Advertisement
Published: April 20th 2006
Edit Blog Post
Since our last entry in Auxerre we have been very busy little Rosbifs. From Auxerre we moved swiftly down to Dijon for a couple of days where we had a memorable lunch and sampled the nightlife (Tom nearly sampled something else when he accidentally called the barman "beautiful"). Dijon's a cool town - lovely architecture and one of the best (if not the weirdest) natural history museums in the whole of Christendom. Small town though so we stayed just two nights before moving on to Lyon which we totally loved. Having said that, our first night was a bit of a kafuffle. We parked outside an extortionate youth hostel (19 euros a night!) went for dinner,drove 30 minutes to a campsite outside the city (with limited headlights) where we were told to go away and "what were we doing turning up at a campsite with a tent anyway" (yes we though it was strange too). So we sheepishly returned to the extortionate hostel and found that it wasn't so bad because it had the most amazing view of Lyon one could possibly imagine.
On Sunday we took advantage of a free tour which was great until we realised the old
guy was, in fact, taking advantage of our company (3 hours and the tour showed no sign of finishing!). Bless him, he had the world's most dazzling comb-over and kept shouting "RENAISSANCE STYLE" and pointing at anything he could find. That night we met a couple of folk in the hostel and had nice "group" dinner cooked by one of America's top (trainee) chefs, before we shot off in the morning. The reason for shooting off was to get a table for lunch at one of Paul Bocuse's linked restaurants "L'Ouest". Lovely lunch,but we were the youngest by a long way. Luckily we decided to wear our dinner jackets so we feel we blended in. Only down-side was the chain-smoking old woman sitting next to us who had to have her gammy foot elevated upon a chair for the world to see. Rank.
Left for a campsite a couple of hours outside Lyon, a little (slightly council) town where we played football with a local man and his sons (we won). We managed to find a pitch for our tent but this small glory was soon eclipsed by the fact that it absolutely pissed it down that night. Left
in the rain that morning, Ed left his washbag so we knew we'd have to return at some point.
Drove to Courcheval in the Alpes and met Joanne who kindly let us stay at her place there. The first day we hired ski's and Ed took tom to the nursery slope to have his first ski. Naturally,Tom at first was very excited, then he had a few falls and got very depressed ("man this isn't for me, i really can't do this") followed by a few successful turns and what do you know "oh man this is amazing!" We had a couple of days warming up our skiing legs in Courcheval, also bumping into wee Mat, before we left for Les Arcs where we stayed with Ed's new lady Al and friend Nim and had a fantastic week skiing. Amazing snow, amazing flat; all in all it was amazingly amazing.
After this we popped into Meribel to see Wee Mat and have a night out before we headed out of the mountains and back to the French speaking France. DRAMA!!! Upon parking the car in Meribel Tom has a temporary lapse of sanity and manages to lock the
keys in the car. The subsequent events are all a blur but luckily Tom left the keys on the dash board. Having found the appropriate tool for the job, Ed lies on top of the car with his (thankfully) little hands thrust through a gap in the sunroof and somehow manages to hook the keys and remove them. Tom is relieved beyond words, Ed has sore hands, and Mat looks extremely bemused having witnessed this bizarre little Crystal Maze moment in its entirety.
From Meribel we head back to the campsite where Ed left his washbag but don't stick around. Instead we drive 150km South to a campsite near Valence where, unsurprisingly, it pours it down again. We seem to attract rain whenever we camp.
We are now in Avignon which is absolutely delightful. The sun is shining and it's really warm. We're staying in the world's weirdest hostel though. We're sharing a dorm with a homeless man and a bloke who keeps moaning in his sleep. We did get a game of football in though. The Rosbifs triumphed in a two-on-two match against a pair of local frenchies. "God save our gracious queen...etc"
We're now off
to meet Ed's brother for Easter somewhere Aix en Provence. Happy Easter to you all.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.266s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 9; qc: 46; dbt: 0.0596s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb