Genoa was much more interesting than I anticipated, but it was time to head west towards France. Liguria, where Genoa is the biggest city, is squeezed between the mountains and the sea. The flat land is never more than a few miles wide, but is where the resorts of the Cinque Terre and Italian Riviera are.
The railway runs along the narrow corridor and is frequently either close to the sea or passing through a tunnel.
To get to France we had to take the train to Ventimiglia close to the border, and then change onto a French train. Just before the actual border two Border guards came down the carriage and spoke to the only black people. They asked for passports to get into France, but they didn’t have any with them, so they were told to leave the train. No white people were asked for their passports.
Once in France, the train stopped at every station, so it was very slow. We eventually arrived at Golfe Juan – Vallauris station, half way between Cannes and Antibes. After getting a bit lost (Google Maps was wrong) we found Didier, our host, outside the gates of the apartments where we were staying. The flat is tiny, but has everything we need, plus a balcony overlooking attractive gardens and a swimming pool.
There is a Super U market close by, so we stocked up and had salmon, potatoes and green beans for dinner. It made a change from Italian food and was cooked to perfection. By me.
Thursday 5 October
Another day in paradise! It’s great to sit on the balcony for coffee in the sunshine and look at palm trees. I used to do that in my garden at home, but the palm tree was growing a foot a year so I had it cut down.
I have booked 6 nights here, so we can explore all the local towns along the Cote D’Azur and enjoy some seaside time.
The marina at Golfe Juan is huge, and full of ostentatious superyachts, one of them even had a helicopter on the back of it. Just beyond the marina is Pablo Picasso beach.
The man himself was a resident from 1946 to 1951. It is a lovely sandy beach with warm(ish) water. I did my usual bob around in the sea looking for fish, of course I couldn’t see any. It was fairly quiet since it is October, well out of season, but with summer weather:freaky.
We went back to the flat for lunch of smoked salmon on blinis, rillette on baguette and salad. Then we lounged around for the afternoon at “our” pool, it doesn’t come much better than that.
In the evening we walked into town and went for dinner in a little Asian cafe. It was great to have Pad Thai with a pichet of rose wine.
Friday 6 October
Time for a bit of glamour. The bus goes right past our flats, so we caught it into Cannes, a few miles west of here. It took us to the SNCF station,and we walked through the busy town centre to the sea front. There’s a big marina at the front, but not as many superyachts as in Golfe Juan, it’s probably too expensive to moor there. Just beyond the marina is the small “old town” called Suquet, more of a village really. There is a hill with the remains of a castle and a rather plain church, but great views over the centre of Cannes.
There are a few narrow streets with some lovely pastel coloured houses and pricey restaurants. Being British, we had brought some sandwiches with us, thus saving about 50 Euros. BTW our accommodation is about 70 euros a night, so it’s worthwhile being stingy with meals.
After our picnic lunch we walked along the Croisette (the promenade) past all the private beaches where you can pay 500 euros for a bottle of champagne if you wish. Beyond those are the public beaches where I went for a swim, and Julie read a book (on her phone).
I thought Cannes was beautiful, but a bit too, yer know, posh.
So we walked back to the station and caught the 16.08 train to Juan le Pins, which took a modest 8 minutes. It is a much smaller scale resort, but still quite upmarket with lots of private beaches. The public beach was fine and I took another dip with the other paupers. Once again, Julie sat under a tree and declined to dip.
Once I had dried off in the hot sun we walked west back to Golfe Juan to our flat for a well earned beer (Heineken) salad Nicoise and Vigonier wine, all from our fridge.
It is very nice here, I can see why it attracts all the super wealthy. But you can visit on the cheap, if you pick the right place to stay and don’t eat out much.
Saturday 7 October
The great thing about the Interrail pass is that we can get on the train anytime we fancy it. Just find it on the app, flick a digital switch and the ticket is generated.
Golfe Juan (pronounced Golfa Jzooan) is on the line along the Cote d’Azur that runs through all the seaside towns, so it’s easy to get along the coast
Today we got the train to Grasse, which is in the hills north of Canne. It is the home of the French perfume industry. They started off making (honestly) scented gloves for the court of Louis XIV, and then developed the perfume side of the business big time in the 18th century.
The old town is at the top of a hill, so it’s a 15 minute walk up steps to the little Romanesque cathedral. The old town is full of narrow streets with the houses painted in yellow, pink and orange. The main shopping streets are decorated with hanging pink umbrellas. It is very pretty, and there are great views down towards the sea at Cannes.
Growing flowers for perfume used to be a huge local industry. We visited the former Fragonard factory, which is a museum now full of perfume bottles and antique distilling equipment. Of course the perfume shop is huge, but I naturally smell delightful so I don’t need any perfume.
The narrow winding streets with old doors and shutters make Grasse look like a film set. It is not a big place but great to visit for half a day.
There was a marvellous artwork on the rendered end wall of a house. A pioneering photographer called Charles Negre came from Grasse and his image has been reproduced by hitting the render with a hammer to make marks on it.
The direct train from Golfe Juan to Grasse only takes 40 minutes, so it’s an easy place to visit.
For dinner we had homemade ratatouille with a can of Super U cassoulet, which was a winning combination.
Sunday 8 October
Last night we decided to stay another 3 nights in Golfe Juan, it’s a great place and costs us only £56 a night.
Today we took the train east a few stops to Nice. It is the ”le weekend”, the weather is hot, so it was very busy. I was feeling less than my perky self and had a runny nose, so I probably got a virus from someone French, the filthy beasts.
It was very hot at the station waiting for the train, Julie retired beneath her hat.
The charm has worn off a bit since we came last year, but the sea is still very blue.
The old town is full of restaurants, and none of them are cheap! Trouble is I am cheap and don’t want to pay more for a meal than I do for my accommodation.
But the views from the top of the old fortifications down the Promenade Anglais are quite wonderful.
Monday 9 October
I was still feeling a bit yukky this morning, so we made the very easy decision to do bugger-all.
We walked to the the big Super U on the main road to Antibes, and bought more supplies. The food is noticeably more expensive than at home, one big onion costs a Euro! Bloody hell in 1974 I could go out and get pissed on Courage Best for that much (15p a pint in the Students Union).
Exhausted from carrying beer and wine back to the flat, we had to lay by the swimming pool and read . We dined royally on our balcony (renamed by me the balconioni) and rehydrated with lager.
After a little rest we walked for 5 minutes down to the little beach squeezed between the main line to Nice and the sea, it was heavenly. I made myself a backrest from a heap of sand and settled down to read The Martian again. It’s the second time I have read it, so I’m now a fully qualified astronaut, NASA I’m waiting for your call.
Monday 10 October 2023
If its Monday it must be Antibes, which is just 6 minutes away on the train. We could walk there in about an hour, but I’m feeling wishy washy again, and let the train take the strain.
Antibes was a border town between France and Italy, when Nice belonged to the Holy Roman Empire. Its a complicated story, but Nice became French only 150 years ago. Consequently there are some big walls and a huge fortress and port built by Vauban, who you may remember built a dam in Strasburg.
The old town is very pretty with narrow streets and colourful shutters like in Nice and Cannes. I think it is a better place to visit than both of them, it’s less busy and has some lovely beaches with benches in the shade. So I could go for a swim while Julie read in the shade.
Early this morning I went to the boulangerie 10 minutes away from our flat, so we could have baguettes for our lunch while sitting outside the Picasso Museum. Needless to say he spent a lot of time in Antibes as well, probably working his way through ladies of the town.
The old town had lots of arty shops selling pottery, prints, jewellery and tinned sardines. I think sardines must be in fashion, probably because of the colourful cans rather than the fish.
When we were sat on the beach I spotted a very big superyacht. I took a picture and used Google Lens to identify it, it was Symphony belonging to Bernard Arnault who is the wealthest man in Europe and paid for the museum we went to in Paris. Its 101.5 metres (333ft) long, and is designed to carry 20 passengers with 38 crew.
Luckliy I also got a photo of a man in flippers doing a hand stand!
October 11 2023
Go East, the great pop song the Pet Shop Boys never recorded, but the theme song for our trip today. We took the riviera train through Antibes, Nice and Monaco to Menton, very close to the Italian border.
Our destination was a botanic garden called Val Rahmeh which was founded by and Englishman called Lord Percy Radcliffe in 1905. It is small but stunning, with many species of tropical plants from all over the world growing outside. It is supremely relaxing and peaceful, all it needs is a National Trust tea shop with a good selection of hot beverages and baked goods.
After eating our packed lunch (saving money to buy a Spritz later) we walked down to the beach. As per usual, Julie listened to her audio book and I went for a dip in the briny and then stared out to sea.
The old town of Menton is on a hill overlooking the beach. Once again (like the other old towns) it had narrow steep streets and ochre coloured 5 and 6 story houses. IThey must have planning regulations which tell them to use only yellow, pink and orange muted colours. It is also very well maintained, a definite feeling of civic pride that I haven’t seen as much in other towns. There’s a lovely baroque basilica which is newly painted on the outside with Farrow and Ball colours.
At the top of the town is the old cemetery where William Webb Ellis is buried, and a statue to commemorate him. He has the ultimate accolade in Twickenham, a ‘Spoons named after him.
After enjoying the dead centre of Menton (geddit?) We walked towards the station. But a reasonably priced Aperol Spritz caught our eyes, so we stopped for a swifty.
The town centre is very pretty, with some colourful “Belle Epoque” grand hotels, and the only town hall I have seen with banana trees outside.
Menton is delightful, definitely a more classy resort than any of the others we have visited.
On the train back to Golfe Juan our tickets were checked twice by inspectores who had their own guards. There were also lots of beefy cops on the train, I suppose they are after illegal immigrants.
October 12
Our last full day on the Cote D’Azur, and we took another short train ride to Cagne Sur Mer. The original town is on top of a hill with the Chateau Grimaldi at the top. The Grimaldi family still rule Monaco, which is only about 10 miles east along the coast.
Our destination was the Renoir Museum, the home of Renoir in his later years. It is a former farm called Les Collettes, set amongst ancient olive trees, overlooking the sea and the old town. The setting is stunning, but the museum itself is a bit… sparse.
There are a few lovely paintings by Pierre-August Renoir, but more by artists of the same school and his assistants. He was able to take up sculpture with the assistance of a young artist called Richard Guino, who slapped around the clay under Renoir’s direction. There are some lovely paintings and some furniture, but you can see it all in about 45 minutes.
In one of the farm buildings there was a silent film running of Renoir and an assistant (his son possibly) sitting in his wheelchair painting. His assistant charges his brush, and he paints a canvas, while smoking like a chimney.
In the afternoon we returned to Golfe Juan and lazed on the beach for a few hours. The beach is sandy, the sea is warm (warm for me, icy to Julie) and there are lots of yachts to watch. The beach is populated mostly by retired people who are filly equiped with loungers, cool boxes and umbrellas that they trundle down to the beach on trolleys
I listened to my favourite podcast “the Rest is History” with Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland. They are a first class double act who are entertaining as well as knowledgeable. It was about the Ummyad and Abbasid dynasties that ruled the Islamic Caliphate in the 7th and 8th centuries.
I’ve lost you now haven’t I? All the brain space that most people devote to sport, I devote to science and history. That’s why I’m so fascinating 😉
So farewell Salzburg, home of the Von Trapps and Mozart. The Von Trapps were a real family choir, but there story was embroidered considerably. But I did find a lonely goat turd high on a hill.
I’m now on the train between Innsbruck and Brenner. It’s cool and rainy with very low cloud, which justifies us skipping Innsbruck and going straight to Verona.
The first leg of the journey was east to Innsbruck, then we changed trains and headed towards Verona through the Brenner Pass. This is a combination of river valleys and long tunnels through the Tyrol Alps, lands which are the border between the German and Italian speaking world and have been fought over for thousands of years. We were well into what is now Italy before the houses lost their alpine appearance, and cypress trees and vineyards appeared that gave the land an Italian look.
At Porto Nuovo station in Verona, Julie found our new accommodation on Google Maps, and we dragged our trolley bags through the city centre. Verona has existed for well over 2,000 years, and has buildings from every era. It was a 40 minute walk through the old city centre past the Roman arena.
Our accomodation was on the other side of the Adige river, which is the same raging torrent that goes through the Brenner pass.
After settling into our apartment on the second floor on a 16th century house, we walked back across Ponte Nuovo to find somewhere to eat at the nearest supermarket. Rounding a corner I heard someone shout
“Tim!”
It was my mate Steve Lenczner from Fulham. I knew he was going to be in Verona, and it was pure chance that he was standing on his balcony as we walked past.
So we all went to Piazza del Erbe around the corner from Steve’s flat and had Aperol Spritz, risotto and a little too much wine. A fantastic evening in a stunning location on a warm evening in Verona.
Saturday 23 September
Bloody hell I felt a bit rough in the morning, I think I have an overdose of fun (or red wine). Verona is all I had hoped it would be, a city that was one of the richest in Europe in the middle ages, that has mostly preserved its medieval city centre. The centre is made up of red brick palazzos and piazzas, and of course swarms of tourists. I wore shorts and a teeshirt and wore a cap to cover up my tender bonce, my appearance cried out TOURIST. I couldn’t compete with the local men in skinny legged suits, crisp white shirts and black ties. Even the coppers looked cool.
The Castellvecchio is a castle built by Cangrande della Scalla, the local warlord, in the 13th century. It was built next to the Adige river, and the bridge was also fortified to give him an escape route if the ungrateful locals rose up against him. The bridge stood for 600 years until retreating Nazis blew it up in 1945. A local architect Libero Cecchini masterminded the reconstruction which was completed in 1951, and it looks perfectly like the original.
I was fascinated (to a nerdy extent) by the construction of the walls of buildings, which were made of brick, old stone, rubble and river stones. But clearly they last longer than most modern buildings.
Crossing over the San Pietro bridge we could see that the Adige was in full turbulent flow beneath the bridge, no wonder there were no boats at all on the river.
Sunday 24 September
Close to where we were staying was a viewing sport called Castel San Pietro. The castel was an Austrian barracks from the first half of the 19th century when Austria ruled most of northern Italy. We walked up the steps rather than ride the funicular up the hill. I am a skiffer, not a softie! There was a fantastic view over old Verona, a vista of red brick, tiled roofs and bell towers. The Austrians chose a good spot to house their soldiers.
On almost every corner there is a lovely palazzo or basilica to look at. There are many churches that you can walk in to enjoy the Renaissance art that covers the walls, and of course, the cool shade and peace.
In the afternoon we visited the Giardino Giusti, a 16th century palazzo and its gardens. It is still owned by the Giusti family, but its open to the public. It had 7 or 8 rooms full of old furniture and paintings, some going back to when it was built in the 16th century when the Scaglia and Hapsburgs dripped by to visit. One of the pictures on the wall was an old print of a 19th century regatta in France. I was amazed to see that it had skiffers on it wearing hooped shirts, like the ones we wear today at the Skiff Club
It has its original gardens, which are quite rare in fortified cities, no doubt it was a lovely place for passing aristos to enjoy a spritz on a hot afternoon. The gardens rise above the house, a great spot for a selfie with the palazzo behind us.
I wanted to see the city walls, and Julie didn’t. So I hiked up behind Giardino to the massive Austrian fortifications that surround the city. Only when I got there I found there are two walls, and I was walking between them, so for most of my walk I just saw walls. Not so interesting, but a good walk.
In the evening we went to the Tosca Bistrot and I chose Pastisado de Caval, horse stew. Well you don’t see it in London do you? It was just like beef stew, on a slab of polenta, tasty but unremarkable. Luckily it didn’t give me the trots..
Monday 25th September
Verona is very close to Lake Garda, which has got to be one of the most beautiful lakes in the the world! We got the train to Peschiera del Garda, a former fortress town at the bottom of the lake with huge walls. Those Austrians loved a big wall.
The town itself was very busy, so we walked up the shore to find a shady bench and just chill and enjoy the views to the mountains and towns on the opposite shore. I was a bit tempted to have a swim, but the water was a bit murky, and the beach was stoney and hard to walk on.
The place was so exceptional, watching the lake was enough for most of the day. We did have a trip to Lidl to get lunch, boy do I love a good Lidl. Later on in the day we had a drink in a cafe and did more serious gazing over the lake.
In the evening we ate dinner in the flat, tuna salads feature regularly in our diet, followed by fruit and yoghurt and a bit of chocolate.
I’m on the train to Salzburg whizzing through Austria. This train goes to Munich so there were a couple dressed in Bavarian outfits selling beer. Yes bloody please!
A bit out of focus, I was excited
We got to Salzburg at 3 ish and put our bags in a locker and sent to explore. It is a very neat, tidy and attractive city, as befits the home of Mozart and the Sound of Music. We passed a trio of nuns (honestly) and I wanted to ask “how do you solve a problem like Maria?” but Julie wouldn’t let me.
There’s a festival on at the moment called Rupertikirtag in honour of St Rupert. It’s like a mini Octoberfest with food and beer stalls and a funfair. Lots of people were dressed in lederhosen and dirndls, even the kids! It was very colourful and fun.
Horny men in leather shorts – normal for Austria
There was even a group of men doing the knee slapping dance I have only seen in The Two Ronnie’s
Our accommodation is in Hallein, a few stops down the line, Salzburg is too expensive. The Sommeraur Pensione cost us as much for 2 nights as we paid for 4 nights in Budapest. But the breakfast was enormous and the coffee excellent.
Thursday 21 September
This morning we got the 9.16 train from Hallein into Salzburg. Hallein had salt mines, which were the basis of Salzburg’s (salt town) great prosperity. The salt was shipped down the river into Italy and wine came back, a very good deal.
We walked up to the Hohensalzburg, the huge castle above the town on a crag. We could have taken the funicular, but I’m a Skiffer not a softie! Neither is Julie. The castle is honestly one of the best I have ever visited. It was founded in 1180, and improved all the way up to 1803 when Napoleon marched in.
The massive castle has amazing views over the city and nearby Alps. The weather was hot and sunny, so it was perfect. There are several museums inside about the castle and military history which are very modern and well laid out.
The funicular is free to go down and takes about a minute. Skiffers also enjoy a bargain.
In the square at the bottom Rupertikirtag is in full swing, with many stalls selling pretzels of various types, cream cakes and sweets. We went into a marquee with an oompah band and I had a beer, 6.2 Euro for half a litre. Expensive, but not outrageous.
🎶 I like lager und bratwurst und cabbage
The city centre is fairly small, but is all beautiful 17th and 18th century Baroque buildings, including several where Mozart lived. Mozart was the Harty Styles of his day, but wrote his own tunes.
The huge ancient abbey of St Peter was very impressive, with a highly decorated church and a restaurant that claims it was founded in 803. That’s 1220 years ago, before King Alfred beat the Vikings (for you history nerds out there).
Austrian cuisine is …limited in scope, but we thought we should try it. The Zipfer Bierhaus is a traditional pub on one of the central squares. I had sausage, potatoes and sauerkraut, Julie had schnitzel and potatoes. It was fine.
The Octoberbrau I had was really delicious, so I was a happy boy.
Saurkraut is ok, but baked beans is much better with sausages.
We didn’t decide to visit Budapest until last week, when we were in Strasbourg. It was on our itinerary back in August, then we took it off again. Our reluctance is due to it being 6.5 hours from Munich on the train. Then I started reading The Places In Between, which is about Rory Stewart’s walk across Afghanistan during the winter. That made me feel like a big softy, and a long journey on a comfy train isn’t too much of a hardship. I’m a big fan of Rory Stewart, an incredibly tough polymath and the only Tory politician I respect.
As I write I’m in a reserved seat on a packed train on our way through Hungary near Mosonmagyrovar on the Pannonian basin. It’s flat all the way to the Carpathian mountains, and is studded with windmills.
Well we are here now, in a small but perfectly formed studio flat in Pest, which is on the eastern bank of the Danube which is (so Google tells us) the cooler part of town.
Having spent 9 hours travelling from our flat in Munich, we were feeling a bit err… shit… when we arrived. so after struggling with 2 digital keypads to get in, we soon went out to the Danube river bank a few hundred metres away for a drink at sunset. The Viaduckt bar is a bar under the viaduct for the tram running down the river bank. We had great views of Buda and the Chain Bridge and chilled there for a bit with a beer.
Julie found the Parisi6 restaurant close by, which was fantastic, I had a slow cooked pork steak and Julie had beef neck, those animals did not die in vain. The waiter liked what we said about his food and gave us a free shot, Which was nice.
On the way home we found a Lidl to get emergancy rations of red wine and chocolate. Well it’s just common sense.
Sunday 17 September
I had very few preconceptions about Budapest before I arrived. I knew that it had Buda and Pest with the Danube in between, and a collection of castles and museums, the usual kind of European capital stuff. But I have been blown away by how beautiful it is. Some of it looks like Paris, some of it like Vienna and there are even parts that look like Disneyland! The architecture is amazing, there are some gorgeous late 19th century art deco buildings and Victorian neo-gothic with a touch of Ottoman thrown in.
The first 3 hours of the day were Interrail Admin (boring but vital) so it was past 11 before we got out of the flat in Pest. Beautiful sunshine after mixed weather in Munich.
We found the Tourist Info to get some paper maps and general orientation, then walked down to the Danube. There was a lovely Victorian building that looked like something cultural, so we went in. It was called Vigado, a concert hall and exhibition centre that is stunningly beautiful. Its interior is quite palatial, the equal of palaces we have visited in other capital cities. On the 6th floor there was a design exhibition of leatherware, glassware, sculptures and other superb local crafts. There was also a roof terrace with wonderful views over the Danube to the castle district.
It’s a well known fact that culture makes you hungry, and we found Vapiano, a fast Italian food chain recommended by our neighbour Ruth. I had fusili Bolognese and Julie had a Cesare salad, both very good.
To get to Buda we crossed the chain bridge, a 19th century suspension bridge that looks like Marlow Bridge but is much bigger. It has just (like yesterday) been reopened after
renovation, and is like new. They have banned traffic, so just pedestrians and cycles were going across.
On the Buda side we walked up the steep hill to the castle district. It isn’t a medieval castle, but a collection of impressive 18th and 19th century buildings constructed for the Hapsburg Emperors of Austria Hungary. The amazing fact is that some of the buildings that look old are in fact very new and were built to replace demolished buildings.
Short History Lesson
Hungary started off in WW2 on the German side. They were getting thrashed by the Allies, so started negotiations to change horse mid-race. The Nazis didnt like that so invaded and treated the country extremely badly (it’s a grim story you can read on Wikipedia). At the end of the war many of the buildings on castle hill were badly damaged, but still standing. In 1971 the Communist government demolished several of them.
Those buildings are now being rebuilt as perfect copies of the old ones, and they are stunning. It shows that the old crafts are not dead.
These 2 are new buildings
At the northern end of the castle hill is Fishermans Bastion, which was built at the end of the 19th century as a panoramic look-out spot. It rivals some of those castles in Bavaria for its fairy tale castle look.
The views across the Danube are stunning, especially as the Parliament building catches the setting sun.
Culture makes you thirsty as well, and we found a cafe half way down the hill for a glass of wine.
FACT
Hungarian wine tastes pretty much like any other wine, nice.
Interrail Admin
Interrail isn’t all site seeing and drinking wine you know. we also have to book rail trips and find accommodation. Having gazed at our Rail Map of Europe and deciding which city next, we find a train to get there. That is fairly easy using the Interrail app on our phones that also creates the QR code ticket. For long distance journeys we also make a separate Seat Reservation. For Germany, Austria and Hungary we use the Deutche Bahn website, which is quite good (but not perfect).
The most difficult job is finding accomodation on Booking.com and AirBnB which is in the right place and fits our budget. We prefer a kitchen and washing machine so we dont have to eat out and have clean undies.
All this took 3 hours and lots of swearing this morning. Then the knob-end we booked with in Salzburg said his flat was no longer available. Grrrrrrrr!!!
Monday 18 September
This morning we took a “free” walking tour of Pest with Matt. Free means you give what you think it’s worth at the end of the tour. Pest (pronounced Pesht) was undeveloped until the Chain Bridge was opened in 1849. It was designed by British engineer James Tierney Clark and is a scaled up version of his design for Marlow Bridge.
The nice bits of Pest are all late 19th century buildings when Buda had joined with Pest to make a single city. The Hapsburg Empress loved Budapest and influenced Emperor Franz Joseph to improve the capital. She was known as Sisi, and has a similar status to Princess Diana in Austria and Hungary. There have recently been a Netflix series and a film about her, she was quite a live wire compared to her rather conservative husband.
Sisi
Matt took us to St Stephen’s church, which is built in a Baroque style like St Pauls in London but wasn’t finished until 1905. Parts of it collapsed twice, killing two of the architects. Quite Darwinian really, it prevented them from designing any more terrible buildings,
Matt showed us the “Statue of Liberty”, an eagle (the Nazis) attacking an angelic figure (Hungary). It was put up over night under police protection. The memorial is controversial since it show Hungary as a victim of the Nazis. In fact they joined the war as Nazi partners, 80,000 died in a day in Stalingrad. They tried to change sides in 1943 and were then occupied by the Nazis, who sent 400,000 Jews and minorities to Ausweitz. In 1945 they were occupied by the Soviets who controlled Hungary until 1989, and they are still recovering from it.
The walk ended at the Parliament Building, which is “the third largest Parliament in the world”. Its very impressive, and looks better from the Fishermens Bastion.
In the afternoon we walked down to the huge Central Market, a huge cast iron shed, similar to those in Leeds and Newcastle. On the first floor are lots of stalls selling Hungarian food. I had Beef Goulash, with noodles. It was huge, very tasty and good value, about £9 for the best beef stew I have eaten. Possibly.
On the way back to the flat for a serious sit down, we bought a Chimney Cake. These are cyclindrical spirals of dough, cooked to golden brown. They taste like a Cinnamon Roll and are bloody gorgeous. Honestly, better than good.
I washed my smalls in the sink and hung them off the lighting to make a tasteful mobile called “Pants in Motion”.
It’s art, init?
In the evening we went to a Ruin Bar in the Jewish Quarter. We had a slightly overpriced drink in a trendy bar. It was alright, but honestly I’ve had better beer in a Spoons. Yes, I’m a pleb.
A ruin bar
Tuesday 19 September
We are now 2 weeks into our adventure in Europe. This is an “unpackaged” holiday, there is no charming courier to take us on a coach to our hotel and organise tours for us. So we spend hours each day planning the next leg of the trip, and the one after that. Our original plan was to go from Salzburg to Innsbruck, but it’s going to be raining in Innsbruck so we will go straight through to Verona.
It’s raining in Budapest this morning, so we are doing our admin. I went to Aldi nearby where they have bread that looks like dildos. I bought flat bread in a plastic bag, no chance of miss-use.
Ooh err missus…
Once it stopped raining we go the metro line M1 to City Park, a couple of miles away. The metro is the oldest in continental Europe, built in 1896. That’s more than 30 years after London, they took their time didn’t they ? It look like it has barely been modernised since.
The park is very lovely, with several Hapsburg era buildings and some strikingly modern ones.
The metro stops at Szechenyi baths, the grandest of the thermal baths in the city. I didn’t go in, I didn’t fancy sharing a hot bath with other people drinking beer. I know what people do when they drink beer.
The thermal baths
Nearby is a mock castle with an agricultural museum in it. Didn’t go in their either, I got museumed-out in Munich on the very rainy day.
A mock castle, a bit like in Cardiff
The House of Music is a very modern concert hall with a fantastic ceiling and staincase. Like most arty places it had excellent toilets, so I had a quality metropolitan elite piss.
The most interesting building is the Ethnographic Museum, which has a dish shaped roof that is also a garden. It looks better than I have described it. Inside it has a huge architectural model of Budapest showing all of the city city. The Ethnographic collection didn’t appeal, that’s a rainy day trip I think.
The sloping museum roof
It’s our last night here, so we went down to the Danube to enjoy the view of the castle and have a beer.
We had dinner in a Mexican cafe, a delicious Budapest Burrito.
For the last time we got the tram from Jean Jaunes stop to Gare Central and caught the 9.50 2 coach train to Appenweier. There is precisely bugger-all at Appenweier, and we had to wait 50 minutes for the Karlsruhe train, which was 10 minutes late. We sat next to 2 German ladies on there way to see a Tina Turner show in Stuttgart. They assured us that German trains are often late or cancelled, which made me feel better, I think they called it Schadenfreude.
At Karlsruhe we raced to platform 7 and got on the Munich high speed train with 5 minutes to spare. Phew.
Twas a very pleasant journey on the fast train, at one time we were going at 250kph.
high-speed Tintin hair
Munich station had the biggest model railway shop I have ever seen. The prices are eyewatering, the tiny trains are hundreds of euros each. I liked this tiny model of a wedding couple on a Scooter.
At the station in Munich we found the S Bahn platform for Oberschliesenheim where the AirBnB is. But all the trains on line S1 were all cancelled, so we took an alternative route via Dachau.
In Britain we only know Dachau for one reason. Now it is a pleasant suburb with a Memorial Centre.
After arriving at our flat we walked to a Lidl 5 minutes away. It was like a warm embrace from an old friend. I’m sure the prices were half what we spent in Paris, especially the Primitivo Pugilio for under 3 euros.
I was dead chuffed, and I am now in a state of considerable relaxation.
There is a huge TV, and Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is ready to go, so over and out.
Saw the film, it was a loada tosh. But I am at least 50 years older than the target audience.
Wednesday 13 September
We have a lovely big flat in Oberschleisheim, very modern, cool and spacious. Much better than the hot and cramped places we had in Paris and Strasbourg. Our preference is somewhere with a kitchen so we can cook for ourselves and do some laundry.
It’s also literally 5 minutes from Schleisheim Palace which was built for the Bavarian Royal Family in the 17th Century.
The new palace is vast, and the style is Baroque and similar to Versailles and Hampton Court. There are dozens of huge rooms furnished with tapestries and damask wall coverings. They are hung with hundreds of pictures including masterpieces by Ruebens, Van Dyke and Caravaggio.
But there was hardly anyone there. At times we had vast swathes of palace to ourselves. It cost us 8 euros to get in, compared to Blenheim Palace which cost £30 and is much smaller.
We needed a coffee after all that culture, and found a cafe outside. There were more people there than inside the palace, and they were all drinking large mugs of beer. They were eating large plates of food, and it wasn’t a lightly dressed salad. Very different for yer average National Trust Tearoom.
I was green with envy, but I knew that if I ate and drank like that I would be catatonic for the rest of the day.
In the afternoon we visited the nearby Schleisheim aircraft museum, a collection of old planes in 3 big hangers, much more my kinda thing.
I wanted to steal this one for the RAF, but I had no wings.
There were 2 more museums we visited because we had bought combined ticket. The Altes Schloss (old castle) was full of models of nativity scenes, dozens and dozens of them.
A nuns delight, but really boring.
Lustheim Schloss was all porcelain, interesting for 10 minutes and totally deserted. I didn’t take any pictures so imagine a nice plate with flowers on it.
There was a huge thunderstorm when we walked back to the flat and we got soaked. But it made a change from being roasted.
Thursday 14 September
We took the S1 train into the Central station and then walked to Marienplaz, the main square of the city. It is dominated by the Neuesrathaus, the gothic town hall. Close by is the twin towered Frauenkirche Cathedral, which is quite plain and undecorated compared to others we have seen. I’ve seen a lot of cathedrals (I have a list if you are interested), and they do get a bit samey.
Munich is gearing up for the Octoberfest which starts on Saturday, Europe’s biggest piss up. The shops have lots of Bavarian costumes, which don’t come cheap. A pair of lederhosen start at 200 euros and can go up to 1000 euros.
Suits you sir
Close to the square is Viktualenmakt, which is a food market a bit like Borough Market, but with many more pubs. We went to a restaurant called Bratwurstherzl for lunch, I had Schnitzel and a pint of helles lager very nice. Better than the bacon and cabbage on Strasbourg.
After lunch we visited the place we should have actually gone for lunch, the Hofbrauhaus. It’s a giant beer keller that can hold over a thousand people. Naturally they had a umpah band, and outside was a splendid dray with 4 horses.
In Odeonspaltz there were dozens of armed policemen. Julie saw a miniature soldier and asked him “wassup”. Turns out there was a military passing out parade and the Prime Minister of Bavaria was there. The cops were there to guard the soldiers. There were tall soldiers as well.
FUN FACTS
Bavaria (a state of Germany) has a population of 13 million and Austria (an entire country) has a population of 8 million.
The biggest park in Munich is the Englishen Garten, and running through it is a very fast running river called the Eisbach. It is a very popular surfing spot. Just close to a bridge is a standing wave which surfers take turns to ride.
It is great fun to watch and some of the surfers are really good. They spent more time upright than anyone I have seen surfing on the sea, and then got another go at it 10 minutes later. The river runs remarkably quickly, i can’t think of anywhere in London where it would be possible. You are lucky to get good game of Pooh Sticks on the River Crane.
Friday 15 October
There’s probably 3 things that Munich is internationally famous for: the Octoberfest, Bayern Munich and BMW. Europes biggest party starts on Saturday, just as we are leaving, so we will miss that. Football – ask anyone who knows me – is an alien world to me. Some people would say that I’m not interested in cars, so to confound them all, I went to BMW Welt.
Basically it is a big flashy car and motorbike showroom for the Munich monster of automotive engineering. It’s also free to get in, which is nice. They have most of the latest models of BMW, Rolls Royce and Mini cars there to be admired and purchased if you wish. It was interesting to get up close to massive status symbols, including a BMW with bodywork that changes colour. It looked very tacky, but I’m sure the young princes from the Gulf that rev up and down Kings Road would love one.
Lady Penelope’s Roller
I sat on an 1800cc Transcontinental motorbike, and it was very comfortable, as motorbikes go. It was quite good fun to look round for an hour, but the cars didnt really excite me much and wouldn’t look right in a Lidl carpark.
On ma new hog
BNW Welt (world) is next door to the Olympic Park, so we wandered around that. It was built for the 1972 Olympics on a site where all the rubble from the destruction of Munich in the war was built. The rubble was beautifully landscaped with hills and a lake, and still looks great 50 years later. We had lunch in a cafe in the Olympic pool where Mark Spitz won 6 Golds for swimming. My toasted cheese and ham focaccia was over-baked into a cheesy brick, but it was just about edible.
There is a 60 metre tall hill with great views over Munich and the BMW tower and factory. In the past it has been used for winter sports events. It is also made of rubble, and is about the same height as Richmond Hill. It’s a lovely place to sit on a bench and enjoy the views of the park and the BMW complex of buildings.
Some men like football, some like drinking large amounts of beer. My particular weakness is a science museum, and Munich has a bloody good one. The Deutsches Museum sits on an island in the river Isar, and matches the London Science Museum in size. There is a great aircraft and rocket section, I love a good rocket. The other surprisingly interesting department was on bridges and hydrology. It was full of astonishingly good models of bridges underconstruction. I now know how an 18th Century French basket-arch bridge is constructed, and if we ever meet you at a party I can tell you in detail.
My favourite exhibit was the first reinforced concrete building in Germany, which is a dog kennel. How bizarre.
Fortuntely they chucked us out at 5pm, or I would still be there now. I really am that geeky.
Julie and I went our separate ways in the museum because she is fed up with aeroplanes, but happily we were reconciled in the sunshine afterwards and she made me buy her an Aperol Spritz. I had a helles lager because I’m a cheap date.
The neighbours had a party at 2am last night, which kept us awake for hours. The bastards were having a really good time, and I wasnt! So we have been a bit tired and narky today.
It took just 2 hour from Gare L’Est station to Strasbourg, which in on the Rhine on the border with Germany. It has been part of Germany several times, so has a distinctive look and feel compared to Paris.
Our accomodation is a bit out of town, so we left our bags in left luggage and explored the city. The city centre feels spacious and prosperous, lots of it is pedestrianised and has more bikes and trams than cars. The old part of the city is encircled by rivers, and is full of old squares and quaint old buildings that look much more German than French. The River Ill surrounds the Grand Ile, which is a bit confusing.
The cathedral is quite spectacular and the tower in 142m, 466 feet tall. it was the tallest building in the world until 1874. But in the spirit of completeness I have to say that Lincoln Cathedral was 160m (525 ft) until 1548 when the spire fell down. So in my opinion Lincoln was the champion, but Strasbourg scored in extra time.
The city centre is very pretty and very busy with tourists, I think that Rhine cruises stops there, so lots of senior citizens all enjoy the city at the same time.
In the afternoon it was very hot (again) so we scuttled into a museum like crabs caught in the sunshine. The Rohan Museum is a fine building built for the Prince Bishops of Strasbourg, four of whom were from the Rohan family. The archeological museum in the pleasingly cool basement is worthy, full of Roman remains, but has all the fun of a February Sunday in the 1960’s i.e. a bit dull.
So we got our bags and hopped on the D line tram to our suburban i.e. cheaper flat. It’s fine, and has an Auchan supermarket nearby.
Sorry, I’m to hot and tired to write entertainingly this evening.
Sunday 10 September
Strasbourg is exceptionally pretty, with many half timbered buildings close to rivers and quaint squares lined with restaurants. We followed a recommended route on a map Julie got from the tourist information office near the cathedral. It went to all the most picturesque sites in the Grand Isle.
The district called Petite France has several bridges over the Ill river (it is ill, not 111 like Napoleon III). There river is fast moving so there are former water mills and a lock to let the Batobus tour boats get through.
There are 3 tall brick towers which were part of the fortications, and a Covered Bridge that no longer has a cover (it’s complicated).
The Barrage Vaudan is a dam with sluices in it which would allow defenders of Strasbourg to flood part of the city if it got invaded. It sounds bonkers to me, and clearly didn’t stop the Germans 3 times in 1870, 1914 and 1940.
We had a huge burger in the Abattoir bar, not the best name for an eating place, but the beef was very fresh.
After lunch we had a quick walk around Neustadt, the new district built by the Germans on grand imperial style after they took Stratsbourg in 1870.
Eet ees ver ver ot, as they say in French. So I am tapping this out with one finger in the Parc d’Orangerie, which is very beautiful. The gardens are in full bloom and the lawns look perfectly verdant.
Strasbourg has a fantastic public transport system of modern trams and buses and many cycle path. I got a 24 hour pass for trans and buses for 3.70 euros, which is cheap and convenient.
Monday 11 September
So what do you do when you have seen Strasbourg? You go to Colmar because it’s only 30 minutes away on the train and it’s like Strasbourg but condensed.
Also since we have our Interrail passes it’s very easy to take another journey. Basically I find the journey on the Interrail app, tap a digital switch and hey presto a digital ticket appears that I can show the train guard. Simples.
Colmar looks like a film set, the old town is full of colourful half timbered buildings with a picture perfect river running through it.
Versions of it have inspired villages in the films Beauty and the Beast and Howls Moving Castle, and many fairy tale books.
This is called the Pfister House. Honestly.
Consequently it is busy with visitors and those little tourist road trains that transport the less able and less slender around town.
It’s much smaller than Stratsbourg, so in 3 hours we had seen the town and had lunch. I thought I would try Choucroute for lunch, which I supposed to be a local speciality. It is a heap of sauerkraut with one potato, topped with 6 types of processed pork. I ate it all, I’m pleased I ate it, but I don’t want to eat it again.
Hot pig and salty cabbage mmmmm
Returning to Strasbourg we went to the Museum of Alsace which is housed in old houses by the River Ill. It was somewhere to go in the shade, and is a collection of rooms with old furniture and domestic furnishings in it. It was moderately interesting, but not exactly fun.
Go there if it’s raining, baking hot or if you love old French stoves.
We have been self catering quite a lot in our rented flats, it’s too expensive to eat out all the time. But I mustn’t moan, I’m having a wonderful time!
Alsace is a useful transition to Germany, and tomorrow we are going the whole hog (more bacon) and travelling to Munich.
So farewell lovely Siena! On Saturday morning it was yet another epic trolley bag drag about 30 minutes to the station, and then 10 more minutes just to get down the escalators. The 9.18 train to Empoli, so we got on at about 9, and it was half full already. More and more people got on with lots of luggage, and all the seats rapidly filled and then there was barely standing room left. The train slowed down several times, and then stopped a few miles from Empoli. There was vehicle damage at the level crossing and no trains could move. In the end we were an hour late, and there was no toilet!
Arriving at Empoli was an enormous relief! Then we got another train to Pisa, and a third one to Genoa. The last train went past Carrera where I could see the vast marble quarries, and the Cinque Terre, where we saw glimpses of the beaches between tunnels. I know we should have stopped there, but it’s expensive and Genoa has much more choice of accommodation.
Our flat is pleasingly close to Brignole station, so we were soon settled in an enormous 19th century apartment furnished in Ikea chic. It has a washing machine, which is brilliant for our smalls, and a freezer with ice for our drinks! It overlooks a busy street, and we can hear the trains going by, it reminds me of home.
Our first trip into Genoa was to find the Tourist Information Office. We do this in every city we visit to get hold of free maps and guides to the city, and the people are usually very helpful and speak good English. But to get to the Tourist Office we followed Google Maps which led us through the old town with very narrow quaint streets with tall buildings on either side.
Hang on, what’s that lady in a short skirt doing on the corner? Oh dear there are more ladies in tight clothing, actually there are dozens of them. Those blokes standing in doorways look very dodgy as well.
We won’t be taking that route in the future.
Sticking to the main streets we found our way to the seafront and the Porto Antico, the old harbour. Genoa was one of the Maritime Republics, and very rich from the 13th to the 18th centuries. The old harbour is blighted by modern edifices designed to make an impact in the 1990’s, but IMHO have blighted the area today. There’s a panoramic lift, which is quite bizarre, and the aquarium which is just fugly. It was Renzo Piano who designed the aquarium, he must have been having an off day.
But there was a restaurant on the harbourside selling burger and chips, and it was really really good, a taste of Good Old Ingerland.
Sunday 1 October
It was time to put our newly acquired maps to good use, so we followed a walking tour that promised us the highlights. Genoa is very different from Siena and Verona. The oldest part is next to the harbour with very tall houses (8 or 9 stories) and narrow streets. Beyond those there are the 16th to 18th palazzos where the richest merchants lived, and the the 19th and 20th century buildings.
Our first stop was Piazza Ferrari, a big square with a theatre and statue of Garibaldi on a horse. On the way home we walked through again and saw David Harewood having a drink on his own, he’s a very cool man.
Genoa has a beautiful Doges Palace, it’s not just Venice that had a Doge. There was an antique market going on inside, but my bag scarcely has enough spare room for a fridge magnet, so I won’t be bringing any vases home.
There were several churches on the route, with flamboyant baroque interiors clad in marble and gold. The rich in the days of old didn’t have cars or superyachts, so they spent their money on palaces and getting a place in heaven by funding churches.
Our route took us back to Porto Antico, which was packed with tourists, and we soon saw the reason why. There were 2 gigantic cruise liners moored up across the harbour. One of them, the MSC World Europe can carry 5,400 passengers, they must buy a helluva lot of pizzas!
Alongside the harbour, there were superyachts tied up, one of them called DAR cost $175m to build and costs $17m a year to operate. That’s just stupid big willy waving.
We ate lunch by the harbour, Julie had a deep fried calzone pizza. It was a bit strange, and probably not as good as a proper pizza.
In the afternoon we continued our walk to the Palazzo Real, which belonged to various aristocratic families and then the Italian Royal family. I’ve seen so many palaces I have got quite blase about them, I expect King Charles feels just the same. But it was nice and cool, and best of all, free.
This little fella is Crapula
Our last stop was the Funicolare Zecca Righi, which goes up the hill behind Genoa to a height of 279 metres. Its 1.5 km long and there are 7 stops on it, like a tram line up the hill. There is a forest park at the top, and a road along the old outer wall of Genoa which is dotted with forts. Of course there were fantastic views over Genoa city and the harbour. We could see the football stadium where Genoa were playing Udinese (2-2) , and we could hear the crowd cheering from the top of the hill.
Genoa is a much more interesting city than I knew it was. It has a fascinating history, but is not a “living museum” like Siena or Verona. It definitely has a rough edge, more like Liverpool than Bath.
Monday 2 October
I was woken up by a strange noise last night from next door, a woman whining loudly. I think the neighbours might have been..yer know. So I stuck my head under the sheet, focussed on the history of Genoese fortifications, and bored myself back to sleep.
Walls of Genoa
Genoa boasts of having the biggest aquarium in the Mediterranean, so we went to see it. I have seen a few, and it was quite good, but not the biggest or best. It was very popular though, and the children loved the pool where they could touch Rays. They feel like sandpaper by the way. I found out that tropical fish and manatees both like lettuce to eat, and swordfish appear to sleep at the bottom of tanks.
A sawfish having 40 winks
The aquarium.was designed by esteemed architect Renzo Piano, but it was not one of his finest works.
We had lunch at a stand up bar underneath a road. It was cheap and sustaining, and a bottle of Moretti was 1.5 Euros, result!
A YouTuber has recommended a walk to Bocadasse called the Corso Italia. The first part was down a busy road which was a bit grim.But it turned into a picturesque coastal walk past an excellent gelateria where we sat down in the shade for a cornet.
Bocadasse is a tiny former fishing village with a beach about 30 metres wide. It looks like one of those tiny Cornish villages, but instead of a pub selling Proper Job it has a bar selling Aperol Spritz. So we got one and it was the perfect drink for the situation.
We CBA to walk back to our flat, so bought bus tickets for the 31 from a tabacchi by the bus stop. Unfortunately we stood on the wrong side of the road and got the bus in the wrong direction, DOH!
We went for dinner at a restaurant about 10 minutes walk from the flat, and had seafood risotto and yet another Spritz. Living the high life in Italy.
Tuesday 3 October
This is our 4 week anniversary, the longest holiday we have had since Sri Lanka in 2017. Another recommendation I got from YouTube was Nervi, which is only 20 minutes away from Brignole station.
It was a great decision to go there. It’s a small fishing harbour within greater Genoa, but feels a hundred miles away. After watching a fisherman load his nets from a tub on the quay into his boat, we went for coffee on a terrace overlooking the sea.Just bloody lovely.
At the bottom of the cliff was a little stony beach and clear blue sea. I found a good spot on the beach and enjoyed my first swim of my holiday. It wasn’t exactly a swim, more of a bob around in the water and a few duck dives.
We ate in a little cafe within a supermarket, and it sold various types of focaccia, which is a delicacy in Genoa. I have some that was like Margarita pizza, but the base was light and airy, very delicious.
Walking beyond the harbour there is a promenade called the Parcheggio Anita Garibaldi, named after a Brazilian revolutionary and the wife of Guiseppi Garibaldi. It is a really beautiful walk along the coast that passes by a small castle, a few cafes and bathing beaches.
One spot where we sat is called the “stoves” because the sun heats up the dark stone in the cliff and it radiates heat. There is also a well kept park close to Nervi station, but we couldn’t sit for long because of the annoying flies, we were constantly flicking them away.
Northern France is tearing past at enormous speed as our Eurostar heads to Paris beneath a cloudless sky. Just about everyone we know have told us “you do know the Rugby World Cup is on in France, don’t you?”. I come from Twickenham, the most rugbyest place in the world, I think I can easily avoid the fans in Paris , like I have for the past thirty six years in my home town.
There are four fans sat across the carriage and they are all perfectly civilised and haven’t opened a single can of beer – yet.
Paris is the first leg of our big European adventure by rail, and the exciting thing is we don’t know exactly where we are doing. If there is rain in Austria, we won’t go there. A revolution in Slovenia? That can be bypassed. Outbreak of Black Death in Budapest? We will cross it off our list and take our trolley bags somewhere else.
The cafe on the train sold Metro tickets, so I bought ten of them for the next few days (£19.80 if you’re interested). At the Gare de Nord we swept past all the mugs queueing for tickets and smugly went straight to the Metro Line 5 ticket gate. The bastard machine would not let us through, I’m sure that it was thinking “Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries, I fart in your general direction”. Thus crestfallen, we queued for 45 minutes to exchange them for functioning tickets. Merde!
Our accommodation is on Rue Stendall, a few kilometres out of the centre. After dumping our bags we headed out into the very hot Parisian sunshine along Rue de Pyrenees. It is a very lively interesting Rue, lines with eating places and shops of all types.
We had a look around Bellville, which is hilly, diverse and has a shabby chic vibe like Hackney. Following a self-guided walk we found the Bellville Viewpoint, which is over 100 metres above Paris with great views of the city centre and the Eiffel Tower.
Conveniently there was a cafe next to it serving bier blonde, perfect. Having gathered an appetite from our walk we went back to Rue Pyrenees and found a little Italian restaurant and had pizza. On a hot evening I just can’t face frogs legs or snails.
Wednesday 6 September
Since it’s very hot today, we are on our way to the Coulee Verte Rene Dumont, a long elevated park on a former railway.
To get there we walked through Pere Lachaise cemetery, the biggest in Paris. It has many famous dead people in it, but sorry Jim Morrison I prefer seeing my rock stars alive. It has thousands of huge and impressive tombs. There is a direct relationship between the size of tomb and the size of ego. Yes Pharaoh Cheops I’m talking about you.
Fred Flintstones tomb
The cemetery covers a huge hillside and is worth a visit to marvel at the marble.
The Coulee Verte is perfect for a hot day, lovely gardens with benches in the shade. Ideal for people watching i.e making bitchy comments about people just after they have walked past. “I hope that’s her father and not her husband”, “sandals with socks just look stupid”, “too many croissants for breakfast I reckon”
Ah, the simple pleasures of life.
It was too hot to walk any more so we took the metro to the Musee Carnavalet. It is both free and cool (thermodynamically speaking) so ideal for a very hot afternoon. The museum is devoted to the history of Paris and it’s enormous, it’s on the scale of the V&A. I would recommend it to anyone who likes history and beautiful art. It has a cafe in a central garden, the prices are ridiculous but the museum is free.
The only catch is that it’s like a maze, and navigating the museum is a challenge. But worth it to see all the portraits of Revolutionaries who got their heads chopped off.
A short walk away is Place de Voges, which has to be the most perfect square of houses in the world. It has 17th century mansions on all sides and a public park in the middle.
Thursday 7 September
Today, we are mostly walking down Seine. The start was near Austerlitz Station, a battle where Napoleon beat the Austrians and Russians. Of course we have Waterloo Station named after the battle where we (plus Marshall Bluchers Prussians) beat the French. Napoleon dressed in a satin jump suit and sang “I was defeated you won the war”.
Enough of that bollocks.
Julie found a walk on the Paris Tourism website, which followed the Seine west (ish). The sun was beating down like an Essex tanning booth giving a pre-Benidorm booster tan. We admired all the magnificent sights along the river: the bridges, palaces, galleries etc etc. But after a while, yer know.. they get a bit..samey.
Lunch was a supermarket salad-in-a-box, sustaining but not the three courses plus wine in a bistro that I really fancied. The Seine has some really bloody big barges on it, they are the size of destroyers! I think that skiffing would not be sensible on the Seine. This one was hauling aggregate to make Lafarge concrete, it must save many truck journeys.
We had a quick look at the Notre Dame, which still hasn’t got a roof on it. The builder promised to get it finished by September, but apparently he has started another job down the road.
Next to the Musee D’Orsay is the snappily named “Musee National de la Legion d’Honneaur et des Orders de Chevalerie”. It was free, cooler than outside and had a toilet, so ticked all the boxes. It was stuff with stars, cloaks, chains, swords and medals that various kings and queens like to give to each other to boost their egos. My favourite was a goldie-looking-chain that Queen Vic gave to Louis Phillipe, King of the French. He is my bestest French monarch since he lived in Twickenham in Orleans House, when he was the Duc d’ Orleans.
“I used to live in Twickenham ma’am”
“Oh lovely, we go through it on the train to Windsor”
We made our way to the Eiffel Tower creeping in the shadows like Gollum, it was RF hot. The Tower is just like it is in the pictures, been there, done that.
This is my favourite photo of the day, a bronze Rhino outside the Musee d’Orsay. They say it’s good luck to tickle its testicles.
Friday 8 September
Yesterday was a bit exhausting, we walked about 10 miles in the heat. It didn’t cool down much overnight, so didn’t sleep well.
This morning we went to the epicentre of tourism in Paris, Montmartre. I’m sure it was a delightful hill top village a hundred years ago, now it is like Hampstead combined with Camden Lock. There are many restaurants and souvenir shops crammed into picturesque little streets and squares. We admired the view from Sacre Coeur, walked around a bit with the great unwashed masses and then decided to Get Outta Dodge.
At the bottom of the hill on Rue Tardieu I found Bella Italia (no, not that one). It was not busy, had an attractive menu (5’5″, 36 24 36) and a come hither look. Dear readers, I had the best meal I have eaten in Paris, an escalope of veal in a cream and mustard sauce with spaghetti on the side. But since it’s only the second meal I have eaten in a restaurant in Paris so far, it’s not a big survey.
Getting back on the Metro we we to Porte Dauphine at the end of the line to visit the Bois de Boulogne. I had visions of jeune fils riding bikes, handsome men playing tennis in whites, and cafes with biere blonde. What we got was like Barnes Common, but considerably larger and with more traffic. I had considered taking Julie rowing on the lake. but it was just too bloody hot for that kind of exertion, and I’m a hardened skiffer!
Julie found the Foundation Louis Vuitton on Google Maps, not far away down a busy road. It is a fantastic art gallery/performance space paid for by Bernard Arnault, who is one of the richest men in France. It was designed by Frank Gehry who designed the Guggenheim in Bilbao, and looks like a Sci Fi spaceship. We paid 4 Euros to go and have a look round, and it was well worth it. The building itself is a work of art, on multiple levels with outdoor terraces, reflecting ponds and a huge cascade down steps. The outside is constructed of 12 “sails” wrapping around an internal structure of steel and wooden glue laminated beams.
From there we took an electric shuttle bus through dreadful Parisian rush hour traffic to the Arc de Triomphe to get the metro back to Gambetta. Tonight we are giving our livers a night off and didn’t stop at the bar or buy any wine in Franprix. It’s a necessary nod towards healthy living, but takes a will of steel on a hot evening on holiday.
A 2CV in Montmartre, sadly the driver wasn’t wearing a beret or carrying a baguette.
The day before we were due to travel on the 7th June, there were storms in northern France which caused the cancellation of serveral Eurostar trains. Oh dear, slightly anxious. There was also an RMT strike which meant there were no Tube trains from Waterloo. Not reassuring either.
In the event we got a bus easily enough from Waterloo to St Pancras and the Eurostar was scheduled normally.
The terminal at St Pancras is packed with travellers going through security scanners and two passport checks for UK and France, so there are not enough seats for the hundreds of travellers plus all thier luggage. We found our seats on the 08.03 and charged through Kent and the tunnel, and were very soon in France. It only takes two and a half hours to get to the Gare du Nord in Paris, quite amazing really. The cafe on the train sold us a carnet of ten metro tickets for £15, tiny thin white tickets that I was warned not to put next to a mobile phone because it can wipe the magnetic strip. Not very convenient since tickets and phone are often co-located in ones trouser pocket.
From Gare du Nord we took the metro to Gare du Lyon, a double-decker train which only took ten minutes. Then we trailed our suitecases a few hundred metres to our hotel in Rue d’Austerlitz, the appropriately named Timhotel. The room had three beds in it, a tiny shower room and about three square metres for everything else. I reckon you would get more space in Solitary Confinement. But it was clean and convenient.
So we got our phones out and used Google maps to find the Seine and walked there in ten minutes. The weather was warm and sunny and we were in Paris!
Ile de la Cite
I first visited paris in 1975 on a hitchhiking expedition with my school friend Peter Cotterill. We camped in the Bois de Boulogne, got extremely drunk on very cheap red wine and threw up in the tent. My rucksack was stained pink for many years after that. Paris is a very different place to what it was then. The biggest hazard then was getting pranged by a battered 2CV when looking in the wrong direction crossing the road. It was likely that the 2CV would come off worse because they are made of cheese and run on olive oil.
Today you need to look out for cars, vans, electric sooters, electric bikes and nutters on electric unicycles listening to their phones. We are not in Kansas now Toto!
We walked up the Seine and soon reached the Ile de la Cite and the Notre Dame. The old lady was clad in a garment of scaffolding and hoardings, and rang with the noise of hammers and drills. Hundreds of workers are working to restore the cathedral by the 2024 Paris Olympics, which I think is a very ambitious target. But Mr Macron has said it will happen and possibly the guillotine awaits the project manager if he doesn’t deliver.
Me and Our Lady
Opposite Notre Dame in the Palace de Justice, and imposing edifice guarded by CRS cops in black combat gear holding machine guns. On the northern side the building still has the medieval towers from when it was a stronghold of the French kings.
CRS guarding the Palais de Justice
The Ile as a few tiny residential streets. The Rue Chanoinesse has cafes and pretty houses, and no doubt it is a very exclusive address.
Latin Quarter
We crossed over the river and went into the Latin Quarter and found a corner cafe to get some lunch.
At the time we didnt know we were in the Latin Quarter. We were still in the Wherethefuckarewe stage of exploring Paris, and knackered from getting up before the millkman and the breakfast news presenters.
I had a Salad Nicoisse for lunch, which is French for rabbit food, with tinned fish. It was tasty but insubstantial, so I followed it rapidly with a caramel flovoured icecream in a cone from another cafe.
I kept trying to speak the French, which I learned when I was twelve, but everyone just replied in English.
“Un glace with caramel mercy monsieur”
“Would you like that in a cup or a cone?”
“ err.. a cone, mercy”
I got out my Dorling Kindersley Guide to Paris and figured out where we were and found out it was a hub for revolting students in 1968. No doubt they are all grey-haired grandparents who enjoy a quiet joint in the garden. Now it is a lively area full of cafes , bistros and bars (although don’t ask me to define what the difference is between them).
At the top of the hill is the Pantheon, and massive domed mausoleum for the good and the great. Napoleon wasn’t enthusiastic about the Catholic church, but did enjoy being the Emperor of Europe and all the Roman style trappings that went with it. So the Pantheon looks like a church, but it ain’t a church, it’s a temple to all the gods. Nonetheless it looks splendid and there is a view from there to the Eiffel Tower in the distance.
The Pantheon
We walked back to the Siene through the Sorbonne and many more busy cafes full of hungry tourists.
Marais
Crossing back to the north side of the river we walked past the tres grande Hotel d Ville and diverted form out route back to Timhotel to see the Pompidou Centre. It looks a bit scruffy and unloved now, not the cutting edge inside-out innovation it was in the Eighties. But the diversion took us through a colourful part of Marais which is very lively. I spotted a bar selling Aperol Spritz for six Euros, so we sat down, I love a bargain! It had a pair of silver underpants underneath the glass on the table, which I haven’t seen before. The clientele had little fluffy dogs and tight crop-tops, a refreshing change from the Sussex Arms in Twickenham. It was good to take the weight off our feet, enjoy a cocktail and watch the interesting people. One of the little dogs had its tail curled up in the air with an exposed bottom, so it looked like a walking pencil sharpener.
Aperol SpritzSilver Pants on the table
Julie had found a restaurant that was recommended by the Guardian. I cant’t remember its name, my brain is trying to wipe out the memory because it was SO SHIT!
We had a reservation but it wasn’t necessary because it was deserted. They didn’t have a menu, the waiter (who was very friendly in a devilish way) brought over the blackboard with a list of dishes. I had the poulet roti and chips, Julie ordered a poke bowl with salmon.
My food was adequate, Julie’s had a nominal amount of salmon in it, the bloody bastards! The waiter offered me a choice of about three beers and I chose the one that I had heard of, Leffe Blonde. When we got the bill I found it was the most expensive pint I HAD EVER BOUGHT at 11.50 Euros, the bloody thieving bastards. I’m just going to pretend it never happened and forget it now.
I was so annoyed I had to go to a supermarket and buy some wine (at a reasonable price). Of course they all had corks in since the French dont like screw caps, and I had to buy a cork screw to get at the wine.
At about 10pm we got the metro back to Gare du Nord and met Josie off the Eurostar, and we all squeezed in to our bijou hotel room together. It was hot and fragrant.
Place de Voges – Wednesday 8 June
On Wednesday it was drizzling when we awoke and worse weather was forecast. Consequently Josie was a little grumpy, she wasn’t going to get to wear the shorts she had brought with her and get her legs brown. I suggested we walk to the Place de Voges, which I remembered as being a good place to visit from the last time we went to Paris, sixteen years ago.
En route to the Place we stopped off at Coulee Vert Rene Dumont, very close to the Rue de Lyon. It is a former elevated railway track that has been converted into a linear park, and it is very lovely. We walked a short way along it, but it wasn’t going in the right direction for us.
Walking in the rain in Paris
By the time we got there the drizzle had stopped and the sun was out which lifted our moods. The Place de Voges is beautifully complete and symmetrical, thirty six houses of elegance and style, nine on each side of the square with a garden in the middle. The original Covent Garden in London was built in the same way, but only remnant are left now. Beneath the houses is a colonnade filled with galleries selling contemporary art, which was colourful and original. At Number 6 is the final home of Victor Hugo, the giant of French literature best know for Les Miserables and the Hunchback of Notre Dame. It is a lovely little museum dedicated to his memory, with a cafe in a small garden.
Place de Voges
On the way out of the Place some young people were handing out boxes of salad. At first we thought they were selling them, then we realised they were free, so we went back PDQ and got some for out lunch later on.
The French have gone right up in my estimation, not only do they speak English now, but they give away free food! But I still haven’t forgiven the charming waiter who used his magic on me and made me buy a pint for ten quid!
Louvre
It was a direct walk from the Place to the Louvre down the Rue de Rivoli, which has a great number of shoe shops, and Josie stopped to look at many of them. She is going to a wedding in September and wants to be well shod.
I have read in guides that the Louvre is big, but it isn’t big it’s absolutely vast. It was originally a mediaeval castle, then a royal palace and later an imperial palace. Now it is the most famous museum in the world, and its accolades are well deserved.
We went through airport style security on the way in, which did not stop someone getting through with cream cakes which were flung at the Mona Lisa last week. At first we were quite confused by the multiple wings and multiple floors, and so chose the nearest wing to the entrance and went in there. A corridor led to the footings of the original castle walls, and we stood where the bottom of the moat would have been originally. Walking in a rather aimless fashion we went into many rooms of Egyptian antiquities, followed by Greek and Roman stuff. There was enough to supply the national museums of numerous countries. When Napoleon conquered Egypt, he came home with a huge bag of loot.
After a few normal sized galleries of paintings we reached a wing which was simply goddamned enormous, hundreds of metres long and containing thousands of paintings. It was quite gobsmacking (a word I used very rarely) in its extent and riches.
Some of the pictures took up an entire wall, such as Jesus at the Wedding in Cana, where he did his water into wine tricks.
Because we were in the vicinity Josie and I nipped in to see the Mona Lisa. We stood at the back of a huge crowd in front of a small painting of a bored looking Italian woman. I saw it at a distance but now have boasting rights, and that’s OFFICIAL.
The Louvre. The tiny picture with the huge crowd is Moaning Lisa
After a few hours we escaped from the Louvre with culture literally dripping out of our ears, gushing in fact, like a river of cleverdickyness. The Arc de Triomphe was a mile or so away and we started walking towards it, but Julie had a much better idea and suggested going to the Galeries Lafayette on Boulevard Hausman to see the view from the top.
The route took us close to the Elysee Palace, which was swarming with scary looking CRS toting mean-looking machine guns. Not long after we passed L’eglise de la Madeleine which is sodding huge church that looks like a copy of the Acropolis, but is on a street in Paris. It deserves to be on the top of a hill like the Pantheon, but is tucked away.
After a bit of hunting on Google Maps we got to Galeries Lafayette, a big smart department store like Selfridges . After travelling up seven escalators we reached a terrace on the roof with the most splendid views of Paris, it really is breathtaking. And free. That’s the really good part, since the Eiffel Tower was fully booked and it’s about eighteen Euros to go up the Arc de Triomphe.
Galeries Lafayette and the view from the top
We dined in the Bouillon Chartier in Montmartre, a place that Paola Guruchaga had recommended. It was packed like a Spoons on a match day, heaving with hungry Parisians. I had herring to start followed by steak and chips, which was slightly chewy, but tasty. The service was a bit brusque, but efficient. When we ordered the waiter wrote on the paper tablecloth what we had ordered, and added it all up at the end.
Versailles – Thursday 9 June
Julie and I weren’t going to visit Versailles, because we had visited many royal palaces during our travels over the years in France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Austria and Portugal. But Josie really wanted to go, so we did!
We got the train from Austerlitz station, just across the river from where we were staying. It takes about forty minutes along the Seine and though the suburbs to reach Versailles., which is quite a pretty town in itself.
The palace of Versailles is the biggest in Europe, and makes Hampton Court look like a country cottage. It was originally built as a hunting lodge by Louis XIII, but it was his son Louis XIV who expanded it massively. At one time there may have been up to 10,000 people living there, many of them were the nobility that Louis liked to keep close to him. He was absolute monarch and could do whatever he liked.
the Palace of Versailles
Touring the palace is often a shuffle through the many state apartments and royal apartments. They are all sumptuously furnished and decorated, and there are many of them. Louis XIV liked to style himself The Sun King, that is the centre of the universe. He had a gigantic ego, and there are very many statues and paintings of him, all over the place.
After shuffling from room to room behind a lively party of school kids, it does get a bit tiring. There is only so much gold, silk and marble you can take.
The Hall of Mirrors is impressive, a long gallery lined with, er, mirrors. Louis persuaded some mirrors makers to come from Murano in Venice, where the secret had been held for many years.
The Hall of Mirrors
I was very pleased to see some pictures of former Twickenham resident Louis Philipe, who was made King of the French in 1830, the boy done well. He created a museum inside the place, mostly glorifying Napoleonic victories.
Photo-bombed by Josie
The gardens are also enormous, and they were designed by Louis’ gardener Andre le Notre. They are mostly formal parterres and ponds with fountains. Since Versailles is on a hill, supplying it with water was an enormous feat of engineering.
A small part of the gardens
In the evening after tramping round the palace and having another massive dose of culture, we were knackered. So we went to almost the closest restaurant to the hotel and I had excellent fish and chips and a beer. Typical French food.
Nice – Friday 10 June
Friday was another early start, the alarm went off at 6am. We dragged our tired arses and out bags to the Gare de Lyon to get the Ouigo TGV to Nice. Ouigo is the cheap no-frills train to the south. Its cheap, but extra for bigger bags and choice of seats, and no catering on the train, so we stocked up from Pret at the station in advance.The train was actually more comfortable than Eurostar, a double decker which was spacious and with room under the seats to stash small bags.
Ouigo train for Nice at the Gare de Lyon
The train travelled extremely fast, about two hours to Lyon and three hours to Marseilles. Between Marseilles and Nice it was relatively slow, but the views of the Med were stunning. It took just under six hours to get to Nice, not as fast as flying but not as Earth destroying either.
It was hot and sunny when we arrived, and has remained that way ever since. Our AirBNB apartment is on Boulevard Deboucharge, an attractive tree lined street of nineteenth century mansion blocks. It is on the sixth floor, and has a big balcony with views of the ruins of the castle in the distance and views of the rooftops of the old town.
By the way I Googled Deboucharge and it means uncorking or unblocking. You can get a deboucharge service to unblock your toilet. Interesting, eh?
The flat had a washing machine and a big terrace, so we did all our laundry, domestic bliss in Nice.
Our terrace plus laundry
The flat is owned by a designer, so it’s full of tasteful furnishings and objects, very different from the cheap and practical Ikea furnishings we have experienced in Spain.
After a drink on the balcony we found the nearest Carrefour supermarket to do some shopping. I now know that they come in different sizes, City, Express and Market, like Tesco. We were happy to cook our own food, since we had eaten out for dinner every night in Paris. I fried some Merguez sausages that we ate with green beans and salad and a bottle of local Rose wine, very tasty.
The flat has rolling shutters on the lounge and bedroom window, so we could get the room really dark at night and keep the rooms darker and cooler in the day when we are out.
Too knackered to do much that evening, so we stayed in and watched Rocketman on the TV. Ive seen it three times now, and it’s a great film.
Vieux Nice – Saturday 11 June
The old town of Nice is a fifteen minute walk south of the flat, at the foot of the hill where the castle once sat. It has belonged to France, Italy, Sardinia Piedmont and Savoy at various times in its history. It looks like a small Italian town, with narrow winding roads and alleys and steps leading up to the castle hill. It is vividly painted in terracotta, yellow and white, and crammed with eating places and souvenir shops. There is no question that it is very pretty, but it’s also a bit tacky in places. It has a similar vibe to other tourist hot spots like Dubrovnik and Carcassone, the rich history draws visitors in a spoils it a little as well.
Vieux Nice
Vieux Nice is gorgeous, and away from its centre it still feels like a small Mediterranean town.
To reach the old town we walked along the Parc du Paillon, a longitudinal park where the River Paillon once flowed. It has petanque courts, children’s playgrounds with climbing frames in the form of animals, and a huge water play area with about ninety fountains squirting up from a massive paved area. It was occupied by swarms of small children running around in the water having a helluva good time. I wanted to join in, but Julie wouldn’t let me.
The Park Du Paillon
The old town is quite small, about a kilometre square, but densely packed with shuttered 17th and 18th century block of flats, cafes, bars and churches. Near the seafront is the Cours de Saleya which has a market selling fruit, vegetables and flowers. But you wouldn’t want to go there to feed your family, it makes Waitrose look like a bargain.
We had a cafe creme and explored many of the narrow streets. I bought a new man-bag because the one I bought six years ago was worn out and looked a bit embarrassing in chic Nice. I like to have one for my phone and bottle of water, also somewhere to put my hat when I go in a cafe.
There is a small cathedral dedicated to Saint Reparate, a teenaged girl from Palestine who was beheaded as a martyr. Her body was put into a boat which was blown by angels breath to Nice, and she became the patron saint. An unlikely story, but our national saint slayed a dragon didn’t he? It is a lovely building to visit, and very peaceful in the busy Place Rossetti.
We had lunch in the Restaurant la Claire Fontaine, a damned fine pizza.
After lunch we ascended the hill to see the ruins of the castle, which Louis XIV had knocked down. There are wonderful views over the old town on one side and the port on the other. There is also a cafe that sells cold beer, mmmmm.
I cooked dinner at the flat and in the evening walked along the Promenade des Anglais on the seafront. It is a seven kilometre promenade which was started in 1822 by the Reverend Lewis Way, an English vicar who was one of the many ex-pats living in Nice for the winter. It has been widened and lengthened over the years, and is a wonderful place to stroll in the cool of the evening and watch people.
Julie on the Promenade des Anglais
Cimiez – Sunday 12 June
English tourists “discovered” Nice in the nineteenth century, visiting in the winter when the weather was much better than in England. They didn’t want to stay near the coast when it may be stormy, so went up hill to the district of Cimiez. It is a district of Belle Epoque villas and grand hotels, now turned into apartments. It’s a pretty area but up a substantial hill, hard work in the hot sun.
The grandest hotel was the Regina Excelsior where Queen Victoria stayed for five winters in the 1890’s. She called herself Lady Balmoral, and took over a complete wing for her one hundred staff including Indian soldiers and kilt-wearing bagpipe Scots Guards.
The Regina Excelsior Hotel with a statue of Queen Victoria
We went up to Cimiez to see the Roman remains and the Matisse museum, which are both in Jardins des Arenes de Cimiez. The Roman ruins are the remains of Cemenelum, a city which was the capital of the Alpes Maritime province for a while. Mostly it is just foundations that are visible, but there is a big part of a bathhouse still standing after 1700 years. It didn’t take long to look round the ruins, and there is also a museum of artefacts found in digs. All the captions are in French, and they aren’t very exciting. I have been to much better Roman museums, such as the one in Arles.
The Roman bath house of Cemenelum
The Matisse Museum is really good, a modern concrete structure that joins into a seventeenth century villa which was originally called the Villa Gubernatis. Matisse lived in Nice from 1917 until he died in 1954. In his later years he was bed-bound, and would paint using a brush on the end of a long stick.
It has a big collection of his paintings, drawings and sculptures from all stages of his long career. We were very lucky that a new exhibition opened two days earlier showing pictures by David Hockney side by side with similar pictures by Matisse. It is a superb collection of pictures, both artists are masters of their craft and have a similar way of looking at the world.
Hockney draws using an iPad very skilfully, and many of his pictures of vases of flowers were on display.
Hockney iPad drawing
We had dinner at the flat, merguez sausages (again) and salad, very tasty.
Later on we walked through the old town to the promenade, and then round the castle hill to the port. This was dug out in the nineteenth century, before that fishermen just pulled their boats up the beach. It is full of motor yachts, a couple of naval boats and a few fishing boats.
Monaco – Monday 13 June
Monaco is the next city east towards Italy, so we had to go. Every Englishman should visit Monte Carlo at least once and pretend to be James Bond.
We walked to the Port and looked for the bus stop for the 100 bus. There was a big queue when we arrived, so didn’t get on the first bus, but got on the next fifteen minute later. It was a big bendy bus, and it was full.
The bus route is very beautiful, especially going past the bay where Villefranche sur Mer sits. It fulfils all the images of the Cote D’Azur, with terracotta roofs, palm trees, sandy beaches, yachts and a cruise liner in the bay.
It takes about forty five minutes to reach Monaco, round lots of bends along the coast, but there were some extraordinary views of the coast. Once you are here you can understand that it is the playground of the rich.
We got off the bus at Place d’Ames bus stop and walked to a small square called Condamine for a coffee (too milky and too expensive). There is also an indoor market where we bought reasonably priced rolls for lunch. From there we walked up a footpath to the Prince’s palace at the top of the hill. The entire state covers 0.8 of a square mile, and is the most densely populated state in the world. It’s like Hong Kong on the Med, with many apartment blocks going up the hills surrounding town centre. The state has expanded by 20% dues to land reclamation, and there is more going now.
Monaco has been ruled by the Grimaldi family since 1297, who later founded the town of Grimsby famous for its fishing port. Nah only joking! They were from Genoa in Italy. The present ruler in Albert II whose mum was Holywood actress Grace Kelly.
Monaco is so attractive to rich people because there is no income tax. The Rich do need to have $500,000 in “liquid assets” to qualify for residency, so they need half a mill just sitting in their account to stay. Albert and his buddies make their money from 20% VAT, and those rich folk do spend a lot of money.
The Prince’s palace is a mansion which has had a Gothic work over with some castellations added to it. We got there just in time for the changing of the guard, which wasn’t spectacular. There was a small band and about a dozen white uniformed guards who marched in and changed places with the other guards.
I nipped into a shop to buy a Coke and got a decent fridge magnet for a Euro. Monaco is cheap for fridge magnets!
The Port Hercule is where all the superyachts dock. One of the swankiest is Lionheart which is owned by millionaire tax evader Philip Green. It is huge and ostentatious, like the man himself. We walked around the harbour and saw workers taking down the stands for the Grand Prix. I’m told it is boring because there is no room for cars to overtake each other.
The town is built on the side of a hill, so there are public lifts and escalators for getting between levels.
The casino is in the Monte Carlo district of the town, and it was designed by Garnier who build the Opera in Paris. It’s a grand confection of marble and gilding, Louis XIV would feel very at home. You can go in the foyer and take pictures, but it’s ten Euros to enter the actual casino to waste your money.
Monaco – we have all seen it at the cinema. I’m at the Grand Prix course
We took the train back to Nice, which was very busy, but it only took fifteen minutes.
That night it was the Strawberry Moon, an extra large full moon. It looked beautiful rising over the castle hill.
The Strawberry Moon
Villefranche Sur Mer – Tuesday 14 June
The French have great double-decker trains, but its really bloody hard to get a ticket! At Nice station this morning I could not buy a ticket from an actual person, only from a machine. Some of the machines are ancient, complicated, and take ages. I had French people asking me how to use those electronic heaps of crap.
I got QUITE ANNOYED with the ticket machines, Julie calmly bought tickets using the Trainline app. She is a miracle, my wife. But once you get on the French train they are very comfortable.
We only went about three miles and two stops to Villefranche Sur Mer, which is like Kylie Minogue, small and very pretty. The town sits at the end of a bay between the Cape of Nice and Cap Ferat, where the water is ninety five metres deep. So it has been a harbour for everyone passing by in a ship, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Genoese, French, Italians and so on. The US Sixth Fleet anchored there until De Gaulle took France out of Nato.
Villefranche sur Mer is very lovely
There is a sandy beach, which Nice doesn’t have, and a pretty harbour lined with cafes. I had a swim, while Julie sat on a bench in the shade, she doesn’t like sand!
The town looks quite Italian, with tall yellow and terracotta houses with shuttered windows, like Old Nice. It is very photogenic, great photo shots around every corner.
We descended into the Rue Obscure, which is a very old street that got built over, and is now a tunnel beneath houses.
On the way back to Nice we stopped at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. I felt the same about that as I do about the Tate Modern and the Guggenheim in Bilbao, love the building, but don’t like the art. It appears to me that you don’t need talent to create art in that genre, just lots of confidence to convince people that what you have created is art. Like Marcel Duchamp’s urinal.
Daft poses on the roof of MoMA
There is a very good roof terrace on the museum roof, which makes it worth the visit. I reckon I can do art, so I took some pictures of us in various daft poses. As Paul Calf probably said “modern art – it’s a bag ‘o shite”.
Antibes – Wednesday 15 June
Another train trip, going west this time to Antibes. Like Nice, it is an ancient settlement, founded by the Phoenicians. Today it is a very popular tourist destination with excellent beaches and a vast marina called Port Vauban.
Our first stop was at Boulangerie de le Gare for a really really good coffee and a delicious Pain au Raisin, (the only sort of pain I enjoy). Then we walked through town to the Plage du Ponteil, which was almost perfect. It has soft sand sloping gently into a calm sea, and plenty of space for me to lay down my towel and poke my sun umbrella into the sand.
Julie doesn’t like sand, so she found a bench in the shade very close by and listened to Music for the Cote D’Azure on Spotify.
It was heavenly.
I bobbed around in the warm sea for a while, and contemplated on my good fortune.
Plage de Ponteil in Antibes
We went for lunch to the Golden Beef Steak House. It sounds like a steak restaurant on the M6, but actually the food was superb. The Plat de Jour was Brochettes de Boeuf, which is beef on a skewer. The beef was tender, juicy and very flavoursome, and went down very well with a glass of Rose for 15.80 euros.
It does what is says on the label
After lunch Julie went to the Picasso museum and I didn’t, as I have said earlier Modern Art doesn’t work for me. So I had a wander around the town and failed to understand how to buy tomatoes in the supermarket. I had to weigh the tomatoes and put a sticker on them, but couldn’t figure that out. I thought “fuck it, i can do without them tonight”
Port Vauban is just outside the mighty town walls of Antibes, named after Louis XIV architect who designed the fortifications of the town. The port is full of yachts, motor yachts and super yachts. The biggest are ostentatious displays of wealth that mostly just sit there doing bugger all while their owners make money out selling snake oil.
But the port does have a very cool sculptor of a seated figure made out of letters of the alphabet welded together.
A man of letters at Port Vauban
Antibes also has many beautiful squares full of lively restaurants, it’s a very attractive town.
Nice (again) – Thursday 16 June
Having spent almost a week in Nice, I now have a grasp of the basic geography and can find my way round the patch of Nice where we are staying. Before smart phones I got hold of a map and found my way round, and my mental map was soon developed.
We walked through the Promenade du Paillon, which used to be the main river of Nice before it became unsanitary and was paved over. It is now an attractive longitudinal park, like the long park in Valencia which was a river.
The Paillon leads down to the Promenade des Anglais, which runs along the shoreline, and is the perfect place for flaneaurs (wanderers) enjoyed the sea view. The beach is shingly, like Brighton, but the water is much much warmer than the English channel. Sun-lovers had their beach towels at at 10am on the public sections. There are also private sections where you pay thirty Euros to get for your lounger and umbrella, and then have to buy their food and drink. A luxury option my pocket did not stretch to.
Luxury hotels line the Promenade, and the poshest is the Negresco with liveried doormen looking after clients big cars. Next to the hotel is the Villa Massena Museum, which we read about and thought didn’t sound very interesting, but decided to give it a try. It was very hot and it would be nice to go somewhere cool. In actuality the museum was very good and worth the visit. It was built in th 1890’s for the grandson of Marshall Massena, a hero of the Napoleonic wars, and became a museum in 1921 . The ground floor preserves the original Second Empire decoration and furnishings, with huge portaits of battles and muilitary figures. The upper floors are a museum of Nice life. I enjoyed the prints of old Nice showing fishing boats on the short and the bridge over the Paillon river. From the 1820s Nice became a very popular winter resort for nobility from all over Europe, and they had plenty of money for palatial villas and grand hotels.
The ground floor of Villa Massena
The museum also has beautiful gardens with palm trees, yer don’t get them at the V&A!
Julie dans le jardin
Later in the afternoon I went down to the sea near the old town and went for a swim. I wore my water shoes so I could walk on the cobbles without discomfort. The sea was warm and calm and very refreshing.
Nice is a very beautiful city due to its warm climate, its coastline and its extravagant belle epoque architecture. It is an expensive place to visit, but its worth it.
I saw this public toilet in the old town, the graffiti made me smile “I piss therefor I am”.
Avignon – Friday 17 June
We took the 08.40 from Nice Ville to Marseilles, and the train was almost full since it runs through the seaside towns of Antibes and Cannes. It takes three hours to reach Marseilles, where we waited half an hour for the train to Avignon.
Avignon is on the River Rhone and has a medieval old town surrounded by walls. It is most famous (to ignoramuses like me) for its bridge because of the popular children’s song. Our AirBnb was a short walk from the station on the Boulevard de Replais, quite close to the city walls. These are very high and mostly intact, but you can’t walk along them like York or Chester.
It was 37 degrees centigrade when we arrived at the flat, too hot to do anything much, so we sat in the shade in the lovely patio which is planted with palms, yucca and lemon trees.
Our patio in Avignon
Our friend Bernard arrived on his BMW motorbike after riding down from Twickenham with an overnight stay in Troyes. We went out to dinner in Place l’Horloge in the centre of the old town. It is a long rectangular area with many restaurants to choose from. They all had big umbrellas with water misters clouding cool water over the diners.
I chose Cassoulet, which was extremely underwhelming. Instead of being a rich casserole of Toulouse sausage, duck and haricot beans, it tasted like a tin of beans with a small sausage and lump of duck shoved in it. Pah! It filled a gap but wasn’t good.
The old town has many winding pedestrianised streets full of cafes, bistros and restaurants. Don’t ask me to define what they are, I don’t know, they are all French eating houses. We had drinks in the Pipeline, a pub on Rue Jean Jaures that has a very good variety of beers; French, German and English at reasonable (compared to Paris and Nice) prices.
Saturday – 18 June
It’s another 33 degree centigrade day in Avignon! Luckily our flat has thick walls and has air conditioning. There is a Tourist Information office in Jean Jaures, and the charming lady there gave us a map of Avignon with interesting things on it. So we followed a route around the old town, which was very pretty and very quiet, considering it was Saturday morning.
The Rocher Des Doms is a small hill overlooking the Rhone with a pretty park called Jardin des Doms at the top. It has a perfectly located cafe next to a pond that sold cold beer. After a few hours in the heat it was very welcome. We liked it so much we stayed for lunch and had quiche and salad for lunch.
Earlier we had bought tickets to the Palais des Papes for 13.30, so we walked down the hill into the square in front of the Palais. The Palais is a massive gothic building, more like a castle than a palace. It was built for the French Popes who ruled over the Catholic Church from Avignon between 1309 and 1377, and cost a large part of their annual income to construct. It has huge chapels, refectories and a treasury, and was where the Pope met heads of state from all over Christendom.
Beautiful and very hot Avignon
We had fancy electronic audio guides which looked like tablets, that told us all about the different rooms. Its a huge place, so there were lots of steps to go up and down. It is very impressive, and it was quite a relief being out of the sun.
The Palais is close to the bridge, the Pont Saint Benezet. Except it isn’t a bridge because it does not reach the other side of the river Rhone. It was started in 1234, and originally had twenty two stone arches. The Rhone is split by an island, so the bridge had two sections to cross both parts of the river. But it kept falling down during floods, and was not rebuilt after 1644.
So we walked down the bridge at the hottest part of the day, grateful for the breeze but holding on to our hats because of the strong wind.
Nimes – Sunday 19 June
Julie was looking at the Trainline app and got us train tickets to Nimes for one Euro for each journey, a very good deal! We left at 08.30 and it took about forty minutes travelling through the scorched Provence countryside.
Nimes is a beautiful small city, with a very rich Roman history. It was a Roman colony (like Lincoln) and had a seven kilometre wall around it built by the Emperor Augustus. Not him personally, he wasn’t that handy with a hammer and chisel. The city is full of graceful boulevards lined with shady plane trees.
I found the Tourist Information and got a map with the major attractions. The biggest and closest was the amphitheatre. This Roman arena is in remarkably good condition with complete walls, which the Colosseum does not. We paid for a tour and were given a plan of the amphitheatre plus a fat electronic pen. When we reached a particular numbered location, I would put the tip of the pen over the corresponding number on the plan, and the pen would talk to me! At each location there was a continuing story about the place read out by actors, it was all about the gladiatorial games and different types of gladiator.
When we visited there were technicians setting up a stage for a pop music performance in the arena that evening. Later on in the season Sting and Deep Purple were performing, in a stadium over two thousand years old!
The town centre is very pretty, built of pale limestone with pale green shutters. There is an excellent indoor market, Les Halles with beautiful fruit, vegetables, fish cheese and charcuterie stalls.
We bought a picnic lunch and walked to the Maison Carree, which is a complete Roman temple that is still standing. It is in unbelievably good condition, and stands on a tall plinth in the midst of a square. When we arrived there was a large group of people dressed in bedsheet togas sitting on the steps. I don’t know what they were doing, but it looked like fun!
Roman Nimes, it’s very impressive
The Jardins de la Fontaine is one of the first municipal gardens built in France. The lower sections are formal gardens like those of a chateau, with plane trees shading stone benches. Then it rises up a hill with winding paths through woodland.
At the top is the Tour Magna, a ruined Roman tower may have been a watch tower, but no-one knows for sure. It has a modern staircase to the top and splendid views of Nimes.
On the way to the station I spotted a scooter called a Kisbee, so I took a picture with Bernard Kisby.
The Bernard Kisbee
We got the 15.30 train back to Avignon and then slumped in the garden, it was still very hot!
Villeneuve Lez Avignons – Monday 20 June
On the last day in Avignons we didn’t want to travel far, so we walked over the Rhone to Villeneuve (new town) les Avignons. The village built up at the opposite side of the mediaeval bridge from Avignon, and was originally in the Kingdom of France, whereas Avignon was in the Papal States.
At the place where the bridge formerly terminated on the “French” side there is a big stone tower called the Tour de Bel Philippe, Philip the Fairs Tower. A short walk from the tower is the village of Villeneuve. It is postcard pretty, with narrow streets and a square with cafes and a big church. The church has a cloister, so perhaps it was an abbey.
Just out of the village centre we saw a sign for the Chartreuse, so we followed it in. A cobbled approach leads to a Carthusian monastery. Not a ruin, like all those in Britain, but a complete monastery within all the buildings intact.
The Carthusian order was founded in 1084 by Bruno of Cologne in the Chartreuse mountains of France. The name Carthusian comes from Chartreuse, as does the English name for the order, Charterhouse.
Poor choice of repair materials
The old monastery was a great place to wander around on a very hot day and see the church, refectory, monks’ cells, laundry and other parts of the community.
The is a big castle on a hill above the monastery called Fort St Andre also founded by Bel Philipe, but we couldn’t summon the energy or motivation to visit it.
Fort St Andre
So we walked over the bridge to the Ile de Barthelasse, past the campsite and took the free foot ferry back to Avignon. We shared the boat with a group of very excited school children. We got a very good view of Avignon pier, well it ain’t a bridge is it?
It’s not a bridge
Julie and Bern went back to the flat, and I walked to the Petite Palais Musee which is coles to the Palais de Papes. The paintings were all mediaeval religious images, which I’m not interested in, so I had a quick tour round and then went back to the flat for a cold beer.
Avignon to London – Tuesday June 21
The alarm went off at 05.15 after a bad night’s sleep” in a hot bedroom. Our Airbnb host booked a taxi for us, which arrived on the dot at 06.00. It took five minutes to reach the TGV station, so we had loads of time before our Oiugo train arrived at 06.50.
The trip to Lille was uneventful and extremely fast, just under five hundred miles in just under four hours. We spent a couple of hours in Lille, which is interesting but I wouldn’t call it beautiful. The paving is all stone sets, so it was very noisy pulling a trolley case. The cathedral was completed in the 1990’s and is huge and very plain. I think they ran out of money at the end of the building process.
The train to St Pancras took less than ninety minutes, and it was hot in London when we arrived on the day of a train strike. So instead of taking an hour or so to get home, it took almost three hours, via the London Overground and a bus from Richmond.
So what’s it like going to the south of France by train?
If you want to be kind to the Earth and not take a flight, the train is a great way to travel. We also found that the local train network in the south is excellent and easy to get around.
My lovely wife/travel agent organised all the different legs of the journey several months in advance, so we got good deals on the Eurostar and Ouigo trains.
Our Trainline app was very useful for buying SNCF tickets while we were there, much easy than using the machines. We used Google maps a huge amount, and it enables us to have long walks every day without getting lost.
The long distance journeys took four or five hours, but the seats were comfortable and there was space for our bags.
So far this year we have been to Edinburgh, Amsterdam and France by train. Lots of travel without damaging the climate, smugtastic!
The Riviera is a very beautiful place to visit. The towns are perfect and the weather is always ‘ot. I loved all the history in every town I visited, I practically had culture running out of my ears.
I enjoy cooking, so we ate in quite a lot. It also saved us a great deal of money. It is possible to spend a huge amount on eating out if you want to, and the food is some of the best in the world.
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