Friday, October 28, 2016

Le Cousson

Le Cousson is quite a complicated mountain near Digne les Bains; it's got two summits and leaves the town in the shade in winter mornings. I've flown over it quite a few times (in paraglider and in a sailplane) and I must have driven past it at least a hundred times. But I've never climbed up it on foot.

Today I got to fix that. I had to drop my wife off in Digne to catch an early morning bus. After a quick coffee I headed to Entrages and the start of the hike. The climb wasn't very memorable except for the views and the chapel St Michel, which is perched on the edge of a cliff. But at least when I drive past it I know I've climbed the thing!

Some pics.

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Ireland


I finally got round to visiting Ireland, and it was worth the wait! I had a very nice 2 week vacation with my daughter and, for the first week, my wife. We stayed in Dublin, Galway and Killarney and did a lot of ticking items off lists in the tourist guides. We were pretty lucky with the weather (we had two very wet days, apart from that the worst we had was showers).

The remarkable thing as how friendly everyone was. This became clear right at the start of the vacation. My wife and I arrived in Dublin and got installed in our Airbnb before going out to do some shopping. We quickly realized we didn't know where suitable shops were and asked a young lady. She didn't just tell us where the shops were - she took as there in her car!

For me, it was about as stress free as a vacation can be - the language is mine, the currency is mine and the culture is a friendly version of British. 

My pics and a movie that Google made out them.