Jul 2008

By this point in the trip, I was starting to feel very tired. Josh was coping a bit better than me, but we were both looking forward to getting a chance to sleep when we arrived at the villa. Our host Claire rushed down to the local bakery in the morning to bring back freshly made pastries, the best we’d tried yet. We said our farewells, and drove back to the hotel to meet the others. Thankfully, Claire had drawn a map of the best route to take, and it did only take 10 minutes this time.

We then found the outdoor and indoor markets, which is an incredible place. Stalls stacked like train carriages that seemed to carry on forever. Incredible cheeses, meats, breads, pates, fruit… We managed to limit ourselves very well, and came away with the picnic essentials for the drive to Valence (after insulting a local for ordering camembert in the wrong region – we hadn’t had a clue you could do that). Leaving Dijon for Beaune, our lunch destination, we felt the first few speckles of rain, but they didn’t last too long. Beaune is a small wine capital, and the cobblestoned centre is filled with wine caves, narrow streets and textiled ceilings. After wandering the streets and picnicking in the park, we left with a few bottles of wine stocked up for the villa, on our way towards Lyon.

Thunderstorms and fork lightning soon filled the skies, and torrential rain hit hard to wake anyone who was even thinking about sleeping through the journey. This didn’t help our travel speed as it was also painfully busy on the highways. Crawling along car length by car length, the rain began to ease, and we made it slowly but surely to Valence. The hotel the others were staying at was just out of Valence, and Josh’s brother Daniel and his wife Katherine met us there, as they were joining us for the weekend in the villa. It was getting late, and instead of venturing into an unknown city to try and find a restaurant so late on a Friday night and then having to make it back to the hotel, the executive decision was made to try the ‘cobb'n'co’ looking Restaumarche next door to the hotel.

Even though we weren’t expecting much, judging by the colourful menus and lack of patrons, we downed a meal that will be hard to beat on the low scale… I’m sure I’ve made a joke about savoury icecream before, but there some was, floating in gazpacho for an entrée. You know something is wrong when they can’t cook rice, and it was all topped off with dessert. Thankfully, my dessert was maybe the best part of my meal (plain and simple icecream), but Josh’s dessert du jour (we think the translation must have been baby food) was an interesting concoction of pulped apple with chestnut cream. Most of it remained in the glass.

By this point my eyes felt as if they were about to pop out of my head. Without a good sleep in a very long time, my head was almost hitting the table. We were supposed to be couchsurfing, and meeting the host at a concert in town, but Josh looked and me and gave up, just as I gave up being awake… Crashing on the pull-out bed in the hotel room, and plugging myself up with earplugs, I had a much needed fantastic sleep, and the earplugs shielded me from yet another electrical storm that thundered for hours. Josh dashed off to meet the host, and he will have to continue the story of a real trip through Valence…

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...

We caught the Eurostar train from London to Paris, and only really knew we'd arrived in a new country when the cars appeared to be driving on the other side of the road. The buildings changed from industrial concrete blocks to rustic french cottages, nestled in country farmland. Arriving to the station in the afternoon, we set out onto the streets of Paris with Josh's parents and sister Sophie to navigate our way through the centre. The first country we'd been in that didn't speak English (as Singapore really doesn't count), our limited palette of french words became initially apparent - and we realised how bad the New Zealand accent can sound when attempting to speak the language...

The river Seine was our magnet and our point of navigation, so we took off in that direction. We arrived at the Louvre, which we only realised as we turned the corner and were faced with the pyramids of glass in the expansive courtyard. Sadly, our visits to most places were so limited we couldn't venture into the depths of the gallery to see the works, but we took solace in knowing Paris is only a short trip for our planned final destination. We will be back... Settling instead for delicious pastries in the park, near miss attacks from pigeons, and a riverside walk down the Seine (where the same set of side markets appears at every corner), we ended up at the courtyard of Notre Dame. By this stage it was late afternoon, and we needed to arrange dinner in time to make it to Porte de Saint Cloud - just out of the centre of Paris, where our very first Couchsurfing hosts lived. We decided to leave visiting the church until the next day, and headed back towards Josh's parents' hotel (through the back streets, as we didn't know any better, which was an interesting move!). We had experienced London rain, and got our first belting of Parisian rain on the way home, saturating us to the core. It wasn't that warm either, but the forecast for the next day was looking a lot better.

'I must remember to look the other way when crossing roads', became our rule to live by during these two days in Paris. It is easy to slip into road-crossing habits from home, which is terrifying in a city where pedestrian crossings mean nothing. The five of us settled for dinner in a french cafe, and after trying to decipher the menu, except for Creme Brulee, we thankfully all ended up with a decent meal. Soph did get the Creme Brulee, which was amazing... Josh and I then left to catch the metro to our hosts place, and were very thankful we knew how the London underground worked so we weren't completely out of our league, and we made it there in one piece, despite Josh's butchering of the french language, and his misuse of an apology for taking up so much room with our luggage that came out something like 'excuse me mwa', which got a laugh from a resident. She promptly replied with 'that's okay', so a conversation began in English, which was very rare for the subway. We finally made it to Porte de Saint Cloud as night fell, and met Julien and Caro, our fantastic hosts, who sat up with us chatting with cups of tea, sharing stories, and they marked out on a map exactly what they would do if they only had one full day in Paris, as we did... Amazing hosts, who made us feel so welcome in an unfamiliar city. They also had the privilege of seeing some of our favourite Flight of the Conchords french episode, and hopefully didn't find 'Foux De Fa Fa' offensive...

The forecast was right, and the next day was a hot and sunny 27 degrees. Our lovely hosts left work for the day, leaving us grinning at their sweetness, as two places had been set at the breakfast table for us. We caught the metro into town, and were introduced to Paris as the city of love... people are honestly embracing in passionate tongue-laden kissing wherever you look... in the middle of the footpath, on the side of a bridge... everywhere. Our first suggested stop by Julien and Caro - a creperie near Notre Dame, was where we first got to use our limited grasp of french, but successfully ordered two different crepes without a word of English. Not hard yes, but an achievement for us! We brought truth to the rumour that the locals are much more responsive to you if you at least attempt the language, and a tourist who stopped by as we were leaving got treated the opposite when he didn't... We then lined up for Notre Dame, which seemed like a huge queue, but took five minutes, and took in the incredible stained glass windows and statues. The place does feel ruined by tourists, and it just seems wrong to have a photo in front of holy statues. Well, it did to us, but apparently not others.

We then walked down some typical french streets, just off the beaten path, and headed towards the Eiffel Tower, where we were meeting up with Josh's parents and Sophie. A longer walk than we had intended (which seemed to be the case more often than not), we were put off climbing to the top by the hoards of tourists lined up like ants. They didn't even appear to be moving, so we decided there was much more we could be doing with our limited time, rather than waiting in line all day. We instead bypassed a market, which was sadly packing up for the day, but managed to get some fruit, and the sweet old lady gave Josh a wink and slipped in some blackberries for him (maybe it was the attempt at using french...). I begun to get an obsession with beautiful doors, so many around! We visited the Arc De Triumph, and were fascinated by the lack of order to the traffic. We sad mesmerised by the traffic going round and round the roundabout, where there were no lines marking lanes. Josh's dad recounted a story of a friend of his that got stuck going around it for an hour...

We then walked down the Champs-Elysees, where more crepes and drinks were had in the sun, and we got to see a practise run of the jet plane acrobatic display that would be happening on Bastille Day the following week. We made our way slowly down the street amid other parade preparations, and eventually made it back to Porte de Saint Cloud, where we had promised to cook our hosts a meal for their hospitality. First stop was the Supermarche, which was such a pity, as we later realised there was a Fromagerie, a gorgeous deli, a wine store and fresh bread all within five doors of it... grrrr... but we managed to at least get some Olives from the deli to add to a nibbles platter. After a roast meal (and the addition of fondue for dessert by Julien and Caro), some amazingly cheap french wine, stories about their other travels and photos, they offered to take us on a night tour through Paris. We managed to see the Eiffel Tower during it's ten minute light display that happens every hour, and up into the hills of the lively Montmatre, overlooking the city, and finally driving back down the Champs-Elysees, to the soundtrack of melting french music... Josh drifting off to sleep...

We arrived in Cambridge after a relatively short train ride, and walked to Alexis & Lou's flat to have a dinner with Josh's parents, Lou's mother, and the Gruner family from Germany, who the Kalderimis family had stayed with during their time in Germany quite a few years ago. They are such a lovely couple, and offered to host us if we make it up to Biberach during our travels through Germany. A lovely dinner and great conversation followed, and the night was spent at a Bed & Breakfast down the road, and our very sweet yet flustered host cooked us a breakfast which we enjoyed with the Gruners in the morning.

We ventured out into the streets of Cambridge while it was still sunny, and as it was open day for the colleges in the area, the cobblestone streets were swarming with people. Wandering through as tourists with cameras attached to us, we took in the gorgeous old buildings and quaint alleyways, before settling at a bar for a cider and then getting ready for the first part of the wedding at the registry office. The legal part of the proceedings, since the rest of the event was on the Sunday and at a college, this was a simple ceremony with family and friends.

After a meal at a local bar, we all rushed to the canal to make the last punting session of the day. Linking the boats together, except for one rouge boat headed by pirate Andrew, first mate Josh and captain Daniel further back down (Josh claims this was the best boat of all)... we toasted to the new couple with bubbly and strawberries, and coasted down the river with some experienced (and not so experienced) punters, before recounting the events of the week with Sophie, Marie and Simon at a corner bar on the canal.

That night the rain overtook the sun, and the outdoor ceremony scheduled for the afternoon looked as if it would be washed out. The contingency plan was a stack of white umbrellas, which proved to make a striking and picturesque setting for the pond-side affair. After a tour of Girton college where the ceremony was held, some tea and scones, and the cutting of the cake, the group retired to Felix Hotel for the rest of the evening. Josh, Sophie and I ended up at our own 'Exclusive Club' table for the dinner, as the rest of the guests on our table couldn't make it that evening. Three of us huddled to one side of huge round table, Josh and Sophie took advantage of the missing people by insisting to the waiting staff that their meals be left even though they weren't there... a few extra desserts later, a few bottles of wine later... we finished the evening with port and cheese and a number of guests from around the room visiting our 'Exclusive Club'.

The following morning, and the rain continued harder than ever. Catching a train back into London that afternoon, the weather still hadn't eased, dampening plans of a picnic in Hyde Park. This time the contingency plan resulted in a makeshift picnic on the floor of Daniel & Katherine's home, with more scones, wine, and other nibbles, before packing for the trip to France the next morning...

Some of the next day was spent in a place I won't hurry back to. We were yet to battle the crowds of the Oxford Street shopping district, and so decided to venture into the deep, as we actually did need to buy a few things. Josh's parents were down from Cambridge for the day, and so we teamed up with them and Josh's sister Sophie to walk the streets of the Monopoly board... After my poor feet decided they had been trodden on enough, we headed to Covent Gardens for a beer (well, actually I haven't quite got accustomed to beer yet, but the others had beer - although I was later introduced to cider which tickled my fancy), and then back to Oxford Circus to meet my old workmate Matt for a drink. We also realised how much time you need to allow for yourself to get anywhere in London - the result of being very late to a dinner date at my cousin's house. It was a fantastic night once we finally arrived. Gorgeous meal, amazing house, and flawless company.

Another jam-packed day followed, as it was our last full day in London, and we still had so much to do. We caught a tube (finally getting used to it) to Camden to see the markets, and also felt we were getting used to bartering, and walked away with our price on some clothing... And rushed down to the Borough Food Market at London Bridge. What an amazing place, filled with tastings of fresh cheese, fruit, sweets and any food you could ever crave... And as it was a week day we were without the stresses of the weekend crowds, although that would be an experience in itself. Must go back and enjoy more delights, as we were hurried out of there to catch a train to Cambridge for the night.