For the past 10 days or so I've been wondering if the bike tour idea was the best way, and it definitely has it's perks, but I had hoped to be a little futher along than Basse Normandie within the first three weeks! After much stressing and hours spent awake thinking, however, I made the decision not to continue with the bicycle for now, and it sits in a nice home in a shed at a farm. As for me, I spent a day in town, and once again having ended up at McDonalds, finally found the internet access to make a couple arrangements. At the moment I'm on my second of three intercity trains I'm taking today on my way to Bordeaux.
Anyone who might have looked at my position in Lonlay d'Abbaye and compared it to Bordeaux might be a little surprised at the distance between! There's a good reason for this...I hope it's a good reason at least...
While looking at options for the next stage of my trip I scanned through the SNCF (French Railways) website and one option popped out at me, literally in bold, orange print! It was a rail pass from Flers to Bordeaux for about half the usual price so I took this as a sign and went for it. I know I'll probably miss a couple cool things in between, namely La Rochelle and Bretagne, but I can always check it out on the way back I figure. So that's it so far! I've got another couch-surfing adventure waiting for me for a couple days and then we'll see where it goes from there! Also, I do apologize for the lack of updates and communication, there wasn't quite as much internet access as I had hoped at my little WWOOF farm.
-June 16th updated-
Well, I started this post on the train to Bordeaux, and now I'm finishing it on the train to Toulouse. I can't express excited I was to be somewhere other than rainy Normandie, but I wasn't expecting such a drastic change in scenery! It is stunning down here, there's palm trees, sunshine, vineyards galore, and instead of the grey stone and flint farmhouses I'm used to everything here is terra cotta, adobe, and plaster! And smells like flowers all the time. I wish I could've stayed much longer in Bordeaux, that city was just alive. I'd say 70% of the population was my age or younger! I stayed two nights with a fella named Bruno who'm I found through CouchSurfing. Really cool guy, obsessed with Belgian comics. I think He knew more about Tintin than Hergè himself! But enough talk, picture time.
Actually, the feel I got from this place wasn't unlike when I stepped off the plane in Sydney!
This is the longest pedestrian-only shopping street in France, and I think second only to Denmark or something like that.
Of course I gotta throw in the token cathedral pictures. What was really interesting about these cathedrals is they have much more colour to them.
The Grand Hotel Bordeaux, right across from the Opera.
This nifty fountain was erected I don't know when, but it's a dedication to the French Revolution so it must be a little old! So my short time in Bordeaux was amazing, and one day I will go back. I think I might have liked it a little more than Paris even!
But now I'm on the train watching the vines fly by at 300kph, seeing cyclists and freecampers and feeling a little guilty I'm not among them anymore....but only a little...and I'll soon be in the airspace headquarters/university town of Toulouse for four days, so I promise my updates will be much more frequent! I kinda feel like this adventure just started......
Oh, here's some McLarens that were sitting in the middle of the road. Bye for now!
2 comments:
Purty! Must be a nice change -- looking at your photos from Normandie, I never woulda known it was rainy there. You must've only taken photos on nice days. Glad you feel like you're starting to get the holiday you wanted.
One comment about the colourful cathedral: Arianne says that when she was in Europe, she found out that Gothic cathedrals all used to be brightly painted on the inside. We think of them as scary and austere, but I guess that's because at some point the clergy thought that it was a sin to be cheerful or something, because it became popular to remove all the paint. But a few of them still have the original paint -- that one in Bordeaux, I guess, and Westminster Abbey (in spots), and the Sainte-Chappele in Paris, which belonged to the king so he got to keep the paint.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sainte-Chapelle
Arianne said that the Gothic cathedrals that still had the paint looked more 'right' -- like they'd been designed to be painted.
Heh yeah, I could only take pictures on the days I could take the camera out! There was a couple sunny points, but it was pretty dreary at most points.
I've noticed actually that all the cathedrals and churches I've visited in Southern France so far are still painted quite elaborately! Some are downright creepy with the dark colour schemes they use, but most of them seem to have that typical gold star on navy background pattern which reminds me of pjamas. But yeah, there's way more variety down here. Most of the churches you dont even see until they're right in front of you as they're kinda built into the surrounding buildings! No big courtyard squares here!
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