Paris, France

A revisit to the city that started the travel addiction, no stories here, just pictures of memories.

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French Countryside - Bordeaux to Paris

     After leaving Bordeaux, we headed further north to stay at our friend's parents house outside of a village called La Reorthe. We stayed on the back roads again and drove through many of the famous wine vineyards of the Bordeaux region. It's easy to see how the region has become famous for its wine production. There were signs for wine tastings posted everywhere. Not trusting our rusty French, we ventured on to our next destination in hopes of spending the day just relaxing and not really doing much. And that we did well. Our friend's parent's house is really lovely and quiet. 

     We left the following morning to get on to Paris for a wedding but stopped in a few places along the way. We passed a couple of nice Chateau's but sadly, they were closed to public viewings. One town in particular we wanted to visit was Chartres. It's a small town an hour outside of Paris and it has a beautiful cathedral. It was one of the first places I visited my first time in France and it still has the same charm but it seems to be getting more touristy. 

      The site of the cathedral has contained at least five different and smaller church buildings, each of which was destroyed by a fire. Apparently, fires were quite the problem in medieval Chartres and each time one came along and destroyed the place, the people decided to build a bigger cathedral. The current structure has been there more or less for eight centuries but shows marks that other problems destroyed parts of the building. In 1506, the north spire was destroyed by lightning and rebuilt Jehan de Beauce. He spent the next seven years constructing the new spire and it still stands today. The cathedral has an interesting look due to the towers being different. The inside at present is being cleaned. We have some pictures to show the dirty and the new and I must say, it will look amazing once they get it all cleaned.

      From Chartres, we made for CDG airport to return the car. If you've never driven on the highways outside of Paris, you are missing a nail biting, anxiety ridden experience. There are tons of cars and everyone is flying all over the place cutting in and out of traffic to get past you at speeds that almost make your heart stop. Then, when you finally get off the highway at the airport, there aren't many signs to help you find your way to your rental car return spot. We finally managed to get there. After unloading everything, we had to lug everything into the city to our friend's house for our few days there. The Paris metro in July is like a sauna, except it smells awful. All part of the authentic Parisian experience.

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Bordeaux, France

     After a restless night of trying to sleep in the car at a road stop gas station, we made our way on to Bordeaux. A few years back while I was studying in Paris, many people told me that a trip to Bordeaux wasn't worth it because the city just wasn't that nice. Now I know, that's just Parisian speak. For many of them, anything outside the ring road around Paris isn't as good as Paris is. And how could it be? It's only full of nice, down to earth people with tasty, inexpensive food who wear normal clothes. The nerve! We had a host through couchsurfing lined up but getting to her house was a bit of challenge because on Sunday's, Bordeaux cuts off the streets in the city and makes a pedestrian only place. While we appreciated this later on, at first we were a bit annoyed by it. We parked in a parking garage that turned out to be quite expensive later on. Our first impression of Bordeaux was that it looked like an old Disney castle town. 

     The centrally located Place de la Bourse, or Stock Exchange office of Bordeaux. 

     In front of the Bourse is the water mirror. It's a spot where locals go on a hot day to cool off. There were tons of people, young and old, soaking up some water to alleviate the day's heat. The pool was made to be like a reflecting pool but most people use it to cool off. At night, its beautiful to walk past it with all of the lights of the city reflecting off of it.

     Here is one of the old castle wall gates to the city. Doesn't it look like something Disney would have drawn up or used as inspiration for one of their movies? There were tons of buildings with this kind of whimsical design to them. The city is old and has had settlers since 30,000 BC. The same group that was living in Toulouse, the Aquitaine's, were probably living in the Bordeaux region also. Most people associate the region with its famous wine. 

     This old cathedral was built in the 11th century and consecrated by Pope Urban II. What kind of name is Urban for a pope?

     Our couchsurfing host took us around the city showing us the various famous buildings and must see sites. It's always nice to have a local who can take you around, explain some of the history of the city, and help you order at a bar. Even though getting the idea cross of wanting a beer or wine is fairly simple, it still helps to have someone who speaks the local language.

     Another one of the many famous churches of Bordeaux is the Basilica of St. Michael. It was built during the 14th and 15th centuries. It's curious that the bell tower is seperate from the entire building.  It was built in the 15th century also but after the church's completion. Most of the stained glass windows were destroyed in 1940 during WW2. Later in the 20th century, a slew of skeletons was found beneath the church. That is kind of creepy.

     Another one of the old gates to the city. 

     After our host showed us around a bit, she headed back to her house to finish some work and we took a walk down the Rue Saint-Catherine. It's a pedestrian only street that runs for 1.2 km and connects the Grand Theater with the Place de Victoire. There's shopping everywhere on this street. The walk along the river is really nice, although the muddy brown water isn't as attractive as I'm sure the city would like it to be.

      Even though we only one day in the city, it was a great day. Our couchsurfing host made our time there even better by taking us around and explaining the history of the city. She loves architecture so she made sure to show off the prettiest buildings in the city. We've tried to put them here so you can see, as we did, that Bordeaux is worth your time to visit and enjoy. Try the wine too, its really good. 

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French Countryside - Lyon To Bordeaux

      For a day and a half, we spent a lot of time on the road. We had to take our friend to Geneva for her conference. Getting out of Lyon was a bit of a trick that involved lots of out of the way roads and a couple of U-turns in the middle of roads that don't really allow for them but we found our way. The drive was nice even though it was pricey but the views paid for themselves. Some of the tunnels and bridges on the highway were high up and provided some really nice views of the mountains and valleys around. At the Swiss border, we encountered a nasty little surprise. The Swiss find it perfectly legitimate to charge anyone coming into the country by car a 40 euro fee to use their highways. The thief, or guy, taking money reassured us that the fee was only once a year and the sticker he gave us valid for that time period. That's wonderful, because we only wanted to visit Geneva for 30 minutes to drop our friend off then head back to France. Is there a temporary waiver for this fee? Not at all, good day. We said good bye to our friend Mollie and headed back to Lyon so we could start our painful trek across the country on the back roads to Bordeaux. 

      The direction site we'd been using was a tad ambiguous with their directions shall we say. We started off going the wrong way, turned around onto a congested highway, found the right way, got off at the right exit, and then basically got lost for three hours until we finally figured our way out. Every time we thought we were going in the right direction, we would see a sign directing us back to the middle of Lyon, leading us to believe that Lyon wanted to let you in but not out. We finally pulled out the maps our friend's mom had given us and found our way after the three hours of delay. The drive was awesome and the French countryside beautiful. 

      We saw a few towns decorated for some special holiday and that evening, we saw fireworks outside of the town we slept in. And by slept in, I mean we slept in the car at an overnight truck stop place and it was not comfortable at all. The drive took us about nine hours but we had a great time and got to see lots of beautiful chateaus and other medieval sites scattered around the country.

      The route national is the best way to see France, not to mention the most economical. We used the site mappy to get directions around France. It's a great site because it tells you how much the tolls are. And in France, they love tolls! We would have added 400 Euros to our trip by taking the highways. If you plan on taking road trips across Europe, be sure to consult mappy to find out the toll situation. It can be eye opening. 

     On the back roads of France, Châteaus abound! We weren't able to stop for all of them but the ones we did stop for were spectacular. Some you can visit and some you can't. Just stop and ask.

       We pulled over in one small town to watch the Spanish team win their quarterfinal match. I wasn't a popular man wearing my Spain jersey. I just smiled at them. ¡Toma franceses! 

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