How impossible to sum up the last 4 days in words when there was so much to see, feel & imagine during our Back-Roads tour of Anzacs on the Western Front. It was the most marvelous introduction for us to group touring as we were just 13 people plus Simon our driver & tour leader. We travelled in comfort along the rural roads of northern France & Belgium, visiting many of the major memorials & battlefields of Flanders & The Somme but also going...

Last day in Paris & the end of our European sojourn - at least for a while! Today we did a few less touristy things for a completely different view of Paris. First stop was the very interesting Pere Lachaise Cemetery where many famous people are buried. The place itself is huge & has blocks of memorials divide by lovely cobbled, tree lined paths. It was very peaceful in the morning without many people about so we bought a map & wandered around to loca...

The day finally arrived for the final stage of the Tour de France & we were in Paris!!!!!!! This was an almost "out of this world" happening for me as it evolved by accident & good fortune that we would be there this day. We have followed the Tour each year since SBS started to televise each stage highlights in the late 80's. As they showed longer stages over the years our interest has grown too & I became enraptured with the chess game that is profes...

Three days in Paris were the perfect ending to our European experience. We spent one day doing traditional tourist sightseeing, one at the finish of Le Tour de France & one doing less well-known activities in Paris. Our taxi ride from St Lazare railway station took us around the very exciting traffic of the Arc de Triomphe where there are 12 lanes but no marked lines & apparently all car insurance is void! Had dinner at La Petit Cour restaurant where we h...

From the foggy morning at Le Mont St Michel to villages of Ducey & Sourdeval for their market day. Bought baguette, ham, cheeses & gorgeous tomatoes for a picnic lunch then off to Bayeux across the rural landscape on small roads. Bayeux is a delightful town which was not bombed during the D-Day invasion so is still ancient & original in the old centre. Luckily we arrived in time to watch Le Tour enter the Pyrenees & to see Michael Rogers win the s...