Sunday, May 30, 2004

South and Central France

Bordeaux - Toulouse - Carcassone - Montpellier - Marseille - Avignon - Grenoble - Annecy - Geneva - Lyon

Bonjour mon amis!

Sorry for not writing sooner, I’ve been quite busy gallivanting around and Internet access is also quite expensive...

Due to indecisiveness, most of my travels through France has been decided on a toss of a coin.

Anyway, from San Sebastian I flipped a coin, and ended up in Bordeaux.

Ah France, country of good wine, 366 types of cheese, arrogant rude French people, beautiful French women with ugly French boyfriends... France is also surprisingly full of Asians from Indochina, and Moroccan kebab shops.

I think France has two facets to it: the clean beautiful city centres with the arrogant beautiful snobby French people; and the ghetto urban African and Asian slums where hip-hop, skateboarding and seedy looking graffitied streets reside.

French people tend to also talk to themselves out loud all the time. And even when you tell them you don't understand French, they will still talk to you continuously in rapid French as if you do understand!

Speaking of talking to oneself out loud, I’ve noticed after travelling for so long and being on my own, that I’m doing the same thing, as well as getting slightly more eccentric. I have a tendency to think questions to myself in my head and then answer them out loud as if I’m talking to someone. For example, I would suddenly say out loud "Nah, I reckon I should head down that way instead" in the middle of the street.

Anyway, Bordeaux is a pleasant city, should really be called the City of Portals because of the number of beautiful huge archways and gateways into the city. Did the typical "sit-in-sidewalk-cafe-drinking-coffee-writing-in-journal-watching-people-go-by" thing that French people do, which I enjoy doing quite frequently for long hours everywhere I go now.

Did a winery tour of the St Emillion wine region near Bordeaux. Wasn't too bad, got to see a Bordeaux wine chateaux and try their wines...Also went to see the Medieval town of St Emillion itself with it's "monolithic" (the tour guide loved that word) church which is built underground carved from the limestone of the earth itself!

Flipped another coin and ended up in Toulouse, which wasn’t as nice as Bordeaux. It is called the "villa rose" because of the pink architecture within the city square. Though I think it looks more like apricot to me. But then the "villa abricot" doesn’t have the same ring to it doesn’t it?

If you want to go see a walled castle town, go to Carcassone! Carcassone has 87 towers, an inner and outer wall surrounding the town, all in preserved and complete condition. It really is quite impressive up on the hill, especially at night when the lights illuminate the walls. Thankfully there are no MacDonalds in the castle walls to ruin the effect (though they exist outside the walls).

Flipped a coin to Montpellier, a pleasant young student city, where everyone just seems to sit in the cafes in the main squares and drink, eat, and chill out. I've noticed that most sidewalk cafes tend to have their chairs facing the street, which means that if you are the only person walking in the middle of the main plaza you can feel everyone’s eyes looking at you, and more unnerving, judging you.

Another coin flipped and Marseilles I went. Marseilles in comparison to Montpellier is a large gritty city, but the best thing about Marseille was the best cheap good quality meals you can order in the youth hostel! In fact it’s the best food I’ve had in France surprisingly, and people who have stayed there can testify the same thing! What was also fun was buying a bottle of cheap French wine each after dinner from the grocery store, and drinking it on the beach down the road to the sound of people playing rhythmic bongo drums and skateboarders on the ramps.

Marseilles is renowned for being dangerous and seedy, but having managed to hitch hike, buy kebabs from a seedy area surrounded by prostitutes and drunk men, and sleep on the pavement outside the youth hostel all in the middle of the night, I don't think it was so bad (how I ended up doing all that is a long story).

Went to If Island to see the Chateaux d'If, which is the fortress turned prison island famous in the Count of Monte Cristo book. It was pretty overrated and boring.

Left Marseille (and just missed the famous Marseille International Skate Boarding Competition by a day ) to go to Avignon.

Avignon is a pretty walled town containing the former Vatican headquarters and the Avignon Bridge from that really famous annoying French song that I couldn’t get out of my head while I was there - "Sur le pont d'Avignon, l'on y danse l'on y danse..." Drove me insane.

Went to Grenoble next. Grenoble is an ugly city surrounded by beautiful French Alps. Went up this transparent bubble cable car to the fortress on top of the mountain for stunning views. The youth hostel was fun, got invited to a staff Moroccan theme party and all I know is that I'll never look at a carpet burn the same way again. Anyway, if I had more time I would consider working in a youth hostel because they can pay you in cash, you get free accommodation and food, and its a great way to learn a language and culture of a place.

Met a German girl called Marta on the train from Grenoble to Annecy, who was happy to me on a tour of Annecy. However because we got too distracted from talking that she accidentally led me out of the town into the middle of nowhere! But as an example of how things always seem to work out in the end, we actually found the youth hostel nearby which is where I needed to go anyways.

We almost had a fling except I knew she had a boyfriend back in Germany and I didn’t want to ruin it for her. Stupid morals!

Anyway, Annecy is my favourite place in France if not in Europe - it is gorgeous! It has a stunning blue lake with the Alps in the background, with a pretty river canal with flowers and beautiful houses and cafes lining it. There is not much to see besides that, but I could just sit in an outdoor cafe soaking it all in all day (which I did).

Went to Geneva in Switzerland next. Went to the UN headquarters which was pretty interesting, and also checked out CERN (Centre European of Research Nuclear) with the huge super conductor collider which basically is used to smash atomic particles at light speeds to replicate the big bang and learn about how the universe was created. Interesting only if you are a nerd like me.

Geneva, despite being in Switzerland, has more of a French feel to it. And it seems to be full of Irish pubs!

Popped back into France to Lyon. Lyon is a pretty cool lively place, reminiscent of a kind of mini Paris actually. It even has a stunted smaller version of the Eiffel tower there! There's also cool statues of painted lions all over the place, which probably explains the name of the town (Lyon = Lion?). Anyway, wanting to see the cultural nightlife of the place, guess where we ended up? An Australian pub! Oh well, that's the last time I let Canadians lead where to go. Tonight we might have a little more luck...

I'm meeting heaps of cool people, Canadians, Australians, Mexican twins, and English girls. It's kinda sad having to say goodbye to people you may never see again. As someone once told me, "in travel you make really strong short friendships with people that end as soon as you leave".

Anyway, Tomorrow I head for Paris, followed by Loire valley, Brittany, Normandy, then Belgium and then Germany!

A tout à l’heure !

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