Our holiday in France - the second week,
or, the Frog Blog, part two
June 2016
And now for part two of our French holiday - road tripping!
Saturday - day 9
We were dropped off at Toulouse airport where we picked up our hire car. We also paid a little extra to get the GPS navigation system which was definitely worth it. Elise our GPS system gave us instructions in English with a French accent and we drove west to Biarritz on the motorway.
We hadn't realised how many toll roads there were in France. Every single motorway we used had at least one toll system, ranging from 1.70 up to around 20 euros. There was a mad scramble for cash and coins each time they came into view, until we learned to look out for the signs saying peage (tolls) which gave a bit more time to find the right change.
We arrived in Biarritz in the late afternoon and after checking in to our hotel walked to the waterfront. Biarritz is a bit of a strange place, with the building along most of the streets being an odd hodge podge of French, Spanish and Germanic looking buildings. The beach at Biarritz was nice enough, though nothing on a good Kiwi beach.
The prettier areas were actually up off the beach on the cliffs, where you could get a better view of everything.
We wandered around the town centre a bit and had galettes for dinner. They're essentially savoury crepes but served flat or folded on a plate, and I think they might be a speciality to Brittany, in the north west of France. I'd started to get quite a taste for goat's cheese (chevre) on the trip, much to the disgust of Rachel and Carol, so opted for that, and it was well worth it.
Saturday - day 9
We were dropped off at Toulouse airport where we picked up our hire car. We also paid a little extra to get the GPS navigation system which was definitely worth it. Elise our GPS system gave us instructions in English with a French accent and we drove west to Biarritz on the motorway.
We hadn't realised how many toll roads there were in France. Every single motorway we used had at least one toll system, ranging from 1.70 up to around 20 euros. There was a mad scramble for cash and coins each time they came into view, until we learned to look out for the signs saying peage (tolls) which gave a bit more time to find the right change.
We arrived in Biarritz in the late afternoon and after checking in to our hotel walked to the waterfront. Biarritz is a bit of a strange place, with the building along most of the streets being an odd hodge podge of French, Spanish and Germanic looking buildings. The beach at Biarritz was nice enough, though nothing on a good Kiwi beach.
The prettier areas were actually up off the beach on the cliffs, where you could get a better view of everything.
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We wandered around the town centre a bit and had galettes for dinner. They're essentially savoury crepes but served flat or folded on a plate, and I think they might be a speciality to Brittany, in the north west of France. I'd started to get quite a taste for goat's cheese (chevre) on the trip, much to the disgust of Rachel and Carol, so opted for that, and it was well worth it.
We had a fairly quiet night after that. I watched a little bit of French TV in our hotel room to try improve my listening skills, but without much luck there as it was too complex or too fast to follow. Watching Les Simpsons was a laugh: as it was dubbed with similar voices to the original, but off enough to creep you out. We also saw the news reports of flood recoveries in and around Paris. We felt sorry for the French people after everything else that's happened - works of art even had to be moved out of the Louvre and Musee d'Orsay just in case the Seine flooded the museums. We also quite selfishly hoped it would be fine by the time we got there in five days' time.
Sunday - day 10
We started off Sunday with a really good breakfast at our hotel, of croissants (of course) along with bread, cheese, salami/saucisse, coffee and orange juice.
We thought it was probably about time we did some clothes washing for the first time on the trip (except for Carol who had been hand-washing on the boat), so spent a while figuring out how to use the machines at one of the local laundromat, then waiting for them to wash and dry our clothes.
Duke Fluffington's mishap
While we waited for our clothes, I got a call from Steve (astute readers may remember him as the temporary caretaker of Duke while we were en vacance). He sounded a little nervous at first, and said "there's good news and bad news about Duke".
He started off by telling me the bad news: that Duke escaped from his cage and got stuck in a rat trap set in their kitchen on Tuesday night. I started to laugh - at the mischief Duke gets up to; and the fact that he must actually be fine now.
The good news was that Duke was still alive and had made a bit of a recovery.
The full story: Steve had come home at night to hear his squeals of pain as he opened the door. Steve initially thought they must have finally caught a rat! Duke's paw and half of his head had gotten stuck inside the plastic trap, probably only a few minutes before Steve got home, After freeing him, Duke's paw was hanging limply and he had a massive lump on the side of his face. The next day, Steve took Duke to the vet, who said there was very little to be done - apart from an anaesthetic to let Duke sleep off the pain - and actually suggested it would be kinder for Duke just be put down. Luckily Steve decided not to do this, and Duke slept for 24 hours to get through the pain and trauma. He took a couple of weeks to get back to normal, and enduring a cage with no wheel or tube to give him a bit of a rest, but he's fine now. He's back climbing the walls of his cage and running furiously on his wheel. He's a little fighter, that Duke, and we were very grateful of the special care and attention Steve and Meg paid him.
After receiving this news, we finished our washing, then went for another walk around Biarritz. I stopped in a bookshop to get an English-language copy of The Little Prince, a very famous French book that I had been struggling my way through in French.
After a walk around, there was a consensus was that Biarritz was ok, but not great - but still enjoyable nontheless.
We left that afternoon to see a contact of Tony's outside Biarritz from the kiwifruit industry. We stopped in Bayonne for an hour, which is a really nice little city to walk around.
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| Near Sorde-L'Abbaye |
We continued on to meet with François and his wife Teresa and looked around their kiwifruit orchard. They were very friendly, taking us to a nice spot overlooking the local area, showed us the ancient cathedral in the town of Sorde-L'Abbaye, and then to have a quick drink in a little cafe outside the cathedral. They were both very interested in the upcoming EU referendum and in talking about rugby - I hadn't realised rugby was so popular in the south of France!
After bidding them farewell, we decided to nip over to Spain. We drove for an hour or so to San Sebastian. The border crossing into Spain was seamless - the only way we could really tell was that the road signs were suddenly in Spanish and Basque, rather than the now familiar French.
We checked into our hotel, and walked into the city centre, which is mostly clustered around the beach and bay called La Concha. We were treated to some pretty amazing views on the way in - San Sebastien is quite hilly, and we walked downhill to an amazing vista of La Concha.
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| San Sebastian |
We walked along the waterfront then into the old city to explore. Constitucion Plaza was really interesting - a square in the middle of the city where bull fights used to be held. The buildings on each side of the square had numbered windows, which were hired by rich people as almost a corporate box style set up. I don't in any way support bull fighting, but the square was pretty cool.
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| Constitucion Plaza |
We'd heard San Sebastien was famous for its food, and in particular its version of tapas, called pinxtos. Pinxtos works like this: you go into a bar, order your drinks, and chose your food which is laid out at the bar on plates. Once you've finished eating and drinking, you take your plate to the bar, tell them how much you've had and pay. It also worked out to be ridiculously cheap - a drink each and enough food for a nice-sized dinner was only 20 euro for the four of us. We went to a couple of places to try out the food - which is probably one of the best things we did on the trip. There were some interesting varieties of food - mostly seafood based on bread, or deep fried goodies. We finished off the evening with ice creams, followed by a walk back along the waterfront.
And since we'd eaten so much, we thought a walk back up the hill to the hotel was probably in order.Maybe it was the food, or the beach, or the less ritzy feel of it, but San Sebastien seemed a nicer version of Biarritz.
Monday - day 11
The next morning we had an other nice hotel breakfast - those continentals know how to do a damn good breakfast - and decided to do a little more exploring of San Sebastien. After checking out, we took Elise into the city, and walked up the steep hill overlooking the city, with the fort Castillo de La Mota perched on top.
We saw this very entertaining band on the streets, marching along and playing very lively music for a Monday morning. They seemed popular with onlookers as well as local bar owners, who would bring them out snacks to eat.
Best of all was their little routine where they crouched down and jumped up as they played, bringing the audience along with them.
We returned to Elise, then drove north across the border and back into France towards our next destination in the Bordeaux region. We'd booked a hotel in a small town called Salleboeuf, not far from the city of Bordeaux. The hotel was right on a vineyard, called Chateau Pey La Tour and very quiet and peaceful - and it had a pool.
We drove to the nearby town of Saint Germain du Puch to have dinner. On the way we saw a stunning castle. We later found it was called Chateau du Grand Puch, a 13th century castle, and also had a vineyard that was sadly not open until several days later.
Chateau means castle in French, I hadn't realised, but there were quite a few vineyards in the area that literally were based around castles. The whole "Chateau de Plonk" thing all makes sense now.
Dinner was at a restaurant called L'atmosphere - and I think my roast duck, foie gras and truffle dish was probably the single best meal I had on the trip (only just) - rich, buttery and succulent.
Tuesday - day 12
The next morning we had an other nice hotel breakfast - those continentals know how to do a damn good breakfast - and decided to do a little more exploring of San Sebastien. After checking out, we took Elise into the city, and walked up the steep hill overlooking the city, with the fort Castillo de La Mota perched on top.
And we decided to do one final pinxtos - how could anyone argue with that?
We saw this very entertaining band on the streets, marching along and playing very lively music for a Monday morning. They seemed popular with onlookers as well as local bar owners, who would bring them out snacks to eat.Best of all was their little routine where they crouched down and jumped up as they played, bringing the audience along with them.
We returned to Elise, then drove north across the border and back into France towards our next destination in the Bordeaux region. We'd booked a hotel in a small town called Salleboeuf, not far from the city of Bordeaux. The hotel was right on a vineyard, called Chateau Pey La Tour and very quiet and peaceful - and it had a pool.
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| A turtle we saw, let out by its owner at a petrol station on the motorway so it could stretch its legs. |
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| Note: not the pool at Chateau Pey La Tour. |
Chateau means castle in French, I hadn't realised, but there were quite a few vineyards in the area that literally were based around castles. The whole "Chateau de Plonk" thing all makes sense now.
Dinner was at a restaurant called L'atmosphere - and I think my roast duck, foie gras and truffle dish was probably the single best meal I had on the trip (only just) - rich, buttery and succulent.
Tuesday - day 12
We decided not to have breakfast at the hotel, opting instead to go to the boulangerie in Sallebouef to pick up our standard French breakfast (for those who aren't quite sure, yes that means bread and croissants).
We drove to a nearby vineyard, called Chateau Camarsac to have a quick wine tasting. It was another vineyard centred around a 13th century castle. We tried about five or six wines, and while they were ok, none were amazing. The Bordeaux wines we tried seemed to have a different flavour to those from Languedoc (on the Canal du Midi) - Bordeaux wines seemed to have more complex, almost minerally flavour, while those from Languedoc were smoother and more mellow. The Languedoc wines were cheaper as well - though that may have been because we were in less touristy areas there. One of the great things about France is that food and wine are far more local than in New Zealand or the UK: each region has its own famous delicacies (e.g. galettes from Brittany) and along the Canal du Midi, you could only buy local wine, likewise with Bordeaux.
We bought a bottle of wine from Chateau Camarsac and continued on to the town of Saint Emillion. The town is a quite well known tourist attraction, and was probably the most touristy place we visited on the tip - but with good reason.
The town was yet another UNESCO world heritage site, and one of the most picturesque villages in France. Possibly it was one of the conditions of having that UNESCO status, but now and then it really felt like we were going back in time as we wandered through the streets. There were no telephone wires, no aerials, no satellites, no modern-looking buildings.
We drove to a nearby vineyard, called Chateau Camarsac to have a quick wine tasting. It was another vineyard centred around a 13th century castle. We tried about five or six wines, and while they were ok, none were amazing. The Bordeaux wines we tried seemed to have a different flavour to those from Languedoc (on the Canal du Midi) - Bordeaux wines seemed to have more complex, almost minerally flavour, while those from Languedoc were smoother and more mellow. The Languedoc wines were cheaper as well - though that may have been because we were in less touristy areas there. One of the great things about France is that food and wine are far more local than in New Zealand or the UK: each region has its own famous delicacies (e.g. galettes from Brittany) and along the Canal du Midi, you could only buy local wine, likewise with Bordeaux.
We bought a bottle of wine from Chateau Camarsac and continued on to the town of Saint Emillion. The town is a quite well known tourist attraction, and was probably the most touristy place we visited on the tip - but with good reason.The town was yet another UNESCO world heritage site, and one of the most picturesque villages in France. Possibly it was one of the conditions of having that UNESCO status, but now and then it really felt like we were going back in time as we wandered through the streets. There were no telephone wires, no aerials, no satellites, no modern-looking buildings.
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| Part of a tiny vineyard, right in the town of Saint-Emillion. |
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| The view from the top of the church spire. |
After wandering around Saint Emillion we returned to our hotel. We all relaxed by the pool in the sun for a while, along with the friendly neighbourhood ducks who kept swimming (and pooping) in the pool. Carol, Rach and I went for a walk around the vineyard later in the evening.
Wednesday - day 13
After checking out of the hotel, we stopped at the boulangerie in Salleboeuf again for breakfast. the owner seemed to have remembered us from the day before, and as we left she said "puet-etre, je vous voir demain". No one else had a clue what she said, and I was a bit confused and it took me a while to process it, but then she said "perhaps, I see you this evening" with a smile.
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| A zoo en route to LR. We stopped for a free view of the flamingos from the road. Incidentally the first time Rach and I had seen them in the flesh. |
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| La Rochelle |
We carried on an arrived in La Rochelle around 5pm. We decided to book a place on Airbnb for this part of the trip, and after being welcomed by our host Ela settled in for our two night stay. It was a very arty apartment (e.g. interesting light fittings, half-nude arty photos on the walls) but very comfortable and homely to stay in, especially when compared to a hotel room.The apartment was only a 10 minute walk from the city centre and the vieux port (old port) which the city is centred on. The harbour entrance is very impressive, flanked by two medieval towers.
We had dinner at a spot with a nice view of the two towers. I tried a local speciality, mussels cooked in pine needles ( I think it was called something like moules au pineau). I was really looking forward to trying it, but was a bit disappointed. The mussels were tasty enough, but there was no real difference in taste from the pine needles.
We finished the evening with rose-shaped glace (ice cream).
Rach and I got up a little early and went out for breakfast supplies: the boulangerie for croissants and chaux de pomme (apple pastries) and markets for fruit. Not sure if I've mentioned it in a previous post, but the quality of food in France is exceptional. Maybe being on holiday just changes your outlook on food, but all of the food we ate - whether it was restaurant food, supermarche food, marche food, from the boulangerie, or even at a motorway service area - was excellent quality.
After breakfast and coffee courtesy of Ela's coffee machine, we all set out to explore the city again. We started off with looking around the two towers at the entrance of the harbour. They were very interesting, with exhibits inside telling the history of La Rochelle. The city was a major base for the Knights Templar (of Dan Brown-induced fame), and spent several hundred years under alternating English, French, and independent rule in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
As well as the two towers at the entrance of the harbour, there was also a third tower, the Tour de la Lanterne not too far away - this was a medieval lighthouse, the only surviving example of such a tower in France and possibly Europe. This was my favourite tower - from the outside at least.
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| La Tour de la Lanterne |
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| Our waiter at Bistrot de Memes. |
In addition to the entertaining service and funny atmosphere, the food was excellent. Between us we had basque salad and salmon for entrees, black pudding and tuna for mains, and a trio of small desserts.
Dinner finished with one of the waiters squirting a mixture of spirits into our mouths from a skin. What an odd place.
After finishing our meal, we went to a small epicerie to get a few bottles of La Rochelaise, a local beer Tony and I had got a taste for in La Rochelle, to take back to our apartment.
Friday - day 15
Rach and I had an early trip to the bakery for breakfast again for the standard nourriture de petit-dejeuner (breakfast food). Then we set off for Paris where Carol was due to fly out at 9pm that night. We typed our destination into Elise and off we went. All was going well until we suddenly appeared in a small town... Something wasn't right. It was then that we remembered that we'd ticked the 'no tolls' option on a previous drive to enjoy the scenic route! Having readjusted Elise, we set off again with a much faster arrival time which was very lucky given the hefty traffic jams on the motorway through Paris towards Charles de Gaulle Airport.
After dropping off Elise, we then bid Carol farewell at the airport as she headed back to NZ.
Afterwards, Tony, Rach and I caught the train into central Paris to get to our Airbnb accommodation for the next couple of nights. That night happened to be the opening of the Euro 2016 football tournament, with the France - Romania game kicking off around 9pm, so the airport was extra busy and we had to queue for a while to get our train tickets.
We caught the metro to our apartment in the Goncourt area, in the north-east in the 11th arrondissement. The walk from Bellville station was interesting - in our last trip to Paris in 2013, Rach and I had stayed in the relatively affluent 9th arrondissement. The 11th felt far more bustling, multicultural, and ramshackle. Our host Lea met us in the apartment and was very friendly and helpful, despite not knowing a huge amount of English. She was also very generous, leaving two bottles of wine, a bottle of orange juice and bread for us, in addition to the use of her coffee machine.
We headed out not long afterwards to get some dinner at a restaurant around the corner, and watched a bit of the France - Romania game there, before returning to the apartment to watch the end of it.
Rach and I had an early trip to the bakery for breakfast again for the standard nourriture de petit-dejeuner (breakfast food). Then we set off for Paris where Carol was due to fly out at 9pm that night. We typed our destination into Elise and off we went. All was going well until we suddenly appeared in a small town... Something wasn't right. It was then that we remembered that we'd ticked the 'no tolls' option on a previous drive to enjoy the scenic route! Having readjusted Elise, we set off again with a much faster arrival time which was very lucky given the hefty traffic jams on the motorway through Paris towards Charles de Gaulle Airport.
After dropping off Elise, we then bid Carol farewell at the airport as she headed back to NZ.
Afterwards, Tony, Rach and I caught the train into central Paris to get to our Airbnb accommodation for the next couple of nights. That night happened to be the opening of the Euro 2016 football tournament, with the France - Romania game kicking off around 9pm, so the airport was extra busy and we had to queue for a while to get our train tickets.
We caught the metro to our apartment in the Goncourt area, in the north-east in the 11th arrondissement. The walk from Bellville station was interesting - in our last trip to Paris in 2013, Rach and I had stayed in the relatively affluent 9th arrondissement. The 11th felt far more bustling, multicultural, and ramshackle. Our host Lea met us in the apartment and was very friendly and helpful, despite not knowing a huge amount of English. She was also very generous, leaving two bottles of wine, a bottle of orange juice and bread for us, in addition to the use of her coffee machine.
We headed out not long afterwards to get some dinner at a restaurant around the corner, and watched a bit of the France - Romania game there, before returning to the apartment to watch the end of it.
Saturday - day 16
The first match of the All Blacks - Wales test series was on Saturday morning, so we needed to find a spot to watch the action. The first place we tried was closed, but the second worked, called (strangely enough) Le Rugby. We missed the haka and anthems, and the first couple of minutes but caught the rest of it. It's quite an experience, watching the ABs play while drinking cafe au lait and eating croissant. The match was good to watch - the ABs were a bit rusty, particularly on defence, and I thought that Wales were doing very well at disrupting the breakdown in novel but legal ways - Richie's absence there was quite noticeable. And the ABs midfield is a real area to work on.
Next on the list was seeing the Paris Catacombs. We took the Metro south, and queued for a couple of hours before getting in. It was really interesting walking through the catacombs and reading up on their history.
They were opened in the 1780's in the old quarries, after the old Parisian cemeteries began to overflow, stinking out the local areas so much that milk would curdle and food would rot within hours. Hundreds of thousands of bodies are interred there.
After the catacombs, we metroed to the Eiffel Tower and walked around . It was very interesting to watch the hustlers with their cup games - where the participants bet money on picking which cup the ball is under. As we observed a few, we noticed some of the "participants" were quite happily betting 50 euros and losing without batting an eyelid. Then we realised that the scams involved several "participants" who were in on the game, ready to fleece tourists.
We then metroed to look at Sacre Coeur, a church on the top of Montmartre hill. This was the one attraction we had really wanted to do in 2013, but couldn't. And it was worth it to see the church in the evening sun.
Sunday - day 17
On our last day in France, we packed up early and went for a quick walk around the nearby St Martin's Canal. It was interesting to watch the canal cleaning boat sucking up the rubbish in the water, turning the derelict looking canal into something quite picturesque.
The first match of the All Blacks - Wales test series was on Saturday morning, so we needed to find a spot to watch the action. The first place we tried was closed, but the second worked, called (strangely enough) Le Rugby. We missed the haka and anthems, and the first couple of minutes but caught the rest of it. It's quite an experience, watching the ABs play while drinking cafe au lait and eating croissant. The match was good to watch - the ABs were a bit rusty, particularly on defence, and I thought that Wales were doing very well at disrupting the breakdown in novel but legal ways - Richie's absence there was quite noticeable. And the ABs midfield is a real area to work on.Next on the list was seeing the Paris Catacombs. We took the Metro south, and queued for a couple of hours before getting in. It was really interesting walking through the catacombs and reading up on their history.
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| En anglais: Stop! This here is the empire of death |
After the catacombs, we metroed to the Eiffel Tower and walked around . It was very interesting to watch the hustlers with their cup games - where the participants bet money on picking which cup the ball is under. As we observed a few, we noticed some of the "participants" were quite happily betting 50 euros and losing without batting an eyelid. Then we realised that the scams involved several "participants" who were in on the game, ready to fleece tourists.
We then metroed to look at Sacre Coeur, a church on the top of Montmartre hill. This was the one attraction we had really wanted to do in 2013, but couldn't. And it was worth it to see the church in the evening sun.
Sunday - day 17
On our last day in France, we packed up early and went for a quick walk around the nearby St Martin's Canal. It was interesting to watch the canal cleaning boat sucking up the rubbish in the water, turning the derelict looking canal into something quite picturesque.
Given it was our last day in France, we took the opportunity to stock up on more wine and cheese to take back with us - and Tony finally managed to get some beaujolais that he'd been looking for during the whole trip.
Then it was off to Gare du Nord station to catch our Eurostar back to London. After a bit of a delay in boarding we were leaving France and back in Blighty.
To finish off our holiday and give Tony an authentic English experience, we booked in for a Sunday roast at Paradise By Way of Kensal Green, a local pub. And as usual, it did not disappoint, with probably the best Sunday roast we've ever had in London.
Alors, nos deux semaines en France, ce sont finissent. So, our two weeks in France have finished.
Post-script
Tony spent the next few days exploring London - like the Natural History Museum and the Borough Markets - and meeting Duke.
We had one last team meal at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, a pub from the 1660's in central London. Tony then caught the train north on Wednesday to Scotland, via Darlington to find the elusive basking sharks.
Although he didn't see any basking sharks, he did see seals, orca, penguins and some stunning little puffins.
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| Credit: Tony Burt, award-winning photographer. |
Highlights from Rach
- Gallettes in Biarritz
- Pintxos in San Sebastian
- 'Tequila'! (the card Dad gave Mum. Hours of entertainment)
- Musicians in the street
- Walking to the top of the hill
- The conch-shaped beach
- Saint Emilion
- "No more foie gras!"
- More foie gras!
- Exploring the towers of La Rochelle
- Bistro de Memes - the grannies!
- The last drink
- Turning 'tolls' on the sat nav!
- Reminiscing and all the love and laughter
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