June 6 - June 20 LYON, France. 3053 Miles

I will start this post by apologising to Lyon - sorry, Lyon.

As you may remember, we left the van at a Lyon campground while we were in Sicily - well, we had a pretty horrible flight back (3 hours of flying and over 11 hours of waiting- blah) and they lost our bag (it turned up the next day). We also had been putting off a whole bunch of boring stuff we had to do until we got back from Sicily.

Unfortunately the end result was that we got a bit fed up, and decided to get moving - so we only spent one afternoon in the city itself.

I will quote from Jane's diary

"More admin. Went food shopping - took 4 hours, no kidding. Sick of this campsite, leaving tomorrow. We had Flunch - it was delicious" (Flunch is a restaurant chain, we had the salad bar and were glad to be reunited with vegetables)

So, while Lyon is lovely, and looks beautiful, we only got to see one church and a museum.

Sorry, Lyon - we barely got to know you.

The Basilique Notre-Dame de Fourviere....

....which sits on a hill above Lyon. The sky was doing some cool stuff that day.

I was doing some pretty amazing things too.

Lyon is actually pretty big....I think.

The inside is VERY golden and covered in mosaics (that is a painting, however)

One of the amazing mosaics

The crypt underneath the church

There were prayers in different languages down the stairs to the crypt - including this one in Maori.

A view from town back up to the Church.

The Roman museum had a vast and awesome selection of mosaics. This one has a jaunty nautical theme.

I'm so excited by this large pot I am doing a traditional Scottish hat dance.

The roman amphitheatre

Lots of Roman carving seemed to involve Hercules getting boozed. Here he is being held up by Silenus (a Satyr, and an assistant to Dionysus)

We had a great meal in the nearby village of Dardilly - we could figure out the whole menu apart from two dishes. The owner would not let me order 'Tete au Veau' (head of calf) because it is 'not for you, only for the French', and he wouldn't take away Jane's entree because she hadn't eaten enough of her foie gras.

You can see my left hand eagerly hovering over the fork, willing Jane to hurry up and take the photo.

Some sort of chocolatey carry on with ice-cream.

Quite full, bit boozed, not looking forward to the cycle home.

This is a traditional confectionary called the 'Lyons Pillow''. The story goes that the city was threatened by the plague, so they had a good pray, the plague went away and they invented this in celebration. Having eaten one, I think I prefer the plague.

This is a van, towing a caravan, towing a ticket booth for a fairground ride.

Sicily - 11th-18th June

On the 11th of June we flew to Sicily to stay in the village of Cefalu for a week.  This was a bit of a milestone for us, being our first trip away from the van.  We left the van at a campground in Lyon and flew to Sicily, via Munich of course (where else!).  In Cefalu we joined my sister Sarah and her friend Amanda for a week long celebration of Sarah's 25th birthday (ahem).

 Cefalu lies in a beautiful bay on the north coast of Sicily and was previously a fishing village.  It probably still is to some extent, although the major industry must now be tourism.  It looks exactly how you'd imagine an Italian village to look, with narrow cobbled streets lined by a random, chaotic collection of buildings.  Our apartment was really close to the water, separated from it only by a small piazza and the views were amazing. 

Our street

The fruit and veggie guy.  He comes around every (early) morning and bellows out what we presume translates to "I have fruit and veggies".  He was very loud but mercifully brief....unlike the guy who sells coconut on the beach.  It'll be a while till I forget his incredibly loud refrain of "COCO...COCO VERY ICY, COCO VERY NICEY....COCO"

Not too bad considering I didn't use a tripod and may have been slightly tipsy...maybe

Our place is the top floor of the house on the left of the picture

Drinks on the balcony with Amanda and Sarah

View out of our apartment- you don't get sick of that.

Sunset over Cefalu

The beach in front of our apartment

 At the inland aspect of the village there's a huge hill that seems to rise out of nowhere, called La Rocca.  In a passing attempt at exercise we walked up to the top one morning.  The views were incredible of course and there are some impressive roman ruins also.  

La Rocca, with the Duomo in the foreground

The Roman Wall half way up La Rocca

Views from La Rocca

The major piazza contains a duomo (church) which looks incredible against the backdrop of La Rocca.  The inside was also very beautiful but unfortunately we don't have any photos- at the time we dropped in there was a wedding on and it just didn't seem right somehow to start snapping away!

The Duomo

We really enjoyed hanging out with Sarah and Amanda, and it was fabulous to have the chance to really relax for a week and stay in one spot.  Most of our time was spent eating and the food did not disappoint.  I have never had so much pasta in my life and it was all delicious.  For Sarah's birthday dinner we took a taxi half an hour inland.  There were definitely no tourists in that small mountain town and the meal was very impressive.  The rest of our time was fairly evening divided between swimming, reading and napping!

One of the many incredible sunsets we saw

Sarah and Amanda hosted us for an AMAZING dinner at their place.  Thanks again!

Morg admiring the view from Sarah and Amanda's place.  All I can say is wow.

At one of our many fabulous dinners out

One of the lovely restaurants we ate at

I know, I know, another sunset photo.  But they were SO beautiful!  Last one I promise!

The inland village we went to for Sarah's birthday dinner was amazing, a true locals town.  We definitely stood out!

Sarah's birthday present, all the way from Japan.  Shortly after this photo we convinced her that waving a knife around in Sicily was probably not a good idea. She also has serial killer eyes in this photo.

Yours truly

Topless sunbathing = fine, walking along the street by the beach in your swimming outfit = not fine.  Go figure.

Overall it was a fabulous holiday.  We were very sad to leave but we're also looking forward to getting back home again (home is where the van is!).

Dijon- 7-9 June

We picked Dijon as a place to stay because it is (sort of) halfway between the Black Forest and Lyon. Lyon is significant because that is where we flew out to Sicily - but more on that later.

This was the first non-river city we have visited so far, and it also seemed very, very French after Germany and the Alsace. It is very spread out, and we didn't get to see much, but what we did see was very impressive.

Probably our favourite place was actually under the Cathedrale St-Benigne. In 1002 a Romanesque church was built here which incorporated a three storey 17m rotunda - this church (and the one after it) were destroyed and the cathedral that is there now was built over the remains. The bottom level of the rotunda remained intact under the building and was rediscovered and excavated in the 19th century. It is a very eerie and impressive space to be in, and also has a sarcophagus containing the remains of St Benigne.

As always, we had a couple of great meals.  Our first meal out in particular was great fun.  We got to try out "random ordering" as there was not a word of English to be found.  The result was a delicious meal (the best scallops I've ever had), and we now know the french words for scallops and lamb!

On a side note - our trip through the Black Forest has made us very keen to see some more mountainy type scenery. It was at this point we decided that rather than going through more of France immediately after Sicily, we would head off the Alps! Blimey.

The square in front of the Palais des Ducs et des Etats de Bourgogne. Phew!

The Palais des......see caption above

We have been deciding on funerary statues/sarcophagi for when we shuffle off this mortal coil. The bar is getting raised pretty high.

The entrance into the crypt

The mosaics on the floor, which are original.

Looking into the rotunda.

Looking up into the rotunda itself - artificial light of course, now that it is under another building.

Figurative sculpture was a lost art when the mason carved this, so he practised on the other columns to get it right - this is his ninth try. I like it because it looks like a very French shrug, which is their response to most questions.

This is the original Roman chapel, which used to be at ground level. Old cities get built on the remains of older cities, and this is now 9 metres underground.

It also has an amazing tiled roof

This candle stick/clock in the Musee de la Vie Bourguignonne is so awesome that the guys in that painting on the wall can't take their eyes off it.

No, I don't know what is going on here either - towel holders?

The Grand Theatre

The back of the entry portico of the Hotel de Vogue

Remember the 'rolling hotel' I talked about in Freiburg - here it is! Yep, that is where they sleep. 

A traditional German snack - Hoppys

Dijon is not only the home of mustard, but also gingerbread or 'Le pain d'espices de Lyon'. I'm looking sad because it's delicious and this is the last one. Note to Sarah: yes, this is a much more delicious than those lollies we got you from Lyon for your birthday.