Tag Archives: france

Lille, 2006

As I explain in my Belgium post, travelling somewhere in November has become something of a tradition in the Darlington household. Starting with a working trip to Abu Dhabi in 1999, I have been out of the country as least of part of the month every year since.

Since we’re both in new jobs, and therefore had no time to take off work, we decided that in order to maximise our weekend another Eurostar trip was in order. Having been to two other Eurostar destinations — Belgium and Paris — in the last year (twice in B’s case), and having heard good things about it, we decided on Lille.

Elephants in LilleForward planning is not high on the list of our priorities. And this is the case with our weekend away. We know little of what Lille has to offer. We had a quick Google around the night before and decide that the hotel is going to be easy enough to find as it’s right next to a huge cemetery.

What we didn’t quite appreciate is that it was next to a cemetary that was just outside the central Lille map helpfully provided in Lille Europe train station. We think we know which way to go but in the end chicken out and get a taxi.

Lille PalaceIt’s only five minutes away and, as it turns out, directly opposite a tram stop. At first we’re frustrated that they didn’t say it was so well catered for on the public transport front. We gradually feel less aggrieved when we realise that we only saw one tram the whole weekend.

The next morning we head into town, rather later than we’d intended. We’d seen some tours of the area, one by Segway which sounded intriguing, but we’d not got up in time.

One of the first things we notice is a road lined with elephants. Not real elephants, obviously. This is France and November and I’m not sure that an elephant would really appreciate the climate. In fact they’re statues presumably for the purposes of the upcoming Bombay festival. B notices a restaurant at one end of the road called Hippopotamus. Seems that non-native animals are all the rage in northern France.

Modern art museum, LilleIt’s late and we’re hungry, so we dive into pretty much the first place that we see for pain au chocolate and exceedingly strong coffee. Reinvigorated we head back out into the cold for more investigations.

Since the weather was good — fine and not too chilly for the time of year — we decided to stay outside. A large park on the map, labelled The Citadel, sounded good. We had no idea what was there, but the river passed around it on both sides and it promised to be pretty.

Notre Dame, LilleWhat we hadn’t factored in was a bike hire stand. That also lent out Segways.

As an avid Wired reader at the time, I heard about the “world?s first self-balancing personal transportation device” more-or-less when they first came out in 2001. I thought they looked neat but I could never quite see the novelty. Why would someone like Steve Wozniak be so addicted? In fact, why would he be so addicted that he’d want to play polo on one?

But, for the initiated, what is a Segway? It’s like an electric, two wheeled scooter. You stand on top of the axle and lean forward to move forward and backward to either move back or stop. It kind of sounds odd — not quite counter-intuitive but unusual — but it turns out that it’s really easy to get the hang of. In fact, the hardest part was turning (a little lever on one of the handle-bars) which I kept pushing the wrong way, resulting in some close encounters with the curb.

B on a Segway, LilleWith a top speed of only a few miles an hour, it was a great way to see the park. The machines are still unusual, resulting in people smiling and laughing as you pass. We followed the river for a while, eventually finding a bridge that we wanted to cross. Unfortunately the only way up there was some steps (which we tried but failed to climb) and we ended up re-tracing our path for a while.

Our hour ends with a jarring few moments over cobble-stones.

We head back into central Lille for refreshments, enthusing about the whole experience. We find a great cafe and pledge to come back for breakfast the next day. With no particular plan, we wander around further. We pass Notre Dame (my third in just over a year), walk down some pretty cobbled streets with brightly painted doors (all shut, does Lille ever open?) and the odd daub of graffiti.

Heading back to the Grande Place we notice a book fair. B, reading rather more French than me, probably got far more out of it than I did. Still, seeing all the old books and magazines, postcards and stamps was fascinating — you don’t need language skills to appreciate the pictures!

Book fair, LilleSo far we’ve experienced none of the infamous French rudeness, but that was about to change as we (again) decide we’re hungry and start to think about dinner. Previously we seem to recall seeing row after row after row of exciting looking restaurants but no friendly looking cafes. However, now that we need a bistro rather than a cafe the tables are turned.

We eventually stumble across a creperie, it’s busy — always a good sign — has a great looking menu and, well, we both love pancakes. But no, on entering we’re asked if we have a reservation. Of course we don’t. We wander around further, find an decent looking restaurant, with a small menu and about two people inside. But it wasn’t to be. “Do you have a reservation?” she sneered. We feel like pointing out that they have twenty free tables at 8.30 on a Saturday evening but decide to let it go.

Graffiti, LilleWe reluctantly head back to a row of tourist-focused restaurants and end up in the last one, which claims to open 24-hours a day but, quite rightly, doesn’t brag about its food.

If there’s such a thing as a low-light, it would have to be the Grand Palais. Sounds, well, grand and palatial, right? No. It’s basically a large arena.

But really that’s our fault for not reading about all the sights in Lille before going, and it was funny rather than bad. Overall it was a great weekend, we saw a lot, ate some good food and had a relaxed time of it.

Lille gets the Darlington thumbs-up for a weekend away.

Paris, 2006

I am occasionally told that I have been “everywhere.” My usual retort to this — that I have made it as far as Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, but not Paris, the capital of the next country south — is going to need changing after this weekend.

Arts et M?tiers Metro station

We did all the usual tourist things — so thanks to B for being so patient as she’s been before — including checking out some of the more elaborate metro stations such as Arts et M?tiers.

Under the Eiffel Tower

Of course no first time trip would be complete without seeing the Eiffel Tower, although we didn’t actually go up it. Assuming long queues we decided to view Paris from the top of the Arc de Triomphe instead. Later we found that we probably could have climbed the Eiffel Tower but by then we were hungry…

Glass pyramids, Louvre

Also on the agenda was the was the Louvre. Given the beautiful weather we decided to stay outside and just look at the buildings. I’d see these glass pyramids again a few weeks later when The Da Vinci Code came out on general release.

Candles inside Notre Dame

Naturally I also wanted to see Notre Dame. At least, the Parisian Notre Dame. I’d seen another when I was in Ho Chi Minh City last year. The French version was missing much of the neon, which should probably be considered a good thing.

With many of the famous landmarks out of the way, perhaps next time we can take some time to look at some of the less well known but equally deserving places in Paris. Hopefully it won’t take me quite as long to get around to going as last time.

Alps to Riviera, France, 2005

Last year I went on a walking holiday in France with two friends. We started in Nice, got the train to Sospel and then walked to the coast at Menton. Between them we saw some beautiful scenery, drank some lovely wine and ate fantastic food. I can’t share the alcohol or steak, but you can see the pictures…

We started the week in Nice. I’d heard great things about the place but, on the whole, I wasn’t terribly impressed. I’ll be positive and say this is probably because they were digging the whole town up to install a new tram system, or because we didn’t spend very much time there. Anyway, this means that there are no decent pictures.

So we got the train on to Sospel, a small town at the bottom of the Alps. The town itself was at the bottom of the valley but our hotel was half way up. This was a tiring walk, especially carrying bags, but the view was worth it. M even got a view of the valley. Me and P were less lucky getting the awe-inspiring view of a small hut.

The next day we took a quick train journey down the valley and headed back to Sospel. The walk started in a pretty, small town called Breil-sur-Roya and headed out up into the nearby hills. After days of a sedentary life-style, then a day on a plane and train, suddenly walking uphill came as a bit of a shock. However looking back over the town between heavy breaths made it worthwhile.

The walk continued up and down over hills and through valleys (but mainly up hills). It was a warm day and come lunch time we were hot and tired. Luckily there was a shady square in Pi?ne Haute, one of the towns en route. We stopped for a bite to eat and to sleep on benches for a while.

The afternoon continued in pretty much the same vein, but gradually leveled out as we made the final approach to Sospel. It was a bit cruel really as we still had to climb up back to our hotel! Luckily this was a holiday, so we were in no rush. We stopped in the town for an ice-cream and hoped that our leg muscles wouldn’t seize up while we ate.

The next day was the biggie, in the sense that it gave the whole holiday its name! It was then that we left Sospel and walked all the way to the coast. Okay, we cheated a little. We got a taxi a short way to the start of the walk (up a big hill and round the corner) but we did do most of it!

We knew that this was going to be a long day. Not only had we tired ourselves out on the previous day, but this was a longer walk. (I won’t say how long as you’ll just realise how unfit we all were.) The day starts off on a long, slight incline but it doesn’t take long before we’re heading up the side of serious hill.

P’s strategy on the flat is to walk a pace or two ahead of his colleagues, thereby giving the impression that he’s walking faster than everyone else. For this hill he took a new strategy. He decides that the best way is to sprint up as far and fast as he can until his lungs were on the verge of collapse and then stop and wait for us. M makes the mistake of trying to keep up and is continually going fast, getting out of breath and slowing right down to recover. I take to a steady slog.

It’s tiring for us all but we make pretty good time and are still ahead of the suggested itinerary in the book, even with the impromptu lung-transplant en route.

This is the worst “up” part for the day. The rest of the morning is spent going up and down smaller inclines. The sun eventually burns away the morning mist and after a while we realise that we can see the Mediterranean.

We reach a large clearing around noon and decide to stop for lunch. Some dark clouds that have been massing since early morning are starting to look particularly oppressive and we fear that we’re going to get drenched. None of us are really prepared for heavy rain. A bare tree looks eerie against the dark sky.

But we’re lucky. There are a few spots of rain just as we’re eating our sandwiches. After that it still dark but it’s fine.

Most of the rest of the afternoon is heading down hill towards the coast. Anyone that tells you that downhill is easier that uphill clearly hasn’t done much walking. The paths are harsh, unyielding tarmac and very steep for the early part of the afternoon and my knees quickly begin to ache.

We rest regularly and even pop over the border into Italy at one point. The last and in some ways hardest part of the day was walking across town to our hotel. All our energies had been spent on climbing and descending hills and I don’t think any of us were expecting the cross-town part to be quite so long.

The hotel is pretty decent when we arrive. It’s right on the sea front and only about 500m from the Italian border. We shower and collapse (not necessarily in that order) and eventually hit the town for dinner.

Menton is not a huge town. It’s long and thin, with the Mediterranean on one side and a stack of hotels and houses rising quickly into the hills on the other. There is an impressively large marina with some equally impressive yachts glinting in the sun. The strip of sand that stretches East into Italy was heavily populated much of the time. The main shopping strip has the usual array of restaurants and gift shops. Menton is quite pretty and clean, but is clearly heavily geared towards tourists.

On our last full day we decided to leave the undeniable attractions of the South of France and move up-market. Monaco was just a short train-ride away and, we figured, a good way of passing a few hours.

The first thing we noticed about Monaco was the size of the train station. The platform is about twice as long as the train. We suggest another train line from the tracks to the station exit to no-one in particular. There are building works right outside the station, so first impressions are not great.

Wandering up into the old town, we see a lot to indicate the vast wealth of this tiny principality. The marina here is huge and is crammed with very expensive looking yachts; the streets are immaculately clean and all the buildings are well maintained; and every car is shiny, new and has a high chance of being German. It does not, however, ooze with character or charm. Even if I somehow became super-rich I think I would still choose to pay my taxes and live elsewhere.

(On a more sombre note, our trip to Monaco was on the 7th July which, as anyone who lives in London will tell you, was a good day to be on holiday. The first I knew how serious it was when my sister rang me on my mobile. She never rings!)

We have a rather tense last meal back in Menton as M insists on dining in a fish restaurant despite the fact that I’m allergic to some and dislike all other sea-food. I only narrowly avoid killing her when she announces that the first of her main courses is not good. Instead I sulk with the one non-fish dish on the menu.

On the final day we have a vaguely leisurely start and head on the train back to Nice, then on a plane back to Heathrow. So overall, a great holiday. Over with far too quickly, but then aren’t they always?