Today we did the washing, cleaned the camper and recovered from two birthdays.

Nice start to our day as we leave the campsite heading for Arte-Contemporary en La Ràpita

Our first sculpture garden in an olive grove

Two strange birds to welcome us

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One of nature’s more colourful sculptures

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This chicken blends well into the landscape

This one’s a bit spooky

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Just landed from Mars?

Love this one

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the spottiest of them all?

The Ebro delta on the way to our parking space for the night (where’s that?)

Each white dot is a bird, roosting for the night

In the morning we were still surrounded by all sorts of birds. Fantastic!

We drove up into the hills to find El Jardí de Peter (where’s that?). Peter Buch has worked for 30 years in the abandoned hill farm which he took over, to make his magical garden. Now 86, he should really put his ladder away and revel in a job well done. There is an article about him in Raw Vision, a magazine about outsider art.

Peter the German artist

Goodness gracious, what’s in there?

The interior

That looks interesting

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Another house

Another interior

In the bathroom

In the bedroom

How do you like the door?

Another monster in the woods

Kim tried whispering in its ear

Even more

The green blob

The master’s throne

Today we drove through the rain from behind the Zaragoza sports stadium to Camping la Civelle (where’s that?)

Big pine trees on our campsite

We walked for about 30 minutes to reach the beach

Looking down from the top of a dune onto the beach, the waves and the surfers.

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Gerhild is full of beans

Kim‘s Hawaian girl

Today we walked into the village for Gerhild to visit a hairdresser and for Kim to visit a boulangerie.

Today went to visit la forêt des sens, next to the Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte vineyard, as visited by King Charles!

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Barry Flanagan‘s fantastic Hospitality Hare is the symbol for La Forêt des Sens.

Seems a bit small for the amount of wine they make here.

A wooden hare

Every vineyard should have a Bacchus.

Kim is listening to the stream flowing under the bridge.

It’s a beautiful autumn day today.

Funky fellow on the side of the pharmacy for the vines (only natural products).

Hit the gong, say ommmmmmmm, and think grapes.

A great walk through the forest, after fetching the key to the gate from reception.

Half a bottle of red at €69 was a bit too much for a souvenir, sigh. Website

Today we, eventually, went to Darwin, a sort or alternative setup on Bordeaux‘s rive droite.

Street scene in Bordeaux

Brilliant piece of street art in Bordeaux (rive gauche)

What a difference a tree makes

Lion

„The French“ Swiss slang…

The entrance to the old barracks

We had a nice snack here

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My favourite picture today

An incredible piece of art à la Robert Crumb

Abandoned tram next to the skate park for the local kids

Outside the skate park

Today we went to see La Cité du Vin

The entrance to the locks connecting the old submarine pens to the river Garonne

This looks like the place. It’s meant to suggest a decanter.

This steampunk apparatus lets you smell a variety of fragrances (some not so fragrant).

Two glasses of Bordeaux wine to round off our visit.

This ferocious fellow guards the entrance to the maritime museum.

Gerhild is just about one mouthful

Once we got past the shark we found these costumes ready for a parade, each based on a famous painting.

See if you can identify Magritte, Ernst, De Chirico, Léger, Munch, Arp, Brauner, Malévitch…
Don‘t ask why these are in the maritime museum – I haven‘t a clue. Website.

Everything is possible but we just can‘t imagine it.

Time to head for home

A leafy start to „All saints day“

La Sèvre Niortaise

A rather large dragonfly next to the river

We are in what was originally a marshy area, dried out by monks to create agricultural land. Close to Niort, which we visited a looong time ago.

Where are we? Coulon, on the way to Nantes.

First we fetched some bread from the Boulangerie in Coulon village

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Then we drove for a couple of hours to a great campsite in Nantes (website)

You‘ve never seen a friperie like this. Recycling parts from a ski lift, you take your place on the stairs and watch as the clothes waft their way past you. At least that’s the plan when the safety approval is granted. Love it! Their name is brilliant too – Dernière Main (last hand)

How do you like the Nantes streetlights?

Some light relief on the way to the tram (free all weekend!)

The market on Sunday. Loads of customers. All sorts of food.

Roast chicken was popular too.

There were several fishmongers selling all sorts of seafood.

Wine, of course.

There’s nowhere to sit in the market, so some folk took their fresh oysters to the nearest cafe to eat with a glass of wine.

As it was a bit chilly, we nipped into Nantes Musée d‘Art to see an exhibition on the age of the great Atlantic liners. Free on the first Sunday of the month, our luck‘s in today.

At the time they felt everything was so big.

Le Corbusier was said to have been inspired by the way the passengers lived for the 12 day crossing to America.

Life on board one of the great transatlantic cruise ships.

A utopian vision of future life prior to the war. That’s a Zeppelin at the top…

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We then followed the famous green line to the Jardin des Plantes.

One cool cat.

One cold and wet statue.

Another cold and wet sculpture, time to head for home.

Today we washed and dried &dried & dried some clothes.

And then set off to visit the island in the middle of the Loire.

Great rotating addition to a streetlight outside LU

The old LU biscuit factory, now a cultural centre.

An animation installed in Nantes central railway station.

Wonderful references to all sorts of things in Nantes.

Artworks which are also supposed to work as barbecues.

Some new Nantes architecture.

Clever, perforated facade.

A giant tape-measure.

„In a silent way“

Today Gerhild learned the French word for fog. Autumn has arrived!

As we spotted these trees marching along the wall, several women cyclists stopped and charmingly competed to see who could name the trees. (Lime trees)

In the tram we had a another delightful chat with a French pensioner. This lot weren’t very chatty.

Not chatty, but colourful.

Nice, non-mechanical octupus.

Classy mechanical chameleon who can eat a fly with a super-long tongue, but can‘t change colour.

Humming bird

Our old pal. Time to head for home.

A long, foggy drive today.

Steep drive down, but excellent parking spot for the night. (Where‘s that)

As we drove through Liège, we saw this amazing piece of urban art.

Pleasant place to park near Messe Kassel. No services, but a nice view and it’s free. (Where’s that?)

Spargelhof Klaistow (where’s that?)

The pumpkin festival ends today.

We woke up to see a foggy Sunday morning and a ginormous flea-market in fields that were empty as we went to bed!

Pumpkin fountain

Pumpkin pile

The pumpkin exhibition…