London

What a city! We've had a great time in London this week en-route to Iceland tomorrow morning. The weather has been a bit chilly and occasionally wet (surprise, surprise) but not without moments of heat and sun. Today has been particularly bright and warm - which is appropriate given summer starts on Sunday. We've had a chance to see some shows and do some bike riding which has been great - and a lot of walking! Here are some pics...

Airbus shares Toulouse Airport and across the tarmac were lined up these Beluga aircraft - very odd looking freight planes which look like....

About to fly...

There has been a lot of pomp in London this week. It turns out they are regularly practicing for the Kings Birthday Parade in June as well as the Trooping of the Colour....

Squirrel and observer in Hyde Park - which was glorious....

A disused church converted into a food hall in Mayfair - very groovy and a wonderful use of an ornate historic building...

Above the front entry of Selfridges department store on Oxford Street...

One night we went very local and had dinner at Chinatown and saw comedy at the Comedy Store - it was the monthly gong show with multiple comedians who you could boo off stage - a hoot....

Houses of Parliament and the Elizabeth Tower (containing Big Ben). Very picturesque as always...

We had a nice walk along the southern bank of the Thames to the Tate Modern - this is a view of the modern towers in the City of London, with St Paul's to the left. We went up the 'Walkie Talkie' later in the week (the building on the right)...

Jodie (sister in law) and her girls were in London - we caught up with Jodie, Lily and her mum Fay at the cafe at the Serpentine in Hyde Park...

Street view in Mayfair - very nice buildings and almost a village character in many places....

The Sky Garden is at the top of the 'Walkie Talkie' building and has great views (because there's not that many high buildings around)...

Construction constraints....

Nearby, we also went up 120 Fenchurch Street which has an open garden...

Leadenhall Market is nearby and is a very attractive Victorian market, on the site of a medieval marketplace. The iron frames above the tenancies were for hanging your chickens (this was the poultry market)...

Walking back through Trafalgar Square one evening - it's so elegant with great lighting....

The roses are out in force in Regents Park - heaps of the them - and heaps of people (but nothing like the number of people outside Buckingham Palace this morning for the Changing of the Guard - we were trying to ride past and it was a challenge!)....

Sarlat Pt 2

How good is France!? We've really enjoyed mooching around the countryside and sampling the local produce. The quality of the food, wine, towns and landscape never disappoints. Here are some more pics....

Time for the regular afternoon nibbles and wine in our little house in Sarlat....

Side street in Belves, another of the Les Plus Beaux Villages in France (there's a formal list and our area has a high density of them, several of which we visited on this trip)...

Monpazier, another of those villages. It had the weekly market on the day we visited. It is, like many others in this area, a Bastide town (a fortified village purposely built 'new', with tax and other privileges to attract people to live there). It was established in 1284 by the English. Many were also established by the French. This area of France was in dispute for centuries....

Great view from a bistro in the Bergerac wine region....

Monbazillac Chateau - owned by a wine co-operative of 50 local growers who make the sweet dessert wine Monbazillac, from mostly Semillon grapes with 'noble rot' (ie. grapes left to go slightly rotten then picked - a method discovered by the Benedictine monks who lived nearby at Bergerac in the 1200's)...

Afternoon wines in the main square in Sarlat...

Great views of La Roque-Gageac from Marqueyssac garden...

Bouncy rope ladder net in forest at Marqueyssac....

We saw the gardeners shaping the bushes at Marqueyssac using string lines and hand sheers to avoid causing damage to the box trees with mechanised equipment....

Canoeing down the Dordogne is great fun with fantastic views. The weather was pretty good but windy on some stretches, making going a little harder than it needed to be....

Our canoes parked at La Roque-Gageac whilst we sat on the terrace and had drinks, to contemplate the next stop....

We then parked the canoes at Castelnaud for a visit to the patisserie, so as to contemplate the next stop....

The views of Beynac Castle are great - so we stopped there too for another refreshment....

Milandes Chateau has a very interesting museum about Josephine Baker and oddly, an entertaining bird of prey exhibition. They recently restored the adjacent chapel with 1500's paintings unearthed beneath tiles and stucco...

An example of Cafe Gourmand - need I say more.....

Our final dinner spot in Sarlat....

Roofscape over part of Sarlat, from the glass lift near the main square - our house is the last one to the right of the pedestrian lane at the far left of the picture...

On the way back to the Toulouse airport we visited Rocamadour, a historic town and pilgrimage complex about an hour from Sarlat. High above the town is a castle subsequently used as a Bishops Palace. Its ramparts offer huge views over the town and valley....

The sanctuary...

Our last meal in France was a cracker, in a beautiful setting on the only street in the historic town....

Rocamadour - town at bottom, sanctuary (chapels) in the middle, castle at the top....

Our final (very brief) stop was to visit the Valentre Bridge in Cahors - a fortified bridge from the early 1300's. It is in pretty good repair and you can walk across it. The towers are higher than I remember - very impressive....