Coptic Christians

My family and I have been regular visitors to Egypt for the last nine years.  We have managed to go almost every year since our first visit in 2006.  Sometimes we have even get to go twice!

In 2006 we visited Cairo and took a side trip.  The day we went was a special day.  I suspect it was first communion for little ones at the church.  I remember so clearly the beautiful voices of the children and the oily crosses on their foreheads as families tumbled out after the service.

During the past few years of turmoil in this part of the world there have been instances where churches and communities have been targets.  This week 21 Coptic Christians working in Libya were publicly executed by extremists.

These people were from a small community not far from where we have stayed while on holiday.

My first contact with a Egyptian Christian was in 2009 on a trip to Port Ghalib on the Red Sea coast.  We were staying in the Marina Lodge hotel.  We had a glorious time and made some great friends.  In the hotel there were a couple of small shops.  A dive shop, a shop selling papyrus, a perfume shop and a general souvenir and basic stuff shop.  If you need some gum, a postcard and a stamp this general shop was the shop to go to.  The shops only sold to the residents of the hotel and for the bulk of the time, they were empty.  I went in to buy postcards and stamps one evening after dinner.  I chatted to the young man running the shop.  He was very kind.  In his halting English we managed a conversation.  He told me that he was a Christian and showed me the discreet tattoo of a cross he had on his wrist.

When hearing about the young men who were beheaded, I shudder.  During the Arab Spring and the big revolution that they had in Egypt, all the tourists stopped coming.  The Marina Lodge closed its doors for a period of time.  I know because we were there again in 2011 and stayed across the harbour in the Crown Plaza Hotel.  We walked by the Marina Lodge and were really sad to see through the windows at the tables and chairs stacked up and covers over things to protect them from the harsh sun.  I wondered then about the young men who were running the quiet little shops inside the hotel.  They would have lost their jobs when the hotel closed.

I wrote this in 2009 - I found it in the drafts of the blog and have posted it today.  Still relevant

The Best Souvenirs

I was talking to a friend of mine who is on her way to Hawaii for a month about souvenirs.  She was saying that she doesn't buy souvenirs on her holidays as she thinks they're worthless. 

I agreed that the plastic souvenirs that are clumped up next to the postcards can be of very little value to anybody once you are back at home.  I have to confess that I pick up a snow globe on my travels . . . . I get one from every new place we go.  It was hard to find a snow globe in Rhodes when we were there for the first time . . .  and they are a bit tasteless, cheap and plastic.  I found something that was almost a snow globe.   However these are not my real souvenirs.

The souvenirs that I value and make me remember my trip fondly are items that are picked up in mostly non-touristy places.  I have some goat bells from that first trip to Rhodes that I love much more than the plastic Colossus of Rhodes thing that I bought on a busy tourist-filled street in the Old Town in Rhodes.  I picked up the goat bells in a small shop on the other side of the island.  It looked to be an agricultural supply/general store sort of place off the busy main roads.  The prices for the bells (back when it was Drachma) was written on the bells in permanent felt tip pen.  I have three of the copper bells in two different sizes and I love them.  It makes me think of stopping on the side of the road and seeing fields full of goats.  Not all the goats had bells on them, but many did. We watched the goats for ages.  We could see past these hillside fields to the sea that was not so far away and listened to the sound of the bells.  I never wanted to forget that moment and I asked The Man of the Place where we could buy goat bells . . .

When we found the shop that sold farm supplies.  Because I speak very little Greek, I had to go in (and this part had my husband and young son doubled over with laughter) and mime goat bells to the big man behind the counter.  All those years of playing charades came in handy as he figured out pretty quickly what I wanted.  We came away with three copper goat bells.  I paid for them in drachma and my dignity.


This old postcard was purchased in Brittany.  It is of two young children in regional Breton costume.  I found the old photo charming.  Later on in the day, in a stall selling second hand (brocante) in the market I found a battered old picture frame . . . . I put the old postcard in the frame and bingo!  I had a delightful souvenir of the family's first trip to France.

Second hand shops are wonderful sources of souvenirs.  In addition to the above postcard in a frame we have collected:

A Turkish teapot from a dusty shop in a souk in Istanbul.  The Man of the Place insisted on getting the old battered one when the shop owner was baffled as he thought the new, shiney ones were much better.  We love it!

In a junk shop between the train station and the Roman colliseum in El Djem, Tunisia, this wonderful second hand lion was picked up.  He has to lean against the wall as he is a bit unstable and falls over easily. I think he cost us the equivalent of a pound.

Not all good souvenirs are found in junk shops.  We also have purchased new things . ..  .

This rug was new when we bought it.  We bought it in Douz, Tunisia (the same trip where we got the lion).  It did cost us less than if we had purchased it in Hammamet - the tourist filled town where we were based for two weeks.  Side trips into the heart of the country paid off!

This is a bit of folk-art that came back from Georgia in the US after The Man of the Place had gone to the southern states on a pilgrimage to see an REM tour.

When we were in Egypt for the first time, my neice and sister-in-law were with us.  We had a contest to see who could find the worst, tackiest souvenir.  Here they are in the old market in Cairo . . .

Emily, the beloved neice won the souvenir contest with her golden sphyinx ashtray and pen holder. (sorry no photo available) and Vickie bought the best shoes.  

All in all, I love finding souvenirs during my travels. . . . but the best ones are never where you expect them to be.  Sometimes they can be found on those busy, crowded touristy places.  Other times, the little items that will make you smile and remember your holiday with fondness are found in second hand shops or agricultural supply places where you have to do an impersonation of a goat . . . .

The Dives

We dragged all our diving gear with us. With four people in the car and three of them being divers, there was very little extra room. So little room in fact that there was no space to bring back more than a few bottles of wine. We have to re-think this for next time.

We all learned to dive in the Mediterranean so diving in this sea wasn't a new experience, but we have never been diving in the French section of the sea. French regulations for diving are just a bit different to Spanish and Greek rules for diving what is essentially the same water. We all had to have medical certificates that had been signed by a real doctor and the certificates had to be less than 12 months old. With a little bit of organisation, I got all our medical certificates for the trip. The convenient thing was that Gordon, though not our son has been our neighbour his entire life and we share the same family doctor. All the signed certificates went into the bag of important documents along with our proof of diving qualifications and passports, insurance etc. . . . .
There are a number of good dive centres along this bit of coast. We chose one in Argeles sur Mer called Divemania. They were very friendly and professional. If we ever get back to that part of France, I would not hesitate to dive with them again and if you ask me about which dive centre I would recommend in that part of the world, I would recommend these guys. The Man of the Place got to dive a WWII German submarine!
Diving is the only sport where you get to regularly strap a knife to your leg. How butch is The Man of the Place?

The center has a big RIB (rigid inflatable boat) that is employed to get divers to the dive sites. On the last dive of the holiday, the sea was up and the rides to and from our dive sites was better than a roller coaster ride! We had to hang on to keep from getting bounced out! When boat rides are as rough as that, I am usually the first one to puke over the side but these rides were fun! I have learned that if conditions are choppy, the best thing for me to do is to keep my face into the wind and my eye on the horizon. That's what I did and I had a blast!
Gordon and George after a dive.

For me, diving is all about the sea life. I saw a number of nudibranch which thrilled me. I love the brightly coloured animals. Sadly, I am not very good with the new camera and most of my nudibranch photos are too blurred to use.

Here are a couple that were good enough to not delete: This is an old favourite, Spotted Doris. The Spotted Doris were impressively large in this area of the sea.
Here is a very large and beautiful yellow nudibranch that I have never seen before. I thought I had a field guide to marine life of the Mediterranean, but it seems I don't. I have two for the Red Sea and one for the water around Great Britain, but none for the Med. This must be remedied!

The highlight of our diving was a seahorse! I have never seen one before. Lucky Gordon got to see this beautiful creature on his try dive!

In addition to the lovely seahorse, I got to have an interaction with an octopus! Sorry the camera work was shaky. I guess I'll never make it as an underwater cameraman for any BBC Wildlife shows. As gentle as this octopus seemed, I didn't want my hand anywhere near his beak.

Here is Henry doing the dance.

Our young man.

Yours truly.

Once You Are In

I don't have vast experience of traveling overland on the continent of Europe. Most of my trips have been made via the gift of air travel. This means that when I travel from the UK to other countries, I'll have to go through immigration and customs each and every time. This trip was a little different as we were making the journey by car.

We weren't stopped by French immigration when coming into Calais and during our holiday, we crossed over into Spain a couple of times. One day we made a day trip to The Principality of Andorra. Although we had our passports on our person, they were not needed for any of these trips across country borders.Here is the now redundant border crossing between France and Spain. Henry and I were thinking wars that had been fought between France and Spain and how fiercely these now open borders had been fortified. Now we don't even have to slow down. Amazing! We just ran around taking photos and it was a non-event. No guards, no guns or offical stamps, just a lot of sun and wind and happy holiday makers. With the introduction of the Euro, this Bureau de Change is no longer needed. Its a shame because it has a great view!

This is the big public beach in Llansa, Spain. We preferred the quieter, rocky beach. Tucking into the picnic!
There was a nice view point on the rocks above the beach. We could see these knucklehead kids jumping off the rocks into the sea. It made my stomach lurch every time they jumped. In the end, I just stopped watching.

Here he is looking out to sea!

This water is the reason that we just don't ever travel without our snorkeling gear when we're on holiday. I don't want to be stuck looking at warm clear water like that and not be able to get in it with a mask and snorkel!

Torreilles Plage where we were staying sort of marks the end of the long golden sandy beach area of France. The coast becomes much rockier as it approaches the Pyrenees. It doesn't mean that there are no beaches, it is just that the beaches that are on this bit of the coast are smaller, pebbled and much more intimate.

It was on these smaller beaches that I collected all my sea glass. I just love those bits of broken bottles that have been made safe and opaque by the action of the sand and sea. In addition to the very common green glass, I found some amber glass and a small bit of the very excellent cobalt glass! I turned it into a fish on our caravan's kitchen table. I have all these bits of smoothed glass in a plastic container with the best of the shells and other seaside treasures in the kitchen here at the house. I always think I'll do something creative with these things when I get home. Sadly when I get home, I never have the time.

This is a placemat from a day when we didn't pack a picnic and had lunch under umbrellas.
I think it is one of the most joyful works Picasso made.
On our way home from one of our days on a Spanish beach and back over the twisty roads where there is NO overtaking, we were stuck behind this motorcylist and his girlfriend. I don't know if she had an ipod stuck in her ears or if her helmet was wired for sound but this lovely creature was dancing on the back of this bike, waving her arms about, jabbing the sky with an index finger and obviously enjoying the day. She mirrored my mood, but I was driving and couldn't dance.

The First Morning

I am an early riser. Even if I've been up really late or had an entire day of sharing the driving on a mad road trip, I will still be up at my normal early time. It was no different on that first morning there.

I woke up with the sun just starting to come up. It was warm! I could see out a window from my spot on the bed and there were no clouds! This is the best bit. I got out of bed and made my way to the door of the caravan and opened. I looked to my left and saw a boat going by not too far away! We were about 150 yards from the edge of the sea! It was about 200 Peggy sized steps from water's edge to the door of the caravan.Rock on!

I got dressed quietly, grabbed the camera and made my way throught the gate surrounding the campground and onto the dunes. Here are the dunes complete with picturesque fence. There were lots of little grasshoppers in this sparse growth.

(You can see the Pyrenees in the distance)

It turns out that this particular bit of beach gets combed by a small tractor every morning to keep the bulk of the litter and flotsam of the sea off the golden sand. So the first set of human foot prints were mine. Well, mine and some gulls.

Sometimes sunrises are much prettier than sun sets. It is just that fewer people see them.

I was lucky this first morning. There was no wind and the Mediterranean was like a mirror. It wasn't always this calm. This part of France has a lot of wind and most days it was quite breezy. The nice thing about the wind was that it never felt too hot and we could listen to the waves as we sat in our little campsite and sipped wine.

After taking the first photos of the day, I went back to our caravan to see about some coffee.

The First Day of Our Holiday

It was 30 C degrees when we left on Tuesday. It was 22 C in and around the M25 (London ring road) yesterday and a whopping 15 C today here in rainy Dumfries & Galloway. *sigh*

I have rapidly fading freckles under my fleece and jeans. We had a spectacular holiday in France.
Now it's back to laundry, mowing the lawn and getting back to normal non-holiday life.

While the washing machine is running, I'm going to go into memory mode . . .
We left Whitelees early in the morning. George and Gordon slept a lot on the way down. Being a passenger is tiring! The boys had a small cooler between them. It made a good neutral zone at some points in the journey.
The Port of Dover - The docks used for the ferries are HUGE! It isn't easy to get the scale of this place, but it does make one feel small.Now the ferry has arrived and we're getting ready to drive onto our ferry. The route that I had printed off was helpful in telling us that as we cross the Channel, we leave Great Britain and enter France.

I took a photo of the boys as we leave our shores.Farewell!

We spend the first night of our holiday in a nice little hotel in Calais.We got on the road again early again. Although the boys could have happily stayed in their beds for hours, they were really good about getting up, showered, dressed and in the car. They did it very quietly too.
We had breakfast on the autoroute between Calais and Paris.

After we had negotiated our way around the Paris ring road, I really enjoyed the drive south.
The magical thing about this drive is that the further south one drives, the warmer the weather becomes.It started to get a bit too warm for Gordon. George didn't like the heat either. Grumpiness started to sneak in.Ice cream always helps!See? Spirits have lifted!

Toward the end of our journey south - we crossed this magnificent bridge! It is the Milau Viaduct. It was so spectacular that we pulled off and viewed the bridge from a popular rest area/viewing point to get some good photos of it.

I've seen this bridge on tv once or twice. I remember being struck by its beauty then.

"Henry, the next time we go on holiday in France, we should go across that bridge!"!

"Do you realize how far south it is? It would take us two days of solid driving!"

Mr. That-Bridge-is-too-far-south-for-the-likes-of-us didn't realize that we were going to go over this very bridge until we were almost there. As he is a big fan of spectacular works of engineering it was his idea to stop to have a good look at it. I have just discovered that it is the highest road bridge in the world. Cool

It wasn't so cool for Gordon. He doesn't like going over bridges in cars. He hid his head until we were across.

It wasn't long after crossing that bridge that we had reached our destination, Torreilles Plage. It is a small place that is mostly made up of camp sites and supporting shops. We were tired. We unloaded the car, made up the beds and got into them