Viva la France!

We weren’t sure whether we would get to France after our last night in Roses as ‘planned’ because we hadn’t actually planned or booked anything! We got up early and tried to cram in as much dry bread, ham and cheese, oily eggs and bacon and too strong coffee as possible, just because it was included in the tariff, not because it was good for us. We then finished packing and high-tailed it to the bus stop where we caught a local bus to connect with another bus which took us to Figueres, the closest city where we could catch a bus to France. We booked two of the last seats left for the coach to Toulouse, southern France, whew! The bus turned up 45 minutes late. Oh well, such is the Spanish way of life as I tried to explain to a slightly worried Derek. We sat on the bus for around 4 1/2 hours including a half hour unscheduled bus stop for our crazy driver to catch up with some of his mates and a bite to eat. We made it in to Toulouse just after 4:00pm and decided to stay at a hotel right next door to the railway station, very convenient for the following day’s train trip to Dijon.

We left Toulouse just before midday and proceeded to sit on a train for nearly 4 hours to Avignon where we switched trains and sat on another train for another 4 1/2 hours, finally getting there at 9:00pm…Dijon is a lovely little city and we’re so glad we made the effort to get there. The following day we had to do an obligatory wine tasting mission (Dijon is not only the home of mustard (we didn’t see or taste any mustard by the way, I think it’s all a hoax) but the capital of the Burgundy wine region) and were half cut in the French countryside by 2:00pm…life is so very tough. We managed to get back to the hotel in time to ask the very obliging bar manager to switch channels from the live Tour de France coverage to the Rugby (!) and caught the final half hour or so of the AB’s/Aussie match - victory!! How satisfying.

The following day we killed time doing exciting stuff like laundry prior to catching the train over to Paris, arriving once again in the evening. Paris was a little bit daunting but we managed to get to our hotel with surprising ease via the metro. The next day it rained!! Noooooo!! But that that didn’t stop us; we went and saw the Lourve (note, saw, didn’t go in), the Notre Dame, the Opera House (as you will see, a stunning building), and walked up the Champs de Elysées and looked at the Arc de Triomphe. By that stage our feet were killing us so we caught the metro back to the hotel and didn’t move to far for dinner that evening.

The next day was far more promising weather wise so we took a train out to the Château de Versailles, in Versailles. King Louis The Something (aka The Sun King) expanded what was a royal hunting lodge into the largest palace in the world. In true kiwi style we couldn’t be bothered queuing up for three hours to get into the Palace itself so we took the garden option instead; it’s free! You could easily spend a day wandering around the gardens - as we didn’t have a day we hired bikes which was heaps of fun and a more exciting way to see the park. That evening we set out for the piste de resistance (sorry, King Louis) - the Eiffel Tower! We walked up, because the queue to walk was heaps shorter…do you see a theme here?! We rewarded our efforts with a beer when we reached the first platform. We tried our luck at one of the restaurants but were told with snobby undertones that it was fully booked all night - bugger. Was it the sneakers? Was it the jeans? Was it the Icebreaker? Was it the Knight Rider t-shirt? Probably. We were told the light show starts at 9:00pm so we ran back down the stairs and across the road to get a good posse only for it not to happen…probably because it was still light…so a nice dinner and a bottle of wine later we saw the 11:00pm show and it was awesome! I jumped up and down like an excited kid!

Bar one altercation on the metro on our last night, the French were really great; the hotel staff and restaurant waiters were all super friendly and super helpful which I wasn’t really expecting after everything you hear and especially when Derek and I only know two words in French; merci and deux - Yoplait and ménage à trois don’t really count!. They love their little dogs and it seems you can take them everywhere, quite strange when you see one walking down the train aisle! A little French lesson; Fou (a la Derek Foo) in English means crazy, what you are if you buy a real Louis Vuitton handbag.

H