France

Well Frankfurt wasn't overly exciting, not a whole lot see there unless you like museums. The weather was pretty wet and cold, but we walked around and enjoyed the central square, and walking along the rhine river. Which is really quite brown.

Then it was a long drive to Caen in Normandy France. A nice small city, I still get amazed on how just a short drive and you are in a new country, with a new language, and customs. Nearly as soon as you cross into the French border you are hit with many Toll booths on the highways, I think we paid upwards of $60 for the tolls for the 500 or so KM's we drove in France!

The weather in Normandy wasn't great, but wasn't too bad, didn't rain all the time, and there were some sunny periods. It's really quite a nice area lots of farms, and rolling hills. It's also very green with all the rain, and it rarely gets that cold or snows there. I had a rough day with some stomach issues, I think from eating a baked potato from a kiosk for lunch, it was tasty, but something wasn't quite right.. After I recovered with I took a couple day trips while Tan was working. One to Juno Beach, where the Canadians landed and helped liberate Europe. It was quite humbling to be there, also very nice landscape as well. Another trip was too Mont-St-Michel, a big walled city with a castle that when the high tide comes in, the city is completely surrounded by water. It was amazing to see how far the tide recedes during the day, enough for many large parking lots, all with signs warning of the impending high tide, where if you leave your car there it will indeed get soaked!

Went out for dinner with one of Tan's French co-workers to a nice traditional French restaurant, it was quite tasty, the French indeed know how to cook!

After a four days in Caen we made our way to a nice little town called Etretat, a very nice little town next to the sea, with some spectacular scenery with huge cliffs, it was quite brisk there, but we enjoyed a nice seafood dinner, and stayed in a neat hotel that was situated in a very old house. The next morning we climbed one of the cliffs, and got a great view of the sea, and a lunch of muscles, I do indeed enjoy seafood!

We then set on our way back to Delft, it was a fun road trip, with lots of driving, good food, and some great scenery. I quite enjoyed it, but it nice to be 'home' again here in Delft.

Posted by Jason Willock

Well Paris certainly was impressive, a ton to see. The Louver, Versailles, Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triumph. For a very large city it was actually reasonably clean, which surprised me.

Ate some great food, I even tried escargot, they actually were pretty good, similar enough to muscles I suppose. We had great weather for the most part, the last day was a little cool, and it rained at night, but other than that it was nice and sunny.

I can just imagine this city in the summer when it is peek tourist season, even now when it is the 'slower' season the city was jam packed with tourists. Lots of Asians come here for shopping, and the higher end stores even have Asian speaking sales people to help with the transaction. I again was surprised at how friendly the people were here, and willing to speak English.

Didn't get to make it out to any real night life here, we tried to go out a couple nights, but were just to tired from all the walking we did. You could walk around the Louver for two days and not see it all I think. A few hours was enough for me, saw most of the major works. Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, etc, certainly got my fill of culture and history here. Plus with 20Euro cover charge, and 10 euro drinks, on a Monday night, I was ok with missing out on the night life.

It was nice traveling around France with Tan, I think it made it more enjoyable for sure. Some places in France on your own would be a bit dull I think. However she has to go back to work, so I am now on my way to Italy. Starting in Naples, the home of Pizza!

Posted by Jason Willock

Well I must say the rumours I had heard that the French are not friendly and do not like to speak English are certainly unfounded. Everyone I have met has been quite friendly, and when my basic French won't cut it I can usually communicate in English.

It was time to leave the French Riviera, so we headed to Marseilles, but not before one last dip in the ocean in a nice little town called Cassis, where we had a nice lunch, and great views as there are some nice fjords theres.

Marseilles was a pretty dirty uninspiring port city, it wasn't to enjoyable, we stayed one night there before heading off to Avignon, which is a very nice small old town with the old city walls still fully intact which is pretty rare. Stayed one night there, and took in the sights and learnt some of the history of the area. From there we headed to Lyon where we will stay for two nights. One the way we stopped at a winery and bought a couple bottles of wine. So cheap, 6 euro for a 10 year old bottle of quite tasty wine.

Lyon is a university city, and it is a much more visually appealing, I am looking forward to exploring it today, even though the weather is not as hot and sunny here, but that makes for walking around a little more enjoyable. Today I also return the VW Polo rental car. I enjoy the freedom of a car, and driving in the country side is great, but driving in the cities is a little stressing and not so enjoyable. Trying to find parking is impossible, and the streets are so narrow and the parking spots are so smalll. I am certainly getting better at parallel parking!

I will try to upload some photos later on tonight!

Posted by Jason Willock

Just a quick update on my travels in France. I am using a French keyboard, they don't use q QWERTY keyboard so the keys are quite messed up.

We stayed 3 nights in Nice, which is very Nice! Did a dqy trip to Monte Carlo, it was amazing to see so many really nice cars! The casino was quite amazing. We were there during the day so there weren't so many high rollers there but it was still quite nice to see. We tried our luck on the slots and quickly won 43euro off of a 5euro bet, so that was good, since we had to pay 10euro each just to go in the casino. We then continued to drive and wound up in Italy, in a little town called San Remo, and had some Itallian Ice Cream. Very tasty.

Next day the weather was so nice, we went to a nice little garden in Nice that had some nice plants, and some aquariums. We then went and and checked out a few small towns, and then found a nice place to swim, the beach was rather rocky, but the water was amazing it was by far the clearest water I have ever seen for an ocean. Crystal clear, it was quite salty, but had fun swimming around with some little fish! We then went out and went to a really fun backpacker bar, which was smokey but fun.

Yesterday we drove to Cannes, had a great Musscle lunch, and found a nice place to stay in a little town called Saint Rapheal, a great view of the ocean, and again swam in the salty ocean, so clear! A little cool but not bad once I started swimming around. For dinner we found a place on the way to Cannes and had a pretty nice Scampi dinner, huge Scampi! Quite tasty, a little pricey though, but everything is here.

We are now in Saint Tropez, again another expensive place, there is some sailing race or something going on here, so there are many sail boats here, quite nice.

I will update more and upload some photos once I get some wifi!

Posted by Jason Willock