We had a big day of driving from Cinque Terre in Italy, to Nice in France. We have never driven through so many tunnels – which may account for having to pay €25 tolls to drive on the motorway. The alternative was going to take 10hours driving, so €25 was good for 5 hours driving.
We arrived in Nice mid-afternoon, booked into our hostel, and spent the rest of the afternoon looking around the city and beach front. We’d forgotten how much we liked the French architecture in the bigger cities. The luxury yachts sailing past, and executive jets flying over, were also very impressive. The funniest thing to see was the imported sand for volley ball courts on the beach to replace the large pebbles that are there naturally. We met two other NZ couples at the hostel that night who were spending a couple of weeks travelling around the south of France. It was good to talk to someone of the same language for awhile. These people had already been pick pocketed twice in Paris during the previous days, which made us realise how lucky we have been to date (or how careful we had been).
The next day we headed off for Montpellier via the coastal route – partly to see the scenery, and partly to avoid any further toll charges on the motorway. We got as far as Cannes (which isn’t very far at all) when we drove into an enormous thunder storm. It was so heavy that we couldn’t see any further than about 20 metres in front. So we pulled over for nearly an hour until it eased up enough to be safe to continue on. Our troubles weren’t over though. Once back on the road with other traffic, we headed into water that was now up over our door sills, and the bow waves from the oncoming cars were splashing up over our bonnet. Luckily we never stalled. Once out of the water we pulled over to gather our sanity and wait for the water to subside a bit (and got some lunch). Shops everywhere were flooded and the monotonous French two-tone sirens were constantly sounding. The storm was a “biggen”.
By the end of lunch we were so far behind time that the only option was to head back on to the motorway. Excepting that everyone else was trying to do the same thing and, with some roads other closed from flooding it took us about an hour to travel 5 kms. We had no further troubles once we got on the motorway though – other than having to fork out another €22 in tolls.
Our hosts in Montpellier were Steph and Laurent, a young couple who had stayed with us the weekend France played the All Blacks in Dunedin, just a couple of weeks before we left on our trip. We were staying with them at Steph’s parent’s place, and they are all avid rugby fans. So we had to relive the unfortunate defeat of the Blacks against their national team. We felt obligated to mention the Bastareau affair, which took the wind out of their sails a little bit, although it turns out they were all very embarrassed by what had happened.
The evening we arrived, there was big news on the TV. It reported (translated to us of course) the storm in the Cannes area and said it had been classed as a natural disaster area. Wow, after the fire and the electrical storm in Cinque Terre, and now Cannes, we wondered what disaster we would leave behind in Montpellier.
Steph’s parents, Patrick & Sandra, were very keen for us to sample lots of the local wine and cheese – and we thought it would be rude to decline! Hamish is now a big fan of Roquefort cheese (Deb was gagging at just the smell of it), and we both love Moroccan Merguez (pronounced sort of like maggots) sausages. Mmmm they are good!!!
The next day, after fresh croissants and coffee, we headed back inland for a history lesson. A 2,000 year old Roman aqueduct - Pont du Gard, which was built as part of the system to supply water to Nimes. It was an amazing example of Roman engineering ability. Carrying onto Nimes, we saw a Roman Arena (a smaller, but complete, Colosseum). It is still in use, but for bullfighting as opposed to gladiator fighting and public executions. (interesting but useless fact – only about 10% of gladiators ever died in the arenas). We did a tour of the arena (very cool) - it’s apparently the best preserved example in the world. The next stop in the history lesson was The Maison Carree (an ancient Roman Temple), then La Tour Magna (a large tower that was part of the city walls during Roman occupation). We found the whole experience so cool - it was just like being inside the History Channel.
That evening, Patrick and Steph took us to see the pink flamingos that feed in the shallow waters around Montpellier. The only pink flamingos we have both ever seen before were the type that sit in the front gardens (you know, next to the gnomes).
Following more coffee and pains au chocolat (our favourite) for breakfast, we hit the road again for another day of touring the area around Montpellier. This time we headed for the town of Millau, where we checked out the stunning Pont de Millau – a phenomenal bridge spanning the valley above Millau. It’s so tall that the Eiffel Tower would fit underneath. It was great seeing two bridges in two days that were both state-of-the-art for the times in which they were built – 50AD and 2004AD.
On the way back from Millau, we detoured to the medieval village of St Guilham-le-Desert, which has been maintained as close as possible to its original state. That night, our hosts prepared us a typical French BBQ, with lashings more cheese and wine to go with it.
We were sad to say goodbye to everybody the next morning, as we had become very comfortable staying with them. But we were on a tight programme for the remaining few days of our time in France. So off we headed to Toulouse, with a stop at Carcassonne to visit the famous walled city and castle – which was well worth the effort, as it is quite different to anything we had already seen (although a bit more touristy than we had expected, as inside the castle grounds the village is actually all retail shops). It was the closest we’d seen to a King Arthur type castle – moat, drawbridge, inner & outer fortified walls, and lots of towers.
We didn’t do much in Toulouse, as it was only a stop over – although we did take time to drive around the massive Airbus facility, seeing lots of planes in different stages of construction.
The next day was another road trip, as we headed up toward the Dordogne region. We stopped for lunch at the village of Rocamadour, where the buildings – some of which are quite substantial – are all clinging to the cliff face in spectacular fashion. Then it was off to our accommodation in a tiny place called Lissac sur Couze, which we knew was just south of Brive. But given that it wasn’t listed on our maps, and Gloria didn’t know what we were talking about , we could only get to general area. We ended up having to talk (or try to) to locals who spoke no English, and we slowly narrowed down the possibilities with hand signals. Even though we were in France, we felt Italian using our hands to talk all the time. Luckily we got there before nightfall.
Our accommodation was a nice self-contained cabin above a lovely lake, which was a good base from which to explore the rest of the Dordogne Valley. We went to the caves at Lascaux, where we saw drawings that are approx 17,000 year old. To protect the drawings they have recreated the caves to within 5mm of the original and painted the drawings with the same dyes and techniques used by the original artists. The place was amazing. We also went to La Roque Cageac, which is another village in the style of Rocamadour, excepting that there was much more use of the natural caverns in the cliff face, and the river running along side it is very pretty.
Road Trip!!!....again - this time to Tours. The highlight of our stay in this city was a visit to the local Ikea store, as Deb had been determined to visit one before leaving Europe. Yeah, yeah she knows they are in Aussie, but they are a Swedish company, so she wanted to visit it in Europe. Go figure with her logic sometimes. The next day we drove up the Loire Valley, and visited one of the Chateaux along the river, called Chaumont-sur-Loire. It cost us €8.50, and was interesting enough, but we both left feeling it wasn’t worth the cost.
It was after 6pm by the time we finally made it to our hosts in Paris. Once again, we were staying with the parents of someone that we had hosted in NZ. Leo and Yvette live in the area of Rueil-Malmaison, which is just on the fringe of one of the main commercial areas of central Paris. Their son, Jean-Yves, had stayed with us just prior to last Christmas, and it was great to catch up with him again. As with nearly everyone who hosted us, they spoilt us with their hospitality.
We cleaned our car out the next morning, and Jean-Yves came with us to take it back to Charles de Gaulle Airport. We were sad to say goodbye to our little Peugeot 207 (affectionately known as Big Red), as it had served us well over the two months – clocking up 8,000 kms without any scratches or dents, although there were a couple of near misses. We then took the train to Montmartre, where we walked through all the fruit stalls and rip-off outlets as we made our way down to Moulin Rouge. There were definitely less tourists, and far more locals than when we were last in the area at the beginning of August, and this gave Paris a very different feel. We had a great lunch at a Belgian restaurant that Yvette had recommended, and then carried on down to the Opera House – another one of Paris’ magnificent public buildings. After checking out some of the fancy shops in the area, we finished off with Steinlager beers in an Aussie-themed pub, watching the hustle and bustle of Paris life from our street-side table.
Jean-Yves had to work the next day, so Yvette drove us to Versailles so we could visit the Palace. Even though the busy season was supposed to be over, we still had to wait in line for over half an hour to get our tickets. It was worth the wait though, as it was an amazing place to visit, and it was great to learn more about the history of France. And the level of opulence blew us away. We enjoyed a late lunch in a crepe restaurant outside the Palace, and on the way home Yvette took us up one of the only hills in Paris so that we could check out the central city from a different perspective. That night, we had yet another fine meal and great conversation. Once again, we were really appreciative of our hosts’ efforts to speak in English, so that we felt more included in the general conversation. We were sad to say goodbye to Jean-Yves that night, as we have grown very fond of him.
For the first time in nearly two months, we needed to put the alarm on the next morning to ensure that we got to Gare du Nord in time to catch the Eurostar to London. Yvette very kindly drove us to the station, which meant that we didn’t have to lug our bags up and down stairs through the platform changes in the Metro.
We said goodbye to Paris for the last time, joined the early morning hustle and bustle of the Gare du Nord, and boarded the train bound for St Pancras in London. It was a bit sad as we were closing all the doors we had opened 2 months earlier.
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