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Bye, bye Bordeaux and hello Toulouse. We got into Toulouse around 1pm, after 2 and a bit hours on the train. This train seemed positively pedestrian, travelling at around 100 km/hr but other than that the trip was fine. The whole way between Bordeaux and Toulouse seemed to be covered in grape vines. No wonder…

Another lovely day in downtown Bordeaux. Since we discovered that there is a bigger and better (supposedly) wine museum in town, we decided we’d go and have a look. Called Cité du Vin, it’s very imposing. It’s a fairly new (2016) building, which is supposed to represent swirling wine in a glass prior to tasting.…

So, most of today’s photos seem to be buggered. Thought the camera had developed an issue but it turns out that I had it set on “effects”, and whatever the effect was supposed to have been, it’s made the photos all look a bit like finger painting. A closer examination reveals that this fault seemed…

Have to catch a train to Bordeaux at 9:11am, so no time to waste. Turns out we were there an hour early and had plenty of time to waste. The local metropolitan line (Abesses) goes straight to the main regional link station (Montparnasse), so after allowing an hour and a half for travel, we were…

Big plans for the day, off to the Palace of Versailles. Not very good plans though, the thing was booked out. Plan B was a boat trip on the Seine River, so plan B it was. Damn, I was really looking forward to that. If ever I’m back I’m doing Versailles. Not much to be…

Friday was Arc de Triomphe and Eiffel Tower Day. Very touristy I know, but that’s why we came to France, not for the coffee. The Arc de Triomphe was built to honour those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. You’ll find the details on Wikipedia. Napoleon was pretty…

For something completely different we decided to take the underground to the underground and see the Parisian catacombs. We started our adventure when we descended a seemingly-endless spiral staircase to about 30 metres below the city. Then the tunnel tour began. Not for the claustrophobic, nor the very tall. The catacombs are a series of…

After a short sleep of around 10 hours, we were up and out at 7am ready for a big day at the Louvre . It’s another one of those, we’re in Paris, we should do <blank>, type of decisions. Seriously though, I wanted to see both the buildings and the contents. Neither really disappointed but…

We slept in a bit this morning, then lounged around whilst we awaited guests. Guests being Amelia, all the way from Melbourne, and Amanda and Cameron, (and Dave and Karen and Hinchy) from Blayney. Amelia is joining us for a few days before heading off on a tour of France, Switzerland and Spain. She showed…

They’ve obviously moved on since the Revolution, when there was so little bread that the helpful homemaking advice was to eat cake. Not good advice as it turned out and the French can be rather brutal towards anyone whose advice they don’t like. Just ask Marie Antoinette. But I’m getting ahead of myself, much as…