La Grande Vadrouille ENG

  Neither words nor photos (and we've taken hundreds of them) would be enough to describe the beauty of the Scottish landscapes. On the West coast, they are even more impressive. The mountains are steeper, more rugged so it's a succession of cliffs dropping into the sea, of peaks and summits, of rivers cascading down the slopes but still some beautiful beaches and charming little fishing towns. As very few trees grow on the mountains, it's a true spectacle to watch the shadows and the light dancing on the hillsides: Or to follow the course of a river or stream that dug it's way through the soil, sometimes cascading down in beautiful waterfalls:  And the weather is really with us. We have been extremely lucky even if for the past few days it's been more British like, with an everyday cocktail of rain, clouds and sun. But the grey weather just adds more charm to the sights, like here at Eilean Donan castle. But as we don't live in a perfect world, Western Scotland...

  Many more beautiful stops on our route this past week. After Cairgorms National Park we followed the river Spey, very well known by whisky drinkers. We of course, took the opportunity to stop at a distillery. But neither one of us being a connaisseur, where do you go in a region that holds 50% of all of the distilleries of Scotland??? With a little research and Jérôme having heard of the name, we decided to stop at Glenlivet, who also proposed a guided tour with tasting 😋. Surprise at our arrival, the French flag is floating in front of the main building. We kinda figured it wasn't for us😏. But we learned during the visit that the distillery is now part of the French group Pernod Ricard. Without knowing it, we had chosen well 😂. Chosen well yes but above all because the visit was really, really interesting. We discovered a very nice product with a fascinating history in beautiful surroundings.   We tasted 3 whiskys: a 12, 14 and 16 year old. Although we are not exper...

Here we are finally!  Let's celebrate this😉 And for a week already and we can say that until now, we are absolutely charmed by the place, its sceneries, its lovely and welcoming people and natural wonders. Here is a recap of our first week in kilt country: We started off on the East coast with a nice stop in North Berwick, a charming town on the mouth of the Firth of Forth, the inlet on the North Sea that leads to Edinburgh. There we walked on the beach, watched the golfers play a round, discovered town and, met Andrina. She sells her paintings in a small cabin on the port. Her and her husband also travel with a camper van and she gave lots of great advice for our journey, including the address of a great fish and chips place that we had to put on our route.  But before that we headed towards Edinburgh where we only stayed for a day. The city is definetly worth spending more time there but it was so crowded we didn't feel like hanging around longer. Every year in August is he...

Here we are, the adventure has started and already we have some stories to tell… But first of all as promised, here is our version of the “Grande Vadrouille”, photo taken in Voiron a few days before we left.  Departure finally happened on the 31st of July at exactly 4:41pm after a 4-day final sprint where we asked ourselves a zillion questions: Should we take this? Where are we going to put it ? It could be nice if we had that. We should really clean up the house before we leave…” But we eventually managed to take off ! So we headed North crossing through France and after driving about 600km we felt some vibrations that were getting stronger and stronger. We stopped twice to take a look without seeing where they were coming from until, as we had stopped for the day, Jérôme noticed that one of our back tires was torn and about ready to completely come apart.  So all stop !! We needed to replace it before we could go any further. Luckily, we were in an ar...