From Toulouse to the Atlantic

Oh, gosh! It is so hard to keep up to all the exciting things that happened in the last week! We also have to apologize to our Slovenian friends who do not speak English, because it is hard in such a short time to do both, English and Slovenian texts.

Despite the bad weather, which even helps us making extraordinary pictures, we are really enjoying our time. All the credit goes to the amazing people we have met (Joel, we dedicated some text for you but we still have to translate it, so it will be published a bit later...).

I (Aleksander) also got sick before yesterday, but today I recovered and tomorrow we will go on towards La Rochelle, but stoping first in St. Savinien.

We are also a bit sad we cannot share all our feelings in order to keep the texts short enough. Hopefully we will be able to translate bit by bit the rest.

Right now we are being hosted by Jean-Pierre and Eleanor, a lovely couple from Saintes, a town not so far from the Atlantic, so today, guess what... WE SAW THE ATLANTIC FOR THE FIRST TIME!!! But let's go trough the pictures in the proper order.


Here we are still in Toulouse. We wanted to show our friend Sebastien, a marvelous person who has been hosting us for 5 days!!! He is the one who went from Toulouse to Gibraltar on his Recumbent bike. Sebastistien... very nice memories back in toulouse! Eating, playing the guitar, singing, listening to Eddie Vedder... Sebastien you are the man!!! See you in Slovenia or in Spain? :)

Azra is showing to Sebastien our cat Cofka on the phone... you would never guess, wouldn't you? :)


The cheese really does smell bad...


...but hey, it is worth trying it...


...and it tastes really good!!!

Then Sebastien made us a "typical French food" - tortilla!!! :) So after this joke we realized we discovered a new term - SPENCH FOOD! :)


Here is the real French food - cassoulet.


Me, Azra, Sebastien and his recumbent.


Me trying it. IT WAS HARD!!!


Leaving Toulouse.


We had a nice storm in Montauban.


Meeting with Leo, a passionate cyclist who came to meet us in Montauban and escorted us the next day to St. Maurin, where he is living with his wife. Leo recently just returned from Cuba which he saw from his bike and now he will go to North America West to the East coast!!! Thank you Leo and "bonne route" to you in America!!!


Here is another lovely family that was hosting us in Montauban!


Sebastien who accepted us trough the WarmShowers website also did some very nice travels with his bike.


Here are some pictures.





A loud tradition. :) We just cought those masked students 100 days before the main exams while warming up with a nice hot chocolate.







I asked the lady why she does not want to reply to my questions about local architecture and she just sat there, doing her stuff as if I did not exist!!! How rude of her!



Reaching Leo's home. A wonderful and peaceful region.


Some more slopes...






Next day.






Camping wild next to the vineyards. The owner Gerard and his douther cought us while pitching the tent, but as you will see, we soon became friends and he would leave us alone... with the dears... :) He asked us if we are not afraid that the animals will eat us during the night. :) We tried to show him our gratitude and we tried to scare the dears off the vineyards, so they would not be able to destroy the vines.


Before leaving the next morning.



We were heading towards Cognac where Sophie, our next Hospitality club host was waiting for us. But Ludovic, her boyfriend cought us accidentally on the road, just 13km before the town. We've loaded his car with our bags and equiped with Ludovic's GPS found our way directly to their house. :)




Ludovic is a cook who told us many interesting stories about his life in Paris and his close connection to the "Buddha Bar" trade name, but most of all we enjoyed eating the food he made. He also invited us to his parent's restaurant where he works as a chef. We were full of delicious food.

BTW, if you need to know anything about Cognac (the drink and the city), you just contact Sophie. :) Sophie was also sooo kind to us. She went with Azra to see the doctor, she helped me at the post office when I was sending the stuff at home and at their house we felt more than comfortable! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts again!




Here we are: Sophie, Ludovic, me, Azra. THANK YOU GUYS!!!


And here we are today in St. Palais, where we had our first real contact with the Atlantic sea. Eleanor and Jean-Pierre took us with the car to a wonderfull trip we really enjoyed, despite the not perfect weather. Anyway, the experience was still great, because the landscape and the light were perfect for great photos and the company of Eleanor and Jean-Pierre was great! they accepted us in their house trough hospitality club and really helped us. I was a bit sick the last two days and they let us stay in their house untill I got better. So, here I am, feeling good and publishing this.

Enjoy the last few photos and we will get back to you soon.













Dear Eleanor and Jean Pierre, thank you so much for everything! We hope it is not the last time we see eachother and that we will be able to be as good host to you as you were to us!