Our honeymoon started with a flight to Paris (not pictured), and a TGV ride to Nice (not pictured).
We spent 3 days exploring Nice. Most of it is a fairly modern city, but it does have a sizable old city. It has lots of cute streets and lots of tourists and associated tchotchke shops. Here’s a Old Niçoise street:
In the middle of town there is a big steep hill. We went up there for the view, but found a cemetery right at the top of the hill.
The dead have a fabulous view in Nice
The view of old town Nice
The living also live well in Nice
We walked 7km over a mountain to the neighboring village of Villefranche-sur-Mer. It had far fewer tourists and was cute as hell
The beach at Villefranche-sur-Mer. The train line runs above it, with trains every 15 minutes. The trains are whisper quiet, you can barely hear them, even though they are passing 10 meters away.
After 3 days in Nice we rented a car…
A few more coastal villages.
Monaco. We didn’t stay here long, it was Sunday and most things were closed, except for the casino area, which was packed with people. I just wanted to drive a lap around the Grand Prix circuit. I did so, by memory, with only one mistake. The hairpin, btw, is tight. I can’t believe they take F1 cars around it.
…and across the line! (Eugene in the white Golf beating the Ferrari)
After that we headed back west. The neighboring medieval hilltop village of Eze.
We briefly stopped by the beach town of Cassis…but unfortunately didn’t spend enough time there
That day we drove to Avignon. It’s a medieval walled city, and was home to the Avignon Papacy and the 14th century Papal Palace.
The Palace was very Jesusy
From the top of the palace…
We met some tourists from Hong Kong that were taking pictures with a Polaroid. Luckily the guy actually knew his way around a camera and took a good photo of us.
The pope lived here yo
After 2 days in Avignon we departed, but first we drove around the area on a lavender road that promised rolling purple hills.
We found no lavender, but we did stumble upon a hilltop village, and after a bit of poking around found our way to the top.
The village was nearly empty, but it did have this old Renault 4
It also had a 12th century church
We found another village – Gordes. This one happened to be having its weekly market that day and was overrun with tourists trying to park in a medieval town not designed for cars. We got out as fast as we could, but we did pull over to snap a shot of the village.
Our final destination that day was Carcasonne. In retrospect: nice castle, boring town. Pretty far out of the way and not worth the detour. I think we ended up going there because we’ve played the game and we were planning our whole trip a day or two ahead, so we had the thought of going to Spain before finally deciding to leave Spain for another trip.
Anyway, Carcasonne has a famous castle. Here it is. We’re at about 2 castles per day at this point. By the end of our 3 week car journey we were both “Oh look. A castle. Anyway…”
As I said, Carcassonne itself was pretty boring and the weather wasn’t cooperating, so I didn’t take practically any photos of the town, and very few of the castle itself.
We did stumble upon a rehearsal for a French Circus performance in a park adjacent to our hotel. We watched them do their final run-through for free from the front of the empty bleachers. It was neat. I have a video of it somewhere, I’ll find it later.
Anyway, we left Carcassonne and headed northeast in the general direction of Switzerland, via the Millau Viaduct and with a 2 night layover at a small Bed and Breakfast in the Ardeche region (midway between Lyon and Nice).
The scenery on the way to to the Millau viaduct was stunning.
About 30km short of Millau we saw a sign on the freeway that simply said Roquefort, 20km, exit here. I swerved off the highway and drove to it. Roquefort is the home of that stinky blue cheese. It is one of my favorites, and holds a dear place in my heart as it was my grandpa’s favorite, even back in Soviet Ukraine where it was hard to get. In some way this detour was also for him.
All of the cheese that may be labelled Roquefort comes from a 3 sq km area around the town, aged in natural caves. Apparently the caves formed as a big block of cliff fractured from the cliff behind it, forming airy passages. The temperature is constant, and there is constant air circulation. A bunch of fromageries have built their operations right on top of these cracks.
We took a tour at Papillon…
Our very French tour guide showed us where the mold comes from. Apparently in September or October (it depends on the year, but they know when) they make these big loaves of bread. Then they bake them at very high heat for a short amount of time. This crusts over the outside, while leaving the inside raw. Then they let them sit and the mold grows inside the bread. They then harvest it. A wine bottle full of mold is enough to make 1 ton of cheese. This is a loaf he’s holding:
On the way out of Roquefort…
Finally! I spent like 3 hours driving under, up, and over this marvel of engineering. Rochelle was sick of it after 45 minutes. “It’s very nice, but it’s just a bridge!”.
The town of Millau. The road used to descend a very twisty 2-lane road down into Millau and then back up the other side. The viaduct bypasses all of this.
There is a big protected area in the middle of France, sort of like a National Forest. It’s mostly forests, mountains, fields, and villages.
I sighted this poppy field from the road, but even after some creative gravel–dirt–no road-at-all driving, I couldn’t actually drive up to it. So I had to content myself with a distant shot :-/
Not a bad way to live
This is the Bed and Breakfast we stayed in a little commune of Creysseilles (pop 132). There is no village as such, it’s just farms and houses scattered on hillsides. Martine et Jean-Paul, the proprietors are this adorable couple in their late 50s. He is the mayor of Creysseilles, while she just started running their newly-renovated 17th century farmhouse as a 2-room BnB two months before we arrived.
Relaxing next to their vegetable garden…
Aside from amazing breakfast, we had dinner with them both nights. The first night it was just the two of them, and due to her limited English we were forced to speak French. The second night we were joined by their son, daughter, and son-in-law who were about our age and spoke much better English. The food was amazing home-made French food and much wine was drunk. It was fantastic.
We spent 2 nights there, and on our “off” day we drove down to the closest real town — Privas.
I love and hate this photo. I captured 4 insects in one shot, all sharp and in-focus. But there’s that fucking flower in the foreground, plus a somewhat busy background which ruins it. I’m going to have a whole series of bug-on-flower pics from this trip, but I don’t think this one is gonna make it :-/
A few more shots from a walk we took around this BnB…
After Ardeche our course was for Lausanne, Switzerland, and the snowy Alps…
