Week 10 & 11: Fortune favours the brave
Dog-tired, under slept, and sore muscles where we didn’t know we even had muscles, but ready to do it all over again! Our time on the highways and byways of Europe has come to an end and this is the last of the posts in the series. The time has gone by SO quickly, but still it feels like we’ve been away for a very long time. It is strange how time bends when you’re not a slave to the clock.
We’ve now handed back Nora, our little camper. Parting ways was difficult. She’s been a part of our identity over the past 80 days; our shelter and our independence.
Weeks 10 and 11 were all about great food and wine and started in one of the most amazing cities on the Atlantic coast of Spain, San Sebastien, from where we moved on to Bordeaux, Brittany and
eventually Normandy. In Normandy we said farewell to the Continent and got a ferry back to England to conclude our big adventure around Europe.
There’s a certain pull cities like San Sebastien has over people. Perhaps it’s the intense proudness of the Basque people. Perhaps the wild and foggy atmosphere of the Atlantic coast. Perhaps the excellent seafood offered by this seaward city. Or the crazy dogs swimming in the harbour to catch fish. Or the surfers mixing with business people on the streets during rush hour. There’s just something about the city that makes it almost impossible not to fall in love with San Sebastien.
Heading further north and into cooler climes, we ended up in Bordeaux. As a son of the Namib it was a strange experience to walk on the soft sands of Dune du Pilat, the largest sand dune in Europe. A far cry from Dune 45 at Sossusvlei, but still a beautiful and forlorn place. We also made a pilgrimage to St Emillion for some quality wine, but eventually had to hightail it out of Bordeaux as France lost against the All Blacks (yay Sarah!).
Our second last stop was in the shadow of St Michel, an island commune off the coast of Normandy. A more romantic place is hard to imagine and treated ourselves to an excellent seafood meal out in town.
Final stop Bayeaux! Omaha Beach, Ponte du Hoc, and the American war cemetery are historical, emotional places, but one can’t travel through these parts of the world and not visit at least some of these heroic places. The world would’ve been a completely different place today, wasn’t it for the actions of those brave people not so long ago.
Trip stats (Week 1 – Week 11):
- We’re working on a final trip overview, which will include all the trip statistics.
What next?
In one of my favourite books, Eighty Days around the World, Jules Verne said “…fortune favours the brave…” and this is very true. We’ve sold our house in England and quit our jobs in London for a brief, but brave few months on the road in Europe. It wasn’t always easy, but we did it! 80 days around Europe. It might not be 80 days around the world and we might not’ve been in a race against time, but we did bet our futures on it. We’re off to Namibia now to catch up with family and friends, but we’re aiming to be in New Zealand from the middle of February 2016 onwards to start an exciting new chapter in our lives.
A few more blog posts will follow from our learning on the trip, perhaps to help others wanting to take a similar journey.
But for now, allow us to say one last goodbye from Europe.
And see you on the road!
