Last Day In Paris

by Miss Penny Black

On our last day we didn’t do much at all. It was the hottest day of our stay and also a Sunday, which meant that half the shops weren’t open. I decided the first thing we had to do was eat chocolate eclairs. I hadn’t had one in years so we went to three different bakeries and tried one from each.

They might look identical but they were (slightly) different. All were excellent!

Then we spent half the day being real locals – we sat in a cafe eating french food and drinking. Aperol Spritz for me and beer for Luke.

Lovely! Well, except for the wasps. Wasps everywhere in Europe right now! Everywhere we’ve been the pleasure of sitting outside and inhaling other people’s cigarette smoke has been mitigated by wasps trying to get into our drinks and food.

After this exceptionally lazy day we packed our bags, ready to head for Colmar via Strasbourg.

A few last examples of Paris street art. For those who like this sort of thing I have to note that stencils seem to be hugely popular here. Maybe they’re quicker to put up?

17Aug2018

Paris

by Miss Penny Black

We caught a TGV train from Nice to Paris and it was a delightfully quiet ride compared to our last train journey. We watched rain pour down the windows and arrived in Paris to a delightful 24 degrees. Such a nice change from 30+!

Our hotel (the Hotel Audran) was in Montmartre, only a few blocks from Sacre Coer.

We were offered a room on the street side or behind and erroneously took the street side. I don’t know if the back of the building would’ve been much quieter, but almost every night people seemed to want to have shouting conversations in the street and then delivery or garbage trucks woke us up early each morning. Still, the cool weather was a wonderful thing and we quickly headed out to explore the neighborhood.

Montmartre is the bohemian part of Paris, with lots of quirky shops, restaurants and street art.

Our first walk took us to Sacre Coer (sacred heart) and its mad crowds and views over Paris.

Then we found a nice little restaurant for dinner (La Mandigotte) that had the menu in English as well as French.

One day I’ll remember to take a photo of the restaurant as well as the food.

I must say that we are both getting better at reading signs and menus – Luke did many years of French in high school and is finding that it is coming back somewhat. I did an unenthusiastic six months of French but I like having a go at learning a bit of the language when I go places and after Nice and Lyon I am finally saying merci instead of grazie or danke. All this changing countries gets a bit confusing after a while. It will be a bit of a relief to get back to the UK in that sense.

On our first morning in Paris we headed straight to an art exhibition – with a difference.

It was a sound and light show in an old foundry, where reinterpretations of Viennese artists from the end of the 19th century were being projected onto the walls and floor with a musical accompaniment.

It was beautiful and interesting. There were three Viennese artists presented, with Klimt being the longest show, then at the end there was a much more modern show called ‘Poetic AI’ that wouldn’t have been out of place at a rave. We both liked the futuristic display best but the whole thing was lovely and very unusual.

Big thanks to Viv for telling me about it, I wish it had been on when you were here!

After this eye-popping brilliance we headed to the Pompidou Centre for more modern art but we both agreed, despite a few interesting pieces, that it wasn’t as much fun as the previous exhibition.

One of the works that stood out most for me was a sound-proofed room. The deadened room felt both comfy and a tiny bit claustrophobic even though it was quite large.

A fascinating sensation.

Also we were perhaps getting slightly sore feet. Nothing wears me out like shuffling around galleries.

Next: an excellent wine tasting and more Paris wandering.

14Aug2018

France: Nice

by Miss Penny Black

We arrived in Nice after several hours in a train carriage that had all the sights and sounds of an unruly crèche. A family with four small children and two adults plus about a dozen bags of toys and belongings sprawled across the eight seats in front of us, with the parents allowing the kids to hang over into the aisle and block the passage of people trying to walk through. When one woman, trying to get past, tripped over a child’s leg and landed heavily on the foot of the offending mother it seemed like appropriate karma. Very satisfying to watch, it was.

Aside from that our journey was uneventful and it was nice to spend half a day in airconditioning after the 37 degree heat of Lyon.

We caught a tram from the train station to our Airbnb apartment and discovered that it was 104 steps up to the fifth floor and it was definitely the smallest apartment we’d ever had. It did have aircon though and a tiny balcony that looked over the rooftops.

The balcony was so small that we had to shuffle the table forwards and backwards to get both of us out there.

On the first night we relaxed with our usual plate of cheese, ham and some cheap wine and planned our stay. Luke booked us into a variety of activities.

1. A walking tour of the old city. We did this on our first full day. It was €14 each and the tour guide was an Australian girl who had lived in Nice for the last ten years. She was obviously very knowledgeable about the city but had a kind of clipped way of delivering the information which made it all seem very rote-learned.

My favourite thing on the tour was a baroque church that was so over the top it sort of came out of bad taste into cool kitchness. It also had chandeliers.

2. A small group evening visit to Monaco.

It ended up being a very small group – just Luke and I and our driver, Antonio. He was great and full of information about Monaco and how it runs. I didn’t really know much about Monaco before we went so it was somewhat eye-opening.

The thing we both liked most was the cars.

Antonio dropped us off at the casino after a drive around the race track and royal residences. In front of the casino normal people hang around looking at cars and hoping to see someone famous… I guess? I couldn’t think of any other reason.

Not actually terribly attractive.

We went for a walk and had a look at the opera house and then looked down from a viewpoint onto the decks of some of the super yachts that lined the harbour. How annoying to be rich enough to own a super yacht then have plebs watching you eat your dinner!

We had a drink and then dinner at Cafe de Paris, an open air restaurant next to the casino where you can watch the fancy cars and fancy people walk past. The food was actually pretty good for somewhere so busy, and very nicely presented.

After dinner we stepped into the Monte Carlo Casino foyer and there was an art installation featuring a maze of playing cards.

We met up again with Antonio and boggled at the fact that people who are rich enough to come to Monaco would actually want to go there. It’s not a particularly attractive place and the main goal seems to be to show off. Saudi princes get their sports cars flown there for their two week holidays just so they can drive them around town at 10km an hour. The whole thing seemed to represent the worst of humanity but at the same time it was certainly interesting.

3. Nice food tour!

We always like a food tour. We had a very pretty and vivacious woman named Marion as our guide for this tour through the markets and stores of Nice’s old town.

We walked through the market and some speciality shops and Marion bought samples of fruit and pastries then stopped at a restaurant to have a drink and try various things.

Then we walked on to buy wine and try socca, a local chickpea pancake, plus an onion tart, both of which are traditional street food.

We finished at a store that sold gourmet olive oils etc and tried some samples then finished with a table full of cheeses, meats and fruits.

I wish I’d taken more notes throughout as Marion was very knowledgeable about cheeses and wines. I’d definitely recommend this tour to anyone interested in French food. Google ‘the French way tours’ for more information.

4. A tour of Cannes and Provence.

Another small group minivan tour. This time, sadly, we didn’t have the van to ourselves.

Our driver was a young and bubbly woman from Hungary who had pretty good English but occasional words were a puzzle until context made them clear. For example I thought she had said that Italians had brought ladder making from Italy until eventually I realised it was leather making. Our guide also had to shout to be heard by the people in the back seat, which meant we were caught in the crossfire in the middle row and the commentary was unceasing and quite repetitive. Luke’s a pretty patient person but even he was getting sore ears by the end of the day.

First we stopped for 40 minutes in Cannes. Obviously as a film editor, it was a bit of a pilgrimage for Luke although not terribly exciting when there was nothing going on.

Next we headed to several small villages in the hills.

it is hard to believe people lived up here for centuries and had to walk hours down to the valleys and coast to buy supplies. Not to mention getting building materials up the mountain.

We visited three villages. In the first we toured the Fragonard perfume factory. It was sort of interesting but when we came out into the village for five minutes afterwards it was so pretty I wished we had time there instead.

We stopped at another tiny village for a rather rushed lunch then a final village that was where Chagall lives and is now a centre for fine arts… and tacky crap. It was very pretty though and extremely busy.

We found a quiet spot and watched a storm roll in over the hills of Provence.

There was so much lightning that Luke managed to capture some video of it on his phone and posted it to Instagram.

We made it back to Nice by 5pm and had a quiet evening on our balcony.

10Aug2018

Lyon Walking Tour

by Miss Penny Black

On our second full day in Lyon we joined a free walking tour. It started with a look at one of the more well known boulangeries in the old town.

Many of the pastries that Lyon is known for are nut-based, like the slice of tart below.

Our much-too-large group then moved to Rue de Bœuf, home to several Michelin-starred restaurants.

Next we walked through some of the treboules, private laneways that cut under buildings and between city blocks. Originally created to let people reach the river more directly, these alleys were vital to the Resistance during the war.

They’re kind of hard to photograph but they often opened up into tiny courtyards or atriums where ancient stairs and passages could be seen.

We heard about the history of the city, from ancient times to now and looked at another of the huge murals. I couldn’t find a map anywhere online but our guide had an old one that I photographed in case any reader wants to see more of them.

We walked past an Irish pub and later Luke and I went back to have a croque monsieur each. The only other food the pub served was fish and chips and the bar tender talked and sang loudly to himself almost the whole time we were there. Appropriately mad, I suppose.

We probably saw and did a lot more on this day but I’ve left the writing-up for a week and now I’ve forgotten what else happened.

After a last meal out that evening we packed up our things ready to move on to our next stop – Nice!

27Jul2018

Switzerland: A Trip To Jungfraujoch

by Miss Penny Black

One of the biggest tourist draws in this region is the complex at the saddle of the Jungfrau (young girl) and Monsch (monk) mountains. The buildings are reached by train from Kleine Scheidigg, a village high up in the Bernese Oberland. Another train is required from Lauterbrunnen to get to Kleine Scheidegg.

We rose at 6:15 to catch the first train, which left Lauterbrunnen at 7:07.

The train was almost full and it was the first one of the day! Mostly families and older people – I dare say not many young adults want to shell out the 200+ Swiss Francs that it costs to get here. With our Bernese Oberland Pass we rode free to Kleine Scheidegg and then 99CHF for the last section. Even at half price that’s 134 AUD. Steep in every sense of the word.

The train from Lauterbrunnen to Kleine Scheidegg was extremely scenic with little Swiss cottages and cows dotting the alpine scenery.

There was a bit of a mad rush to change trains and then the second section of the journey was almost entirely through a tunnel.

There is one stop before the top where viewing windows have been cut out and you can get off and look at the view for five minutes.

The Jungfraujoch station is underground and from there you can enjoy a range of thrilling attractions including a huge snow globe.

This sits in a tunnel lit with edelweiss flowers.

Weird but cute. There’s also some wooden statues in this long hall.

Then a ramp with a moving walkway that takes you past historical scenes and tributes to the workers who died during the construction of the tunnel. The whole thing was the brainchild of a Swiss millionaire who made his money on trains and wanted to achieve a great engineering feat.

There is a snow-carving gallery within the Aletsch glacier. It’s not very big but it is cute.

There are also several restaurants on different levels. We went to the cheapest and got hot chocolate in a paper cup for $10. Crikey!

The main reason for going to Jungfraujoch is undoubtedly the view so we’d been crossing our fingers all week as storms had been predicted and so far we’d only seen one shower.

Fortunately our luck held and the views were spectacular.

We’d taken warm clothes but I wish we’d had gloves. Still, we survived without and enjoyed ourselves. There is a section where you can walk out on the snow and even go for a hike but we weren’t prepared for that.

The viewing platform sits at 3571 metres above sea level, the highest either of us has ever been while still standing on the ground. Luke had a few moments of lightheadedness and I felt a little tingle in my legs but otherwise we were fine.

Last stop was a look through the world’s highest Lindt store. As we still have piles of chocolate from the class we did there was no need to buy anything.

We only stayed for an hour and a half but it was a spectacular 90 minutes and we were glad we went.

Back down to Kleine Scheidegg where we hopped aboard a train to Grindelwald, a town Rick Steves describes as tiny but which has grown hugely since he first visited.

The cog-wheel journey to Grindelwald is stunning.

The town of Grindelwald sits, as Lauterbrunnen does, in the shadow of large peaks, in this case the Eiger.

We hadn’t eaten much so we wandered up the main street to find some lunch. Everything looked expensive but we settled on a restaurant that did a cheap (ish) sandwich for 7CHF. But what sandwiches!

Also Luke kindly let me eat all his pickled onions and gherkins. What a gentleman!

Tired of hauling backpacks full of clothes around, we decided to head back to Lauterbrunnen and ended up having a nap, but not before seeing a noticeboard advertisement for some traditional folk entertainment at the local campsite. That was our evening sorted!

We wandered down to the campsite at about 6pm, keen to get a seat at the campsite restaurant as it had excellent reviews online.

We both ordered the small size of our chosen dishes.

Mac and cheese with potatoes, ham and a side of apple sauce.

We could’ve both survived off Luke’s plate for days.

We walked around the campsite for half an hour to aid our digestion and to ensure we didn’t fall into some sort of food coma, then it was time to grab a seat for the evening’s entertainment.