We are still loving life, as we hike and eat our way through Italy. Our hikes have been about 10-12k, and we have both sun and rain. See sample photos below of walks from Amalfi to Praiano, around Praiano, and from Praiano to Positano (where Bob may have gotten in touch with his catholic school upbringing along the Walk of the Gods which hugs the hills above the town’s with often nothing between you and some sharp drop-offs.
Today it is raining pretty heavily in Amalfi with a threat of severe storms, so we are inside hoping to catch up on blogging and some much-needed planning. Yesterday, however, was perfectly awesome from our 5 hour hike to a lovely dinner at a local restaurant.
Yesterday’s hike had us heading out of the town center and into the hills through a lovely section of lime and lemon (limoncello, anyone?) trees, near the ruins of old paper mills, and then into the little villages of Potone, Ravello, and Artrani. Along the way, we hiked out to a great view(s) of the coastline, sea, and an old tower. All gorgeous, and we were hugely impressed with the paved, stone walkways that hug the hills and which the locals were sweeping clean as we walked by.
I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.
A few more happy photos —
Bob and I have wrapped up the European portion of our house sitting adventure (at least for now). We had a quick transition with our Brussels home owners on Sunday after their return. It was another lovely house sit, and we again feel blessed to have met a new set of friends across the pond.
We are currently in the Campagna region of Italy for a self-guided hike along the Amalfi coast. We landed in Naples on Monday after a 2 hour flight from Brussels. The Brussels portion of the trip was a bit bizarre as the airport was having computer issues so very few of the gate assignments were getting posted. We finally found a Belgian Airlines agent to ask who seemed unaware that gates weren’t up on the screen. Other than that it was an easy flight with lots of scanning of electronic tickets and no checking of passports anywhere. We grabbed a bus to Salerno upon our arrival and spent a day and a half their before a seriously twisting bus ride to Amalfi this afternoon. I’m not sure what bus drivers make here, but it’s not enough.
The following are some photos from Salerno.
While we have enjoyed walking around Brussels, we decided to take a day trip out to explore another city. The last time we were in Brussels we had visited Antwerp and Bruge, so this time we decided to visit Ghent. We really enjoyed it! It is almost as charming as Bruge, but seems much bigger and a bit more varied. It is a university town, but also caters to tourists with good walking maps as well as signage to city center and various landmarks. As with Brussels, you could eat yourself silly here.
Based on recommendations from our homeowner and our own interests, Bob and I have explored various area of Brussels during our few days here. We poked around the Sabon area and perused the many awesome Belgian chocolate shops. We have browsed a few markets — the Saturday Flagey market, the Sunday Midi market, and the Wednesday afternoon/night market at the Place du Chatelain. We had a great self-guided tour of the Parliamentarium on the European Parliament Brussels campus. (There are also European Union offices in Strasbourg and Luxembourg.). We continue to be impressed by the 8,000 hectares (approximately 19,800 acres!!!!) of green space in Brussels. Some random photos below.
We are well into our house sit in the lovely Brussels suburb of Watermael-Boitsfort — just down the road a bit from many of the foreign embassies. Prior to our home owners departing for a family wedding in Ireland, we were treated to a great dinner with most of the family. We also met Scofie and Jingles (Jingy) the two dogs we would be caring for.
Getting to this house sit turned out to be an easier adventure than we had thought. Last Wednesday, Our Souillac homeowners dropped us off at the train station there for our 4:45pm train to Brive, France. This was a quick, 30-minute ride. Once there, we had about 5 hours to kill before our 11 pm bus departure for Paris, so we explored a bit of the old city, had dinner, and walked about an hour to the bus stop. Brive was a really cool, cute city — just another place we’d like to get back to. The bus ride to Paris was a 6.5 hour overnight bus ride (our first) on the Ouibus line — a similar concept to the Megabus line in the US. We slept about as much as we would on an overnight flight and then had a 3-hour layover in Paris (5:30-8:30 am) before boarding the next Ouibus to Brussels for a 12:20pm arrival. The entire 2 legs of the bus ride for both of us cost a total of about $70! Well worth it, as we had wifi access and plug ins for recharging throughout the trip. In Brussels we walked to a tram stop from the bus arrival point to catch the tram to Boitsfort.
We typically use our first day of a house sit to get acquainted with the home/dogs/area and establish a daily routine for dog feeding, walking and playing and home care. Here we are blessed by being near a large forest where there are tons of trails for dog walks. Bob and I visited Belgium in 2007, but this location is allowing us to see other areas and sights that we missed the first time as well as revisiting places that we enjoyed on our first visit. We are also really enjoying real fall weather as well as the variety of mushrooms in the forest.
See below for some initial, more traditional (sometimes) photos of our initial reacquaintance with Brussels. More to come in separate blogs.
We can’t believe that our time in Souillac is nearing an end. It has been a lovely stay. We have enjoyed learning more about chickens (and having fresh eggs), and we have really enjoyed the two sweet, fun dogs. Finn, the 8 year-old jack Russell mix has the spirit and energy of a much younger dog. He also loves some cuddles and while he is off-lead on our walks likes to run ahead and then run back to make sure everyone is still together. Diesel has the power of a horse. You had better be ready to hang on if he takes a keen interest in something or you will learn what flying very close to the ground feels like! He’s also a winning competitor (at least with Beth) in a game of tug-of-war with an old tire. However, he is truly a big sweetie who likes to stay in bed longer than his older companion and is always good for some affectionate cuddling as well.
I’m not sure that we have done Souillac justice with our photos. It is a great little town situated in a valley along the Dordogne and surrounded by hills. The most eye-catching sights for us have been the impressive bridges as well as the views of the clouds in the valley from the house. However, last Friday we walked into town for the Friday market and were very impressed with that as well. (The other eye-catching moment happened one day as we were driving back up the highway from town and saw a woman out of her car along the side of the road taking the posted P sign literally if you know what I mean. We had only thought it meant parking. We didn’t photo that however.)
Tomorrow (Wednesday) afternoon we will have our post-sit transition with the homeowners before taking a train to Brive, a town about 42k north of Souillac. From Brive, we will begin a very long, slow journey north to our next house sit near Brussels, Belgium. We first have a 6+ hour bus ride from Brive to Paris that begins at about 11 pm tomorrow evening and arrives in Paris at the lovely hour of 5:30 am Thursday morning. We then have about 3 hours in Paris before our approximately 4 hour bus ride that will take us into Brussels. From the Brussels bus station, we will make our way to the metro to reach the suburb for our next house sit. Our transition will be on Thursday afternoon/evening and our next house sit will begin on Friday. Whew!
One of Bob and my first stops in Souillac was the tourist office to learn about some of the sights to see in the area. The employee was very helpful, providing a good map of the Lot region and highlighting areas of interest. Bob noted later that many were categorized as being among the “most beautiful villages in France.” Per the website beyond.fr, as of 2013 there were 161 villages with this rating from the Plus Beaux Villages de France Association. The basic requirements for receiving the designation are — population less than 2000, at least 2 village sites or buildings classified as “protected,” and a request from the municipality for consideration.
Although this isn’t the most discerning criteria, we couldn’t let our stay pass without seeing some of these villages. We were not disappointed. In reality, the drive alone to these places was gorgeous and worth the trek out. We visited the Most Beautiful Villages listed below over a couple of days. These were primarily photo-taking walkabouts, as the villages are very small and there is not a lot open during the off season. We always had some company (other visitors) on our explorations.
Autoire — This village is set in a valley and surrounded by cliffs. Many of the buildings are from the 16th and 17th century and are made with local honey-colored stone. The village had posted a handy walking map, so we used that as our guide for our tour.
Loubressac — We stopped at this village after Autoire, as they are very close. This village is known for its flowers, but it also had lovely views of the surrounding countryside.
Collognes-la-Rouge — This may have been our favorite village. We loved the red brick which was so different from the other villages. It also had the most interesting buildings in a very compact space (or so we thought) including lots of food shops, restaurants, and a distillery. This village definitely had the most foot traffic as well.
Curemonte — This village is long and thin and runs along a hilltop. We had a lovely picnic lunch on another hilltop overlooking the town.
Bob and I had an awe-inspiring visit to Rocamadour on Tuesday. Rocamadour is a community southeast of Souillac in the Lot region. It is built on multiple levels along a cliff and it is known for its Sanctuary to the Blessed Virgin Mary as well as for a local, raw-milk goat’s cheese. The sign below helps to explain the layout of the community.
The day started out very foggy, so we sat and had a coffee in one of the cafes after we arrived at 11 to allow some time for the fog to lift.
The following are different views of the Sanctuary and show how it is built into the cliff.
From the top level, we got some great views of the surrounding area.
Last Sunday, we followed up our Saturday trip to the Sarlat Market with a hike along the trail that parallels the road into Sarlat. The trail appeared to be a renovated old railroad line. We started our hike in Peyrillac et Millac and walked a little over 5k (one way) to a little past Rouffillac. During our hike, we saw a number of local hikers who were doing a planned hike along a marked route, part of which overlapped with the trail we were on. Each of those hikers wore a badge, and almost all of them were carrying hiking poles. One of the highlights of the walk, for us, was hiking through a lighted 480 meter long rail tunnel.
Peckish Travels