The cheapest way for us to leave our south coast paradise to head to our friends’  (Nina and Rob) wedding in Germany, was to book an overnight train to Paris, then switch onto the super fast Thalys that would go direct to Koln (Cologne). We ended up spending our last day in Cannes, as there are few luggage storage spaces in France. I think they are wary of bombings as to get our luggage locked in a locker in Cannes we had to go through a security scanner into a separate room and lock our gear up for the day. Then we headed back out into the sunny beaches of Cannes, and looked out for more movie stars. We broke the snacking rule and had a picnic on the beach, then wandered the old town. We tried to book a ticket to a movie, not part of the official selection but still part of the festival for the general public – we were just a bit too late to take part in Cannes movie history!

We got on our night train in Cannes, 2 hours late, and after a debacle with finding our sleeper carriage and no lights, we had a luxurious nights sleep in the quiet and comfortable train – v different to Vietnam, but not as exciting either. We were worried we would miss our connection to Germany as we had to use the Paris metro to cross town from Gare d’Austerlitz to Gare du Nord. Now that we were experienced metro goers however it was no problem and we navigated the system, crossing Paris to our next train. Out of the window we got our last French view for a while, of the Seine with the dappling water and bushy spring trees, and old concrete buildings. It was so romantic!

We had to break the snacking rule again as we had a croissant and coffee waiting for our last train. Everything is better in Paris as the croissant tasted light and puffy, and the black coffee in a tiny cup was a perfect wake up.

The Thalys is the fast train from Paris to Cologne, it goes up to 300km an hour! It was only a few hours and we were in Cologne for lunch, being picked up by Nina’s friend. It was so nice to be picked up in a big strange city, and she took us by tram to their flat where we’ve been staying for a week! We have a lot of hospitality to repay once we settle down.

It was near the end of our nine day stay in Antibes on the south coast that B and I made it to the port to check out the super yachts, off Quai des Billionaires. There were a lot of young kiwis and aussies staying at our campsite looking for work on the boats (thanks for the recommendation JP and Kate!). Chatting to a few of them as we hung out at reception using our laptops to pick up the wifi (which is very hard to get for free in France!) we found out that this year is hard going with the gloomy economy. Apparently the recruitment companies in town have 6,000 people on their books and only about 10 jobs! All the job seekers head down to the port at 6am in the morning, and cold call the boats, which can be very disheartening. We were looked on enviously as the hardest thing we had to do during our stay was figure out the 1 euro bus system!

Walking around the port after lunch we were dazzled by the bright white boats. They are huge, expensive and very shiny! Some of them have helicpoter pads, you can see doors opening out the bottom where there are jet boats and other play gear stored. One boat was covered with about 20 staff in the antibes uniform (biege shorts and crisp white shirt), who looked like tiny ants as they ran about scrubbing, sweeping and cleaning the back of the boat. B and I looked down on them from the old wall, which was made of cobbled bricks, a complete contrast to these super modern super yachts.

After we’d soaked up the money view, we rounded a corner in the old wall, and on the side opposite the port were little bays, filled with sunbathers. The sun here seems much softer than NZ, and the water of the med bright dark blue. The water also feels softer, I’m not sure if its because of all the salt in the water, or because I’m on holiday and everything is just amazing, but we had another lazy afternoon on the beach. With the old cobbled wall behind us with the terracotta rooves of the old town, the dark blue sea and soft light I felt like I was in a beautiful impressionist painting!

Before we left our camp we made it to another cheap and cheerful museum, this one the bonsai museum in Biot village, a small and charming little village perched on a hill side with tight winding cobbled streets. Biot is also famous for glass blowing, and we saw a lot of masters at work. We’ve noticed that as each region has its specialities in both trades and food, they are really skilled at a few things, rather than being ok at many. Like playing to your strengths, they know what they are good at and work at it. Hmmm, we’ll try to remember this when we head to the UK and start our job hunt.

I’m writing this while Louise is snoozing in the lounge of our mobile home at Camp du Pylon on the southern coast of France (Cote d’Azur) near Antibes between Cannes and Monaco. Having a sleep in the early afternoon is one of the many “norms” we have adapted to.  The French typically eat lunch for an hour ort two so it is understandable that no body wants to do anything between 13:00 and 15:00 every day. Instead all the shops are closed, the roads are dead and all of the sun chairs are full. What a life.

After a whirlwind tour of Central France for a week with our friend Yoann, we have been ready to lie back and soak up a bit of coastal French life. The irony of it is that our campground, which Jesse Pirini recommended to us, is full of more Kiwis, Aussies and Brits than French. So ordering a beer, getting directions and listening to the radio is much easier than it has been Further North. Yet signs that we are in France are everywhere we look: we eat baguettes and cheese, olive oil and wine, chocolat chaud and croissants daily. We haven’t swum in the camp pool because French standard is to wear speedos, no shorts allowed in there. On the street cars try their hardest to run you over, pineapples are called ananas while bananas are still called bananes.

Yesterday we caught a bus up the coast because Italy is only an hour away (only costs €1 to get there). We drove through Nice where the rich and famous stay, through Monaco where they are setting up for next weeks Grand Prix. We almost made it to the Italian border when the temptation of driving past all these perfect beaches in full sun became too tempting for us so we got off early and explored the town of Menton for the afternoon. Well ‘exploring” consisted of finding food which was difficult at 1:30p.m., during siesta time of course. The surprising thing about Menton is that the main streets are lined with mandarin trees in full fruit, that you can just help yourself to! I’ve never seen that anywhere before. Eventually we found some sweet and tasty breads and took them straight to the beach. Such a nice, hot beach of smooth pebbles. These beaches are all on the Mediterranean Sea, which is somewhere we never thought we might one day be swimming! At Menton there were loads of jellyfish who scared us out of the crystal clear water at first, but the temptation was too much so we braved it. Once they saw that we were not being stung, many sun-baked (and topless) bodies were soon up off the stones and swimming as well.

We got the train back to camp, without our Italian passport stamps, but happy to be back in our mobile home where we have a nice selection of French food to cook up for dinner. Yes, we sure do love it here. We are the only young people not taking our CVs into town each day to try and get a job on one of the super-yachts, and we are the only people here purely to relax who are not retired.

Earlier in the week we ventured down the road to visit the old village of Biot. The journey up there by foot was treacherous because of the lack of footpaths and accurate signage (a characteristic I think the French brought back from Vietnam) but it was well worth it. We stopped at a Bonsai museum on the way which blew us away (not really, but it was unique). Biot is a hilltop village where the steep labyrinth of alleyways are lined with pebble mosaics and its hard to tell what is a shop and what is a home because everything is decorated brilliantly.  The town is full of glass-blowing tradesmen who kept us amused for hours.

That excursion was typical of what we have so far seen of France: always hidden around the corner is another ancient village, not far from a beautiful beach or the border of another country. Always a nice surprise that takes skills to find, and good timing to avoid waking up those grumpy locals in the early afternoon.

Well Louise is stirring now, might be time to head to the beach at Anibes before the sun-downers are poured!

Ben.

What’s different about us here?

A.      Louise is standing on wood while Ben is on metal

B.      Ben is carrying the backpack, Louise is not.

C.      Louise is in the sun, Ben is in the shade

D.      Ben in Switzerland while Louise is still in France.

Answer: All of the above. It’s true; we walked over the Swiss border on this bridge!

Shame nobody was there to stamp our passports.

We have had a busy week in France since we left Paris (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2023727&id=1274843828&l=d481b24e77 ) with our friend Yoann. We caught our first French train (very modern after Vietnam, and left 5 mins early – luckily we were in French time as we’ve discovered this is normal) and headed to Bourges in the Centre region. Yoann’s family welcomed us with open arms, and fed us all weekend on delicious wines, entrees, mains and desserts! We felt very lucky to be living the French life and it was so nice and cosy to be staying at home after more than a month in hotels. Every meal was a new taste adventure, and here we have Yoann’s mother’s recipe for clafoutis aux pommes which she has given us:

Clafoutis is a custard-like baked French dessert that is typically made by baking fresh fruit (traditionally cherries) and a batter, somewhat similar to pancake batter, in a baking dish. Originally from Limousin.

4 eggs

9 tablespoons of sugar

4 tablespoons of flour

2 tablespoons of corn flour

250mL of milk

30 g of butter

3 or 4 apples

2 teaspoon of rhum

one pinch of salt

Preheat the oven (180°C).

Peel and cut apples in fragments, and place in a buttered mould.

In a salad bowl place and mix flours, sugar and the pinch of salt.

Form a cavity in the flour and add eggs inside, add 15 g of melted butter, then beat slowly by incorporating it little by little into the flour until you obtain a uniform pastry.

Slowly mix the milk and rhum into the batter.

Pour the batter on the apples.

Cook in the oven until the top begins to brown (nearly 20 min).

You can replace apples with fruits of your choice, for example cherries or strawberries…

I’m not sure how to describe all the sights we’ve seen but I will try in a not-so- exciting listing way. First stop was a tour of Bourges, which has really old houses from the middle ages. This is probably normal all throughout Europe, but it was so interesting for us, when most structures in NZ are only 100-150 years old. We discovered the top levels on the old houses stick out with a bit of a lip on the floor above, so when the bedpans were thrown out they didn’t land on the window sill of the floor below!

On day 2 we visited two castles in the Loire Valley, the first was Chambord, initiated by King Francis I when he was just 25 years old. It was a fairytale castle with many spires and steeples but very cold. The second castle of the day was Chenonceau which had a much cosier pretty feel, though it was still huge.

Chambord

On day 3 we left Bourges and the Centre region for Besancon, in Franche-Comte. We have discovered each region has its own specialties and way of life, and is almost like a country itself. We road tripped across France in Yoann’s car, and discovered old villages, mustard in Dijon, and some beautiful old sights. In Besancon we discovered their citadel, which has a zoo inside that Ben loved. It did look cool having the animals inside the old fortress with old fortifications all around.

On our final day with Yoann we drove to Saut du Doubs on the Swiss border to get a boat along the canyon and see the French ‘Niagara falls’ – not exactly huge but it was very beautiful in the Alpine Forest. We then drove over the border into Switzerland to see the Alps, and Lake Geneva. It was strange to just drive into another country but common in Europe, and apparently a lot of French people drive there daily for work where they can earn more money. Swiss people come over the border into France to go shopping as it’s cheaper. It was beautiful and though it’s well into spring here we saw snow on the side roads! That night we topped off our Swiss visit with fondue for dinner, we each had a pot and it was slightly sickening after a while, but delicious. We even had boiled potatoes to dip into the hot cheese. Today, j’ai la patate (Lit. I have the potato aka I’m full of beans), but Ben is v tired and is sleeping while I write this.

Yesterday we left our French friend and caught the train to Lyon, where we are staying for 2 nights before heading to Cote d’Azur, aka the French Riviera, for some sun, sand and relaxation. We decided to stay 1 more day in Lyon as we have only walked around Lyon a short while but we love it already – it seems very metropolitan but more friendly and relaxed than Paris. We are off now to buy a corkscrew – red wine is cheap, but bottle caps are not as common here as in NZ. Til the French Riviera… a bientot.

Coming off the motorway - 130km speed limit

3 days in Paris… and our first few hours were a sensory overload, it felt typically Parisian, more than what we had imagined! We left customs without picking up our luggage by mistake, so once we had gone back in for that we were ready for France! We found our way onto the train that took us into the city and our hotel, and were almost out of the subway when my pack on my back got jammed in the ticket gates, while I was stuck on the other side. I was laughing hysterically while B tried to lift it over the gates, while the ticket guards were watching from behind the mirror glass. For half a second I thought I would be stuck in the subway forever, but then it was all over and we emerged into watery sunshine, crisp spring air, ornate lampposts, brick cobbles, and the Notre Dame! There were large groups of tourists everywhere taking photos and tours, so we took a few snaps as we walked across Ille de la Cité to our hotel on a small lane, one  street back from la Seine, in the Latin Quarter.

We were straight back out and wandering around Paris, deciding to head to Place de la Concorde which our Paris book said had a 360 degree view of the monuments. Unlike Vietnam, everyone here walks and although there was no welcoming party for us, we felt free and happy wandering around. We crossed back over the river, and followed a large group into a huge old courtyard, and suddenly emerged in the courtyard of the Musée du Louvre, with the large glass pyramids, fountains and old palace buildings. It was a bit cloudy and cool, so we had a relatively peaceful time there and sat down for a bit by the pyramid, before heading through the jardins des Tuilleries, which were beautifully manicured lawns with some central fountains.

 We bought two baguettes for lunch, but think we committed some French sin as we noticed no one else was eating. Oh well! We sat down on the green chairs by the lake but it was so cold we kept going to Place de la Concorde. From here we could see right up the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe, look left to la tour Eiffel and back through the jardins to the Louvre. It was unreal to see so many famous monuments in such a short time, and we took lots of photos and tried to take it all in.

By now it had started raining and we weren’t used to such cold weather, so we hunted down a close salon de thé called Angelina, as recommended by our Paris book. It had a yellow and ornate interior and sold beautiful cakes and chocolates. We ordered their speciality, African hot chocolate, which was dark melted chocolate in a jug with whipped cream in a bowl and two cups. It was hot, creamy, chocolaty heaven, and after one cup we felt warmed and drunk on chocolate. After 2, we felt a bit sick so headed back out into the watery sunshine.

We have decided to try to do Paris on the cheap (hot chocolates excluded) so headed up towards the free perfume museum. On the way we stopped at the beautiful Greek style Eglise de la Madeleine, and the Opera, where the phantom is supposed to have resided. We wandered back through our morning tracks, and as the sun had come up noticed the large queues outside the Louvre. We went down through the carousel entrance, which was quiet, and wandered around the shops and cafés underneath, before seeing the upside down pyramid inside. Apparently it would take 9 months just to glance at every piece of art held here, so we decided with only 3 days we wouldn’t go into the actual museum to see the Mona Lisa this time.

We found our way back to our hotel les Argonautes, and collapsed on the comfy bed. After our overnight flight from Hong Kong where we didn’t really sleep, it felt so soft and cosy that we fell asleep to the sounds of the Paris lane below us.