Category Archives: France

A collection of travelogues from my trips to France, peppered with reviews and recommendations of accommodation, walking tours, restaurants and pubs.

Travelogue RWC 2023 5: Perpignan

PERPIGNAN

02 – 04 October 2023

A 3 hour train ride south from Marseille – and right in the heart of Catalan country – we’d picked Perpignan to be our eye in the storm between the Rugby World Cup game in Marseille and our Blink 182 concert in Barcelona. Home to USA Perpignan rugby union and the Catalan Dragons rugby league teams held appeal for the chaps. The historical significance appealed to all of us.

Though settlement in the area goes back to Roman times, the medieval town of Perpignan seems to have been founded around the beginning of the 10th century. Shortly afterwards, Perpignan became the capital of the counts of Roussillon. It then became French in 1659, by the Treaty of the Pyrenees. Perpignan was a city of refuge in the 20th century – after 1936, for refugees from the Spanish Civil War.

Meanwhile, back in La Ciotat we were managing battles of our own. Having returned home in the early hours of the morning following the 9pm South Africa vs Tonga game in Marseille (and the ensuing traffic jam to get out of the city and back to La Ciotat) the previous night, it was less than optimal to be awoken by a message that our morning train connecting us back to Marseille for our connection to Perpignan was cancelled due to strike action.

We sprang – relatively speaking – into action and started reviewing other options. If we either caught the next train from La Ciotat or caught the bus from the Tourist Office at the end of our road straight into Marseille, we would be just too late for our connection. We tried calling the taxi from Saturday but struggled to get commitment on availability of a car. Our plans were up in the air and we were too tired to worry…

Distracting ourselves with making mega sandwiches with the last remaining groceries (a whole baguette, packet of bacon, thick country ham, sliced cheese, butter, sauce sachets), the plans made themselves when John the Taxi Man called and confirmed he could collect us from the Tourist Office in 5 minutes.

Timing was tight, but he was up for the challenge. Putting foot and swearing ‘Bloody Frogs’ (comically, as a local pure Frenchman in his thick French accent) out of the way, he got us to the Station in Marseille with 11 minutes to spare.

Relieved, we sank into our reserved seats on the train, ready for the next stage of our tour.

Our Airbnb host had advised that she would be dispatching her parents to meet us at the apartment since she’d be at work. Not wanting to keep them waiting, we emerged at the Perpignan Gare with Google Maps at the ready to guide us through the 10 minutes walk.

Our fantastic apartment was situated alongside a canal, which made for an unmissable landmark. Les Parents were waiting at the doorway to our building, ready to welcome us.

Trundling up 3 flights of stairs to our penthouse apartment, we were impressed by our spacious and tastefully decorated home for the next 2 nights. Besides the open plan living area that overlooked the canal, there was a bedroom with small outdoor terrace for Robbie and a massive loft room for Chris and I that ran the length of the apartment.

Les Parents gave us some very basic instructions (to suit our very basic French) and pointed us towards the Old Town.

Following the canal, we were only a few minutes from the historic centre. We would need to self-navigate because there were no walking tours on offer in Perpignan. We easily located the Tourist Office thanks to excellent signage, and procured a trusty city map.

A cursory review of the map told us that our tour would be a quick one. The centre ville is very small and majority of the sights are churches, which for us means a quick photo of the beautiful building and move on. Enough to entertain us for the remainder of the afternoon, but certainly not a two-day affair.

We chatted to the tourist office agent for suggestions for the next day. Of the recommendations, we liked the idea of a short bus ride to a nearby coastal town the most. Armed with info and the bus schedule, we began our city tour of Perpignan.

The agent had warned us that Monday in Catalan country is like a Sunday and not to expect too much to be open. Combined with siesta time, the town was very quiet. Consequently, our walking tour was concluded exceptionally quickly!

Never at a loss for things to do when a meal could be had, we followed directions to the central Place where we’d been told that restaurants serve all day everyday.

We’d worked up quite an appetite, so were sold on the first approach. The host at Hippopotamus only had to get eye contact to seal the deal thanks to the illustrated menu boards at the entrance that promised it to be an excellent grillhouse.

Being a ‘Sunday’ warranted a fantastic roast chicken and roast potatoes feast served in a hot skillet with a rich savoury gravy. And with fresh bread and butter, obviously.

After our leisurely late lunch, we headed in the other direction to explore the new town. Now toward the end of the working day, there was a lot of traffic and people on the move.

Once we’d visited places of cultural interest, we indulged in a visit to the local Irish pub, O’Flaherty’s. En route we noticed – Monday or no Monday – how the city had come back to life again.

Sign boards outside pubs showed operating hours to commonly be 5pm to midnight or beyond every night of the week, so Perpignan clearly has a vibrant and social nightlife culture. Nothing rowdy; mostly tables of 2 or 3 people, sipping drinks and nibbling tapas.

It was really pleasant to pass a couple of hours soaking in the atmosphere and planning our next steps. And it was always appreciated to be able to walk home, taking the long way around to walk along the canal.

Almost home, we walked past a Tibetan sidewalk cafe (of no more than 4 tables) that smelled so good, we had to stop.

The owner effortlessly convinced us to try his dumplings and sushi. Although the menu was a combination of traditional Tibetan fare and other Eastern crowd-pleasers, the owner  was completely authentic. He’d been a monk in his homeland, Tibet, before he made his way as a refugee to Perpignan in the late 90s.

He told the story quite casually and was more interested in us enjoying the dumplings and a good glass of rosé than being impressed by his life story.

TUESDAY

As advised, we would be spending the day in Colliore, some 30km away on the coast. Situated in the Roussillon province, the area had been of consequence as a medieval administrative court and been home to royals from 1659 to around the 1790s.

There was a bus every hour or so that could be caught at the Gare. We made our way up to the station in good time to catch the 11h15 bus. It was only when the wrong bus arrived at the bus stop that we realised we were at the wrong bus stop entirely. Fortunately I’d checked with the driver as we boarded the bus or who knows where we would have ended up!

The driver directed us to a bus terminus on the other side of the train station and we killed the remainder of the wait with a coffee in the station.

After a very scenic bus trip – a bargain at €1 each! – we alighted in a precious seaside town. With a selection of seaside eateries, we set about the now-urgent business of lunch.

Mussels and calamari and prawns were the order of the day to match the setting. Collioure being in the heart of Catalan country and very close to the Spanish border, the menu had influences from both countries. A great combo!

From our vantage point on the promenade we could see the bowl of mountains that cupped Collioure, just as the agent described. We could also see the impressive Royal Castle that stretched around the left side of the harbour and hid the old town behind its massive wall.

Finishing up our lunch, we took a stroll around the old town, down to the harbour and along the jetty to the entrance of the port. This allowed a wonderful view back on the charming hamlet and the mountain range backdrop.

Mission accomplished with our relaxing afternoon, we caught the bargain bus back to Perpignan. We disembarked in town to gather some supplies and allow for a stroll back to our apartment.

Having procured a bottle of wine and a bottle of cava, we enjoyed sundowners on the small terrace adjoined to Robbie’s room.

We would probably have been there for a lot longer had it not been for the neighbour cooking up a storm. The delicious wafts of onions and garlic teased us to the point of action and motivated us to find something cheap ‘n cheerful for dinner.

We’d seen signs for naan kebabs on our travels and were curious about the combo since we loved both but had never experienced them together.

Not hard to find, we finally solved the mystery at a place called Cheese Naan.  The result was a soft round naan rolled into a cone and piled high with delicious fillings ranging from tandoori to kebab to cordon bleu. A real mash of cultures!

It was still relatively early so there was time for a spot of Cava in the Catalan Dragons’ home bar and bistro. And, of course, making a little time to stop in for a final glass of rosé with our Tibetan friend.

Travelogue RWC 2023 4: Marseille / La Ciotat

MARSEILLE & LA CIOTAT

29 Sep – 02 Oct 2023

Our drive from Montpellier to Marseille was particularly festive because Chris had prepared a playlist of Blink 182 songs. This was intended to warm us up for the impending concert we would be attending on the last night of the trip. He’d based it on the set list of one of the previous concerts on the same tour, so it was a good indication of what we could expect!

We chatted and sang along, admired the countryside and the little towns dotted on either side of the motorway. Chris gave accolades to the sensible toll system that dispensed a ticket at origin and then tailored the charge for you when inserting the ticket again at your destination toll booth. All fully automated, super-efficient and a fair fee for just the value you’d enjoyed on the perfect roads.

Arriving in Marseille’s St Charles Station, we completed our Awesome Foursome group as we reunited with Michele, who had emigrated to London some 6 months prior.

We put the 30 minute train journey to La Ciotat to good use, catching up on what had been happening on our respective ends of the ocean.

Robbie had recommended our stay in the seaside town just outside of Marseille based on a previous visit he’d made to his friends who lived there. One of the friends, Ricky, was even at the train station waiting to greet us. He packed all our suitcases and selves into his station wagon with a smile.

He dropped us at our Airbnb apartment, in prime location one road in from the seafront, with the new town to the left and the old town to the right.

Our apartment was quite mysteriously architected, opening into an ample dining room / kitchen combo with 2 mismatched arches at the back leading to a twin room and lounge that in turn led to a slender bathroom at the back. Chris and I would be staying upstairs, accessed by narrow steep wooden steps on the right of the dining room into a loft that required us to crouch from the waist because the roof was so low. It was quite entertaining trying to figure out how this apartment had been constructed – or deconstructed from its neighbours.

Slip-slops on, we hit the beach. It was very pleasant to enjoy the warmth of the late afternoon sun while soaking in the glistening sea with all the yachts and sailboats bobbing along merrily. The beach was soft sand that you could see disappear into the clear waters.

We were easily able to walk the manageable couple of kilometres on the new town side, and rewarded ourselves with cocktails and cold beers in the tented shade of a sidewalk restaurant at the far end.

The return journey saw us overshoot our house to go onto the old port side. Also lined with bars and restaurants, we couldn’t resist going into O’Bullrock to gauge the price of a local Guinness. The usual €8 was marginally less shocking but no less frightening as we acclimated to life in Euros!

Hopelessly distracted from our French Seafood dinner mission by a few pints and a cheeky charcuterie board, we somehow ended up back at our house having a picnic and tucking into our supplies of sparkling and red wines instead.

Arrangements had been made to meet up for the 9pm Italy vs New Zealand game. We made our way back to O’Central in the Old Port (no more than a couple of hundred metres from our house) and arrived just before Ricky, his lovely wife Marjorie and their friend Marine. Clearly regulars, the owner moved people from the rockstar front tables to make space for our group.

The Kiwis easily took the game, so we decided on pizza for our midnight snack to commiserate Italy’s beating. The Crown Pub had an adjoined annex still serving fresh-from-the-oven pizza. A few minutes later we were happily munching on fresh crusty pizza with lavish portions of ham and pepperoni on top.

SATURDAY

Chris had booked us on a Marseille free Walking Tour with the same company as we’d had in Montpellier. Ricky arranged a black van taxi to come and collect us and drop us off in town to minimise the guesswork under pressure to meet for the excursion.

We met Angie (and about 50 of her guests) at the Metro Station at the fish market. It was very noisy next to the Rugby World Cup Fanpark, so we set off on our way as soon as Angie was happy the group was complete.

According to Angie, Marseille is the oldest city in France – some 2600 years old – and was founded by traders from Greece who pulled into the port to escape the infamous Le Mistral which brings up to 80kmph winds.

We properly started the tour at the Greek ruins. There are very few remains from its early history because, as a sought after trading point in the Mediterranean, it’s seen more than its fair share of conflict. Consequently, the city has been destroyed and rebuilt countless times by conquerers and settlers.

The point where we were standing had actually been part of the original port which the Greeks had built, with city wall and towers. Further, Grand Rue is the oldest street in France, which you can still walk down today. Authentic Starbucks ‘n all.

Moving along the road, Angie shared how Marseille was rebuilt into 1851 under Napoleon in order to insert a sewerage system, widen roads (for lifestyle and army access) and trees to line the roads. And, most importantly, connecting the old port with the new port, required to manage the volumes of traffic now coming to Marseille. Having struggled with epidemics like Black Plague and Cholera, the buildings were built with lots of long high windows to maximise light and ventilation.

Not all the stories were of glory and progress though.

During the Second World War, the Vichy Government collaborated with the Nazis in the form of an agreement that the south of France would remain free while the North was occupied. However, once the Allies collected in North Africa with intention to enter Europe via Marseille, the Germans broke the agreement and moved down to the city to defend the territory that they had gained.

Marseille was a cesspit and known as the Sty of Europe. In January 1943, by way of collaboration with the Nazis a large troop of French policeman cleared all the residents out of their houses – some 20 000 people – and gathered them on the port. The majority were trained to a transition camp for a week. A couple of thousand (mostly Jewish) people were taken to Poland and executed. The few that returned arrived back to rubble; the policeman had blown up 1500 buildings with dynamite as a radical solution to clean up the city. Only 7 buildings remained standing. This has been recognised quite recently as a Crime Against Humanity.

One of these surviving buildings, a beautiful old Renaissance structure built in 1535, was actually slowly (very slowly, over 3 months) moved 10 metres and pivoted 90 degrees in order to better fit the new city planning for Grand Rue!

Modern Marseille has been depicted as a dangerous place. While it has had a notorious criminal element from as far back at the 1950s (‘The French Connection’) there had been a concerted effort in the last decade to clean up the city and restore a more attractive connotation.

There are than 2000 Pétanque strips around the city – and even a nightclub that has 7 Pétanque strips inside where ravers can exercise their one arm with the boules and the other with Pastis.

Marseille is also famous for its olive oil soap, crafted since the Middle Ages. Constituting 72% olive oil, it is traditionally presented as an unscented cube in the natural olive green colour. The soap is supposed to be all you need to keep your skin clean, youthful and hydrated. Angie (who couldn’t be more than 30 years old) joked that it was all she, as a 72 year old, had been using for the last 50 years.

Concluding the tour at the majestic Byzantine Cathedrale de la Major, we broke from the group to grab some lunch. All 4 of us had earmarked the same place for different reasons as we’d walked past so it was an easy choice.

We had a veritable feast of local-flavoured goodness. Charcuterie boards to start, with salmon tartare and tuna steak for mains. Lots of fresh baguette and butter too, of course. We’d earned it, having done a good few kilometres in the baking Mediterranean sun on this perfect day.

Marseille was heaving with all the tourists and rugby fans in for the weekend, so we decided to head back to our neck of the woods for a slower pace. Public transport is easily accessible and inexpensive so catching the train back to La Ciotat and connecting with a bus to drop us off at our door was a lot simpler than expected and cost less than 5 Euros apiece.

Somewhere along the way we uncovered that Robbie had never had a Katemba; a refreshing mix of equal parts Coca-Cola and red wine. We popped into our local supermarket to get some Coke and the cheapest red wine available. Less than 20 minutes later, another First was chalked up on our adventure scorecard!

Keen to make the most of the sunshine, Michele and I grabbed our flops and went for a walk along the promenade to dip our toes in the sea. Such a beautiful stretch of coastline and the perfect time of day, with sun on our backs and clear cold water on our legs.

The chaps meantime were watching Fiji vs Georgia. We’d managed to miss most of the match by the time we got back at sundowner o’clock.

Tucking into a selection of cold meats, we sipped on some of the nicer red wines (sans Coke) that we’d brought from Beaujolais. Never short of conversation, we shared stories and laughs around the kitchen table for hours in our homely home.

Time, in fact, ran away with us and we were caught by surprise when Ricky and Mark arrived at our front door to ‘pick us up’ (on foot) to go watch the Scotland vs Romania game at the pub.

Resuming our positions in our now-local O’Central, our group delighted as their home nation team easily took the game from the Romanians. The Scots went on to celebrate into the early hours of the morning while the Saffas went home to get a good night’s sleep in prep for the big game the next day.

SUNDAY

It had been a long week of festivities and we were glad we’d left the Sunday open, as a free day with no arrangement.

Chris and I went out for a morning run and saw there was a market open all along both ports. The streets were buzzing with vendors and shoppers. Noting there were a lot of clothing and accessory stores, I encouraged Michele to do a return visit with me assuming it would be of little interest to the chaps.

We ambled along, browsing the silky cottons, light wools, fluffy angoras and soft leathers. The clothing stalls were punctuated with food vendors encouraging us – me with little resistance – to sample their meats, cheeses and Mediterranean accoutrements. Delicious!

Lured out by the taste for a coffee, Chris and Robbie had settled at the local Tabac and were sipping on espresso. Admiring the yachts and watching the day go by, we unfolded our plan for the afternoon.

Far from ambitious, we picked a seafront seafood restaurant and had spectacular salmon and cod fish ‘n chips. This left enough time to get dressed and take the patio furniture out onto our stoep to share the last of the wine while we waited to be collected at 5 to go to Marseille for the rugby game.

Marjorie collected us and as an avid rugby fan was very excited to be attending the game with our South African contingent for authenticity. She chatted animatedly as she drove, pointing out things of interest as we passed. She had grown up in La Ciotat so had lots of interesting information to share.

Marseille was pumping! There was a sensory-overload of activities; French pub anthems booming out of speakers, people everywhere, beer flowing, flags flying. It was strange (and awesome) to see so many Springbok shirts in the hordes of people streaming up and down the Main Street that led up to the Stadium.

We knew of a few people that were also attending the game, one such a friend from Joburg who had emigrated the year before and now lived in Manchester. We’d been messaging back and forth over the weekend in an attempt to catch up but our paths had not yet crossed. This was our time!

We found Justin and his friends outside the Stadium and spent the next couple of hours together, reminiscing with our old friend and making new memories with the new ones.

Stadium access was very well organised and it was a pleasure to share the South Africa vs Tonga experience with 59996 the other spectators the Stadium was designed to hold. Sitting next to a Frenchman who was wearing an old Boks jersey, I managed to practice a little of my French as we exchanged stories of how he’d come by his jersey on a trip to SA and what my friends and I were going in France.

Cherry on the cake was our team winning the match and getting the bonus point required to move us closer to being promoted from our group into the quarter finals.

Travelogue RWC 2023 3: Montpellier

MONTPELLIER

27-29 September 2023

Our holiday was going much too quickly, but the one advantage was that it was now time to meet up with our friend Robbie. We’d be in Montpellier for a few days before going to Marseille for the South Africa vs Tonga game in the Rugby World Cup 2023.

Robbie was coming in by train from London and would meet us at our shared Airbnb apartment just outside of the Montpellier city centre. We were driving from Nimes and had chosen an apartment with a garage so we could stow the car and explore with more freedom on foot.

We pulled into the road to see Robbie on the doorstep; we could not have timed it better!

Our host came down to greet us. Jean-Pierre spoke less English than we did French, so we slipped into Frenglish to get the basic instructions (keys, wifi, city map) and headed towards town. Walking and talking to catch up with our old friend.

We were all very pleasantly surprised, having done very little research on Montpellier, when we arrived at the one recommendation that Jean-Pierre had made that I had recognised – La Place de la Comedie. A vast pedestrian square surrounded by ornate buildings and with the obligatory fountain, we knew at first sight that we were in for a treat for the next few days!

We did a rudimentary lay-of-the-land check and decided that since we had already booked a walking tour for the next morning, there was little point duplicating efforts. It was too busy for comfort on the bustling square, so we randomly picked one of the roads that lead off it and agreed to stop at the first shady area that offered a welcome beer.

An easy ask, it would seem. We found ourselves on a more intimate square with shops along the left side and a long tented seating area in the middle, servicing the row of restaurants and cafes along the right. Picking one at random, we sat down, barely taking a breath on the conversation that had started at home.

Once seated and acclimating, we noticed the radical difference in price for a pint of beer… and so began the quest to beat the price. With an opening of 7.50 Euros, there was a lot of room for improvement. By the time we moved on from the square a couple of hours – and a few cafes – later, we had already slimmed down the price tag to 4.50 Euros!

With the sun a little lower in the sky, the temperature was far better suited to sight-seeing, so we did a loop of the old town and made our way up the hill to the obviously-important arch at the top of the slight incline that didn’t quite qualify as a hill.

Consulting the map, it was discovered to be Montpellier’s very own Arc de Triomphe. The gate was dedicated to Louis XIV The Sun King with emblems that have the King standing on a lion (the English) and an eagle (the Germans). This symbolised how he’d concluded the 100 years of wars ‘with difficult neighbours’. And made for most excellent photographs.

Our valiant effort on the culture front was rewarded when we spotted the proverbial black swan – walking down the incredibly elegant high street, we spotted a 3.90 Euro pint in a dingy pub just off one of the side roads. Small round tables squeezed under the shade of an umbrella of a tree, we simply could not refuse Le Foch.

The waiter – yes, one waiter for the whole bar – was a young Zimbabwean chap. Information he volunteered on hearing our accent, which he said was not very common in these parts. We were just happy to be here together and having a wonderful time.

With a well-kitted Airbnb apartment at our disposal, we decided to do a quick grocery shop at the local supermarket for a picnic-style charcuterie dinner of roast chicken, hams, cheeses and baguettes to wash down with some of the wines we had brought with us from our wine route. Delicious!

THURSDAY

We’d bought enough supplies to start the day with a homemade bacon baguette sandwich, anticipating it would be a vigorous day with the walking tour and satisfying whatever other curiosities we had for the city.

We met our guide, Luis from Venezuela, at the fountain at La Place de la Comedie and minutes later were off on our way.

As is commonplace, the tour began with a history of the town. Montpellier is relatively young in European terms, having been formed in 985 AD and not having the ancient Roman Empire background that the nearby cities had. The settlement was founded by the Guilhem family, a feudal dynasty from Toulouse, who built a castle and defensive walls and ruled it until the 12th century. Two of the towers are still surviving and we saw both.

By the 13th century, Montpellier had established itself as a centre of trade, thanks to its fortuitous position on the route between Spain and Italy. It was also established as a centre of education because of the schools of Law and Medicine that had been set up in the late 12th century by Willam VII.

In 1349, Montpellier came under the control of King Philip VI of France. It was thought to be one of the most important cities in France at that time in history, although towards the end of the 14th century, life became very difficult for those who lived and worked here. Successive plagues killed many people, perhaps as many as a third of its population. By the start of the 15th century, however, Montpellier had managed to recover some of its former status and economy.The city is still known for its Faculty of Medicine and is applying for UNESCO City of Heritage which will help fund the renovations for their bid for Capital of Culture in 2028.

Luis shared some interesting facts with us:

  • The local language is Occitan, which was almost extinct but is trying to be revived through the school system.
  • There is no mountain in Montpellier, despite the ‘mont’ in the name.  Clapas is an Occitan term meaning pile of rocks and refers to the origin of the site where the city of Montpellier was developed around the 10th century, on elds of stones covered by Kermes Oak.
  • In the Middle Ages, Montpellier was an important city of the Crown of Aragon (and was the birthplace of James I), and then of Majorca, before its sale to France in 1349
  • La Place de Comédie used to be known as ‘the Square of the Egg’ because of its oval shape around which cars would pass through into the city. Now it’s pedestrian in the city centre to be quieter and more eco friendly.
  • St Roch is the patron saint and is always depicted with a dog. There is a shoe shop in town called Erbe Chausseur which is opened each Holy Day, 16 Aug, so that pilgrims can come and taste water from the well from which St Rich drank, which is still intact today and happens to be at the back of the shop.
  • The Jean Monnet Square (where we’d begun our beer quest on the first night) commemorated the achievements of its namesake; a Socialist who introduced the separation of church and state, the right to Sundays off and the concept of paid leave.
  • The Amphitheater of Anatomy was revolutionary in its time. Designed for observation, it is octagonal on the outside but circular inside with 8 windows around the circumference to prevent shadows. Condemned were dissected for students to watch and learn (like the Gallery in Gray’s Anatomy).
  • Montpellier is currently a mix of 40% students and 30% retirees, thanks to the legendary education credentials and the 300 days a year of sunshine.
  • The city has their own street artists. Their most famous are Mr BMX who affixes parts of bicycles onto city walls and Invader, who makes Space Invader mosaics above street names… and if you plot all the Space Invaders onto a map of Montpellier, they are all in the shape of a Space Invader!
  • One of the surviving towers has 2 pines on top. Michel de Notre Dame (Nostradamus) was at the University of Montpellier but flunked out. It was when he left and went to Italy that he started writing his prophecies. He predicted that when the pines die, the city of Montpellier will be destroyed. Since he had already correctly forecast the fall of the French kings 300 years after his death, the city hires two full-time gardeners to tend to the pines… just in case.

The tour concluded within spotting distance of the Best Bakery in France 2015, which seemed like a sign. I joined the queue and agonised over what to order as the long string of people in front of me edged closer to the door and disappeared into the small shop to get served. I got us each a feuilleté saucisson (sausage roll) and we wasted no time tucking into the layers of flaky pastry with porky herby centre.

With map in hand, we plotted a route to cover the sights not included in the tour. This led us back to the Aquaduct we’d seen on the tour that had brought water to Montpellier from St Clements some 18km away though the aqueduct and then 17km of lead pipes. We walked along the full 800m length of the impressive aqueduct structure before turning back to visit the Jardin du Plante (Botanical Gardens).

The Botanical Gardens are the oldest in France, founded by Henry IV in 1593. They are now owned and run by the Medical faculty, thus are a collection of plants that are useful rather than the conventional, largely superficial landscaped beds. Sort of disappointingly, one of their accomplishments is a large collection of grasses and succulents from South Africa. A long way to travel to see a garden from home!

We worked our way back around into the Old Town through the Arc de Triomphe, which was thirsty work and warranted a stop-in at the trusty Le Foch pub. It was already buzzing, and again, remarkably, there was a single waitress managing all the tables.

Last stop was to cross to the corner of town to investigate the archaeological site. A bit ordinary compared to the splendour of the rest of the Old Town.

We had booked dinner on The Fork at a steakhouse just around the corner from Le Foch. Conspicuously early it would seem, based on the fact that the host was at the door of the empty restaurant waiting to greet us. I finally got to try the steak tartare I had been after the whole holiday, opting for the Parmesan and sundried tomato variant. Delicious!

The chaps wanted to watch the rugby at 21h00, which was a bit late to be out on the town with an early start the next day. So we made our way home and enjoyed the game with a very civilised glass (bottle) of red (or two) from the comfort of our wonderful apartment.

Travelogue RWC 2023 2: Wine Route, Avignon, Nimes

BEAUJOLAIS, AVIGNON, NÎMES

25 – 27 September 2023

Our hearts sank as we arrived in the rental car depot.

We had efficiently traversed Lyon on the public transport and navigated pour way around the Part Dieu Gare to find the car rental company with whom we had pre-booked the car for our wine route roadtrip… but the queue was snaked around the lobby and out the door!

More than an hour’s wait threw us off course a little, but we still had the afternoon to make our way slowly up North to our resting place for the night in Chenas, at the top end of the Beaujolais wine route.

Beaujolais was the Kingdom of Beaujeu from 950 AD. The people were devoted to kings of France and planting of Beaujeu vineyards for clergy as ‘vines of the Lord’. But these magnificent grapes did indeed lead into temptation and they soon became ‘vines of the Lords’.

Our first stop en route to Beaujolais was Villefranche-sur-Saône, for lunch. Running a bit behind schedule we arrived for lunch just after 13h00… as the good people of Villefranche were closing for lunch. Although it made for a very efficient walking tour of the town, able to whip up and down the high street in record time, it would appear that lunchtime was the worst time to arrive for, well, lunch.

All was not lost though and we found an open supermarché where we bought some local wine (we could do a self-guided wine tour later). We also found an open sandwicherie and were, as always, enchanted with the quality of bread, butter and meats that made a simple sarmie (as the French would say) génial.

On our way out we found the tourist office was open and popped in to get a map of the Beaujolais wine country. The lady behind the counter penned a few circles on the map for us and, with several brochures for wine farms in hand, we took comfort from her loose instructions (to be said in a French accent) ‘you just follow the red route and zere is wine everywhere’.

I learnt from the map that Beaujolais was recognised as a UNESCO Global Geopark for its geological diversity and its preserved natural and cultural sites. Wines were intimately linked to local terroirs and there were more than 12 appellations, including 10 Crus.

An appellation is a geographical indication identifying where the grapes for wines were grown, although other types of food use appellations as well. Cru is a wine term used to indicate a high-quality vineyard or group of vineyards and its wines. And yes, there were vineyards and caves (tasting rooms, where you enjoy a degustation) everywhere in Beaujolais country.

We stopped in at the recommended Cave de Clochemerle. Famed for its historic public ablution (‘la pissotiere’), it is also highly photo-worthy with the fresco mural wall of colourful characters from Gabriel Chevallier’s famous (in these parts) novel ‘Clochemarle’, painted onto the balconies and pretend-windows.

We tried the flight of red wines and the bubbles in the cool cellar, piecing together the story of each from the attendant in our becoming-familiar Frenglish. We bought of a bottle of our favourites of each, quite chuffed with the Beaujolais experience.

A bit behind schedule we took the scenic route and soaked in the sights along the way. The hilly Beaujolais vineyards stretched 55km northward encased by the foothills of the Massif Central in the west and the Saône in the east. The landscape unfolded like a painting as the route took us through wine country and pretty little Beaujolais-Villages where we imagined a simpler life for ourselves.

Our destination was one of the pre-planned highlights of our trip; an overnight stay on a working vineyard in the heart of the Beaujolais wine route – in a town called Chenas – with farm-to-table pairing dinner.

All we knew about Chenas was what the map had told us ‘Chenas stretches across rolling hills and valleys. Its wine is generous, tender on the palate and intended for laying down.’ That didn’t give much away.

We climbed steadily up to Chenas, which allowed spectacular views over the winelands and pretty little villages dotted in the distance. Soon we were crunching our way up the gravel path to our destination, Auberge des Hauts de Chenas. It was almost 18h00 but still very light so we were able to soak in the view before unpacking and making ourselves at home.

Dinner was to be served at 19h15, which allowed enough time to explore the wine museum. Chris was disappointed that the exhibition was more about farming implements than wine itself… but that would come with dinner.

We were seated in the cosy dining room. Filled to capacity, our host had 13 guests including us to take care of for the evening. Astoundingly the one lady – owner of the wine farm, having inherited it from her founding grandfather – did the cooking, serving, clearing and wine-tasting duties for all of us!

She prepared us with a paddle of 6 of the vineyard’s wines and presented course after course. Soup, charcuterie and sun-dried tomato relish; fish goujons and samoosas; snails in a white wine sauce and puff-pastry cap; bœuf Bourgogne and veal medallions; chocolate fondant, caramel slice and crème brûlée; cheese platter. What a treat!

TUESDAY 

With a relatively long drive back from Chenas through Beaujolais to Avignon (3 hours), we had the quandary of how to leave early enough for a leisurely drive… without endangering our passage with (too much) wine-tasting.

Our solve was to start with a little cultural excursion to see us through until the proverbial planes flew overhead, which we had a feeling might have to be earlier than usual for us with all the temptation in Beaujolais.

Château de Corcelles fit the bill; a medieval castle 18km down the road and only 7km from the A6 freeway, with an English audio guide so we’d know what we were looking at.

It was built as a fortified house in the 11th century for Beaujolais from Burgundians. The rebuild in the 15th century added the turrets and towers which would make it all rather fairytale if it weren’t for the lethal ramparts with arrow slits and canon holes.

Originally more than 200 hectares, the estate was now 90 hectares requiring 150 handpickers to harvest the variety of terroirs. Le Chai – where the grapes are stored – was built in the 1800s and still has its original freestone wall and wooden roof frame. From there, Crus Brouilly, Fleurie and Morgan are the most famous wines produced on site – although it was still a little early for a tasting with quite some road ahead.

We had decided to break the drive with a stop in Vienne, 35km south of Lyon. The city was steeped in history, having been transformed into a Roman colony in 47 BC underJulius Caesar and becoming a major centre in the Empire thanks to its prime trading position at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Gère.

Remains of the Roman constructions are widespread across modern Vienne making it an ideal candidate for our preferred ‘open air’ and ‘living history’ excursions.

First order of business in Vienne was to find parking. We’d learnt from previous trips that it was a fool’s game to trawl for free bays, so we followed the signs to the Gare (train station) paid parking figuring that they’re usually central in these smaller towns.

Greeted with the ratecard signboard at the entrance advising that parking was charged at €1 per half hour, thoughts of leisurely strolling through Vienne evolved into ideals of a flash speed-walking tour.

We followed the signs to the Tourist Office, hoping to procure a map to rationalise our choices and cut out uneconomical dilly-dallying. We arrived at 12h41… 11 minutes into the Tourist Office’s 2-hour lunch break.

Not sure why the French need all this time to make a sandwich, but quite envious of the lifestyle nonetheless. Joie de vie in France indeed.

We took a photo of the map encased at the shut-tight entrance and set upon our way.

There were 8 points of interest on the map. First was the World War II commemorative Garden, which we’d already walked through as a shortcut to the Tourist Office. Bonus!

As tends to be the case in relic towns, the sights of interest are heavily religion-skewed.

Even the archeological museum (Sight 3) was an ancient building that had begun as an abbey in the 8th century. It was the primary burial place of the bishops in the 12th century and only in 1867 became a museum (presumably when they started digging up all the Roman stuff). Signboards outside illustrated a massive restoration and addition to the currently-dilapidated building that would soon make it a worthy visit.

Happy-snapping a trifecta of cathedral, temple and chapel (Sights 4-6), we made record time across the suspension bridge (Sight 7). We saw the Valois Tower (Sight 8) and, oddly not on the tourist map, the Museum with the actual open-air digging site of the ancient ruins. Since it wasn’t even on the map and was €10 each to get in, we opted for a quick gander from the free viewing deck above the ticket office.

And then a bee-line back to the car.

And there you have it, folks. That’s the 1-hour €2 tour of Vienne!

Chris wanted to check the tyres before hitting the road again; a warning light had flashed up briefly and we have a long history of bad luck with tyres so worth being cautious.

He dispatched me to get us some bottled water for the journey and, of course, since the shop adjoining the petrol station was a Boulangerie, I added a discretionary sandwich to the shopping list. Saucisson and Brie in a crunchy baguette. Mmmmm.

We’d done well with our Avignon accommodation. The A7 deposited us right at our doorstep as we took the turn-off from the freeway. Added bonus that there was a free parking bay right alongside our hotel, Au Saint Roch. And then, stars further aligning, there was an entrance to the old town right there too.

This was remarkable because medieval Avignon’s original walls are still in place (so highly unlikely that the primely-located gated arch had been planned for our convenience).

Our receptionist had a tourist map at the ready so we were out like a shot.

Into the old town, along the boulevard on the interior of the city wall and onto the main drag. The Rue de la République was spectacular! Old school elegance in a high street, with crazy history on every façade and hinted from side streets and narrow arcades, peeping over the rooftops.

With 8 cultural sites, 11 religious heritage buildings, 13 museums and monuments – and almost every other building something ornate or quaint – all contained in a 4.3km ancient wall, Avignon is a square kilometre of jam-packed tourist value for money! And, as Christian proved, easily doable in flip-flops, cobbled streets ‘n all.

We’d been directed that the piece de resistance was the Palais de Papes (Palace of the Popes). Pope Clement V (a Frenchman) moved the Papal residence to Avignon in 1309 on invitation of King Phillip of France because he refused to move to Rome. It remained the seat through the next 7 Popes.

Understandable that the ensuing Popes were happy to stay in Avignon. The Palais was beyond palatial; it was freaking enormous! 15 000 square metres under roof! 1.5 hectares of absolute opulence! This was a result of 20 years of building through the first 3 Popes, with Clement VI (Pope #3) forceably removing peasant housing surrounding the palace to improve defences through visibility around the borders.

A lousy thing to do to the peasants in the 1300s, but once they started clearing the rubble from the demolition (some 250 years later) and laid down the smooth stone pavers and whatnot, it made for a cracking square! Seemed fitting to have cafés and restaurants on the square for today’s mere minions to admire the largest medieval Gothic palace in the world.

On a high from some premium sight-seeing, it was high time to tackle the Guinness Index. We’d seen an Irish bar called O’Collins on our way into the Old Town so we retraced our footsteps and were delighted to find they celebrated Happy Hours – from 4 to 6pm daily – and we were smack-bang in the middle of the slot. We procured ourselves a pair of pints for 6 Euros apiece and secured Avignon #15 on the Index (which would have been a #4 had it been any other of the Unhappy Hours!)

We left our dinner plans in the hands of fate, saying we would trust The Fork app to choose our meal, based on the highest ratings in a 1km radius. This chose a burger joint for us, called Maimana. We stucks to our guns and booked a table for 19h00 to allow time to amble the cobbled streets to get there.

It was one of a few sidewalk eateries side-be-side on a narrow street. There was a pleasant atmosphere in the cool evening with a light breeze carrying the mixture of languages and laughter towards us on arrival. Once our respective steak and chicken burgers were served we could see what the fuss was about and how this humble hole-in-the-wall restaurant had earned a 9.5 from so many people. Yum!

We walked back to our B&B along the wide (maybe 5 or 6 metres wide) sidewalk path on the outside of the city wall. It was incredible that this medieval structure was still standing, let alone in such perfect condition. It stretched on along side us, with 8m high smooth walls topped with ramparts and interjected with square towers.

We Googled when we got back and discovered that the wall was over 1000 years old and, granted, had had maintenance done… mostly in the 15th and 18th centuries!

WEDNESDAY 

We had traded our night in Nîmes for the whirlwind wine route tour. Less than 45 minutes from Avignon and directly en route to Montpellier, there was still time for a stop and quick self-guided walking tour.

Emerging from the parking lot, we saw our first site, a regal statue in a beautiful square. The signboard revealed him to be Antonin who was from Nîmes, the son and grandson of Senators and who became one of the Emperors of Rome.

From there, we could also see signposts indicating the direction of sights of interest with the distance to each marked alongside. We chose the direction of the tourist office first.

By the time we had gotten a map of the town, we had already happened upon marvellous things!

It was such a pleasure just walking around Nîmes. Everything is beautiful. Everywhere is so clean. The buildings are elegant and magnificent. The pavements are smooth, honey-coloured stone. The roads are tree-lined and it is welcome to walk in the shade as the sunlight mottles through the trees while you move through one spectacular sight to the next. Truly awesome in the most literal sense of the word.

We stumbled upon the Maison Carrée, built in the first century A.D. and one of the best-conserved temples of the Roman world. Very impressive with its stature, elegant columns and Corinthian capitals on the facade decor. It was mind-blowing to see student-types casually lunching on the steps and on the ledge around the building, dangling their legs and chatting away like it was an everyday thing to lounge on an ancient monument (which for them, I suppose, it was).

We were also caught by surprise by the Arena, which was also built in the first century A.D. shortly after the Colosseum in Rome. It could entertain more than 24 000 spectators enjoying the likes of gladiator fights. It was converted to a fortress in the 6th century, when some of the arcades were bricked up. But that does not detract from the architecture, and it is still considered one of the best-conserved amphitheatres from the Roman world. It is now used for bullfights, congresses, concerts and sport events.

Procuring the tourist map, we filled in the gaps. We made our way back to the top of the town to see the Castellum aqueduct. Amazing that in the first century they were already able to transport water 50 km via aqueduct into this circular basin, from where it would be dispersed to thermal baths, fountains and districts around the town.

We wrapped up the walking tour with a visit to the Temple of Diane on the far side of the tranquil Jardin de la Fontaine. The first inhabitants of Nîmes had settled near this spring in the 6th century BC and the Romans had beautified the area as a sanctuary in 1AD. The current magnificent formal gardens were designed in the 18th century to respect the layout of the archeological remains, and were added to in the 19th century to finish off the gardens as they can be enjoyed today.

Travelogue RWC2023 1: Lyon

LYON

22 – 25 September 2023

With Christian’s passion for Rugby and our shared love of France, it was a fait accompli that we’d do the World Cup in 2023 and we’d been discussing it for years.

With 3 options on Emirates, we thought we’d give landing in Lyon a try since we’d already done Paris and Nice. A quick Google that revealed Lyon as the eating and drinking capital of France sealed the deal and the planning began!

We’d be spending the first week sightseeing in Lyon and then touring the Rhône Wine Route on our way down to Montpellier to meet RoRo. Then we three would drive to Marseille to meet another friend, Michele, from London and attend the game we’d booked, South Africa vs Tonga. We’d close off the tour with a breather in Perpignan before closing with a bang; a last night in Barcelona to attend a Blink 182 concert.

Quite used to the usual pre-vacation pressures and anticipating the expect-the-unexpected work crunches leading up to departure, we were thrown by our Airbnb host cancelling our Lyon accommodation the day before our departure in the midst of our last-minute mayhem! With a big game (Australia vs Wales) in Lyon on the Sunday, accommodation was in short supply – and a small fortune. Chris managed to get us a hotel room booking… and at the time of this writing had yet to have the courage to share the price tag with me.

Nonetheless, we were excited for our trip and the downtime of the flights actually helped quell the anxieties of the last-minute challenges. We were in full holiday mode by the time we cleared Passport Control at Saint Exupéry Airport, named after the Lyon-born author of famed fable novella, The Little Prince (which had been one of my high school French class setwork books).

Having travelled relatively light (one shared suitcase), we decided to brave public transport to get to our hotel. All our research had spotlighted the ease of navigating Lyon on the train, tram and bus network so there was no time like the present to dip proverbial toes in the water.

It was easy enough to manage the French on the ticket machine (thanks Duolingo!) and to find the train station outside the airport… like everyone else. There were so many people on the platform that we didn’t fit into the first 3-car train that arrived 10 minutes later. Several waiting would-be passengers (not travelling on the Rand, clearly) abandoned the wait in favour of Ubers and taxis. We stuck it out and deftly manoeuvred to the front of the platform to ensure our spot on the next train.

It was starting to rain as we arrived in the city centre at the Part Dieu Station, bustling with end-of-day commuters. Overwhelmed and under-ambitious, we caved and joined the short taxi queue to get door-to-door service.

The Hill Club hotel was a welcome sight, as was our economically-sized (but not priced) room.

Eager to get the party started, we dumped bags and began the intro tour we’d planned on the flight thanks to our downloaded offline Google Maps.

Lyon is shaped like a hotdog, where the Part Dieu station is on the edge of the right bun, old Town is on the left bun and an island sausage is in the middle separated from the bun by the ‘sauce’ rivers on either side. We were based in Confluence; at the bottom of the sausage, so to speak.

Even though it was Autumn, the day was still bright and warm when we emerged from the hotel around 17h00. Eager to see as much as we could, we ambled along the promenade of the Saône River (left of the hotdog sausage), taking in the areas of Saint Georges, Saint Jean and Saint Paul in our quest to experience the Old Town.

As is typical, at the farthest point of our walk, it started to drizzle. Fortunately, the French aren’t very literal about Happy Hour being an actual hour, so we were able to enjoy pints discounted (between 17h00 and 20h00) in one of the many pubs (with rugby on a big screen).

SATURDAY

Chris had had the foresight to book a 10h30 walking tour in advance, so with little to think about and an hour to kill, we took a morning run to soak in the fresh morning air along the river. The good people of Lyon shared the sentiment and there were many runners and cyclists moving along in either direction in the demarcated pedestrian lanes along the banks.

Having the rivers on either side helped enormously with getting us oriented, and our tour guide Jean-Davide (JD) opened the walking tour with expanding the mental picture for the group.

He explained that Lyon is also called Presqu’île, which literally translates as ‘almost island’ because it feels like an island but is actually a peninsula. Essentially, the rivers on either side of the sausage are La Saône in the west (on the left) and the Rhône in the East (on the right), which flow from North to South and meet at La Confluence, which is where we were staying.

We had met JD and the group outside the City Hall, commissioned by Louis XIV but adorned with Henry IV, who had famously been married in Lyon. There was also the equally notable Bartholdi Fountain landmark, built by the same sculptor as the Statue of Liberty. It was meant for Bordeaux in 1888, but they couldn’t afford it so Lyon snapped it up.

JD animatedly relayed the history of the landmarks at our meeting place and then broadened perspective to the greater lay of the land (bafflingly using compass points rather than my hotdog analogy).

Lyon, as a City more than two thousand years old, had a long and fascinating history. The Romans had split Gaul into 4 and called the capital (Lyon) Lugdunum. It was the capital of Gaul and even had its own mint. It is the second oldest Christian community in the world (behind Rome), which explains the concentration of churches and cathedrals – and sadly also the extent of the Christian persecution.

JD impressed that a large part of Lyon’s (slightly more recent) history was embedded in the silk trade and that we should explore the Working Hill (top of the sausage) where the silk trade was largely conducted and the Praying Hill (top of the left bun) with the cathedral and concentration of churches.

He also introduced us to the traboules of the city; a unique network of thoroughfares through the buildings in town that allow shortcuts. Invisible to the uninformed, a door from the street – that looked like any other door – allowed access to a passageway through the ground level of a building. These were used for centuries to first aid local residents to move from East to West in the town to get to the rivers for water, and later from North to South to allow workers to more easily move their silk wares from Working Hill to town.

The silk workers, or ‘Canuts’ as they were called, were overworked and under-paid, exacerbated by fluctuating silk prices. In French fashion, they protested. They petitioned three times to fix silk rates but only succeeded in 1848 when Paris revolted against the monarchy and formed the Second Republic (which didn’t last long, thanks to Napoleon).

There are more than 400 traboules around the city… which again provided value in modern times to the Resistance fighters in the Second World War since the passageways are unmapped and provided opportunities for nimble movement.

As we navigated the city, JD pointed out Street Art along the way. Although technically illegal, the art has become an accepted subculture as long as it was not painted directly onto the ancient and protected buildings. Consequently, artists like ‘Zorm’ have started affixing little 3D moulds of monkeys, bears and penguins onto walls around the city, ‘In the Whoop’ does mosaics of characters and superheroes, and ‘Britt’ is known for her political art decals about women and children rights. Another artist known as ‘Ememem’ (an onomatopoeia sounding like the revving of his scooter as he speeds away from his illicit creations) makes mosaics in potholes and where sidewalks have chipped. He would have his work cut out for him in South Africa where the potholes are plenty and the law enforcement flaky at best!

We ended our tour in Old Town, where JD pointed out and explained the Renaissance and Gothic architecture, as well as the nuances like painted windows (in olden times residents were taxed on how many windows they had so they bricked them up and painted windows in their place).

His parting advice was to try as much Lyonnaise food as possible since Lyon is the modern gastronomy capital of France. He showed us pictures of the dishes we had to try and those to avoid – like a crumbed and deep fried veal stomach that looked unsettlingly like a delicious schnitzel!

We were starving by this point – since it was early afternoon and we’d only had hasty chocolate pastries from the boulangerie en route to the walking tour – so leapt at the idea of spending a generous portion of the afternoon on a multi-course ‘cultural immersion’ in a local bouchon (restaurant that serves traditional food).

We got a recommendation – encouraged by the address on Rue de Bœuf (Beef Street) – and spent the next couple of hours working through a 3 course set menu:

  • Œuf et meurette – poached egg in red wine, bacon and shallots sauce
  • Gratinée Lyonnaise – French onion soup with melted Emmenthal
  • Quenelle de brochet – fish souffle with lobster bisque sauce
  • Saucisson Lyonnais – local sausage served with potato dauphinoise bake
  • Cervelle des Canuts – creamy garlicky cheese
  • Saint Marcellin – small wheel of gooey cheese that kicks Camembert and Brie’s ass!

Grateful to be in a walking town, we emerged from Bouchon Rouge full and happy, and with endless streets to wander down and a river on either side to walk along to aid digestion.

We made our way back to the hotel, stopping for a Happy Hours special for a short siesta to prepare for the big rugby game that evening.

Surfacing again, we stuck to our neighbourhood, La Confluence, and were drawn into a pub called Peaky Blinders Tavern, which had fun barstools with pedals attached to them.

Sadly, Ireland took our Springboks for 13:8 so the less said about that the better.

SUNDAY

What a blessing to wake up on a Sunday with no chores to do. We went for a gentle jog up La Saône and then across through the town to meet up with the Rhône. There was a market operating along the riverbank so they were plenty people out and about getting their weekly fresh produce shopping done as we nipped past, stopping here and there to take snaps.

We planned to take JD’s advice and climb after ‘Working Hill’ to Croix-Russe. In no particular hurry, there was time to stop in at the local boulangerie for our daily fix; a creamy, chewy, buttery roast chicken baguette.

Quite used to the lay of the land, we easily navigated along the wide pedestrian shopping street – which must have been more than a kilometre long – to get back to Place de la Terreaux where we had met JD the day before.

We re-traced some of the footsteps until we were sure of our way, and then shortcutted up the hill to our destination.

JD had made the recommendation for the weekly buzz of the market stalls along the street in Croix-Russe and had shared that the locals joked that there was no need for them to come down from the hill since they had everything they needed right up there.

They might have been right. We kept ourselves both entertained and well-fed by shopping for snacks along the market stalls. To top it off, it was a beautiful sunshiny day, so all of the Cafes and restaurants were heaving with customers, enjoying the sunshine on the plateau.

Highlights for us were sampling the local delicacies – Saucisson Brioche (sausage in buttery pastry casing that JD rightfully said was ‘not a f***ing hotdog!’… but could have been cousin to a sausage roll) and Pate Crouté (pork + pate + brine combo encased in pastry as a meatloaf and served in thick slices, either hot or cold).

Top experience was navigating the automated public bathroom pod. I almost stepped into the booth as the previous occupant was leaving, but a gentlemen grabbed my arm and pulled me out. Startled at first, it took a few exchanges in our shared Frenglish for him to explain that as the occupant leaves, the door automatically closes so that the pod can self-clean before indicating with the green light at the door that it’s ready for the next person. I could have had an unwelcome shower in the space-age Lav!

Relieved (in more ways than one), we enjoyed a bit of a sit at the park and lookout point, absorbing the view of the city and glistening rivers below as we tapped into the conversations around us to try and improve our French.

By the time we made our way back down to old town, it looked like Little Wales. With the Wales vs Australia game being played in Lyon at 17h00, all the many patriots were out in their red-shirted glory, and warming up in the pubs and restaurants. If the outcome of the game was going to be determined by quantum of fans, Wales would be giving the Wallabies a thumping.

Next was to find a pub in which to celebrate Happy Hour (where we could get a pint of lager for the manageable sum of €5) and the start of the Scotland vs Tonga game.

With the concentration of pubs, cafes and restaurants, we substantially narrowed the choice to those (few) offering free Wi-Fi. This led us to L’Alert Rouge (Red Alert), which surprised and delighted us with a hard rock soundtrack as we caught up on what was happening in the online world and on the field.

Since we had done more than 20km on foot over the course of the day and we were close to our neck of the woods, we decided to have dinner in the ‘Californian’ restaurant in our hotel with far-from-traditional cheeseburgers, loaded fries and mac ‘n cheese on the side.

MONDAY

Our morning jog ritual paid off, with some unexpected celeb-spotting and planned boulangerie-stopping.

Christian recognised Mils Muliaina who had more than 100 caps for the Kiwis and was in their team who took the 2011 Rugby World Cup victory. More notably, ‘Milsy’ is a rugby presenter on a sports show so his voice is quite a regular feature in our lounge in the weekend roundups. Chris, bless him, played it very cool with a double thumbs-up as we sashayed past.

We celebrated our aloof celeb engagement (very easy for me since I didn’t recognise him sans commentary) with baked goods. With a run behind us and a long day of wine-routing ahead of us, we upped the pain au chocolat ante with a Suisse as well.  It had the same buttery-pastry-choc-goodness as the pain but also a sort of custard centre. Definitely to be repeated!

On leaving our hotel, we passed Andy Ellis, another capped (but much less famous) Kiwi. We didn’t pay him more than a passing glance because we were off to catch a tram to Part Dieu station and our next adventure awaited us!

Travelogue Corsica 3: Bastia

BASTIA

01 – 04 October 2022

Mapping our route around Corsica, we had stuck mostly to the coast, picturing a beach holiday and visiting most of the main cities which must have been built around the commercially-necessary ports.

The exception was our final leg back to Bastia where we would be traversing the island through the mountains, through a town called Corte, which was reviewed to be a lively town thanks to the University and resulting energy of the student population.

What we hadn’t realised (basing our itinerary on blogs and reviews rather than a contoured map) is exactly how mountainous Corsica is. The majority of the island is one big mountain range, save for a relatively narrow strip around the coast.

Thus, our journey from Ajaccio to Bastia started almost immediately with a climb into the mountains and a corresponding change in scenery and in climate.

Soon back in the ‘head of broccoli‘ (as I had likened the terrain; florets of dense green forest), the roads were so windy it was as if their architect had dropped cooked spaghetti onto a map and then built the tarred road accordingly. Twists and turns as we climbed up one side of a mountain and then descended down the other, our little Fiat 500 feeling every inch in both directions.

The view was sublime. So picturesque. Very hard to describe in words how epic the vastness of the panoramas were. Climbing walls of mountains from where you could see an endless green blanket of forest and a hazy horizon, the blinking blue ocean.

We passed through a few small towns, with welling excitement as each approached; a collection of multi-storey stone symbols of civilisation, staked into the rocks and poking through the trees. Again, hard to describe adequately since ‘old buildings’ and ‘tightly packed enclaves’ hardly sound worthy of any emotional attachment. And yet the views weren’t getting tired and the little towns not getting stale, and we still had the compulsion to point out every single boulangerie we saw, as if gathering points on a treasure hunt.

Corte was immediately noticeably different from the other little towns. It was multiple times the size and as we entered the town there were sports fields and other telltale signs of the university campus. Driving through the Centre Ville, there were countless cafes and restaurants doing a roaring trade.

Being model citizen tourists, we ticked off the sites first – most notably the famous Citadel, built on the edge of a crag that as a literal cliffhanger allowed it to oversee its dominion in all directions – before rewarding ourselves with lunch.

Normally struggling with choosing a restaurant with so many options and usually only a single meal in each town, we were instantly drawn to a place called A Casa Di L’Orsu (House of the Bear, or similar) which had numerous wild boar meals on their menu display board outside. Being a speciality in Corsica and especially inland, we were sold!

With a bargain set menu (no doubt intended to appeal to a student clientele), we were able to sample a number of dishes including the peasant soup, a wild boar pasta dish, wild boar vol au vent (really just a fancy open pie; stole the show) and local cheeses and fig jam for which the inland is also famous.

Fed and happy, we finished off the journey, with Romesh for company until we were descending into Bastia and needed our GPS to guide us to our hotel. 

We had booked 3 nights at Hotel Le Bastia so were very pleased when it exceeded our expectations. Besides having secure and spacious basement parking, our room had double French doors with wooden shutters to keep out the light and with a magnificent sea view when they were open! The hotel also had a fitness gym room and a large basement swimming pool that was heated and enclosed so it doubled as a sort of sauna vibe with loungers.

After our quick tour of the hotel, we hit the streets. 

On arrival, while pleased for the view from our ridge, I’d been concerned that we may be a bit far from the action. N’est pas! We discovered that while it would be quite tiresome trekking up and down the zigzag roads to the promenade, there were stone step alleyways at regular intervals that allowed us to descend more directly, taking no more than a few minutes to get to the town square or the Old Port.

Bastia was preparing a Beer Fest in the town square which I am almost ashamed to say that we did not attend thanks to our lengthy no-sundowners the night before, the cross-country mountain-climbing traverse of the day and the knowledge that the next day was to be a long one.

We did toast our new homebase though, with a jug of sangria (the most fruit we’d had all holiday) and some croquettes, calamari and nachos tapas.

SUNDAY

Sunday was designated for our road trip around the Cap Corse, dubbed ‘an island with in an island’ because it is an index-finger peninsula poking out of the top of Corsican mainland fist.

We approached the road trip in an anticlockwise direction, as per most of the itineraries we had reviewed online. The rationale was to drive from east to west, following the Sun. 

The first stop was a mere 11km from Bastia, a tiny town called Erbalunga, which was no more than a small ring of buildings hugging to a miniature marina on the sliver of flat(ish) land carved out of the mountains behind.

Within 20 minutes we’d covered the town end-to-end, enjoying the character of the narrow alleyways, steep stone staircase and random low archways that melded together the tatty-chic apartments in which people still went about their daily lives (as many generations had before them).

With a surprisingly lively town square with 7 or 8 restaurants, a handful of the essential shops on the high street and so close to Bastia (and its airport), Erbalunga would make an ideal Work From Anywhere town! 

We got out for a quick trot around the next two or three towns and beaches, but it was quite windy so we didn’t stop for very long in any one place. Ironically when we stopped at the landmark Mattei Windmill it wasn’t moving, while we very nearly got blown off the koppie by a gale force gust of wind!

Any collection of words would not do justice to the spectacular panoramas – both inland and out to sea – to which we were treated as Chris zigged and zagged us along the coastal road.

Some parts were very steep and narrow with no barriers to the sheer drops beside us. Chris noted that if this trail was at home in South Africa there would be railings, warning signs, speed cameras and who knows what else, where in Corsica it was left to the driver to self-regulate in order to avoid tumbling off the cliff to a fiery death. 

He negotiated the ups and downs valiantly as I click-click-clicked photos out of the passenger seat window, capturing at least some of the essence of the experience that I anticipated I would not be able to verbalise. View the Facebook album.

We had pencilled the idea of lunch on the road but not defined where we would like to stop. While we had looked at a few menu boards, nothing had grabbed us; too windy, too sunny, too busy, not busy enough. It had gotten to mid afternoon and we resigned ourselves that we’d missed the boat, everywhere would be on siesta and we’d have dinner on our returns to Bastia instead.

Then, best left in fate’s hands, we rounded a random bend between Centuri and Nonza and were faced with the perfect scene: a small wooden deck terrace with dainty wrought iron furniture, hanging so far off the steep hillside that it looked to be floating on the endless azure ocean on the skyline. 

Chris parallel parked the car like a local, ie single smooth twist of the steering wheel to place our little Fiat 500 inches from the stone wall on the passenger side, and right in the middle of the cars in front and behind with no more than a half metre either side. THAT is how much motivation our little terrace provided!

The waitron at L’Auberge du Chat Qui Pêche (The Inn of the Chat who Fishes) welcomed us and ushered us to a table right at the edge of the terrace, from where we could see the terraced gardens (citrus and veg) below and of course the massive magnificent ocean that stretches as far as the eye could see in either direction.

Expecting to pay a premium (which is saying something considering the normal price of things), we were surprised when the daily menu board was presented to us and left on an easel for our inspection. Everything was easily €5 cheaper than in the cities, which is crazy since the view alone was worth multiple times that!

We shared a juicy 300g pork chop with sautéed potatoes complemented with fried calamari for a sort of surf n turf combo, washed down with a (small) beer to toast our good fortune that this slice of heaven had presented itself so clearly to us.

Wishing we could stay to enjoy the sunset, but knowing how treacherous the remainder of the drive would be in the dark, we called for our bill. Shock, horror, the restaurant didn’t accept credit card! Only cash and cheque. Cheque? In 2022?! Anyway…

With our broken French and the landlord’s broken English, we found a third option of mutual benefit. PayPal. Jumping onto their wifi I attempted to transfer the Euros from my PayPal account. The transaction required an OTP delivered by SMS, which was proving troublesome since we were in stone building in a thicket in the middle of nowhere.

The landlord didn’t even raise an eyebrow at my raindancing like a mad thing on the terrace, waving my phone at the sea trying to get the damn OTP. When it eventually came, he gave us a warm and friendly “Merci. Bon journée!” which is exactly what we’d had. A good day!

MONDAY 

As the last day of our trip, we’d left the itinerary completely open so we could fill in the gaps for anything we’d not gotten to.

Since the sun was shining and the sky was as blue as the day is long, we decided to drive across to Saint Florent, a little coastal town at the westerly base of the Cap Corse route we’d driven the day before (but cut slightly short having spent extra time at our terrace restaurant).

Saint Florent as a seaside holiday resort town offered a stretch of beach, a marina with a broad selection of restaurants and, of course, a citadel. We figured we could easily entertain ourselves for a couple of hours with the combination of walking tour, sea-slothing and/or eating something delicious.

We easily managed all 3 in Saint Florent with a courtesy nod to culture by way of photos of the square, monument and citadel + delicious ice cream cones (from a store that had more than 50 flavours so it was very hard to choose) + a couple of hours of soaking up the soft Mediterranean sun and splashing around in the warm Mediterranean Sea.

We had seen some vineyards on the way in so fancied our chances of a wine tasting and light late lunch / charcuterie board on the way home.

Finding the wineries was very easy; they were lined up along the road through Patrimonio. Choosing was a bit of a crap-shoot since we hadn’t heard of any of them. We stopped in at a few, muddled through the obligatories with the hosts (none of whom spoke English; clearly this is not a big tourist activity) and didn’t find anything that tickled us (especially not the sweet muscat wine!) nor any with a kitchen or snacks of any sort.

By the time we got back to Bastia we were ravenous… but still had an hour to wait until any dinner restaurants opened at 18h30. We passed some time having a glass of wine on the town square before going for dinner at a grill house famed equally for their magnificent rotisserie chicken and their large portions. Parfait!

At least doing everything on foot means that each activity is equally about the journey and the destination and we soaked up our last sunset as we walked hand-in-hand along the promenade past the Old Port and the citadel for the last time.

Travelogue Corsica 2: Ajaccio

AJACCIO

29 September – 01 October 2022

We checked out of the lovely Grand President Hotel in Olbia needing to retrace our footsteps back to Corsica. We would drive to Olbia Airport to return our Mini rental car, catch the 10h40 bus to Santa Teresa at the Airport terminus and, on arrival, expected to be just after 12 midday, would need to hightail down to the port to catch our pre-booked 12h30 ferry.

Empowered by predictable and efficient public transport, we disembarked the ferry in Bonifacio just after 13h30.

We were a bit nervous as we walked along the promenade in front of all the shops and the hotel we had stayed at the week before, as we approached the parking lot, hoping and praying that our car was still there in one piece.

Hallelujah! It was still there.

Absolutely delighted, we exited the parking lot and hit the road in the direction of Ajaccio.

Since we still had the Corsican Sim card we were able to do some googling to decide on our stops along the way. Knowing we would not make it all the way through to dinner time on our early hotel breakfast alone, we decided to stop in Sartene, which had great reviews on a few sites we checked .

It was a very scenic drive as we drove inland from the coast and with the blue sea minimising behind us we became engulfed in the greenery of the mountainous terrain we were traversing.

Arriving in Sartene at around 3pm, we anticipated parking to be an issue, so we took the first available spot we saw, at the base of a steep hill at the entrance to the town, and advanced on foot. 

The reviews never really give a sense of magnitude and everything in Sartene was smaller and closer than anticipated. 500m later we were at the central Piazza Petro photographing the panorama, crudely translating the inscription on statues and looking for somewhere to offer a quick bite.

As with most piazzas, there were sidewalk cafes dotted around the edge. We were keen to get back on the road though, so not in for the long haul matching the existing patrons in their lounge chairs watching the day go by.

We thus picked the low-key take away kitchen at the entrance to the square which, with its couple of barrel tables and chalkboard offering panini and burgers, seemed like they’d be able to turn us around fast and happy.

We ordered kebab galettes – a choice made infinitely more simple since it was all they had left of the list of lunch specials on the board – and were soon chomping away happily on fat, neatly stuffed wraps, and commending ourselves on the sensible choice since the crunchy fresh garnish was the closest we’d come to veg in days!

Fuelled and motivated to complete our journey, Chris negotiated the narrow and winding road down through valleys and up around hillocks while I admired the Vistarama and remarked at the pinhead-sized towns that popped up here and there on the hillside. 

With sturdy grey stone structures hinting at a lot of history behind those walls, we wondered how those random settlements had come to be, who lived there… and whether it would be worth planning a Work From Anywhere trip to really test the ‘remote’ in remote working.

The surrounding area was so thick and green and so contoured and textured – only punctuated with brown splashes where steep rock faces broke through the forests – that I suspect that if you were looking down on this area, zoomed in from the satellite or something, it may like a head of broccoli!

Our route (The Only Route between Bonifacio and Ajaccio) wove us back to the coast and past a small town called Propriano that we had seen on reviews while we were planning our itinerary and had been a strong contender for an overnight stay. We could see the appeal of the magnificent clear blue bay with cheerful multi-coloured buildings cuddled onto its coastline and yachts bobbing around the marina, willing holidaymakers to take to the seas.

I kept looking over my shoulder and out the back window to catch a glimpse of the little bay, vowing that should we return to Corsica, we would add this to our future itinerary.

All the while, with Romesh for company, we were making headway towards our ultimate destination, Ajaccio.

It was a stark dose of reality, after being on holiday for a couple of weeks already, to get a taste of the real world again; approaching Ajaccio we got caught in the end of day traffic!  Worsened by an accident on the marina close to our final destination, movement had slowed to such a point that we were estimated to require 26 minutes to cover the last 2 km of a journey. We were tempted to leave the car (again) and walk the final distance!

Nonetheless, with nerves of steel, Chris got us to where we needed to be. Our patience was rewarded when as we were checking in to Le Dauphin, a car pulled out of the parking bay right in front of the hotel, providing us with a free parking bay that would save us €10 of paid parking per day, as well as the 200 meter walking to and from the parking lot. 

Eager to see a little of the town before it got dark, we headed straight out and directed ourselves along the water’s edge and citadel wall, through the old town and up to the Place Charles de Gaulle and its statue of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was famously born in this town. 

After a cursory wander around to get our bearings, we happened upon an Irish pub, where we could continue our quest for culture by adding a listing onto our Guinness index.

Since we had had such a filling and late lunch in Sartene, and with no compulsion to force a dinner we rather enjoyed soaking in the old town atmosphere, browsing the restaurant menus and stopping in here and there for a drink.

FRIDAY

Waking to a grey sky, we wasted no time donning our runners and doing a lap the full length of the promenade to the beach at the far end; the same section we’d first walked the previous evening. 

Ajaccio really was a picture postcard coastal city, that looked very tropical with all its tall mature palm trees along the promenade. It had a lot of old world charm with its restored and renovated pastel buildings curving along the shoreline and must have been a heavenly sight for the weary sailors coming in to port for the last few hundred years, looking for a good meal and a night on the town.

We had decided to forgo the breakfast at the hotel since experience had told us that they were all the same very continental offering with a hot drink, a cold drink, a pastry and jams. We decided instead that we would pop our heads in ear one of the many boulangeries we had seen and leave the menu in the hands of fate.

Heading up into the old town, we skipped the first bakery because there was a long queue at the door and there was no shortage of boulangeries so a wait unwarranted. We went into the second shortly thereafter and grabbed a pain au chocolat and a sugar crested brioche to get us started. 

At literally a couple of Euro, we applauded our adventure as well as our economy, as we chomped on the fresh and light baked goods.

On a good wicket and not quite sated, we thought we’d stop in at the next boulangerie, and were soon trying another local store where we ordered a ham and cheese pie. With a smooth cheese sauce filling and lumps of diced ham, the pie was light and flaky and would have been a perfect 10 if only it was heated.

Still talking about how clever we were to have found two great boulangeries, we stumbled across a third, emitting such fabulous aroma that we could not help but enter. This one had pizza sub sandwiches on crunchy French loaf (probably just called ‘loaf’ in Corsica), which we had to sample. With great restraint we ordered one to share.

By now we’d walked almost to the other end of the promenade and were approaching the docks so there was little more to see. With the weather still miserable our initial thoughts of beaching the day away were also dashed. As it started to drizzle, we sought solace in a massive Carrefour supermarket.

It was very easy to wile away an hour of grocery tourism in the store that was so big it has TWO wine sections, each a double sided aisle running the length of the store!

Chris also got to demonstrate to me all the self service checkout technology in this store that he’d experienced on his visit to Paris a few weeks prior. Such clever tech and so user friendly!

Thinking we’d out-waited the rain, we emerged from the store. We were about halfway back home when the clouds opened properly and we were absolutely drenched in a flash cloudburst! 

This time we hibernated back to our hotel and didn’t come out again until we were surer than sure that the rain had dried up.

Emerging again, we made our way up to Old Town for some sundowners, feeling perfectly justified at starting early since the sun hadn’t actually had the good grace to come out in the first place. 

We used the downtime to research dinner options; a mean feat since there were SO many restaurants to choose from. We eventually settled on one recommended by our trusty travel aid app, The Fork, and then settled in for the wait until our reservation (19h30, earlybirds special by Corsican standards) rolled around.

Committed to having anything but pizza and pasta, we enjoyed a fabulously French snails to start, with Corsican sausage bangers ‘n mash and a beef joulet for mains and a cracking bottle of local Red to wash it all down.

Travelogue Corsica 1: Bonifacio

BONIFACIO

19-22 September 2022

After a couple of years of lockdown keeping our feet on the ground, we were both eager and anxious to get back to our formerly regular adventures in the world.

Being a bit out of practice, it took the prompt of a business trip for Chris to get us plotting and planning again.

He had some work to do in Paris and London at the beginning of September so the thinking was that it would be ideal to tag a couple of weeks leisure travel onto that. We’d been working on our French on the Duolingo app throughout lockdown so the French connection prompted us to consider Corsica, a French island to the south of the Côté d’Azur.

Engulfed in the zeal of holiday planning, Sardinia (an Italian island) was soon latched onto the itinerary when we realised that the two islands were connected by a short ferry ride. A two-for-one road trip? Yes please! 

This now required at least a two week stay; impractical as an extension on Chris’s business trip which was already 10 days. But too good to put off for much longer, so pegged for September nonetheless. Chris would just have to go and come back, only to go again.

Tickets were booked, routes planned and hotels reserved. All systems go.

It was quite a trek to get there: drive to OR Tambo airport, 8 hour flight to Dubai, 3 long hours from midnight to 3am (thank heavens for free lounge access!) in Dubai Airport for our connecting 6 hour flight to Paris, with 3 hours to get our luggage, cross terminals and catch our 2 hour connecting EasyJet flight to Bastia, in the north of Corsica.

But then we were there. Picking up our little Fiat 500 to hit the open road!

Bravely, we had made the decision upfront to suck up the driving on the first day while we were in motion anyway, so to speak, which meant that first order of business was to drive the length of Corsica to our first home for the holiday, Bonifacio.

Although traversing Corsica was little more than 150km and a single road, it was national road at best so speed limit varied from 70kmph (mostly) to 110kmph (best case) and 50kmph through the towns dotted along the route. 

Even though we were tired, the drive was still enjoyable. It was easy to see how Corsica is fondly dubbed L’Ile Beauté (the beautiful island) as we moved through fields and hills and tropical vegetation, with the azure ocean popping up on our left every now and then. We also passed a few vineyards offering tastings and sales rooms and noted to visit a few on our return journey, when we had more time.

On the outskirts of Bonifacio, you’d be forgiven for thinking you were in Cappadocia in Turkey. The road we were travelling on seemed as if snaking through a valley that it had outgrown and consequently there were cave-like single garages cut into the high walls of sandy-coloured rock, presumably to service the shops opposite or unseen residences above.

We would need to have a closer look later; for now the mission was to get to our destination while still light.

Bonifacio took us a bit by surprise as we rounded a corner and were met with a marina heaving with fancy yachts and catamarans, twinkling lights along the promenade from the row of waterfront bars and restaurants servicing their sunset trade and big, brown and ancient citadel standing proudly on the hilltop backdrop, filling the horizon as it had for as long as it had.

Of course we took a wrong turn and ended up in the citadel itself, holding our breath as our tiny Fiat 500 squeezed along the tight roads never meant for cars and wheezed up the steep hills that one can’t imagine having to do daily without a car!

At the tippedy-top of the hill and suspecting our hotel to be down below on the promenade, we quit the confusing GPS, negotiated the twists, turns and tourists on instinct alone and sought solace in the parking lot of the Spar we’d noted on our way in. 

The security man, knowing exactly how precious parking real estate was on the cramped peninsula, was wise to our game and rattled off some French that was clearly “Oi! Customers Only!” or similar.

Tag-teaming the mission, I slipped into the Spar to buy <anything> while Chris set off on foot to find our hotel.

The upside of the cramped town was that nothing was far, so he was soon back with a hotel room key, a simple touristy illustrated map and a parking card for a lot nearby, circled on the map. 

I had bought a simple bottle of red wine purely for the label which illustrated in pretty watercolour that it was from our current locale. From the entire aisle of local wines, not a one had a screw top lid so it was very possible this souvenir may make it home for tasting if we couldn’t get it opened!

Our hotel, the Best Western Hotel du Roy d’Aragon, was no more than 100m from our Spar parking lot base station; located conveniently at the near end of the marina and at the base of the (steep) road that led up to the citadel.

We checked in and wasted no time getting out to get our bearings while it was still light. We were able to get a few sunset pics in and survey the meal options. 

As much as we had planned to have a local favourite for our welcome meal, we succumbed when a man with a large pizza box passed us and the delicious aroma emanating from the box drew us to the place a few doors up where he must have bought it. The allure of the melting cheese gave us the courage to negotiate a menu and an order in French, which we decided made the entire experience perfectly authentic. 

Despite the economical proportions of our hotel room (in stark contrast to the price!) we slept like the dead after a very long travel to get to this wonderful destination.

WEDNESDAY 

We had chosen our hotel for a combination of the location (rated 9.9! Fabulous!) and free parking (reviewed as a must across booking sites and, if anything, was understated since parking was so scarce and so so expensive), but hadn’t extended to the inclusive breakfast feeling that any continental couldn’t justify the charge.

Although the foyer smelt good enough to eat as we left for our morning run (combining exercise and sightseeing, some sweaty photos indeed!) we didn’t regret our choice as we sized up the numerous bakeries and supermarkets on our route.

Feeling justified, we grabbed a fresh pain au chocolat on our way back in to snack on while we were making ourselves presentable for the day. 

Hopped up on sugar, we decided to take a walk to the beaches to the north of the town. We’d spotted the signage on our run so knew where to go.

We negotiated the pebbly path in our flip-flops and trekked to the farthest beach first, Plage de Paraguan; a cove with a spongy beach of sodden leaves – unusual but not unpleasant – underfoot. The water was streaks of colour from transparent to turquoise to a deep navy blue and was cool and welcoming to our journeyed feet.

There were only 2 other couples on the beach and a few small boats bobbing close to the inlet of the cove. 

Rested and refreshed, we turned to make our way back, skipping the second beach and stopping and the beach closest to town, La Plage Cayenne.

With little more than a sliver of light soft sand, we went straight into the water which was again worthy of a postcard with the depth of shades of blue and smooth as glass. 

Having worked up an appetite, we returned to the marina and settled on a Croque Monsieur for lunch. Essentially a toasted sarmie with ham on the inside and cheese and creamy sauce melted on the outside, what was not to love?!

We had been propositioned a cruise as we passed through the marina for our beach walk earlier. Now, at 2pm, with nothing but time on our hands, a cruise seemed like a swell idea.

Negotiating the ticket purchase in French (not necessary but well done us anyway!), we were soon aboard the bateau and headed off to sea.

Our prior exploration of the citadel and our beach walk added to the tour since we were able to match the view of the land with the mirrored view we’d experienced from the land. The boat also took us into a few caves, with the bluest of blue waters. Hard to get decent photos though, with all the other passengers having the same agenda.

The perspective of the citadel from the open sea side showed it to be even more impressive than that on the side of the marina. I’d love to share the dimensions and history that our tour guide narrated as we sailed, but I think it would be close to fiction with my limited French and the story I patched together from the intermittent words I knew.

Arriving back at the marina with renewed interest in the citadel from some of the things we’d seen from our ocean-side vantage point, we headed up the hill.

Instead of entering the citadel on the right, we took the pathway to the left which provided a close-up view of the high craggy limestone cliffs and hints of the caves etched into their base.

Touristing being thirsty work, we celebrated our accomplishments with a couple of cold cans of Pietra from a little Spar (there really is a friendly one wherever you are) and a large bag of Bolognaise flavour crisps, inhaling the carbs after a very active day and enjoying the pause on a bench overlooking the sea.

We slowed the pace considerably, ambling through the rest of the citadel, all the way to the cemetery at the end, and then wound our way slowly back down to the now-familiar Bar du Quai at end of the promenade that ran in front of our hotel. 

With an hour or so to kill before our intended dinner time, we took a breather on the promenade to do some people-watching and then procured some local tinnies which we enjoyed at the end of one of the jetties; dangling our feet off the edge, basking in the last slice of sunlight and the shadow of the opulent luxury yachts (and super yachts and mega-super yachts) marvelling on how The Other Half live.

Quite by contrast, we’d nailed our dinner choice quite early on as modest but mouthwatering kebab galettes. Life was still pretty awesome for This Half as were chomped away on the delicious wraps washed down with ice-cold Serena lager.

Travelogue French Riviera 5: Nice

NICE

19 – 22 June 2019

Deciding upfront that we’d get all our roadtripping done and then homebase the final stage of the journey from Nice gave us the freedom to stay in the Old Town which with it’s windy narrow cobbled streets would be a nightmare to navigate in and out of.

A very wise call.

Strategically, we’d committed to return Noddy Car to the rental place (at Nice Airport) later in the afternoon in order to give us time to check in at our apartment and drop off our suitcase en route. It was quite a harrowing journey, getting the one ways sussed and breathing in to squeeze through the skinny alleys with the odd tourist darting into a doorway or plastering themselves to a wall to avoid our wing mirrors.

We only found out when we arrived that our host doesn’t live in Nice, so we had an hour and a half to kill before collecting our keys and, worried that we wouldn’t get the return journey to the airport done in this slot, put it to good use with a 3 course lunch!

Our apartment was ideally placed, half a block in from a busy piazza with restaurants spilling into the square to provide a sea of checkered tablecloths and umbrellas offering shade and fabulous food to scores of people.

We found a table right on the edge, sat next to each other and people-watched as the waiter brought us plates of delicious local Niçoise specialities. The duck in creamy mushroom sauce stole the show for me!

Our apartment was tiny (by home standards) but immaculate, clearly recently renovated and light and airy with the massive old school shuttered windows that looked down into the cobbled streets below and the Irish Bar across the street.

We didn’t have much time to revel in it though, with our car return deadline looming. Fortunately, the Nice Airport is close to town and we were there around 15 minutes later, including the nail-biting exit from Old Town and a pretty scenic drive.

It was easy enough to catch a train back and alighting at the central station gave us a chance to see another portion of Nice.

In stark contract to the cobbled charm of the Old Town, new Nice is grand! Beautiful old and elegant buildings line a long, wide shopping high street with all the designer labels you can imagine showcased in the ground floor of the street fronts; two or three storeys above them bearing tall, elegant windows, filigree balconies and finely decorated cornices.

At the far end, a massive stage was in process of being set up on the square and the stage was already busy with a collection of musicians doing soundcheck – and entertaining passing shoppers in the process. As we drew closer, we saw this was the annual Fete de la Musique celebration plan, with a free concert scheduled for the night of the 21st June. Looked like it was going to be huge!

Our walk took us back through our old town whose high street counterpart was filled with chairs and tables from restaurants displaying menu boards, seafood showcases or using live music to lure you in.

We resisted for the time being in order to pass through to the promenade to see the beach. A heavenly crescent that looked like the Copa Cabana except without the stripey pavements and with grey smooth pebbles instead of golden beach sand.

6pm but with the sun still holding its place in the sky, the beach was still occupied with sunbathers and the pavements busy with joggers, family strollers and tourists.

The perfect time for a sundowner, so we hit the high street and found ourselves a comfortable spot with live music and crazy happy hour specials that run from 5 to 9!

Having saturated with culture at our extended lunch, we took the opportunity to squeeze in a curry dinner. Consulting The Fork app (that we’d discovered and loved on a previous trip to Italy), we chose a curry den called Le Bombay Palace around the corner in the Old Port and since it shared its name with our local curry den at home, we figured it kismet and definitely worth the research.

Quite different presentation (and portions!) compared to what we’re used to. And definitely a different view, overlooking the multi-storey yachts moored on the other side of the road in stark contrast to the parking lot at our All Saints Shopping Centre!

THURSDAY

We’d pre-booked a free walking tour meeting at the square where we’d seen the stage set up.

We had no trouble finding our way back (amazing how much more you take in when you’ve walked a route as opposed to driving it!) and no trouble finding our guide, marked with the red umbrella and surrounded by the easily 50 other tour group members.

We were introduced to our guide, Isabella from Argentina, and thankfully spared the chore of introductions to each and every group member.

Isabella started the tour with some of the vital statistics: Nice is a city of 350000 inhabitants (5th biggest in France) and enjoys more than 5 million tourists (making it the second biggest after Paris) and more than 300 days of sunshine per year which, along with the high concentration of museums, is why it gets so many tourists.

Nice had quite a patchwork history between the major empires. It was founded in 350 BC by Greeks en route home from Marseilles, and originally named after Nike (the Greek word for Victory). It was a thriving port town until a neighbouring city, Saminello, burned to the ground and all the people moved to Nice so it became quite a big city quite quickly.

Nice was part of the Savoy Empire – with its capital in Turin – until the 19th century. It was bounced back and forth between Savoy and France for 500 years until Italy became a country in 1860 and a referendum was held in Nice to see if the people wanted to be French or Italian. They decided to be French. It was a bit of subterfuge though because it was actually already predetermined as an exchange between Italy and Napoleon III who supported Italy against Austrian invasion.

In the middle of our tour we heard a loud bang. Isabella calmed us and recounted the story of one Sir Thomas Coventry, who came to Nice in 1860, travelling with his wife who was a terrible timekeeper. Since this was affecting the serving of his noontime meal, he asked the city’s permission to set off the canon at midday, as was customary in his home town. The city allowed it – and liked the idea so much that they made it law to let off the midday canon each day. It is now a firework rather than a canon, and has been set off by the same chap for the past 27 years. He’s looking to retire now, so possible job vacancy for someone who is punctual, reliable and never leaves the city.

We emerged on the beachfront, where Isabella explained that it’s a pebble beach, apparently, because of the stones that are washed through from the Paillon River. She also revealed that the Promenade des Anglais is so called because the English paid for the construction of the walk for the comfort of the hordes of Brits that flocked to Nice in winter to seek sunshine and wanted a nice place to walk along the seaside.

Just like we were doing.

We walked to the end of the Promenade but instead of rounding the cape to take us down to the port where we’d been the previous night, we were taken up to the citadel where we had the most spectacular views of the long beautiful stretch of beach, the magnificent azure sea and the infinity of blue sky and sunshine that has made this coastal town so famous for so long.

Isabella also pointed out on the other side, while we were overlooking the port, what lay beyond and how easy it was to get there… Which is when we hatched a plot to go and see the neighbouring village and its sandy beach.

We departed the tour group and made our way back down the hill to the port where we had no trouble finding the bus stop, and no more than a minute or two wait before handing over our €1.50 fare and moving on to Villefranche-sur-Mer.

On arrival we were delighted – and very surprised – to find an OPEN tourist office. The chap at the desk was very helpful, providing us with a one pager easy simple map and circling the things we needed to do and see. He was emphatic that the citadel was the way to start, so that’s what we did.

Villefranche-sur-Mer was founded in 1295 by Charles II of Anjou, Count of Provence. It fell into the hands of the Duke of Savoy for 5 centuries and was returned to France in 1860. It has an impressive stone fortress ordered by Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy in 1557 to defend the old town which is open and free to visit, and which houses a number of exhibits and displays telling the story of the citadel, the town and its people.

Obediently following our map, we wound down the hill through the Old Town. It’s built into a hill so the town is a network of staircases with some quite ingenious uses of the space.

After an easy amble we were deposited at the beachfront. Short on real estate and big on appeal, the beach was crammed, so we retired to a cafe across the road and had a lovely cold beer while we rested our weary selves.

Refreshed, we trotted back up the hill to the station to grab a train back to Nice and our homebase, now old hat to us with all our comings and goings, was a doddle to navigate so we were soon back in our ‘Hood.

I had been angling for a rotisserie chicken for days after seeing them served all over the place so we picked one up from the local butchery on the way home and savaged it with lovely fresh baguettes by way of an early supper while we prepared to head out for the evening.

The Nice lifestyle so suits us when we can get the day’s action out of the way, have dinner early and then still have a couple of hours to sundowner after we’ve been fed. We put the sunlight to best use, visiting a few of the pubs in the market strip, enjoying their live entertainment.

As it so happened, it was the FIFA Women’s World Cup being hosted in France over the period we were there and there was much excitement in the Old Town over a few key games that were being played that evening. Big screens were front and centre, and some of the live acts on bricks temporarily while the focus shifted.

We shifted to Paddy’s Pub (in the same road as our apartment, so very much on the way home) to watch the second half of the USA vs Sweden match that was getting a lot of attention.

The pub was lively with American supporters, we logged our Guinness Index and from our vantage point at the bar we kept an eye on the Irish folk dancing troupe that continued business-as-usual in the back room, twisting and twiddling along to the accordion playing their traditional songs.

FRIDAY

We had pre-booked our tour to Monaco for Friday, which left gave us a deadline for getting up and out. So far from what we’d experienced, mornings were a leisurely start on the Cote d’Azur, so getting up and out at 9.30 felt like quite some pressure all considering.

It had been a long time since the rotisserie feast the night before though, which helped with motivation to get fed before a strenuous few hours of walking tour.

See: Travelogue French Riviera 4: Monaco.

We had been watching the set-up of the concert on the Place Massena (the main town square) with eager anticipation as the days had gone by and tonight was the night! … So on our return from Monaco, we went past the Place to see what was going on.

By now fencing had been put up around the entire area to restrict access and implement strict security controls – and there was a bit of a frenzy with people arriving and streaming into the gates.

Quite relaxed about the whole affair, we took the ticket that the poor promotions chap was madly tearing out of his book and that we needed to present to the security heavy to get into the gate, but ended up not going in, thinking a shower and change into flip-flops would make for a far better start to the evening.

We went home, showered and changed, headed to the market and got absorbed into trying some yummy local dishes, with no rush to get to the concert because there were La Fete de la Musique things going on everywhere already.

Good thing too because when we finally headed over – at maybe 9 or 9.30 – things were only then really starting to get going.

It was superbly organised and we had no trouble flashing our tickets to get in, the security was super efficient and there were no queues at either the bars or the porta-loos, even though there were easily 20,000 people there (our tickets were numbers 16125 and 16126).

We didn’t recognise any of the artists, but they must have been big names in France because everyone around us knew the words, the moves and sang heartily and danced merrily along to the hip hop chap and his band of neon-tracksuited dancers, the songstrel that belted out her radio tune, the aging rocker who growled his song at us, the McDreamy crooner in his leather jackets, the works!

We didn’t stay until anywhere near the end and were delighted to be able to had our tickets over to 2 very optimistic faces in the sea of optimistic faces at the gates hoping for exactly such an opportunity.

Getting closer to home, Old Town was a chaotic wash of activity. There were serving stations set up outside of pubs and bands set up in the street. We even accidentally collided with a street carnivals drumming squad as we swam upstream of their procession! It was great fun and we saw a lot of great acts (and of course, quite a few less good ones).

By the time we circled around to our road, we feared we’d never get any sleep because there bands were packing up for the night, DJs were setting up. And one such street party was right under our kitchen window! All in the name of a good time though and, kudos to the French, they seem to be far more restrained than most nations. Despite all the festivities, there were very few drunkards ruining anyone else’s experience. Just lots of energy and celebration. A wonderful thing to be a part of.

We’d had such a great (and long) day that even with the party going on right outside our window, when we eventually went home, shut the double glazeds and retired, both of us were asleep before heads hit the pillows.

And again, kudos to the French, when we got up and headed out for our last breakfast the next morning, everything was already cleaned up. Besides the odd bit of bunting still strung between street poles, you’d never tell that the city had hosted a bash at all – let alone of that magnitude – the night before.

What a hero of a town. And what a memorable night. Totally worth planning a repeat visit around.

Travelogue French Riviera 4: Monaco

MONACO

21 June 2019

Hopping across from Nice to Monaco is very simple with buses and trains that run regularly and inexpensively, but since we were short on time (only having allocated a day for the flit across the border), we opted for a guided walking tour to make the most of the experience.

We booked online, paid our 20 Euro (that included the return train ticket) and met our guide outside the Nice train station at 10.20 as instructed. We were allocated to Lily, an exchange intern from Slovakia, who was delighted that we were a small group of only 10 people.

It was soon easy to see why as shoulder season leading into summer, the trains were already packed on the obviously popular route. We managed to cluster ourselves in the open area by the doorway and a little up the stairs (it was a double-decker train) so it must be a proper mission with a big group to try and keep everyone together.

Lily used the time to acquaint with the group – parents and 2 teenage boys from Germany, a couple from Italy, a couple from Guam and us.

Alighting in Monaco, the opulence hits you even as you walk to the escalators to the exit; a massive glass window that overlooks a harbour of glimmering yachts. With not a soul among them, it was quite stark contrast to our sardine-can transfer!

In outlining our route for the day, Lily described to us how small the little principality of Monaco is. It is the 2nd smallest country in the world (behind the Vatican) at 2 square kilometres, has 38000 people and a third of their population are millionaires (largely because it’s a tax haven). The people and language are known as Monagasque but, seeing as the locals make up only around 20% of the total population, French is also widely spoken and, being part of the Eurozone, the Euro is the currency.

Our walking tour started with a trundle down through Monte Carlo down to the world famous casino.

In the 1860s Charles III hatched a plan to open a casino to save Monaco from bankruptcy. His original casino failed because it was in an awkward location that had no feeder roads, no support facilities and no marketing. But a new casino – the one that is now so famous – was built in a better location, had the most luxurious hotel and cafe to support it and investment was made into both marketing it and establishing easy transport options to make transferring to and from the casino effortless from key European destinations. Finally, the area was renamed from The Caves de Monte Carlo (Mountain of Charles) to be suitably grand and – voila! – the rest as they say is history.

The iconic building and setting seem so familiar, having seen them in movies like James Bond Golden Eye and in the scenic shots during the Monaco Grand Prix, which has been an event synonymous with Monaco since its inception in 1929.

Winding in and around Monaco, the GP sees the drivers negotiate the 3km circuit 78 times, through narrow city roads, a tunnel and a hair-raising hairpin bend. Many experienced drivers have become croppers on the grueling course and a couple have ended up skidding off the road and into the water!

By now we’d walked away from the casino and we’re making our way along the harbour as Lily told the story. It was quite an experience to be IN the story, walking and talking among the iconic landmarks and decadent setting.

We stopped at The Church of Sainte Devote, probably most famous for being the first corner of the Monaco GP track, but also tribute to the patron saint of Monaco, who was a young Corsican woman martyred in the 300s for her devotion to Catholicism. Her body was ordered to be burnt but was saved by some Christians who sent it off on a boat headed for Africa such that it could be fittingly buried. The boat hit a massive storm in the Mediterranean and apparently a white dove flew from within her corpse body and guided the boat to safety on the Monaco shore. The white dove was assumed to be her spirit and confirmation that she was a saint.

So, the fisherman that found her built a church in which to bury her, which was has been maintained and enhanced by various benefactors over the centuries and which was restored and renovated after being damaged by bombings in the Second World War. She also gets a celebration day on 27 January, which is a massive deal for the Monegasque and involves the Prince setting a boat alight in the harbour in commemoration.

Sounds like a tall story. And like travelling with a white dove might be a good back up plan if you don’t have medical insurance.

Lily deposited us at the local market with information on local delicacies and which stalls were best for what. Armed with that knowledge, we entered the market and bee-lined for the Barbagiuans. Little pastry pockets with finely chopped chard, rice, egg, cheese and ham. Very nice, but only tickled the appetite so we followed with socca, which is a sort of crepe made from chickpea. Nice enough, but a bit boring. So we rounded off with a massive tuna baguette to share, to ensure we had enough sustenance to see us through the afternoon.

The tour then took us up to the palace, where the flag was up indicating the Royals were in town. This palace has been the Grimaldi homestead since Francesco Grimaldi seized it in the 13th century after he led a sneaky mission to infiltrate the previous owners by having himself and his band of merry men dress as monks, knowing that the deeply Catholic residents would open up and welcome them in. They were given food, shelter and ultimately the keys to the kingdom, when they slayed the previous owners and declared it Grimaldi Palace. Not quite the romanticism of a white dove, but effective nonetheless.

Also possibly why most of the stories focus on the more recent Royals. The fairytale story of Rainier and the aptly-named Grace, his Hollywood Princess, and her tragic untimely death after a car accident with her daughter, Stephanie.

And Albert and his African bride, who he met at the Olympics and with whom he has twins, providing an heir prince to take over the throne after him. Although, with Prince Rainier having reigned for 56 years, perhaps little Jacques has quite a ways to go before that becomes a thing for him to have to do.

We got the most wonderful panoramic pictures from the palace, as a perfect vantage point. Being such a small country, it’s possible to see France in both directions and even Italy in the distance because it’s so close to the border.

Our tour concluded at the Oceanographic Museum. Since our train tickets were open, we didn’t need to return with the group, and we were motivated to see all there was to see. Lily was kind enough to get a city map out to help us to plan the rest of our afternoon’s solo adventuring.

We decided to walk back to the beach, which we figured must be perfect seeing as it was constructed as part of a land reclamation project.

We took an alternate route to the one we’d walked up, right down along the water at the harbour. Those yachts are even more impressive up close. And so few occupied. It’s unfathomable how it makes sense to spend so much buying and maintaining these boats, let alone docking them in Monaco, which must cost a fortune.

The path also took us through the Japanese Gardens; a very Zen and lush little enclave, with beautifully manicured beds and a pond with bridges on which tourists were posing.

Not far beyond was the beach. We bought our way into a private section, investing in a small granita (glorified Slush Puppy) in return for the lounger and shade, which was welcomed after spending all day in the sun.

Ready to return, we walked up through the shopping district, which meant we had seen most of Monaco in our day trip!

While Monaco is very opulent and impressive, its limited size and positioning within the bowl of mountain make it feel more like Hong Kong than France. Nice for a day, but nicer to be returning to Nice.