BRIAN REID PHOTOGRAPHER
Checking Out My Local Patch
It has been a very pleasant week catching up around my local patch which was muddy and cold when I left for France and is now bone dry and a bit warmer. There is plenty of sunshine but I seem to have become the cold wind magnet. :-) I have popped around my local regular walking sites, the Lodge, Swiss Garden, St Neots Pocket Park, Paxton Pits and added a visit to Cambridge into the bargain. I’ll...
France Spring 2025 Day 22 - A Nice Ferry Ride
I find the ferry ride to and from Ouistreham (Caen) through Portsmouth to be a good way to visit France avoiding the most congested part of England and France. Although it is a 6 hour boat ride the price is competitive with the shorter crossings and a cabin is excellent value. It helps that there is an ibis Styles hotel right at thre entrance to the port adding convenience to this route arriving...
France Spring 2025 Day 21 - Back to the Channel via Honfleur
Another chapter in my recent re-acquaintance with France is coming to an end with my final night away on this trip back in Ouistreham for tomorrows ferry to Portsmouth. Today was a gentle drive, with incredible car efficiency, from near Versailles first to Honfleur and then along the coat via Deauville and Houlgate to Caen to charge the car for the trip home and to pick up some local cider to remind...
France Spring 2025 Day 20 - Paris in the Springtime
I chose the hotel as a convenient place to stay after a visit to Versailles and realised it made an easy entry point into the public transport for Paris so booked for two nights allowing me to spend today in a dash around the main sites of the city. The RER and Metro system sre beautifully integrated and the Navigo pass is rapidly replacing paper tickets, in fact it is now very difficult to buy a...
France Spring 2025 Day 19 -Two Chateaux One Day, Phew
Fontainebleau this morning and Versalles this afternoon and that about wraps it up for Paris chateau. What a contrast. I was in the first batch of visitors at Fontainebleau including a group of French school teenagers and then this afternoon humanity decended on Versailles. From a gentle stroll around a great chateau to an overhyped world renowned site the pleasure and the pain. Fontainebleau is...
France Spring 2025 Day 18 - Dijon to Fonteainebleu
I learned my lesson from yesterday that if I keep stopping journeys can take a lot longer than planned. My goal was to make a gentle run to Fontainebleu in time to enjoy a short hike before charging the car and settling in mid afternoon at the Novotel on the edge of of the forest. What do you know a plan can work. Before heading off I had a short post-breakfast amble around the area in Dijon close...
France Spring 2025 Day 17 - Lyon to Dijon
I thought this would be a short day with not many miles between Lyon and Dijon despite meandering as close to the Soane as the roads would permit but allowing me to visit Macon, Chalon-sur Soane and other smaller towns along the way. In the end I arrived in Dijon at rush hour. The good news was I was not trying to get out of Dijon! It has been a bright sunny day with mid-teens air temperature but...
France Spring 2025 Day 16 - Lyon
This is my first proper visit to Lyon having skirted it before and had a work visit once. I had a small product assurance team in Germany, working on Ariane 5, and we were having a problem with a supplier in Lyon so I was brought in as an escalation. It worked the supplier picked up their game. My two recollections are the near death ride in a taxi from the airport where the driver spent 50% of the...
France Spring 2025 Day 15 - Grenoble to Lyon
If it was grey yesterday it was a lucky grey as rain was this morning’s treat as I drove to Aix-les-Bains on Lac-du-Bourget after a run through the Chartreuse mountains. Fortunately it held off after late morning but it was a jacket and gloves day with a brisk north wind and no sunshine. I stopped at a small town, Saint-Thibaud-de-Couz, and a waterfall of the same name along the way and the town...
France Spring 2025 Day 14 - Grenoble
Grey Grenoble was the motif for the day but that is how the world works. I put my walking shoes and explored the centre of this big city and included a télepherique ride up to and down from the Fort de Bastille which dominates the skyline above the river Isère which meanders through the city. There is a ‘modern’ centre with wide boulevards, appartments, offices and shops and a smaller older town...