I have now been in Granada for a whole week and I'm starting to find my way around. Classes are going well although they are kind of intense and it was a struggle at first to drag all the grammar rules back to the surface, but the temptation to use French words whenever I can't think of the Spanish one is slowly disappearing!

On Wednesday evening, I went over to the flat of one of the other students in my conversation group, Theresa. She lives just over the square from me so we usually walk home from class together and she gives me tips on where the best bakeries are and when to avoid the supermarket. Most of the other students in our group where there too, as well as a couple of the teachers from the school and Theresa's son Matt. Everyone brought something to eat (I made brownies) so we had a feast. Spanish food is really good (well, from what I have tried so far) but I haven't got used to eating so late at night yet.

The weather was finally less grey this week so I managed to take some photos of the city, mostly in the Albaicin which is where the school is. It's built on a ridge and on the other side of the valley is the mountain with the Alhambra on top. I haven't made it up there but I think there will be a trip next week sometime with the school. It looks stunning at the moment, with the Sierra Nevada in the background covered in snow. Here are some pics to give you an idea:

This is the river that runs in the valley between the Alhambra and the Albaicin.

The Alhambra with the Sierra Nevada in the background.

The view I get of the city when I am walking to class in the morning.

A typical street in the Albaicin.


This week I have also managed to acquire a Spanish SIM card without any major problems and some trainers so I can actually do some exercise. I had to leave my other ones in Rennes because of the luggage situation but there it's still sales time in Spain so I managed to get some cheap. I'm going to join the gym that my flatmate goes to. It's just round the corner and they have lots of classes including aero-salsa which sounds more exciting than straight running (or "footing" as they call it in Spanish!)

On Friday after classes finished for the week, we had tapas at the school. It was really nice to sit outside on the terrace and drink wine in the sun. It's not super hot yet since it's still only January but you can get away with sitting outside without a hat and gloves. Roll on the summer...

New semester, new blogging ambitions.

What can I say?
I was a lazy blogger in December and only managed 1 post. This was not in fact because I had nothing to write about more that I had too much to do and was too busy doing it to write about it. What with concerts, trips to the opera, eating crepes, going out, exams, whirlwind visits of Paris, flying home for Christmas etc., blog-time was low down the list of priorities.

But it's a new semester (sort of) and I am now in Granada, so the blog is on again. We'll see how long it lasts....

I arrived in Granada on Saturday morning after a loooooong journey on Friday. I'm going to spare you the details, but instead take inspiration from a travel website I found called "The Good, The Bad and The Weird".

The Good:
* Travelling entirely by train means no flying!
* No flying means no luggage allowances, no worrying about if you have forbidden items in your hand baggage and best of all not giving Ryanair or Easyjet £10 for the privilege of using your credit card to book a flight.
* Being on the train means you can watch the stunning French/Spanish countryside roll by.
* Overnight trains are cool. It's like when I went to Corsica with Ruth and it felt like a proper adventure.
* The sandwicherie at Marne La Vallee Chessy station does a really good vegetarian sandwich with mozzarella, tomatoes and pesto. Possibly the only good thing about this station (see below).

The Bad:
* The journey was long, 28 hours in total. So by the time I got to Granada I was exhausted and just wanted to sleep.
* Marne La Vallee Chessy station, where I had to switch trains to go to Montpellier. Possibly even more depressing than Charles de Gaulle TGV. This station is basically meant for people going to Disneyland and you can get the bus from right outside the front entrance. It's all grey. Most stations have signs warning not to leave luggage unattended: this one has signs warning you not to let go of your helium balloon incase it causes a short circuit. And indeed there were half a dozen semi-deflated Mickey and Minnie balloons hanging around by the grey ceiling. Soul-suckingly depressing.
* The overnight train was cool. Like freezing. I had two blankets on and was still shivering, so the good old Aberdeen hoodie had to come to the rescue.

The Weird:
* The guy sitting next to me on the train from Marne La Vallee to Lyon. He was just really weird. But once he got off I was by myself so could watch True Blood in peace.

The trenhotel arrived in Granada early so I was at my new flat by half past 8 in the morning. I "found" a flat through another girl from Aberdeen who was in Granada first semester and has now gone to France. The flat is really central and I'm living with 3 Spanish people so hopefully should improve quickly.

Yesterday I went out with Pilar, my flatmate, and a couple of her friends to see the city. We walked through the streets up into the Albaicin which is one of the oldest parts of the city, on the opposite side of the river from the Alhambra. We also had some real tapas, which in Granada comes free with drinks. We also went to a tea-shop where they have chai. :-)

Today, my classes started at the Spanish school I am going to for the next 3 weeks. It's also up in the Albaicin and it was nice walking up there this morning even though the hill is really steep. There are not many other students there at the moment and there is no-one in my level, so in the morning I have 2 private lessons with a teacher and then after the break I have another 2 classes with a group for conversation type exercises. It was a bit daunting today because I am the only new student this week and I wasn't in classes with the others today because I did a level test instead, so I don't know anyone. The teachers are nice though and they have a programme of social events with things happening a few times a week.

Also fairly daunting was the supermarket round the corner from the flat where I went to buy supplies this afternoon. Everything was in the wrong order and I never did manage to find the tinned tuna...

Vampires, Werewolves, Wererabbits, Turkey and other assorted bits and pieces.

A quick round-up of the last couple of weeks.

17/11/09 Grand Debut of "Ca Marche" at Melody Maker
At some point during this semester, whilst we were in a pub consuming cider and beer, Oli and Chris decided that they were going to form a band and have a gig in Melody Maker (aka Chez Conrad). It was one of those rare pub conversations which actually leads to something being organised. Chris plays the piano and Oli plays the guitar and pretty much all the IEP foreign students turned up to see them, as well as several representatives from Zephyr. Melody Maker is fairly small so it was packed. Miro came as well and invited a French friend to meet her there. His name was Cedric and he brought a couple of his friends. One of them was called Cedric too. I have never met a Cedric in my life before, then I meet two at once. So, a combination of Oli and Chris playing some classic crowd pleasing hits, several glasses of punch and trying to explain to some Frenchies the meaning of "awkward" led to a very enjoyable evening all round.

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23/11/09 English Speaking at Agrocampus Ouest
My French teacher at the IEP has a double life as an English teacher at the Agrocampus in Rennes. This is a sort of agricultural college/university where they study something called Agrology (I think). Anyway, our teacher invited all the English speaking students at the IEP to go and meet some of her classes, to chat to them in English about our experience of living abroad and generally about the countries we are from. The French students looked fairly terrified to start with but aided by some tea and cake it wasn't too difficult to get a conversation started and to find out that most of them want to spend their year abroad in Australia or New Zealand. I also had to explain at least 20 times where Aberdeen is and even where Scotland is a couple of times. I tried to encourage some of them to go to Scotland, especially the ones who said they were interested in marine biology. It's hard to compete with the prospect of studying the great barrier reef for a year though, so I'm not sure how successful I was.

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23/11/09 "New Moon"
Monday evening, we decided to have a girls' trip to the cinema. Well, in fact none of the boys wanted to come, for fairly obvious reasons if you know what the Twilight saga is about. "New Moon" is a film about vampires and werewolves and humans, based on some novels which I have never read and the sequel to the film "Twilight". It's a fairly terrible film with regards to the plot and the characters but there is plenty of eye candy to distract from the fact that it is completely ridiculous. Luckily, the Gaumont cinema was showing it in Version Original (ie. English) because I think watching it dubbed into French would have just been too much.

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26/11/09 Thanksgiving
Yes, I know I'm in France and not the USA, but any excuse for a feast. Priscilla is from Boston so she was our Thanksgiving co-ordinator. She picked out all her favourite/must-have Thanksgiving recipes and shared them out amongst everyone according to cooking facilities. Since the meal was happening chez moi, I was in charge of the turkey. Except, the French don't really eat turkey, except at christmas, so there was no turkey to be found anywhere. We weren't organised enough to order one in advance so in the end I went to a poultry seller at the permanent market halls and got the two biggest chickens possible. And I got the woman at the stall to cut the heads off for me.

Here is the menu for the evening:
Roast chicken (me)
Stuffing (lots of it due to a mistake in weight conversion by Priscilla)
Cheesy mashed potatoes(Chris)
Green beans with onions (Oli. Enough to feed a small country.)
Candied carrots (Martin)
Sweet potatoes (Pao & Lau)
Butternut squash (me. Surprise surprise)
Sweetcorn (Christian)
Cornbread (Bjorn)
Cranberry sauce (made ingeniously by Janis with dried cranberries and juice)
Apple pie (joint effort of me and the Mexicans)
Vanilla Icecream (supplied by Jan)
Wine, cider, beer, mulled wine...

It was AMAZING. In between the main meal and dessert we had to have a break so we played a bizarre form of charades in 3 rounds. First round, you choose a name from the hat and then you have to describe the person using as many words as you want so your team can guess. Second round, you are only allowed to say one word. Third round, only gestures. This turned out to be totally hilarious partly because of the names that people had chosen to put in the hat and partly because we were playing in French.
Another excellent evening all round and a fairly deep food coma followed!!

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28/11/09 Miro, Wallace and Gromit
Miro came over on Saturday to catch up and to escape her host brother, who has la Grippe A aka. the dreaded swine flu. We were thinking about going to the cinema but the weather was minging so we decided to stay in, have dinner and watch a DVD. After some deliberation, we chose Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Wererabbit. Unfortunately, the remote control for the DVD player is broken so we had to watch it in French, but it was as good as in English, even though the accents are missing.
Oooooh Gromit, Fromaaaaaaage!!

Weekend to the Chateaux de la Loire. Oooooh......!

Another weekend, another adventure involving very little study of the income disparities between member states of the EU. Meh, that's what January is for...

I'm fairly lucky at the IEP in that it is quite small and all the French students have to go abroad in their 3rd year. This means that they are nice to foreign students. They have also formed an association called Zephyr which is to help international students get on their feet when they first arrive in Rennes and to have fun once they are settled in. And so I ended up on the weekend excursion to the Chateaux in the Loire valley, kindly organised by Zephyr.


Unfortunately, the trip started with a fairly brutal 6:30am meet-up followed by a 3 hour coach journey. It was all worth it though when we arrived at our first destination: the Chateaux de Chambord. On first approach, the castle seemed vaguely familiar to me. Then I realised that it is because the shape of a Chambord bottle is a copy of the shape of the main tower of the castle and being friends with Emma Stewart, I am well acquainted with what a chambord bottle looks like... In any case, it is very impressive, especially since it has the longest driveway I have ever seen. This is one place you do NOT want on your paper round!




Zephyr had organised for a guide to meet us at the castle so we did a tour of some of the highlights. (On a side note, EU citizens get in free to the castle. My Erasmus experience is making it very very hard to be a Eurosceptic.) A few stats: Chambord has over 400 rooms, 77 staircases and 282 chimneys. The castle was built as a hunting lodge and the walls which surround the estate are roughly the same length as the Paris peripherique (ring road) which means the estate covers about the same amount of land as the centre of Paris. Not bad for a place which was built primarily as a status symbol and which was only lived in for a few weeks of the year. Construction started in 1519 (according to wikipedia) before the French people got sick of royalty and started chopping their heads off.

This is the King's bedroom. I think it was Louis XIV's because the King who it was built for had a bedroom somewhere else in the castle and also I remember the tour guide mentioning the influence of Versailles on this particular room. Anyway, the bed is separated by a barrier from the rest of the room. This was so that the court could watch the King go to bed and get up in the morning. Apparently, this was a great priviledge. Since the rooms in the castle are so huge, it was very difficult to keep them warm, so the King had a secret room with a door hidden behind a tapestry where he would retreat after the going-to-bed ceremony. This room was much smaller and therefore much easier to keep warm. Seriously, they thought of everything (except how ridiculous it is to have a ceremony to watch someone going to bed...).


The central staircase is very impressive. It's a double helix shape, like a strand of DNA, so the two sides never meet although there are windows cut into the rock so you can see people going up the other side. When I build my own castle, it's having one of these staircases.

After a picnic lunch, we headed off to the second chateau of the day, Chenonceau. On the way, the tour guide pointed out some other castles and places of interest. There are over 300 castles in the Loire valley, some of them owned by the French state and others used as private residences or converted into hotels. There are only so many castles and history that you can absorb in one weekend, so we only visited two of the most famous but there is definitely enough to keep you occupied for several weeks.


Chenonceau is very cool. It was originally built on the site of a mill which was right next to the a river. Then, someone royal at some point decided to demolish the mill and build a castle. So that's what they did. But then they realised that all the good hunting forests are on the other side of the river. What to do? Build a bridge of course connecting the two sides. Then later on, someone decided to built on top of the bridge, two massive long galleries which in my opinion would be perfect for a ceilidh. So now it looks like some crazy person just built the castle in the middle of the river.


The same guide did a tour and we saw some of the original tapestries and things as well as this cabinet which was a gift to Mary Queen of Scots for her wedding to Francois II.

We also saw this room, which was decorated like this on purpose for the occupant to mourn her dead husband/lover. I forget the exact details, but to be honest it's not surprising that she never got over it if she had to live in a room like this.


Unlike Chambord, Chenonceau has some pretty impressive landscaped gardens. The best part is the maze. Even though it was really easy it was still fun. The chateau also has postman-unfriendly driveway.


We stayed in a random hostel somewhere in the middle of nowhere on Saturday night. It had a very, very narrow entrance and the bus driver did a 1000 point turn to get in. The french students made tartiflette for everyone for dinner. This is slices of potatoes with bacon lardons, creme fraich (I think) and cheese. Not bad, although I prefer the cheese which is used for raclette which is the same ingredients in a different order. After dinner we basically just partied. :-)

Sunday morning, the bus driver did a gazillion point turn to get the coach out of the driveway and earned himself a round of applause when he finally succeeded. We headed off to Tours. Since it's France and it was a Sunday there was basically nothing to do so we just wandered around and looked at the town. It has an incredible station and the old town is typically cutey McCuterson.

Next up, the highlight of the weekend: visit to a wine cave :-).
The particular cave we went to was for Veuve Amiot but the town it's in is full of different caves. Wine central. Obviously my kind of place. Veuve Amiot is a sparkling wine which is basically champagne but because it is not produced in the Champagne region it is not allowed to be called that. This also means that it is roughly a third of the price of real champers. The company has over 5km of caves where it stores its wine. These are not natural caves but are old stone mines. And what did they need stone for? Building castles of course! We did a little tour through a small section of the caves, then we saw the bottling and labelling machines, then we had "degustation". I tried everything which came my way and I thought they were all great except the sparkling red wine. I think that is an acquired taste but apparently it goes great with chocolate so maybe I will have to acquire it.


So, another great weekend seeing a part of France I have never seen before and I know have a cupboard full of sparkling wines in a variety of different forms: rose, dry, sweet. Aaahh France.

Corsica!!

I have finally got round to updating the last little bit of my Toussaint journey, so here goes...

When I last left you, I had just reached Corsica early on Thursday morning. We arrived in Ajaccio on the West coast of the island and went for a short wander along the shore to fill in time before catching the bus. Not such a nice day as the previous few on the mainland, but it gave me a chance to mess around with my camera (it has a sunrise setting, which just about managed to capture the sun's rays coming through the clouds.) Then it was time for the bus. Aaah the bus... what can I say about the bus? Well, I think I'll share a valuable lesson with you that I learnt on this trip: the French do not have Stugeron. Anyone who knows me will probably be able to see why this might be a problem on a 3 hour bus journey on horrendously twisting rural roads. I lasted 15 minutes before the inevitable happened. I think we'll leave it at that. We arrived in Porto Vecchio on the South Eastern coast of the island at about 12h where we were going to have to wait til 17h30 for the connecting bus service. Corsica is the first place I have been in France which does not have an efficient integrated transport system, I think I have become too accustomed to this luxury and returning to Aberdeen will be a problem where the only option is FirstBus. But anyway, we were on Corsica, the sun was shining etc so we headed off to find some food. Corsica is famous for its charcuterie and cheese so we ordered Corsican Salad so we could try some. I wasn't a big fan of the ham but the cheese was really good. There are some photos of it somwhere, I think on Ruth's camera so when she gets round to uploading them I'll add them in. Porto Vecchio is not a very big town and there is not really much to do. We had pretty much exhausted all exploration possibilities after about 2 hours so then we just hung around in the sun, reading the paper, taking photos and getting strange looks from the locals. Ice cream was also consumed. :-)



Around half 4 we decided to go and find a cafe somewhere to get something to drink (but mostly because we needed to use their toilets...). We found one right across from the bus stop where we had been told by the tourist office that the bus to Bonifacio leaves from. So we were just chilling out with some grenadine perrier (oooooh!!) getting more strange looks because the Corsicans obviously thought we were crazy to be sitting outside in the middle of winter, when the barman came out for a smoke and a chat. We were telling him that we were just waiting for the bus to Bonifacio when he comes out with "what bus to Bonifacio?". Cue minor panic while we try and find out about this bus. I ran down to the travel agents were another customer tells me something along the lines of "the tourist office have no idea what they are talking about, the bus leaves from the port at the bottom of the hill". So I ran back to the cafe, where some more guys have appeared and Ruth is trying to explain the situation. Well, to cut a long story short we ended up running like crazy people with all our luggage down this huge long hill to the bus stop. Luckily, Corsica is not Switzerland and things do not run like clockwork. The bus was still there, mostly because the driver was having a fag and we made it to Bonifacio by the skin of our teeth. Bonifacio is right on the Southern tip of the island, facing Sardinia. Miro (apologies for lack of accent if you're reading this) was renting a house with 4 of her friends from Rennes. The house was the top 3 floors of a building right in the centre of Bonifacio, with a terrace looking out over the sea to Sardinia. Here's some pics but it's really hard to capture the incredible view so I gave up trying fairly quickly!

Miro's friends were Bethany, Shannon, Eduardo and Nate. I know them all from various nights out in Rennes and on the occasional Tuesday when me and Nate decide that conditions are right for playing Ultimate. Dinner was good craic and I slept like a log.

Friday morning, it was already nice and warm when I got up. We headed down the cliffs on one of the many, many staircases in Bonifacio, due to the fact that it is built on the top of a cliff. Thewater was amazingly clear and there were loads of little fish everywhere. Proper tropical it were. We also saw an octupus trying to beach itself so we stalked it for a while but it proved too good at hiding/swimming away so I didn't have the chance to get a photo. I joined in the swimming but sat out and watched everyone else do crazy jumping off rocks type things.

While I was swimming I managed to stand on some coral. I then spent most of the afternoon sitting on the terrace trying to get it out, with varying degrees of success. Still, it was nice to just sit in the sun and not do very much. Apart from pick coral...

For dinner, we headed down some other stairs to the port at the bottom of the cliffs to a restaurant called "The Kissing Pigs" because a) it had a heart next to it in Miro's guidebook and b) it was owned by the cousin of someone Nate had hitched a lift from earlier in the week. I stayed away from charcuterie this time and went for fish with ratatouille. I have no idea what kind of fish it was, but it was good.

Saturday morning involved some more frantic bus-catching, involving Miro being unable to find her passport. Turns out she had just put it in a very,very safe place which she couldn't remember. Unfortunately, due to the previously discussed transport system we had a 4 hour wait at Porto Vecchio again. Me and Miro wandered up to the old town on the hill and went to a bakery to buy some Corsican specialities for lunch. This time, "Corsican" turned out to a be ratatouille flatbread type thing and a cake made with chestnuts. Due to continued lack of Stugeron I stuck with savoury things but Miro assures me the cake was delicious. I suppose I will just have to go back and try one.

A thankfully uneventful bus ride later, we arrived in Bastia, right in the North of the island. After hanging out in Miro's crew's hotel room, accompanied by some attempts at telling spooky stories in honour of Hallowe'en, we headed to the boat. This time, it was the Mega Smerelda, an much nicer ship than the Mega Express V but also much busier since it was the end of the holidays. Unfortunately, the cinema, swimming pool and sauna were all closed but there was plenty of entertainment to be had sitting in the bar watching the kids going wild chasing the disco lights. There are no pullman seats on the Mega Smerelda so we had a cabin for the return crossing.

Maybe it was due to the ace lasagne that I had for dinner (Italian chefs again) or just general accumulated tiredness, but my top bunk was THE COMFIEST BED EVER and I slept like a log. Again. Shame about the 6am tannoy...

Toulon to Corsica

This is the Corsica ferry as seen from the beach in Nice. I'm not sure if this is the boat we took or not but they all look the same from a distance.

We boarded the boat from Toulon. There were two massive ferries in at one time, one heading for Bastia and ours heading to Ajaccio on the west coast of Corsica. First thing I noticed was the lack of gangways. I guess not every terminal can be as high tech as the Calmac terminal in Oban. I also spied lots of staff wearing uniform very similar to my old one ie. fluorescent yellow. I had booked the tickets online and all we had to do was show the person at the entrance to the ship the print-off, she put a number into a handheld computer thing and we were allowed on. Simples. We walked on an entrance at the car deck level and then got taken by escalator up to the reception area. I know, an escalator on a boat!! Could this ship get any more exciting? Yes. There was a spaghetteria on board. I'm not sure if "spaghetteria" is a real word or not but it did indeed serve spaghetti along with other types of pasta which was pretty good probably because the entire crew was Italian. There was also a wine bar but sadly it was closed. The boat had hardly any passengers so not everything was open.

When I made the reservation for the ferry I didn't book a cabin but instead booked 2 pullman seats because they were a lot cheaper. This turned out to be a bad idea. The pullman seats were in a room in the centre of the boat, basically just a room full of rows of armchairs. When we finally decided that we had had enough of exploring the boat (and cheekily using a socket to charge my camera) we headed to the Pullman seats only to find that all the lights had been switched off. So we stumbled our way to two random seats that weren't occupied and tried to fall asleep. Except the seats were ridiculously uncomfortable so we both ended up sleeping on the floor. Ruth had a sleeping bag with her because she had spent the previous weekend travelling but I was still wearing shorts after the sunshine in Nice and Toulon and only had my jacket for a cover. It was FREEZING. Luckily the crossing was very smooth but it was definitely not the most comfortable night I have ever spent.

The tannoy woke us up in the morning with an announcement that it was now 6am and the boat would arrive in Ajaccio at 7am. I'm not sure why they thought we needed a whole hour of notice but since I wasn't really asleep anyway I headed upstairs to watch Corsica approaching. Except it was still dark. So instead we sat in the lounge where there were lots of people sleeping on the couches in sleeping bags. Some of them even had blowup mattresses and pillows and had clearly done the journey before. So for future reference, either pay for a cabin or pay for nothing at all, because a pullman seat is definitely not worth it.

Despite a bad nights sleep, as soon as I got off the boat I got excited again about being on Corsica. After all, I could have woken up on Barra, where it is unlikey that there would have been 30 degree weather forecast.

The travels continue

Where was I...?

So after a great weekend in Lyon (I definitely want to go back, especially after seeing the photos of the festival of lights which takes place in December every year) it was time to spend some more quality time with the SNCF. Although it turned out to be slightly less good quality time as the previous journey because when I arrived at Lyon Part Dieu the departures board was showing my train running 20 minutes late. Not a big deal normally but I only had 16 minutes to make my connection at Marseilles so potentially a problem. In fact the train arrived in Marseilles over half an hour late so I had well and truly missed the onward train to Nice. While I was wandering around trying to find the information desk in the station, a French girl asked me where to find the "Accueil" so she could get new tickets for her connection. So I tagged along with her to the "accueil" and all I had to do was say "My train was late and I missed my connection to Nice" (in French of course) and they just handed over a new ticket from a pile which had already been printed out. The French girl made a comment along the lines of "unfortunately this is what the French rail system is like". I just smiled and nodded even though I reckon it was all pretty efficient. The new train I was on was not a TGV but in fact only took 3 minutes longer than the original should have. The only really disappointing part of the whole journey was that I had a reservation on the train I missed for a seat on the upper deck of the train, the only one for my whole trip. What's the point of being on a doubledecker train if you have to sit downstairs?

Unfortunately, my friend Marielou who is from Nice (another Haut-Lac-er) was spending the holidays in Paris so I stayed in the youth hostel in the centre of the city. It was DEFINITELY not built as a youth hostel. It is just off the main shopping avenue in the city and our room had huge windows looking out onto palm trees in the garden. I chatted to quite a few other travellers in the communal kitchen whilst I was making dinner and even shared some cheese with a group of Chinese guys. Good banter! Ruth (my former flatmate from Aberdeen) arrived a few hours after me so I met her at the station then we headed back the the hostel to sleep, after a minor altercation with the sheet sleeping bag.

In case you don't know, Nice is very close to Monaco, Italy and is right on the Mediterranean sea. Despite it being the 27th of October, the temperature on Tuesday was forecast for 26 degrees. We got up early and headed to the Tourist Office to find a map. The woman behind the desk was clearly very tired of having to point out to people where to go in the City. In fact, she reminded me of me in my days as Tourist Office Assistant in Oban.


The first place we went to explore was the market, passing by this fountain on the way. The market was tiny in comparison to the mammoth operation which takes place in Rennes every Saturday but what it lacked in size it made up for by having a stall selling the cutest marzipan alligators in the world ever.

We continued through all the windy narrow streets up the hill to the ruins of the old castle on the top. From the top there is an incredible view out over the sea, the city and the mountains in the background. Here are a few photos to give a general idea...


We asked an old French woman at the viewpoint to take a photo of us together at the top, just to prove that we had actually both been there together. We took a different route down the hill and passed this waterfall which was particularly stunning in the sunlight. Cue more photographs...


I am really loving my new camera, so for every photo I put up here there are at least 5 more taken using different settings and angles. After having stood at the top of the hill looking straight down into the sea, the beach was irresistible. Due to Ruth's lack of internet access or landline phone we had a lot of stuff to catch up on about our various experiences in France so far and the gossip from Scotland from the summer holidays. We watched the Corsica ferry arriving. We also watched the wake from the Corsica ferry heading towards the beach but didn't move in time so Ruth spent the rest of the afternoon trying to dry her skirt!

As with my life in France, food must make a regular appearance in this blog. And what better to eat in Nice than a Nicoise salad?

And some wine of course.
There was an old German woman sitting at the table next to us and she was telling us all about the places she has lived and her experiences as a foreigner living in France. We also saw a fireman almost faceplant after tripping over a loose paving stone. Hilarious.

At the recommendation of Marielou we went to see the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. It reminded me quite a lot of the Guggenheim in Bilbao: worth going for the building, art inside fairly underwhelming. The best part about it is the roof terrace which gave a great view over the city just as the sun was setting. If only I had a sunset setting on my camera... oh wait, I do. I now have about 100 photos of the skyline of Nice at various stages of the setting sun.

The rest of the day/evening we spent generally wandering around city, looking at the massive private yachts in the harbour and trying to choose which flavour of ice cream to choose from Fenocchio's. They have almost 100 different flavours of ice cream including tomato and basil, lavendar and avocado. My sweet tooth won through through and I went for a scoop of lemon meringue pie and a scoop of chocolate/ginger. Perfect end to a brilliant day.

http://www.fenocchio.fr/parfums.html

On Wednesday morning, we checked out the hostel and took a combination of public transport including the tram and the bus up to the Matisse museum. Matisse lived in Nice for many years between 1918 and 1954 and when he died he left a lot of his work to the city. His heirs have also contributed work and other artists' work is included such as portraits of the artist and photographs of him at work. There is also the scale models and practice drawings for the Chapel of Vence which he considered to be his masterpiece. This was a much more interesting musuem from the point of view of art, maybe because I studied some of Matisse's work when I did my HNC so I actually had some sort of clue what was going on!

We both agreed that Nice was brilliant but we had a boat to catch in Toulon, so once again I found myself at the station. we broke up our journey to Toulon with a few hours in Cannes. Totally unimpressed. I'm sure it's a great place to be when the film festival is on but apparently in late October all that happens is a conference for IT executives. The beach was also nowhere near as nice as Nice (haha) although luckily I can always count on Ruth to provide some comedy, on this occasion watching her try to put her shoes back on without getting sand on her feet. FAIL.

When we got to the port in Toulon and saw the boat, we both got ridiculously excited. In fact, the boat deserves it's own entry...