Les Baux de Provence

Hey everyone,

Saturday was one of the best days I've had out in France so I am very excited to tell you about it. We went to Les Baux de Provence on Saturday which is a village about an hour and a half away from home in Mormoiron. We were going there because there was a medieval battle on in which two sides fought a mock battle on the ruins of an old chateau called Chateau les Baux.

We arrived and parked at the bottom of the hill. There were so many cars! Luckily there were buses running up and down the hill otherwise it would have taken us ages to walk up! When we arrived at the top we stepped off the bus and were greeted by the sound of swords clashing, swords being taken in and out of their sheaths and people laughing.

We walked around and looked at the numerous swords, axes, maces, and mauls all shining brightly in the stalls. We also saw helms, body plates, gauntlets and chain mail that almost dropped me flat on the ground from the weight of it!

We walked up to the stands and sat down. The stand overlooked the castle and it was magnificent. There was still a watchtower where archers could fire their bows and arrows from and from were they could pour boiling oil or water on the attackers.

We watched a bird-of-prey show before the main battle, which was fantastic. There were various owls and also eagles which flew around. The men picked up a piece of meat connected to a rope and swung it around. The hawk then flew in and stole the meat. They said that it can go a maximum speed of 250 kilometres per hour!

After that we got to watch the battle! This creepy music started playing and cloaked people walked up to a guarded castle. They then dropped their cloaks and started attacking! More people then came in and together they stormed the castle and won it. The king of the people who stormed the castle then came and demanded to have it back but they said 'no'. The people who lost the castle then came back with reinforcements and stormed it also. The king of the people who lost the castle demanded for a fight, one on one. The good king won the dual and sent the opposing king to jail.

We strolled home to the bus and drove home. We were so exhausted that night that we didn't change out of our pyjamas the next morning.

I'll talk to you next week

Bye!

Orange and Horse Races

Hello everyone!

Ivy and I have been at friends' houses because Mum and Dad were in Switzerland for a week. My Great-Aunt and Great-Uncle stayed at our house for some of the time that we were away and when Mum and Dad arrived back they stayed for 3 more days with us all together. Ivy and I came home 2 days earlier than Mum and Dad and so we hung out with Aunty Annie and Uncle Wim.

On our first day we did nothing but relax, but on the second day we went to a judo demonstration in our village of Mormoiron. One man chopped a concrete block in two with his foot! That afternoon we drove to the Hippodrome where they held horse running competitions. It was great fun because we made pretend bets on the horses and we got to go on a really steep jumping castle! Their was a horse from the USA, called Miss Tootsie.

The next day was Monday. Mum and Dad were home and I was excited because it was my first day of normal school after a week of staying with friends. When the day had finished I walked home and rode my bike with my friend Paul. I was riding home when my leg slipped off the pedal and the back of my leg split open on the sharp edge! We had to go to the doctor and I got four stitches. I haven't been able to walk so much so I've been at home for the last four days. I did nothing from Tuesday to Thursday but yesterday I went to Orange with my parents and managed to hobble around the Roman Antique Theatre of Orange.

There is a big semi-circle with seats ascending up the side, opposite the stage. This theatre is very special because it is one of the three Roman theatres in the world that still has a wall behind the stage where the actors performed.

At the edge of the town of Orange there is an Arc de Triomph which was built to make his people confident in the Emperor's power. It was raining quite heavily at the time so we didn't stop to walk around the Arc, but it was much smaller then the Arc de Triomph in Paris, but it was beautifully detailed.

Tomorrow is Serge's birthday party so we will stay up late tomorrow night and I will see my friend again whom I stayed with for my week away. We spoke only French!

Au Revoir,

Sean

Traveling!

I'm sorry I haven't had the chance to write to you in the past few weeks. I've been in Paris with my friend so things have been hectic.

We left early in the morning for the Avignon T.G.V. station and left for Paris. After three hours we arrived and were greeted by our friends, Serge and Isabelle. We were driven twenty minutes to their house. It was really big! They had a small house and a big house on the same property. The main house was called the "Captainerie" and was built in the 15th century as the house for the captain of the guard for the nearby chateau. The chateau belonged to a mistress of Louis XIV, but was destroyed during the Revolution. This is what it now looks like:

Everyone was staying in the main house, while Raphael and I stayed in the small house. They had two gardens out in front of their house. I put my luggage in my bedroom, and Raphael and I went on a tour of the local town. It was a cosy town with big houses in it and numerous dogs on walks with their owners. In their backyard, Raphael had set up an archery target. It was my first time using a bow and arrow, and after an hour I wasn't hitting trees and statues in their garden, but was actually hitting the target.

We went sight seeing in Paris, over the next three days. A few of the highlights being a river boat cruise on the Seine river from the Eiffel tower to the Ile St Louis, and on this island enjoying a Paris favourite, "Berthillon" ice-cream.
My favourite shops in Paris were the "Warhammer" shop. I love the intricate detail of the Warhammer figures, and the numerous colours of the paints.
We saw these beautiful stained glass windows in the church of Sainte-Chapelle:

And we played with sail boats in the Jardin de Luxembourg:

I was supposed to leave Paris together with my parents on Saturday, but we made arrangements for me to stay with my friend Raphael for another week, and I drove home to Provence with him on the following Thursday. The day after Mum, Dad and Ivy left, Raphael's uncle Pascal came to the house and let us use one of his four PS3s for the time that I was there. Lucky for us; it was quite rainy and miserable for a few days so we got to stay inside and play for hours.

On the last afternoon we went to Pascal's eye laboratory where we had a look at his work, which is the manufacture of resin eyes. He was making some fake eyes when we arrived and the whole place stunk of glue! I got to hold one of the eyes and it was so cool! I also was able to try on a contact lens with stripes. It was funny. Raphael and I also played on his PS3 at the workshop.

On Thursday we drove eight hours to get home. I was so exhausted that night.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few days after arriving home from Paris, Mum, Dad and Ivy and I drove down to the south coast of France, to the Riviera. We started at Cassis. We drove up to the top of Cassis and admired the crystal blue waters of the Mediterranean.

From there we drove to Sanary sur Mer which is a small fishing village about an hour away from Cassis. We strode along the esplanade and watched the seagulls pick all the remains of the fish out of the nets strewn along the docks. I had a coffee ice-cream with grains. In France, they have a drink called 'Orangina' which is like fizzy orange juice. We ate salami and bread for lunch, and drank a cup of Orangina.
From Sanary sur Mer we drove to Cavalaire sur Mer, where we had a swim in the clear water. I enjoyed swimming down to the bottom of the ocean and sitting there. I swam to a pontoon on the water and jumped off it. I also played touch rugby with some French people. There were some jellyfish bobbing around in the water so we all steered clear of that spot.

Our final destination, St Tropez, was definitely the best part of my day. We looked at the posh people and expensive shops and walked down to the docks where we saw about a hundred boats docked. But the special thing about them was that they were all mega luxury boats. They each had two or three floors with couches out on the decks and glass revolving doors into the lounge. The walkway from the boats to the docks extended out hydraulically, and touched the dock. On one of the boats, one of the crew members opened the back, to reveal a jet-ski and a small tender inside!

We enjoyed dinner at a seafood restaurant, over-looking the port. From here, we could see the 'beautiful' people getting on and off their boats.

I'm going to school again on Thursday so we will be getting back into everyday life of learning French and playing with friends.

Au Revoir!

HaRiBo

Hello everyone! The weather here has been really hot lately, ranging from thirty to thirty-five degrees. The other day it came down to into the twenties. I must say, I prefer it better when it's cold.

We were in a sugar wonderland on Saturday because we went to the Haribo museum. What's Haribo? It's a German lolly company, started by Hans Riegel from Bonn, that sells all kinds of lollies and sweets to the whole of Europe. We set off that morning ready to explore all the secrets of Haribo and eat all we could get our hands on. As we pulled up in the parking lot, we were suprised by the sheer number of people, all walking to and queuing up for the Haribo museum and the shop!

While Mum and Dad queued up for the museum, Ivy and I explored the lolly shop. It was huge! There were sacks of lollies from marshmallows to jelly babies and tubs of karate belts to coke bottles. When we arrived inside we were given free samples and silver coins to use in the machine room in the fifth room. The first room was the room of history and production, the second room was my favourite because it was about how Haribo used to advertise and what brands they used to be a part of. The third room was about scents and the ingredients that they use in their lollies. The fourth room was about where the ingredients are imported from and the fifth room was the machine room where by using the silver coins, we could watch our own lollies being made in front of us. Later when we left, the line snaked it's way all the way down the footpath outside of the museum. Lucky we got there early!

Au Revoir

Friends and Family

Hello everyone, sorry I haven't written to you recently. I've been really busy with friends and family so I haven't had time to write. The last few weeks were great because I had a trip from my great-uncle Terry and great-aunt Jean and later, my friends Jack and Georgia and their parents.

We went to Fontaine de Vaucluse to see the paper museum with Uncle Terry and Aunty Jean. I really enjoyed it because of the paper machine which was powered by the stream outside. There was a hallway which went from the paper museum out off the museum. The whole group was happy that afternoon because we went to Isle sur la Sorgue to get an ice-cream from Isabella's ice-cream shop. The line at Isabella was huge and that was only to buy a normal ice-cream! The line to get a seat for a big ice-cream was even bigger so we went next door and bought an ice-cream excactly the same as the ice-creams next door!

Dad, Uncle Terry, Aunty Jean and I went to the Camargue again because they had said that they wanted to go there with us.

On the way there we stopped at St Remy de Provence and dropped Uncle Terry and Aunty Jean off at the markets to look around while Dad and I drove two minutes to Glanum archaeological site. These are ruins of an old town from the sixth century! It was buried under two meters of dirt before they dug around columns coming out of the ground and found a village, three hundred metres long! There were numerous baths with Roman and Gaulish coins in them as offerings to Glan, God of healing. There was a big gate halfway in the town which divided the poorer people and the richer people. I was amazed at how hygienic the town was! There was a fresh water stream under the path and a sewerage stream too! There were stairs which led up a hill to higher levels of terraces. Their food was a lot like ours now! They had bread, cheese, milk and meat from various livestock and water from a fresh stream near them. Vincent van Gogh stayed in St Remy de Provence and after in a mental asylum overlooking the ruins, though back then they weren't dug up.

Uncle Terry and Aunty Jean really enjoyed the bird sanctuary and St Maries de la Mer. Last time we went there we were allowed to climb on the roof of the local church but Dad had read in the newspaper that the church minister had won the court case against the mayor, to stop people doing it. When we arrived we were surprised to see people still on the roof! The beach was perfect so we had a stroll along the promenade before we headed home.

The day that Uncle Terry and Aunty Jean left was the day that Jack and Georgia arrived! The second they arrived, I took off with Jack and showed him around town for a bit before we drove to Vito's restaurant. Pascal and his family and Lugdivine and her family were there too, so we played with their children.

We only had one full day together with Jack and Georgia, so we woke up early and jumped into the activities for the day. Us children first walked to the lake and swum. We jumped off a small pont and we sun baked for an hour before the parents arrived and took us home.

After lunch we drove to the Ventoux Adventure Park near the lake. It was fantastic! We put on harnesses and we climbed around. My favourite part was the numerous flying foxes and the thick cables that we had to walk along! There were five parts with different difficulty levels and I did the hardest one! From the lake you can see a big banner that advertises the park and I climbed onto the under side of it.

I loved the evening because there was a fete on in Mormoiron so we walked into town to have some fun! There was a booth were you shot at balloons and the prizes were air guns! I won a pistol and a packet of pellets.

We woke up early the next morning to say goodbye to our friends because they were driving down to Barcelona to get on a three week cruise! Sounds great, doesn't it?

That's all for next week, see you next time!

Au Revoir!

The Dordogne

I was so excited because we were going to the Dordogne, which is about six hours away from my house in Mormoiron. We took off early in the morning for Roquefort, which is famous for its blue cheese. When we arrived we went into one of the best Roquefort cheese stores, Papillon. We went on a tour through the cellars where they mature the cheese. To make Roquefort cheese, they get a special loaf of Roquefort bread and they bake it until it burns on the outside. They then leave the bread in the cellars to collect mould. They then scrape the mould in the form of penicillin, off the bread. When they have done this, they test the penicillin to make sure that it's the special Roquefort penicillin. Meanwhile the ewes of the valley are milked.They sprinkle the penicillin over the processed sheep's milk curd. The final cheese disk is then placed in the caves, at a constant thirteen degrees celsius, to mature for a period of ninety to two hundred and forty days. It has been regarded as a special cheese for hundreds of years. For example, in 1411 Charles VI liked it so much that the cellars that stored Roquefort cheese were turned into a protected landmark. We saw a map on the tour that showed the area where you can call your cheese Roquefort. It was only 2km long and 300 metres wide! At the end of tour when we came out of the cave, we had a taste of the blue cheese. It was delicious, so we bought a large piece. When we left Roquefort, we bought a loaf of bread and sat at a lookout whilst eating the cheese and bread with enthusiasm!

After the Roquefort cheese visit, we drove to Le Viaduc de Millau. This bridge crosses the valley of the river Tarn and is 2460m long and 245m metres high. The bridge is thirty metres taller than the Eiffel Tower and thirty seven metres shorter than the Empire State Building. We exited off the highway, after we had crossed the bridge, and stopped at an information centre. From there we hiked up to a look-out on the hill where we looked at the bridge itself! It was amazing! There were white poles coming out of the top of the bridge and thick suspension cords slanted towards the base of the bridge.

We arrived in the Dordogne later that night where we were greeted by friends and a fantastic dinner of spaghetti carbonara. We stayed in the town of Thenon.

The next morning we went to Sarlat which is a town close to Thenon. There were huge markets on with products ranging from food to art. I bought myself some churros which are straight shaped doughnuts. I scoffed the whole bag! They were fantastic. We were walking along when we approached a square were a crowd was gathered. We pushed our way to the front and saw that a man was manipulating a soft snake over his hand. It looked quite amazing! We bought our own and were soon doing the same thing. The trick is that there is a see-through string connected to your waist and you could manipulate the snake without others seeing! Ivy and I

played with them all the way home.

That afternoon we went to the River Dordogne were we sat and tore a hot chicken to pieces with a bread stick. Ivy and I dipped our feet in the water and fed the ducks while Mum and Dad bought boat tickets for a tour on the river. We hopped on to the boat and left with a loud ring from the boat's bell. As we floated along the river we saw four châteaus and a bridge built in Roman times. The sun was baking down on everyone, so the staff wound out sun-shades.

The next day was very exciting with a trip to La Roque Saint-Christophe. It is a huge rock face, one kilometre long and eighty metres high, were people used to live in indentations in the rock face. People lived there from fifty-five thousand years ago until the Religious wars in the fifteen hundreds, when a lot of it was destroyed. We walked along, and inside the rock exploring the different parts of the village. My favourite part was seeing the "squirrel lifter" operate. A man got inside a wheel and ran! He looked like a guinea pig on an exercise wheel! As he ran, a load was lifted up and when he ran the other way, it went back down. The sight is unique because of its size, its age and the length of its occupation by man.

After that, we drove to "Les Jardins de Marqueyssac" which was an amazing château with gardens and hedges fashioned into swirls and shapes. We went for a walk to the peak of the gardens where there was a beautiful view over the Dordogne valley. Ivy and I enjoyed the numerous playgrounds while Mum and Dad strolled along the paths together. I really enjoyed the maze where Ivy and I had races in and out of it. When we got back to the start of the walk we saw a man carving things out of wood! He made spin-tops, cups and more. I had a vanilla and caramel ice-cream with hot coffee and cream drizzled over it with Ivy. It was absolutely delicious!

The next day was the last, but the most exciting day of all the days we spent in the Dordogne. We went to the Gauffre de Padirac. It is a huge cave system and crater which was formed by the collapse of a cave. The huge crater measures thirty five metres wide and one hundred and three metres deep. There were two lifts from the surface to the bottom of the crater. From the bottom of the lifts, we walked eight hundred metres into the cave where there were boats waiting for us. Our guide paddled our gondola across the water and told us about the caves. My favourite bit was when he rocked the boat. At the end of the boat ride, we were taken on a tour in the caves. There were quite a few stalactites and stalagmites and the "Grand Cathedral" was spectacular. We walked one kilometres on the bottom and we climbed up four hundred and sixty five steps to get back to the base. The cave was discovered in eighteen ninety and was opened nine years later. They have explored twenty kilometres of the caves and nine kilometres in they found human, mammoth and cave bear remains!

Au Revoir

Cowboys in Provence

We went to the Camargue region and what a different part of France this was. The Camargue region is a large area of wetland to the south of us and west of Marseilles. We first went to the Pont-de-Gau bird sanctuary. It was amazing! There were all different birds flying around the park. My favourite was an owl who sat in the same spot for the whole day. We got quite a surprise when we came around a corner and saw huge numbers of pink flamingos walking about together in a very shallow lake! When they spread their wings and flew, they were fluoro pink with black underneath! We went for a two hour walk on paths through the marshes and saw the birds in their natural habitat. There were numerous viewing towers and hide-outs where we could see the birds interacting.

We then drove to a small town on the coast called Saint Mairies de la Mer, where we walked along the promenade. We changed into our togs and went for a swim in the Mediterranean Sea. The water was very cold! I swam to a buoy, climbed on to the rocks and walked back to the car with Mum, Dad and Ivy.

We left the beach and went to a horse riding farm. There were numerous ones along the road to choose from. We got to ride on the horses for an hour and a half! My rear was very sore afterwards. My horse, Maligne, kept stopping along the path to eat and then gallop to catch up with the group. My favourite bit was when we rode through a lake. My horse splashed me quite a bit. When I arrived back at the stables, I got off and hobbled from stiff legs. Was it just me or was everyone else sore, too?

We then went to a town called Salin de Giraud, which is the centre of a large salt industry. Flat shallow lagoons fill with sea water which then evaporate in the sun leaving behind salt deposits. There were very large piles of salt to be processed. The machines were huge and the conveyor belt systems extensive. We arrived home at ten o'clock that night!

On Thursday we went to explore Marseilles. After a two hour drive with a long traffic jam at the end, we finally arrived. We went for a walk around one of the oldest ports in Europe. It has been continuously inhabited for 2600 years. The highlight was the Cathedral de la Major because it was very grand and throughout was decorated with frescos, coloured marble arches and jewel encrusted religious artefacts.

We then took a ferry boat ride to Château d'If which is on a small island off the coast of Marseilles. On the way out of the port we passed two big forts one on either side of the entrance. One was built to protect the port from invaders and the other one was built to ensure peace in the city. When we arrived at the island we climbed up to the château. King François I built it in 1516 to ensure the protection of Marseilles. A few years after it was built, it was turned into a prison. It was on an island therefore nobody ever escaped.

Parents whose sons were troublesome used to send them there. They could choose to have extra luxuries, like a fireplace and even a window!! Alexander Dumas wrote a book called 'The Count of Monte-Cristo' about a man who escapes in a sac from Château d'If and swims to land. He finds his dead cell mate's treasure and becomes The Count of Monte-Cristo. Alexander Dumas also wrote 'the Three Musketeers'. The legendary man in the Iron Mask is also reputed to have spent time here.

That weekend was very exciting because I went with Ivy to Pascal's house for a sleep over. We went for lots of swims in their pool, even at one stage getting up at two o'clock in the morning and all of us - the whole family - swimming in the pool with Pascal! By the end of the weekend my eyes were so red that you couldn't see any white in them from all the chlorine in the pool! We finished the weekend off by watching the soccer world cup final with my parents and other friends whilst enjoying pizza and lemonade.

See you next week!

Sean :-)