Anglet, France: La Plage (The Beach)

The driver that picked me up just outside of Dax was a younger guy that drove like a maniac. I actually couldn't tell if he was drunk. After an interesting ride I was in the beautiful beach town of Anglet. Anglet is residential surf town in Pays Basque (French Basque Country) with kilometres of beaches. It is bordered by the two well known large towns of Biarritz and Bayonne.

It was time to find somewhere to sleep. Thanks to one night in a hostel in Paris and the genius internet setup of France (the world should follow this setup) I have access to WiFi all over France in just about evety street. I Googled directions to the nearest hostel and walked in.

The hostel was full of French surfers with camping outside, only mixed dorms and 2 mixed communal bathrooms with many individual showers inside. It was a basic hostel with the walls lined with surfboards, outdoor ping pong tables and a bar open until 1am. The beaches of Anglet are residential area with limited shops and restaurants. The hostel was a few streets back from the beach and surrounded only by houses on all sides with a 10 minute walk to the nearest shop or restaurant of any type. Very unique location for a hostel.

I spent most my days and nights with people from the hostel. During my first morning in the hostel I met a French tap dancer that was going to check out a nature park. We went swimming, visited the skate park, went to a farm show where the sheep escaped onto the road and explored the not so exciting nature park. She was from Paris so a terrible swimmer and scared of the waves :P

The rest of my days involved hiring a free bike from town and exploring Anglet and Biarritz, going ice skating, chilling at the hostel, playing ping pong, getting told no when asking for a haircut, getting a haircut the next day by someone that couldn't speak English and doing an adventure obstacle course in the trees with a German guy... I also went for very enjoyable runs along the footpaths parallel to the beach. The beaches were nice and covered with people although many people weren't covered but this surely had nothing to do with making running enjoyable.

The adventure course was actually really fun and my partner very amusing to watch. I felt sorry for the poor guy and had to hold back laughter on a few occasions. He was a law PHD student but required my verbal or physical assistance a few times. After we took almost 2 hours to complete the first section I decided to complete the last section "Indiana" as fast as I could. When I finished he was less than half way. I was entertained watching him complete the second half. He finished so a celebration lunch was in order. It turns out he as also 27 years old, but married with two kids. He told me his wife had just told him that she was in love with another man. This was his get away to clear is mind less after the incident. I didn't really know what to say and felt bad for being amused at his struggle through the obstacle course...

My nights were spent drinking at the hostel bar with many different people each night, going out in Biarritz with people from  the hostel, going to local bars in Anglet, having someone from CS to pick me up and show me the night life of Biarritz, a full moon beach party... and eating Gateau Basque Cake a la creme.

the light poles on the beach have power points

After 6 awesome nights in the hostel it was time to leave. I had a couch lined up in St Jean de Luz.

Lessons Learnt:
France has nice beaches (not quite Aus)
Anglet is an awesome town
Gateau Basque cake is amazing
I can give marriage advice... but I call it life advice.

Basque Country:
For the people that don't know Basque Country. It is a region in the South West of France and North West of Spain. Basque people will generally speak Basque as a first language and Spanish or French as their second depending on which side of the border they're from. This is not a Latin language so completely different to both Spanish and French. Basque people are extremely proud to be Basque. You will see Basque flags everywhere in Basque towns.

Rennes, France: Rue de la Soif

After my eventful day of hitchhiking gone wrong I was finally in Rennes, the capital of Brittany. Rennes is a really old and beautiful town. You can feel the age when walking along the very uneven cobblestone streets in old town while admiring the bent wooden walls of the buildings. There is also one street lined with bars which is famously nicknamed Rue de la Soif (Street of the Thirsty). Empty during the day but packed at night.

At the train station I was greeted by my first host, Martin, an environmental sustainability travel agent. After a shower he gave me an awesome tour of the city. Then we made ourselves comfortable at a bar where we drunk all night for free... I chose a good host with good connections! We met a really cool group of people. After  many drinks and good conversation there were four of us left and the bar was closing. We all went to his place for more drinks. Martin and I soon passed out while the two girls were still going. I awoke the next morning to a note from one of the girls saying alcohol is bad and I shouldn't drink. I blame the day of hitchhiking.

The next day I was doing my usual first day wander, without looking at a map until I'm very lost, this is how I get a feel of a city. On this wander I encountered one of the girls from the night before... at the same bar. She offered to give me a tour of the city. She guided me to one bar where the bartender, who didn't speak English, gave me free drinks to try for being Australian. One memorable drink was a local honey wine. After more talking I discovered that I was drunk under the table by an 18 year old French girl that is still in HIGH SCHOOL!

In the evening Martin, his girlfriend and I ventured to a restaurant that uniquely specialised in the 2 very different meals that Brittany is famous for: Moules Frite and Galette. Moules Frite is a direct translation to Mussels Fries, it is always served in a special plate that can be described as two big bowls joint together, one containing a gargantuan amount of mussels in a sauce of your choice and the other full of French fries. Galette is a savoury crepe that is made from a different flour giving it a brown colour instead of the usual creamy colour of a crepe... choose your filling!

The next day I was off to my new host's house, Miren, a Spanish Basque civil engineer that is fluent in 4 languages. Miren was at work so my first meeting was with her boyfriend, Romain, a really nice French guy that was in town for uni holidays. After meeting Miren for lunch Romain and I had a fun day at "the beach" with a few language barrier problems. His English was better than my French but we had some good laughs at our communication problems and Google Translate came in very handy. He was soon off to travel Ireland so it was good practise. Miren bought him Ireland Lonely Planet book in English. Tough Love!

Miren cooked SNAILS for dinner that night. That was a big tick on the French bucket list. These ones were from the sea not the land. Miren also sold me on making her hometown, San Sebastian, my first place to visit in Spain... it was fun day/night with two people I'm sure I will see again (or maybe I already have).

Miren and Romain were off to a music festival so the next day I checked into a hostel. My dorm had just two beds and a shower. Private shower but communal toilets. After meeting my Canadian roommate, a standard feature in any European hostel, that also just checked in for 2 days I went for my first run since London. I told him about the amazingly beautiful La Mont Saint Michel... one day later we were on a bus together back to Normandy.

No "Swiming"

The permanent population of la Mont Saint Michel is less than 100, although it attracts over 3 million visitors a year. It is also free unless you want to enter the church on the very top of the castle. I've seen the inside of enough churches so I opted for the free version. The history of this castle is 1500 years old. I leave the rest for Google.

I narrowed my next destination down to 4. After taking a call from HelpX host 700km away I was running to the metro to Covoiturage over 500km to Bordeaux.

Lessons Learnt:
Ask girls in bars whether they are high school students.
When I travel I drink a lot for free.
French hostels outside of Paris are predominantly full of French travellers.
Moules Frite is a genius idea

Lille, France: Café Allongé

After nine nights in London it was time to return to the land of croissants, wine and cheese. Starting with a unique town near the border of Belgium, Lille, a working class city that has changed hands a few times giving it an interesting look.

I had a couch lined up with Marine, a child counsellor and an art therapist... the second job involves providing therapy to people in hospital, mainly cancer patients, through art and music. That is pretty cool. Although, staying with her felt a little strange and funny. She was cool but she had the same look, same accent, same mannerisms, same stubborn independence, same strong personality and came from the same part of Southern France as an old flame that once burnt me bad (broke my heart)... I didn't tell her.

After stepping out of a late morning shower I saw that the bathroom and part of kitchen floor were flooded. After unsuccessfully searching the apartment for a mop I opened the door to the backyard only to have her dog come flying straight past me and onto wet tiles... dirt dog footprints covered the kitchen floor. A few unblogworthy words later I put the dog outside and cleaned the floor.

Marine gave me a map and marked all the places worth seeing, she also arranged for one of her friends to be my next host and taught me a magic phrase that I have now used all over France, "Café Allongé", it is an espresso with a little extra water, no milk, no sugar (aka Lungo in most of the world). This became my morning drink of choice in France.

Neome, my 2nd host in Lille, introduced me to more Belgium Beers and Frites (French Fries) Belgium style. They cook them twice, apparently once just isn't good enough. From her I learnt of Covoiturage, the French site for ride share.

Sorry for the lack of photos. I do eventually get better at this. Lille had a beautiful old town with many impressive fountains scattered around the city. It also has a huge Sunday market that sells brand named beauty products cheaper than supermarkets. The city also came up with the brilliant idea of turning its previous major train station into a free live music venue. I enjoyed a "rock psychadelique" performance at the old station.

On my last night in Lille I was talking to Neome about France having a massive Australian war memorial at Villers-Bretonneux. Upon loading the town on Google maps I realised it was only 150km south... My plans changed!

Next stop Villers-Bretonneux!


Lessons Learnt:
Being alone in a place with language barriers is challenging
Leaving out chicken from one of my specialities made an impressive vegetarian meal
Skype is very powerful and not rated PG
Markets will give free food to try for being Australian
Café Allongé
Covoiturage.fr