Sicily to Amsterdam
Catania Sicily to Beziers, France. July 19 (6hrs)
The night before this flight we looked on the internet and found that the Tour de France would finish in Beziers in southern France on Sat. so we left on Friday to go there.
We escaped Catania Airport at 12:15 pm just 15 mins before the Rome Air traffic Control were to go on strike for 4 hours. After all, it was a sunny Friday afternoon and everyone wanted to go to the beach.
We had a nice flight over Palermo, then over the islands of Corsica and Sardinia and then along the French Riveria, St. Tropez etc. In this area we could see alot of very expensive yachts and power boats cruising around with very little purpose.
We then arrived into the small airport in Beziers. It being late in the day, the tower was closed and we had to make our own way in. As we are now in the EU, there was now Customs facilities. We realised that we do not need to wear our uniforms in the EU.
We actually did see the finish of the 13th stage of the Tour. We watched on TV in a pub for 2 hours and then stood on the street for the 30 seconds it took for them to pass us.
Beziers, France to Amsterdam July 21 (4hrs)
When we went out to the plan to leave, we found we had picked up a passager in the form of a mouse who had eaten some of our food and made a general mess. We are not sure if it is still with us but it may have to be declared on our passenger manifest in the future.
We flew to stopped on the way in Dijon to buy some mustard and to visit a friend of Jasons who is building a small plane at the airport. However, we think we may have went to the wrong airport as he did not seem to be around. We then left and continued on to Amsterdam in very congested airspace and dropping temperatures.
We landed at a small airport outside of Amsterdam that had a grass runway. We landed in 14 degrees temp and pouring rain, apparently a typical Netherlands summer. However, the people there were very friendly and invited us for a beer at the aero club and even gave us a ride to town.
We are planning to spend a few days in Amsterdam and I am going to also spend 2 days in The Hague visiting Alan and Judy, friends from Melbourne who have been here for about a year.
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