France 5-13 August 2006
      | And here comes the promised brief report on the trip. The original idea was to meet up with some friends and former colleagues from Dili somewhere in Europe, and it ended up a nice journey in France. Almost as planned, I met up with Miwako-san at Charles de Gaulle airport on Saturday; she just had to wait for her luggage for two hours so we got off a bit delayed. We picked up a rental car, which had been a bit of a challenge to find as she refused drive one without automatic gear, and the available models all tended to be either for handicapped persons or in extravagant luxury categories. Anyway, we headed towards South-West, stopped at Chartres (1st photo) for coffee and little sight-seeing, and then stayed over-night in Tours (2nd photo). On Sunday, after breakfast in Tours (3rd photo), we drove along Loire valley and visited the castle of Langeais. We were supposed to have picnic lunch on the way in Chinon, but as it was Sunday, we couldn’t find any open boulangerie. It was also past normal lunch time, so we ended up getting some sandwiches from a vending stall. Early evening, we arrived in Marans and met up with Agnès and Seb at Seb’s parent’s place. Apart from good company and food (do I have an obsession with food??), two days there included a visit to la Rochelle (4th photo), a late night light& audio show at nearby ruins of the mediaeval monastery of Maillezais (5th photo), and country side tour to get some oysters and mussels (yummy!) for lunch (6th photo). On Thursday morning, we headed back to north and got the beautiful costal town of Pornic by lunch time. Then we continued along Loire towards Anjou, and chose an idyllic riverside village of Montjean-sur-Loire for stopover. Rest of the trip was dedicated Paris, after returning the car in le Mans and taking a TGV from there. Apart from a couple of mandatory sights (the previous post has a photo of Sacré-Cœur) and – of course – several meals, until Miwako’s departure on Saturday, it was shopping time, of which I spend most in FNAC. Rest of the Saturday I spent in Louvre, which I had never visited before. I had a quick look at Mona Lisa (but I couldn’t bother standing in the 100-metre queue for a closer view) and then headed to Greek, Etruscan and Roman antiquities sections, which were fortunately much less crowded. After five hours, my feet were already hurting so much that I had to skip the Egyptian section and leave it for next time. For evening, I found an excellent little Breton crêperie near Montparnasse station ('la Bigoudène', 62 rue Montparnasse), and after a nice galette and very good cidre (Bolée d'Armorique Brut) I went to listen Mariko Uchida play cembalo in a small chapel located at the railway station. It was raining on Sunday, so I intended to visit more museums. I had chosen the Musée d'Orsay, but when I came after lunch, there was an incredible queue of people waiting to get in. As I was not excited about the idea of standing in the rain (without umbrella) for possibly hours, I simply continued wandering around whenever the rain stopped and read Stendahl's 'Ernestine' accompanied with countless cups of coffee. |
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