The Trees on Tour Again: Brighton Beach

 

Sallying Forth

After we left Kielder we continued on up to Edinburgh for a couple of days.

We had this here boat ride on the Firth of Forth...

Summer 2017 on Romney Marsh

Tour: Paddling

On the day we went to the Pont and the Camargue, we went paddling in two different places.

Firstly the Gard river, beneath the Pont, is a spot for kayaking and swimming.

But we also went to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, in the Camargue, where we could paddle in the Med:-

Spain Tour 22: Altamira

After leaving Orviedo, we drove along the coast road, took a short stop for an hour or two on the beach, and then arrived at the Altamira Museum. This is built close to the Altamira caves, celebrated for their cave paintings.

The Museum is very well done indeed. The main, permanent exhibition is well laid out and the explanations are sensibly done. Light and airy, and the cases are not cluttered. The Museum also has a complete mock-up of the caves, through which tours can be taken. This does give a sense of how amazing the real cave paintings are, and I suppose it does help to conserve the original. But there is still something about authenticity... which was a little missing.

All in all, a really impressive museum, and not too large.

Spain Tour 2: En Route

Having left Portland, we travelled on to Plymouth to catch the ferry.
The English countryside looked at its beautiful, uncluttered best.

Admittedly there were a few lowering clouds, but for a moment I honestly couldn't recall why we were going abroad for our summer holidays.

Beautiful and uncluttered? Who was I kidding?

In any case, we were fairly quickly on board the ferry to Santander (Brittany Ferries Pont Aven, probably the largest boat we have ever sailed on). England was rapidly falling far behind us.

The ferry was full of middle-aged bikers from the West Country. Whether they were really Hell's Angels or just hairy, leather-clad men (and a few women) was beside the point. There were a lot of them (and each one of them was also quite large in their own right).

Actually, so far as I could work out, they were reasonably well behaved. And they certianly improved the takings at the bar...

The journey time is just over aday (our cabin was super). I never did get my sea legs, despite the fact that the Bay of Biscay was astonishingly calm and unruffled.

I'm afraid as a result I hid below, and didn't even try to spot whales or dolphins.

I did see this lighthouse early on. though. It seemed very lonely.

Spain Tour 1: Portland and Chesil Beach

Portland and Chesil Beach. This summer's main break (our Tour) was to Spain - we called in here on the way to Plymouth. Part of the Jurassic Coast (World Heritage Site), source of Portland stone for great buildings in London like the British Museum, an ex naval base, and so forth. We didn't really get enough time to explore. I was struck by the classic British seaside-town architecture that we did see.


And, of course, by Chesil Beach itself. A long (18-plus miles) 'linear shingle storm beach' - read the Web sites linked above, they really are good. We merely visited a small part of the Portland end, taking in the barenness, scale, wind and silence.