Making toy houses

with Zoe and Alex

Charmette

I rode up the back side of Charmette… longer than I thought it would be for some reason, even though I have descended that way a few times.  Lovely, as usual though.  I passed a monk in robes and hiking boots jogging up the hill.  Now there's something you don't see every day.  His head was surrounded by a cloud (halo?) of bugs.

Warwick

Went to warwick for a conference.  Here it is, in pictures


I stopped at Tesco to buy some nice bacon and cheddar

and Quarter cask

And was slightly tempted to go to Kos instead of home!

Back to the 'hood

Via Mercurey:  one of the most famous of the heart and soul of French wines.  But first:  excellent breakfasts!

They make the yogurt on site, as well as the jam (from their fig and cherry trees!).  There was also honey from the Abbey, and eggs from their free range chickens (which Zoe and Alex delighted in chasing).

Mercurey:

What can you say except it's painfully expensive, but spectacular wine.

Lunch on the autoroute

Noyers, Irancy

After a fabulous breakfast at the Abbey

And some "bouncy-bounce"

Chloe and Stephanie took the kids to a dino park in the morning while I went for a ride (Footage of the Abbey at the end!):



I had a somewhat disastrous series of tire blowouts, but it was still really pleasant riding.

 The Yonne river is still maintained as a throughway for boats, complete with operational locks.  It looks like a lot of people spend their vacations on the river and it reminded me of an article that I read a long time ago about Americans renting and buying barges, which I can't seem to find.  I did find this one though, which specifically mentions the Yonne river.  Anyway, after a lot of time on the side of the road, I eventually made it back to the Abbey, and spent some time looking for wineries on the web.  I also discovered that we were near another of the plus beaux villages de France called Noyers.

 We packed everyone up and drove the sinous and remarkably vineyard free countryside to Noyers, a pretty village with half timbered houses built along a bend in the Serein river.  After drinks and snacks, I took the kids down to the promenade by the river and we watched fat fish swim by a very frustrated looking fisherman.  We decided that one particular fish was the "chef des poissons" and tried to convince chloe to dive in to catch him/her.
From there, we went to a relatively unknown wine region known as Irancy.  The region had, once upon a time produced wine for the royal court, but after the Phylloxerra plague and some other problems (mold?  I can't remember) they apparently re-planted with plonk producing wines.  In recent years though, they have replanted with pinot noir and invested in an AOC certification.

After a tasting, we bought a few bottles from the Serge Bienvenu cave.  There were a few notices up on the wall proudly proclaiming their non-organicness!

Finally, back to the estate, where I took some photos:

And then we went to dinner in nearby Vermenton

Burgundy!

We went on a last minute trip to Bourgogne.  After lots of emailing around, I found one place with space (it's a big holiday weekend) which was at a restored abbey near Vermenton.  First, we had to get away from Bento, who was not happy with us leaving

I found another "Plus beaux villages de France" to visit, which was along the way: Chateuneuf.






 
The kids were excited about the mulberry tree and demanded multiple berries






more photos:




Then, along the route national past many of the same places my parents, Chloe and I visited in 2007

We eventually made it to the Abbey, which is beautiful.

Dinner was in nearby Nitry, where Zoe impress due all by not only eating, but LOVING snails.  She even licked the shells

Kalymnos from the air

A stressful journey back

Our extremely useful host at the studios assured us that taking the 9:30 ferry would leave us plenty of time to get to the airport, and against our better judgement we believed him.  The first bad sign was when the ferry left almost 15 minutes late.  Then, despite there being twenty people waiting for rides to the airport (10 minutes away in a car) at Mastixari, there were no taxis!  After around thirty minutes, one arrived and a bunch of us who were all on the same Ryanair flight piled in.  One of the people was a Kalymnian on her way to visit her brother in Grenoble, so we offered to give her a ride, if by some miracle we all managed to make it onto the plane.  The taxi driver sensed our desperation and ripped us off -- charging double the going rate, but we were happy to pay it, and in no position to haggle.  After ten tense minutes, we arrived at the airport.  By this time, the luggage check in had closed, so we had to pay 120 euro to get our bags on, and security sent us on a wild goose chase to get our US passports stamped.  The problem is that no one in the airport seemed to know what stamp was needed.  At one point they actually took our passports and disappeared for what seemed like ten minutes.  Chloe and I eventually made it to the gate, where they had not even started boarding, and walked by the big line (reserved seats again) to collapse in our seats.  We gave each other some incredulous looks at having actually made it onto the plane, and then began the long process of trying to drop our stress-o-meters down to normal levels.  A short plane ride later, we arrived in Milan Bergamo, picked up the bags, found the Kalymnian, and walked outside to the Ciao Parking shuttle stop.  The shuttle arrived shortly afterwards, and the driver took our receipts.  Four minutes later we were at the parking, where to my astonishment, our car was waiting for us!  The driver had apparently called ahead to have our car driven out of the warehouse.  Then it was on the road for Grey-noble, via the crazy Italian autoroutes.  Somewhere around Susa, the Carbinieri made us exit the autoroute and take the equivalent of the route nationale, which was stopped dead in a huge column of traffic.  After about a half an hour, we re-routed via back roads and discovered the reason:  a protest against the proposed new train tunnel.  They were waving white flags and generally making a nuisance of themselves.  Just what we needed after our relaxing morning.  Next, the exorbitantly priced (>40 euro!)  Frejus tunnel, through the Maurienne and the Gresivaudan.  We then dropped the Kalymnian off in the center of town and then made our way home to collapse.

Grande Grotta

A trip to Kaly wouldn't be the same without at least one visit to the big cave, so it seemed like a fitting way to end our stay on the island. I started the day with stomach issues, as usual (the food has not been agreeing with me these past few days) but after a late start we hiked up to a new sector (to us) called the Spartan Wall.  Jeff, the Aussie from Sweden had recommended Lucifer's Hammer, so after warming up on a chossy 5c called Tigryonak and then Probleme Mineur (fantastic) we climbed Lucifer's Hammer, which was wonderful.  Chloe flashed it too, which is her hardest flash!  And that is after I gave her some really awful beta for the crux.

Next stop, the big cave itself.  When we first visited back in 2003 I was fixated on one route: DNA.  When I first looked at it and the routes next to it I will admit that I was pretty intimidated, not having climbed anything like that before.  It took a little work, but I eventually sent.  Over the subsequent trips we came back to do Ivi and Aphrodite, and I went more or less bolt to bolt on Aegialis.  I would occasionally see people on a famous route called Priapos (named for the dong-like stalactites everywhere) just to the right.  It is a spectacularly overhung route, and looks exceptional even for Kalymnos.  Having heard that it is easier than Aegialis, I thought I would give it a shot.  When you pull down on the first holds, you really have no idea what a long ride you are in for:  Chloe tells me that I was on the route for almost an hour, milking every rest.  I downclimbed from the crux a few times, and was in the red zone by the time I reached the 7c/7b+ anchors, but I made it!  My proudest flash ever.  The only down side is having to clean the route, which meant climbing it again, seconding.  I think it might have actually been harder to second than to lead (especially after exhausting myself on the send).

Chloe then got on Aphrodite and promptly whacked her head on a stalactite.  She did the moves, but was tired out from her effort on Lucifer's Hammer earlier in the day.

We walked down the hill for one final trip to Linaria to swim, have lunch and then drop the scooter off.  A quick dip in the sea feels fantastic after a (half) day of climbing.  At the scooter rental place, one of the teenagers that run the place during the day drove us back to the studio, nearly killing us and several other motorists along the way.

We had a wonderful last meal at the Aegean tavern



 where the kitten was running around attacking it's mother and tableclothes again. 


Then back home to pack