A favourite place

Corsica is one of those places, where, if I could, I would visit year on year on year.  It just has everything that I love - beautiful beaches and crystal clear water, hot weather, great food, and is French!  My French is getting rustier by the day, so I always love an opportunity to try it out on unsuspecting locals...

We were incredibly lucky to go to Corsica and stay with good friends who were over in Europe from Australia.  The villa they hired was absolutely gorgeous and in a beautiful location called Porticcio, not far from Ajaccio.  We flew down to Marseilles, then picked up a rental car at the airport and got the ferry across to Ajaccio.  It was pretty nerve-wracking to drive on the wrong side of the road for the first time, but after driving for a week on the hair bend corners of Corsica, with seriously crazy Corsican drivers, I know I'll be fine anywhere!

It was the most relaxing week - we just slept, ate, swam, and then slept, ate and swam some more!  It was so much fun playing with our friends' daughters (two and four years' old) and we also went on two day trips, one to Corte, right up in the mountains in the middle of the island, and the other to Bonifacio, right down the bottom of the island. 

Both were beautiful but Bonifacio was particularly breathtaking - one day when I'm rich and famous I think I could easily have a villa there!  We could pop across to Sardinia for lunch even...  I particularly liked the cemetery right on the tip of the island, as it had lots of little houses almost for each family and was so peaceful and tranquil to walk around. 

The blue, blue waters of Bonifacio

It was also ridiculously hot, over 30 each day and lovely and dry.  My New Zealand tan was topped up nicely!  The memory of that will have to tide me over for quite some time though so I'm glad it was so good...

To see the rest of the photos click here.

 

Famous!

In an effort to win a new camera (having sadly not replaced mine since breaking it on the dance floor in South Africa...), I've entered a competition to win one by writing about my experience at the UCPA (a non-profit French organisation which aims to make outdoor sports holidays affordable to the general public).

My post has just gone live - have a read here!

Oxford takes on Paris

One of the most alluring parts of the structure of each of the four MSc courses in the Geography department is the annual field trip. Barcelona, Brussels and Amsterdam were on offer for the other courses, but I think we got the best choice of the lot - Paris!

After having lunch with a newly arrived Alexandra fresh off the plane, we all met up at the train station to get the Eurostar across to Paris. I'd never caught the train before, always going for the ferry because of the price differential, and becasue I was worried about ruining myself with the luxury of the train compared to the budget train/ferry/bus combo! It was pretty incredible, you only spend about 15 minutes in the actual tunnel itself, and then, hey presto, you're in France! Coming from an island it's definitely always a bit of a thrill to be able to go 'overseas' so easily...


On the work side of things we had a visit to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a study of how nature/culture is represented in Parisian parks, a presentation on some research on Paris's transport policies, and then a presentation of our work on knowledge controversies at Sciences Po (one of Paris's universities). I was also lucky enough to schedule one of the interviews for my research while I was there and, as a result, to be invited out to a gathering of ex-pat Kiwis on the Pont des Artes to celebrate ANZAC day! (The guy I was interviewing was a NZer) It was great fun and made me incredibly jealous of all these people doing wonderful things in such a beautiful place.

On the fun side of things we hung out on the steps of Sacre Coeur watching the amazing fire poi guy, went to the flea market at St Ouen, had dinner at a great Brazilian restaurant in Belleville, took loads of photos of all the lovely Paris icons, and other such frivolity. Every time I go to Paris I want to live there more and more...one of these days!!


Enjoy the rest of the photos!

“When it snows, you have two choices: shovel or make snow angels”

This New Year's Eve there wasn't an option to just pack the car with a tent, a sleeping bag, mozzie repellent and a few boxes of food from Pak'N'Save (unless we wanted to die of hypothermia somewhere in the British countryside) so an alternative form of entertainment was required. Despite the outrageous (insert high pitched sounds of disproval here) increase in cost between a NYE ski holiday and one later in the year, the timing was right.

After much miserly deliberation, we found a package holiday in La Plagne 1800 (France) for nine days including all accommodation, return travel, food, lift passes, ski hire, and 12 hours of guiding for about £600. While it is an horrendous amount once translated back into NZ$, in pounds it didn't seem too bad so we jumped at it. We convinced Lisa, Duncan and Devin (friends from NZ and Amelia's NSEP class) to come with and so on the 29th of December all met up at the Hatton Cross tube station just outside of Heathrow. Little did we know the horrors that awaited us... The 17 hour (no, that's not a typo) bus ride from London to the French Alps via a ferry over the Channel started off ok, but after several hours without heating and absolutely freezing our bollocks off while our crazy drivers got lost trying to find our accommodation, the fun had somewhat worn off.

But, onwards and upwards. We were in France! The sun was shining, the birds were singing and Amelia got brand new rental boots and a practically new board to play with so it was all good. The place we were staying (UCPA) was extremely generous with the food (I reckon we all put on weight despite the constant activity!), and despite the tiny rooms, it was great fun to people watch the other (French) group there - particularly when some of them decided to strip down to their undies for a particularly raucous demonstration of the Macarena!! We also played several (read, A LOT) of games of 500, which Devin took to like a duck to water. Just as long as Duncan didn't play too many hands of misere!



But, onto the most important part - the skiing/snowboarding! Lisa and Duncan were tentative, in the advanced beginners group, and fortunately only ended the week with a cracked rib and massively bruised elbow between them. Devin and I were in the advanced snowboarding group and Adrian was in the expert ski group. Fortunately, I still remembered enough of what to do to go exploring with Adrian after our guiding, although I had to leave him and Devin to the rope tows which were at crazy vicious angles and would have only ended in total and utter disaster (not to mention tantrums) had I tried to partake!


We had lovely sunny weather for the whole trip, apart from NYE itself where it snowed pretty heavily all day and night, meaning New Year's Day itself was stunning with blue sky and between 5-10cm of fresh powder. Devin and my guide was qualified to take us off-piste and we spent the whole morning just carving fresh tracks through the pow-pow. It was well worth the 8am wake-up after the night before!

Speaking of the night before, NYE night itself was unexpectedly great fun. We went to Belle Plagne where they had cleared an area at the bottom of the chair lifts and in front of the shops/hotels for a big outdoor nightclub. They had a DJ/VJ set-up with fireworks and an ice bar and there were thousands of people partying the night away while the fresh snow rained on down. It was quite surreal being outside dancing while it was snowing and definitely made it a memorable evening.



Later in the holiday Adrian tried his luck at a slalom event - it took a bit of persuading for him to take part, but my (increasingly rusty) French came in handy and he got a number in the end and raced down the hill in a very respectable time of 51.17 seconds, earning him 103rd place out of nearly 200 and a 'bronze' level qualification (whatever that means!). We also went and checked out the Olympic bobsleigh course. Adrian unfortunately missed out on having a go due to a booking error, but we still got an up-close-and-personal look at what it would be like to race down an ice track at speeds approaching 100km/hr.

And then it was over. We somehow survived the return bus journey (again with the dodgy heating!) and made it back to Oxford for a well deserved sleep and a chance to rest our aching bones. Seven days straight snowboarding without hot pool access (France really doesn't know what it's missing on that front) isn't something I think I could do again without a bit of training first that's for sure!

Lots more photos here.

Eastern and Northern France (and don't forget Luxembourg!)

It's the final countdown...da da da dum...dum de dum de dum...

That's right, it was the last week of our trip. As I'd said, we had some more days left on our Eurail pass and so it was off to a region of France that neither of us had properly visited - the East. We based ourselves in Metz, which is the capital of the Lorraine region, and had a hostel with a kitchen - it's the simple things I tell you. Metz is home to the best stained glass in Europe - the cathedral St Etienne is literally filled with incredible glass art, from the Gothic and Renaissance periods, right up to some fantastic windows done in the 1960s by Marc Chagall. They also had a lot of pieces in museums in the region where you could look at them really up close and see all sorts of detail that you wouldn't otherwise know was there (like the expression on this guy's face).

We also spent a day in Strasbourg making use of the wonderful French institution whereby most museums are free on the 1st Sunday in every month. I for one was well over museum hopping by this stage, but our last two in Strasbourg - the Museum of Notre Dame with lots of sculptures and other pieces from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, didn't let the side down and were a good way to finish. Strasbourg felt really different from the rest of France, the German influence was everywhere, and we made the most of being so close by tucking into some delicious gingerbread...mmm...

Day trip #2 out of Metz was to a whole other country - Luxembourg. We succumbed to the lures of the city card yet again and went on a three hour walking tour with Henriette who was the town gossip and, as well as showing us the main sights like the Golden Lady (below) and the cathedral, told us all sorts of stuff that I'm sure wasn't on the official programme! Luxembourg used to be one of the most fortified cities in Europe until they dismantled nearly 90% of the fortifications to ensure peace. The remaining 10% that remain are mostly open to the public so we had all sorts of fun wandering around underground trying not to take a wrong turn! The city also had the most incredible patisseries that I have ever seen - must be something about the melting pot of European influences, but I wanted to eat everything in sight - pity the budget wasn't in harmony with the stomach...

Last day trip, #3, was out to Verdun to visit some of the WWI battlefields and memorials. We hired mountain bikes in Metz and braved near vertical hills to look around at everything (ok, they weren't vertical, but they felt like it!). It was really nice to get out in the countryside and see something a bit different.

Our final stop was in Lille for two days so I could show Adrian my other home town. It did as it always does and rained nearly non-stop, but we still managed to see the citadel, go to the zoo, look at some markets and, as no trip to the north would be complete without a trip to Flunch, eat so much food that we were nearly ill. I never thought there would be a limit to how many frites Adrian could eat. Turns out I was wrong...

The rest of the photos are here.

Ou se trouve le Louvre?

So, it all came down to this. All those weeks of travel was working up to the city of all cities - bring it on Paris!

Sterling Air did a stirling job (ahaha) of chauffering us into town, and in conjunction with the wonders of the RER and metro system we made our way to Clichy, our home for the next week (and one of Paris's largest hostels). Armed with the trusty Lonely Planet we did a walking tour through Montmartre, visiting Sacre Coeur and checking out the overpriced souvenirs, then headed out to Pere Lachaise cemetary to see Chopin, Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison etc. It's such a serene place, you could just wander there for hours, and some of the monuments are so beautiful.

But we were here to see everything we could in the shortest amount of time (I don't know how long you would need to give Paris justice, but I see new things everytime I go, so our stint of five days was definitely not enough) so on day two we headed into town to join a free tour of Paris. Free tour you say? Well, you pay what you think it's worth at the end, and after seeing the Pont Neuf, Louvre, Grand Palais, Petit Palais, Tuileries gardens, Champs Elysees etc. etc., let's just say we decided to part with some of our (rapidly diminishing) euros. But we were not sated! So that afternoon we crammed in a visit to the Arc de Triomphe, a wander through some gorgeous back streets, and of course, a trip up the Eiffel Tower. 

That night we joined up with a pub crawl run by the same people who do the free tour, met heaps of cool people, had more than enough of the free vodka orange shots, and (incredibly) negotiated the Parisien night bus system to make it home safe and sound. At least, that's what I think happened...

Day three dawned incredibly hot and sunny (again) and so after a visit to Notre Dame we motored on out to Versailles to eat iceblocks, dip our feet in the ponds and lie around in the stunning gardens. We also thought we had factored in just enough time for a visit inside the chateau, but were unceremoniously kicked out early - hint for young players, it is ginormous, overwhelming, and will take way more time to see than you think!

After a day out of Paris it was time to get right back into the action so after visiting more gardens, watching some serious boules competitions, and spending way, way too much money on the most delicious macaroons ever (La Duree macaroons are unbelieveable), it was off to Le Louvre. I (Amelia) was desperately keen to see the collection of Northern European art, as it was closed the last time I visited in '99. So of course, it was closed again the day we went as well. Sacre bleu!! But, to make up for it, we saw the Egypt collection, many, many, many paintings, Napoleon III's opulent apartments, and a little old painting of a brunette.

We had originally planned to be jetting out of Paris that night, making some more use of our Eurail pass while we still had money to afford to eat, but being August, all the Eurail pass seats were already booked. One more day in Paris - such a chore! Luckily we found some stuff to keep ourselves busy, namely, a visit to the Catacombes de Paris which was just so eerie you couldn't keep it in your mind that you were walking through tunnels of real bones, and a visit to the Hotel des Invalides. The latter is where Napoleon I (Napoleon Bonaparte)'s tomb is, as well as that of other luminaries such as Vauban and Marechal Foch. The complex also plays host to the National Army Museum which would have kept Adrian amused for days, but the SNCF waits for no man, so it was au revoir Paris and bonjour Metz!

For more Paris photos, see here.

Photos of the South of France

Bonjour! Here are some more photos, this time of the south of France: Nice, Marseilles, Nimes, and the Camargue.

More soon!

Bordeaux

Bordeaux was originally planned to be a one night wonder before we jetted up to Stockholm. Fortunately plans changed and we stayed for two - Bordeaux was brilliant!


Planning paid off and our idea to ring and book at the youth hostel meant we got into one of the most popular places in town - it was completely full the whole time we were there. It was excellent having a kitchen again too, so we filled ourselves to the brim with pasta and loaded up on the free breakfast (well...included in the price) each morning.


But enough about food.


Bordeaux city has undergone extensive renovations in recent years and is currently bidding to become the European capital of culture for 2013 - they´ve got our vote! The city has a flash new tram system (which we avoided due to previous negative connotations from Nice) and the longest pedestrian shopping strip in France - 1.2km of pure temptation. The buildings were just beautiful and the water sculpture right on the river front which is basically where the pavement comes to life and starts squirting and spraying water at everyone. It was heaps of fun - the rest of Bordeaux thought so it seemed too, the place was packed! Although that is also explained by the fact we are right in the middle of high season...no more cheap and available all the time accommodation that's for sure.


No trip to Bordeaux would be complete without heading out into the surrounding area to check out some vineyards. Eschewing the kind offer of a 90 euro/pp guided tour, we got out the trusty Eurail pass and headed out to St Emilion, where there is something like one wine shop for every eight inhabitants. It was full of windy, cobbled streets and had great views out over the vines. We weren't really in the market for a St Emilion grand cru or anything like that (any single thing that costs over a day's budget is a bit out of our price range), but we did get into the swing of the wine tastings. The wine is about 70% merlot in that region, so it wasn't really something you can drink too much of on an empty stomach! We rounded off the day with a visit to St Emilion's underground passageways, catacombes and vast church.


Our last day in France saw us head off to the Dune de Pilat - the largest sand dune in Europe. It was 2.5km long, 500m wide and 117m high - and growing! It sure felt that high when you were climbing back up it, but it was definitely worth that (and all the sand in your knickers) to give it a good roly-poly down!! A short swim off the Atlantic Coast later and it was off to the airport to say 'hej!' to Stockholm.

Lourdes

From a religious festival to one of the most religious places, some may have thought we were on a pilgrimage ourselves. We had already seen the Pope and tonnes of churches. Our arrival in Lourdes was met with some of the heaviest rain we had seen since Turkey, so plans had to change. We got a cheap room and had to forgo the campsite, but proceeded to sleep for the next 14 hours. It is dificult to beat a good sleep, and that was a great sleep.

The blue sky to which we had become accustomed woke us up the next day and we started our own little pilgrimage around Lourdes. This year is the 150 year anniversariy of the apparitions of Our Lady to Saint Bernadette, so the town was decked out and they have placed a trail around town for you to follow important places in Bernadette´s life. The fountain she was baptised in, her house, the cave where the apparitions occurred and the oratory where she recieved her first communion.

We jumped on board the trail, but what we were struck by was the number of elderly and ill that were also on the trail. Many were in trollies being pulled around by nurses, friends, family, or Scouts. Most the sights are unimpressive except for the Grotto, which has a massive church built above it, and has thousands of candles that have been left burning as offerings.

Every day they have a procession of the pilgrimages and a torchlight procession, which ends up in the Church of St Pious X, a massive underground church that can hold up to 25,000. No, the ´0´ key has not got stuck. It was huge!!!

There is also a fountain where you can fill your container with water from the grotto. It tastes nice, but we did come down with a cold a couple of days later, so we can´t vouch for its healing powers.

The next day the Tour de France pulled into town. After a fair amount of time scoping out just the right posy, just after a corner so they have slowed down, with a long view afterwards, we staked our claim, pulled out cushion and waited two hours for the caravan to arrive.

The caravan is all the sponsors of the Tour, who dress up their cars and throw free stuff to the crowd. We were in the mood for some free stuff and our position did us well. We walked away with: three hats, a bag, 2 bottles of water, 2 packets of lollies, a packet of salami, 2 keyrings, a lanyard, a sunglasses cleaner thing, a couple of french newspapers, and some blowhorns. Most of which was swapped out for an impressive Skoda hat which has the date and stage on it. Well worth the trade.

We then sat and waited for another hour for the cyclists to come through and then twenty seconds after that we went home... All and all a nice day in the sun. The locals gave something to watch and we have a nice selection of hats.



That day happened to be Bastille Day and the town was putting on a pyro-symphony, that is, fireworks to music. Now we are becoming quite the connoisseur of fireworks and this was the first time in Europe that they had played music with the big booms, which was nice as it had come up on our score sheets a couple of times. It was one of the best displays we have seen!!

After a hard day of sitting around watching things, it was off to sleep to get up early for our train to Bordeaux.

Provence

Provence, land of sunflowers, English retirees on a year´s adventure, more Roman ampitheatres than you can shake a stick at, and of course, us on holiday.

Provence was also the home of day one of use of our ridiculously expensive Eurail pass - the saga to break even on it is ongoing as I write, wish us luck... But, day one got us from Nice to Nimes, via Marseilles. We originally had grand plans of going to Nimes to drop off our stuff before heading back to Marseilles, but considering the train went through Marseilles, we were lucky enough that left luggage facilities still existed at the train station (post Sept 11 a lot of the left luggage facilities in French rail stations were closed down, only the major stations still keep them. The Marseilles facility had some pretty hard core scanning systems as well).

We decided to go as touristy as possible in Marseilles, mainly due to the fact we decided to get a ´Marseilles Card´ and so wanted to make the most out of our money as possible! It also included a ´petit train´ which is something that all self respecting tourists visiting France have to do at least once on their travels! The train got us up to the Basilique Notre Dame de la Garde, high up on the hill overlooking Marseilles, and protecting the city from all manner of baddies. The inside of the basilica is covered with tiles thanking Mary for saving their lives etc., as are the walls outside.

After tootling back down we got on the ferry out to l´ile d´If, the setting for a part of the story of the Count of Monte Cristo. It houses the citadel which was where several political prisoners were housed, as well as (albeit briefly) a rhinoceros.

Marseilles ended with the greasiest kebab so far, and a 3km hike through town and up the hill to the hostel in Nimes - one of the few that had a campsite and a kitchen (heaven in our eyes...).

The following day we headed to the Gard river for a kayak excursion, and a chance to finally test out the underwater capabilities of Adrian´s new camera. The Gard river is, you guessed it, the setting for the Pont de Gard, an impressive Roman aquaduct 275m long and 49m high.

It was heaps of fun to get out in the sun and kayak down the river, including some jumps down off some (very) large boulders into the river. It made for some deep sleep that night as well as some tired backs and arms the following day!

But, as hardened travellers, we decided to fit in a day trip for our last day in Provence - the Camargue, here we come! The Camargue is a huge area on the coast of Provence and is the delta for the Rhone River. We went looking for pink flamingos and came up with salt pans instead. It was a long and somewhat fruitless day, made even more exasperating by the fact we had been given the wrong bus timetable to get back into Nimes that night - meaning that we missed our night train and to even get back to our hostel had to go an hour and a half in the wrong direction in order to eventually get home that night... Argh!!!! But Andy, the fantastic owner of the hostel, and (gigantic) pig George made it all better by giving us free dinner and a glass of wine - the Nimes YHA definitely makes the cut for favourite hostels now!

The next day, finally, we were off to Pamplona...

The French Riviera

Continuing our grand tour of the Mediterranean Coast, we arrived in Nice, which unfortunately, turned out to be not so nice after all... It is a subject that we are not to speak of, but I think I am allowed to share that it involved the new tram system and a 20€ fine each. After that, we pretty much avoided Nice centrale...

Our ferry had arrived a bit later than anticipated, and the bus to our campsite at Cagnes-sur-Mer took forever, so we arrived closer to midnight than one would have liked, but it would have been much later than it would have been apart from the exceptional kindness of a couple of locals who saw us looking in bewilderment at the map and who drove us up to our campsite. And who said the French are unfriendly?!

Day one back on the mainland saw us heading to Grasse, the undisputed French capital of perfumery (obviously this day trip was Amelia´s idea). It´s up in the hills behind the coast and surrounded by fields of flowers, although we stuck to the centre of town. They have a lot of perfume factories offering free tours (aka, pre-shopping propoganda) such as Fragonard where we were so kind as to exchange some of our hard earned euros for some smelly water. It was only after we left the shop that we remembered the 10% off voucher in our pocket...

After Grasse we hopped back on the bus to Cannes to mix with the beautiful people. With our new fragrances we fitted right in...

The following day Amelia went to Monaco to get a stamp in her passport, watch the changing of the guards and admire the flash cars outside the casino. The afternoon was spent at the Chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary chapel created by Matisse in Vence and at the Maeght Foundation which is a private art museum and garden in the hills of Provence. Adrian had already spent time in Monaco so went to the Nice modern art museum, for a swim at Cap-d´Ail, and strolled along the Promenade des Anglais. We are clearly becoming very cultured and interesting people...

La Corse

Our original plan had been to spend two weeks in Corsica, but it got progressively shorter and shorter as other places looked more and more interesting... And because of our short foray into Bosnia and Herzegovina we had to lop a few more days off again until we were only left with about five nights for the whole of Corsica.

We needn´t have worried...

Corsica is practically impossible to get around on public transport (as in, "No, there are no trains today, you´ll have to wait until tomorrow"), so even if we had had more time I doubt we would have seen much more!

But what we did see was absolutely gorgeous. So far it would be the first place that I (Amelia) would go back to with no hesitation at all - and that´s saying something that it actually lived up to the hype (I have been wanting to go to Corsica for literally years and years).

It started off with a mad rush for the ferry in Livorno, Italy, but once we boarded our luxury cruise liner (dance floor, free snacks at the bar, deck chairs included), we were definitely on Corsica time. We arrived into Bastia on the eastern side of the island at the top and headed pretty much straight up ´Cap Corse´ to a place called Pietracorbara. Being dropped off by the only bus that day to a campsite that was several kilometres away was a bit nervewracking, but as always, it all worked out in the end. The place had a giant pool, incredible value meals, and was definitely the cheapest place we had been for a while!

The following day we tried to go for a hike - it was, after all, the main activity we had planned for Corsica. However, despite the routes being ´marked´on the map (and yes, those quote marks are definitely intentional), we failed miserably to find anything remotely ressembling those illusive squiggly lines. Undeterred we crossed barbed wire fences (they leave quite deep holes in soft legs if you were wondering), marched steadily uphill, crossed rivers, scared a herd of goats, got completely entangled in tea-tree like bushes trying to find the road, and ended by having to cross a friendly local´s backgarden to finally make it back to civilisation. Eventful to say the least!

Heading back to Bastia we had ideas of going to Corte in the middle of Corsica before we headed back up to Calvi to get the ferry to Nice. It was not to be (see above...). We nearly ended up in Ajaccio because we didn´t realise that we had to swap trains halfway through the journey, but a mad dash from one to another and we were on our merry way again. The train trip was pretty incredible actually; they were these really rickety trains that went right through a series of jagged peaks and dense bush - will have to get a better look next time!

When we finally got to Calvi it was a bit of a shock, there were so many campsites and so many people, but completely understandable when you find out that the beach is 4km of golden sand with water so warm it´s like a bath. It was the first place that Adrian got into the water without taking about half an hour to ease himself in...


It was so nice to have some real ´holiday´time too after some pretty hardcore sightseeing in Italy, even though we managed to fit in a bit of citadel viewing and a visit to an exhibition of the French Foreign Legion (they have an alpine unit that was appealing to a certain Mazur). As I said, the beach was FANTASTIC - it effectively nixed any and all thoughts of doing any further walks! I´m trying to cultivate laziness as a virtue instead of a vice (Mum I´m sure you´re having a great laugh reading this, people never really do change their spots much do they).

Corsica gets a 10 out of 10 in my book. Photos on the next disposable camera!

Next stop, mainland France (bring on more croissants).

Aiguille de Midi

On our last day in France we headed over to Chamonix to go up the Aiguille de Midi cable car. It's an amazing cable car that heads up to 3800m to the highest point of the French Alps that you can get to without climbing!

The first cable car heads up to le Plan de l'Aiguille at 2300m. The second cable car is definitely vertigo inducing as it heads up on a single cable with no supporting pylons in sight. It traverses the Les Pelerins glacier before rising up to 3800m.

It was FREEZING up there! The wind on one side was just incredible and we were well under-prepared in terms of how many layers we were wearing! The views over to the Italian Alps were fantastic and it was cool to be able to see all the people heading off on the Vallee Blanche ski run. The vertigo came on in the most unexpected places - particularly looking up and then back down.

Enjoy the video and there are loads of photos here as well.

Au revoir France - bring on the rest of Europe!

Excursion to Lille

Elsie, my host sister from 1999, was back in Lille from her current address in Reunion Island for a holiday in March so it was perfect timing for me to head up to visit for a few days. It was great to see them again (I had last visited in 2004) and, even better, my French was coping perfectly well with the situation – not at all like when I arrived there for the first time in ’99!

I also met up with several friends from school, namely, Sylvain, Magalie, and Clémence. Sylvain works as an engineer for the SNCF (French rail service) and was telling me about how he gets tickets on regional trains for 1 euro…considering my return ticket was 150 euro I wasn’t exactly too pleased to hear about that!

Magalie came out to NZ for three months several years ago to do some work experience at The Warehouse head office. She still absolutely loves NZ (see if you can recognise the pictures behind us in this photo) and can’t wait to come back. I keep telling everyone I should be back for Christmas 2009 so we might have some people camping on the lawn! The top photo is of (L-R) me, Nilo (Sylvain’s girlfriend), Sylvain, Magalie, Damien (Magalie’s boyfriend) and Magalie’s sister and the bottom one is of Clémence and her boyfriend Gregoire.

Clémence has just finished some work experience at the European Parliament in Brussels, sounded fascinating! She’s keen to do more traveling too so again, another tent in the garden perhaps… Luckily Lille put on a beautiful day so I took a video of the walk from the metro station into the Grand Place.

Here are some fun pics of Elsie’s farewell party where we found some dress ups which had been worn a few weeks earlier at one of the north’s famous carnivals - my best ‘Waynetta’ impersonation and Elsie showing that pretty girls really can turn ugly if needs be… 

On my last day I had lunch with Chantal, Elsie, and Chantal’s new boyfriend Jean-Claude. We had a traditional northern meal of ‘frites’ (hot chips), salade (self explanatory I think) and ‘potjevlesch’ which is a terrine of pork, chicken and rabbit in jelly served cold. It was actually much nicer than it sounds!

Finally, I managed to catch up with Ulla and her husband Pierre while they were in Lille too – Ulla’s about to leave on an AusAid posting to Indonesia but is in Lille at the moment with Pierre as he’s got a job as a lecturer here.

So all in all, my little jaunt up to Lille was fantastic. It’s a really cool town and I would recommend a stop off there if anyone’s going from London to Paris or anything like that. It’s definitely changed heaps too since we’ve been gone; it was European Capital of Culture in 2004 and Vieux Lille (Old Lille) in particular is now a maze of fantastic shops and great restaurants with a really fantastic vibe.

Loads more photos are here if you’re interested too.

Chamonix

Ever since watching “The Blizzard of Arhhhs” during my second season I have wanted to ski Chamonix. Today it was to happen! I was still tired from my exploits the day before so I started at what I thought was a reasonable hour, getting to Argentière at 9:15am. Unfortunately I arrived right in the middle of the rush which meant I had to wait for an hour to get my lift pass. Thankfully that only cost 3 euro as I had a season pass. I had however arrived too late to get a ticket up the Grand Montet which takes you to the top (they sell only a limited amount each day).

I got back to my skis to find someone had taken my skis (instead of theirs). Talk about a pain in the arse. I waited another hour for them to return, but no luck. When my boot popped perfectly into the binding I realised the other person probably didn’t even notice, as the skis were pretty much exactly the same (mine were 6cm longer, but his poles were nicer). Not a great start to the day. Luckily the rest of the day was great, perfect blue skies, the lift lines weren’t too bad, and the snow was soft even if it was tracked.

End off the day (I caught last chair), I skied down to find the car was having issues starting. After half an hour of waiting and trying and starting to think I was going to have to give it a push it finally started. Not a good end to the day.

Le Calvaire de Megève

Le Calvaire is a pilgrim route in Megève from the 14th Century that has the 14 Stations of the Cross represented in little chapels. The doors are locked, but you can peek through and look at the different styles and types of paintings and statues. It’s set in a 10 hectare park just down from the Mt d’Arbois ski lift. The ‘Calvaire’ translates to ‘martyrdom’ or ‘calvary’ which apparently means ‘living death’.




So on a sunny afternoon (nearly every day is sunny here, it’s a hard life I tell you) we headed off for a walk to see the sights. I (Amelia) had done a long walk the week previously and chanced across them, so thought it would be cool to show them to Adrian.

Most of the buildings are pretty small with just one picture or statue in them, but there are a few that are on a much grander scale and have a whole series of events. The stations are represented in quite different styles which made it interesting to compare between them.

There are heaps more photos here of us and all the different little chapels and the interiors.

We ended the walk with a visit to the local church in Megève. It’s called Eglise (Church) St Jean Baptiste in the parish of Sainte Anne d’Arly Montjoie and our apartment is just behind it. The church fronts onto the main town square which also holds the Mairie (Mayor’s offices), a Hermes store and a few cafés etc. While looking pretty plain from the outside, it’s a completely different story inside. Again, the 14 Stations of the Cross are represented inside, as well as having an amazing painted ceiling and some altars.