Farewell to France!!! - Why we will be so fat!

I wanted to write a little blog post about French food... Its bloody awesome!!

Unlike back in Australia, the French take their time with their food. It seems to be the consensus that it takes a long time to eat a meal. We had many a meal that we enjoyed that was 2 hours long. And the desserts!! OH MY GOSH!!! YUMMMMM!!!!!

So in a farewell to France, I wanted to share a few piccies of the food that we encountered!

Here are a few meals that Brendon enjoyed... Being a lactose intolerent vegetarian, its a bit harder for me to be daring!!

bon apetite!!

This is Brendon eating snails, just as he is about to take his very first bite... Garlic... ewwwww!! Very proud he ate the whole 15!!!

This is some raw meat dish that brendon got in Bordeaux... Again i will pass, but he ate the whole thing!

Marseille

Saturday the 28^th August

So today we left Carcassone at 0930 which was pretty good for us. We had a nice breakfast at the hotel and then we made our way to Marselle. We decided that we had some time to kill, so we looked at the map and I randomly chose a location that looked like a nice drive. I am so glad that I did because we ended up in a little town called Saint Maries-de-la-Mer. Absolutely beautiful! It overlooked the meditarranian. It was a beachside town and it was just stunning. Along the water was lined with hotels and café's and shops. We spent a good hour and a half getting some lunch and wondering around.

There are horses around here everywhere. They are beautiful!

One thing we have noticed about France is that everybody has puppy dogs! In every café or resteraunt people bring their dogs along and they sit by their feet. At the lovely town we went to they even have puppy poop sections full of sand where the dogs can go and do their business. It is a beautiful day today and its only 30 degrees instead of 40 so it is quite comfortable. It is so much fun just driving around seeing where the road takes you.

We have heard some bad things about Marselle, so we were quite surprised when we were driving in and its beauty hit us! We were driving in from the South West and not the Northern side so maybe that made a difference. Our hotel was in the heart of the city, and it was just lovely. After checking in and getting a map, we walked into the city and went to the main port. We hiked up a huge hill where there was a beautiful lookout! We must have stayed there for an hour and a half just looking at the view! The streets in the city were dirty. There was litter everywhere, and the wind was so strong that it nearly knocked us off our feet, i have never experienced anything like it before! We walked back into the main city to find somewhere for dinner. We found somewhere and had a nice meal, and made our way back through the windy dirty streets back to the hotel!

Highlights of Today:

· St Maries-de-la-Mer! My gosh I want to spend a month there!!

· The puppy poo ports

· Lunch

· We caught a ferry near port st louis

• Getting seated next to a nice French couple in St Maries-de-la-Mer at lunch, and then sitting next to them randomly again at dinner in Marseille (which is the 2nd most populated city in France) at a little restaurant in the heart of the city!
  

Lowlights of Today

• The wind that knocked us off our feet!
  



• Dirty smelly streets of Marseille

Carcassone Continues...

Friday the 27^th August. Carcassone.

Today we had the luxary of sleeping in. I had over 12 hours sleep, and Brendon had over 8! It was lovely When we finally crawled out of the hotel room it was after 11am! We started our day back in the old medieval city. It was very nice just wandering around the shops and the cafes, pretty awesome to think that the buildings were almost a thousand years old! Obviously been restored and fixed up a bit, but still 5 times older than the buildings in our country!! Pretty awesome! I ate a left over chocolate croissant for breakfast and Brendon found a crepe shop and had a nutella crepe! They love their nutella here! They have over 5kg tubs of it! Andriana you would love it!! J

After wondering around a bit and spending a bit of money, we found a nice café and had a lovely lunch! They had a vegetarian platter with Risotto and vegetables! I have found it slightly challenging being a lactose intolerant vegetarian, but I have gotten by. Mum and Kristen would be proud of me, I am eatin g more salads than I ever have in my life!

After lunch we decided to go back to the hotel because it was 43 degrees and we were buggered! So back to air conditioned bliss for a little while. Luckily the hotel had a pool so we went for a nice peaceful swim, for about 15 minuutes until a bunch of kids came and loudly crashed the party!

After relaxing in the hotel some more, we decided to go to the modern city for dinner. The "Modern cty" is still 600 years old, lots of old buildings there too! It was a bit dingy and smelly, and lots of scary looking people. We ended up finding a nice little café and we sat down and had some pizza! The vegetarian pizza over here is beautiful, beans, broccoli, peas etc etc, not like the yucky ones back home!

We drove around for a little while to get some glimpses of the castle at night, then had an early night!

It gets dark really late here, about 9pm, so it muddles us up a bit, we keep thinking its earlier than it is, but we are getting used to it.

Highlights of Today:

· Wandering around the old cite

· The swim in the beautiful indoor pool

· Pizza and dessert in the new city

· Laughing at the parents buying their children clinging sound swords, knowing that they would have to put up with that sound for the rest of the day!

Lowlights of Today:

· Attempting to order dinner when the waitress knew no English and were obviously a few cookies short of a jar.

· The crappy "train" ride around the mideaveal city.

· Dingy smelly city

Bordeaux/Carcassone

Thursday 26^th August

Today we woke up in Bordeaux, and got out of there! Because I felt so bad about Brendon missing his wine tour, we decided to go to some of the local vineyards and try our luck at a private tour and wine tasting. Turned out to be the best thing, as we had a wonderful time at two vineyards, The first was called Chateau Larrivet-Haut-Brion in Leognan. The hostess took us on a nice tour of the chateau, and their wine production process. I tell ya, I have never really been that interested in wine tours or wine tasting, but I had a good time. And Brendon was quite at home being quite a wine conniseur, asking lots of questions about the taste and the distilling process. It was a beautiful estate and was worth a visit in the end! And Brendon was happy he got his wine tour in! So after giving us quite a large tasting sample of the red and the white wines, Brendon bought a few bottles and we were on our way to the next vineyard that Brendon picked randomly out of the wine booklet. This vineyard was called chateau Sahuc Les Tour. It's a small estate on 20 acres, and the lady that inherited the estate runs the distillery. It was a little hard to find, but when we eventually got there, we went and tasted the nicest wine I had ever had. It was so sweet and lovely! They also had these beautiful whippit dogs and puppies that I wanted to take home! She made us feel very welcome and we really enjoyed our little visit, and the wine was so cheap that we bought four bottles! www.chateausahuc.com

So Bordeaux turned out alright in the end, today really made up for yesterday! As we left the Bordeaux region, the views were quite beautiful. There are sunflower fields everywhere and hills and everything is beautiful and green. As we came into Carcasscone it was quite breathtaking. Carcasscone is the largest fortified city in Europe. It is surronded by 3km of walls and its just amazing to see!

Highlights of Today:

• Leaving Bordeaux
• Driving in the car
• Getting intoxicated before midday due to lots of wine tasting!
• Vineyard tours
• PUPPIES!!!
• Carcassone and dinner at the old cite

Lowlights of Today:

• Breakfast in Bordeaux

Rennes/Bordeaux

Wed 25^th August

Well we got to Rennes last night about 11.30pm. Straight to bed. And forgive the lack of Rennes photos, but there was nothing to see. It was pouring with rain nobody in the town offered breakfast!! So we found a lovely little french patiserrie, and we stuffed ourselves with croissants, chocolates, macaroons and tarts. A good breakfast in the end!

Made our way on the bloody boring stretch of road that joined Rennes to Bordeaux. We had a lovely lunch at some service station... Service stations have cool things here like restaurants and souviner shops... It was in a tourist town, I couldn't tell you its name cause I cant remember, but I did buy some goodies at the tourist shop. As for Bordeaux, didn't really enjoy staying there at all! The whole place smelled like garbage and it was stinking hot. We went out for dinner and I wore a dress, I was wishing that I didn't in the end. I was over-dressed (although probably underdressed in Aus) and everyone kept staring at me like I was an alien. It was very intimidating and I am SO glad Brendon was with me, I would not have felt safe at all! At one point a strange man came up to me and started talking. Not sure what he was saying but he was looking at me strangely and making some very strange gestures and it made Brendon and I really on edge. I felt uncomfortable even just walking around and by that stage I was on the verge of tears and just wanted to go back to the hotel! We found a nice little place to eat and I had a few glasses of white wine to calm me down. Turned out to be quite a nice evening, the moon was very low and so round and full, and as the sun went down the more dressed up people got, and I didn't feel so out of place. We were also sitting next to a very nice couple who spoke English and I managed to spark up a conversation with them. We ended up talking till about 11pm and it was a lovely meal.

Brendon was going to do a wine tour in the afternoon/early evening tomorrow, but after our experiences with some of the colourful people in this town, we got back to the hotel and decided that we will move on tomorrow rather than me being on my own here for half a day!

Highlights of today:

· Yummy Rennes Chocolates!

· Lovely dinner in Bordeaux

Lowlights of Today:

· Bordeaux

Car Day

Tuesday the 24^th August 2010

I think we should dub today the getting to know the car day. I have dubbed him "Leo" much to Brendons dislike. The car is a brand spanking new peugeot 3008 and its BRILLIANT!!! It has a billion gadgets. The display has a GPS, the sound system operation plus live traffic updates, it took us a while to figure out how to work the darn thing ,but now its just great!

After getting a taxi to the car place and picking it up, we started off (after a little hiccup with the GPS in Paris) by making our way up to Normandy as Brendon wanted to see the D Day sites and memorials. Unfortunatly we didn't quite plan it to the best of our capabilities, and we ended up about 50km away form where we needed to be. This doesn't sound like much, but we ended up having to weave our way around little towns and a river, and all the towns were 30km an hour so it ended up taking quite a long time. By the time we had something to eat and got to the D Day sites, it was after 5pm and things were closing. We really wanted to keep going on to Mont Saint Michel before dark so we kept on going without seeing everything we wanted. But Mont Saint Michel was worth it! Beautiful! Then off to Rennes for a night and then onwards!!!

Highlights of today:

· Brendon realising that the breakfast fruit had dead flies in it and the hotel waitresses reaction

· The taxi ride out to pick up the car via the arch de triomphe

· Getting lost in the car in paris within the first kilometre of leaving the pergot dealership

· Cursing the GPS for bad navigation and realising later that it was a user error

· The self cleaning toilet seat discovery

· Dinner at Le Pre Sale at Le Mont Saint Michel (Strawberry soup… YUMMMM)

· Brendon being all excited about legally being able to go 130km an hour without being pulled over… Nathan would love it here!!

· Discovering the moon roof on the car

· Working out what the other 30 gadgets on the car are for

Lowlights of today

· European drivers are scary!!

· Brendon forgetting he was driving in Europe and not Australia and straight onto the wrong side of the road

· Getting stuck for two hours on a 30km/hr road

Last Day In Paris

Again, no internet so posted this later! xo

Monday the 23^rd August, 2010.

Had a wonderful day! The start to the day was a beautiful continental breakfast in the hotel! Lovely! We are going to get soooo fat! The hotel itself is quite nice, pokey rooms but the staff are great and helpful! And the lifts are hilarious! You can fit about two people or no people and all the luggage! The location is fantastic! Right next to the Louvre. The hotel is called Hotel Duminy Vendome and we will be here till Tuesday. Today we set off early leaving the hotel before 9.30am… Yes we were actually up before 9.30am!. We walked for 5 minutes through the Louvre gardens and took some happy snaps, then we made our way over to Notre Dame cathedral via the red tourist bus. After that we walked up to the pantheon crypts. Then we walked back to Notre Damn and got back on another red bus. They are an awesome way to get around. They don't have a roof so you can sit up the top and you have earphones that you put in for an informative tour. Just don't go up the top when it is raining… Trust us!!

After some more sightseeing we ended up at the tower again for lunch at a nice little café, choosing which one to go to is the toughest thing there are so many everywhere! Anyway after saying goodbye to the red buses we went back to the hotel to get ready for a show at the moulin rouge! The dinner was alright at the moulin rouge, but I guess you don't really pay for the food… It's the experience! So after what seemed like a million boobs in our faces, a lap/back covered in wine and an interesting conversation with our Russian neighbours, we left feeling quite buggered.. Tomorrow is picking up the car day and the start of the road trip!!! Cant wait!!

Highlights of Today:

· Brendon getting mistaken for a French person asking for directions. He was quite happy that he was mistaken for one of the locals and asked me to put that in!

· Getting a ticket on the Red Bus! An uncovered double decker tourist bus that goes around every 10 minutes from all the major attractions! By far the most easy way to get around the sights of Paris!

· The beautiful streets of Paris, people watching and enjoying the beautiful city!

· The moulin rouge show and meeting and greeting!

Lowlights of today:

· Sitting on the top of the red bus and having it POUR WITH RAIN

· Accidently tipping a whole glass of wine over Brendon's back in the Moulin Rouge. Or should this be a high point??

The beginning!!

Had to post these retrospectively as we had no internet in Paris!!! Hope you are all well!!

Mel xoxo

Sunday the 22^nd August, 2010.

Hi everybody!

We are safe and sound! We just had our first day in Paris, the city of love and old buildings. Plane flight was good, British airways were ok, a little cramped in economy compared to other airlines, but the in flight entertainment was good; I think I watched about 5 new release movies! They didn't have us travelling together and actually had us seated at opposite ends of the plane, but luckily she managed to fix it and we got to sit together. We finally landed in Paris after three planes (or should I say two planes and three stops…), and approx 26 hours of sitting in the same clothes. Unfortunately I didn't learn after my last trip to Europe and we neglected to arrange an airport transfer! Thinking that we will easily be able to find the hotel, we set off on a trip on the train from the airport to the city. That train trip should not be a welcome to Paris, as it travels straight through the dirty slummy areas of the city. The train itself stank like urine and it was STINKING hot with no air con!!

So as you can imagine by the time we actually got into the city, we were sweaty and stinky, I was getting grumpy and craved a long shower, and we were forced to start wandering around the streets of Paris looking for a tiny little hotel in some street that wasn't even on our map.

Luckily, Brendon managed to track down the hotel quite easily but we were too early. All I can say is thank goodness I put in a packet of baby wipes and that I nicked the toothbrushes from the British airways flight! So we were able to at least freshen up slightly before lunch. We found a lovely café and had a nice meal. We both thought caffeine was in order so we ordered a glass of coke each. So how much do you think a coke would be? Usually what, $4 Australian??? Well for a medium 500mL coke in a café here in Paris you are looking at *9 EURO!!! 9!!! That's like 14 Dollars!!!

Anyway so after finally being able to shower and have a power nap, we were off to have dinner up in the Eiffel Tower. Then we went on a little cruise of the river. When the tower lit up it was beautiful!

Highlights of today:

· Laughing at the guy next to us on the plane (who was young and healthy – not a dialysis patient!) who didn't get up to pee for over 15 Hours even after 5 glasses of orange juice and 2 cups of water

· Pulling heavy luggage around the streets of Paris

· Watching the Eiffel Tower sparkle

• Shower and sleep

The Holiday Countdown

Hi everyone!

Hello to everyone that I just introduced this blog to!! I will be updating this periodically when we are away to let everyone who cares know what we have been up to! Hopefully if the computer doesn't get stolen, i can upload photos and video too! (Hopefully the camera will not get stolen either...)

So bookmark and or subscribe to this blog if you are interested! And feel free to comment on the posts as we make them! Ease the homesickness!!??? :)

Currently I am up in Port Macquarie visiting the olds, and trying to start the winding down process at the start of my time off... But i am finding it a bit hard to wind down when there is a huge holiday to look forward to!!!

Excited!!!!!!

"So what countries will you be visiting on your travels?" I hear you ask??

France
Switzerland
Austria
Czech Republic
Germany

We leave on Saturday!!

Take care everyone! Next time I post will be from yonder!!

Mel xoxoxo