa Rica: El Diria Hotel and Tamarindo Beach: If you are looking for brilliantly hot sunshine, tempered with a breeze and things to do, this is the place. In the morning, the El Diria ...