France

We got onto Avignon pretty late after getting off the worst piece of public transport we’d ever been on, seven hours of bus hell from Geneva to Avignon. It wasn’t the bus that was so bad but the people and drivers on it. The bus terminated in Barcelona and so was full of Spanish people who I can only compare to bogan chavs. Constant noise, playing their own music, smoking and just being plain rude. We were more that pleased to get off.

So not being in the best mood the next day we tried to be touristy and stuff, we even went to the big castle that was built by the popes when they lived here after fleeing Rome. But alas we were just not in the mood and retired to our room to read and watch stuff on our laptop.

Carnival!! Well one merry-go-round.

I’m starting to believe that there are a lot of cathedrals around in Europe.

We’d only had the two nights, one off the bus and one after a fairly apathetic day. So to prove that we had actually been to Avignon we went for a walk around the oldie part before picking up the rental car that we had for the next 5 days.

The bridge to nowhere

We’d had a few talks with the Fromont’s (Family we stayed with in Jura) as to where good place’s to go in the South of France would be. We weren’t to taken with the whole Monte Carlo, Nice, Mediterranean thing so they suggested some small towns that would take us inland on our way down to Spain.

Les Baux de Provnce, very very nice little town, old winding streets and stuff

danger

More danger

We didn’t stay in Les Baux but decided to just keep driving west until we found somewhere nice. This took us through Nimes which totally turned us around and ate up heaps of time as we were caught in the home rush traffic. We only lasted on more town after Nimes, Sommieres where we found a camping ground and chalet with our name on it.

The next few days the weather started to pack in a bit, but not to worry as one of the main attractions around the area is a network of caves. For some reason everything we do on trip seems to be either for old people, tour groups or kids, where are all the people our age?

After Sommieres, we headed onto Carcassone, well actually to Malvies, 30km away from Carcassone where we had booked an apartment style place attached to the main estate building of an English couple who live and work in the area. Nice as accommodation with full kitchen and open fire.

Driving in Languedoc-Roussillon

The things we did over the 3 days were,

- Driving back into Carcassone to have a walk around, (although after nearly 2 months of travel we were a bit sick of old towns).

Carcassone in the distance

- Hiring bikes from the English couple and going round the different small towns in the area

Hmmm, Rachel taking an interesting path

Rachel deciding against the interesting path

- But the best thing was definitely taking a quick walk from the estate to a local winery which the English people knew and getting a private tour of the facilities, we were shown round by the owner who was only a little bit older than us. He took us down to the vats where some of the virgin wine was still being made and aged and we drank straight from the tap, mmmm. We ended up buying 3 bottles from him of which we are gonna save 2 of for xmas.

Where's waldo, Rachel riding into the distance

While not in Jura (region of France next to Switzerland) our first stop back in the French land was Dijon, ya know the mustard. We got to have a quick look round the city as we only stayed the one night. Which we spent having the best dinner out (a bottle of the best helped as well) then walked the tourist path the next day.


Standard French old town building

Mmmm food from the market

See told ya bout the mustard, (although the mustard museum had closed, sob. I was keen)

We only got a small slice

So when we were working back in Scotland I meet a student (Grégoire) from France working at my company on a holiday break. We got talking one day about our trip and he discovered we might be going to Dijon. “Oh,” he exclaimed “my parents live near there”. The next day he comes into work and says “I rang my mum last night and you can stay there when you pass through”……. Score

From Dijon we had a quick train to Dole and meet up with Grégoire and his mum, who took us to their awesome family house in Tavaux. It was so good staying with these guys, they had a real family atmosphere (6 kids tend to do that). Just seeing the day to day living of a real honest French family.

We did get some sights in when Grégoire (home from uni for the weekend) and his girlfriend took us out to the wee village of Beaume and Chateaux Chalon (again purchasing wine and cheese).

View from the Beaume abbey

Gotta love the way the French eat dinner, we were a bit concerned at the first dinner when everyone got only a small slice of a really nice quiche/flan dish. But they have this ‘weird’ concept of courses. Eg first up aperitifs (drink and snack), then main, then bread and cheese, then fruit, then desert and coffee (not to mention the wine). And this was for pretty much every meal, lunch and dinner. So we were more than quite full after our 3 days.

Family dinner


Me and the youngest (Pierre), who had a fascination with the haka.

Canals in Dole

So big ups to the Fromont family, you made our stay one to remember.
(See you in Corsica)

We'd been back in Edinburgh for a few months after our last big odyssey and our first wedding anniversary was fast approaching. So what better excuse to take another trip to a 'romantic' city, and what better place than Paris.

It was a bit of a flying visit and we only took the Monday off work (well Rach took the day off as hadn't found a job yet). And since we only had the 3 days, we did all the standard Parisy things. The first day was a walk from Notre dame to the Louve, a mandatory walk down the Champs Elysees (final stage of the tour de France) to the Arc de Triomphe. Had a nice dinner out in some random Paris suburb and tried out what limited French we knew, "Do you know English"? "Oui"....phew.

Next day, the 10th our 1st wedding anniversary. Didn't really start out to well, no-one told us that the bakeries in our area wouldn't open early on a Sunday. And since we had a pretty relaxed view to how we wanted to spend the day we just strolled around got some pannin’s and pastries and went to the Luxembourg Park on Boulevard Saint-Michel.

We grabbed two of the many steel chairs and parked up for a while. Rach took and book and I got a coffee and soaked up some Vitamin D (which had been lacking a bit in Scotland).

That night we went over to the Eiffel Tower and saw it all lit up. We also stood in line for over and hour to get up the series of lifts that take you up to the top viewing deck (ah well your only there once right). Anyway it was a really clear night so we got some good views and pics of the city. And apparently Wellington is the furtherest city from Paris (that they acknowledge).

They last day in Paris we dedicated to going to the Louve and getting some culture in us. We knew how big the place was from walking past the outside but inside the place is just massive. So much to look at and after a few hours we were getting a bit sick of all the stuff. So we did a bee line to the Mona Lisa going past the Venus Di Milo. The room where they had Mona was jam packed full of tourist groups so we took a quick pic and got out, there was way better stuff to ponder around the area anyway.

probably not the best picture of Mona so you're just gonna have to go yourself

Neither of us had a picture in our mind of what we were expecting from Paris, maybe rollings hills cheese and wine. And I'm sure that it is in France somewhere but we can wait for another trip. Paris is a big big city, Big block buildings line the wide boulevards and everything just seems so grand. Our impressions were also helped by the weather, it was bright, crisp and sunny the whole time we were there. So big ups Paris.