It’s been a while… I’m on my way to Hong Kong right now. There are some kids whining next to me. The guy next to me (buyer for a fashion company) is asleep but somehow the mother can’t seem to keep one of them quiet for more than five minutes, so I haven’t been able to get much sleep yet. I think I have a couple of appointments scheduled straight after I leave the airport in Hong Kong, so that’s going to be one of those days with lots of coffee again. Anyway, I figured if I didn’t get much sleep anyway, I could just as well do a little write up of the road trip Lars and me did during the past two weeks. It was the first time since ages I had a vacation of more than one week in Europe and I must say, it was great!
A couple of week ago Lars asked if I wanted to go an try some surfing. As if didn’t do enough sports already… I try to do some running a couple of times a week, play in a soccer team and just bought myself a road bike, although that last experiment turned out to a bit of a disaster after some careless guy hit me while I was riding it. Anyway, it seemed like fun and I have been doing my fair share of wind surfing back in the days, so I thought ‘why not?’
We arranged for lessons in Workum, Friesland at kite surf school Sky High. Robin (the owner of the school) has gathered a bunch of pretty good kiters around him (okay, that’s an understatement, if you see local heroes such as Hylke and Koen make their jumps, it’s like if you’ve ended up at the world kite jumping championships). We had planned to do two lesson that weekend, one on Saturday and one on Sunday. Because on Saturday, we also had the Museumnacht, I had a little too much to drink and skipped the lesson on Sunday. But I did get to do some body dragging and learnt how rig up, launch the kite, fly it, et cetera on Saturday.
Lars did do his second lesson and later on also went to do some kite surfing with a couple of his colleagues so before we finally embarked on our road trip last a little more than two weeks ago, he could already surf the waters quite a bit.
Because I still wanted to do my second lessen and also because Workum is an excellent kite spot, before going to France we decided to head up North again. Unfortunately we didn’t get off to a good start, because after having rigged up and having walked a bit, the wind died down and unfortunately we had to head back to the shore already again, so that was day one.
Later that day, Lars and I did some BBQ’ing and hoped for the wind to return on Sunday. Like real kite surfers, we waited for the wind and just before we started to real desperate, at about 4pm, the wind did finally started to come on a bit and I got to do my second lesson. I’m not that fast a learner anymore (age is start to show rear its ugly head I could say) so it didn’t go as well as I wanted it to go, but I at least got to play around with the kite and also surf a few yards (but not much more actually). Ten crashes later I got out of the water again and I finished my series of beginner lessons.
Optimistic as I am, I had already bought some gear. The week before I had dropped by at the best kite and wind surfing shop in the Benelux (Telstar in Harderwijk, which is where I used to by my wind surfing equipment as well) and asked for some gear. After one of the guys asked me what I needed I answered with a simple ‘everything’. Two hours later and a bunch of euros lighter, I left the store with a 12sqm Cabrinha Switchblade 2 kite (2007 model) a Naish Haze 133cm kite (also a 2007 model), a pair of booties, a Rip Curl wet suite (by the way: elastomax rules) and a North belt. Lars had bought himself two kites already (a 9sqm North Rebel and a 14sqm North Rhino) as well, so we had a decent set of kites for all winds to surf with (unless there’s no wind at all of course).
We decided to drive to from Workum to Utrecht Sunday night to sleep at my place instead of heading straight to France. In the morning we repacked the car and came to the conclusion that we would never be able to fit in my road bike anymore (I wanted to take it with me to do some cycling in case there was no wind). With three kites, two board, wet suites and all the other gear (and yes, I also needed some shirts and shorties to wear when we were not kiting) the car was fully loaded already. After having left the road bike at home and armed with the kite and wind surfing guide to Europe (modeled after the world famous stormrider’s guides), we drove off to the North of France. Later that day we arrived in Pont-Mahe (just a little South-West of Nantes) we got to do our first session in the real ocean. We had set ourselves a goal to at least kite in 4 different waters during our two weeks trip. After the IJsselmeer, the Atlantic Ocean was the second on our list already. Lars managed to do some good surfing there, as well as me (although I only managed to do a few yards at a time and only one way 
). The day after, the winds had died a little and we drove the entire day searching for wind (which we never found unfortunately). Pont-Mahe and its surroundings are pretty nice. In about an hours’ drive, you get to the peninsula where Les Sables Blancs is. This is a really famous kite surfing spot as well (less suitable for beginners if the winds is good, but well, there wasn’t any wind anyway) and South of Pont-Mahe we also found some pretty good spots. One of those spots, had really great scenery. There was a bridge and a very good sunset. This is where I took out my tripod and made a couple of pictures of Lars surfing. A little South of Pont-Mahe by the way, you can find some very nice areas with salt basins. Driving around there is very nice. What I liked about this road trip was that the only thing we were really interested in was the list of kite surfing spots. We probably saw plenty of things people would characterize as must-see places (such as the salt basins). Instead of those places being a destination we simply passed through and just were amazed by the sheer beauty of some places without knowing what they were. A totally different (but very enjoyable) perspective to site-seeing.
Pont-Mahe has an excellent restaurant, right on the beach serving all kinds of excellent fish dishes. We ate there twice and had the oysters (very good and caught that same day), laugoustines and lots of other fishy food. Good stuff! The camp site we stayed was also pretty good, although the first day we stayed there, we had a place right near the buildig where they hosted a small disco night, so we didn’t get much sleep before 2am or so. To make matters worse, we had ran out of money (only had credit cards on us, no pocket cash), so we couldn’t even buy a beer .
After having stayed in Pont-Mahe for three nights, we went down South and after a day’s driving, we ended up in Hourtin (an hour’s drive North-West of Bordeaux, right on Lac d’Hourtin). Hourtin according to the kite and wind surfing guide is an excellent spot for beginners, and the wind forecast (according to Windfinder and Windguru) showed that the thermal winds steadily came in every day at about 4pm.
We first set up camp on a camp site just one kilometer from the lake and immediately set up to do a session there. Lac d’Hourtin is definitely a good beginner spot (and it was the third water on our list we kited in). It basically never (well, almost never) gets deeper than standing-depth, so when crashing your kite, you’ll always we able to restart it without much complication. There’s also a lot of space, so as a beginner you don’t really get in the way of the people that don’t crash their kites every other minutes .
We stayed in Hourtin for four days and almost every day, we could do a trip to a different part of the area, because the thermal would only be showing up at 4 in the afternoon anyway. That’s how we ended up at a the wine chateau of Maucailloou to do a tasting session and to be shown around the chateau. Of course, I don’t have to tell you the Bordeaux area is the most famous wine area there is. Unfortunately some of the really exclusive chateaux (such as Vites-Rothshild and Chateau Margeaux) were closed for the months, so we didn’t get to see those from the inside.
One of the other days we went to Lachanau, a famous wave surfing spot. Lars and I did a lot of wave surfing on our trips to Costa Rica a few years ago, but we didn’t manage to rent a board and do a little session here too unfortunately because of lack of time.
All-in-all, this is a great area to spend some quality time. There are plenty of things to do and even if the girl does not want to go kite surfing all the time and the wind bails on you, my not have lunch at some of the famous castle and treat here to a tasting session (or maybe even a night in one of the chateaux).
Right after we arrived at Lac d’Hourtin by the way, I found out I somehow lost my airlock valve which I need to be able to inflate my kite. I quickly found out the closest kite surfing shop was in Bordeaux (Qaui 34 I think it was called) but by some kind of miracle the local heroes (the kite surfing school) used Cabrinhas for some of their lessons and the airlock valve their kites used was the exact same as the one my kite uses. So I happily paid the guy 5 euros (heck, I would even have paid him 50 euros–everything to save me from having to go to Bordeaux to get the valve and miss precious surfing time). Note to self: quickly get this as a spare part, because I never want to be in that situation again!!
Lac d’Hourtin was the place I finally manage to get some real surfing done with my own kite. The right-hand parts were going really well in the end (with my right foot in front I mean), but the other way around some didn’t work. As I found out later on, I just powered the kite too much (not only for the left-handers, but also for the right-handers) when steering it into the power zone for the first time of a run and I also had to get used to doing this again (it’s been a while since I did wind surfing).
The next was to be in the Camargue region, which is an awesome department in France with one of the most beautiful reserves I’ve ever seen. Flamingos, plenty of wild horses and a beach full of hippies with an unpaved road of 15 kilometers leading to it (don’t worry, just to that one beach, not to the entire reserver) were the ingredients for the next few days.
Unfortunately we didn’t manage to find a hotel in the neighborhood of the beaches (I never book anything in advance, which has always worked really well for me, despite some searching once every now and then), so before starting our first session (which was to become a disaster because of the lack of wind) o the beach of Beaduc, we didn’t have a hotel yet). After having spend an hour or so on the waters of the Mediterranean Sea (we didn’t need wet suites here anymore fortunately), we went to Arles and started searching for the hotel there. After having inquired at three or four places, we finally found a hotel with one little room left. The hotel normally never rented out this room, but because it was really crowded, they made an exception. The hotel (called Hotel d’Arlatan) is an amazing place. The building itself dates back to the 4th century with some parts of it made visible from the Roman times). It’s a really authentic place and a definite must-stay if you’re in the neighborhood. Ask for room 24 if you’re low on budget (it’s 65 euros a night where the better rooms start at 85). Breakfast is great and they have a nicely secluded backyard where you can enjoy the quiet nights after having had dinner in the more vibrant parts of town. The hotel is not part of a chain I believe and that’s also why it has still maintained it charm.
Arles is a very nice town. There is a wealth of ancient building to see and the vibe in the town is good (except for the fact that after 11 or 12 at night, the place is a bit boring). Another thing I wanted to share was the Moroccan restaurant called L’Entrevue where we had lunch on one of our days there. Not only was the food very good, the wine was excellent too and the waitresses were simply stunning (okay, sorry, I just had to say that ).
On our way to Arles by the way we also inquired at a resort a little out of town (on the road tot Saintes Maries de la Mer) called Mas de la Fouque which is one of the most beautiful lodges I’ve seen. The lodge is pretty expensive (rooms starting at 150 euros I think), but from the what I’ve seen, it’s definitely worth it. Sometimes a place if more beautiful than it appear from the looks of the glossy brochure (normally it’s the other way around). This one of those places (it and can tell you, they have a very nice brochure). Anyway, they didn’t have any rooms left, but it definitely on my list to visit in the future.
The day after we arrived and did our first session at Beauduc, we first walked around town to look at the amphitheater (pretty big, although of course not as big as the Colosseum) and after having done that we went to Beauduc again. Unfortunately the wind was off shore (that’s a pretty dangerous situation for kite surfers) and the force wasn’t really good either (8 or 9 knots). So we finally didn’t get to do surfing on that day either.
The last day (which was also the last day we would be able to get some surfing done, as we would head to the in-lands of Italy after that) however we went to a different spot and the wind there was excellent. It was a 15 knot South-Easterly for almost the entire afternoon and we got to do some real good surfing. This was also the day I finally managed to surf both ways and also learnt that I just powered my kite too much when trying to get on my board. Totally exhausted and my feet heavily scratched (right now they’re still hurting a lot, more than 4 days later) we left for Arles that night for some good food. I’ll just let the pictures speak for themselves. The spot by the way is called L’Anse Carteau. It’s a little too shallow for my liking, but the sheer size of the place (especially if you get a South-Easterly here) compensates a lot. Another thing to be aware of is the abundance of sea weed, but well, fortunately my kite surfing board doesn’t have as big a fin as my wind surfing board used to have .
After having spend another night in Arles, the next morning we drove to Italy. As you can somewhere else, together with two friends, I’m working on buying a house in Italy and we dropped by there for a day to see if it hadn’t been broken down or so .
After having spent one day in the Pt. St. Martin region we drove to Zug in Switzerland to visit our friend Pyke who started living there earlier this year. This is where we also stayed for a day and that’s was about it for our road trip across Europe. We finally got home at 7pm on Saturday. No more than 20 hours later, I started to write this story on my way to Hong Kong. The kids next to me finally fell asleep. I’m going to try to get some sleep too now, otherwise I’ll be a complete zombie. And I also don’t want to loose my tan that I got in the past two weeks (somebody told me having very little sleep does not help a lot ).
Some facts and interesting places:
- 15 days
- 4500 kilometers, hmmm, we started out saying that this was probably going to be a pretty environmental friendly holiday, but I guess it turned out a bit differently
- 6 countries (Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany) of which we stayed in 4 of those (all except Belgium and Germany)
- Surfed in 4 waters (Mediterranean, Lac d’Hourtin, Atlantic Ocean, IJsselmeer)
- Maximum speed on water: 30kph (approx.)
- Maximum speed on land: 220kph (no fines yet)
- Hotel d’Arlatan in Arles
- Lodge Mas de la Fouque in the Camargue on the road to Saintes Marie de la Mer
- L’Entrevue, a Moroccan restaurant in Arles
Please don’t hesitate to ask me for comments on the spots listed in this post or other things.
