South France

 

3 - 16 May

 

So as you are aware all did not go as planned with my barge visit and I left early feeling a little home sick for NZ and leaving William at a boat yard some two hours tram/metro ride from the centre of Paris where my backpacker for the night is. 

 

I booked into Oops hostel in the Latin Quarter and met a awesome lady from Lithuania who is studying in the Netherlands for 6 months.  We hit it off and spent Saturday hanging out in Paris going on a huge walk through the weekend flea markets catching some sites discussing everything from pineapple lumps to culture/family and had a brilliant lunch including some very French cuisine - Escargot. 

 

At 3pm we parted ways I proceeded to the main train station for my four hour train ride down to Marseille's - Frances second largest city situated on the Mediterranean coast. 

 

Upon arrival I discover its already a good 10 degrees warmer and that Marseille is 2013’s European City of Culture and this evening there is a fire festival. I have paired up with another visitor from the hostel and pop out for the evening down to the port to check out the festival only to discover from my friendly French man that 2.5 million people are attending the evening.  Just a small eye opener.

 

The following day I moved out of downtown and to the beach. Very cool the beach is a 3 minute walk brilliant great to swim at lots of golden sand.  I have discovered the statue of David and walked back into the centre to travel out to Archipel du Frioul and the Island D`If where it was used to house prisoners, a rhino for the pope in 1515  and where the Count of Monte Cristo was set . Weather has been good and I had  a great walk around the Frioul.   At the backpacker I met two Swedish girls who have invited me to go walk the 10km out to  Les Calanques and Calanque de Callelongue  to scope the area for their rock climbing the next day.  The area is very different and it makes me smile to see the English and French tourists catching a few rays on the rocks.

 

Unfortunately I cannot join the two Swedish ladies climbing as I am travelling onwards to Nimes. 

Where there is still a lot of roman culture - in fact (if you are a movie buff) it is where Gladiator was filmed.  I like Nimes,  after Paris and Marseilles it is so clean!! The city was built around local springs and the towns main  gardens are beautiful, back in the day the citizens used to worship the spring gods and the goddess Diane the hunter here. Currently the temperature is around 24 - 26 degrees and in summer they can hit as high as 42....  Great spring vacation place.

 

The locals are friendly  and a few of them come to the backpacker for their evening drink of local wine. I have met another guest who has a car! and they offer to take me out to Pont De Gau nature reserve and beach (about 45 minutes from Niems) for the day which is brilliant - flamingos, wild horses, cattle a swim and some sun!

 

I travelled to Ales to spend a day at a Feira and I must admit it was a rather crazy day! ,  Bull fighting has been tradition in the south of France for the last 150 years and definitely has its followers.  I meet some Italians who indicated to join them which I thought was cool share a experience with but then I realised that we were attending a anti bull fighting protest, after having lunch and  seeing the riot police (50 of them yep 50) with full kit on including batton,  cuffs, 9mm glock I carefully departed thinking it might be safer else where.  So off to discover further delights of the festival - a lot of Spanish influence and culture. The paellea is fantastic (kind of like a rice risotto with seafood, giant prawns, muscles, octopus, prawns etc)  bands,  dancing and bull fighting. There is also a game which I quite enjoyed watching where the public (young and keen for a little danger) can taunt a yearling bull. You will think me nuts but after “protesting” I did attend the bull fighting Grande Corrida De Toros  evening session and had more of a pat down by the police entering the arena than I have ever had before.  I met some very enthusiastic French spectators who tell me that bull fighting is beautiful.....  I must admit,  there is skill and the initial 10 - 15 minutes of dancing about is very impressive  - I just don't like the drawn out end definitely a male sport and understand why people protest.  As I am aware it is banned in Italy and Barcelona Spain.

 

Monday (13th May) I travelled 5 hours by train to Bordeaux where I'm couch surfing (shhh don’t tell my mum she isn’t aware that I’m giving this ago and I quite like my ears) before travelling back to Paris and over to the East of Germany.  For those of you unaware the idea behind couch surfing is the host will provide a couch for you to spend a night or two on for nix and in return they get to meet some new people.  Supposably if you travel and use the site  you should in future host travellers.

 

My host is pretty relaxed and is a brilliant tour guide we checked out a few sites such as the local cinemas, gardens and the reflective water feature down by the river. I even saw a air bus barge on the river taking plane wings to the factory to be fitted onto a plane - interesting.  Bordeaux has its own charm and is currently going through a change with areas of buildings being removed to create parks.  I have spent some of my time a the local wine school as Bordeaux is very famous for its wines (which I’m sure you know) and the school does tastings it also offers the cheapest wine in town very pleasant. 

Whilst out on my walk I did discover a Otago Rugby Shop - Very Surprised and yes they do state that it is New Zealand  check out the website and let me know what you think I reckon we could open a similar franchise....   www.otago-rugby.com/shop_otago  was just there in the middle of the street - unfortunately the owner spoke no English so I could not ask a lot of questions and I have had my first brakeage of my travels - sunglasses and have lost my camera charger but this will be rectified in Berlin.

Will let you know how the upcoming week goes as Im catching up with old friends from CHCH who I used to sing with (Christchurch City Choir) and attending my friends wedding which is extra special!!

 

Hope you are all well and for those of you at TDC not missing Spence too much (there was a nice article in the herald)

 

-Gabrielle



Marseille's Fire Festival

Island D'If

Nimes City

Nimes - Gardens

 

 

Ales



Ales -  Grande Corrida De Toros

Otago Rugby - Bordeaux

Bordeaux - Bastille

 

 

 

 

Life on a Barge in Paris

 

15 April - 3 May

I managed to get in contact with the elusive barge man William and have a catch up, he seems happy to share his barge with a "stranger" for 4 weeks. It was a little touch and go as he did request to meet my parents which I refused along with the request to see my passport. I'm his third visitor through the helpx programme and the first from New Zealand.

William owns and operates his own shipping company mainly from Paris to Picardie.  His business is a little different as it is registered in Holland and operates in France so the boat flies under a Dutch flag (and if you are thinking it yes you are correct William is from the Netherlands but has been in France since 2001). His barge Ideaal is 39 meters long 5 meters wide is an original Dutch customers build peniche and made for the old French channels.  (oh and the barge is a girl and we always refer to it as a she)



Fully loaded she can take up to 350 tonne and if loaded further we would be stuck on the bottom (which has happened twice on two separate occasions at locks. Luckily enough they were manned and after 15 minutes of trying to jimmy the barge they put some extra water through to help us get moving) Top speed when loaded is a whopping 8km/hr and in the really heavy parts of the river this can drop down to 5km/hr sometimes I feel we can walk faster and we are easily outstripped by anyone on a bicycle!


When in Paris the barge is moored near the train station Gare de Austerlitz on the south bank which is in the Latin Quarter this is great as there is easy access to the whole of the city. The Latin Quarter has a good feel, vibe, mixture of people and a quick 5 minute walk to the Notre Dame or local dance lesson on the Quai. I am often told I must  profit of Paris so lots walks! I have been to some interesting places (as I like to try navigate without my map...) and spotted some very good tennis being played at the Luxembourg Palace Gardens. I found a neat little Irish pub run by our Australian cousins and had a brilliant night catching up on travellers gossip (how long they have been in Paris etc) chatting with a crazy American who followed a French girl to Paris and the staff introduced me to another kiwi. I even spotted some 5 kilo jars of Nutella but I don't think I will be rushing out to buy one any time soon.

My first trip away on the barge was to La Fere and return with 320T of  specialised gravel.  Total km's travelled 540km.  Days away - departed Tuesday 17 at 1pm and return Sunday 22 at 4pm. The actual day we managed to get the barge unloaded Thursday 25th  lunch time so unfortunately I did miss out on the ANZAC day commiserations.  It seems that owning a barge business even with regular clients can be a issue and I do wonder at times how efficient things work.

The work load is not strenuous I drive every now and then depending on how William feels (biggest day driving was 40km), scrub the deck after loading and unloading which takes all of about 10 minutes and when you consider how often we load or unload its not really a issue. Look after the barge if he goes away for a evening, organise breakfast (jam on baguette), lunch (cheese or pate on baguette) a evening meal (lesson -  do not cook potatoes be careful not to many vegetables and make sure there is at least one meat) and the last is to carry out any shopping that is required.

I have quite a nice posy in the drivers cabin where I can watch all that is going on and at the front of the boat when the weather is good. Yesterday I caught a little to much sun and have a touch of sunburn (which I didn't think was possible).

To be frankly honest with you I have struggled a little with this placement.  Not that I'm being negative but I do find I have a lot of down time and William has a lot of nervous energy. Which I'm sure this is more to do with the 2 filter pots of coffee he drinks every morning and the stress of not knowing quite what is happening next. He is quite fluffy and has taken very well to the French's love of wine and I do have a problem with being asked to bring a beer, refill his wine glass or being encouraged to have a glass with him. 

 

 

But don't worry out there! I do look after my self  - I am leaving earlier than what was arranged cutting my stay short by 3 weeks (as the owner asked me to stay until the 20th). So grumble over because  I have visited some very cool places. When ever we stop I always go out for a couple hours walk - In Appilly it was neat to be in a area which was so quiet that one of the locals had popped out with his daughter onto the road to have a game of tennis.   I find a lot of the villages and towns to be similar with a town square, church, pub, and possibly a train station but they all have their own character. Auvers-sur-Oise is quite special as the town has a convenient which does not allow any aesthetic change to occur and is also where Van Gough spent time painting his 70 paintings in 70 days and where he died (35 minutes by train from Paris). Although I have had my ups and downs it has also been a privilege to spend time with this particular host ,  its not often that you can say you have driven a barge up the River Seine and past the Eiffel Tower.

Hope that you are all well and that your fire wood is all in ready for the winter!

   Gabrielle  


The bells at the Hotel De Ville - Compiegne



Cruising past the Notre Dame Cathedral

 

Fully loaded