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Well it's been a while since our last blog, so we'll keep this one brief... ish. Not long to go now, only three weeks left!
Bordeaux After leaving San Sebastian we headed to the border in hope of catching another train on to Bordeaux. Turns out we were in luck and got mint first class seats. We did the usual afternoon wander around Bordeaux to get our bearings, and it didn’t take us long to see all the sights. Bordeaux centre is rather small, but is so full of charm with its pedestrian malls lined with shops and eateries. In Bordeaux we had a brilliant French meal, attempted communication with an elderly man in the park in French (which went surprisingly well!) had a good chat to some Aussies we ran into, and did some shopping.
We spent a very hot afternoon in the beautiful small town of Saint Emilion visiting vineyards and doing wine tasting. We learnt the ins and outs of how to drink wine properly i.e. warming the wine to room temperature, opening the wine, and smelling the first and second aromas (to think of all those bottles of red wine drunk and not appreciated
properly). Who knows how much booze we polished off that afternoon but we seem to think we got a pretty good deal as some places let you taste for free... bet they hate it when us kiwis walk in! After 8 glasses of bubbly we decided we better buy a bottle, but was well worth it.
Paris Paris is one of the places that Bex has been most excited about seeing on this trip and it lived up to expectations. We did all the usual touristy things:
The Eiffel Tower - got there early and walked up to skip the queues then caught a lift to the summit. Brilliant views of course!
The Louvre - spent an afternoon there, got museum fatigue though! Enjoyed the egyptian stuff the most.
The Catacombs - where millions of Parisian bones are stored 20m underground in old unused quarries. Very creepy, but in a sad kind of way. We couldn't really wrap our heads around why this is a tourist attraction with no security or protection for the remains. Didn't seem right that people were smiling and taking photos...
Sacre Coeur and Notre Dame - impressive inside and out. Decided not to
Saint Emilion
Our third chateau... they are generous with their poursventure up the stairs at either place, at the Sacre Coeur because there was a pigeon trying to kill Bex and Notre Dame there was a huge queue and we couldn't be arsed!
Pantheon - average really. We didn't bother paying the 8 Euro to go in.
Arc de Triomphe - very amusing mostly due to the giant uncontrolled roundabout with 12 roads coming into it, lots of flash cars and near accidents... Jeff winced every time he saw an Aston Martin DB9 go past...
Champs-Elysees - SHOPPING!
Montmatre - yes we had a bit of a giggle at all the smutty stores and took a photo at Moulin Rouge.
One of the most novel things was the Adidas store on Champs-Elysees. You can design your own shoes, get printing or embroidery on clothes and they carry heaps of designer clothing ranges. They also have All Blacks stuff and a poster of Richie!
Some other highlights for us were watching the All Blacks beat France, a massive music festival that was city wide and all free, and best of all - a late night picnic under the Eiffel tower including bubbly and chocolate. Just perfect.
(The only
low lights were the stupid hotel, for example we were told to go to the supermarket when we asked to borrow a PEN! And the French again, did not come to the party, surprise surprise...)
Bruges its in Belgium Colin Farrel was wrong, Bruges is not shite, its an f'ing fairytale! (If you haven't seen the movie
In Bruges then you should). How can you not love a place with that many types of beer! Jeff tried his hardest to make his way through the 750 different beers but didn't get very far. The best beers were the Trappist beers (beers made by Monks), and Bex also liked the raspberry and citrus Hoegarden - girly beers. We did a beer tour of the only brewery still in the old Bruges town. They also had lots of beer memorabilia from around the world including from New Zealand. Bruges really is a beer drinker's paradise - we will be back.
Bruges also has lots of good food (we ate 1.2 kg of mussels each the first night, a local specialty), and of course there is chocolate, lots of chocolate. We visited the chocolate museum, but Bex was decidedly disappointed
The Louvre
Bex suffering from museum fatigue with the lack of tasting available.
Full of medieval architecture and canals, Bruges has an incredible atmosphere. We felt the difference between Bruges and other picturesque small towns we’ve been to, is that you feel part of it in Bruges. We hired bikes and rode around the town for a few hours which allowed us to see a lot more. Bex didn't get run over which was a bonus, but there were a few close calls...
Seems we visited the Basilica of the Holy Blood church at the right time, as they were doing a ceremony called the Veneration of Jesus (or something similar) where they brought out the vial of Jesus’ blood they have housed at the church and people can go up and place a hand on it. Out of all the churches we’ve been to, this one probably felt the most religious and least commercial.
So we'll safely claim that Bruges is by far the best 'small place' we've been to so far. We would love to come back in winter time.
Amsterdam We arrived in Amsterdam quite late, and met our friend Dave. It was so good to see him
(a familiar face!). To be fair, we didn't really enjoy Amsterdam as much as we thought we would. As far as big cities go it is very picturesque, but it's very hard to look past the culture of drugs and 'smut' (that's what we'll call it!).
We did have a good time though! Our first stop was the Heineken Brewery - of course. It was pretty cool and high tech, also very commercial with a massive marketing push. But hey, we were definitely bought!
We spent the day getting round by bike which was fun, and beats any other form of transport and there's no better way to see the canals. The city is just built for cyclists. Dave did a great job navigating. We were caught in a massive downpour on our way back to the hostel, we all got absolutely saturated from head to toe but it was good fun :o)
We also visited the Anne Frank House, which was the unbelievably sad museum telling the story of the Frank family who went into hiding during WWII. As we were moving on to Germany next, this proved to be a sobering start to the war
Adidas store
Bex tests her lightning fast reflexes history part of our trip.
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Shoni
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Bex you're still as beautiful as ever, glad you are having an amazing time.... take care you two. loves xxx