The Turtle crawl to Bordeaux

What a frigging long day...

It started off with Andy and I enjoying our cereal at the Hostel in Nice, France just about to leave to reach our next desination which is located in Bordeaux, France. Bordeaux is known for the famous French red and white wine serving millions around the world.

To get there we had to take a direct train which would only be 8 hours long. We planned our trip and to use our Euro-rail tickets which is cheap on the 10:00 am train and arriving in Bordeaux at 6:00 pm at night. Just the perfect schedule as we can arrive at our Hotel and then go out for some french food and some good Bordeaux wine.

Guess what?

We arrived at the Train station around 9:30 am and waiting in the line up until 9:50 am to pick up the tickets. The attendent at the station said that we could not use our Euro-rail tickets as the train was already full and we had to wait until the next train which was the 1:30 pm departure. I looked at Andy and decided this was our only option since the cost without the Euro-rail would be 170 Euro dollars (1.6 times as the Canada Dollar) which was waaaaay too expensive for our Worldly tour.

After using our Euro-rail ticket for the 1:30 pm departure, we went and found a grocery store and brought some snacks and waited in a nice Park called Mozart de park (something like that). This is where I had the chance to take some photos of soem pidgeons up close and see how humanly tame there were.

Getting on the Train at 1:30 was no problem and we managed to find the first class seats that came with the Euro-rail tickets. Everything was going well and with full expectations that we will arrive on time at 10:00 pm.

Guess What?

There was a unionized train station strike in the city of Marseilles which has delay trains arriving and departing up to 3-4 hours. So we had to stay in the train on the tracks just outside of the city waiting until the backlog was cleared.

As a result of this unexpected and un-publicized strike, we waited for an additional 2 hours before we could pass through. This delay ended up causing us to miss out on the local Bordeaux tram / buses so we had to rent a taxi to the hotel and then straight into the bed we go.

Wowswers...

St. Paul De Vence

After doing some research in Nice and on the Internet, Andy and I decided to visit a small village up in the hills called Saint Paul De Vence. With an average of 300 days of sunshine a year, St Paul's climate is suitable for both international and domestic tourism. St Paul contains over 1.700 acres, and has a population of 3.000 inhabitants, 300 of which live within the village itself. At the top of the village contains a small older style Roman Cathatlic Church in which we both saw a local saturday wedding take place. It was quite a beauitful place to be and I took advantage of the camera to capture the mood.

Located 40 minutes transit bus ride from Nice, between the mountains and ocean, this medieval village has 60-feet rocky outcrop, overlooks the surrounding landscape, with the Mediterranean sea and the Cap D'Antibes, the Alps and the Esterel Mountains at it's back.

Both Andy and I took lots of photos and even checked out the local art work. Afterwards we continued our venture to Vence which was located about 20 minutes by bus. This smaller town was higher up in the mountains however did not have the same look and feel as St. Paul medieval style. We did some walking around the town however we found a nice church and found a Jesus Christ stationed on a cross with vibrat reddish and orange colours filling the mood of the church.Stone Step walkways cover the whole village

I swore this was the real "Thinker" Sculpture

Stone Arch welcomes the guest into the Village of St. Paul

Another stone walkway with many of local shops open for business

A running Stone Water Foundation in the middle of the St. Paul medieval Village

An Ant's eye view in St. Paul's Village?

Normandy to Nice

After experiencing the chronographic, emotional, heart-touching, mind-blowing, illustrative, breathtaking views of the WWII history in northern regions in Normandy France, Andy and I have continued our adventures from the top of the country to the bottom settling in the French Riverian city of Nice, France. Nice is nearby to two known famous cities of Cannes (International Film Festival) and Monaco (The Formula One Circuit and also a big Tax-free Heaven City). We will be staying here for the next few days checking out the sights, cultures in this region before we move on.

I have to admit that Andy's knowledge of French really has helped us break through the language barrier and have gotten us with some great friendly support from the locals on our journey. For me, some of the basic words that I have learned in Elementary school has help break the ice when needed.

Au revoir!