Montels, France: The Real French Christmas

After saying good bye to my ride from Marseille I was met on the side of the highway by Lucille, a very happy girl and a friend of my very first Couchsurfer. She drove me to her parent's home where they were waiting with an amazing French Christmas Eve dinner. The French open their Christmas presents right on midnight, and they even had had a couple for me.

The next day Lucille drove me around to some cool places in the countryside and a château.

The Sun

After the morning tour of the countryside, Roman ruins and a château we were off to Lucille's parent's house for a massive Christmas feast with friends and family. The meal was one of the best I've had. There were 6 very different courses served formally with a break for talking and drinking nice champagne and wine between each course. The food was very unique to me and amazing... a successful French Christmas.

In the evening Lucille and I trekked to one of her best friend's places, Claire's place, for some drinks. Claire is a girl I have mixed history with, both good and bad, we were both each other's first couchsurfing experience way back in 2011 and she is the catalyst to why I have so many awesome French friends. She was back in France to spend Christmas with her family.

The next day involved another French lunch with Lucille's parents followed by dinner with Claire's family. My stomach was made to do some serious work but you can't say no to great food.

My last day with Lucille involved loading snowboards into her car and driving through snow covered roads to the Pyrenees. Her family lent me all the equpment and gear. It was time for my 2nd try at snowboarding. Ski tracks are coded with 4 colours; green, blue, red and black (easy to difficult). There were no black runs on these slopes but we rode every red track in the park... I was pretty impressed with myself.

After an awesome day of snowboarding I relocated to Claire's place. I hosted her in 2011 and 2012 so it was time for her to return the favour. Claire's family were very friendly and took good care of me.  Claire's mum's heritage is from a Galician town so we could make some conversation with my limited Spanish. I ate like a king at this place. During my stay I toured the little village of Montels, Canal du Midi and visited the stunningly beautiful medieval castle of Carcassonne... I even did some Cuban salsa.

Montels, a hunter with a shotgun

Carcassonne

Sisters

Old Friends

The Castle

After 3 nights at Claire's it was time to leave, but not before cooking pesto fettuccine for the 12th time on my trip.

Following lunch I was dropped off near Perpignan where I attempted to hitchhike to Barcelona for NYE. This was my first experience staying with a French family and my third good bye to Claire, although this time the circumstances were different making it much easier... Favour repaid!

Au Revoir

Hitchhiking didn't quite go to plan. I ended up walking 10km into the city of  Perpignan with 3 French hitchhikers. I managed to pick this up along the way.

The Pyrenees

Next stop Barcelona!

Lessons Learnt:
French families could actually kill you by stomach explosion.
Carcassonne is a must see in France.
Many friendships/relationships have an expiry date and it's not a bad thing.
Not speaking the language of the people can be difficult at times.
Hitchhiking isn't as easy as I believed... but I can still give you many tips.
Galician girls!

Nice, France: L'Auberge de Jeunesse

After a 10 hour road trip with my new Italian friends I was in Nice. The Italians were only just over halfway into their journey to Rome so it was time to say good bye. The best things about being back in France were the CHEESE (Spain has equally as good cheap wine, bread and dry meats but not cheese) and I have free WiFi in every street in France thanks to a hostel in Paris that still hadn't changed both of its hotspot logins for the 2 biggest service providers after 5 months (Merci Beaucoup!). I used this WiFi to find the address of a hostel and booked 2 nights in person from possibly the only French guy in the world with a proper aussie accent when he speaks English... again a 4 bed dorm for the price of a 10 bed. The 3 aussies he stuck me in with (he asked if being with aussies was okay first) weren't happy with my discount (about $8 less a night than what they paid). This was a very social hostel so a night of drinking pursued.

Nice is the 5th largest city in France (7th by metrpolitan area) but probably the 2nd most well known French city around the world. It is a very beautiful city on the Mediterranean coast. Also a very expensive and touristy city, according to my wallet it is ranked 2nd for both in France behind Paris.

On my second day after dragging my hungover self out of bed it was time to jump on a train to Grasse to meet one of  my closest friends that was visiting family for Christmas, Isis (the person that carries the burden of knowing most of my darkest secrets). She drove me into the countryside to a town famous for making lollies out of plants (roses, violets, etc). I tried every amazing free sample they had but with prices starting at 20 Euro for a little box the samples had to do. Afterwards we went to another little villiage in the mountains to walk around before stopping for some hot violet wine (a very unique drink)... I also experienced real traumatising French driving.

The town with the famous sweets

Pretending I know people here

The view from the balcony of where we enjoyed the hot wine

Drinking hot wine to improve her driving

After an awesome afternoon it was time for me to head back to the hostel for another night of drinking. The staff also join the drinking at this hostel... listening to them do a late night check in after quite a few drinks gets most of the people in the communal area laughing.

The next day Isis and her very young sister gave me a tour of Nice.

The next few days involved more drinking with other travellers in the hostel, meeting Isis' father without knowing, going to Cannes to meet Isis and Anne-Sophie (another French friend I met in Brisbane), meeting more of Isis' family, exploring Nice and eating cheese.

Every morning I asked the hostel for one more night... 5 times. Each time they said we will give you the same deal.

I also did a day trip to Monaco,  a country/city full of Lamborghinis and Ferraris, and the location of the famous Montecarlo Grand Casino from all the Bond movies. If you stay away from all the high end restaurants it's actually quite cheap... the bus from Nice was just 1.50 Euro. I did worry a little when I realised I was going to another country with my passport sitting safely in my hostel room.

The Montecarlo Grand Casino

After 7 nights in the hostel it was time to leave... the hostel staff were shocked that I was finally going. I did consider staying 2 more nights to spend Christmas with the awesome group of people there.

Hitchiking to Avignon!

Maybe hitchhiking failed for the first time but you will have to read my next post.

Lessons learnt:

It is great to meet good friends on long adventures.

My Frenglish became Spench.

Hitchhiking doesn't always work.

Cheese is the thing I miss most about France. 

St Jean de Luz, France: La Rhune et L'amour est dans le pré

It was time to say goodbye to the beautiful blissful beach town of Anglet and say bonjour to the mountainy busy beach town of St Jean de Luz. This time I opted for the 4 Euro predictable train instead of the excitingly unpredictable adventures of hitchhiking.

St Jean de Luz is a Basque town 15 km north of the Spanish border. It has nice beaches, the European HQ for Quicksilver and a picturesque backdrop that includes the foothills of the Pyrenees.

I was back to Couchsurfing! My host, Pierre, was an intern at Quicksilver. He had two awesome housemates, a Spanish guy and a French girl. The Spanish guy cooked an awesome Spanish (aka Mexican) dinner for Pierre and I on my first night. The French girl had 3 friends over to watch the French version of farmer wants a wife (L'amour est dans le pré. Love is in the farm field). The 7 of us crowded around the TV watch while eating crêpes... Don't stop reading my stay does get more exciting... Although, it's very different to the Aussie version (unfortunately I've seen an episode or 2). The farmers are old, unfortunate looking and certainly don't have much experience. The Frenchies sit around the TV laughing at these poor guys... I may have joined in.

The next day everyone was off to work so I thought that I should also do something  productive with my day. La Rhune, the first mountain from the west to form the foothills of the Pyrenees. It is just shy of 1000m and very touristy with two old trains running up and down all day. I decided to hike. It took around two hours to reach the summit. The last section was a little difficult with over half the people turning around instead of reaching the summit.

St Jean de Luz from halfway up La Rhune

The Mountain Goat

That night I cooked my famous dinner...again (that is number 7 in France). Then a French and a Spanish guy introduced an Aussie to a British TV series, Misfits. It is possibly the best thing to come out of the UK since settlement of Australia. The next couple of days just involved the beach and since Pierre was from Brittany galette was on the menu for his turn to cook.

On my last afternoon/night I caught a bus 5km out of town to Quicksilver European HQ to meet Pierre. Quicksilver built a skate park out the front and installed a bar. They bring a band in every Thursday and give their employees 2 free beers. Today just happened to be Thursday. It was a US band that performed rock/metal covers.

After the band finished we went to a house where there was 10 of us sitting in a little bedroom that had been converted to the lounge room. A lot of wine and snack food was being passed around, among other things. I was the only person in the room that wasn't a Quicksilver intern. Once again everyone assumes an Australian travelling the west coast must be on a surfing tour... I feel like I'm letting people down when I say I don't surf (I promise to change this during my 3 weeks back in Aus in Jan).

My plan was to go to San Sebastian next but I managed to line up a 2 week HelpX on 1 day notice. I was back to hitchhiking 50 km east to possibly the smallest town I have been in my life. Helette, a tiny Basque town in the countryside. This time I didn't bother making a sign as I doubt anyone would know the town so a thumb was going to have to do. My first ride was an old guy that didn't really speak English. He spoke in French and I spoke in English, somehow we understood each other and the conversation worked. The next guy that picked me up was a Professor from Marseille. He was exploring Basque country. We stopped in few other little towns on the way to my drop off point to take a look around. My last ride was a French Canadian with her 3 year old daughter in the back. She lived in the town next to where I was going  and drove me all the way to the front door. She even offered for me to stay at her place.

Lessons Learnt:
There is something not quite right with an Aussie that doesn't surf.
A flexible schedule is important to take advantage of opportunities.
Hitchhiking is the best way to travel France.