Marseille musings

Nice, Cannes or Monaco?

The tentative plan for today was to wake up early, reach the train station at 7.15am on time for a whirlwind 3-stop tour of the above places that would end at 10pm back in Marseille. It was supposed to be our Mediterranean journey similar to the "uncharted waters" computer game that Ping played in secondary school, albeit one by train and not by ship as in the game.

Thankfully for our aching feet, common sense prevailed: at 6am this morning, we decided to sleep in.

And so here we are at 9am still in our rather cosy serviced apartment.

Some thoughts on the last couple of days:
-- France was, and is still, an economic force to be reckoned with. What was particularly impressive was the headstart Europe as a whole had over Asia in terms of technological and economic development.

Most visually striking was the fact that their 17th century buildings are on average 3-4 stories in some places, and far bigger in scale than our 20th century ones. To see that level of security and sophistication that Europe had at that time was mind-boggling for Asians like us. Especially as this was repeated throughout the cities and towns we visited, so it was not only the rich who had these comforts but also a good number of the masses.

-- the intellectual richness of this place was also impressive. It's a really colourful place, literally. There are so many layers of understanding here... it seems that Europeans, including the French at that forefront, are continually re-assessing their world and seeing/ expressing it in a wholly different manner.

Asians on the other hand, even in our artistic pursuits, tend to keep improving on the same known modes of expression.

-- the next observation is rather frivolous: the French people like carrying their baguettes only partially covered up. Everybody does this: from little old ladies carrying a baguette under their arms to student-types sticking a half-eaten loaf from their backpacks.

Is France really that clean that dust/ germs on food is not a concern? Or do the people here just have strong stomachs? Or maybe baguettes have some antiseptic quality we don't know about??

Wen is happy to report that she is now an expert in navigating the train/ tram and bus routes in France.

Ping is happy to report that Wen is finally ready to go out... :-)

Marseille madness

We walked down a really long road (which is ironically called rue de paradiz), hunting for a pair of Ferragamo shoes for Wen's boss' wife. In doing so, we literally walked the breath of approximately 250 buildings.

Only to find out that the shop did not have shoes of the right size...

And that long walk came after a whole morning of rambling through the really cool town of Arles where van Gogh stayed for some years.

Arles turned out to be the place van Gogh painted the picture of his bedroom, which Ping really liked in her growing up years (while playing the board game Masterpiece). Arles was also the inspiration for van Gogh's starry night cafe picture, yellow house picture, etc.

And with its old houses, roman era buildings, windy streets and photo-friendly blend of colours, the town retains it's simple charm till today.

So you can imagine how much we had already walked in the morning.

And Wen is still plotting to make us trek up something or other in Jungfrau, Switzerland!!

Our poor feet...

(p.s: The beautiful Marseille sunset we saw at the port was another highlight of the day... :-) )

marseille morning

We are in Marseille.

Came here on an overnight train from Bordeaux, sleeping on a couchette (the equivalent of a rather comfortable China train bed).

Ping was blur as usual and forgot to print out the address of one of the rare hotels Wen didn't book. But thanks to good friends back in Singapore who had internet connection and prompt response times, and a helpful, fluent English-speaking French tour guide, here we are happily blogging away from Marseille Citadines.

Going to tour Arles now! :-)

Adventures!

Our plans:

Tomorrow, we head out early to the wine region of Bordeaux for the day then take the night train to Marseille.

The following day, we'll tour Marseille and the nearby Arles (a place where van Gogh painted some of his best work). The north African influence on Marseille should be interesting to see.

After that, we will continue to work our way through the south of France. Exact details will depend on train space availablity and how motivated we are feeling then.

Then we head back to Switzerland (Interlaken and Zurich) for a more rest and relaxed time.

Dad and Mum, you both enjoy your trip to Penang and take loads of photos! :-)

Paris Day 2

Weather report: it did not rain today. Which was good, cos it was cold enough without the rain.

We did all the touristy things today, courtesy of the open top city bus which we paid €29 each for. It is like a dummies guide to cities -- a relatively shallow but immensly convenient way to understand a new thing.

Paris is indeed a great old city that still manages to keep current in today's fast-changing world. It is very cool to see the trendiest fashion sold within the grand buildings of yesteryear. And Parisans themselves, with their great dress-sense and sharp delicate features are eye-candy too.

If there is anything Ping doesn't like about Paris, it is that Paris is a very complex city. There is far too much to do, see and understand here... the Lourve (a key museum here) alone will take days to complete! Not the best place for a relaxed holiday.

Still, we managed to fit in Ping's favourite activity of eating (snails for lunch and a "home-cooked" dinner bought in a Paris supermarket and cooked at our serviced apartment) and Wen's favourite past-time of shopping. You should have seen how Wen's eyes lit up when we reached Champs Elysee, the shopping belt of Paris!

Fortunately for us, Paris shops generally close early (8pm or thereabouts). With nothing else to buy, we happily stumbled upon Dad's favourite place -- the supermarket -- and proceeded to guess the cooking instructions on the food packs we bought.

So far so good, no stomachache yet.

But we are still unable to figure out what we should be doing with the cream brulee (dessert) except that we need to do something with it for 2 minutes.

Paris

Well, we did not go to Nancy because the trains have a reduced schedule on Sundays.

In it's place, we did a 2km run-walk within the charming town of Colmar. The quaint buildings were worth the rush, and the unintended exercise with full packs (so that we could be on time for our train to Paris) was memorable.

Wen's first impression of Paris was not exactly positive. It's an old city after all, and not spanking clean. But effiel tower and the city night views adequately made up for the litter, spit and smells.

We decided to extend our stay in Paris for another night.

Oh, and by the way, after a day of disappointing drizzles, it finally did rain in Paris at night. We are pleased to declare our new purchases perfectly waterproof. :-)

To Nancy we come!

Nancy (a town between Strasbourg and Paris) is supposed to be some world heritage site... Let's see what comes out of it, and if it lives up to it's claim to fame...

In the meantime, we're fully prepared for another day of rain with all our waterproof gear. If our theory is right, it will never rain again on this trip, now that we are waterproof...

Shopping in Strasbourg (part 2)

Oh, and we bought Strasbourg t-shirts for the whole family too! :-)

And when all the adventures were over, we saved 70euros by persuading the Paris hotel to cancel our reservation for the night and staying in the same hotel as we did last night -- at wen's staff rates. Yipee! :-)

We'll reach Paris tomorrow evening, just in time to check in and explore the effiel tower by nightlight.

This is all so fun! Haha...

Shopping in Strasbourg

Strasbourg was fun from the word "go". We really liked the old town, quaint buildings and friendly people.

Brunch was a nice meal by a sidewalk cafe, consisting of galettes munster chaud and faux filet sauce (that's supposed to be the signature Alsace potato patty and beef steak). The plan was to finish brunch, visit the must-see cathedral then head to Paris. Well, the food and drinks (coffee and hot chocolate), as well as the photo opportunities during brunch were great.

Nothing else went according to plan.

To start with, it started to drizzle the moment we paid the bill. Wiser after yesterday's walks in the rain, we decided to abandon our plans for further sightseeing and head straight to Paris instead.

Then, on our way to reserve Paris train tickets, we stumbled onto a really interesting outdoors equipment shop. Ping was extreme fed up with wet shoes by then and declared that we were going shopping for waterproof gear.

An hour and many euros later, we emerged from the shop with 2 pairs of waterproof shoes, a pair of waterproof pants, a waterproof cap and lightweight detergent.

The rain had stopped by then.

To cut a long story short, we "accidentally" walked from one must-see tourist sight after another. The good thing was that it was a most delightful afternoon of spontaneous exploration in a quaintly ancient and yet modernly efficient place.

Random thoughts from a Strasbourg apartment

-- Ping is starting to think that studio apartments are not such a bad idea afterall.. (will try to upload photos of the place here on facebook later cos can't do so on this site)..

-- Wen is taking as long as ever to get ready..

-- hot water is a great invention: tired out from the time difference and long strolls in the rain yesterday, we happily had a v satisfying and hasslefree warm meal of instant soup, noodles and camomile tea before hitting the bed and not stirring for the next 8 hours..

-- supermarkets provide great value for money.. Lunch yesterday was some really nice lagsane and side dishes, all for less than s$7 per person..

-- the other great purchase was our 1st class eurail pass which both atas Wen and bummer ping liked loads.. The comfort and space away from the hordes of other travelers were well worth the slightly extra cost..

-- the princess wen has completed her fashion parade and we're ready to leave the room now..

The traveling sisters are back in action!

Day 1 of this flash-packing holiday to Europe has been eventful.

We started early this morning at Zurich airport, took a train down to the canton-city of Basel where we toured the historic city centre and then went on to check out the roman ruins of kaiseraust.

To add to the excitement, it had to rain cats and dogs in the middle of our basel city tour and beyond. Fortunately, the state of the art waterproof jackets Wen just bought 2 days ago held up really well, keeping our tops (as well as the many things we managed to squeeze into their generous-sized pockets) totally dry. Unfortunately, we both somehow didn't see the need for waterproof pants and shoes... You can guess the rest.

But no damage done, and overall, it was a positive experience as we gained an instant education on waterproof vs water-resistant, and later reflected that the rainy season probably mirrors the season in wen's life.

Now blogging from wen's iPhone, out of a cool Strasbourg studio.

It certainly feels good to be dry and dined.