Day 80, Thursday, November 16, 2023
Today we drove to Pairs, in the rain! This will be our last stop before we fly home. It is a two and a half hour drive and we both just want to get to our next airbnb and get settled. Sightseeing in the rain isn’t much fun.
There is no way I would want to be navigating using a paper map. The roads can be very complex…like this interchange below.
We pass through several tunnels with lots of traffic. Bob does an excellent job following my navigational instructions, but I think we will both be quite happy to return our car tomorrow and use the metro to get around Paris. 
These two buildings, or maybe it is just one, looked so wonky. Not sure why anyone wants a build a high rise that looks like it is falling over? It is still pouring rain. but we are almost to our destination.
On our way to our bnb we passed a church with four angels high on its steeple.
I wasn’t able to find out the name of the church, but really liked the angels.
This lovely house with its beautiful fall colours was just down the street from our bnb. 
We parked on the street close to our apartment to unload but needed to move the car for the night. As Bob pulled into the parking spot the car made a strange noise. Upon investigation we realized that a rough curb had caught the side of the tire, tearing it and scraping the hubcap. We return the car tomorrow morning…we almost made it the whole three months without any car issues….this little incident problem ended up costing us $500!
Our twelfth and last Airbnb on this trip. It was difficult finding a place when we were booking last Spring. Our apartment is very small, probably the smallest that we have had on this trip. In the photos it actually looks a bit bigger than it is in person! Not ideal for the end of our trip but it will do.
Our Airbnb host met us at the apartment yesterday and he had a little box of six macarons and a jar of his own honey for us as an anniversary gift for us. He only spoke French but we were able to communicate without any problem…after two and half months in France I am feeling more comfortable speaking French.
It is cold and rainy outside and we are both quite happy to stay home today. Bob seems to have recovered quite quickly from his Covid but it is taking me me a bit longer. I work on the blog while Bob does laundry and researches what we will be doing in Reims.
I wanted a photo of this pretty bush covered with orange berries, and Bob hams it up by giving himself an orange moustache.
I loved this carved lizard, which is the symbol of Montrésor.
I notice that the leaves are staring to turn colour…winter is coming!
But then we enter the display area for the Apocalypse Tapestry and we are utterly astonished. This is the largest medieval tapestry in the world!
This information gives a brief history of this incredible tapestry.
Another interesting panel…well, they are actually all very interesting.
The tapestry is located in a darkened room with only the tapestry illuminated, no photos allowed. It was created in the 11th century, so it is almost a thousand years old! It is actually an embroidered cloth, and not a tapestry. There is another room with a replica of the tapestry displayed where photos are allowed. The original tapestry is displayed in a very similar manner. This monumental work is almost 70 metres long and 50 centimetres tall. It depicts the events leading up to the Norman conquest and culminating in the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
One more view which shows the unique towers on the front of the church.
We must be tired because we have a hard time finding our apartment, in spite of driving right by it about 4 times! Google maps seems to show it in the wrong place, but we eventually manage to sort it out and our host is waiting for us. She only speaks French but I understand most of what she is telling us about the apartment. Here is our home for the next five days.
The church is old and has interesting side aisles with wooden beams and ceilings. As we were leaving I managed to somehow spill most of my thermos of hot tea all over our iPad! The iPad seems OK, but the keyboard case I think is toast. Not very happy about that…
So, we have toast, plums and a banana for supper, and lucky Bob gets a hard boiled egg
It clears up for a bit but then we drive back into the band of smog that stretches across the countryside. We have never seen anything quite like this before.
One of the many small villages in Croatia. Most of these villages only have one row of houses along the highway, no side streets at all. Notice the pretty yellow and purple chrysanthemums growing along the fence. We saw lots of these flowers along the way.
One fairly long stretch of the road has a shrine every 300 to 500 metres, and each one had fresh flowers placed in front of it.
Another little village. We don’t see many people about and think that they probably have a hard time keeping people from moving to bigger urban centres.
The highway mainly passes through farmland, and I quite like all the trees along the side of the road.
We finally get a bit of sunshine. There are winter crops planted which are just beginning to grow that are many different shades of green.
We get to Bratislava about 3:00 pm, return our rental car and catch the Flixbus one last time back to our apartment in Vienna. We are surprised how quickly it gets dark now. This is photo taken on the bus just after 4:30pm.
We catch an Uber from the Main Bus Depot. Twenty euros well spent. We are dropped off at our apartment door, which is the same apartment we had a couple weeks ago in Vienna. It almost feels like coming home. In three more sleeps we will really be home.
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