After a good night's sleep, we woke early...ish for breakfast. We were hoping for a traditional Indian spicy fair but got a traditional boiled egg, bread and jam. We washed it down with a hot cup of Chai, so all was good. We ventured out in search of a few sites, however were easily distracted by fresh fruit platters, mango lassis and mobile phone cover shops. Next, an ATM stop to test various SBI machines. One small branch failed but the head office one worked. This was near the Mumbai stock exchange, complete with bull outside. We ended up at Horniman circular garden. An interesting name but the garden was being 'refurbished' - dug up. Marine drive is famous amongst the people of Mumbai. A huge boulevard next to the sea for romantic strolls. The stroll today wasn't filled with romance, more noise pollution as the whole sea defence boulevard was being fixed. Almost all of it for mile after mile. We had to walk on the dual carriageway but soon got fed up and headed inla...
We are now staying with friends. One lives one side of the Rhone in the Ardeche and the other on the other side, in the Drome Region. We had originally planned to visit for a few days, however, due to the weather we have been here over 2 weeks! The day we arrived we had blue skies and sunshine, which lasted the first day! Since then we have had a lot of rain, thunder, lightning and hail. Our friends have very kindly said we can stay as long as we like. We have spent some time mending broken things eg. the bike repair kit bag, which virtually disintegrated and the sleeping mat, which we have now accepted cannot be fixed easily! We went to the Salon des Vin de France for a wine tasting event and tasted many wines from around France - some good, some not to our taste and not worth the high price. One sunny day we explored Valence. There are some very pretty parks and lots of historical buildings. We saw the Maison de Tete and a house where Napoleon used to live. We wandered the...
After a leisurely breakfast we loaded our bikes up again and headed off towards the ferry port, via Waitrose! The cycle ride was only 3.8km. We arrived and checked in and were sent to a cycle stand to wait for our 11.30am ferry to Le Harve. Although the sun was shining there was a rather cold breeze. We boarded the ferry, secured our bikes and headed up to the deck to watch as we pulled out of Portsmouth. We saw the naval base, HMS Victory, the Spinnaker Tower and the old fort. It all looked glorious with the blue skies and sunshine. We saw about 10 cars on the ferry and a couple of vans, that was it! Inside we counted approximately 16 people, so there was plenty of choice of seats! We wandered around the bar area, restaurant and duty free. We found some seats and watched the world go by ... for a while ... until we both fell asleep in the warmth of the sun shining through the window. We passed over a shipping lane where suddenly there appeared to be boats all over the place. ...