Holland To Portugal 2023

September27-28 This was one of the places I was looking forward to for some time. A cablecar ride to a little train ride to a lake. The little train (le petit train) is the highest one in Europe and was originaly built to ferry materials and men to build the dam for the Artouste lake,part of the hydroelectric scheme. It didn't disappoint. We arrived at the village late on as it was a lengthy jouney and we neede to shop, so we booked the trip for 11 am the following day, found a space on the side of the road, with a number of other vans, overlooking what should have been a large lake, Lac de Fabrèges. It was empty, again part of the hydroelectic scheme and there were a number of heavy machinery working in the lake bottom. The following day, loaded up with a couple of sandwiches and a bottle of chilled Rose wine for out picnic, we walked from our van to the ticket office and took the cablecar to the summit, fantastic. We had a good look around at the summit and admiring the scenery...

September 23 - 24 aftr Camping Municipal la Fontaine for a 2 night stop, as it was time to get some washing done. Its not that we run out of clean clothes, Jeannette packs enough for a small platoon, but the washing bag gets too large to be managable and the washing can end up larger than 1 wash and drying can be a real headache. Chauvigny is a small town with an interesting Medieval centre, well worth spending time looking round wich we did on the second afternoon after a morning on the Velorail! The Velorail is one of our favorite thing to do in France, climb on board a railway trolley that one cycles up a, usualy, dissused track and race or coast back down, depending if you want to use the brakes. Chauvigny is, as I have mentioned has a picturesque old medieval centre peched on a hill.

23rd September

20th September For an overnight we chose Port en Bessin Huppain as the Aire there had water as we needed to fill up for a shower. The town itself is a working fishing port with many resterants. Although we only stayed one night, it is marked down as a future place to spend more time.

18th September. We walked into Arras to see the buildings that were destroyed in both world wars, rebuilt in the original style.

17th September One place I was keen to visit was the Wellington Caves in Arras, or to be more precise, under Arras. Arras was originaly built using the local stone mined from arround ans under the town, these excavations were later used as store rooms, but during the 1st world war they were used as accomodation for the troups. To extend and join up the mine workings New Zealand miners were brought in and so as not to be confusing, named the tunnels after towns in New Zealand as if a map of the country was laid over the ground. The main entrance being at the relative position of Wellington. The caves played a significant part in the Battle Of Arras in the WW1 and provided shelter for the local inhabitants in WW2.