Last Book of the Chronicles of France

Yay! Rejoice! We are at the last book of the Chronicles of France. 2 more days to go. Are you having a caffine high? Really, stay away from coffee. They leave your breath smelling bad.

Again, a gentle reminder to read this in a well lit room, with the screen 50 cm away from your eyes and turn off all your beeping devices!! (:-D)

Day 8 of the France Trip

I wasn't in the best of moods after being shocked awake so early in the morning, but since this was a vacation, my normal mood returned pretty quickly, after breakfast and a cup of hot chocolate at a roadside cafe. :-D I love doing that in France, especially in front of beautiful buildings. Its so frenchy...

We walked along the streets of Marseille and just explored the city since there were very little attractions to see. But, not before visiting some places that looked promising.

We wanted to go to Chateau d'If, the french version of Azkaban, opps, I meant Alcatraz. :-D
However, due to bad weather conditions, all the boats were not heading to the Chateau. And I quote the lady selling the boat tickets: "La mer, c'est ça" (the sea is like this) and her hand mimics the rolling wave action.

The port at Marseille is supposed to be busy with fishmongers with their fresh catch, but when we went there, it was pretty quiet. Perhaps we were too early... So, with our main attraction, Chateau d'If downfor the count, we had to go to the other places. So...

First, took a bus to the oldest abbey in Marseille, the abbey of Saint Victor, and took a look around. While there, we took a stroll (or rather, we got a little lost) around the area and saw this bakery that was famous for their navettes. Navette is a type of pastry that is supposed to be a Marseille specialty. I didn't buy my navettes from that store because it was so expensive! They were like 8 for 12 euros! No way!! So I bought the next best option, cookies. Haha... Anyway, while strolling along much later, I found another shop that sells navettes at a much affordable price, and so, I bought like 8 of them for 5 euros. So much cheaper right!!! But then I might just be paying for the brand and the packaging if I had bought at the first store.

Next, we went to the Notre Dame de la Garde, which was a really cool basilica. It is dedicated to Mother Mary with the aspect of her as the Lady for sailers and voyagers and so it has those marine crests around the basilica. Then, we to the Palais Longchamp, a really cool and magnificent place, actually, more like the facade of a palace, that had a huge fountain and really majestic columns. Great for pictures!

The Notre DameMe and the Notre Dame

Palais LongchampCloseup of the main guy in the fountain

After all those running around, we finally settled down and just took a seat at the opening of the port and watched the setting sun.

Day 9 of the France Trip

We checked out of the crappy hotel as early as we could and boarded the train to Lyon, making sure that we did not miss the train like the previous time. In the end, we were about 40 minutes early for the train. Ah well, more time for me to study...

We had breakfast at Macdonald's at the train station after before boarding the train to Lyon. It was my FIRST time eating Macdonald's in Europe. I hadn't even ate Macs in Switzerland cos it was SO expensive. But then when we saw the price for the brunch menu, it was really reasonable, 6 euros for a burger, a yougurt, 2 pancakes, a tea and an orange juice. I know, if you translate into SGD, it would be about 12 dollars and its insane to pay such prices for breakfast. But hey, we are in Europe, and 6 euros is really really decent for such stuff already.

So anyway, Lyon. Lyon was nice...

After checking into the hotel, we decided to chill a little in the nice hotel room and decide on our destinations. But the first destination that we have to head to was the tourism office.

Its like a habit. Once you get to the next town, locate the nearest tourism office to get a map and a transport pass, if needed. Maps are essential to travellers. I've lost count of the number of maps that I took from this trip. Many of them are pretty torn up by the time we left the city.

At the tourism office, we bought a city pass for the next day and I bought a book on Lyon. I figured that since we didn't know what was good in Lyon, and the picture book looked really nice, it wouldn't hurt to get one as a souvenir, like the one in Louvre or Chateau de Versailles. Never mind that my backpack was 10 kg and books are not the best things to bring along a backpacking trip...

Ah yes, did I mention that Lyon was nice... Its like a not so touristy Paris. Though Lyon has lesser attractions, it also has much lesser tourists, and it all added to its charm.
I think we are all suffering from the tourist-cathedral fatigue as we were already losing the enthusiasm of visiting churches that are out of the way. But, the Basilique Notre-Dame (another one for Notre-Dame) up on Fourviere hill is superb! Easily comparable to the Notre Dame in Paris! While the exterior is not as impressive as the Notre dame de Paris, it has 2 levels in the interior. The lower level is dedicated to St Joseph, the husband of Mary, while the upper level is dedicated to Mother Mary. Again, gold inlay, gold gildings, gold paint... Colourful murals, impressive statues, beautiful facades... The churches in France must have been really rich to do this huh?

Anyway, out of the Basilique, one could get a panoramic view of the city. Oh Oh!! Did I mention the very quaint tram that we had to ride to get up the hill? It was really something straight out of the old days! Too bad the picture I had for the tram was pretty bad.

Sorry for the sudden outburst... Umm... Let's see...

From Fourviere, we then walked down the hill and stopped by the Roman Theaters ruins that was near the Basilique. That place makes a great place for pictures too. I heard that it's used not for outdoor concerts.
On our way back to the city, we met this really nice lady on the bus. She was laughing at us during the ride as we were chatting about the places we should go to for dinner. Lyon was our splurge-for-dinner destination because we've heard so much (or rather it's my friend who had heard so much)about the gourmet in Lyon. Finally, unable to ignore her any longer, my friend said "why don't we just ask the lady behind you (me)? She have been listening and laughing at our conversation for some time already."

I was like: What? Are we embarassing ourselves? Not again?!

:-D

Anyway, the lady was really nice. We asked her about any restaurants or places where we could get good food for a reasonable price. Her instant answer was "In France?"
In the end, she pointed out a nice pub where we could have a decent meal and chill out for the evening for a reasonable price, and so, off we went to that pub.

So, to cut a long story short, we went to the pub, got dinner, then ordered beer on top of the wine that was included in the set. We all got rip-roarin' drunk and left the pub swiggin' on a bottle of wine.

Or so it would be if the alcohol was free and we were back in Singpore with someone to drive us home and we don't need to care about parents breathing down our backs. :-P

We had a fun time at the pub. We did order beer, but it was only2 mugs shared between 4 people, so it was ok. The food wasn't honestly great, but it was decent and affordable and the company was great. Thus, overall, it was a very enjoyable night. (The beers might have something to do with it too ;-D)
End of Day 9

Day 10. The last day in France!!

It was the last day of the France Trip and I was facing it with a mixture of Yes-I-get-to-finally-go-back-soon (I was kinda missing Switzerland... Or maybe just getting tired) and No-Aww...-I-still-wanna-stay-and-play-in-Lyon kind of feelings.

We checked out of the nice hotel that gave us extra towels and checked our baggage into the train station's baggage lockers before heading to the Old Town to do some exploration.

Today was basically a museum day, since our city pass includes free entry to museums and the free use of public transportation. We went to 3 museums.The Museum of Religious Art, The Museum of Automations and the Museum of Miniatures.

The first 2 museums were so-so, but the Museum of Miniatures was really awesome. Very detailed little pieces of art and stuff! One wonders how the creators don't suffer from extreme myopia...

After the museums, we went to this place where many shops selling Lyon specialties are. The place was really cool. I love that place... I bought a Lyonnaise Saucisson, cured meat that is a specialty of Lyon, and a big packet of soft sweets that I think is also a specialty. I was almost sad when we had to leave to catch the train back to Geneva.

It is very suficiant to say that I was very happy when I left France with a bagful of souvenirs and 4 blog posts full of memories.

Are you guys satisfied with my accounts?
Be nice, I spent an entire day typing these four posts instead of enjoying the nice weather at the lake. My eyes are about to pop out...

So as something nice for all you nice people who sat through god knows how many pages of stuff that I had written and almost 5 pots of coffee (are you still drinking that?) ...


A nice picture of me and the Palais de Justice in Marseille! And....
Me and the cheeses in the market in Lyon!
Autographed pictures are at 5 euros a piece. Grab'em while stocks last!! :-D