Normandie: Mont-Saint-Michel

St. Michael's Mount

So we all know that my entire life relates to cycling (or Disney), in one way or another.  This is a story of another how-on-earth-can-she-draw-cycling-into-THIS-one...but she does. 

There is a beautiful image from Stage 6 of the 2011 Tour de France that shows the five riders of the breakaway against the coast of Brittany, western France, with a giant island monastery in the background.  That ancient monastery is the famous Mont-Saint-Michel, and since that day it's been one of my dreams to see it.  Despite all my travels I'd never found time for a trip out to Normandy, where Mont-Saint-Michel is, so eventually I promised myself that it would be my graduation present to myself, a special solo trip (ha!  They all are!) to the far west coast to finally see the island in person.  Well, God willing (inshallah, masallah, Zeus have mercy) I graduated on Tuesday.  Today, I saw Mont-Saint-Michel.

It's a strange feeling, seeing something for which your expectations have been so heavily built up.  It's one thing when a stranger does it, since I usually find myself disappointed (case in point: Florence).  It's different when you've done it, when the anticipation that's hatching live butterflies in your stomach is all of your own initiation.  You worry that it won't be everything you've expected it to be; you worry that you'll have disappointed yourself.

The first view of Mont-Saint-Michel was incredible.  The fear of disappointment vanished.  I was here.  It took a little bit of effort - due to a lack of accommodation in the area I'm staying almost 100 kilometres away, in the city of Rennes.  There are bus services from Rennes direct to Mont-Saint-Michel, but with today being a public holiday the first one wasn't until 11.30am.  Instead I took the train to Dol-de-Bretagne, from where the first bus left at 10.30am.  By this time I'd managed to find a friend - trust me!  We'd said a polite good morning over breakfast at the hostel and were halfway to Mont-Saint-Michel before we realised we were both going there and might as well go together.

So we sat on the bus together and stared in stunned disbelief at the mountain abbey rising from the ocean before us as we crossed the causeway.  It was awesome seeing it from afar, but somehow it seemed smaller close-up.  Do not, however, make the mistake of reading smaller as less impressive.  Have you ever stood at the side of a mountain and looked straight up?  Now imagine that mountain was in the middle of the ocean and had angels and houses carved into the side.  That's an approximation of the scenic and architectural beauty that is Mont-Saint-Michel, size notwithstanding.

So we began the hike up the steep, twisting streets towards the top, stopping for food on the way (waffle with Normandy toffee - sticky, HOT and yaaah-mee!)  As we stood in line for the abbey looking out at the beautiful Norman-Breton scenery below the mount, another voice joined our conversation, and our group expanded again.  The line moved pretty quickly, and once again I blessed my wisdom in choosing to carry my passport with the French resident visa that permits me free access to most French cultural monuments, like Mont-Saint-Michel.  So there we were, an Australian, a Canadian and a Turk, residents in France, Switzerland and Germany, speaking eight different languages between us, exploring an abbey atop an island off the coast of France.  Welcome to my life!

We spent maybe a couple of hours going through the abbey, which is really not that much different to any other church, abbey or religious complex that I've ever visited.  What's different is the locations, the views: of the bay, the island, the other nearby islands, and coastal Normandy.  I may have complained to the boys for about an hour of my desire to follow the other pilgrims walking from Mont-Saint-Michel to the other island in the bay, not far away, but the realisation that they were walking barefoot through the tidal mud soon put paid to that idea, though not the complaints... ("Ils marchent a l'ile.  Je veux marcher a l'ile.  Je ne peux pas marcher a l'ile.  Je suis triste maintenant.  JE SUIS TRISTE!")  Also, the fireplaces are just ridiculous.  I'm quite convinced that the wicked witch from Hansel and Gretel had them built for burning a dozen people at once (which is roughly how many each one fits!)

The weather was just byootiful, even if the wind kept threatening to steal my hat, and we wandered along the narrow, twisting, winding streets some more, looking for one of the green picnic areas we'd seen to sit down.  We eventually realised that wasn't going to happen and just enjoyed the views and the architecture as we braved the tourists on our way back down.  Our buses - one to Rennes, one to Caen - left around five, which is when the weather decided to turn nasty and hurl raindrops at our summerly-dressed bodies.  I got a good dose of my favourite irony when we decided to skip the crowded first bus to Rennes and boarded the emptier second one, which then left before the first.  Apparently patience is a virtue after all. I spent the hour-long ride home curled up on a Canadian pillow watching the beautiful Norman scenery and my book (Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, 
if anyone was wondering) in turn.  I'm pretty sure I got a tan sitting in the window seat.  At any rate, I got a thoroughly satisfactory and comprehensive dose of Vitamin D today, and my crepe craving was satisfied at a long, bilingual-Disney-duet-accompanied dinner (see, everything relates to Disney, too!).  And don't worry, Mum, we ate the healthy ones first (and I forgot to ask for Chantilly with desert, so that was pretty healthy too).  Tomorrow, train to Nantes.  Don't ask why.  Spontaneous, wild nomad travelers don't need reasons. We just go. 


*Blogger and the Youth Hostel Internet would like to apologise for their rottenness which prevented our wonderful authoress from uploading gloaty-gloaty photos of her marvellous exploits of today.   This will be remedied on Facebook and, if Blogger and the Youth Hostel Internets co-operate, in a later blog post.  Goodnight/bonne soiree!

La Bella Italia Ancora

So I'm back in Italy for the week.  Unfortunately, since I have three exams next week and a research project due, I'm spending most of my free time studying even though it's spring break at Sorbonne.  So, you know, no exciting blog posts with pretty photos.  Instead I suggest you read With My Swag All On My Shoulder, the detailed account of my mother on her jaunt through Europe.  Yes, Mum and Dad are here with me (in fact, that's why I came at all!)  So, you know, bombard Mum with comments (no, seriously, do.  It'll be hilarious since she's largely Internet-illiterate and setting up the blog alone was almost beyond her.  Comments will be so far outside her comfort zone that it actually WILL be funny.  Until I have to come in and save her, of course).

Anyway, might post some pics and thoughts once I'm back in France and exams are over.  No promises that the language will be English, though - you should just HEAR my Italian now!

Living The Glamourous Life

So I've been really slack in posting lately, and I do apologise. My life is crazy. Apparently moving to another continent hasn't changed a thing. Between uni and work I barely even have a social life anymore! And my exchange has become fairly humdrum, anyway. All the things that were weird and notable and exciting when I got here are just regular old Paris now. Either way, I offer a series of random stories, thoughts and updates from the past little while.

I got my first piece of homework back from one of my literature classes today. It was the devoir sur table (in-class written assessment) from my Literature and Opera class. I've been worried since I've been doing all my assessments as commentaire composes, since that's all I know, but I'm still not sure I'm doing them right, and I warned the teacher about it. I was worrying for nothing. I got a 15/20 for it, which is supposed to be really good in a French uni, and her main criticism was that my spectrum of inquiry was too broad, so I didn't have time or room to go into detail on any points, but what I'd written was good. There was a bunch of grammatical mistakes and miswrites (typos by hand!) but there were no 'construction' problems and she marked a few areas as 'good', and when she talked about the themes of the extracts and what we should have covered (as a general idea), she even gave the title of my devoir as an example of a good one-sentence analysis and theme for the commentaire. I was amazed! Hopefully I'll get another assigment back tomorrow, but after this first mark I'm feeling pretty optomistic about this semester.

I've been freaking out my European friends with the amount of travelling I do. I spent this weekend in Belgium - went up Thursday night and returned last night, Sunday. E3-Harelbeke was on Friday and Gent-Wevelgem was on Sunday, both major cycling races, and both Harelbeke and Wevelgem are a short distance from Kortrijk in Belgium which is just over the border from Lille and Roubaix. While I was there I spent a bit of time in Gent and its suburbs, lots of transfers through Kortrijk and an afternoon in Brugge. In other words, I'm now really well acquainted with the West Flanders region of Belgium. Feel free to check out Peloton Cafe for my E3-Harelbeke and Gent-Wevelgem pieces and my profile-feature on Mitch Docker, Australian Orica-GreenEDGE cyclist.

Attached is the beginning of an unfinished post from a few weeks ago about a class trip...

I'm not quite as over-the-top with it as I am with my Disney obsession, but I'm absolutely mad for Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera (though we prefer the term 'phanatics'). I love it so much that the first time I saw an English version of the French novel it was based on (in my university bookshop, of all places) I bought and read it straight away. In fact, the first thing that caught my attention on my first trip to Paris was the Opera Garnier, or Old Paris Opera House. The Opera Garnier was the model for the Opera Populaire in the Phantom of the Opera film, so as soon as I saw it I realised I was in the Phantom city (not to mention the city of many other things that are educated and cultural and have nothing to do with tourist stuff). Anyway, you get the point.

I put my name down a few months back to go to a rehearsal of the opera Cenerentola at the Opera Bastille with my Literature and Opera class. We're studying Cenerentola this semester, since it was developed from the story Cendrillon by French writer Charles Perrault (which later became the Disney movie Cinderella - what, everything relates to Disney!), so I thought it would be good to choose that opera to see, plus the Opera Bastille, I mean, pretty cool, right? So you can imagine the kind of excited sounds I made when I realised there'd been a venue change and we were going to the Opera Garnier. Performer's entrance. Exclusive entry. The whole kit and caboodle. Whoa, dude.

I also made some friends on this trip. I finally talked to some of the French girls in my Lit and Opera class, which is handy, because two of them are in my Medieval Language class directly after Lit and Opera on Mondays. Up til now I've been too shy and unsure of my French to talk to the native French students, so I was pretty proud of myself. I've also made a couple of friends in my Morphosyntaxe class - we've been teamed up for an oral presentation next week, but I like them alright. My linguistics classes this semester are great - Medieval to Classical Language and Morphosyntaxe are really engaging and interesting. Even Lit and Opera and Divine Love Lit classes are pretty good, since I've mostly enjoyed the texts we've studied. It's Thursdays that are a bit trying, but there's only five more weeks of class left, so I'll survive (five weeks! Holy moly! Where did the semester go?) And then after that I apply to graduate and I enter the big wide adult world! Scary thought.

In my quest for the best hot chocolate in Paris, last weekend I went to a teahouse called Angelina's that a friend recommended to me to test his assertion that they have the best hot chocolates. I've never been to a cafe that has a queue before, that was an interesting experience. Unsurprisingly the hot chocolate was rather disappointing - it was Spanish-style, not French-style, and the Spaniards don't know how to do hot chocolate. The place was worth it for the experience though, I'd recommend it.

I think that's all for now. I might post some photos at some point if I get around to it. In the meantime I need to eat dinner and then finish ghost-writing Tiffany Cromwell's blog. Ah, the glamorous life of the professional journalist...not.

A Nice Holiday (Part II)

Nemours, south of Paris

Isle-et-Bardais, just north of Cerilly

Countryside in Cerilly

Irish fan cheering on Nic Roche

The bumblebee van - 10 different flags!

This guy was a (French) legend

The finish line at Saint-Vallier

The big blue and yellow bike...

...and the schoolchildren that went with it.

1k from the finish in Saint-Vallier

Looking down 1k-500m to go in Saint-Vallier

The river Rhone, Saint-Vallier

Looking the other way

An eager fan, Saint-Vallier

Montagne de Lure, south-eastern France

Views from Montagne de Lure

My artsy French-mountain photos

The other side of the road

The technical area (the commentary tribune
on the right is where I hang out)

Late mountain sunshine

So I've just had the most amazing week ever following Paris-Nice. The people were amazing, both the ones I travelled with and the ones I met at the race along the way, the views were magnificent, the riders great, and the experience unforgettable. This was my first time at Paris-Nice, as a spectator or a journo, so it was twice as exciting, and I got the chance to work alongside someone from Australian cycling that I greatly admire, which was an incredible opportunity. I have to say a huge thank you to Mike Tomalaris for his advice that put me on the right track, Matt Keenan for making the arrangements and Phil Gomes and the team at SBS Cycling Central for the incredible faith they put in me to cover the race. For those who are interested, you can read all my articles for them here. Next stop: Paris-Roubaix.

A Nice Holiday (Part I)

*Ladies and gentlemen, mesdames et messieurs, a public service announcement...*

Though I am away from Paris travelling south for the next week, I likely won't be posting much as I'm working (and studying in my free time).  In case the title didn't give it away, I'm following the cycling race Paris-Nice, so while there'll be some photos upon my return, in the meantime check out SBS Cycling Central to see my articles!

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!

How To Be A Quintessential Cute Australian Tourist:

• Sit and stare with child-like delight out the upper-level window of the train at the snow dotted across the ground of eastern France. Actually, child-like delight is inaccurate; the kids on the train are used to snow and don’t find it nearly as fascinating as you do.
• Gasp in delight when the fog become so thick in the air and the snow so thick on the ground that you can no longer tell where the snow-covered fields end and where the sky begins.
• Wish you could take photos of the fairy-tale villages you pass, covered in snow like something out of Hansel and Gretel.
• Realise, as you walk out of the station in Strasbourg, on the German border, that you’ve never seen snow like this except in the Victorian Alps (because the swirling white stuff you get in Paris doesn’t count) and start jumping on it, asking yourself, “Is this actually snow? Is this what snow looks like?”
• Slowly amble to your hostel a kilometre away, rugged up to the ears, staring at the wet white stuff on the footpaths and gutters.
• Collapse in the hostel while you let warmth fill your body and stare at the snow on the roof of the cute little three-storey buildings across the road.
• Go for a walk and get as excited over the snowman as the kid who built it. Wish you could lie in the snow and make snow angels with him while his mother smiles on (except your coat isn’t waterproof and you’re cold enough as it is).
• Think that the snow caps are the finishing touch on the red Gothic cathedral in the main square – that, or another bell tower so the thing is actually even.
• Walk down to the river, squee over the exposed-timber German-style houses with snow roofs and grab your camera.

So yeah, can you tell what my day has been mostly about? This place is freezing, but it has heaps of snow to make up for it (I can cope with cold, so long as there’s a justification, like penguins, or snow). I got to Strasbourg around mid-afternoon, but by the time I’d made it to the hostel, warmed up a little and set off again it was early evening and most museums and so forth were closing. I wandered south into the old city a bit and had a look around, and made a plan of action for the next two days. I also had a look in all the souvenir shops – they have the wackiest, cutest little emblems and mascots here. That was also when I realised that I’m in the Alsace region of France – you know, as in Alsatians? It’s the Germanic bit of France (like Provence is the Italian bit, and the Pyrenees are the Spanish bit). The German city of Kehl is literally right across the river – and I mean literally as in if I go for a nice long walk east, once I cross the Rhine on the edge of Strasbourg I’m in Germany and in Kehl.

Once I got cold enough and hungry enough and my feet wanted a break, I went back to the restaurant I’d picked out for dinner. I was excited because for once there was something on the ‘local specialities’ list that was vegetarian and that I could actually eat. The onion tart with salad was uh-may-zing. Incredible (incroyable). Marvellous (merveilleuse). It was the best thing I’ve eaten since I came to France. I think my tastebuds are going to go on strike for the next few days (how very French of them) since nothing else will live up to that for a long time. I rate it right up there with true Turkish kebabs from Turkey and..well…not much else rates that high, actually. Oh, tiramisu in Bergamo, Italy, of course, and probably Gijonesa cake in Gijón, Spain. But yeah, just beautiful. I nearly asked for the recipe, but there’s no way in the world I’d be able to replicate THAT.

Girona (Spain, Part V)

It's about a one-hour train ride from Barcelona to the smaller city of Girona, the Spanish capital of Australian cyclists.  The train wound through typical Spanish-European farming countryside, before pulling up briefly in the small city.  Me and my giant mochila (backpack) jumped off and began following the map I'd made to my hostel in the old quarter. This was harder than it sounded, since the building was quite discreet and Europe really just isn't very good at street signs.

After my mixed day in Barcelona I was a bit tired, so I crashed at the hostel for a bit and caught up on the internet world.  As the afternoon wore on I figured I should be more productive, so I headed downstairs, pinched a map and plotted a course for my time in Girona.

The stairway to the old wall of the city was barely 200 metres from the door of my hostel.  As the late afternoon sun burned warm on my back I hauled myself up the stairs and along the sloping pathway of the old city wall.  At various points along the wall there were raised viewing platforms.  The view was incredible.  I watched the sun set from the walls and then finished my leisurely stroll when the wall finally descended to ground level again behind the town cathedral.  As darkness set in I made my way back to the city centre through the streets of the old quarter, where my hostel is.

I found a little cafe two minutes from my hostel, where I settled in with a pizza and an Agatha Christie.  They were quite impressed with my Spanish, and informed me that I was the first Australian they'd had there.  I eventually bailed and headed back to the hostel to do some work on my laptop and chat to my English and Spanish roommates.

Day 2 in Girona - or Day 1 if you count full days.  I set out at 11am in search of the local  tourist train (LOVE tourist trains).  A quick trip to the Girona tourist office put me straight - the train no longer existed.  Disappointed, I decided to make my way up to the cathedral instead.  The Girona cathedral is quite unusual - though Gothic, the cathedral is square and blocky, without the usual spires, and the facade simply has several alcoves with statues instead of the usual decorative arches.  The stained glass windows inside were lovely, though.  I think it's become a new passion.

The cathedral is also linked to the Basilica of Saint Felix, a five minute walk away.  After a much-needed coffee-and-muffin break, I made my way over.  The Basilica is smaller than the cathedral, and the inside is fairly church standard, but the side-chapel dedicated to Saint Felix was incredible.  The huge rounded marble ceiling and elegant, sparse interior reminded me of grand Italian cathedrals I've seen.  It was beautiful.  Leaving the Basilica, I continued north through the old quarter, passing a cute little chapel and a monastery that had been converted into a museum.  I took a walk along a cute little path behind the cathedral before finally deciding it was lunchtime.

I stopped for a burger in a place I'd passed in the old quarter, and caused the usual consternation with my words 'no meat' (the concept completely escapes them here in Spain).  Food in my belly, I headed north again with the intention of walking the second, smaller section of old city wall, just north of the previous day's one.  I made my way partway up a lovely cobbled passage through a wooded area behind the cathedral without any luck, until some quick backtracking and a closer look at my map put me straight.

Unsurprisingly, the views were truly amazing.  I think I sat there for about an hour, watching as the sun's rays spread slowly across the city of Girona before it sank below the horizon.  I made my way along the rest of the wall and back to ground zero, by which time the sun was making beautiful pinky-orange streaks across the sky.  Naturally, more photos.  I finished my day with a lovely walk home along the river back to Plaza Catalunya, the main square, followed by a cold dinner in my hostel room and a last repack of my backpack, ready to leave in the morning.

 Final day in Girona.  Had breakfast and left my bag at the hostel before heading out for the day.  The lady at the hostel had told me that everything worth seeing in Girona was in the old quarter, so it was back onto the streets and up north again.  Walking past the cathedral again, I started off at the Banyos Arabos, or Arab Baths, which actually weren't all that exciting.  After that I started up the Passeig Archaelogic, or Archaeological Passage, which turned out to be the cobbled street through the woods I'd ventured onto yesterday.  It was another beautiful morning, and as I walked up the hill along the Passeig I could see the snow-capped mountains that ringed Girona.  I even found my own patch of snow-frost, left unmelted by the morning's sun.

Reaching the top of the hill, I decided to bush-bash my way through to the city wall again and pass underneath it.  Crossing under the wall, I found myself in a beautiful courtyard of trees and greenery, ringed by fragments of the city walls.  I sat for a while and shared my rice cakes with some pigeons before passing under the arch out of the courtyard and choosing a street to explore.


I wandered in the Jewish and old quarters for a while, soaking up the vibe of the city, before deciding that it was lunch time.  After a veggie burger at a wacky restaurant by the river, I picked up my backpack from the hostel and made my way to the station to take the bus to Girona airport for my flight home to Paris.  Hasta luego, España.

Girona's old quarter

Sunset over Girona, night 1

Girona cathedral

Basilica Sant Feliu

Girona, late afternoon

The cathedral from the north wall

Sunset over Girona, night 2

Sunset over Girona, night 2

Sunset over Girona, night 2

Sunset over Girona, night 2

Sunset over Girona, night 2

Pink-clouded sunset sky

The moon beside the Saint Felix spire

Sunset over Girona, night 2

Centrepiece at the Banyos Arabos

Alleyways in Girona

Banyos Arabos courtyard

Mountains around Girona

Beside the old city walls

Walking up the Passeig archaeologico

Alleyways in Girona

Mimicking a postcard of Girona