As we have been travelling we have asked a number of questions about the things we have noticed that are different here in Francais so thought I would share a few of our observations in question form so far.
Why do the French let their dogs crap on the footpath everywhere you go?
Why do French people wear flat soled shoes? See above
Why do all of the shops in the village close for 4 hours in the middle of the day everyday?
How do the women stay so slim when there are pasterries and boulangeries that serve the most decadent cakes and sweet things in the world?
Why aren't the french in a permanent state of intoxication when there is so much wine on offer?
How can you manage to make such good wine that sells for a couple of euros and still make a living? We tried this one out spending less than 10 euro on 4 bottles of wine all of it completely drinkable!
Enough trivia but there will no doubt be more to come, if Chris remembers to write down my musing next time!
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Fast Tour of 5 cities
It,s been a few days since we were last able to update this site. We have been busy exploring France through many provinces or Departmentes and finding an I cafe in some smaller areas has proved to be too difficult.
Since we last updated we had just arrived in La Rochelle a sea side town on the west coast of France on the Atlantic Ocean. We found accommodation for two nights in the Centre Ville close to where the tourist sights were and the night life as well. So having decided to rest for a few days we set about discovering this port town. Firstly as with most places we have visited the town had a long and tumultuous history of conflict, invasion as well as pirates just to spice it up a bit. It also had a beautiful natural harbour and a reputation for so many cafes and bistrots that you could eat out for 365 days and never eat in the same place, so as you can imagine we were spoiled for choice.
We began by visiting the towers La Rochelle has 3, the Chaine Tour, the Lanterne Tour and the St Nicholas Tour. We went into the last one because not only did it have amazing views over the town and surrounding area but it also had fully preserved graffiti from the past 400 years during which it held various prisoners. Privateers or pirates, soldiers that had been captured and also the Hugenots.
This town has a long history of Resistance and during the time when France was controlled by the monarchy and the church the town was home to a large protestant community who resisted the rule of the crown and the Catholic church and refused to pay taxes. Eventually the towns people were starved into submission with the population going from over 20000 to just 1500 in 15 months. Anyway enough with the history lesson, the tower was amazing and contained fully preserved writings and sculptors 500 separate pieces in total. It was fascinating and we have the pictures of the scenery to bore you with on our return......
After La Rochelle we travelled SE to Bordeaux, I had been keen to sample the local produce of the grape variety from as many parts of France as possible.
We started by going to a small village out of Bordeaux called Saint Emilion, again this town has an amazing history and we were fortunate enough to go on an english speaking tour of the main sites. The town is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage site so we knew we were in for some serious stuff. Again another climb up the bell tower this time 199 steps each way but the view was wonderful and before you wonder we have still more photos..... I won,t describe what we saw on out tour only to say it dates back over 800 to 1000 years and was gob smackingly good.
Mind you dont stop for lunch in this town because an omelet, a couple of lamb chops and a glass of vin rouge each cost the equivalent of $130NZ. After checking out local accommodation and prices we decided to head back to Bordeaux for the night, but you know what they say about the best laid plans and after stopping and having a beer in Bordeaux we discovered that due to a large congress in town there were no rooms to be had! So at 6pm we hit the road again and headed fro Toulouse. That,s the next update though. We are having an amazing time it is by far exceeding any expectations that either of us had before setting out.
Since we last updated we had just arrived in La Rochelle a sea side town on the west coast of France on the Atlantic Ocean. We found accommodation for two nights in the Centre Ville close to where the tourist sights were and the night life as well. So having decided to rest for a few days we set about discovering this port town. Firstly as with most places we have visited the town had a long and tumultuous history of conflict, invasion as well as pirates just to spice it up a bit. It also had a beautiful natural harbour and a reputation for so many cafes and bistrots that you could eat out for 365 days and never eat in the same place, so as you can imagine we were spoiled for choice.
We began by visiting the towers La Rochelle has 3, the Chaine Tour, the Lanterne Tour and the St Nicholas Tour. We went into the last one because not only did it have amazing views over the town and surrounding area but it also had fully preserved graffiti from the past 400 years during which it held various prisoners. Privateers or pirates, soldiers that had been captured and also the Hugenots.
This town has a long history of Resistance and during the time when France was controlled by the monarchy and the church the town was home to a large protestant community who resisted the rule of the crown and the Catholic church and refused to pay taxes. Eventually the towns people were starved into submission with the population going from over 20000 to just 1500 in 15 months. Anyway enough with the history lesson, the tower was amazing and contained fully preserved writings and sculptors 500 separate pieces in total. It was fascinating and we have the pictures of the scenery to bore you with on our return......
After La Rochelle we travelled SE to Bordeaux, I had been keen to sample the local produce of the grape variety from as many parts of France as possible.
We started by going to a small village out of Bordeaux called Saint Emilion, again this town has an amazing history and we were fortunate enough to go on an english speaking tour of the main sites. The town is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage site so we knew we were in for some serious stuff. Again another climb up the bell tower this time 199 steps each way but the view was wonderful and before you wonder we have still more photos..... I won,t describe what we saw on out tour only to say it dates back over 800 to 1000 years and was gob smackingly good.
Mind you dont stop for lunch in this town because an omelet, a couple of lamb chops and a glass of vin rouge each cost the equivalent of $130NZ. After checking out local accommodation and prices we decided to head back to Bordeaux for the night, but you know what they say about the best laid plans and after stopping and having a beer in Bordeaux we discovered that due to a large congress in town there were no rooms to be had! So at 6pm we hit the road again and headed fro Toulouse. That,s the next update though. We are having an amazing time it is by far exceeding any expectations that either of us had before setting out.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Vive Le France
We finally got out of London and took the train to Plymouth. This was about a 41/2 hr journey with great scenery. The train was not too crowded and for the first time since landing in England people were happy, relaxed, and generally seemed quite pleasant.The guy selling food at the buffet car thought we were aussies, so we quickly set him straight on that one having a bit of a laugh at Australia's expense.
Plymouth was wonderful, Annie's Uncle Richard was at the station to meet us and drive us to their house about 20 mins away. The weather was superb so so after a cup of tea and a relax we went for a walk along the beach at Wembury. From there you could see as far as Cornwall. It was lovely to stay some where quiet and peaceful after the hustle & bustle of London.
Next day Richard drove us to Exeter airport for our flight to Brest. This is where the fun really began, upon arriving at Brest a rep from Peurgot was there to meet us with our car and all the paper work. Her english was better than my french, but only just, so details on some of the functions for the car we worked out as I drove. Left hand drive, manual, right hand side of the road, roundabouts were an accident waiting to happen. It didn't however and it took some time to get used to, in fact I doubt I will ever be 100% confident driving here.
Our car is fitted with a GPS [Gloria,so nicknamed because she can be quite persistent when I don't follow her instructions!!]and this is an absolute godsend. We found our village Mael Carhaix like we were experts. The drive took about 1hr and there was little traffic on the road, they must have known I was coming, so this was great. This village is so quiet, nothing is open most of Sunday & Monday. Its like the french avoid mondayitis and start work on Tuesday.
The closest town to our village was Carhaix Plougher still smallish but at least large enough for a couple of supermarches. Our first night after navigating to the village we went exploring and to find some food. Now to understand where we were it is important to know that these villages are in the heart of Brittany which is Finistere or Breton country. They don't see alot of tourists and not only is French not their only language Breton is, but they don't speak English anywhere. So night one on French soil, thirsty and starving and unable to communicate ....... we were a couple of resourceful kiwis though who eventually relying on my bad fifth form french managed to get steak and chips and a drink each!! Bloody marvelous.
Another treat of our visit to Carhaix was that we stumbled upon a village fete, where local celtic or breton music and dancing was the order of the day in the village square. It was highly entertaining to hear soulful music and bagpipes in the middle of France.
We also found a couple of friendly locals in the village boulagerie or bakery who kept us supplied daily with bagettes and sweet pasteries. They also tried to improve our French but I'm afraid did not have much success. Omigod we will be huge the food is so rich and wonderful here if we didn't walk for miles everyday we would be enormous upon our return.
Now we are in La Rochelle but you will have to wait till the next blog posting to find out about this amazing sea side town on the Atlantic Coast
AuRevoir for now from us both
Plymouth was wonderful, Annie's Uncle Richard was at the station to meet us and drive us to their house about 20 mins away. The weather was superb so so after a cup of tea and a relax we went for a walk along the beach at Wembury. From there you could see as far as Cornwall. It was lovely to stay some where quiet and peaceful after the hustle & bustle of London.
Next day Richard drove us to Exeter airport for our flight to Brest. This is where the fun really began, upon arriving at Brest a rep from Peurgot was there to meet us with our car and all the paper work. Her english was better than my french, but only just, so details on some of the functions for the car we worked out as I drove. Left hand drive, manual, right hand side of the road, roundabouts were an accident waiting to happen. It didn't however and it took some time to get used to, in fact I doubt I will ever be 100% confident driving here.
Our car is fitted with a GPS [Gloria,so nicknamed because she can be quite persistent when I don't follow her instructions!!]and this is an absolute godsend. We found our village Mael Carhaix like we were experts. The drive took about 1hr and there was little traffic on the road, they must have known I was coming, so this was great. This village is so quiet, nothing is open most of Sunday & Monday. Its like the french avoid mondayitis and start work on Tuesday.
The closest town to our village was Carhaix Plougher still smallish but at least large enough for a couple of supermarches. Our first night after navigating to the village we went exploring and to find some food. Now to understand where we were it is important to know that these villages are in the heart of Brittany which is Finistere or Breton country. They don't see alot of tourists and not only is French not their only language Breton is, but they don't speak English anywhere. So night one on French soil, thirsty and starving and unable to communicate ....... we were a couple of resourceful kiwis though who eventually relying on my bad fifth form french managed to get steak and chips and a drink each!! Bloody marvelous.
Another treat of our visit to Carhaix was that we stumbled upon a village fete, where local celtic or breton music and dancing was the order of the day in the village square. It was highly entertaining to hear soulful music and bagpipes in the middle of France.
We also found a couple of friendly locals in the village boulagerie or bakery who kept us supplied daily with bagettes and sweet pasteries. They also tried to improve our French but I'm afraid did not have much success. Omigod we will be huge the food is so rich and wonderful here if we didn't walk for miles everyday we would be enormous upon our return.
Now we are in La Rochelle but you will have to wait till the next blog posting to find out about this amazing sea side town on the Atlantic Coast
AuRevoir for now from us both
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
