France 2013

Dorgogne River / Perigord

France 2013: After a very busy weekend filled with BMX racing in Garmisch and 'Plateln'/Festzelt Garmisch we departed on Sunday night at 10:45 PM with Jonathan as our champion night driver.

 We spent five days traveling to our atlantic beach destination in Let-et-Mixe. We chose a route from Elsas to Bordeux. Our first town stop was Tuebingen, Germany, a university town, I most noticed a wide variety of shops featuring organic and fair trade products.

Colmar, France The historic quarter is nice, with lots of 'fachwerk' houses. It's feeling was more German than French as we meandered the small side streets. We ate our first Flammkuchen, navigated our large map then back to Bimi our motorhome, Inkspell by Cornelia Funke our audiobook, towards Besancon and Clermont-Ferrand. These travel days were long. While we did drive the French highways, we also took side roads to keep the drive more interesting. When we needed a break we stopped at a local lake or river to make lunch and have a nice swim.

12+ hours
1200+ km

Dorgogne river valley

We stayed in Carsac across from an old stone chateau with live music and food/wine. The tiny village offered little more than a bar, bakery, small grocery store and public toilet. Everything we needed.

That night at the chateau a wild thunderstorm caught the locals by surprise and Jonathan and I were soaked to the skin while helping rescue the band's equipment by keeping the tent/umbrella the band was playing under from flying away with about 15 other guests and staff members. Once the storm subsided we walked across the street and went to bed.

The next day after sleeping in we went to the local bakery. The selection was incredible and after choosing our baguettes and treats we stopped at the grocery store for some fruit. After drinking a nice Cafe we headed back to unload the bikes. We planned to do a bike ride to Sarlat-la-Caneda but the childrens' majority party voted to kayac/canoe first. In Vitrac we rented one Canoe and one Kayac. We paddled down the Dorgogne river, jumped from tree branches, paddled past La Roque-Gageac, Castelnaud-la-Chapelle and ended our paddle in Beynac-et-Cazenac. A bus transfer shuttle then returned us to Vitrac.

The next day we rode our bikes to Sarlat and enjoyed a lovely day in town and at the market. We purchased the fabric for our outside lounge and look forward to remembering our trip everytime we relax and enjoy our colorful chill out lounge. We spent so much time in town that we failed to finish our bike ride to  the Grotte de Lascaux. We decided we'd be back and will make sure to see the cave paintings the next time we're in France.

Plage de Cap de L'Homy

Another 400 km to Lit-et-Mixe. The beach was amazing, one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen: white, sandy, soft, long...gorgeous! South of Bordeaux north of Biarritz the atlantic coast of France is a nature reserve. Just beautiful beach with maybe a few shops. Beach access every 10km. Lit et Mixe was where we were, Plage de Cap de L'Homy, south of Arcachon. We were lucky to have warm weather and waves and Jonathan surfed 2-3x per day.


Andreas is still nursing a broken collarbone, extending his downtime by breaking it a second time while jumping on the trampoline and doing flips before it was fully healed.

Our return trip took us via Perigord, Lyon, Annecy back home to Garmisch. Our drive took us through France's beautiful countryside, sunflower fields and wine regions.

We loved France! The French people were friendly, the food was excellent, the countryside beautiful and clean. We were able to park Bimi without issue and were never hassled nor did we feel uncomfortable.