Transit Cities - Toulouse, Angers and Le Mans

First impressions really do count! While travelling through France, I have found that the general impression of a town or city upon arriving (clean/dirty, nice/rude, peaceful/hectic), tends to hold true for the rest of your stay although small things/some people and places can improve on that first impression.

After leaving Carcassonne, I began my leg up the western coast of France towards Caen, to the west of Paris and about 900 km from Carcassonne. I had to get to Caen on the 20^th as I was staying with Mathilde only until the morning of the 24^th when I would take the train to Basel to spend Christmas with my Uncle Brian and Aunt Caroline. From Carcassonne, I caught a train (with only 2 minutes to spare) to Toulouse, arriving at dusk and made my way through a very busy, very dirty city to the hostel which was just around the corner from one of the main churches.

Avoiding copious amounts of dog excrement, I walked through the alleyways and checked into the hostel for the night. This was my first hostel stay of the trip (after my week in Melbourne in March staying at ‘Back of Chapel Hostel’ which was awesome), I had high expectations of hostels in Europe however when I got to my dorm, only one bed out of 8 was occupied and it was a sick Russian who just lay in bed and sniffed the whole night, gaining himself the nickname ‘sniffler’ as he wasn’t interested in talking at all so I didn’t learn his actual name. The one upside was that the hostel was significantly cheaper than my accommodation up till this point and close to a metro line, which I took the next morning to get to a metro station on the outskirts of the town to catch a lift to Toulouse.

In the cold rain and gusty wind I stood outside the metro stop on the outskirts of town waiting my Covoiturage lift to turn up, when he did I was pretty happy. A really nice Mercedes 4 door salon car rolled up and the driver Gerard and his wife introduced themselves, this time I didn’t have to carry my bag on my lap which I was very happy about and I had heaps of space.  I was however sharing the car with Angelique, a fashion student from Toulouse who was heading to Paris to have Christmas with her family. The car ride was far from quiet and actually very interesting as Gerard had worked in the Airbus factory in Toulouse where they assemble the A380 Airbus and so we talked about that and also after being in Carcassonne, and looking at the castle museum there I found out that Angelique had made most of the historical costumes there while studying a unit of historical fashion.

We stopped three or four times at service stations to stretch our legs, to get coffee and so the others could smoke outside of the car. Gerard was really nice and even bought me lunch before we got to Angers which was pretty good.

One interesting thing I noticed while we drove in the rain was that nobody really slowed down or adopted a more conservative over taking style and yet during the entire journey (around 620 km) I didn’t see a single crash or person sheltering under a bridge from the weather, unlike some Perth P Platers in winter. One reason for this may have been the two small tracks I saw just to the side of the highway near Bordeaux and half way between Bordeaux and Angers, they appeared to be free to the public and quite popular as when we passed I saw a lot of cars testing their brakes on the wet skidpan etc.

Gerard was kind enough to drop me off right in the city centre of Angers which isn’t that big anyways but it certainly beat having to find a bus to my accommodation, which I hadn’t even found yet as there weren’t any hostels open so I went hunting for a cheap central hotel. I found a nice looking hotel just uphill from the Christmas markets and narrow hilly streets filled with people doing last minute window shopping, there was nobody behind reception but a sign saying they’d be back at 5. I was luckily 1^st in line out of 4 or 5 people and logged into the hotels wifi (I saw their password on the reception desk) and reserved the last single room available online. This worked out perfectly for me and not so well for the other travellers when the receptionist returned, by which time it was dark outside. The room was pretty antique and the bed more of a springy hammock than a bed but I would be gone early the next morning so after walking the centre-ville and getting dinner I was straight to bed/hammock.

For anybody reading this who knows me even remotely well, you would know that I am ‘slightly’ interested in motorsport, especially F1 but also the World Endurance Championship (WEC). The most famous race in the championship and also in the world in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, run by the Automobile Club d’Ouest on an 8.4 mile long circuit, the Circuit de la Sarthe, just outside of the city of Le Mans in the Loire region of France south west of Paris.

For the past 3 – 4 years, I have camped out in my grandparent’s living room for 24 hours in early June to watch the 24 Hour race live via Foxtel. Even though the race wasn’t going to be run while I was there I decided to go to Le Mans to see the town and also the Museum of the 24H du Mans. I took a train from Angers in the morning to Le Mans, arriving around 10. Given my high expectations of the town from the footage I’ve seen on TV and in movies about the race, I was disappointed to see it looked quite run down and even more disappointed with the towns people when I went to see the square where the winning team’s drivers get bronze imprints of their hands in the pavement below a monument to the race and found the handprints filled with dirt and dog waste and the monument graffitied on one side. Obviously the town puts on a huge cleaning effort just before the race; regardless the town’s people don’t seem very enthusiastic about the one event that puts them on the map and attracts 3 times their population for 1 week a year.  This quite royally annoyed me to say the least as it is still my aspiration to go see the race live and it’s not so easy from Perth so the townspeople are very lucky in my opinion.

After seeing the square, I headed off to the actual permanent section of the 13.5 km long track that consists mainly of public road during race week. This involved a 6.7 km hike both ways with my bags to get to the museum and have a good look before catching a train to Caen to finally meet Mathilde!

It was quite a cold but sunny day in Le Mans but by the time I had finally made it to the main entrance to the track I was hot enough from walking that I was only in my 1^st layer t-shirt and got a funny look from the museum guide when I entered. She was really nice though and let me store my bags inside the staff room while I used the museum book to take a 3 hour self-guided tour exploring the different sections of the huge aerofoil shaped museum which had a huge amount of memorabilia from the drivers and teams in addition to the dozens of cars on display. I took so many photos I had to ask the museum guide to let me plug my charger in and charge my camera half way through my time in the museum. After the museum, I was about to leave the outer track complex to walk back to the train station when I heard a car on the small, permanent circuit so I jumped a fence (woops) and managed to get some photos of an Audi R8 LMS from the first corner grandstand :D

The trek back to the train station felt a lot shorter as I was going through my photos and the sun wasn’t so high in the sky anymore. Getting into the train station I found that my train to Caen had been delayed, so

Carcassonne – UNESCO Heritage Castle and City

Up until my journey to Carcassonne, I had been exclusively using Covoiturage to get between cities, however between Montpellier and Carcassonne there were no rides up for offer and so I had to use the French train service for the first time.  After leaving the apartment, I headed to the train station where I quickly found out why Covoiturage is so popular, the train ticket was 32 Euros!! The train arrived on time and I got on-board and had to sit on my big backpack in the common area by the doors as all the seats were taken, the train kept heavily accelerating and braking every five minutes as we stopped at small concrete platforms on the outskirts of towns. 

Despite all the stopping and starting the train was quite fast and soon I was in Narbonne, a coastal town where I was supposed to transfer trains. As I waited around in the terminal, I watched the departures screen suddenly change to say that my train to Carcassonne had been cancelled, so I went over to the Information Desk and asked why the train had been cancelled and when the next one was… She was very helpful, not! “Such is life, take the bus outside” she replied in French, waving her arms around before slamming the window shut.

So outside I went, and picked the bus stop with the most number of disgruntled looking travellers, to wait for the bus to Carcassonne. After around 25 minutes, the rail replacement bus turned up and we departed from Narbonne. The one advantage to the train being cancelled was that after leaving the streets of Narbonne, the view was quite spectacular and it was interesting to see the influence of nearby Spain on the countryside. There were a lot of joint French and Spanish signs and also the buildings in the valleys that the road cut through were lined with farmhouses with very shallow angled roofs covered with alternating yellow and orange-ish coloured terracotta tiles, this was quite different to the architecture in Avignon and especially Montpellier.

Around 4 pm, the tower spires and huge Gallo-Roman walls of the Carcassonne castle appeared atop a distant hill and even from a distance the sheer size of the ancient walled city was obvious. It only got more impressive as the bus got closer to the city and then disappeared as the bus navigated down the narrow roads and over an old viaduct to finally come to a stop at the station. Due to the delays caused by having to take the bus instead of the train to Carcassonne I was running late for meeting Mark, a British ex-pat who hires out apartments on Airbnb in Carcassonne and also owns a restaurant there too. I managed to make my way quickly through the commercial city centre, still over 1500 years but not inside the walls of the ancient city on top the hill overlooking the rest of Carcassonne, and met Mark underneath a Roman era archway. He then showed me to the apartment that I had booked on Airbnb back in September, $50 AUD a night for a top floor 3 bedroom apartment!!

Very quickly I was settled into the apartment and had made use of the kitchen to make myself a little bit too much instant coffee, leading to me doing all my washing in less than 2 hours and hanging it out to dry and also deciding at 8 PM to go walking and take some photos from the Pont Vieux (a medieval bridge that spans the rivers) and also from the grassy slopes beneath the old city that overlooked the city. Even with my hiking shoes and only a camera I slipped a few times on the steep, slippery grass slopes and it made me realise that even before an attacking army ever made it to the walls they’d struggle with all their heavy armour and armaments to even get up the surroundings of the old city walls.

Around 10 I headed back to the apartment past a small restaurant where I had a steak and vegetables, a good break from pain au chocolat and caffe. Thankfully the temperature was still positive and the streets still felt quite safe and well illuminated on the walk back to Boulevard de Roumans, the large street only 5 minutes from the Pont Vieux where the apartment was situated.

Day 2 in Carcassonne, I woke up early hoping to beat the crowds of tourists, even in winter the Cite de Carcassonne is a large tourist attraction. I made my way up the hill and through the old gates of the city, still standing since almost 100 BC when the Romans first fortified the city on the top of the hill. Archaeologists can identify which parts of the walls are of Roman construction as instead of the huge blocks of stone used by the French after 600 AD, the Romans used hundreds of thousands of small rectangular red bricks.

The Cite de Carcassonne that sits on the hill has stood for over 2000 years, not without sustaining significant damage however, and consists of 2 rings of walls that span over 12 km long and contains more than 50 towers as well. Unlike many fortifications in France, the castle only makes up about 1/5^th of the area inside of the walls, with the remainder consisting of wooden and stone frame double storey buildings and 2 huge cathedrals.  After walking through the main gate from the direction of the ‘new town’, I headed first to the castle which has been restored, like the rest of the old city, over the past 200 years. These restorative efforts were spearheaded by Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc who spent much of his life in the 19^th century restoring the Cite de Carcassonne but also planning the expansion of the new city below the ancient Roman walls.

I bought a ticket and audio-guided tour of the castle, the first stop on the self-paced tour was the old dining hall of the Counts and dignitaries who would have resided in the castle since its construction in the 12^th century. This huge room, with its lead lined windows, huge fireplace and high ceiling now houses a projector screen displaying a video about Eugene’s restoration of the Cite and also the rise and fall of the Cite over its existence.

The city always existed as an important trading post but also a strategic border garrison on the French-Spanish border, that is until the late 16^th century when truces were made and trading was dominated by Spanish ships along the Mediterranean coast.

This was also coupled with a revolt of the towns people against the then ruler of Carcassonne who evicted the majority from the fortified walls, these evicted towns people then set up ‘ville basse’ (the lower city) which soon also became fortified and much more vibrant in terms of trading.

Eventually in the 17^th century, the Cite de Carcassonne would suffer the same fate as the Chateau des Papes in Avignon and be used as a barracks and occupied by squatters until the restoration by Eugene Voillet-le-Duc.

After watching the video on the restoration of the Cite, I then walked up onto the walls and looked out over the rest of the Cite and also the ‘ville basse’. The amount of thought that went into designing impenetrable castles, Carcassonne was only ever conquered by siege, never by brute attacking force, was incredible. Every single design choice in the castle was obviously made to enhance the security of the important people at the very crux of the fortifications, for example the main gate house on the outer side of the moat is open on the side facing the castle so that if it was overrun the attackers had nowhere to hide.

The castle’s rooms now house ancient artefacts from both Roman and Visigothic times, including fragments of Roman pottery and a huge Roman milestone. Taking photos and reading and listening to all the tour guide posts, it took me well over 2 hours to explore the castle before making my way out and walking around the buildings that form a huge maze inside of the walls. There were lots of jewellery and food stores and the obligatory souvenir stores, it was now around 1 pm and the streets were filling up with tourists, mainly from China and Japan following tour guides around and taking photos of everything (I’m not one to talk though). I had a quick look at the two major Basilicas of St Nazaire and St Celse built inside the walls back in the 6^th century, it is just crazy to think that these huge structures, whilst modified over the ages, have stood for so long and been a gathering place for hundreds of thousands of people since their construction.

Finally I left the Cite de Carcassonne and went into the centre of Ville Basse, where I had a late lunch/early dinner and watched enviously the people ice skating in the Place de la Republique. It was only 8 days till Christmas now and the city was filled with carols, people doing their Christmas shopping and the ever present smell of Vin Chaud and cooking marrons.

The next day I spoke to the family back home via Skype and then hurriedly packed my bags and headed to Toulouse late in the afternoon to start a 2 day, 700 km journey to spend a few days with my awesome friend Mathilde and her family in Caen!!

Rating: 5/5; awesome historical ancient city and a great festive atmosphere in the Ville Basse.

Montpellier

Montpellier, it's the 8th largest city in France and the fastest growing over the past 25 years (thanks Wikipedia). After the lovely picturesque and much smaller cities of Dijon and Avignon, it was also a reminder of how crowded and dirty life is in larger cities. When I arrived, I was dropped off by Phillip with 3 other students at a shopping centre on the outskirts, thankfully this time it was situated at a busy tramway station and I quickly made my way into town (trams are great because unlike buses the driver is secluded and so it’s much easier to fare skip :D). 

Probably due to the old infrastructure and fast growing population, the city is shrouded in scaffolding and the sounds of construction works were always present, my first impressions as I took the tram towards the town was that the city is huge. The main CBD is dominated by apartment blocks but also large open plazas and monument sites, perhaps I was just used to the clean and less impoverished streets of Avignon but I was amazed at the black market sellers and amount of beggars on the streets while I walked to the apartment I had found on Airbnb. When I arrived at the apartment, I was met by Semiha who showed me the room and also explained what the best attractions would be for me to look at the following day. The apartment was very contemporary with lots of stainless steel fittings, hanging bookcases (impressive) and big paintings, my room whilst pretty large only used the stainless steel aspect from the rest of the apartment and so felt a lot like a prison cell. With the Wi-Fi not working, I wasn’t there long before heading out to have a look at the city by night and to swing past McDonalds and use their free Wi-Fi to contact family and friends and plan a walk the next day and also ahead to my stay in Carcassonne. Then it was off back to my prison cell to sleep as, like Avignon, I had two nights in Montpellier but the final day I would need to be at the station early to get to Carcassonne and so the next day would be my only chance to see Montpellier. 

8 AM and I was up and out the door (Airbnb hosts usually give you keys so you can come and go as you please without waking them), first stop was the Tourism office and to see the Christmas markets and the huge theatre that is actually partially beneath a large open space called the Corum, this is effectively the centre of the city and one of the sides of a large pedestrian only part of the city. The old buildings bordering the long rectangular Place de la Comedie, which was just next to the Corum, were impressive however the graffiti over them and the empty McDonald’s bags floating in the large ‘Fountain of 3 Graces’ ruined the grandiose feel that may have once struck travellers before me back in the city’s heyday.

After this I walked through the old city, past Montpellier’s oldest three churches which were large but weren’t to the same level of workmanship in their design as what I have seen in the remainder of France so far. There were however a few nice twisty, narrow alleyways and hidden squares which were very nice and had less of a modern, touristy feel about them. Just like Paris, going back a few streets from the main touristy boulevards really helps with finding less expensive, more authentic food.

I exited the narrow alleyways near the huge Palais de Justice/Cour des assisses (Courtroom), which is located just inside the city walls and near an ancient old roman archway that has a striking resemblance to the arc de triumph. This quite pretty archway was one of the nicer monuments in Montpellier, probably spared the graffiti and beggars due to its proximity to the Courthouse, and is one of the main gateways out of the old city walls and lead to a large open area where an ancient viaduct brought water into the city via a sheltered set of wells inside a building, named quite originally, the Palace of Water.

After walking the length of the old town, I made my way back to the first tram line I could find and hitched a lift back to the City Centre to try see the major museum, the Fabre Museum. Upon arriving, the museum appeared open however I quickly found out that the all the major museums in Montpellier are closed on a Monday… Very disappointing.

It was getting reasonably late though so I headed back to the accommodation, where the Wi-Fi  was now working and planned the rest of my trip until arriving in Caen where I would spend 4 days with my friend Mathilde and her family.

Exactly a week after leaving Perth, and after seeing both the highs and lows of 1400 km of France, I was ready to take the train to Carcassonne, a UNESCO Heritage Listed Medieval City for the nights of the 17^th and 18^th for the next stage of my trip.

Rating: 3/10, with museums closed and widespread construction works.

Avignon - City of Popes

After my late afternoon/night walk through Dijon the day before, I was very happy to not have to get up straight away and make my way through a busy metro network to catch a lift in a rush. I woke up around 8 and then after a quick session online and some breakfast, I headed back to the train station car park.  There I met Guilliame, who I had arranged with on covoiturage the previous night to take me to Avignon in his car. One of his conditions was that I kept my bag on my lap the entire journey, ~420 km as he couldn’t fit me in the car otherwise, I soon found out this was because he had his 2 dogs in the boot. Also sharing the car was woman in her mid 20’s, who was fast asleep when I got in and slept the whole time until Guilliame woke her in Lyon, where she alighted and we carried on our way.

The car trip was initially done in the fog, with visibility only 30 or 40 metres and the temperature down around -5, however we still clung to the speed limit of 130 kilometres an hour on the autoroute. Despite their crazy driving in traffic, I’ve noticed the French on the open road are actually very good at keeping left even when doing the limit and allowing faster cars a lot more freedom than in Australia where we clog all the lanes. As we approached Lyon however, the fog began to lift and suddenly we were above it, looking over white cloud that filled valleys and seeing the occasional tree protrude as if growing on the cloud mass. Fortunately for me, who was freezing, the temperature as we arrived in Lyon cracked 0 degrees and the sun came out and started to warm the frosty ground.

We stopped a couple of times during the trip and then as the sun was going down  and temperature plunging (from 12 degrees to 6 degrees in an hour), Guilliame pulled into a big shopping centre carpark and announced that we’d arrived in Avignon. To me it certainly didn’t look like the photos but after a brief ‘discussion’ (barely spoken a word of English while using covoiturage) he dropped me a little closer next to a bus stop. I waited here for over half an hour before a bus arrived and then took that into the city. Finally I got to the train station in Avignon where I thought I was going to be dropped off initially and started walking towards the accommodation I had booked on Airbnb, by this time however my laptop, camera and Samsung had gone flat and I had to call my Uncle in Switzerland for directions and the house’s address.

Finally I arrived around 7:30 pm (been pitch black for over an hour by this time) and was greeted by Marie (a very crazy cat lady who spoke extremely fast and excitedly in French) who showed me the house and my room, on the 2^nd floor which was quite nice furnished and large too. After unpacking my laptop and other things to be put on charge I walked to a small pizzeria in the old part of town and had the regions pizza (which was topped with potatoes…….).  Then it was back home to sleep J

The next morning, I slept in once again as I had booked 2 nights in Avignon and so knew that I had the whole day and half of the next to see the main attractions in Avignon. Once I got up I skipped breakfast and headed up to the Palais des Papes (a huge structure built over 800 years ago when the hierarchy of the church moved to Avignon for almost 200 years).  During the walk there I passed through ancient old gates in the battlements of the old city; while electricity and modern luxuries have been brought in, almost all of the buildings inside of the battlements are more than a few centuries old. Past old churches, with their tall spires trying to pierce the few clouds in the sky, and wide open squares and the Christmas markets where the smell of Vin Chaud, chocolate and marrons (a type of nut cooked in huge wok-like contraptions) hung in the air. As I rounded a corner, suddenly a huge 30 or 40 metre high wall built onto a tall rocky outcrop appeared, I had found the Palais des Papes.  I walked towards the wall and then down a street-width pathway with cobblestone paving and that was carved into the rock, halfway down this passage I looked up and saw a gigantic flying buttress that hung above me and attached itself to the side of the castle wall and onto a small rocky area on the other side of the pathway. Emerging from this pathway, used by military cavalry and also city traders to access the front of the Palace, I found myself in a huge rectangular parade ground in front of the Palace’s main doors.

Just to the left of the Palace and almost at the same height as the walls sat a large church with a large golden statue of Mary atop the spire, just next to this and with a great (but windy) view of Avignon and the Rhone River are the Duke’s gardens, but more on that soon.

First off I headed into the castle for a tour (by Audioguide) which took me over an hour and a half to traverse.  It was interesting to read (in French) all the exhibitions relating to the changes undertaken to this huge structure, from its construction and expansion by the Popes to its renovations by French nobility after the Papacy returned to Rome and then its use as a prison and barracks. During the occupation of the castle by the military and judicial system, unfortunately the interior was stripped and whitewashed and so historians lost a lot of valuable insight into the decoration of the castle, however through paintings, restoration works and records found in the secret chambers below the treasury room they’ve been able to provide an accurate image of what the castle may’ve been like under the Papacy’s occupation. The records found in the secret treasury room, heavily constructed and with 8 hidden lever operated compartments under the floor, gave the restoration and tour people huge amounts of information about the castle itself and the affairs of the church during that time. For instance, they have a few displays that show the expenses of the church under different Popes as a pie chart; Pope ‘Innocent’ the 6^th spent 40% of the churches money on a war and defending Avignon.

The entire palace was absolutely huge, with an entire tower dedicated just to the Pope, consisting of his bathroom on the bottom floor, then wardrobe on the next, then study/resting room and then a chapel and above that a parapet lookout. The palace also has more than 6 chapels and the rear side of the building has 3 floors, each 52 metres long and 18 metres wide, the top floor was the dining hall with a huge vaulting ceiling whilst the middle floor would have been a huge church and then the lowest floor, and most dimly lit in the castle, was where the administrative hierarchy of the church would have operated from.

After tagging along with a French tour and seeing the castle, I headed outside and had lunch in a small restaurant that gave objection to my hoodie but then pulled out an adapted baby chair for the people after me, not for a baby but for their dog…… After an assortment of meat and cheese and some white wine, I headed up to the Gardens which apart from the Pope’s tower are the highest point in the old city of Avignon. It was blowing a gale and felt like the Antarctic, even though it was up around 14 or 15 degrees, so I took some photos and then took shelter on the leeward side of the hill upon which the Palace and surrounding buildings were founded on and walked down to the famous Pont d’Avignon. Also known as the Pont de Saint Benezet, a shepherd who was told by God to go to the city and build a bridge to the other side of the river, the towns people laughed at him but empowered by god he lifted a 100 kg stone and threw it onto the banks of the river as a fountain stone.

Solely by coincidence, only a few years later the Pope and his bishops and advisors would use the bridge to cross the river as it lead to their weekend retreat, in the winter they even had servants lay down a layer of ash and sand to stop them slipping on the ice.

After walking out on the bridge and hearing about the history of it, and the use of new technology such as laser point clouds and supercomputers (which they’re using to recreate the bridge in 3D complete with an accurate climate model), I headed back through the Christmas markets and had dinner at a small Italian restaurant before heading back to the house for the 2^nd and final night in Avignon. The next morning I enjoyed a sleep-in till around 10 am before saying goodbye to my host, who had baked me a cake to eat on the next leg of my journey (I kind of felt obliged to stay and talk), and then headed to the station to catch a lift 90 km to Montpellier.

Avignon’s rating: 4.6/5

Dijon

Dijon, home of famous Maille Dijonaisse mustard, nestled amongst the hills about 316 km south east of Paris is a very picturesque town although my first impression was that it is a lot smaller than I had pictured it to be.

I arrived in Dijon around 11:30 AM after having carpooled from Paris with three other people, the trains here are very expensive and as I have learnt the hard way in Dijon, Avignon and Montpellier (all yet to be blogged) almost all of the backpackers in France close down from the beginning of December until mid-January. Hence to try save money, I have been using an awesome website, Covoiturage.com.fr, which allows drivers to post their proposed car trips and then for users such as myself to ‘buy’ a seat in the car for a much cheaper price than a train seat.  I did this before going to bed in Montmartre, paying 12 Euro to go from Paris to the Dijon train station the next day.

Waking up in Montmartre on the 12^th, I had to quickly have a shower, get dressed and get on train to get to the drivers agreed upon meeting place outside a pharmacy near Porte d’Orleans, a metro station quite a distance from where I was staying. I must admit that my first time using Covoiturage was slightly worrying, as I stood outside the only pharmacy I could see that was close to the metro station, and waited for Nourik, the driver, to turn up not knowing what he looked like or what his car looks like either. Finally, 15 minutes after the agreed upon meeting time, a red people mover stopped on the road outside the pharmacy and I heard my name called out, at the same time two other people came out from the pharmacy and quickly threw their bags in the back of the car. So I introduced myself, did the same and finally we were off. Weaving through Parisian traffic was very interesting and everyone commits to these kamikaze dives into lanes, which always resulted in a lot of swearing and horn honking, but after 30 minutes we were finally out of Paris and doing 140 kph along an Auto-route towards Dijon.

If I thought the temperature in Paris wasn’t cold enough, we stopped at a petrol station and when I stepped outside it was snowing very slightly and was -6.5 degrees according the thermometer at the station. Not long after this stop, we stopped off at a small town to drop one of the other people off; he’d slept the whole time, and then continued through foggy valleys toward Dijon.

Finally, as afore-mentioned, I arrived in Dijon around 11:30 at the train station, I set off toward the town centre, following the tram tracks, signs and also heading toward the largest cathedral I could see (generally a good indicator of where the centre-ville is) and then used the free McDonald’s wifi to try and find some accommodation. I settled on Hotel Victor Hugo, as it included breakfast and wasn’t too far away, so I headed there and checked into a decent sized room with a BATH and dropped my bags off and headed out with my camera to get some photos. The actual centre-ville of Dijon where all the main monuments, churches and public squares are isn’t overly huge and I followed the Owl Trail which is a path consisting of bronze owl plaques set into the footpath which leads past Les Halles (a huge and very old open plan marketplace where farmers used to sell their goods in the Medieval ages and even nowadays), and then past the Cathedral Notre Dame (not quite as large, famous or architecturally impressive as Paris’ but still a very impressive sight and easily seen around the town by its tall steeple).

With the light now fading and temperature approaching -5 as it began to snow slightly again, and it was only around 4:00 pm, I continued on the path and went through Palais des Ducs (Palace of the Dukes) in the very centre of town, this has now become a museum documenting the history of the Dijonaisse region. Just the other side of the Palace’s courtyard and through a medieval gateway I emerged into a beautiful semi-circular courtyard in front of palace, in the centre of this courtyard, sat a rectangular ice rink which was surrounded by a set of small Christmas trees, shrubs and life sized penguins and polar bear covered respectively in a light dusting of frost and blue and white LED lights. The warm light thrown from the shopfronts, the blue and white light from the surrounds of the ice rink bouncing off the icy ground and French folk music playing created an indescribable ambiance which I attempted to capture in many photos (see below).

While I was tempted to try ice skating, I decided I would save breaking my legs to the snowfields in early January (just kidding Mum) and finally continued on my way through the small alleyways and past the centuries old buildings with their Tudor and Georgian style exposed wooden frames and white render.  

After grabbing a bite to eat from a patisserie and taking yet more photos I headed back to the accommodation and started planning my next day, which involved reserving accommodation in Avignon (see footnote) and also a ride to Avignon on Covoiturage.

Originally my next stop was going to be Nice, via an afternoon stop in Monaco, to see the famous city that hosts Formula One’s most grandiose race however given my tight time frame, only having 9 days between arriving in Paris and getting to Caen, I decided to instead head straight to Avignon and spend two nights there so I could enjoy the sights and visit some of the Rhone Valley’s most famous icons, the Pont de Benezet (Pont d’Avignon) and the Palais des Papes. Was this a good decision? Find out next time on Keeping Up Foreign Relations :P

24 hours in Paris

From Vienna to Paris I couldn't pull my eyes away from the window, it is a clear sunny day and looking down at the earth it is easy to see the Alps, capped with bright white snow, pass underneath. As we approached Paris, the plane banks sharply and suddenly I see the Eiffel Tower poking out from a bank of clouds (see pic below). 15 minutes later and with wheels screeching and the plane wobbling side to side across the tarmac, we landed pretty heavily on the runway, nevertheless after over 19 hours of traveling I have finally arrived at my destination.

Disembarking from the plane, I collect my hand luggage and trusty leather jacket from the overhead compartment and beat most of the passengers to the Immigration counters, if I thought that entering the EU was going to be difficult I was mistaken for after scanning my passport, the officer stamped it and I was officially into the EU all in less than a minute. Misinterpreting the arrows for the baggage collection area, I walked through customs without my main bag and then had to explain myself in french so I could re-enter the restricted area and get my bag. Fortunately I wasn't deemed a threat and they let me grab my bag, phew!!! :)

Next stop was the RER, the train service out to the suburbs, and a very crammed train ride through the industrial parks toward the city. Instead of getting off at the main station like almost all the train passengers, I stayed on the train another 2 stops and got off at the Ile de France/Notre Dame station.
Only 2 flights of stairs and I was staring at the Notre Dame cathedral, I took a 'few' photos and then headed to a small restaurant/cafe a few streets back from the main tourist area (cheaper by a more than a few euro just by walking 200 m further). After a quick bite, I walked along the Seine and took a stop outside the Louvre, it was tempting to head inside as it was around -2 degrees and even with two jackets on and a thermal top I was freezing, however the line was over an hour long. So I upped my pace to keep warm and after walking through the Jardins des Tuilleries, I recrossed the river using the bridge at the Place de la Concorde (an Egyptian monument stolen by a french emperor and now used as a fancy roundabout).

I was now in Saint German des pres, a very fancy and old arrondissement of Paris and headed to a small market place to buy lunch (a baguette, some Camembert cheese and ham) which I then ate on a bench while wondering at the huge scale of the Tour d'Eiffel. By this time, the sun was fully up and I was finally feeling warm and a little sore to as I'd just walked 7 km with all my bags.

After taking photos of the Eiffel Tower, and majorly annoying the scam artists beneath it who try and trick tourists into selecting a particular disc out of three after jumbling them (I didn't play for money as it's usually stolen or counterfeit money they give you if you win, but I won every time), I headed to Trocadero which is above the Champs d'Elysee and headed to another cafe to charge my camera (already out of charge...).
I spent quite a while just relaxing a little in this cafe and then rugged up again and headed back out to walk down the Champ d'Elysee. It is such an amazing street, with the flagship stores of many french and international stores present, however as would be expected I neglected the fashion stores and instead visited the Mercedes store (they had their 2013 touring and f1 car on display), the Peugeot store and also Renault and had a look at their latest concept cars.
My favorite visit however was to the Toyota store where they had their 2013 Le Mans car on display, it was amazing to see a car that drove over 5000 km in 24 hours in the flesh and to see it's true scale (only a metre high).

Enough about cars though, after the crowded shopfronts the Champ d'Elysee widens and turns to parkland as it approaches the Place de la Concorde, this is where I headed next to see the amazing Christmas markets. It was only around 4pm now but was already getting dark and lots of people were at the markets drinking vin chaud, buying jewellery and chocolate and lots of small figurines.
Fortunately for me, I was walking in the downhill direction of the Champs d'Elysee and when I reached the bottom I was closer to my final destination, the Sacred Heart Basilica on the Montmartre hill, only about 4 km away via L'eglise de Madeleine.

Sacre Coeur was beautiful, bathed in white light and surrounded at the base by a smaller set of Christmas markets all lit up with blue and red lights. I had a quick drink in one of the small bars in a famous little square a few hundred metres from the Basilica before descending in the dodgy suburb below (near the Moulin Rouge) and enjoying another encounter with clumsy and obvious scam artists (which culminated in an undercover cop headbutting one of them). I finally made it to my accommodation, a pull out sofa in an apartment for only $12 and met my host Axel who was very kind and offered me a beer and some dinner while I finally rested my legs. By 10 pm, after having organised a lift to Dijon the next morning, I was fast asleep.

So that was Paris in just 24 hours, next stop was Dijon but you'll have to wait for the next blog to hear about my adventures there.