Bye, Bye Avignon and Err the French!

So a couple days ago (June 14) we went to Nimes to see some Roman stuff.

Here is the Tour Magne which we were able to climb. It is an old Roman tower (built over an even older Celtic tower) that used to be part of the city wall. It gave us a good view of the city.

This was a beautiful park right below the tower. It is the best park we have seen so far in France. It has 'Augustinian' springs running through it.

A water fountain at the entrance of the park. This was a big deal because this is one of the first fountains that was actually running in France. In the background, on the hill, you can see the Tour Magne.

More of the spring outside the garden.

When we went to the Maison Carree (another Roman structure that was the center of the Roman forum) there was a 3-D video that we were able to watch. God, I can anything look good.

Here is the best preserved amphitheater in the world. 

They still hold bullfighting and other events here.

This is what Andrew and I do once we get back to our hotel most days... eat dinner and drink wine. Since we have no fridge in the hotels we have been staying in we go to the grocery store usually once a day, but sometimes 2 (sound like anyone you know Dad or Papa???). Although the grocery stores don't compare to a Buy-Lo, they have fresh bread, cheap cheese (we are eating a lot of Camembert right now) and of course because we are in France cheap wine (Andrew convinced me to get the 5 litre in the picture because we were in Avignon for 5 nights. The real selling point was that it was cheaper per litre than any bottles). We also try to have a vegetable of some sort, usually carrots or tomatoes. Thank god we are creatures of habit because we haven't gotten sick of this yet.

Today was our travel day from Avignon to Nice. It should have been a smooth 3 hour train ride on a high speed train but... because of poor French planning, engineering, infrastructure, lack of motivation and heavy rain, our train was "supprime", which we learned today means canceled. When we went to check which platform to get onto in Avignon we noticed that it said our train was going to Marseille, not Nice. I spoke to an information person at the train station who informed us that no trains were running past Toulon, so we would have to find a train from Marseille to Toulon and then a bus MIGHT bring us from Toulon to Nice. Of course, this information was only given to those people who stood in line and asked. There were no postings or announcements or any other information made available. So Andrew and I took a train to Marseille and then I went to ask again if there was any other way to get to Nice (I figure that if I don't like the first answer I get, I'll ask again and again until I get a better response). Luckily it worked, we found out there was a bus or buses (the guy didn't know) leaving from Marseille to Nice (the guy didn't know when either...). So Andrew and I rushed to the spot the information man said they would be. When we got there, there was a crowd of people waiting for a few buses, or bus (nobody knew how many buses there would be or when they would be coming). We happened to be standing next to some Brits. We talked about how if we were back in Canada or if they were in England, there would have been an orderly line (or 'queue'). But not in France. When the crowd started to move I pushed my way to the front and we managed to get on a bus.

Thank goodness we got to Nice... and it wasn't all that painful, but now Andrew and I have more to add to our list of things we don't like about France (which currently includes the fact that it is full of French people, among other things).

When we got here we fell in love with our room, and with Nice, of course, which is absolutely beautiful.

We can't wait to spend a day on the beach lathered in sunscreen!

The Last of Paris and Beginning of Wine Tasting

Sunday (June 6), after Nadal WON Roland Garros Andrew and I went for a walk to the Moulin Rouge. We were both expecting it to be kind of a big deal, but it was really just this:

 

Monday (June 7), Andrew and I left Paris for Bordeaux. We put off wine tasting until yesterday (June 9) because I have been recovering from a cold and I wanted to wait until I got my taste back. We did some wine tasting in a small town called Saint Emilion, just east of Bordeaux. As soon as we got into this town, I fell in love with it. It was so quite, clean and beautiful. There were vineyards everywhere, it was like Alberta in that respect, but instead of the fields being yellow they were green.

This town was filled with vagabond cats that were really cute and some were really friendly. We saw that a lot of houses had left milk out for the cats, like this one shop.

We went on a tour of one vineyard... "chateau" as the French call it. It was really neat because this town had underground caves linking the vineyards together.

They had SOOOO much wine in these caves.

We learned that there were many different sizes of wine bottles. The regular 750ml bottle is the second from the left, although I have seen the Saints each polish off a bottle the size one of the right, almost every Sunday.

After our wine tasting and tours I still don't think that we know a "good" bottle of wine from a "bad" bottle of wine. Oh well, we will have to keep experimenting.

Tomorrow (June 11) we are off to Avignon.

The Sleep Of Our Lives... And Rouen

We spent May 22 and 23 traveling. We left the hotel in Galway (May 22) at 5pm and went for a 6km hike carrying all our gear... to Galway city center for our last pint at An Pucan. We left Galway at 10pm for the Shannon airport and slept at the airport (not very well, I might add). We woke up nice and early (4am) to make sure we wouldn't miss our flight to Beauvais, France (departed at 6:40). Once we landed in France we had to figure out a way to Rouen. We hopped on a bus, then a train, then walked through Paris for 3km carrying all our gear... to another train station and then FINALLY to Rouen (we arrived at 4 pm), where we hiked for another few km carrying all our gear...

It was really hot in France, so we were disgusting from our trek with our packs and when we checked into our hotel we had a shower and then left to go and see the city.

Here is a really old cathedral and according to Andrew "you could probably fit the church we saw in Galway inside of it".

Some half-timber buildings, which Rouen is known for... according to Andrew.

When we got back to the hotel we decided to plan our route to Vimy Ridge and then we discovered that it was going to be extremely challenging to get there because yet again it is another bank holiday (these Europeans always seem to be on vacation!). So we decided to leave that for another day.

We went to bed last night at 9:30pm and woke up at 12pm. We couldn't believe how late it was... I guess we were just making up for lost sleep the night before.

Once we actually got up, we went on the hunt for a grocery store ("un supermarche") and went to look at some of the sites the city had to offer. Me on "La Seine", which runs through Rouen.

We went to "Jardin du plantes", a park. It was so hot out (ok it was only 25... but compared to Ireland it was extremely hot) I was considering going into the kiddie pool.

We finally found a grocery store (the very last one on our list of 5) and so we got supper and went to the area where Joan of Arc was burned to eat supper. Once we got there we found another supermarche so after supper we went and got a bottle of wine for 1 euro and 50 cents.

Here is Andrew drinking some wine in our hotel room (we would have been drinking it out of glasses, but both of our plastic cups in the hotel are broken).

It is weird to have everyone around us speaking in French and I am now responsible for talking to everyone. I am now Andrew's translator... we will see how successful this will be. If Andrew is not nice to me he will be cut off and have to suffer the consequences... me refusing to ask people questions he has!

We are (ok Andrew isn't) a little home sick for Ireland and Guinness, and our drinking buddy Jack (mom only drank wine) and for the B Team's company but we are already enjoying the French wine.