Our European Adventure

After MUCH effort we finally managed to arrange to see Kiri, Dom, James, Liz and Elijah for a couple of days in Bristol. Took the train in the morning (after an annoying and stupid mix-up we missed one train, but they got us on another and asked Kiri to, “Please apologise to Miss Jones for the inconvenience.”)

The first thing everyone noticed about us when we got to Bristol was, “You’re so colourful!” I guess after living in the bland shades of grey of England, people start dressing to fit their environment. We, on the other hand, look like a trio of travelling gypsy clowns. We can’t help it! We just like being bright! And the other thing that our dear Aussie friends commented on was, “I can’t believe how strong your Australian accents are!” (Code for: “you guys sound like total bogans,” - which we do.)

Bristol is cool. Lots of hills, colourful townhouses and brightly painted doors. Far more trees than boring old London as well. The fact that it was Guy Fawkes night and we were finally in the company of people who knew our names, and noticed the same strange things about English people as we did, gave us great reason to celebrate. A plan was hatched to climb the “mound” with some DIY fireworks – and maybe there’d be some other people up there too. Woohoo!

Dom came home from work and we left Liz in the kitchen (baking! Oh yeah!) to go out in Bristol and pick up some fireworks. Dom and Kiri were excellent guides and we got to check out Kiri’s work at the Olive Grove or whatever it was called, until one of her workmates spotted us standing across the road taking photos and generally acting goofy. When she waved to Kiri with a slightly confused look on her face, we hastily made tracks.

Almost had to witness Kiri purchasing an ugly home made Halloween mouse from an op-shop but were saved by Dom’s sarcastic comments. Phew!

The fireworks shopping experience was slightly surreal. We all walked in and looked around with no idea what we were looking for or how to ask for it. It’s weird that the fireworks don’t actually have pictures of what the fireworks will look like on them. So how do you differentiate? The fireworks man asked if we wanted lots of colour, lots of noise, or both. Ummm…? We ended up with an interesting collection of explosives that would apparently look kinda impressive when set off at night. So, happy with our purchases, we proceeded to the park to meet Liz and James and Elijah. That plan got hijacked by the absolutely freezing weather, and we all agreed that hot chips at the pub was a much better idea. So there we were, with our bags of fireworks (James came back with a fairly big bag himself, after “just popping in for a look to see what it’s all about”) crowded around a table at the pub (the very same pub we’d scoffed at earlier for advertising FREE JUGS!! of water), drinking typical English ale (flat and warm, just the way we like it) and generally feeling good about ourselves.

It really was great to feel so welcomed by our friends and be able to talk rubbish and laugh with people who just got us and didn’t give us weird looks all the time. Saphira pretty much fell in love at first sight with Elijah. Pretty cool because the last time Dom, Kiri and James saw Saffi she would have been not much older than Elijah is now. She drew him pictures and took him for little walks and basically just tried to mother him as much as possible. Totally cute.

We ate dinner in the lounge room at Chateau de Lay/Kleinig and sloshed down some wine before donning all our warm clothes for the climb up the mound. Got up the top to find a bonfire, a great view and a stack of drunk English people. What’s wrong with this picture? A heap of people sitting on top of a mountain in close range of a bonfire setting off fireworks at random!?! It was great. Really really fun. Saphira was such a trooper, hanging out with us, chatting to Kiri while James, Dom, Mel and I tried to work out what to do with our fireworks and took turns with the dodgy lighter. We had a great time swigging from our shared bottle of Baileys, watching people setting off different fireworks, and braving our own.

The best was when Dom set a huge one off right over the crowd of people. Whoops! The rocket went flying at a big bunch of strangers… it was pretty loud and firey! We all just ducked and laughed and thanked the universe that it didn’t set anyone on fire! The big box we bought had to be buried 20cm into the ground, which was fun since we didn’t exactly have any digging implements except for the plastic tubes we used to launch our rockets. We gave it a solid home in the ground and if I say so myself, it was awesome. What wasn’t awesome was the stupid idiot dog that kept barking and trying to attack the box where the fireworks were coming from. I don’t know how many times it burnt its dumb dog nose but it kept going back. Later we saw the dog’s owner and realised that the dog was actually the smart one in his household in comparison.

It was cool too because on top of the mound we could see all the other fireworks being let off at random places around Bristol as well as the ones on the mound. It felt so sly and illegal, even though it was perfectly legitimate, to let off fireworks in a public place whenever we felt like it. So much fun.

Ended the night with a sweet cider from the off-license and Kiri and Dom even lent us their bed, the gorgeous things. We felt very taken-care-of and loved.

Very much in the mood for sightseeing (I love that word, how it’s not really a word, but it is) we decided to go on a good old open top bus tour. (or the OTBT as I like to call it.) We also wound up booking ourselves into a couple of shows – G rated only unfortunately – so we were all eager and excited and jumping around in anticipation for Wicked and The Lion King. Woot!

Bus tour was lame in the usual ways, but got us a good idea of what was where and helped us figure out what we wanted to do. Got excited about bits and pieces but the cold really was pretty awful. Not a memorable day to be honest. Except we had a bit of a laugh about being in a real life game of monopoly! How lame are we???

Tuesday morning we woke late, thanks to the complete darkness and silence of our room mixed with our own exhaustion. We dragged ourselves out to cruise around Kensington gardens and Hyde Park. The walk was really nice and weather delightful. Everything was going along splendidly until the crowd of squirrels attacked! ARGH! Okay, there were only 3, and they didn’t really attack, just walked over to us and followed us around a bit, but for me that was scary enough! Saphira of course wanted to pick one up and bring it home as a pet. Wouldn’t that be lovely?

We love-love-LOVED the hundreds of Autumn trees and the thousands of brown, red, orange and yellow leaves gently falling from the sky and carpeting the grass. A big even was when we saw actual Holly! Not the girl, the plant! Well it’s more of a bush really. But the instantly recognisable red berries and pointy dark green leaves sent us all squealing and giggling! Okay, so it’s the first non-plastic holly we’d ever seen, but it really did not require such exuberant exclamations. I think we were just excited to remind ourselves, “We’re in England!” Although after the fifth or sixth time I said that, Saphira politely requested that I shut up.

Train all day, arrived in London, got food at Waitrose, bed.

We spent the day on the train. Snore! Ate food, updated the blog, read our books. Saphira played Nintendogs and drew pictures. Scenery was NIL so we were pretty bored. Arrived in London and a cute old English dude not only gave us directions but WALKED US TO OUR HOTEL (it wasn’t even on his way!) and gave us a bit of a history of the local area, pointing out interesting things as we went. Quite lovely, and refreshing to be in a place where people speak ENGLISH!

How was I to know that most of the people I was going to speak to (service industry and the like) were going to be immigrants who could barely string two sentences together coherently? Let alone understand us? Eg:

Mel: Hello, I’d like a café latte

Server: Would you like milk in that?

HAHAHAHA. Nice one. Oh, it wasn’t a joke.

(Actually this person wasn’t an immigrant, just a dumb pom).

The train from Marseille to Nice was quick and lovely. Saw lots of picturesque villages and mountains and seaside towns. Arrived in Nice late afternoon and got totally lost walking to our hotel. The problem being that our memories didn’t serve us so well. We would have been fine if the address we memorised was for the actual hotel we were staying at instead of just a random hotel that we looked at on a website once! Ha! Oh well, the weather was fine and after a long train ride, walking around was like a luxurious treat.

When we eventually DID find our hotel, we were so excited to be in Nice, we went out straight away to discover the town and get dinner. We went straight to Esplanade Des Anglais. Saphira enjoyed walking along the pebbly shore in the moonlight and threw rocks into the sea. We got a glimpse of the giant waterfall on the cliffs and resolved to come back in the morning.

Dinner was at Café Del- Arte on Cours Saleya, which we chose because of the awesome red lamps and cool furniture. Street performers did Capoeira demonstrations in front of the cafes and then walked through asking patrons for change. This one guy did all these awesome flips and cartwheels to much applause from the crowd.

Strolling back, we had fun looking at the fountain and statues along rue Jean Medicin and on our street, THE KNITTING SHOP! Every time we walked past we were tempted to go in and grab a pair of needles and start knitting! The shop was also to be the inspiration for our new show, “The Knitting Show” (creative name, I know) which we’ve been filming. Our hosts are Eunace Eikle, Old Elsie, and Maude Urn. Whether any of them can knit is another matter entirely.

The cool thing about our hotel was the free coffees and dollar espressos. Oh yeah! Every time we entered or departed the hotel we grabbed ourselves a coffee! Or a chocolate croissant! Okay, usually both.

Next day we awoke ready to rock out in Nice… at the flower market! I’m sure it’s the kind of thing that’s better if you get up bright and early but being us, we wandered over around midday. Much nicer aromas than the fish market in Marseille, that’s for sure. We loved looking at the flower arrangements as well as the fruit and vegetables, jams, herbs, teas, spices and gourmet confectionery!

Let me just digress for a moment here. I am writing this blog on the train ride from Nice to Paris. It’s like a six hour ride and we’ve been on for only two hours out of six. And who do you suppose is causing chaos on the train? Saphira? Oh no. It is my girl Mel, who is constantly giggling, making funny faces, talking in silly voices and then sooking when I don’t give her enough attention. Is this fun for me??? She just said that sitting here writing the blog together makes her feel like we’re at uni together doing an assignment together, and she thinks it’s so hilarious! Why? I do not know. Actually, when I laughed at her comment, she got all offended and sooked. Argh! Why can’t she just enjoy the scenery? Where is the valium???

Okay, back on track now.

We made our way up to Castle Hill along the boulevard. Wow! All the lookers were out on the beach! Eighty-year-olds in DTs cruised for chicks while overweight topless sunbathers eyed them back. There was one younger guy who was fully PACKING, if you know what I mean. This is a rather delicate subject, so while Mel pretended to pose, I zoomed in from above to get a close look at the package. Ew! It could not possibly have been real. I will post a photo so everyone can get a good look, oh, and check out saggy-bags having a rest in the background.

We gave our bums a rest and chose to take the lift up to Castle Hill, a decision we didn’t regret. The ruins of the original castle are still there, but the garden is the real attraction. With a bit of encouragement, Saphira plucked up the courage to go play with all the French kids while we sat on a bench and I (as usual) got sunburnt. The view was amazing up there and we spent ages walking around and gazing out at the mountains, the city and the Mediterranean. We also got chocolate crepes and coffee right at the top. Divine! It was such a perfect day.

We conveniently stumbled across the bus stop for the Scenic Bus Tour and decided to give it a go. We probably should have got jumpers first because we all froze up there, but it was a great way to check out Nice without stopping every five minutes to look at the map.

We ended the day with dinner at an Indian restaurant. Saphira loved the bollywood film clips and we loved the FOOD. Only bad thing was the dog! I hate how dogs are allowed into restaurants, shops and on public transport! It’s so gross. The dog was barking and making a nuisance of itself the whole time we were eating, and its owner (who looked like a primped up poodle herself) was hopeless at getting it to settle down. She was up and down from her seat all evening.

Guess what we did on the way up to the hotel room? Did I hear you say, “espresso…”?

DAY 12:

Halloween morning began with a trip to the beach. How can Australians go to the beach without making a sandcastle? Pebble castles abounded. Mel read her book while Saphira and I made pebble art. There were a few less characters on the beach today thanks to the clouds, which we were thankful for. Can’t imagine Saffi seeing Saggy-bags without loudly commenting.

We sat and watched the water for ages, while other families came and went. Some swam, some strolled. There was a little café open with little blue and white umbrellas serving cocktails and sangria… not totally appropriate with a six year old so we walked away wistfully.

We went on a search for a traditional Nicoise cuisine: Socca. There was supposedly a really awesome cheap Socca place in Old Nice, and we were definitely interested in the gelateria that sold the best ice-cream in the Cote D’Azur. Found both, to our surprise! The socca (chick pea fried pancake) was ace and even the walk around Old Nice was fun. We made our first purchase that wasn’t a souvenir: a new shoulder bag since the one we brought is falling to bits.

Pinocchio’s had the best looking icecream we’ve ever seen and the longest lines. Mel, ice-cream’s biggest fan, was in heaven. We ordered rose, lavender, lychee and fig flavour. Saphira ordered lavender and strawberry bon bon flavour. Whooo! So yum. We could go back every day.

Saturday night was Halloween Night! We were all prepared with
Saphira’s bat costume. Spent the rest of the afternoon teasing up our hair (used way too much hairspray) and applying black makeup. Earlier in the day we had seen some guys doing Halloween graffiti on some big pieces of black plastic wrapped around trees down near the fountain. When we emerged (in all our scary glory) the artwork was finished and Beetlejuice was looking as gross as could be!

The local restaurants all had bon bons for the kids and small groups of ghosts, witches and ghouls were running around with their bags of loot. Took Saphira ages to pluck up the courage to go trick or treating and by the time she did (not until after dinner) almost all the lollies were gone. She ended up with an ice cube from one place! It seemed so unfair because she looked so wicked!

Dinner was great, just burgers but the atmosphere was cool. Rad little pumpkin candles on the tables and bunches of black and orange balloons strung up everywhere. There was a stage with funky cobwebs and a huge fake spider hanging over it but when the band arrived they got grumpy and made the owner take all the decorations down. We didn’t stay for their set. Losers.

Mel and I also enjoyed a couple of coronas and cocktails! It was definitely party night, and a real treat.

We came home feeling great and giggling like idiots. Spent ages making dumb videos of ourselves and collapsing into giggles over them. Were they even that funny? I don’t know! Downloaded the Nightmare Before Christmas movie (gotta love free wifi) and got into bed feeling happy and exhausted and full of Halloween treats.

DAY 13

Got up mega late, missed breakfast at the hotel and headed straight out for the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. Found out that Nice pretty much shuts down on Sundays, and couldn’t find anywhere to eat. Across the road from the Museum (which, thankfully, WAS open – and free on the first Sunday of the month!) was this tiny little café that looked empty and abandoned, but inside was warm, cosy and packed with people! We had a really great lunch of pasta and stuffed roasted vegetables. It was all traditional Nicoise food and décor. Hosts were lovely and translated everything into English for us.

At the museum we saw the amazing charcoal and graphite drawings of Robert Longo. (Retrospective exhibition). Saphira liked his huge drawings of faces (babies and girls). Mel and I loved the waves and space drawings. Such large scale works with only one colour! And so much movement in each one! Really impressive and inspirational.

We also got to see works by Yves Klein (that blue) and visit the “Jardin D’Eden” on the terrace. More great views of Nice up on the terrace too.

Were shocked to find it was 5 o’clock when we finally left the museum! Grabbed some sandwiches hoping to get an early night back at the hotel, but after eating them in our room we were all craving crepes so we headed back out (Saphira in her pyjamas!) for dessert on rue Jean Medecin! Those crepes were so worth it. Oh baby.

What a shame we were leaving Nice! We all loved it so much. We haven’t been anywhere we HAVEN’T loved… oh wait, there was Clermont-Ferrand. Can we pretend we never went there?

DAY 7: Clermont-Ferrand

We spent most of the day in train stations or on the train, arriving in Clermont-Ferrand late afternoon. Our accommodation was dodgy and we realised there was nowhere nearby to eat and not much to do. Our hotel (if you could call it that) looked out onto the Michelin tyre factory. The only reason we even bothered to go to Clermont-Ferrand was to climb the Puy de Dome but realised we didn’t leave ourselves enough time to do it. Would have cost heaps to get a ride up there and we had to be on a train at 10am. In the end, the only good thing about staying in Clermont-Ferrand was that Saphira got to flirt with the waiter at the Pizzeria where we had dinner! Oh, and the fact that we walked past an “Aussie” restaurant with boomerang and kangaroo pictures and akubra hats and a giant shark on the bar. HAHAHAHAHAHA!

DAY 8 and 9:

After a sleepless night in our shack (itchy sheets and noisy) we were happy to farewell Clermont-Ferrand for the beautiful shores of Marseille!

Marseille was AWESOME. I love the contrast between the grubby and grimy streets and the pristine shimmering ocean. The Vieux Port was such a prime example: dirty smelly fishies throwing scales and skeletons on the ground and dodgy buskers were all crammed together, right on the edge of the water… and behind them, prestigious yachts floated elegantly on the water!

We bought tickets for a boat to the Ile D’If (an island off the coast that was once a fortress, and then a jail, and now a tourist attraction. Alexandre Dumas made the Ile famous with his story, “The Count of Monte Cristo”). We cruised the port while we waited for our boat time and enjoyed looking at all the docked boats, the shimmering water, the white streaks from planes in the sky, the cliffs, rocks and fortresses at the port’s entrance, and of course, the locals. Loved the old fellas in their tiny shorts sunbaking along the shore. Brown and leathery, they looked like they’d been there a lifetime!

We were so lucky to have such divine weather, and we realised this again on the boat ride. Being somewhere so beautiful is so exhilarating! Even the seagulls seemed nice. Approaching the island was amazing, seeing the cliffs and rocky shoreline surrounded by the crystal clear Mediterranean ocean. We were all mesmerised by the views, both out towards the sea and looking back on the city of Marseille, with the French Alps as a backdrop.

Saphira loved the freedom of exploring the island and examining the natural environment up close. She collected flowers, grass, pebbles, feathers and other bits and pieces. She had her eye out for the elusive lizard that apparently roamed the island, but he never showed himself. Got some great photos of the bright white rocks against the lush green grass.

The jail itself was kind of creepy. We went into these awful cells and realised that people actually DIED in there. As usual, we had to climb stairs (only about a thousand!) and our butts must be looking good by now. Our eyes thanked our butts of course, because the views were breathtaking at the top. It was so peaceful out there, we stayed for hours just smelling the sea air and listening to the gentle ebb and flow of the water against the cliffs.

No time to stop for a long lazy lunch, we grabbed some paninis and got straight onto L’Petit Train. Which wasn’t a train at all! Actually L’Petit train is a crappy car dressed up as a train, pulling about 3 trailers behind it. The little engine that almost couldn’t. We struggled our way up the hill while the extra loud French commentary and annoying kids behind us screeched in our ears, and the fumes of the engine (why did we sit right behind the car?) filled our lungs.

Our journey took us to Notre Dame Basilique church on top of the hill. The church came fully equipped with its own bling: an enormous solid gold statue right on top, which you can see from pretty much anywhere in Marseille, and from the Ile D’If as well. This meant that the view up there was spectacular. It was nearing sunset and we watched as the sky turned yellow, then orange, then pink, then purple over the sea.

Inside the church itself were beautiful mosaics and stained glass windows. Strangely, there were also these weird mobiles hanging from the ceiling, and on them were boats and aeroplanes! Still not sure why… maybe the priest likes the nautical theme? But then why the aeroplanes?? WEIRD. If there was an explanation, it was probably in French, so no wonder we missed it.

L’Petit Train was worse on the way down, even sans annoying kids behind us! Here we were, skidding down this massive hill in the narrowest streets while cyclists and scooters zoomed along a few centimetres away beside us, and all I could think was, “where are the seatbelts?” My knees were smashing into the front of the carriage every time the breaks went on… oh, the pain! And Saphira kept trying to hang her head outside the carriage and look around!

Back on land I swore that none of us would ever be riding L’Petit Train again. Or L’Petit ANYTHING, for that matter.

Dinner was at Le Souk (because we’re a bunch of sooks). MMmmm Moroccan! It is so awkward trying to order Moroccan food in French! But it was all delish, except maybe the sardine. Mel refused to try the sardine, because she is the biggest sook of them all. She was almost throwing up at the smell!

We were all very sad to leave Marseille the next day… such a gorgeous place. But looking forward to Nice!

WASHING DAY! Snore! We slept in, slowly got ready then shopped for our brunch on rue Montorgueil. Yummo! Spent ages in the fruit shop checking out all the different legumes (vegies!) and trying to pronounce their names

. We bought raspberries, blueberries, mulberries, figs, teeny tiny bananas, huge green grapes and a bunch of delicious marinated olives. We bought a plate of French cheeses from the fromagerie, jambon from the boucherie (saphira scored some free salami which was yum) and croissants from the patisserie.

Spent the morning washing our clothes and making clotheslines out of random pieces of furniture. Oh joy. Well, Mel enjoyed herself.

It was such a gorgeous sunny day and we’d spent most of it inside so by mid-afternoon we decided to forget the washing and get out into the fresh air. We wandered down the street to explore a bit more of our local area and stumbled across this huge square surrounded by gardens and the amazing church of st Eustace! Whoa, anywhere you wander in paris you are likely to walk right into something beautiful.

Wandered in and were yet again amazed by the architecture, artwork and solemnity of the place. No Skeletor voice this time just Saphira whining about being bored and hungry (a VERY common theme lately).

We tried to get into the Jardin Les Enfants but the gates were locked and after a bit of a search we found another play area for Saffi. While she climbed on the equipment we hung out and found this random tiny vineyard… there were these tiny little gardens everywhere, most of them fenced and locked, but really pretty to look at.

In search of food, we wandered around to Forum Les Halle where Saphira went on the creepiest carousel in history. Oooh my gosh it was so gross. The guy collecting tickets from kids had crusty sores all over his hands and a ciggie dangling from his mouth constantly. And the horses and other random farm animals were scary and disgusting! Especially the PIG! SPEW! Right after the carousel ride we wanted to get the hell out of there and walked right into a gang of three guys beating the crap out of another guy! Far out! This place was getting worse and worse. We ran for the hills and returned to the safety of our comfortable neighbourhood.

That night we went out for dinner at L’Epicerie Restaurant. We all enjoyed our entrée of Escargot: Saphira said they tasted like olives, I said they tasted like rain and Mel said they tasted like the garden! We are all loving the French food. Mel and I are just a bit partial to the French wine as well.