home again!

What a fabulous trip! This is the way to travel and we're already planning another trip for 2011. We had Merryle's impeccable organisation and pleasant companionship, Lucy's languages, information and sense of fun plus Fab's smooth driving - not once did I feel alarmed and he could drive that enormous bus with inches to spare each side.

The flight from Paris to Dubai was 7 ghastly hours squeezed 3 in a row in a hot plane, 2 hours in Dubai's enormous crowded airport then the final 13 hour flight home wasn't too bad - only 2 in a row and we could sleep.

We've seen and done such a lot it will take a while to digest it all and finish the blog - not to mention the mountain of laundry!

Dubai airport

I couldn't get an internet connection until Dubai so the blog is wildly out of date. We spent a week on the Princesse de Provence, a German boat on her last voyage, and the only internet allowed was theirs - unbelievable that they don't have wi-fi. "Use ours" said Captain Sauerkraut of the tombstone teeth, "Only €4.50 per hour" said the Purser.
Anyway, home soon - just one more flight lasting 13 hours.

Burgundy and on the Rhone and Saone Rivers

Day 14 Friday 17th Sept Dijon and Burgundy

We're off to Dijon today, home of mustard, Notre Dame Cathedral and La Chouette, the little owl whose head you have to rub with the left hand for good luck. David did it for me as I was off in Galeries Lafayette doing some shopping. It's an ultra-David Jones-type department store so the shopping was limited for my budget but I did buy David's birthday present. Tourists are down in Dijon this year and one lady reports a small jar of mustard for €20 (AU$40) and the shop-keeper saying it’s because there are no Americans travelling this year. There is a great market around the cathedral with wonderful displays of fish and huge piles of tiny green beans.

Our garden this afternoon is in the grounds of another old chateau with a beautiful potager (vegetable garden) and autumn colours, a secret garden containing raspberries – so secret that even the birds don’t seem to find them and rolling parklands containing magnificent old trees. As a special treat Merryle has arranged afternoon tea at a nearby auberge ‘L’Eire du Temps’, a pun on the owner being an Irish girl. She has forgotten how to make tea however and out comes the pot of hot water and a box of teabags. Excellent apricot tart.

Next stop is the Chateau Mersault for a wine tasting and tour of the ancient wine cellars. Ancient is right: some of them go back to the 12th century and weave around for miles, all lined with ranks of bottles of wine of varying ages. There must be a fortune in wine stored there. The tasting was of very young wines, rather disappointing, nothing to go into raptures over. This shows one of the barrel caves.

Back in Beaune and our last night in this lovely Hotel Le Ceps. It is very old but suitably updated with good plumbing and wi-fi for the computer in its lounge which are my basic needs for this trip. Our room is out the back under an arch, to the left in the photo very quiet. David thinks the magnificent willow must be about 300 years old.
Once again we prowl the streets in search of a nice dinner place: there is a choice of about thirty restaurants so it takes a while to read all the menus. I have snails and am sorry because they’re not as good as the first lot I had. During the night there is thunder, lightning and rain.

Day 15 to Lyon to catch M.V. Princesse de Provence

It’s raining as we leave Beaune but with typical luck by the time we get to the garden near Villefranche-sur-Saone it has stopped and sunshine is peeping through the clouds. M’sieur the owner is waiting for us and explains the array of small formal gardens each dedicated to a great woman like Empress Josephine and Coco Chanel. I particularly like Gertrude Jekyll and we all enjoy that there are more roses still in bloom than we’ve seen before. There are magnificent big old trees all over the park but Bill and David are particularly taken with a tiny Wollemi Pine looking quite overshadowed by its neighbours.

This is the last picnic lunch from the bus. Al fresco lunch is a special feature of Merryle’s tours and is terrific, as Lucy and Fab do a wonderful job of finding local delicacies and making delicious different salads. Lucy is not only a top translator and fund of history but an expert saladier.

Waiting at the wharf in Lyon is our cruise ship the MV Princesse de Provence, a big flat vessel holding 150 passengers and 80 crew. It’s German-owned which means good plumbing, mostly German passengers and all the announcements in German with no Lucy to translate. (We don’t see the bus with Lucy and Fab for 2 days). Great luxury in all departments of course and a superb afternoon tea which none of us could even look at and a 6-course dinner.

The tiny cabin has a sofa by day which converts to a single bed at night and another bed comes down out of the wall and we sleep quite well as we glide 165 Kms to Viviers, through locks which drops 40 feet very quickly. Our boat is 11.5 metres wide and the locks are 12 metres so it’s a careful fit by the captain.

I am very taken with the pretty basin in the tiny bathroom!

The plumbing works!

Day 16 Sunday 20th Sept in Viviers Provence

David is off on an excursion to the Gorges of Ardeche but I stay behind to blog – only to discover that wi-fi is not available. So much for Germanic efficiency!!! They’re behind the times regarding wi-fi.

So I have a peaceful morning reading and drinking beef tea at 11 am while David enjoys an excursion to the Gorges and returns buzzing with information about what he saw and heard. Lunch can be 6 courses if you want – NOT – then Merryle takes us on a stroll through a sleepy post-lunch mid-Midi Sunday Viviers. The only people around the steep twisted streets are other tourists and we wander through the large barge church and along the ramparts where there is a wonderful view over the river and our boat then back the other way to the massed roofs of the old town.

MV Princesse de Provence at Viviers.

It's lovely to sit on the top for afternoon tea and look at the swans. Before we go under a low bridge the crew comes along and takes down the shade awnings.

Day 17 Monday 21st Arles, Provence

We arrive at Arles early this morning with a gentle bump in the lock that wakes everyone. After a breakfast of ‘Steve’s special omelet’ as recommended by our waiter we meet Lucy, Fab and the bus plus Dr Louisa Jones, an expert on Mediterranean gardens who will guide us around special gardens selected by her.

Louisa in the Cactus River at Mas de Benoit.

These turn out to be ‘intellectual gardens’ as written up in Gardens Illustrated, relying upon shapes and forms rather than colour and paying great attention to the surrounding landscape. No flowers at all! The first one, Mas de Benoit, is along a narrow country lane where branches scrape the top of the bus and turn Fab to jelly at the insult being done to his precious bus.
Mas de Benoit is the inspiration of three garden designers – or sculptors, as we now have to call them – and a very rich owner. He isn’t present, we only get to see a gardener pruning, which must be his main job. The lavender garden is planted in a triangle and designed so that the view changes constantly as you walk along the edge. Well, that’s all very theoretical, but in fact it does! At the mid-point the distant village comes into view and totally changes what you’re looking at – and this happens with all the other views,
from the ‘rooms’ of twisted trunk olives to the Pinus pinea trees set against a backdrop of the Alpilles (the Little Alps). We see the secret garden across an orchard of olives, a swimming pool and the Cactus River.

David feels inspired to turn his Pinus pinea into sculptures when he gets home - but Ian, David and Bill as typical males are far more interested in the gardener’s pruning ladder.

We stop in Eygalieres for a coffee while the Circus Loyal passes through, their double-bogeys getting stuck in the narrow lanes.

We have quite a walk to get to the garden number two Mas de Columbe d’Or, as Fab has no intention of taking the bus up the lane. It’s hot and we trudge up the hill carrying our lunch boxes prepared by the boat’s chef and are welcomed with a rose wine by the charming owner and an invitation to go inside the house.

He’s nearly knocked over in the rush to get out of the midday sun – and what a house! We all love it instantly and are amazed to hear it can be rented for AU$24,000 (€12,000) per week. The lunch boxes are an enormous disappointment – where is our chef’s flair? Yogurt is not a lunch food, certainly not in France.

Bill discovers a bedroom with a secret door which hides the ensuite bathroom - how nifty is that? Though in the middle of the night it could be a bit tricky.

We roam all over the house marvelling at the 4 bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms and the kitchen! Fabulous! I crave that kitchen, but not at those rates. The guys were outside inspecting the Ferrari and the Mini Minor with leather seats so a good time was had by all. It's not all gardens!

Back at Arles every tourist must climb the hill past all the souvenir shops to see the old Roman amphitheatre which is now used as a bull-ring. They don’t kill the bull here as they do in Spain but anyway it’s rip-off – euro 6 each to look at an empty ring surrounded by stone seats which are covered in scaffolding and undergoing sandblasting. The noise and scruffiness are horrid and I don’t like Arles at all.

Day 18 Tuesday 22nd Avignon Provence
Once again Lucy, Fab and Louisa collect us and the dreaded lunch boxes and we head for Uzes which is a lovely-looking village that we drive through before being met by the garden owner whom we follow through twisty lanes (native guide required to find this one).

This is Mas de Noria with a passionate owner who has paid a fortune to have huge concrete pieces installed – not to everyone’s taste – and I don’t like the sculptures, but when he explains them they make much more sense. The one that looks

like a model of a house on legs is made to focus on the distant hills, the slabs of concrete at the front cut out the passing traffic and the long thin pool is based on the Alhambra.

The garden’s ‘sculptors’ are based in Morocco and have been much influenced by Islam and Persian gardens - a 'soft minimalist art' garden. It was formerly a silk worm factory and old mulberry trees have been imported to acknowledge that, there are pomegranates and fig trees, a working Moroccan water mill and many vistas stretching through alleys, always with the landscape built into the picture. Trees have been planted and inocculated with truffles and there is a large orchard - full of hornets, we are warned.

The boring lunch boxes are slightly improved by our hostess's excellent coffee then it's back to the bus and a quick stop at La Gare du Nord, an old Roman aqueduct. We have to run in and out because we must be punctual at le Chateau le Plaisir.

Chateau le Plaisir is on the market for 14.5 million euros - unsold because it's quite a small house with an enormous garden that was one man's pride and joy (there's that passion again!) and now that he's dead no-one cares. There are two gardeners dutifully keeping things tidy but it lacks that zing of the other gardens we've seen. I think gardens are very personal and the fun lies in planning and making them (or getting someone else to make them if your budget will stand it).

There's a beautiful drive in to the house and then the requisite garden rooms made from clipped box with David Nash sculptures - reverential hush - which look like lumps of charred wood.

It's all a bit sad in spite of the nice dry garden at the back but the promised stripes of box and red gauera were totally gone, so not a success in spite of some pretty flowers.

Back at the boat there was the usual delicious many-course dinner (thank goodness the serves are small) and a gypsy dancer with 3 guitar-playing accomplices. Ten minutes was enough and we were off to bed.

Day 19 Wednesday 23rd on the Rhone

Today there were no gardens, just a pleasant day doing absolutely nothing but cruising along the river and enjoying being on the boat. We stopped at Viennes and I did a little shopping in the town - but as usual it was midi with most of the shops shut and beginning to reopen as we left at 3.30pm.

Day 20 Thursday 24th Sept David’s birthday

Day 21 Friday 25th Sept

day 13 Beaune and Burgundy

Day 13 Beaune, la Chateau Dree
The chateaus just get more and more gorgeous! This one is near Charolle, south of Beaune, which is where the Charolais cattle come from of course and we chatted to some during lunch.

Madame la Comtesse has this as her country residence, having bought it from the Belgian Royal Family in 1993 who bought it from the family of Napoleon's brother. So very old, 1620s in fact, but was derelict when Madame took it over. She spent 2 years restoring the building and then went to work on the gardens which are perfect. She's not in residence today.

We had a guided tour of the inside of the chateau and I took a photo of the dining room before discovering photography is not allowed...

I'm not sure if this is the back or front door but either way it's pretty good.

There are 40,000 box plants here to make all the hedges and it looks like a gardener is employed full-time to cut them.



Lunch is a Lucy and Fab special prepared and served from the side of the bus with fresh salads, terrines and local cheeses bought this morning. We love these lunches and sit happily on the ground with our loaded plates and glasses of wine while watching the Charolais cattle in the nearby field.

This farmhouse, le Jardin du Zephyr, is a much more modest proposition than thew chateau, but what a lovely friendly couple who welcome us. The village of 150 people have never had Australians there before and send a press photographer around to take a photo for the local paper. Madame and her friend made (unasked) afternoon tea for us with fresh madeleines and jam sponge roll - not that we need more food - but the people were so nice we had to do our best.

David loved this country of rolling hills, Douglas firs and sawmills.
The garden is famous for its roses, alas over, and now its rose hips, so Merryle gave us a little talk on the bus about using rose hips for good health. Every day she comes up with a gem on the bus to keep us interested during the drives. I resolve to do something with 'Buff Beauty' rose hips.

Back in Beaune for the evening and fiinding our own dinner, but we were full of madeleines so no snails tonight. I had them last night for entree and really liked them - well what's to not like about lots of garlic butter and parsley - maybe one more time...

day 11 to Burgundy

Last night we entertained some swans to dinner with our stale bread. (French swans must have special necks to cope with the sharp edges of baguettes.)

This may have been a mistake as the goose that turned up looking for crumbs honked all night and competed with the many trains at stopping us from sleeping.

Day 11 Tuesday 15th Sept



David was up bright and early to supply us with baguettes and even more fodder for the ducks and swans.

We packed up the boat, ditching all our food that ducks didn't like and boarded the bus for the next stage of the tour to Burgundy.

First stop an old mill in the village of Aithe where a gentleman gardener pursues his passion for trees.

David was thrilled to see many different conifers including the rare South American monkey puzzle (centre of the trio).

Monsieur also has one of these enormous schnausers, called incongruously, Nookie.
Perhaps big gardens call for big dogs.

Lucy and Fab are seen here preparing lunch from the bus, a specialty of Merryle's tours, and that's Merryle having a preview.

It isn't far to Chateau Lantilly which was built in 1709 and has been in the same family ever since. We are escorted through the reception rooms of the house, everything so old and the weight of ancestors pressing down. There are many treasures here including a portrait of himself as a slim 15 year-old donated by Louise XVIII and sitting room hung with silk-worked tapestry wall-paper from Japan. The charming owner in his salmon linen jacket is tres agreable (they all are!)

A sweeping view over the plain shows where Vercingetorix (the Gallic warrior who was the model for Asterix) held out against Julius Caesar and many Roman artefacts are locked in a case inside the chateau.

Madame Claire has made a beautiful garden inside the old walls - though the vegetables aren't as good as they should be because the gardener had a 'crisis of the heart' this year.

And so we head to the beautiful city of Beaune and its 4-star Hotel Le Ceps where we attain the luxury of flushing toilets, separate shower and bath AND an internet connection.

There's a very special dinner in the hotel restaurant with wines courtesy of Merryle's husband David and rather odd food: meat terrine with the white wine and fish dumplings with the red. My eating companion says: "They should go to Margaret River for a decent white wine" but we all agree that the desserts are superb.

day 6 to 10 canal boats on the River Yonne

Day 6 Thursday 10th Sept
As we leave the Loire Valley, we stop off at the village of Meung sur Loire to visit a rose afficionado's garden. He works as a professional rose grower and for relaxation has created a rambling garden crowded with roses and perennials from a weed-infested pasture. As with many of the gardens we visit it seems huge as it meanders around with many 'rooms' and spaces.

Lunch is from the bus, created by the guide Lucy and bus driver Fab as we stroll around the garden, then it's off to collect our boats at Migennes.
David and I have been here before, 10 years ago, when we collected a smaller boat and cruised up the Yonne to Vermonton and back. I have complained ever since about the awfulness of negotiating 64 locks, me climbing slippery ladders and winding stubborn lock gates while David drove - BUT that was much better than the incompetent skipper boat 5 has. We are always last out of the seven boats, always the one floating around hitting things and it would be much better if David and John could drive. All they are allowed to do is coil the odd rope. However, Merryle has provided abundant wines and nibbles so we are happy, cruising slowly along a canal towards Benoit - even the dogs on the tow path can walk faster but it is a very pleasant way to travel and we have dinner on board with fresh GREEN BEANS that Bette found at a market.

Day 7 Friday 11th Sept
After overnight at Benoit and early morning delivery to each boat of criossants and baguettes by Merryle, we meet our bus and Fab for a pleasant drive to the next garden, owned and restored by two dedicated brothers-in-law. This is the best garden yet, and I wonder if Merryle can keep up the standard.
It is formal and absolutely beautiful, no expense spared to have everything just right.

We start with morning tea beside the swimming pool or very strong coffee which we indulge early in the day and an introduction to his 2 full-size schnausers. (We are proving ourselves suckers for animals.)

Then Msieur the elder (the one with immaculate English) takes us for a tour of his estate and this time it pays to stay within earshot to listen to his fount of knowledge and huge justifiable pride in his accomplishments. Around the forecourt of the chateau are 12 huge terracotta urns containing quince trees, an ancient chapel, the stables, kitchen and servants' quarters.
Through an arch in the yew hedge is revealed the first of many garden 'rooms' with views across paths unfolding in increasing intricacy.

The schnausers hate the stone dogs that guard the pond and keep knocking them off so one statue is "een ze ospital" being mended.

The Msieurs have the yew hedges trimmed once a year and Dr Bill remarks knowledgeably that they would sell the yew offcuts for production of taxane drugs for the treatment of breast cancer.

Madame oversees the butler and the cook in producing a lovely light lunch with plenty of wine

and we are very happy customers heading back to the boat and an afternoon cruise to Joigny where we are moored for two nights.

Dinner is at a local restaurant which has an excellent buffet entree, mediocre mains and strikingly presented desserts with an aftermath of indigestion.

Day 8 Saturday 12th Sept Vezelay
We have been here before and loved it so were looking forward to seeing Vezelay again and I was so excited on arrival that I rushed off the bus without my camera. As the bus disappeared from view for the next four hours, that was it - until I remembered my mobile phone camera but those photos will have to wait until we get home. The female members of our group were more interested in shopping than listening to the local guide whose French had to be translated by Lucy but as she slowly wound up the long steep slope we kind of kept up. The ceramics were amazing but totally un-buyable because so heavy. I went to half a service at the Basilica while David attended a club meeting on flints and axeheads and then lunch of Bouef Bourguinone was served in a local restaurant. As we waited for Fab to reappear with the bus we were entertained by wedding guests arriving for a wedding at the Basilica - rather a long trek for the ladies in high heels. Hats seem to be brim only and very fetching. The ladies had fun giving points for outfits.
Dinner back on the boat was a much lighter affair than lunch - still plenty of wine though. Merryle drops it off with the baguettes every day as if it were the milk and in fact wine is cheaper than bottled water.

Day 9 Sunday 13th Sept
David and John have elected to stay at the boat and do the laundry, as Joigny possesses a rarity, a laundromat. The boat people elect for the planned trip to a tiny village La Ferte Loupe-Pierre to see a private garden built around an old priory.
It is famous for its huge pumpkins on an overhead trellis which looks like a really good idea, and I also love the morning-glory. David says it's a weed and others tell me of cars left for a week and smothered with morning-glory vine but I think it's so pretty silhouetted against the

morning sky with the very old church spire in the background. The church is in poor repair but boasts a striking ancient fresco was covered with whitewash until being rediscovered in the early 1900s: it is a Danse Macabre, one of the five best in Europe and shows skeletons mixed with ordinary people of all walks of life, on their way to the Day of Judgement.

This shows the tithe barn, even older than the church, from the Priory Garden. It is set up for a village lunch for about 40 people: women are preparing the food while the rest of the population runs over the village on a treasure hunt. One of the questions is: "What is the capital of Australia?" because the organisers knew we would be in the village at that time.

This afternoon the boat flotilla is cruising to Villeneuve through very pretty stretches of canal running alongside the river, through locks: this one only opens once a day at 1.30 so we are early and waiting (im)patiently while the lock-keeper cooks a barbecue for himself and family on the canal-side. Then promptly at 1.30 Madame le Lock-keeper presses the button and the water-level begins to sink. My cabin is the front pointy one with a very odd-shaped but comfortable bed. The shower is awkward, nowhere to get dry except the passage or a scurry to the cabin and the toilet is unspeakable. It suffers badly from reflux and there's a constant battle to remove solids permanently. We cope with the aid of a bucket of water but others lay claim to constant constipation.

It's a lovely all-afternoon trip - to travel about 10kms: canal travel is not for those in a hurry.

At Villeneuve we explore the town which is deadly quiet and walk around the old city walls. I try out a public toilet where you have to squat and decide it's marginally better than the boat's!

Day 10 Monday 14th Sept
The boats are going back to Joigny without us while we bus north to Sens to a big market. This is the big shopping opportunity we have all been waiting for (females that is, not males) and we hit the market stalls and shops with a bang. Thes ladies are practised shoppers! I didn't buy much, just some leather shoes, of which Merryle bought 3 pairs: being a tour guide is tough on shoe leather.


Yesterday was Harvest Thanksgiving and the cathedral is beautifully decorated, especially this little side chapel.
Just after this was taken, Merryle was there watching an old lady with a shopping trolley selecting her very own pumpkins and asking Merryle's advice as to the best -looking pumpkin to pop in her bag.
Good on her, I say!
Back at Joigny we board our boats for a last cruise to Migennes again and an exciting trip through the 5.2metre lock.