Back home via Paris

The last major stop-over on our trip was Paris. On the way there, we stopped over at Le Mans to say hi to Mathilde's granddad. We also stopped at the outskirts of Paris to say hi to Elodie and her two daughters. Eventually, in the afternoon, after experiencing that oh-so-fun Paris traffic on the periferique , we eventually made it to Clichy, where we were planning to stay the night at Sarah and Bruno's place.

They are temporarily residing in a flat there, with young Ulysse, while they are redoing the house they are planning to move to. From what I could gather from the photos, plenty had been done in the house, and a fair bit still to do before moving in (before chrsitmas, apparently!). Anyways, we had a good time with Sarah and Bruno (and let's not forget about young Ulysse), as always. Sarah had cooked some excellent ossobucco for us.

On Friday, we were staying the night at Paula and Peppe's place, which meant we had to drive our car into central Paris (where their flat is located). Which involved about 1 more hour in rather intensive Paris traffic (apparently traffic was light today due to the school holidays – I don't even want to know what it's like on normal working days...). Having left our car in the hands of Paula's dad, who was visiting from Spain, we jumped on the metro and headed for Madeleine, where we had tickets booked for the Pinacothèque. There were two exhibitions on display, one about the works of Hiroshige, and one about Van Gogh and the influence of Japanese art on his work. We really enjoyed the Hiroshige exhibition – his prints really brought us back fond memories from our trip to Japan... The Van Gogh exhibition impressed us less. Don't get me wrong – we both love van Gogh's art, but we found the connections between his paintings and Japanese art a bit far-fetched...

After a rather disappointing sushi lunch (I suspect about half of Paris' Chinese restaurants have transformed themselves into “fake Japanese restaurants”), and embarked on my favourite Parisian activity – walking around. Paris is just such a great place to walk around... We started off by visiting the surprising Madeleine church. I say surprising, because it resembles a temple, more than a church. Strangely enough, the interior, although beautiful, looks smaller than the imposing exterior.

From there, we decided to walk around kind of randomly. Our walk took us towards the imposing Place de la Concorde, across the Seine river, to the Assemblée générale (the French parliament). We continued walking around the 7^th arrondissement, which is known as the “administrative” arrondissement of Paris (there are a lot of ministries, administrative buildings and embassies there), and then headed towards Montparnasse, where the plan was to meet up with Olivier and Raphaelle.

After a quick stroll around Montparnasse cemetery (where for example Serge Gainsbourg is buried), we met up with Ollie and Rapha for a coffee, in a rather typical Parisian brasserie. Having had our (overpriced) coffees, we decided to go for a tea next, since the rainy weather wasn't really suitable for outdoors activities. Our friends new just the place to have a bubble tea – something neither me nor Mathilde had never had, but both were eager to try. Bubble tea, which was “invented” in Taiwan, is a mixture of tea, milk and tapioca beans (which is where the name comes from). Very nice, actually!

After our bubble tea, we made our way back to Paula and Peppe's for a happy reunion. After spending a bit of time catching up with them, and admiring their lovely children, it was time to head for Montmarte, where we were planning to have dinner. After an hour or so on the metro and then walking in rather heavy rain, we found the place, were we joined the rest of the group (Milene, Kamel, Ollie and Rapha). We had a super night there, enjoying good food, wine and great company. Great to catch up with Milene and Kamel as well.

On Saturday, it was time to hit the road again, heading southward this time. The plan was to stay the night at Villefranche-sur-Saone, near Lyon. On the way up there, we decided to make a short stop for lunch at Noyers-sur-Serein – a little village in Burgundy recommended in our Lonely Planet guide. And picturesque it was, indeed, with its nice cobble-stoned streets, medieval houses, and the river going through the village. Unfortunately, the place was kind of dead as well – the only restaurants that were open were more or less full (and this was after all a Saturday!), so we ended up having lunch in the Courtepaille near the motorway.

We arrived in our “charming hotel”, “well located” in an industrial zone a couple of kilometer's from the motorway (note the irony on both counts). After having a bit of a rest and freshening up, we headed into the town center, to explore this town that is the focal point of the Beaujolais wine region (know, for better or worse, for the Beaujolais Nouveau wines). Quite a disappointment from a tourist's point of view – there is very little interest in the town, the historic walks takes about 5 minutes to complete, and there isn't much in the way of history involved either... We ended up having dinner in a cajun-themed restaurant. The menu was quite inventive, but the food was a little bit disappointing.

We very quite happy to hit the road the next morning, and head back home to Cagnes-sur-Mer. All in all, we were very happy with our little road trip (well, little is perhaps not the right expression to use for our 3300 kilometers' drive). Thanks to everybody we met up with, and especially to those who put us up, during our trip!