I took the TGV down to Lyon, my first experience. I discovered that a high speed train ride is underwhelming because it's so comfortable and the only clue that you are travelling at high speed is the countryside whizzing past. I'm all for this kind of travel, stress-free compared to plane flights.
This the Place Bellecour, with no greenery.
A view of the Rhône. Lyon has many river crossings. This appears to have been taken from the Pont Lafayette. The nearest bridge appears to be the Gateway College Bridge and the one behind it the Pont Morand. Looks like I took a short walk from the Lyon Part-Dieu station and back.
From Lyon I went to Grenoble where I took a cable car to the fortress overlooking the city. This would be the Pont Marius-Gontard (page in French) over the Isère taken from the cable car.
A view of the Isère valley and what I took to be my first view of the Alps.
I have no recollection of overnighting in Lyon or Grenoble so I probably pressed on to Chamonix the same day.
Upon my return from Jersey, I overnighted in Dinan, then took a train followed by a bus to Mont Saint-Michel. I don't remember where the bus left from. It could have been Pontorson or Rennes.
It is a geological oddity, a rocky outcrop that becomes an island when the tides are high. (At that time there was a causeway, now it seems they have scoured the silt and built a bridge, turning it into a permanent island again.)
It is a UNESCO World Heritage site and a recognisable French landmark. This is a view from the ramparts.
Another view of the bay.
The interior of the abbey. The monastery dates back to the 8th century. The town is a snapshot of feudal society.
An interior grassy courtyard.
The steep and narrow streets of the town.
I took an overnight sleeper to Paris, to save time and accommodation cost. It's several hours by train to Paris so it would have taken a chunk of sightseeing time to travel by day. Of course I missed all the Normandy landscape in between.
Paris was already blogged in a previous post so I'll take up the story from when I left for Lyon.
Again, it was Gerald Durrell's fault. It was all because he set up Jersey Zoo that made me want to visit the island. The zoo houses many endangered species. Besides there was something fascinating about islands that are affiliated with England, yet closer to France, so close that Jersey was occupied by German troops during WWII. There are remnants of fortifications.
I made the decision to go there rather suddenly. While at St. Malo I noticed that I could take the hydrofoil right away instead of overnighting first. 90 minutes later I turned up at Jersey customs carrying the bananas I had bought at a supermarket in Rennes earlier that day. The officials conferred about what to do with me. In the end they issued me with a Jersey visa, which did not allow me to travel on to the UK, which I wasn't going to do. Maybe they thought I was trying to enter the UK by the back door.
I stayed in a B&B place in St. Helier which I remember nothing of, and took a bus out to Trinity where the zoo is situated.
I may not be accurate with these identifications but here goes: Cape Barren Goose.
Golden Lion Tamarin.
Flamingos and ducks.
My readership thinks this is a sarus crane.
Ruffed Lemurs, perhaps.
Black-necked swan. Thanks, avid reader.
Ring-tail Lemur, I think.
In one room an exhibit read: Lift cover to see a picture of the most dangerous predator on earth. Sure enough, there was a mirror behind the cover.
I signed up as a supporter and received their newsletters for years, until some year I lost track of them or they lost track of me.
I had some free time in St. Heliers before catching the ferry back to France. These players are advertising an upcoming musical. Beghins, the shop behind, is apparently still in operation on the Channel Islands.
This is the Central Market. The cast iron structure and ornamental fountain are quaint.
Finally this appears to be the bucolic hostel in the pretty little town of Dinan, where I overnighted after returning from Jersey and before visiting Mont Saint-Michel the next day.
So here I was, in the City of Light, well during the day anyway. That was because I decided, for better or worse, not to sleep in Paris but to stay in Chartres, a free (for me) 1 hour train ride away. In those days I was a bit scared of navigating big cities. Also, these pictures are from two visits several days apart, with trips to Jersey and Mont Saint-Michel in between. To reduce confusion I am combining both visits.
I don't need to introduce the tower in the picture. It is probably the most recognisable tourist spot in the world. I didn't ascend it until years later. I remember the métro station I used to reach Champ de Mars: Bir-Hakeim.
I was fascinated by these exotic non-European names. Underground station names are a glimpse into the history of a country. Some commemorate events, some are named after nearby landmarks, and sometimes the landmark is long gone.
Speaking of landmarks, here is the station that is named after the location of Delphi that I visited only a few weeks before. Montparnasse is a bohemian area and many of the famous artists of the 20th century lived and played there.
Another area with artistic connections is the Left Bank, which is the half of the city south of the Seine. Here are some of the famous bouquinistes that ply their trade on the bank. They sell used and antiquarian books.
Nearby is the Latin Quarter, a lively but also very touristy area. It's named thus because the Latin language was much heard in the vicinity of the Sorbonne in the Middle Ages.
One of the famous bateaux mouches that carry tourists up and down the river. Since the Seine passes many famous sights of Paris, this is a quick way to get introduced to the city. I took an excursion on one the second time through Paris.
You caught a distant glimpse of this in the last picture. This is the Notre Dame de Paris of course. It's located on a fluvial island, the Île de la Cité.
I was lucky to catch a service in progress there.
While in the Louvre a girl (whose nationality I will not mention) asked me where The Last Supper was. Um, I think you'll find it in Milan and on a church wall, I probably said. Maybe she thought it would be near the Mona Lisa.
I prefer the Impressionists so I enjoyed the Jeu de Paume more. Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe and other works were moved to Musée d'Orsay a few years later.
The garden is extensive and a good place to relax in a busy city.
The real thing at the west end of Champs-Élysées.
Finally a little bit of commercial French culture. I probably learnt about it in French lessons. It's probably the quintessential upmarket French department store.
A short post as I had only a short stopover in La Rochelle on my way to Paris. I had decided to forgo Bordeaux and took a train north along the Atlantic coast, headed for Paris. So these are the only two pictures I have of this town. First the small harbour. with the defensive towers at the mouth in the distance. It's quite marvelous that now with Internet access to maps I can pinpoint where I took this photo, and see that I must have done a short walk from the railway station to get there.
The railway station of La Rochelle. From the station clock, I had only a few more hours of the afternoon to reach my destination.
The Atlantic coast of France is another region I have not given enough attention to.
Arles is of course where Vincent Van Gogh created some of his most luminous works. Unfortunately I didn't see any of the sites in his paintings, such as the Langlois Bridge. But I did see some of the Roman legacy, such as this well preserved Roman amphitheatre.
Another connection to Arles that I was aware of was Bizet's L'Arlésienne Suite, incidental music to a now mostly forgotten play.
Aix-en-Provence is probably what people think of when they want the name of a Provençal city. I wasn't even sure I had been there until I saw my slides, so rushed had been my visit. This is the fountain at one end of Cours Mirabeau.
One of the shopping streets. The lavande for sale on the ground is a giveaway that one is in the south of France.
Before the end of the decade, with the publication of A Year in Provence, and other books in the author makes a new life in a foreign land and observes the locals genre, Provence was suddenly very trendy. I tried to overnight in Aix during one trip to France in the 1990s but was foiled by unavailability of TGV tickets at the last moment (should have booked). I still want to remedy this oversight.
As for the reason for my rush, I was taking the overnight sleeper to Bordeaux and saying farewell to the Mediterranean.
I spent a night in Avignon. The youth hostel was a campground on the edge of town. The manager who checked me in was French Asian. My French lacked listening practice, something I remedied with SBS movies in years to come, so his question to me: Vous êtes seul? didn't click, so he switched to English: Are you by yourself?
Pont Saint-Bénézet, that half bridge, is emblematic of Avignon.
Another landmark of Avignon is the Palais des Papes. For nearly 70 years in the 14th century, Avignon was the seat of the papacy before it returned to Rome. I wasn't interested enough to tour the inside but satisfied myself with a look at the impressive façade.
Avignon also retains its old city gates, the Porte de la Republique.
Finally I enjoyed a bit of Avignon's nightlife. It is possible that I went out with some fellow hostellers for a meal before returning to the campground and calling it a night.
Antibes is a couple of hours by train from Nice. I have these pictures of the Musée Picasso so I must have made a stopover, possibly also to have lunch. At that time of my life I religiously visited all the museums recommended in the guide, but I don't have any recollection of the exhibits here. I visited Antibes again in 1997 and definitely didn't see the exhibits that time.
That azure sky is typical of this region, after all this is the Côte d'Azur.
It so happens the castle was once owned by the Grimaldis, the rulers of Monaco.
I spent a night in Marseille to break the journey. To me it's associated with the Château d'If, an island in the bay which is a setting for Alexandre Dumas' adventure novel The Count of Monte Cristo. Marseille is till this day a working city, being an important Mediterranean port. This is the city's harbour.
It seems that youth hostel I stayed at in Bonnevienne is still there. Bonnevienne is about 5 km south of the city centre, requiring a bus ride out, and that probably accounts for these pictures of the coast hugging road near the hostel. The bare slopes of the hinterland mountains are also a feature of this region.
I had a chat with a Scottish backpacker in the same dorm, and I was trying to work out what language he was speaking until I realised it was his Scottish brogue that made his English sound foreign.
When I was a child, my father acquired a used View-Master stereoscope and many "reels" of tourist attractions. One stereo picture was Palais Longchamp. I remember thinking how ornate the façade was. So I got to see it at last.
This view of the harbour entrance was taken from the south head, near the Palais du Pharo, facing Fort St. Jean on the north head.
