Back in boozey Buzet

Buzet (pronuounced Buzay) wine region is the best kept secret in France.  This wine area was 'held down' by the larger wine companies in Bordeaux (it is only an hour's drive there), who didn't want competition.  But now Buzet has come into it's own with a huge wine co-operative to combat the bigger wine companies in Bordeaux.  Superb wines.  This is our home port, where we will leave Zee Otter for the winter.  But...  we still have friends coming to visit for 5 days, so we will be cruising the area for a few more weeks.

Keeping clean...

Impossible to keep clothes clean on a barge.  Peter goes into the engine room and Voila!  grease on his clothes.  I work the ropes in a lock and Voila! green slime on my blouse and slacks!  So we have 'work clothes' and 'clean clothes'.  And slowly, slowly...  it seems all our clothes end up on the work side of the ledger.

We are in Moissac, at the moment.  Great activity as a 'fruit festival' is going on.  Music, dancing, food, and market stalls fill the town.  I love it!

Airbus 380

I can't believe it has almost been a month since my last blog! We have had Australian visitors, French visitors, and Brazilian visitors... all wonderful memorable times.

We are in Toulouse at the moment. Today, we went on a tour of the airbus factory! Saw 3 airbus being put together, and another 3 being tested outdoors, and one other already painted with the Singapore Airlines logo on it's tail, about to be delivered!! We couldn't get close... the whole tour was conducted behind a perspex wall!  It seems parts are manufactured all over the world, i.e. wings in Germany,  RR engine in England, seats in Poland, etc. and the whole plane is brought together in Toulouse.  The logistics of it all are confounding, not to mention how they transport a whole wing down the road!

The second tour we went on at the airport was much better! It was called a 'heritage tour' and we got to see prototypes of old aircraft, as well as sit in and hear all about the Concord! Just amazing.  The death of the Concord was it's fuel consumption...  a ton of fuel just to take off...  90 tons to cross the Atlantic.  It became un-economical in a big way.  But it went from Paris to NY in 3 hours!

Even more amazing is... we went on our motor scooter... across the busy city of Toulouse, down the periferique (a 3-lane ring road) and out past the airport to the airbus factory.