ANNA
THE FIRST TRIPS
Being the genetic product of two
travelers, I started to travel around the world already when I was only five
weeks old. My first trip was to the Netherlands, to see where the roots of
my forefathers are and of course to show off my beautiful self to all my
parents' friends and relatives. My first trip was very exciting, I slept
through most of it. Everybody told my parents
they were outrageous, to
travel with such a small baby. As always they thought they knew
better and just flew off. And I did not
make a fool of
them and stayed nice and quiet.
After we arrived in the Netherlands, my
father rushed
off to collect his biggest love, the old
Bristol. Since it has no seatbelts,
he just put me, Maxicosi and all under the dashboard at the feet of my
mother. And again, I slept all the way to France and Spain, only waking up
now and then to have my usual sip of breastfeeding. So I went past numerous
borders without even taking one look at them, just enjoying the beautiful
sound of the Bristol motor. Our first trip was to the middle of France,
where my aunt and uncle own a beautiful house. So we drove over Dutch,
Belgian and French roads, stared and waved at by other automobilists.
The house is called "Mouse-nest",
which is a perfect name since it took us hours to find it. Which was more or
less our own fault, because we left too late and arrived after dark; in the
middle of nature the mobile phones did not connect and so we were driving up
and
down a hill to find the nest. But when we arrived there at last, it was
worth it. The house appeared to be almost on top of a mountain,
overlooking the valley and a reservoir. You could pass a week
their without seeing anybody, if you would not go to the village.The house was really nice and the
garden enormous. Part of it was a big forest on the slope of the mountain.
It was a pity my brothers and sister were not there, because they would have
loved to build little huts there. I myself do not do anything but drink and
sleep yet. And actually, my parents do more or less the same. They drink
French wine and eat French cheese and sleep a lot; they have to recover from
my birth, I think!
And they also did some emailing and surfing on the internet (I think they are addicts). This picture on the left they sent from France to the local supermarket around the corner of my grandparents. So when I came to visit them the first time. this picture was already hanging on their wall! We stayed in the Mouse-nest for one and a half week, and then we took off more to the south of France, where a friend of Mummy has a house, actually a beautiful vicarage from the 16th century with a graveyard next to it.
This house was situated
completely different from the Mouse-nest, as it was sitting on the
bottom of
a valley, looking up to the mountains. It also had a beautiful garden
and a very
nice kitchen. Since my parents are both very fond of cooking
(which you can see on this website) they used it a lot. The whole house had
a very nice atmosphere, it was so quiet and smelled faintly of church. Since
it had blinds in front of all the
windows, we managed to sleep every day
till 10 o'clock. We also made some trips. One of them to Albi, on the long
picture you can see the
view from the river Tarn. It is a
very beautiful and old city. On the right of the picture you see the
Saint Cecilia Cathedral, from the 13th century. Here and there you can find
signs of the crusade against the Cathars. Toulouse-Lautrec was born here
and therefore there is a museum, dedicated to him. We did some of the
tourist things and then had a very nice dinner on a terrace, overlooking the
river. And visited a local wine shop to buy some very nice wines.
Furthermore we drove around the region were there are many vineyards.
Unfortunately, the castle that we chose to pay a visit, Chateau Meursault,
was really a rip-off. They made us pay 30 dollars for entering (and tasting
some different wines). The wines that were meant for tasting, however, were
mostly bad and at the best they tasted like a cheap Vin de Pays. But maybe
it is our bad taste, since the Americans
who
were visiting the chateau simultaneously, bought at least 10 boxes of these wines
(which came at a ridiculously high price on top of that!). We took off
without any wine and were caught in a hailstorm. We decided to look for
cover in a small place, and it appeared to be also a vineyard, with very
nice people and great wine. So we were lucky and tasted and bought some.
After this we went for some days to Spain, where friends of my father have a
house. So within two months, I have already seen 6 countries!
