On the 8th of September we went to a cave in France (Peche Merle) to see some cave paintings that are 25000 years old. There were horses, mammoths, elephants, aurochs (or - ox - ses), cave bears, hand prints, bison and human figures. My favourite were the  horses. One of the horses’ heads is the natural form of the rock. There were also some really impressive stalactites and stalagmites, cave pearls, bones and cave bear claw marks.

Cave pearls

Horses 

HAnd

Mammoth and other things

Mammoth

That night we went out to the town (perched at the top of a cliff face) near our campsite for dinner of local food. We had mini soup for a starter, a mountain of lettuce with goat’s milk brie, raisins, duck, potato salad stuff and pate (each) for our main course and chocolate yumminess with vanilla sauce for pudding. We walked back in the dark down a closed path and I was a bit scared. 

Mini soup

Proportion of the spoon 

The next day we went for a bike ride down the river. Part of the path was carved into the cliff face and part of the cliff face was carved. We rode to the next village and had pizza for lunch. The pizza came from a van with a pizza oven in it by the river! On the way we passed some locks. Locks are to help boats get down a steep bit of river. What happens is the boat is uphill on the river and someone opens the doors of the lock and the boat comes in on the same water level, then someone closes the doors behind the boat. Someone then pumps the water out of the lock so it is the same water level as the downhill part of the river. the doors infant of the boat open and the boat sails out. This can also happen the other way round. Sometimes the water in the lock isn’t the same level as the boat so water has to be pumped in/out of the lock before the lock opens. On the way back we helped operate a lock. We also saw a man doing a really strange dance and filming himself. The other day he was trying to film himself putting on suncream.

Biking

Carved wall

The day after we drove to a really nice campsite in a field. On the way there we drove over Millau suspension bridge. The towers are the tallest in the world but the road is only the 12th highest. It cost 400 million Euros to build and 25 Euros to drive over. When we got to the campsite we went for a walk up the hill. The path was a dry riverbed. we got to the top and climbed up some rocks. That night there was a giant thunderstorm that kept us awake. The next day at that campsite there were wedding photos being taken.

Wedding

Us on our walk

Funny tree 

Bridge

After the wedding photos we went to a lake. We hired a pedalo with a slide on and went swimming in the lake. It was very green and deep. We saw some young men jump of a 15m high bridge into the lake, a guy with a remote control boat and another guy with a remote control float plane.

On the pedalo

On the 11th of September we went to see Mum’s friend Rachel. She lives in France with her husband (who has recently had a lung transplant) and 2 yr old daughter (Jasmine). She is fluent in French, Italian and English. Her daughter is learning to speak both languages (French and English) and is talking a mish-mash of both. One of Jasmine’s favourite sayings is Pousse-toi (poost - wa) which means move your but (sort of). Jasmine has this squeaky robot hamster and cat robot things and she hid them from us and we couldn’t find them. The next day Rachel texted Mum to say that they were in the washing machine.

That evening we drove to a campsite with a pool. in the middle of the night a burglar alarm went off and woke us all up.

We stayed in that campsite for a couple of days then drove to a campsite in Italy with our friends. There was a pool there that was 1.5 - 3m deep! You had to wear a swimming cap and I got a yellow one. There was also a beach volleyball court and WiFi. We stayed there for 4 nights. On the 2nd and 3rd nights, we saw in the (fenced off) forest behind us a family of wild boar! We called them Chris, Chris Jnr, Steve, Steve Jnr, Big Dadda (the boar) and the rest were Co. Wild boar in Italian is Cingiale.

Chris

On the 3rd day we went to Cinqueterre (Chink - w - terror) on the train. We got off at Riomaggiore (Rio - m - jaw - a) and had a look around then walked up 643 steps to the top of the hill the down 600 more on the other side to Manarola. We had pizza and then Lui, Nico and I went to a place to watch the waves. There was a couple who got knee deep in water because of the size and power of the waves. After Nico left, Lui and I stayed and saw a 3 meter-ish tall wave. We both scrambled up a rock so we weren’t swept away. We then got the train to the next village (Monterosso) and went swimming. The waves at the beach were big but not to large. It was really fun. We got an ice-cream and got on the train back home. We got fined because we didn’t have the right ticket.

One of the villages

Another village

Coming down the hill

On the 19th we drove to Pisa. We went into a campsite and then walked to the leaning tower. We walked through a souvenir market on the way  to the tower. I After seeing the tower walked around the town. We walked through a proper market that was only on that day. We saw junk pictures, jewellery, knitted stuff and lots more. It was an excellent day out.

The leaning tower

Driftwood fish

At the church