This morning Helen and the children left for home at 10:05 on the KLM flight back to CT.  I went to work in London on a 10:20 flight. Both of our flights left on time and arrived on time. 2 more flights completed by KLM on time adding to their 91% on time performance record. Compare that to Air France's record (who own KLM) of 71% on time and you must wonder how there can be...

We spent the whole day in Amsterdam today. As our hotel charges €25 for breakfast (per person) we didn't have breakfast in the hotel but rather went out and found a restaurant along the road serving breakfast. When in Amsterdam, do as the Dutch and have pancakes for breakfast. They were as good as they looked. We then headed down to the main canal to pick up a canal tour. We had hoped to buy a...

Everyone started leaving this morning to return home. We missed the early departures (they left at 6:30am and 7am). We had breakfast at our usual time of 9am and then started packing up everything. By just after 10 am we had said our goodbyes and were on the road back to the airport at Bordeaux. The GPS said it would take 1 hour 10 mins but we had been warned that because of traffic around Bordeaux...

Today was our last full day in France. Everybody just wanted to chill out and relax (except Helen and my sister-in-law Sue who went for a run this morning). The gaggle of girls had been up late last night. I went to bed at 1:20am and they were very much still awake at that point. At about 12:30am there had been a loud shriek from the room.  It had happened just after a loud (male) voice...

We were up quite early today as Helen and 3 other insane people in the family decided to go mountain biking. As I was awake already as well I went to breakfast with them and then they headed out on their bike tour of Bordeaux. They got back just before 11am and seem to enjoy it (having cycled almost 30 kms according Endomondo). We had decided to book a picnic lunch at the winery we had...

It is not advisable to do those two things back-to-back as a general rule but that occupied our time today. It was another beautiful day here in France (weather wise) with the temperature around 27 degrees C and virtually no wind.  After having the (now) usual continental breakfast we headed out late morning for a nearby vineyard and winery. It was only a 10 minute drive from Chateau de Sanse and was recommended to us by...

We are still at Chateau de Sanse (http://www.chateaudesanse.com/en/index.html) and will be here for the next 4 days still. We have the whole Chateau to ourselves except that the restaurant is open for lunch during the day. Given we plan to generally be out for the day that is not really a big issue for us.  Breakfast was again a traditional continental breakfast. The coffee was so strong, I even thought it was strong - I think...

My Dad had decided that 2 nights at Chateau de la Cote was all we needed.  It would enough to experience the charm of an old Chateau and that we could move to a slightly different area of Bordeaux - it was a good decision.  We were leaving behind the beauty of a large rambling garden and the vast sunflower fields which we could see from the Chateau.  The picture is from our window of our...

Last night (after I posted the blog) a massive storm moved past the Chateau.  Either that or it was a congregation of ghosts. As it was so hot the windows were all open (no aircon at the Chateau - it was built in 1640 and aircon had not been invented then yet). The wind however came up and howled around the building and through the room. It was so bad I had to actually close one...

Last night there was a big thunderstorm in Bordeaux but it did nothing to cool things down. It was both hot and humid when we out at 8:30am to pick up the rental car. It was an absolute breeze picking up the car from Hertz (I am a loyal Hertz customer and they generally give very good service worldwide).  Back to the hotel for breakfast with the family. Novotel hotels pride themselves on keeping staffing to...