"Home" in London - Part 1

Wow, time flies when you least want it to... Has it really been 15 days since I left Singapore?? Awww.. only 3 more days and I need to return to reality.. meh =\ The last blog was not left blank intentionally.. it was due to the lousy computer/internet which didn't allow me to type anything.. I <3 europe's internet! First-world country indeed!! (punt intended if you didn't understand)

It has been a really interesting trip thus far.. as we travelled along.. every region is so so different.. the experience and adventures were so varied!! Let me start from the very beginning...

THE JOURNEY
It took me a gruelling 24hrs before I finally met up with my cousin.. I didn't know how long the journey was going to take till I reached Nice, France, where my cousin was waiting for me. Flew KLM this time round... they serve very little food.. and food which I can't make out what it is.. had to transit at Amsterdam airport.. and sat there waiting with dreary eyes since my flight got in at 430am in the morn. Upon reaching Lyon, transferred to a train to get myself to Nice, but that's after I endured the cold for about 2 hrs at the station. Not a word of English. Everything's in french and I had to decipher what the remarks meant for my train.. Tried asking around.. but they don't speak ENGLISH!!! Arrghh.. stop being so proud! I believed I asked this policeman, he didn't speak English, couldn't help me and happily just walked away.. DUH!

FRENCH RIVIERA
We stayed 3 nights in Nice, French Riviera region. The B&B we stayed in was comfy and near the train station. Visited the usual sights in the region, Monte Carlo and Cannes and also the less heard of St-Paul-de-Vence (a tiny medieval town perched on a hill) and Grasse (a perfume town). This region is purely for R&R. Nice, Monte-Carlo and Cannes are all coastal areas, so just stroll along the beach and enjoy the uber cold sea gusts. There're countless boats in the Riviera region and in Monte-Carlo, the bulk of the cars on the streets are Bentleys, Merz SLKs, Ferraris... makes you feel like a pauper.. LoL.. I don't need to own a boat, but I really wanted to hop on one of those and make my way out to sea.. I miss being out at sea.. These places are also filled with endless streets of boutiques.. Shops don't open on Sundays though..

From Nice, we went on to Marseille and stayed for a night. Wrong choice. There's nothing much to see and we found the place shady. Paid for a 3* hotel that was worse than our B&B and our 1* hotel in the coming days. Even got followed by some crappy person..

PROVENCE
So happy to be leaving Marseille. Next stop Avignon in the Provence region where we stayed for 2 nights. The Provence region is rich in history having been through the religious war in the 16th century. Everything here dates back that long ago. Its a very lovely place and we ain't sure what event there was there, but everyone was at the Palais des Papes, eagarly waiting for someone's arrival.. We saw many groups of students as well, who're there on field trips since its their spring break.

Trying to get to the different towns in this region is a nightmare with the infrequent trains and bus and people who speak only french. Some places just cannot be reached by public transportation though.

We wanted to go to Arles, the town where Van Gogh stayed in for a period of time and where he painted the 'nuit etoile' as well. Got to the train station there, but waited for 1/2 an hour for the bus. I almost gave up and wanted to return to Avignon but the next bus back was in an hour's time. We didn't have much time in the town because we had to catch the next train, in order to make it to Aix-en-Provence. The transport costs a bomb! I felt to restricted by the train and bus timings that I wanted to rent a car to get around. But with the not so friendly road signs, I changed my mind. Save for the transport problems, Provence a really pretty place.

Was so glad we decided to take a day trip. We went to this town Orange ("or-hange) to marvel at the best preserved Roman theatre in Europe. I think that people in the pass were genius. How do you ever build anything that huge and grand without any modern day machinery? Just like the Great Wall of China..

Thereafter, we went wine-tasting. In France, the wines are labelled by the region thery're from and not identified by their grapes. Hence, we visited Chatenaeuf du Papes (means new castle of the pope) the famous wine region in France. How it got its name was when the Pope first arrived in Avignon, he was looking for a quiet place to build something like a 'summer home' and that was where the castle was built. There was an American couple with us this time round. We were all very perplexed by the stony vineyards and found out that the stones were meant to reflect sunlight in summer and keep the ground cool. All grapes in the region (or throughout France?) had to be hand-picked. This is a law. And so the wines all bear a A.O.C. chop on the bottle. Wines in this region are made from a mixture of 2-13 different types of grapes. Red wine can contain white grapes as well. I didn't know wine barrels are so expensive! 35,000-45,000 euros!!! 95% of the wine produced in this region is red, with the remaining 5% white. Due to the small quantity of white wine produced, they're never exported. As for the red, its mainly exported to UK and America, but the prices are exorbitant. Funny thing is, different barrels are used to store the grapes used for wines sold in the Europe and those in the US because of different taste preference. For the US, the barrels are a lot less costly. The most famous grape in the region is the Grenache (?) We tasted the 2004 and 2001 reds. The 2001 is good! I really like it! Its really smooth!! The American couple also loved the 2001. Its such a pity that because of the ban of liquids on board, none of us bought any.. [PS, I so wanted to buy a bottle for you! The one you can get in US will taste different from the one in France. Sigh.. no baggage space for that bottle. Will see if I can find it in London and whether its still reasonably priced]

Provence is also famous for its lavender. Apparently, real lavender (with only one flower) can only be found on the hills in provence. Those that you see along the roads or elsewhere in other countries are called lavendin (3 flowers) and can only be used to add fragrance to things like detergents.

Learnt alot from the time spent in Provence given that its richer in history.

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