Roadtrip to Provence

Our last morning in Paris, and as we looked out the apartment window to the view below, we saw rows upon rows of market stalls that had been set up for the day. Our host Caroline had mentioned these markets as a great place to go and get fresh food, so she ventured onto the street with us (and picked up chocolate eclairs on the way which she had kindly promised to Josh the night before...). The place was filled with fresh breads, meats, cheeses, and all types of organic foods. We sampled some fresh brioche, before packing up and catching the bus to meet Josh's family for our trip to the villa they had hired in Draguignan, southern France.

This is where we realised hiring a car may have been a bad idea. As Lonely Planet states - France is known for it's terrible driving (which I read as we were trying to navigate our way through the Paris streets). If that isn't enough, Paris would have to be one of the worst places to drive in, and yet there we were, stranded with a European car, not much of a map, and a million enraged drivers. First of all, there was trying to come to terms with driving on the other side of the road. I luckily didn't have to attempt this, but Josh's dad was driving, and we could all tell it wasn't going to be easy. Josh as navigator, we attempted to find the ringroad that could take us south, but ended up circling a few blocks and back where we started... We then came to an intersection where Josh decided to take a right. It was said that this was a big call... Left or right on a main road when we didn't know what direction we were going, and where did we end up... Exactly one block away from the dreaded Arc De Triomphe... Panicking, we veered off onto a sidestreet (luckily there was one), or we could have been recreating the story told by Josh's dad a day earlier and circling the thing for an hour.

That was our first incident, but not our last, as minutes later a blind valet flung the door open on a narrow street to clip our wing mirror and send a wave of panic through the car. With the mirror in pieces and the Frenchman scoffing at the idea of insurance, we left to try and calm ourselves enough to make it out of Paris. A roar of applause when we finally made it to the highway, and things were a lot smoother from there. For us anyway, as we still don't know how the french survive on their roads!

Caroline had also offered us some suggestions of places to stop while we were on the road, and not too far out of Paris, we stopped in Fontainebleau, where her family is from. An amazing palace, that has been the home to French royalty, and where the Mona Lisa was once hung (sadly it isn't now, since we obviously missed it at the Louvre), the place is just incredible. It goes on forever, with immaculately groomed gardens and lawns where we picnicked just at the right time before everyone got kicked off the grass.

Back on the road, and we eventually made it to the mustard capital of Dijon where we were staying for the night. Stupidly, Josh and I dropped his family at their hotel, and took the car to our new couchsurfing host's place as it was a bit further across town. As if we hadn't had enough navigation disasters for one day. About 40 minutes later (the drive is only 10 minutes), we cursed our horrible map that didn't have all the streets on it, and had gone in circles again, and I believe also down some forbidden streets. We somehow ended up at our destination, and met our host Claire before blurting out that we were in need of food and a good stiff drink, and heading into the centre.

The centre of Dijon is a beautiful place. The amazing old architecture and alleyways are stunning, but it is also a university city, so there is quite a young crowd that lives within it. Claire took us on a quick tour of some of the architectural highlights before we arrived at a square with outdoor tables and seating surrounded by plenty of great restaurants. She picked an authentically french place for us to try, and we enjoyed an amazing meal (Josh was glad he'd finally got the escargot he'd been after, and since it's Dijon they serve you homemade mustard with your meals), a fantastic wine from the famous red region, and great conversation with our host. She actually said my French speaking accent is rather good to my astonishment! Pity I can't say many words... Realised we would both love to learn another language so may look into that once we start living somewhere. There was a festival on in Dijon that night, so we ended up in a square surrounded by buildings for a film installation to live music, which was quite interesting, but we left to see if another event was on, and when it wasn't, retired in for the night. More driving ahead tomorrow...