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Published: June 29th 2006
Luxembourg
Ab - After the dangers of kamikaze cyclists in the Netherlands, and the Dutch propensity for wrapping entire buildings (and themselves) in orange, we were looking forward to a different pace in Luxembourg and France. A touch of class even...
Monday 19th was our first opportunity to use our interrail tickets. So we went long haul and headed to Luxembourg. It's a lovely city, perched on huge spars of rock between two rivers. And it is partly the fairytail city I had expected. However speaking to Sheena (my friend who lives in Paris) I should actually have been expecting debauchery and a great party scene...
After the Amsterdam hovel, the Luxembourg City Auberge de Jeunesse felt like 5 star luxury. They have a bar, and a restaurant, and windows in the bedrooms. We were wishing we'd come sooner, or were staying longer. But it turns out that once again we have awful room mates. They definitely found the debauchery Sheena told us about - getting in at 4am - and then leaving - loudly - at 6!!!
We spent most of our time wandering the pretty streets. We explored the casements; a rabbit warren
of caves and rooms inside the spars of rock the town is built on. We watched some football, met some random Australians who were following the World Cup. And then we left. But it was worth the visit, not the least for the kudos of visiting one of Europe's smallest countries.
Dal - Luxembourg? I had absolutely no expectations of this place - and giving it only a day of our itinerary probably wasn't fair. But I think we saw enough. A bit French. A bit German. A bit Belgian. What more can I say??? Abbie hit the nail on the head.
France - Where every third shop is a hairdressers...
From Luxembourg we went to Paris where we spent a couple of days, exploring Versailles, queuing for Chinese visas, and drinking and eating with Sheena.
Next was Colmar in the Alsace wine region. Some of you will know we (especially Abbie) have a real weakness for Gewurztraminer and Reisling so we felt it was worth making a pilgrimage here. Colmar is a fairly small town full of picturesque medieval buildings - all timber framed and pastel coloured. And consequently full of tourists. Like
us. But a lovely place to stay all the same. We had the good luck of being able to afford a hotel (only a few euros more than our hovel in Amsterdam) even if it was on the third floor and rather quirky.
On what turns out to have been the hottest day of our trip so far, we decided to do a cycle tour of the wine area. We obviously covered at least fifty miles, even if the very inaccurate map seemed to indicate something more like three. Our route took us through more gorgeous picturesque villages, and vast areas of vines and vineyards. The only down side to our decision to cycle was that we started early, so didn't feel ready to try any wine till after we'd eaten lunch. But then we were foiled by the French custom of closing everything, including wine tasting, from midday till 2pm. And one run-in with a chattering French woman was enough to put us off trying our basic French to negotiate free wine tastings... So consequently we only had one glass of Gewurz on the whole trail. Hmmm bit disappointing really.
To make up for it our next
destination was Bourgogne (better known to most of us as Burgundy). We stayed in Dijon, famous for its mustard (though Daren is totally scathing now he knows that their mustard seeds come from elsewhere (we can't agree if it was Canada or Spain we were told)), though our main destination was Beaune, centre of Burgundy wine activity and the Cote D'or. Learning from our mistake in Alsace, we booked ourselves on a wine tour of the area that included a visit to a winery. We now know a lot about Pinot Noir and Chardonnay and the whole crazy French appellation system! To consolidate all we had learnt, we went back to Beaune the next day to do a wine tasting (degustation) at one of the big wineries in Beaune - Patriarche. This included a tour of their huge cellars which run under a lot of the town - five kilometres of tunnels, holding over 4 million bottles of wine. We tasted 13 of their wines and thought they were all pretty yuk. Maybe that explains why they have so much wine in the cellars...
Our first foreign over-night couchette experience got us from Dijon to Bayonne in the south
west of France. On the French rail service (second class) this means a bunk in a six berth cabin, with alarming flourescent yellow (think highway workers) sleeping sacks. Luckily we weren't sharing with anyone else considering the smell of Daren's sandals (he refuses to wear them with socks - I can't think why).
Bayonne - a surprise favorite for both of us, considering it was just meant to be a cheap place to stay while visiting Biarritz. Although it's another old town with plenty of picturesque houses, shutters, geraniums etc, it feels more real, lived-in and gritty, and has more character than anywhere else we have visited since leaving Paris. It's got a beautiful Cathedral, with breath taking windows and two spires you can see from miles around. And we've enjoyed wandering the maze of streets because it feels like there's another great view around every corner (as well as several more coiffureries...).
We visited Biarritz and St Jean de Luz - both built around beautiful gold sandy beaches. The weather wasn't doing us any favours though, the skies being grey and overcast. They are probably glorious places when the sun is shining, but frankly we found both
of them rather boring, and were happy to scuttle back to Bayonne for more authentic Basque-ness.
Dal - Having only visited Calais and Paris before, France was a bit of an unknown for me. However, sitting here in Bayonne, I'm already thinking fondly of the place, and all because of... the FOOD. Blimey, these guys know how (and what) to eat. Basically, everything. Endless selections of the smelliest (and tastiest) cheeses. The things they can do with pork are fantastic. Visiting Les Halles (the covered market) in any town is a real treat (even saw a stall today selling horsemeat) - and the things they can do with bread - where do I start? Don't even get me on to the Patisseries... Why everyone isn't dropping dead from heart disease I'll never know - still, I guess I'll be moaning once we get to Russia...
One thing I haven't fathomed out yet (and will probably take with me to the grave) is the vast number of hairdressers. Why? The French, albeit known for their style, clearly don't lead the way in the 'World's Best Hair' stakes. I am completely bemused, and find it difficult not to pass one
Versailles - The Grand Trianon
Basically, a summerhouse in the back garden, to you or I...and point it out immediately to Abbie - which happens so regularly (as it must be almost one in five shops) that Abbie's previous threat to cut my toungue out has become a very real possibility...
Highlights so far have been:
Colmar - Possibly the most picturesque village ever, though not sure how many people actually live there.
Paris - Midsummers night, we were staying in Montmatre and it was as if the whole City came to life for the Festival of Music, where every street corner had a musician or band playing - when one stopped playing you just followed your ear to the next band - despite the rain there was a tremendous vibe on the streets.
Three weeks in Abbie's company - I'm not just saying that because she's watching me type every word (and pointing out every mistake - bl00dy French keyboards!), but we've spent almost every waking moment in each others company, and are getting along really well - thought I'd be tearing my hair out by now, but not yet...
Hope all is well with everyone - much love and kisses being sent from me xx
Ab -
It was great being in Paris and seeing Sheena who is now a local and showed us an evening of great food, wine and laughs. I've also been using my School Cert French and found that I remember enough to get us through most of the day to day activities which require interaction with French speakers. It's not fluent, it's not accurate and it doesn't sound pretty, but it was enough to blag us onto the TGV to St Jean de Luz for free!
The good news is that we've both finally relaxed into the whole uncertainty of this type of travel and are starting to really enjoy ourselves.
Next stop is San Sebastian (in Spain) for one or two nights, including a trip to Bilbao. Then down to Porto and Lisbon in Portugal (for about a week), and hopefully hooking up with Abbie's parents for a few days.
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funkypancake
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lux interior
how bizarre. i was in luxembourg on the 20th June so may have been there when you were ... glad to see you are having a great time, but also finding time to keep us up to date (and jealous). great photos by the way, 'specially the scottish ones. see ya dave