France: the bullet point breakdown part II

Posted on September 28, 2012 by Sam

Getting cosy at Chateau de Chambord

After our lovely stay in Cordes Sur Ciel we had a bit of a drive on our hands to get to Paris in time. I can’t believe I thought I was going to get a visit to Normandy in on this trip – that plan went out the window about a week ago. My spatial abilities when looking at maps are obviously lacking. Anyway, here’s the bullet point breakdown for the rest:

Ingrandes: This was quite literally a “stick a pin in the map approximately two hours away from here” choice but turned out to be a good one. Saint Victor La Grand Maison was a beautiful old house which, as we were the only people staying, we could explore and stay as long as we want. Our host Marie was playing piano and singing opera and it was a real hoot. Unfortunately the weather turned rubbish and we could only stay one night. Also, small villages with restaurants open on a Monday night are few and far between.
Tour-en-Sologne: Same principle as above for choosing this one, but we lucked out on the old-world charm of the rooms. Still, a good base for exploring the ten zillion chateaus in the area. We only went to one: Chambord (I think mainly because I love the liqueur), but it was pretty spectacular. Weather remains miserable but restaurant situation improved dramatically with a visit to a Michelin-starred restaurant, L’Orangerie in Blois.
Paris: I think Paris needs its own post, but you just know there’s going to be shopping and drinking involved J

Sea change

Posted on September 25, 2012 by Sam

OK, so the plan to travel through France staying a night at each place was quite obviously a flawed one. It is exhausting – even when you have your own car. After Carcassonne we were fortunate enough to be able to extend our next stay to four nights at Cordes Sur Ciel. Actually, we had a bit of a hidden agenda because we’ve been looking for a property to buy in France and this area was on our hit list.

Only €200k and this could be yours…

We had also found a place we liked so arranged an inspection with a real estate agent, but holy crap was there a lot of work to be done! I was going to freak Emma out by sending her the picture and saying this is where we were going to live, but it freaked me out too much to do that. No, we’d like to buy somewhere like the place we stayed: Laborie Grande (but smaller). I’m still not convinced of the plan for me to make jam and yoghurt in rural France, but maybe the time’s right for a sea change?* (my family are just falling off their chairs laughing at that… in fact anybody who knows me probably is!).

Mind you, there’s still a lot of France to see and we’re not going to impulse-buy a country house no matter how much I like shopping. Just keeping our options open… and who doesn’t want to know someone who has a house in France where they can stay for free reduced rates?

*btw, if there’s no internet access it’s just not happening.

France: the bullet point breakdown part I

Posted on September 20, 2012 by Sam

Sur le pont, D’Avignon

It’s been a while since I’ve posted an update – but that’s because we’ve been driving through France staying a night here, a night there. Nothing *terribly* exciting has happened, so I’m just going to give you a bullet point break down of the first week:

Nice: Nice was only supposed to be our entry point into France, but if I’d known how nice it was we would have stayed longer than one night. Stayed in the worst hotel ever, but when you get in at 11 pm, you don’t have too many options. Return visit is definitely in order (just not on a Sunday because all the shops are closed!!!)
Brignoles: Meh… Was lured in to staying here because of the B&B pictures, which didn’t quite live up to expectations. Luckily we only stayed one night. There’s a story to tell here when I’m back home after a couple of glasses of wine 🙂 Drove to Cotignac for dinner. Not worth mentioning food-wise, but after our meal we went down a dead end alley way where what seemed like hundreds of cats were having committee meetings. As we drove through their little heads would pop-up, then they’d run away. Of course once we’d realized it was a dead end Chris had to reverse back out for a few hundred metres dodging cats along the way. It went something like this:

Chris: Just tell me if I’m going to hit something
Sam: bwahahaha (had a few drinks)
Chris: $*@!

It was fricken hilarious. Well, I thought it was funny…
Avignon: Of course I went there just to stand on the bridge and sing the song. Well, I sang it in my head. Have taken a thousand photos, but they’re all crap.
Carcassone: The medieval town is postcard perfect, but restaurants are very hit and miss. Anything that’s good needs to be booked days before hand so all you’re usually left with is the touristy rubbish. Did find a very nice wine bar on our last night so as long as we can drink the good stuff we’re OK. Shopping was a disappointment, BUT… I did find one shop and now have an entirely new wardrobe. Must keep me away from shops when I’m bored. It’s very expensive!

Can’t take me anywhere

Posted on September 16, 2012 by Sam

A room with a view

Disaster struck as we left Rome behind when about half way through our five hour journey to the Amalfi Coast I realized that we had actually left our passports in the B&B safe!!! Fortunately we were able to get the owner to courier them to us (thanks Vittorio), but we didn’t receive them until right before we had to leave. It was a rather nervous wait I have to say. Luckily the place where we were staying was conducive to relaxation – Casa Angelina was, quite frankly, pretty awesome. I knew I was going to like it as soon as I was introduced to the man who was going to be at our beck and call during our stay: He would make us whatever our little hearts desired. Sigh – I could get used to that kind of service.

We didn’t leave the hotel during our stay and I stole as many freebies as I possibly could. We’re talking L’Occitane toiletries here people! No sooner had I secreted a hand cream away, there was another one in its place. The restaurant deserves a mention if only for the water menu. Yes, that’s right – a menu just for water. And top of the list was an €130 bottle of water. I would be hard pressed to spend that much on a bottle of wine, let alone water. Naturally being the irreverent person that I am, I laughed my ass off. Chris just informs me that I also said “what the fuck” to the shock of the waiter, but I don’t remember that 🙂 Food was fantastic though.

We’re in Naples now, just about to head to the airport to fly to Nice. We’ve only been here one night so I can’t really find anything worth mentioning about Naples. I suspect even if I’d been here a bit longer I wouldn’t be overly enthused but we did do the Pompeii thing and my feet ache like it’s nobody’s business. As I always say: “Seen one ruin, seen them all”. Ciao.

Rome wasn’t seen in a day

Posted on September 10, 2012 by Sam

A night at the opera (well, classical anyway)

Too much to do, too little time has been our mantra in Rome. Seriously – one day? – Nowhere near enough time to see this beautiful city. Of course I absolutely had to get me some shopping time in, so our day went something like this: “Ah, here’s the Pantheon – oh look – Zara. Now for the Trevi Fountain – ooh Benetton” and so on. In the end I ditched Chris after our abortive boot camp march to the Modern Art Gallery (closed on a Monday – doh!) and indulged myself. Will I ever wear that zebra top I bought? Hmm… we shall see…

Road to nowhere

Posted on September 8, 2012 by Sam

As close as I get to a church these days

Serifos has definitely been an interesting stay. Not interesting in that lots of things happened – there’s really not a lot to do except relax – but interesting in that we managed to find one of the few islands not spoilt by tourism and we had a chance to see what Greek life was all about. Oh and I got in touch with my own mortality.

As lovely as Hotel Rizes was, we didn’t want to spend *all* day lazing by the pool so we hired a car and proceeded to go off the beaten track to get to ‘real Greece’. I decided to drive because a) I’d never driven on the right-hand side of the road before and b) didn’t want to be a wuss about driving on the right-hand side of the road.

So… here’s what driving off the beaten track in Serifos mostly entails: driving up/down a rutted stony track only wide enough for one car at a time with no barriers and a sheer drop to certain death on one side, clutching the steering wheel in a death grip praying to any god that will listen and resolutely not looking down. I would have let Chris drive but I’m too much of a control freak and he kept looking at the view so he was banned from driving – except when I’d had too much to drink in the evening (which was every evening incidentally 🙂 ).

My favourite dining experience on the island came when after finishing our meal (and a bottle of wine) the owner gave us a glass of local firewater to send us on our way. Got to love a country that gives you more booze before you drive home to ‘perk you up’.

The Cradle of Civilization?

Posted on September 3, 2012 by Sam

I haven’t made up my mind whether I like Athens or not yet. It’s grimy, graffiti-ridden – a city in decay, but then you unexpectedly come across something beautiful like a church in the middle of the chaos and find yourself liking it almost in spite of itself. It’s rather disconcerting actually, but on the whole I’ll be glad to leave Athens and probably wouldn’t return except as a stop over on the way to somewhere else – like the island of Serifos where we’re heading next.

It hasn’t been the best start to our island adventure, however: Chris got pick pocketed on the train on the way to the ferry. It was quite a masterful operation to watch – this gang just swarmed Chris in the guise of helping him, and before he knew it he had been divested of his wallet. The most audacious part of it was that they stayed right next to us on the train like nothing had happened. Then, when Chris started to make some noise about losing his wallet, one of them ‘found’ it on the floor – less €50 of course – then they all hopped off at the next station. Still, at least they didn’t take his credit cards and €50 isn’t much in the scheme of things. Lessons learned, lessons learned…

One thing I do know is that I already like the island of Serifos very much indeed. More later, but for now this is where we are staying: Hotel Rizes.

All by myself

Posted on September 2, 2012 by Sam

It’s time for Sam’s European adventure take 2, only this time I’m on my own… not coz I’ve dumped Chris (or vice versa) but because he couldn’t meet me in Athens until Sat so I’ve had a night and a day all to myself. While admittedly travelling on my own freaked me out somewhat*, it’s actually been kind of cool and not having someone else around seemed to circumvent the meltdown I usually have first night in a strange city – and vodka wasn’t even involved! Truth be told, I laid down for a quick nana nap at 5pm and woke up the next morning.

In a fortunate happenstance, I seem to have found a hotel right near the main shopping drag so that took care of the first part of the day. In an effort to prove that I’m not a complete philistine, I went to the Benaki Museum to see a jewellery exhibition designed by famous artists such as Picasso. Now museums are normally Chris’ thing (there’s a limit to how many pieces of pottery I want to look at), but I can’t spend the whole day shopping. I then compounded the problem by visiting the Museum of Cycladic Art and realised that Chris would have actually wanted to see this one but too late now. It had a fantastic exhibition of nude sculptures by Ugo Rondinone. Lots of willies.

To complete the day I indulged myself with a fish spa, pedicure and massage. Rather odd to have little fishes nibbling away all the detritus from your feet but I guess a part of me will now stay in Athens (collective eww! there). I usually expect a girl to do the massage, but no, I got Andreas. A little weird, but apart from the odd breathing and waving his hands over my body to align my chakras or some such nonsense it was pretty good. Think it was supposed to be a no clothes massage but he obviously picked up on my ‘don’t touch my breasts’ vibe and told me I could keep my knickers on.

There’s a lot to be said for travelling on your own, but I’m not game enough to venture out by myself at night in this district so it’s just as well Chris arrives soon and I can start the drinking 🙂

*travelling generally does this to me anyway. As a result, Emma now thinks I need therapy – I’m just surprised it took her this long to figure that out.