Where's Bertie? He's in a commercial Aire at a marina on the canal in Nancy where it costs €19.42 per night, including tourist tax. Exact location: 48.692147, 6.193260
Where was Bertie the last two nights? He found himself staying in Étival-Clairefontaine for three nights.
Weather: Tuesday: rainy start, clearly late morning, then raining later.
Wednesday: grey, cold and wet with a high of 13 and a low of 9.
Thursday: Sunny intervals with just a couple of short showers. 15 degrees
First a catch-up: We were only going to stay in Étival-Clairefontaine for one night, but with Tuesday being rainy, and having work to do, and with the Aire having good facilities (including electricity) for the €8 fee, we decided to stay another night.
The only activities, other than staring at computer screens...
multiple screens in my case; I got the big screen out so I could view three different documents at once.
...Mick went out for a run just before the weather cleared up in the morning and I went out just before lunch. Mick's outing was relatively flat, along the local Voie Verte, whereas I opted to visit the Pierre d'Appel viewpoint (an impressive rock outcrop, that I was unable to capture in a photo).
Good view of three valleys.
I went across the bridge onto the pillar the other side, where my knees started to knock completely irrationally as even a specatcular dive wouldn't have sent me over the edge.
We then decided we needed cake for after lunch, so visited the friendly boulanger/pâtissier:
The lemon meringue was particularly good
The intention had then been to leave E-CF yesterday, but with the weather forecast being for heavy rain all day, and with the temperature having collapsed (it was 30 degrees four days prior; by the time we went out for a walk last evening it was 9 degrees!), we decided there was no point travelling a few miles up the road just to sit somewhere when we could stay where we were and take advantage of the electricity. So, we extended our stay again*.
There was another visit to the bakery, which involved us going through the small Wednesday morning market. Would have bought some cheese, except there was so much choice we just couldn't choose.
The fan heater came in handy, and for the first time on this trip, we broke the duvet out for the night.
We woke up this morning (Thursday) to a temperature of 11 degrees inside. This really has been a sudden plunge into autumn! We caved and dug out our long trousers.
After Mick had been for another run/walk along the Voie Verte...
Misty start over the water
...we were promptly away for the hour-long drive to Nancy, via a supermarket shop on the way. We wanted to arrive here by late morning, firstly so that we would have time to do the town justice and secondly to maximise the chance of one of the 19 spaces at the Aire being free, as I'd read that it usually fills up quite early in the day.
The welcome from the Marina office chap was excellent, giving me a map and explaining exactly what we needed to see in the town. The map also told us there were various audiotours available via the town's website.
So, off into town we went.
Plas Stanislas is quite something!
Fountains of the day
Where was Bertie the last two nights? He found himself staying in Étival-Clairefontaine for three nights.
Weather: Tuesday: rainy start, clearly late morning, then raining later.
Wednesday: grey, cold and wet with a high of 13 and a low of 9.
Thursday: Sunny intervals with just a couple of short showers. 15 degrees
First a catch-up: We were only going to stay in Étival-Clairefontaine for one night, but with Tuesday being rainy, and having work to do, and with the Aire having good facilities (including electricity) for the €8 fee, we decided to stay another night.
The only activities, other than staring at computer screens...
...Mick went out for a run just before the weather cleared up in the morning and I went out just before lunch. Mick's outing was relatively flat, along the local Voie Verte, whereas I opted to visit the Pierre d'Appel viewpoint (an impressive rock outcrop, that I was unable to capture in a photo).
We then decided we needed cake for after lunch, so visited the friendly boulanger/pâtissier:
The intention had then been to leave E-CF yesterday, but with the weather forecast being for heavy rain all day, and with the temperature having collapsed (it was 30 degrees four days prior; by the time we went out for a walk last evening it was 9 degrees!), we decided there was no point travelling a few miles up the road just to sit somewhere when we could stay where we were and take advantage of the electricity. So, we extended our stay again*.
The fan heater came in handy, and for the first time on this trip, we broke the duvet out for the night.
We woke up this morning (Thursday) to a temperature of 11 degrees inside. This really has been a sudden plunge into autumn! We caved and dug out our long trousers.
After Mick had been for another run/walk along the Voie Verte...
...we were promptly away for the hour-long drive to Nancy, via a supermarket shop on the way. We wanted to arrive here by late morning, firstly so that we would have time to do the town justice and secondly to maximise the chance of one of the 19 spaces at the Aire being free, as I'd read that it usually fills up quite early in the day.
The welcome from the Marina office chap was excellent, giving me a map and explaining exactly what we needed to see in the town. The map also told us there were various audiotours available via the town's website.
So, off into town we went.
Having visited most of the POIs on the '18th century heritage' route...
...sustenance was needed...
...and whilst waiting for our food to arrive we planned our afternoon, to do the Art Nouveau tour route, via the Musee de l'Ecole de Nancy. Many an Art Deco building was passed and admired, and we stuck our heads through the door of Brasserie Excelsior (kicking ourselves for not thinking to go there for lunch):
We were almost at the Musee when, looking at directions on my phone, I failed to notice a bent over spring coming out of the pavement and went down so hard that I didn't bounce back up. It didn't take Mick too long to realise that I'd disappeared and another chap also came to check I was okay - which I was, even if I'd taken quite a bit of skin off my hands and a little off my knee (those long trousers were a good call today for more than one reason!).
We continued on towards the museum, but when my hands started dripping blood and with my knee throbbing, we abandoned and came back to Bertie. Scraping the grit out of my hands wasn't the most fun I've had on this trip, but hopefully they'll soon stop smarting.
Rather a shame. Having paid more than we usually do for this stopover, I'd wanted to do the place justice, rather than sitting indoors by mid-afternoon feeling sorry for myself. Only myself to blame though (although what was that spring doing there?!).
(*There may have been others, but I can only think of two occasions on this trip when we've stayed somewhere for 3 nights, and both were in places where we arrived and declared the town to be completely uninteresting.)
Good to see you building up the calories again. As I've said before your photos are transformed if one takes the trouble to "click to enlarge." In particular the one of the misty lake is great. The rest have a quality of light that those artists in Cornwall experience.
ReplyDeleteIt's rare for Mick to take photos, especially when out for a run, so it must have been a good scene.
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