Europe trip 29

Monday 1 October

 Today we had quite a long drive from Thorens Glieres to Cleremont Ferrand which is quite a large city in the middle of France. On the way we stopped in the second biggest city in France called Lyon. We walked around Lyon for four and a half hours looking at all the sights and buildings.

We walked around the town and saw one church up on the hill that was amazing. It was called Fouviere. It had a framed version of the Hail Mary in Maori,amongst 20 other languages The road was really steep leading up to it and when we got to the top and walked inside, we discovered it was packed full of paintings and gold embossed frescoes.

 There wasn’t even one centimetre of plain wall. This church inspired some of the early Marist priests. They later came to New Zealand and set up schools like Saint Bede’s.

 In the late afternoon we hit the road to Cleremont and finally got to our tiny apartment around 8pm. Tuesday 2 October We woke to a grey day and decided to drive to Bordeaux via the famous Dordogne Valley and the country roads. We aimed for Tulle which is famous for lace making but, as it was a raining, we just had a quick lunch then jumped back in car and hit the motorway all the way to Bordeaux.

We got there earlier than expected so had to sit twiddling our thumbs for over an hour before the guy came with the keys to let us in. We stayed on the eight floor of an old apartment building which had great views of the city. Mum was delighted as she discovered not one but three kettles and teapots – most places we have stayed at so far didn’t even have a kettle so she had to boil water in a pan to make her tea!

 After we unpacked and got sorted out, we walked 30 minutes into town and had dinner with Florence and Patrick, who are friends of my Aunty Stacy. Stacy met Florence when she lived in Bordeaux many years ago. They took us to an English pub, where I watched soccer, and then for a delicious dinner – Dad and I had duck linguine.