Another Day of Climbing

Our friends left on Saturday morning.  We spent the day cleaning the house, doing laundry, going grocery shopping and getting into bed early.

On Sunday we decided to go to a new climbing area about 40 minutes from us.  It's called Bellavista. Normally we don't climb on Sunday because it's usually crowded, but it was a beautiful day and we hadn't been climbing in a week, so we took a chance.

Our cliff is the one way at the top left.

It's about a 30 minute hike up to the cliff, not too bad and really pretty.  There weren't many people there, we got lucky.  We met some climbers from Girona, they spoke english and were really nice telling us which climbs were good, hard, etc.  We climbed for most of the day, leaving at about 4:00.

1 old, 1 new

This was our view

Shirtless in January

Our new friend Serge trying to send his route.  He fell at the last move.

It was really hot at the cliff too.  60 degrees at home and probably 70 at the cliff, since it's south facing and there wasn't a cloud in the sky.  No complaints from me though.

The weather for Girona for the next 10 days is sunny and between 60-68.  I'm a very happy girl.

Back to Montgrony

It was a sunny warm day so we decided to head back up to Montgrony for some more climbing. We warmed up on some easy routes and then spent the rest of the day getting beat up on the hardest 7a I have ever done. Tufa climbing is not my favorite and it's so hard, a full body workout.  I got beat up, but it was a great workout.  Santa brought me a new climbing harness for Christmas, so I had to break in it.  Fits good, but I'm not psyched about the purple.

Sporting my new harness

This is what we worked on after warming up.

tufas

When we went the first time with Howard and Kate it was so busy, tons of people.  But it was a Sunday so expected.   Today, it was only Bruce and I.

getting ready

Bruce ready to climb

 We had a great day climbing.  I'm sure I'm going to be sore tomorrow.

Happy!

A quick little getaway

On January 24 our good friends Louis and Valarie came for a visit.  They are from Los Angeles, avid climbers and it was their honeymoon.  They spent a few days in Paris before heading down our way. We have had great climbing weather since December 1, but the 8 days they were to be with us the forecast was rain, rain and more rain. Not good for climbers.  So we decided to head south to the Languedoc Roussillon region where there is great climbing and the weather looked perfect.  We rented a great little gite between Nîmes and Uzes which was perfect for the 4 of us.  Of course we had the dogs with us as well.

The first day we climbed at Roussan which was just east of where we were staying.  To get to the climbing area you had to rappel down a huge hole.  Pretty cool.  We had a great day of climbing.  The second day we climbed at Claret which was just west of us.  We love it there.  We cooked dinner together each night and played Quiddler in the evenings, along with drinking plenty of wine.

Louis looking out toward Roussan

Roussan

Here I am rappelling down the big hole to Roussan

Nellie hanging at the crag

Louis climbing

Bruce belaying

On the 3rd day we took a rest day and headed down to Nîimes, which was about 30 minutes south.  I've been to many cities in France and this could be my favorite.  It's not too big, but beautiful.  It's a city that dates back to the Roman Empire.  The city derives its name from that of a spring in the Roman village.  The contemporary coat of arms of the city includes a crocodile chained to a palm tree, which we found most interesting, as it symbolizes the Roman conquest of Egypt .

Looking out over the city of Nîmes 

Walking along the canal

Augustus gave the town a ring of ramparts six kilometres (3.7 miles) long, reinforced by fourteen towers; two gates remain today: the Porta Augusta and the Porte de France. An aqueduct was built to bring water from the hills to the north. Where this crossed the River Gard between Uzes and Remoulins, the spectacular Pont du Gard was built. This is 20 kilometres (12 miles) north east of the city. Also, the Maison Carrée is one of the best preserved temples to be found anywhere in the territory of the former Roman Empire. The amazing amphitheatre dates from the end of the 2nd century AD. The elliptical Roman amphitheatre, is the best-preserved Roman arena in France. The movie Gladiator was filmed there and the history and how it was used was fascinating.   It was filled with medieval housing, when its walls served as ramparts, but they were cleared under Napoleon. It is still used today as a bull fighting (humane) and concert arena.  We spent 3-4 hours walking around the city, had a lovely dinner and then headed back to our gite.

Arena of Nîmes

Inside the Arena

Tunnels under Arena

Maison Carrée

Fountain of Gardens

Fountain of Gardens

Temple of Diana

The Magne Tower

The last day we went back to Claret to climb.  It wasn't raining, but it was cold and windy.  We stayed most of the day, but by 3:00 we had to pack it up as we were all freezing.  We left the next morning, but decided to stop in Millau so Valarie could do some shopping.  The city is known for it's leather. She bought some boots and a beautiful handbag.  Bruce got some gloves and I got a new makeup bag. We had lunch in Millau and then headed home.  Louis and Valarie left the next morning and we were sad to have them go.  I know that Bruce and I will be back to the gite and the area sometime soon.

Louis starting a climb and Nellie just hanging out

Bruce climbing at Claret

2013 - What a year

I was talking to my friends daughter on New Years Eve about writing a blog.  I showed her my blog and then realized I hadn't updated it since last January.  Pathetic.  So, one of my goals for 2014 is to update it regularly.  The only problem is that our life here in France is pretty simple and to some, maybe a bit boring.  But, I'll do my best to write about some interesting things!

But this post will be about 2013.  Just a little re-cap of our year.

The winter here was horrible.  Starting in November of 2012 it was cold, it continued through December and in January snow.  We headed to Spain to find some sun and do some climbing.  Once you drove over the Pyrénées into Spain in was sunny and much warmer.  We spent 5 days there.

The road to our house.

Not everyone was unhappy.

Stella with her snow balls.

A small traffic jam in sunny Spain.

In February we headed to Paris for 4 days to attend some camp fairs.  It was freezing and sleeting most of the time.  Not fun.  After Paris we headed towards Nice for another camp fair.  The weather was much nicer and we spent a couple extra days climbing at Chateauvert and we also visited the Picasso museum outside of Nice.

Spent most of the time in Paris underground.

Bruce and his favorite Artist.

Sun and warm in southeast France.

At the end of February we headed back to Spain with our friends Mike and Nicci for some hiking, mountain biking and climbing, spent a week there,  good times.

In Spain with our good friends.

In March we had 2 visitors.  First was our good friend Chris who came for 3 weeks from Colorado to climb.  We climbed here for the first 2 weeks and then headed back to Spain for another week of climbing.  At the end of February our friend Paul came from Los Angeles for 10 days, he's also a climber and we stayed around here as the weather was getting better.  It was good to have both of them here.

April was quiet, weather wasn't so bad, so we did loads of climbing, hiking and running.

Always a good day when we're climbing.

In May we had our adult culinary retreat with Chef Carol Cotner Thompson.  We had a great group of women from Los Angeles for the week.  It was filled with great food, good wine and loads of laughter.

Chef Carol with some of her students cutting up whole ducks.

In June, Bruce went back to Paris to meet his good friend Kevin who scored tickets to the French Open.  He spent 4 days in Paris and the two had a great time.  Our good friends B and B arrived from Los Angeles for the summer.  We met them 5 years ago in Los Angeles, right before we moved to France. Little did we know they owned a house in our village, we've been great friends ever since. They only come here in the summer, it was so good to see them.  We then spent the rest of June climbing and getting the house ready for our teen art retreats, which started the last week of June.

Me and Bruce (not my Bruce, but the "other" Bruce)

Bruce and Kevin in Paris at the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris.

July and August were super busy.  We had (3) teen art retreats, each 16 days long, with a 2 day break in-between.  It's non-stop 24/, but we love it!  We had amazing teens from all over the world come and stay with us and they created some fantastic art.  We had a girl from Hong Kong come for all 3 sessions (she was with us for 7 weeks).  She was like our adopted child.  I cried when she left.  At the end of August we hosted (3) families here at Haute Serre.  Our good friends Brant and Tia came with their 2 boys and they brought (2) other couples and their (4) kids.  They spent a week with us, kids doing art in the mornings and in the afternoons we toured them around our region.  A wonderful week with great people.

In September I turned 50!  Our "family" retreat was here and I got (5) cakes.  Two of the girls made (2) cakes and Bruce bought (3).  After the family retreat ended, Bruce and I headed over to Millau to do some rock climbing in the Gorges du Tarn. We spent a week exploring, hiking and climbing.  A perfect birthday.  We came home from my birthday week we were outside and heard a cry.....we took a flashlight and walked around the back of the house and down the road.  Bruce and I could hear the cry but couldn't see anything, and then all of sudden we saw a little black kitten.  Dumped right on the side of the road, she was in the nettles, crying.  We took her in (we couldn't leave her out there) and she could fit in my hand.  We took her to the vet the next day and found out she was about 4 weeks old. We decided (we'll maybe she decided too) to keep her and now she's almost 5 months old.  Her name is Colette.

One of my fantastic cakes.

This is the love letter I got from Bruce....it ended with "50 things I love about you".

Our new addition to the pack.  Colette.

In October we headed back to Los Angeles to visit family and friends, as it had been over 2 years since we've been back.  We spent a week in Los Angeles and then headed out to Las Vegas to climb at Red Rocks.  Our friends (who we stayed with) daughter turned 14 when we came back from Vegas and she and Bruce spent an afternoon at Duff's Cakes making her birthday cake.  We spent another week in Los Angeles and then decided to go back to Vegas to do some more climbing for a few days.  While we were in Los Angeles, we saw family and good friends and spent quality time with our good friends E and K.  We also ate Mexican, Sushi, Vietnamese, Italian, etc....all the food we can't get here in France.  We were there a month. Thank goodness for our good friends Mike and Nicci who took care of the dogs while we were away, Gill who took in Colette and E and K who took us in for a month!

The cake!

Red Rocks, Las Vegas, NV

Love the red rocks and blue sky.

Tired after a long day of climbing.

Visiting friends in Malibu, Bruce was excited to get back in the ocean.

Famous Hinano's in Venice.

Back to France the week before Thanksgiving.  We had a quiet non-eventful Thanksgiving (we had duck breast) and were happy to be home.  The weather was wonderful and warm and dry.

We spent most of December climbing, as again, the weather was fantastic.  We did head over to Brantome to see our good friend Kim.  We hadn't seen her in a few years and it was good to catch up. Our Christmas was quiet too, just the two of us.  New Year's Eve was spent at our good friends house, with 12 others.  Lovely time and great food.  We actually stayed up until after midnight, the first in a long time.  We had kept a memory jar for 2013 and on the 1st we opened it and read all the notes we had put in to remind us of things that happened during the year.

Beautiful Brantöme

 Kim and I on our way to lunch.

Here's to 2014.  Hope all of you have a fantastic year.

Alisa