So I got pretty lazy with this blog but I’ve had a couple of people ask for another entry so I’ll do my best. The next major stop for us was France. You’ve already heard about our epic evening adventure in Lyon but we actually began in Caen.
Caen is in the north of France, in the Normandy area. We picked it so we could get a sense of the French war history. It is a fairly quiet town and aside from catching a rather lackluster movie in French (who would have thought Clash of the Titans would be even worse when we couldn’t understand it?) we did little in the town itself.
We did however take a day trip out to Juno Beach, which was one of the D-Day landing sites during WWII. There was a museum there with a ton of information on the Canadian military (Juno was the Canadian landing point) but just seeing the beach itself was the highlight. It was much more open than your average Australian beach and the sand seemed to stretch for eternity, which just makes the concept of a naval assault even scarier. It must have been absolute hell trying to siege a fortified location like that and you don’t really get a sense of that until you see a location like this.
After two nights in Caen we moved on to Paris.
I’d already been to Paris on my last trip (the only repeat destination for me) but nonetheless it was an excellent few nights. Honestly, one of the most impressive things about the city was just the incredible efficiency of the public transport network. The Paris metro is a sight to behold. It is simple to navigate, has stations every few hundred meters and above all you never have to wait longer than three minutes for a train. Every time I caught one I thought about Cityrail and died a little inside.
I didn’t make it inside the Louvre this time; I went last time and there are better museums elsewhere. I did however go and take a look at the building, which is worth the trip itself. It is absolutely massive, with huge stone walls ringing a giant courtyard in a big horseshoe shape. It is capped with the now iconic glass pyramid but that looks kind of tacky when placed against the grandeur of towering windows and stone columns. It used to be the royal palace at one point if I remember correctly and it was definitely one of the most impressive structures we saw.
The one museum I did do was Museum D’Orsay. This place probably has one of the best collections on the planet, a ton of Monets, Van Goughs, Latrecs, Rembrandts and many more I can’t remember. I’m not huge on art, but I definitely enjoyed it more than I thought I would with the Van Gough’s being a particular highlight.
I also climbed Notre Damme, which is something I didn’t get to do last time due to a rather clumsy accident on the steps outside. It has 450 odd stairs, which definitely puffs you out, but to my relief we managed not to get stuck behind any overly ambitious, obese American tourists. The view from the topic was epic and really gave a great sense of how amazing French architecture is. The regular buildings are all very low-lying and no matter where you turned you saw ancient structures jutting up from the sprawl below.
Then came the crown jewel of France and possibly the whole trip; the Catacombs. It’s hard to convey exactly how amazing this place was unless you’ve actually seen it but I’ll try. Imagine everyone you’ve ever met for the entirety of your life. Now imagine them dead. Now imagine an underground tunnel system with all of their bones lining the walls in huge piles. That’s pretty much what the catacombs are, sans your friends and relatives.
We went down a stair case 20m below the city (under the subway, sewers etc) and then walked for literally 45 minutes through tunnel after tunnel with bones piled as high as a person. It went from being strange to amazing to mortifying as we realized we’d walked past tens of thousands, then hundred of thousands and eventually millions of skeletons. It also had a suitably macabre vibe, with water drops falling stealthily from the roof and just a scattering of minimal light sources. It was certainly horror movie material.
After that came our infamous trip to Lyon. We were originally going to Nice, but due to a combination of the Midlake gig and some very high quality restaurants being in Lyon we made a last minute switch.
The city itself was excellent; it was in my top two favourites (along with Dresden). It’s not a huge tourist hub, so the city feels functional and organic in its own right. It isn’t particularly built up but in the main shopping areas and squares you still have to weave through throngs of people. Everyone was friendly and there was an excellent café/bar/restaurant culture.
We ate at two Michellin starred restaurants while there and the experiences were quite different. The first we went to for dinner. It was a small, refined looking room without any of the fancy trappings you may expect from such an establishment. The food ranged from good to excellent and the service was good if not amazing.
The second however was in a sandstone building, which opened into a cavernous dining room with cabinets and paintings lining the walls. Everywhere you looked there were red hangings or displays of glassware or pictures of the head chef (Pierre Orsi). It was the epitome of a fancy schmancy restaurant. The food here was perhaps not quite on par with the first location (name forgotten unfortunately) but the service was excellent and any misgivings were more than made up for by the impressive desert which basically felt like three courses in its own right. We also got to chat briefly to the chef and he wound up sending free glasses of desert wine our way, which was a nice gesture.
Aside from eating, Lyon also has the odd sight to see. We spent the first day trekking up a hill behind the main part of town, which eventually lead us to some ancient Roman ruins. There were several rings of crumbling stone seats which used to be small amphitheatres as well as the decayed remains of a large network of rooms. It was really cool to see this kind of stuff up close; you could wander right through everything, sitting on and touching whatever you want (unlike any ruins in Rome itself, which are under overly zealous protection).
A little further up on the hill we found one of the coolest churches we’ve seen here, but I can’t do the massively elaborate interior justice without making it sound gaudy, so I’ll just leave it up to my pictures to do the talking.
Our trip to Lyon was originally meant to be three or four nights, but as many of you know that was not to be. If you were to compile a list of French pastimes it would probably look something like this:
Making fun of the English
Eating bread
Eating cheese
Eating bread and cheese
Striking
Thus it shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise when we discovered the French rail network was on strike at that point and getting a train out was impossible. This would have been all well and good if a certain volcano hadn’t also been spewing unimaginable quantities of ash into a certain atmosphere at the same time. I still take the position that given circumstances, the French train network should have sucked it up and delayed their strike until the airways were open again, but they were apparently having too much fun with all their extra cheese eating time and decided against it. And so we wound up spending eight days in Lyon.
I wish I could tell you we used the time productively, but there’s not a ton to do there unless you particularly like sewing (their largest museum is the Museum of Fabrics…) so we largely spent it drinking so surprisingly great French beer and eating a lot of sandwiches. Nobody can say we don’t know how to party.
Anyway I think I’ve basically covered all the key bases here. Sorry for the length. Next up will probably be Italy + Budapest, hopefully at some point before we return. Prague + Germany may have to wait until after, but I’ll see how I go for time.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment