We spent the day on the French coast today, all I can say is another wow… what a beautiful place! The first part of our journey was on the train.. yes I made Dwight take public transport yet again, secretly I think he really enjoys being with strange people packed into moving cars while travelling!
Actually taking the train in Europe is very pleasant, its roomy and quiet and you get to watch the country side go by… we were even to bring our bikes!
The two small towns we focused on were Bandol and Sanary sur -mer.. barely noticeable on the map and wonderfully quiet… these are the French Rivera towns that the mass tourist crowds don't know about.. but I also don't think you are going to run into Tom Cruise in any of them either…. for us it was perfect.
Jules Verne, the French author who pioneered the science fiction genre spent some time in Bandol. You would know his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, A Journey to the Center of the Earth, I can see why he wrote about the sea…. Bandol also has vineyards surrounding the town, they are spread all along the coast and produce some of the best wines in Provence.. not that I tasted any :-)
From Bandol we jumped on the bikes and followed the coast down until we got close to Toulon… its a rather large city so we avoided it and focused only on the villages along the way.
My favorite town by far on the way out… and back… was Sanary sur-mer.. a small fishing village right on the coast, filled with bustling french fisherman selling their catches and a local market where everything was so fresh, we stopped for a quick lunch on the way back…..but not your typical lunch...
So I know that this picture does not look all that appetizing but I can assure you it was..! We went to the market that was set up right by the sea and bought some local nectarines (I have to tell you that these have been wonderful!) and a small chicken……or at least we think it was chicken :-)
Actually roasted on site, small delicious roast chicken in a bag, OMG this this was so good! Dwight was not licking his fingers he was gnawing on them! I think they marinate it in butter for hours before they actually roast it…..
After our ride we headed back to Bandol where we spent a couple of hours sitting in cafe's and watching the national sport…..well it may not be a national sport but it sure is popular around here!!!!
The game is Boules where the goal is, while standing inside a starting circle with both feet on the ground, to throw hollow metal balls as close as possible to a small wooden ball called a cochonnet or jack. The game is normally played on hard dirt or gravel, and the people we were watching took it very seriously! They use measuring tapes to determine points and spend a lot of time discussing the distance of one ball versus the other…… absolutely entertaining! There were at least six different matching happening when we were watching and every one of them was great!
_2003.jpg)
The day ended with us catching an earlier train than we were originally booked on, Dwight being the law abiding citizen he is was already feeling uncomfortable with breaking the rules…. but hey.. it meant that we were going to get back to town sooner and that meant a glass of wine was in front of him sooner…. so I won!
Only one small glitch in the plan… our connecting train in Marseilles…well we were not completely sure it was the one we needed, it was a commuter train and not a whole lot of english was being spoken…. the notice said we were going to Gap… which Dwight was pointing out, AFTER we got on the train, was near the Swiss border! You should have seen the look on his face… I almost could not stop laughing…..Well with some broken French "est ce train d'aller à Aix en Provence?" we got a qui… so we waited and hoped for the best… turns out they new what they were talking about and we did make it home….. I would point out however that the train was going to Gap, lucky for us Aix is on the way!
Jusqu'à la prochaine fois .. heureuse sur le Chat!……….Till next time.. happy chatting!
No comments:
Post a Comment