Faire le pont aux Aix-Les-Bains

As it was the Ascension on Thursday it was a bank holiday in France. It is common practice for most people to take the Friday off work too to get a long weekend – it is known as faire le pont. Cath and I are keen on following local customs so we ont fait le pont aussi.

We booked a couple of nights in Aix-Les-Bains – an hour-and-a-half from Lyon with a huge lake called Lac Du Bourget. It is a spa town which Queen Victoria used to visit.

As we drove along the motorway we saw the usual array of buzzards but then, nesting high up on a post next to the motorway was a white stork – la cigogne blanche – a first for me. Her babies had better learn to fly properly first time.

Aix is very picturesque and our flat was right in the centre. After lunch we set out for the lake.

This mountain peak is called the cat’s tooth

Les aigrettes et les herons garde boeuf

I had the chance to go back to Parc de la Tete d’Or to try and get some pictures of the egrets that live on the island in the middle of the lake.

Having confirmed there are a lot cattle egrets – les herons garde boeuf – herons and little egrets – les aigrettes.

And finally I have some proof.

Les martinets par la fenetre

The other day I mentioned the swifts were back. I’ve tried to digiscope them from our sixth floor window but they are…swift.

Cremieu – mais pas de dejeuner

Another weekend, another day trip to a beautiful village in the Auvergene-Rhône-Alpes region.

This time it was Cremieu – a lovely setting with a Benedictine priory at its centre.

Beautiful though it was, the restaurants were all full. It’s speciality is le gratin dauphinois but we didn’t get to sample any. One restaurant had frogs legs on the menu but we eventually had to go home with empty stomachs.

On the way we stopped off at a lake.

The noise of frogs in the bullrushes was impressive. If we could have caught some, we could have had lunch after all.

Un weekend avec les oiseaux

As Cath was back in England and I had the weekend to myself I decided to go birdwatching.

Firstly on Saturday I went back to Parc de la Tete d’Or where the weekend before I had seen some sort of egrets on an island in the middle of the lake but without mes jumelles (binoculars) I hadn’t been able to make them out.

So this time with mes jumelles I looked for them. I saw a couple of little egrets (aigrettes) and a load of herons.

But then I found that your could get closer to the island by taking a tunnel under the lake. And then I saw that they were cattle egrets – les herons garde boeuf. Now as the name suggests, these birds usually live around cattle where they eat the flies that bother the cows.

The white dot in the middle is a cattle egret – trust me.

But here they were in the centre of Lyon, high up in trees on an island on a lake. Bizarre.

On Sunday I headed to a series of lakes out near Lyon airport in a place called Meyzieu.

I took my scope and tripod and the list of birds that you might see there was promising – red kites, black kites, kingfishers, beeaters to name but a few.

I was set up to get some amazing pictures – but apart from the ever present buses (buzzards) this is the only bird I took a picture of. Le grebe huppé. Oh well. Le prochaine fois.

Les martinets sont arrivés

Quand j’ai marché dans la rue j’ai entendu un bruit qui est mon bruit préferé. Le siffle des martinets.

Les martinets sont arrives a Lyon un peu plus tot qu’en Anglettere.

Nous habitons sur le sixieme etage et alors les vues de ces oiseaux sont magnifiques de la fenêtre.

Paques à Lyon

We celebrated our first Easter in France with, as you might expect, some nice chocolate.

After another lengthy French Mass Cath had booked a lunch at Brasserie des Brotteaux.

There I ate:

Then we went for a walk around Parc de la Tete d’Or in the spring sunshine- along with the rest of Lyon.

New route to work

Je n’ai peut pas faire du velo cette semaine parce que je suis encore en rhumé. Alors j’ai pris le tram et je suis decendu quelques arrets en avance de mon boulot et je suis continué en pied.