MikeFitz with overflow bit set…

Yep, Mrs Fitz and I are just back from three weeks in France.  You don’t want to read a day-by-day travelogue (hey, I don’t want to write one), so here’s a simple list of things we saw and did.  (Geek readers: scroll straight down to the sections on Technology, Battlefields and Driving.)

Art & Culture

Le Louvre: Mona Lisa by Leonardo, plus works by the other Ninja Turtles.

Musée d’Orsay: loved all the Monets, Manets, Cézannes; was surprised to see that the sculpture I knew as Rodin’s “The Thinker” is actually a disappointingly small part of a much larger work, Porte de l’Enfer.

Vincent van Gogh: got right into Vincent - saw Starry Night Over the Rhone at the Musée d’Orsay - even bought the Starry Night souvenir tie.  Two weeks later we had a delightful lunch at the Yellow cafe in Arles which was the subject of Vincent’s Terrasse de Cafe la Nuit

Eiffel Tower: Great view on a sunny day but most entertainment came from the hordes of beggars, pickpockets and tricksters.  When they asked if I spoke English (their way of filtering out prospects), I responded with “Lah Shukran” - “No Thank-you” in Arabic.  That put them off their game a little.  We saw most of the tricks coming; “Did you drop this ring? Here let me see if it fits your finger.” - a thinly-veiled attempt to deftly remove other rings, bracelets and watches.  Still, Mrs Fitz came away without a glasses case containing her prescription sunglasses.  It *might* have fallen out of her coat pocket.  After a visit to an optician and an eye-test, she now has a bi-focal souvenir of Paris with lovely French frames.

Cathedrals and Chateaux

Notre Dame: Spectacular, yes, but if I’m remembering correctly, the interior is not as extravagantly decorated as the Notre Dame cathedral we saw in Montreal last April.

La Basilique du Sacré Coeur de Montmartre (Remember the scene in Amelie?)  More tricksters approached Mrs Fitz; this time with a loop of string; “Put your finger in here for good luck.”   My shout of “Ne touchez pas!” stopped them immediately. 

Le Mont St Michel - sometimes cut off at high tide;  Caen Cathedral of St Pierre;  Amiens cathedral, largest in France and dating from the 13th century (The 13TH CENTURY, people!) miraculously escaping major damage despite nearby conflict in both 20th century wars.  It was interesting to see the range of posters advertising the World Youth Congress and the Pope’s visit to Sydney in July next year.

Loire Valley: Amboise; Chenonceaux (audio tour delivered via iPod); Chambord (double helix staircase so people going up never meet people going down; designed by Leonardo da Vinci);  Blois (another chateau, another great mick church).

Lourdes: Went to the grotto, made famous by Bernadette Soubirous.  The rock is smooth, worn down by the hands of the pilgrims.  Some looked really ill; poor souls.  The burning candles were huge, both in number and size.  The highest Nuns per sq km ratio anywhere on the planet, I reckon.

Technology

Leonardo da Vinci: In Amboise we stayed just a couple of kilometres from Chateau Du Clos Lucé - Parc Leonardo Da Vinci, where Leonardo spent his final years, sponsored by King François I.  In the basement and in the gardens were models of his inventions constructed from his drawings and using materials available in his day.  Geek heaven.  I’ve said before that I like innovative people, haven’t I?

Millau Viaduct: went out of our way to see this engineering marvel.  Drove under, around and over it.  Bought the t-shirt.  Check out the official website; don’t miss the live webcam.  From YouTube, here’s some time-lapse photography of the construction site…

and a geek-worthy CAD movie detailing the construction process…

Musée des Blindés: Tank Museum, the world’s largest museum of armoured vehicles located at Saumur, the traditional training centre of the French Cavalry.  Over 200 well restored armoured vehicles, some very rare indeed with production runs of about 30.  Being an ex-tankie and cavalry troop leader, I had a lot of fun here.  On the way out, I had a look around the back.  They must have another 200 vehicles being restored.

Nuclear Power Station: No, don’t worry about those two big towers on the left.  They’re just cooling towers and that’s just steam.  That won’t hurt anyone.  However, those four containment buildings on the right…

Free Bicycles: Now here’s a great green idea, especially suitable for flat cities who have taken steps to reduce vehicle traffic.

Swipe your credit card to remove a bicycle from its post.  Connect it to another post anywhere in the city within 45 minutes and there is no charge.  This photo was taken in Lyon, but we also saw them in Paris where they suddenly became very popular during the train strike.

Wind Power: Self-Portrait at a wind farm.  I like this spontaneous shot from a moving vehicle.  Sometimes, it’s the ones that go wrong, that turn out the best.  In the misty morning, the auto-focus completely missed the wind generator, instead focusing on the roadside guidepost - and Mrs Fitz’s fingers.

Interesting Cities

Rouen - cathedral painted many times by Monet; strikers massing outside the Palais de Justice and police hiding around the corner in front of the cathedral;
Caen - Caen Castle dating from c1066;
Rennes;

Bordeaux - walked around at 7:30am in the dark, Grand Theatre, Monument Aux Girondins (fabulous fountain - surprised to see it not frozen).

Bayonne - Cafes are also chocolate shops. Hot chocolate is a specialty introduced by Jewish immigrants in the 1500s.  This was an easy sell on a morning when it was 2°C at 11am;
Biarritz - on the Atlantic coast, nice beach, cold water;

Avignon - an enchanting walled city with narrow cobblestone streets. (Next time, I would avoid arriving during a rainy Friday evening peak-hour.)
Le Pont D’Avignon, Pont Bénézet (It’s "SOUS le pont d’Avignon". They danced UNDER the bridge.), Palais de Papas, home to 7 French-born Popes in the 1300s.

Lyon - lovely city, funicular to Basillique de Fouverie, Vieux Lyon, Hotel De Ville, Opera House, interesting public sculptures.  Andy really enjoyed Lyon when he was invited to present a paper at a conference there last year.

Strasbourg - very German. Greeted with a “Morgen” at breakfast. Two coffees and two pastries at a patisserie cost “zieben” Euros.  At L’Orangerie, across the road from our appartment, there were autumn colours which Queenslanders never get to see.

Arras - very Flemish, public squares and architecture reminiscent of Brugge in Belgium.  We were in Brugge in 2002.

The only down-side:
In general, the French don’t seem to be able to manage doggy-doo.  It is everywhere.  You have to watch your step constantly, and no doubt, the locals do.  For tourists, walking while reading a map is a recipie for disaster.  One evening we came back to our hotel in Avignon to find the reception staff furiously mopping and vacuuming.  It was obvious from the smell that some poor soul had walked something awful into the hotel.

Roman Ruins

Pont du Gard: an enormous Roman Aqueduct;
Roman ampitheatres in Nimes (still working, even hosting bullfights), Arles and Orange (upgraded with a roof over the stage and mountings for light and sound systems.)

Orange also has a 2000-year-old Arc de Triomphe built by the Romans to celebrate their victory over the Gauls; clearly the inspiration for Napoleon’s Arc in Paris.

Cute Medieval Towns

The French can do cute villages and cobbled streets maxima cum laude.

St Jean Pied de Pont in the Atlantic Pyrenees with its Citadel and St Jacques gate listed by UNESCO.

Ste Beau de Provence, a super cute village in a glorious limestone/chalk cliff setting.

Beaune: Hotel Dieu, a hospital founded in 1443, a perfectly restored, fascinating medieval jewel.  A benefactor funded the whole project, with strong links between the curative powers of the spiritual and the pharmaceutical.  The pharmacy had powders of shrimps eyes, arsenic, vomit nut powder and even “catholic” powder. (What’s that? Ground up dead Catholics?)

Carcasonne: UNESCO listed; absolutely awe-inspiring when approached on foot; a surprising hive of tourist commercial activity inside.

Beautiful Countryside

The Lot Valley: a remarkable drive along the glorious Lot River.

Alsace: “Today”, said Mrs Fitz, “it will be non-stop stopping!”  So much to see.  Did you know that those clever grape growers plant roses at the ends of some vine rows for early detection of pests?  Look! A stork’s nest!

Battlefields

D-Day beaches - Sword, Juno, Gold and Omaha; Canadian cemetery at Bény-Reviers (just inland from Juno beach); American cemetery at Colleville (overlooking Omaha, very impressive and staffed by clean-cut young Americans)

The Somme - Australian War Memorial at Villers-Brettoneux.  Constructed in 1938, some of the vandalism inflicted by Hitler’s team a few years later is still visible.  Another fine example of man’s inability to learn from history.

Places we stayed

Amboise: Le Manoir de la Maison Blanche  This Loire Valley B&B (or chambre d’hote) was just so enchanting and Annick Delecheneau, our enthuiastic hostess, made us feel so welcome.  She was very proud of her English skills, having worked in England as an au-pair.  Our suite occupied the entire top (attic) level of this building.

Picardy: Le Château d’Omiécourt  We spent two nights here right at the end of our touring holiday.  A great place to unwind.  Our hosts, Dominique and Véronique de Thézy are genuinely lovely people.  And one of the best things about B&Bs is the interesting range of folks you meet at breakfast.

Small Hotels: In cities, wherever possible we stayed in small hotels close to the action.  This one, Hotel de l’Horloge in Avignon is typical of where we stayed.  Often access was pedestrian only.  This meant parking a few blocks away and wheeling luggage through the cobbled, pedestrianised streets; but that was half the fun.  We deliberately took no large suitcases.

People

One often hears that the French are rude and won’t help English-speakers.  If this was once true, let me assure you it is no longer.  I think there has been a generational change.  Everyone couldn’t have been more helpful.  Young people and especially those in service industries, were keen to try out their English skills.

Everywhere we went there were lots of friendly fellow-tourists, a delightful Belgian couple at one B&B, some Aussies, lots of Americans (sadly, some of whom still think George W Bush can do no wrong), even more Canadians.

And speaking of Canadians, we note that the Quebecois (we were there in April) are more French than the French.  In Quebec, the stop signs say Arrêt, while in France, they say Stop.  KFC exists in France, while in Quebec it is called PFK (Poulet Frit Kentucky).  Of course, Quebec has gendarmes but in France gendarmes are only found in rural areas.  In Paris and other cities, they are called Police.

Culinary Delights

Rennes: Coquille St Jacques - best I had ever tasted up to that point, eclipsed later in Roye, see below.

Amboise: L’Epicerie and L’Alliance, two delightful restaurants on consecutive nights - Pate de Foie Gras. Yum.

Lyon: Brasserie du Sud.

Epernay: underground cellar tour at Moet et Chandon, as you do.

Roye: La Flamiche, a once in a lifetime dining experience at a small restaurant awarded a star by the Michelin Guide.  Other diners had driven 80km from Paris to dine there.  So remarkable, it deserves its own blog post.  Watch this space.

Fabulous Patisseries everywhere: Mrs Fitz and I have vowed to never eat another French pastry; well, not for a year or so, anyway.  We walked in a very wide circle around the croissants at Starbucks in Kuala Lumpur airport on the way home.

Driving

Drove 4,500 km on the wrong side of the road and lived to tell about it.  Hertz upgraded us to a Mercedes-Benz C220.  Nice car, fuel-efficient diesel engine, but the best feature was the integrated GPS.  It saved our marriage at least 6 times a day.  Not taking wrong turns is a tremendous time saver.  Without the GPS, I think we would still be on Day 3.  Or perhaps in Uzbekistan.

We picked up the vehicle under Le Louvre in a Paris affected by rail strikes.  Madness everywhere.  Left out of the carpark on to Rue de Rivoli, around Place de la Concord, along the Champs Elysee, around the Arc de Triomphe (amazing, a seven-lane roundabout with no marked lanes) and straight out of town on the motorway.

The Merc was slightly bigger than most cars on the roads and squeezing down some narrow cobbled streets required lots of breathing in.  In one street, 50 cars were parked tightly along one side and all had their side mirrors folded in except for three.  Those three had been smashed - n00bs.

The motorways work well.  I was regularly overtaken like I was standing still; except that I was doing 135 km/hr - in the slow lane!  The Merc was German-registered.  Mrs Fitz cleverly translated about 2520 pages of the manual from Deutsch into English - just so I could turn on the fog lights.  All up, we spent about 100 Euros on motorway tolls over the final two weeks of our holiday and saw most of France.

This was something I had been meaning to do since 2002 when my father passed away suddenly.  At that time, I flew home from Rome, aborting a tour of Europe and missing France.  Well I can now say I’ve more than made up for that.  France is now pretty well done and dusted.

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More photos to come later. I don’t want to hold the whole post up. You can see more of our photos on Flickr.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 8th, 2007 at 2:27 and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.