Gabe and I scheduled a weekend layover in London on our way back home for Christmas. London turned out to be a great place to visit. It was fun to see in person all the famous things I've always just heard about. The only drawback was the prices. Things were what you would expect them to be if they were in dollars, except they were in pounds, which happen to be twice as expensive as dollars. Oh well.
London is so big that we struggled even to get to all the most famous touristy things. I think we did an admirable job though. Our first stop was the relatively new London Eye. It's a fancy ferris wheel that takes 30 minutes to go around. If you want to, you can pay to go in a car where they serve Champagne. Gabe and I opted for the more economical 15 pound option. Here's a shot hopefully to provide a little perspective on what our journey around the London Eye was like. I have to admit it was worth the price. The obligatory shot of the Parliament with Big Ben. You can see one of the white towers of Westminster Abbey in the background. This is the residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The blue flag means he's at home. Gabe and I both like boat tours. The one on the River Thames was as good as any we've been on. This shot is of Tower Bridge. It was the coolest looking one we went under. Here's proof that we visited Buckingham Palace. The Queen's Guard at Buckingham Palace are behind that huge fence you see in the picture above. Gabe and I had always heard that you could walk right up to the Queen's Guard and they had to ignore you, but at Buckingham Palace they had a big fence to protect them. We finally found a more vulnerable guard at Saint Jame's Palace. We didn't harass him though. We just took the obligatory picture.
Chateau Ribagnac (see the post below) is about 3 hours by train from Bordeaux. Gabe and I used one of our free weekends to make the trek. We almost didn't get to go because of the nationwide train strike, but it ended just in time. We were hoping to visit some nearby vineyards, but it turned out to be doubly impossible as tours don't run in November and you really need a car to get to vineyards. So we settled for visiting pleasant parks, interesting museums, and beautiful churches. This picture is taken from the tower at Cathedral Saint-Andre.
This is Chateau Ribagnac (www.chateauribagnac.com). About four years ago, Patrick and Colette Bergot, a couple from London, purchased and converted it into a bed and breakfast. Gabe and I spent the month of November here, primarily working in the garden. In addition, we did some odd jobs around the estate, such as spreading gravel on the driveway and cleaning out a pond. It was definitely late in the season, but there were still a few things left in the garden. We spent some of our time harvesting and some weeding around the permanent stuff. We also spent some time getting the garden ready for plowing and transplanting things like raspberries and strawberries. Below you can see Gabe digging up an extraneous raspberry shoot, which he then moved to an empty spot farther down the row to the left. Yes, this is a small tractor, but it's still a tractor and it was fun to drive. And yes, I'm trying to look cool, just like all the other people who take pictures of themselves in front of their houses with their cars. There's a load of cattails in the trailer, pulled out of a nearby pond. They're on their way to the burn pile. My fancy digital camera is capable of taking videos, so I figured I might as well use the functionality. Unfortunately, the camera's sound recording is screwed up, so you're going to have to deal with a hastily thrown together Windows Movie Maker job that replaces engine noises with a Doc Watson song. I'm driving back from the burn pile. Gabe's the cameraman, sitting in the recently emptied trailer.
Between Gabe and me is Danielle, a local man who came once a week with his big tractor to do jobs around the estate that we couldn't do with the little one. We were his assistants whenever he came. Danielle was a lot of fun to get to know. He's twice our age and put to shame not only our "farming" skills, but also our energy level (he ran a marathon over one of the weekends we were there). He speaks essentially no English, but luckily was the most accommodating French speaker we met. He actually made me feel like I could communicate in French. In the 6th century the Limousin region in France was home to Saint Leonard. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Leonard_of_Noblac) One weekend, Gabe and I went with the Bergot family to a festival celebrating his tradition. Saint Leonard is a patron saint of prisoners. The main event of the festival (pictured below) is teenage equestrians destroying a wooden model of a jail. They gallop toward the model and try to hit it with a mallet. After the jail is destroyed, everyone gets to keep a tiny shard of the jail as a good luck charm for the year. This is the Bergot family watching as the jail gets destroyed. From left to right are Patrick's parents, Gerard and Marcella (who were visiting the Chateau). Next is Collete, then Eve, then Patrick with Agnés on his shoulders. Gilberto is in the stroller. I have to say, they make quite a lovely family.
Between the cheese farm and our next WWOOFing spot, Gabe and I spent a week at a monastery called Taize (http://www.taize.fr/en_article166.html). It's about an hour and a half north of Lyon. The monastery is a special place because it brings together thousands of visitors (or pilgrims I guess you could say) each year from all over Europe and the world. The monks allow you to take part in the life of their permanent community. They have 3 services a day. The rest of your time is spent hanging out with other visitors, helping to maintain the premises (Gabe and I collected garbage), or doing whatever you want. I enjoyed going to "The Source" (yes, it's a cheesy name) where they have nice paths for walking and reflecting. Below is a picture I took while sitting and enjoying the late afternoon.
