Wanderlust and Words

Tuesday was mild, dry, and we even had a little sunshine so I picked up some lunch at a bakery and headed for the beach. There’s a steep cliff above the beach at Oddicombe Bay, Torquay, but never fear! The cliff railway makes the trip fast and easy. The Babbacombe Cliff Railway was built in 1926 and has transported thousands of people to and from the beach. As one railway car goes up, the other goes down. Oddicombe is a relatively small beach with a view of rusty red cliffs in one direction and the tiny community on Beach Road in Babbacombe in the other. I tend to take photographs of flowers, but I was fascinated by the boulders and cliffs of red sandstone containing layers of large rocks and pebbles. South Devon was at one time a desert broken up by a high mountain range . Deserts are red due to the iron in the soil. The iron leached out of the sand staining the Devonian rocks beneath. Chunks of rock washed down from the mountains are embedded in the re...

I’ve spent the past 4 winters in Europe, travelling frequently between different housesitting destinations by train and coach, and I’ve learned a lot. Here are a few tips that will save you time and money. Rome2Rio  Rome2Rio is an amazing resource. Plug in two cities and the site lists all your different travel options. I use it extensively to see how difficult it will be to get somewhere and identify the best route and train company. I don’t know how I’d manage without it. I don’t usually book tickets on Rome2Rio, but last winter I was stumped. The European train sites wanted me to book using Canadian information, but the Canadian options would only work if I was still in Canada. Fortunately, I was able to book through Rome2Rio without a hitch. Not all train stations are as beautiful as this one in Valencia, Spain Trains Trains in the UK and Europe are awesome compared to our hopeless Canadian options. But there are some tricks: Check how often you’ll have to cha...

There was a cold wind blowing through the square, but Carcassonne market was bustling with people come to stock up for the week on fruit, vegetables, cheese, bread, and more. There were so many choices that I had a hard time whittling down my purchases to a reasonable number. I made sure to buy fresh artichokes, endives (so good in a salad with tomatoes), Vacherin cheese, organic whole wheat bread, clementines, and apples. My surprise purchase was a large fire-roasted beetroot. And it’s really good – smoky and sweet. The products were so beautifully displayed, and there was so much colour and life. I took the train back to Quillan, which was so much fun. We passed through vineyards and forests, 4 tunnels, factories and houses, and made brief stops in small towns and villages along the way. There was often no station – just a chunk of platform in the middle of nowhere or beside a busy highway.