Blogs from France, Europe - page 1624

I'm sure that no matter how many times you visit Paris, there is still lots left to see. This, coupled with the fact that it is the natural first destination when you cross the Channel into mainland Europe, means that any British Inter-railer inevitably spend some time there. I travelled overnight, but this was before the tunnel had opened, so after a train, a midnight ferry and another train, I arrived in Paris early in the morning, having not had much sleep. It brought back all those horrific memories of my previous Inter-railing experiences (see ). Why am I putting myself through this again exactly? My last Inter-rail adventure was to mainly Southern Europe, so this was my last chance to see some of Northern Europe before I was too old and no longer qualified for ... read more

Geo: 48.8566, 2.35097... read more

Unfortunately I didn’t make it was far as Bordeaux. I woke up in the morning to discover that my backpack had been searched and my camera, Walkman and sleeping bag had gone walkabout. For the second time I wanted to sort out the seedy looking characters in the corridor. I had a faint memory of being woken up by someone coming into the room and he had left straight away when he realised I was awake. He had obviously come back again later. Bastard! I decided to get off at the next station and report what had happened. As I was packing the bag I relalised that the films containing all my Nice, Monte Carlo and Venice photographs had been in the camera case and had gone as well. I think that I was more gutted ... read more

I’ll avoid the corny line about Nice being a nice place. Too late. To be fair it is very, ugh, nice! Dam, I’ve done it again. I can see how it would be a nice place (there’s three) to go if you were quite old and loaded with cash. It was well out of my league and, despite no longer being in Italy, I felt like a bit of a tramp. Everyone was dressed in designer clothes and all the cars maintained the same rich image. Sports cars everywhere and, unlike those in Paris, they weren’t covered in dents. There was no point in me going into any shops as I would have been thrown out the moment I walked in through the door. The tourist circuit took about half a day, taking in a chateau ... read more

Breakfast was continental of course, so I set off to do the tourist bit, dreaming of a good old British fry-up. I should have been grateful, as on my budget that meal was to seem like a relative pig-out. I then headed back to Paris. The city of romance, and I was going to travel there on my own. I suppose that it was no worse than going with two blokes, but it was a sad, lonely traveller who got off the train at the Gar du Nord. Little did I know at the time, but three years later, I would get engaged to my future wife in Paris. When trying to navigate the Paris underground - or New York's for that matter - you realise how elegant the London tube map is. Trying to fathom ... read more