RyanAir

Our travel from Germany to France set the tone for how our French visit would go.  We made the mistake of booking airline tickets from Frankfurt to Montpelier with RyanAir.  The tickets themselves were only 10euro apiece, but obviously, you get what you pay for.  First of all, the airport that RyanAir uses in Frankfurt is Frankfurt Hahn, which is not in Frankfurt at all, or even close for that matter.  It requires a 1hour 45minute bus ride from Frankfurt.  Think of any big city that you've ever been in and take a bus that far from the city center and consider whether you believe you'd still be in the same city.  To pretend that we were flying out of Frankfurt was ridiculous, but we hoped it would be a solid operation at least from the airport, right?  Nope.

When we got to the RyanAir counter for our flight the line was 2km long with only one attendant working the flight.  When we finally got to the front, we found out that we'd have to check both of our backpacks and that it was a 40euro charge per bag, which we had to get out of line and go to another counter to pay, then return and check-in all over again.  Thanks RyanAir.

So we finally check-in and go through security to the gate where obviously it just gets worse.  RyanAir has three flights basically sharing one gate that are all leaving at the SAME TIME.  Who are these bozos.  Worse, since there are no assigned seats, everyone is killing eachother to get on the flight.  The process for boarding is just that one hour before the flight everyone lines up with their baggage and stands there waiting.  We were so thoroughly frustrated by the entire thing that we decided we didn't care whether we sat together or whether we sat in the middle seat of the last row between the two largest people onboard.  We refused to wait in that dumb line. 

Instead we decided to have a drinking contest and ignore the mayhem at the gate...

When the entire line of people had funneled through the gangway, we finally got up to board the plane.  Of course, you go outside where there are 3 planes going to different countries with the lines to each criss-crossing eachother to make it interesting.  We finally get to the plane and they are entering from the front and back at the same time.  We enter through the back and notice that every single seat is full, so we just keep walking to the middle of the plane and amazingly find seats together...

IN THE EXIT ROW!!!

We thought either a) we were just lucky or b) the other passengers were dumb, but I think we worked it out.  I believe that these RyanAir flights crash so often that the 1 in 3 chance that you are actually going to have to participate in the evacuation of the plane (removing the door, helping children and the elderly out onto the wing, cleaning up afterwards, etc.) is enough of a deterrent that people just avoid the exit row.  Too much of a hassle for a little extra leg room.  Our flight was fine, so lucky us. 

So after all this (sorry for such a long, boring story), we arrived in Montpellier.

 

Montpellier

As soon as we arrived in Montpellier, I was attacked by a group of girls and I thought our luck had changed.

It turns out it was another of the endless number of bachelorette parties that we saw throughout Europe.

Anyway, in each city we would generally arrive without reservations and simply go to the Tourist Information booth, explain that we'd be there for 2 days, wanted to stay in the city centre and could spend some amount - this would generally get us a reasonably priced, comfortable room usually located in the red light district.  Since we were arriving so late, we booked a room for Montpellier in advance.  We should have know that picking the one hotel that is half the price of the rest of its competitors was a bad idea, but instead we trusted the reviews.  Big mistake. 

The name of the hotel was the Hotel Abasun, and it was the worst place ever.  I was too frightened to take any pictures so unfortunately you'll have to take our word for it.  We saw two rooms and each was at the end of a pitch black hallway, and each had a hole the size of a fireplace either in the bedroom or bathroom.  The holes were so vast that you couldn't see where they ended, but could only imagine how many animals or corpses were tucked inside.  We essentially ran out of the hotel even though we had already paid Orbitz in advance.  After some further drama and a nice hotel concierge generously calling around town for us, we found a room and shot out into the city to check out the town square at night. 

 

We sat down for crepes at the first place we saw and ended up way over-ordering crepes and drinks after our ordeal with the hotel.

There wasn't much to Montpellier, but it was only a 45 minute (they say 8km but it took forever) bus to the Mediterranean, so the next day we hit the beach straight away.

It was actually a really nice beach.  Not too crowded but still a good buzz with opportunities to rent chairs and umbrellas and a number of beach bars to grab a drink.  Also, it actually had sand, rather than the stones which we'd encounter in Nice.  So score one for Montpellier.

That night was the championship of the Euro Cup, which matched Espagna (Spain) against Deutschland (Germany).  We were rooting strong for Deutschland, which obviously resulted in Espagna winning.  We watched in this great local square where every restaurant brought a flat screen outside and everyone at all the different restaurants watched at once.

The town also brought in an eighteen-wheeler to the center of the town square, that had a tv screen on one entire side of the eighteen wheeler.  It was like a drive-away theater.  In any case, after Espagna won, the Spaniards went berzerk and climbed the 30 foot fountain and danced and sang songs. 

It was pretty awesome.  While walking around, we noticed this gentleman trying to sell watches, necklaces and CDO securities.   As you can imagine, he wasn't selling much.

We left Montpellier the next day for Avignon.

To see all the Montpellier pics, click here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mchamberlain22/MontpellierFrance

Avignon

Aside from just enjoying some time in France, our main purpose for dipping into France on this trip was to find a place to spend the winter taking language lessons.  We found it in Avignon.  Avignon is a great little walled town on the Rhone River that is best known for being the site where the papacy was moved in the 1300's.  For 70 years the pope ran the Catholic church from Avignon, and a great palace was built there - the Palace of the Popes.

The Palace of the Popes is great, but there are also other churches and squares in Avignon that give it a lot of character.

While in Avignon we had one of the best meals we had in all of Europe.

Okay, that was one small snack we had in a moment of exhaustion and weakness.  But we DID have an incredible meal at a place called L'Epicerie.  The restaurant was located on this great little square near the entrance to a beautiful church.

Above is a picture we took earlier in the day, but it was just as cool at night.

Avignon is also home to the Pont St. Benezet, made famous by the French song "Sur le pont d'avignon...", which used to span 23 arches all the way across the Rhone River but collapsed many years ago and is now just an architectural and touristic landmark.

So we had a train booked from Avignon to Nice in the early morning and gave plenty of time to get to the station ten minutes before the train left.  This is ample time for these European trains, so we figured this would be no sweat.  I even made Whitney pose for a picture as we were walking out of town.

Until I remembered while walking to the station that there was a second station for all the high speed trains and this was located a 10 minute bus trip away!  We luckily saw the shuttle bus pull up to the stop and ran as fast as we could to catch it. He drove as slowly as he could to the TGV station, but we still managed to run up the stairs and get onto the train just as it started to pull away.  We were certainly the sweatiest and most out of breath couple in first class, but hey - we made it, so time to settle in for a few hours cruising through the Provencal countryside to Nice.

Travel snafus aside, Avignon was very cool, and you will see and hear more about it as we are going to spend a few months there this winter!!

To see the rest of the pics from the first trip to Avignon, click here:

 http://picasaweb.google.com/mchamberlain22/AvignonFrance

Nice

Nice is nice, no question about it.  The architecture is a mix of Venice and Paris - elegant but worn.  It really pulls off a great feel for the most part.  We, however, were mostly interested in the beach. 

As quickly as we could, we hopped into our swimsuits and jetted out to the beach.  As previously stated, the stones instead of sand are very uncomfortable on the feet, but the beautiful setting and the beautiful people help alleviate the pain.  The amazing thing about the beach in Nice is that its set immediately adjacent to the entire city, as a 6 mile halfmoon shallow stretch of beach is separated from the rest of Nice by a simple, but elegant boardwalk. 

It makes for a unique setting where literally, all the buildings are located almost directly on the beach.  It makes it such that visitors can experience the water and the beach just by strolling along the boardwalk and without even changing into their bathing suits.

The dining and nightlife in Nice are also top notch.  We stayed mostly in the Old Town and walked by the best seafood display I've ever seen on our way to dinner. 

We took the picture below above the "market" which is primarily restaurant seating.  We ate under the large church you see behind us.

The gold house in the center is where Matisse lived for much of his life. 

Must have been tough, eh.  I guess they weren't all starving artists.  Speaking of art, we skipped the Matisse museum but did stop by the Marc Chagall museum.

A beautiful museum, and a very impressive collection.  He painted a series of 11 huge canvases specifically to be displayed together in this museum.  They're all religious and generally pretty strange, but if you appreciate a nice goat painting (he loved goats, they are in literally every work - I know, what??), then you'll appreciate these.

In all seriousness, this is an amazing museum and art lovers or really anyone visiting Nice should check it out.

As we left Nice, we saw a perfect example of why store owners started using mannequins instead of just modeling the clothes themselves...

Am I evil for taking this picture?  Yeah maybe.  By the way, the manneqin is on the right, store owner on the left.  Which dress are you more interested in purchasing?  That's all I'm saying.

For the rest of the Nice pictures, click here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mchamberlain22/NiceFrance

Lyon

Our last stop in France was Lyon, which ended up being much more abbreviated than we'd hoped.  We arrived late at night from Nice, and went straight away to bed after a train station purchased can (wow!?!) of Leffe Blonde.  We woke up and set out to see as much of Lyon as possible before our 2pm train to Geneva. 

 

From what we saw, we were very impressed.  No one will believe this without visiting, but LYON IS BETTER THAN PARIS.  Honestly.  Except for probably the diversity and quality of the food.  Okay, so that means Paris is better, but you're getting too caught up on the food and missing the point.  Lyon is just like Paris except slightly smaller, much cleaner and a great deal more welcoming.  The architecture is nearly identical in fact.

The also have fun fountains...

And a great old town (Vieux Lyon) across a modern foot bridge.  Check the mini Eiffel Tower too.

It did, however, start pouring rain on us.

But we made the best of that and stopped in an arcade for some air hockey, where I uncharacteristically beat Whitney who usually crushes me at air hockey.

We also had lunch, and let me clarify my earlier statement about the food not matching up to that in Paris.  The diversity and number of ultra high-end Michelin star restaurants is not close to Paris, but Lyonnais food itself is fantastic.  The salads, the meats, the cheeses -- all of these local products and dishes are outstanding.  After gouging ourselves at lunch we had only to take the above-ground tram the 2mile 10 minute ride to the train station.  But of course, as we are tramming along with the train station in site a mile ahead, fire fighters rush in front of the tram and stop it because a neighboring building is on fire.  Merde!  We hop off the tram with 15 minutes to spare and 1 mile between us and the train station.  We look around for a cab, but there aren't any in site.  Once again, we're running for the train station, and once again we get on at the last minute sweaty and out of breath. 

Oh well...next up Geneva.

For the rest of the Lyon pics, click here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mchamberlain22/LyonFrance

 

To continue to Switzerland click here.