Rustique France

The Road Trip 2017

An adventure in human relations & tribulations

A Father & Son bonding session

Part 1

It all began 12 months ago when our son, Chris, decided that it was time to pay us a visit here in France. Chris’ plans included a few days with us in Sainte Foy La Grande, followed by a trip around the Mediterranean and up into Northern Europe and then onto Scandinavia to meet an old school friend in Stockholm. From Sweden he planned to head up to the Arctic to see and photograph the “Northern Lights”.

As it can be a little lonely and difficult to get around a number of European countries by car on your own, Kerrie & I discussed and agreed upon a plan for me to join Chris for the first 5 days and nights of his journey. Probably somewhat reluctantly, Chris also agreed to this plan.

And so it all happened in late September, with Chris’ arrival in Sainte Foy. He had booked an Alfa Romeo Julia for the driving leg, but we had to return it to French soil otherwise he would have to pay a “foreign surcharge” of around an extra €700. An itinerary was put together that saw us spend the first night at Montpellier (French Mediterranean) and then the next night in Nice, followed by a night in Genoa (Italy) and then onto Innsbruck (Austria) and our final night in Basel (Switzerland). The airport at Basel has a Swiss side & a French side, so we could return the car there with no additional cost. From Basel, I would fly home to Bordeaux and Chris would fly to Copenhagen to commence his Scandinavian adventure on his own.

The Mercedes instead of the AlfaRomeo

That’s enough of the background…..now onto the reality of the adventure.

On the Sunday morning we had to pick up his car from AVIS at Bordeaux and lo and behold, when we arrived, we found that instead of the Alfa Romeo that he had requested, they provided us with a quite new Mercedes 200 CL coupe. While he was a little disappointed with the change (every man wants to drive an Alfa at some stage of their life) we settled into the vehicle and yours truly had the fun of driving it out of busy Bordeaux and home. As Chris had never driven on the “wrong side” of the road before, nor on narrow roads with lots of roundabouts, I took him for a 30 minute drive in the country for him to get accustomed to the car and the roads. No problems and mission accomplished.

On Monday morning we said farewell to Kerrie and set off on our journey heading to our first overnight stop at Montpellier. I took the first stint in the car driving as far as the autoroute, where I handed over control to the young buck. Rather than go directly to Montpellier (about 4 hours from home) Chris decided that he wanted to revisit the old walled city of Carcassonne (he had previously been there as a 9 year old) and so we set the GPS and off we went. On the autoroute, he was able to get a good feel for driving, with plenty of room and good roads.

Around lunchtime, we arrived at Carcassonne and had to leave the autoroute and find “La Cité” and then park the bloody car. This was not too difficult but tested us with the reliability of Madam GPS……..she in fact did a pretty good job and we parked and walked up to the walled city. For those that have not been here, it is a great experience to find an entire city (albeit small) situated within the double walls that enclose the old city. It is very commercial and “touristy” but worth a visit none the less. We had a quick lunch and then on to our destination of Montpellier.

Crossing into La Cité

Chris outside La Cité

Once we found the hotel and checked in, we decided to take the local tram into the centre of Montpellier to explore and photograph this interesting city, a short distance from the Mediterranean Sea. Montpellier is a smallish city but a university town and it includes the oldest medical school in Europe. As a university city, there is a strong feel of youth and fun about the place and it has a mixture of old & modern all encompassed in and around the city centre. Chris spent quite a bit of time simply walking around the town centre and taking ample photographs. Indeed Montpellier was one of his favourites. We had a pleasant dinner in Place de la Comedie and then back to the hotel. Chris also had a plan to try a local beer (if there was one) in each stop.

Place de la Comedie - Montpellier

Next day since our destination of Nice was not a long drive (again around 4 hours)  we decided on a couple of detours first. Our first breakout was to the old Roman city of Arles, where there is a plethora of roman ruins including a fully functioning Arena (coliseum) and also a separate amphitheatre…….great for a keen photographer. Arles was also a very well-known for the Van Gogh presence and it was here that he painted “Starry Night” and other famous works of art, including “Le Café La Nuit”.

The Arena in Arles

Well Arles was our first test of our metal and as Chris was driving, it was my role to play navigator along with madam GPS. Now even though I had been to Arles previously (5 years ago) anyone who knows my propensity for navigation would have questioned the wisdom of this role being on my shoulders. Just ask Kerrie for her thoughts on my navigation skills!!! Trying to find a parking space in the middle of Arles was proving not to be that easy and after several circuits of the centre, together with a couple of heated exchanges between driver and navigator, Chris decided that it would be easier to park on the outskirts and walk into town (no more than 2 kms). Mission accomplished, we parked in an area that I was unfamiliar with, but Chris took over and soon had us in the centre of town and outside the imposing arena. For those that are interested, there is a better example of the arena in Nimes another city a bit further to the North, but be warned parking in Nimes is worse than Arles, so be prepared.

Van Gogh's - Le Café La Nuit - Arles

After wondering through the Arena (at a cost naturally) and plenty of photographs, we moved onto the amphitheatre and then walked around town in search of the café made famous by Van Gogh in “Le Café la Nuit”. Unfortunately, we failed in this expedition, but we did walk along the Rhone River and found a local boat that had been sunk, but was now in the throes of being salvaged. After a fair walk back, we found the car ok and decided to make our move onwards to Nice on the Côte D’Azur.

Before getting to Nice, we took a short diversion to the lovely town of Avignon (the gateway to Provence). Old Avignon is another walled city enclosing quite a large commercial and residential area and fortunately for us, the navigation and parking was pretty straight forward on this occasion. For those that do not know, Avignon is also famous for the “Avignon Papacy”. This arose when King Philip IV of France had an ongoing disagreement with Pope Boniface VIII in Rome. As a result Philip effectively established his own reign of Popes who were “legitimately” elected and based in Avignon, much to the annoyance of the Romans and the “traditional” church. There were 7 popes who were based in Avignon from 1305 to 1376. In this time the “Palais des Papes” was built and expanded. It is quite a massive complex with some ancient murals still visible in some of the rooms. While it may not rival St Peters and the Vatican, it remains a very interesting sight with an intriguing history.

Palais des Papes - Avignon and tombs of the Popes below

Driving from Avignon to Nice is a comfortable drive through Provence and what stands out for non-Europeans, is the limestone hills and mountains, the scrubby nature of the terrain and occasional glimpses of the blue Mediterranean. We arrived in Nice (a large city by French standards) close to “peak hour” and we were as usual relying on our good friend Madam GPS. Unfortunately at this time, Nice was undergoing major roadworks and building for the extension of the tramway all the way to the airport. This effectively cut the city into 2 parts and unfortunately our hotel was in the second part. After numerous attempts to find the hotel by GPS, we constantly ended up in some “dead-end” streets with great difficulty in even turning the car around. Chris did exceptionally well as the navigator again failed the basic test of finding a way around this mess. Eventually (about 40 minutes later) and after Chris reverted to good old “Google Maps” on his phone, we actually found our way to the Promenade Des Anglais and from there we finally were able to find our hotel tucked away in some strange part street/part goat track. This was certainly not one of the better hotels of the entire trip.

From the hotel, we needed to get to the Vieux Ville or the old town for dinner and a bit of exploration. Thank God for Uber. Within 6 minutes we had a very pleasant ride in an upmarket BMW into central Nice and “Cours Saleya”.

Cours Saleya in Nice

Here we decided to take an extended walk through the old town with very narrow streets and a strong Italianate influence. Chris was not overly excited by the closeness of all of the housing and commerce and it is certainly quite different to what he has experienced back in Australia.

None the less, I had promised him a good seafood dinner and after a bit of a walk to see the beach and coastline, we returned to Cours Saleya and found a good seafood place where we both indulged in oysters and then a fritto misto, both of which were delicious. Naturally, this was washed down with a different local beer and I even managed to sneak a glass of vin blanc to finish the night. Another Uber returned us to the hotel where we made notes and prepared for the next stage of our journey.

To be continued