Lost in Southern France (Segment Two)

France, Day 4: This day was pretty low key. We bummed around town and eventually made our way into Toulon, a pretty big port city about 30 minutes to the west. We did find a Christmas market, though, with booths filled with assorted merchandise and food. We had our first crepe experience, and that was lovely. I think my favorite part was the fake snow covered pine trees that tried to distract from the surrounding palm trees. Very clever. Other than that we walked along the dock in the harbor, found a shopping mall, which included the largest grocery store I’ve every seen, and visited the creepiest photography museum one could imagine. It seemed to specialize in bloody teeth and fingernail art. Weird. You never know what you’ll find in France.

France, Day 5: Definitely the most eventful day of the trip and one of the longest days of my life; this was good and bad. We woke up at 5:45 so we could catch the first of a line of trains to take us to Chataeuneuf du Pape: renowned wine country in France. We caught the first one just fine, but our next was delayed, which caused us to miss a connection. We finally got to the city of Orange (a springboard into the Chateauneuf region) but a few hours later than we had hoped. But that was okay. This was an adventure. We saw a huge Roman amphitheater from circa 50 A.D., and that was quite cool. From there we had hoped to cycle around the vineyards and hit up a number of wineries (or “domaines” as they’re called in France). Unfortunately it was incredibly windy, so bikes would be no good, but the lady at the tourist info. office assured us there were some great domaines within walking distance. So we headed along the D68 out of town and into the vineyards! After maybe 45 minutes of walking in the crazy wind (in dress clothes, mind you – we wanted to be classy for our winery day) we finally passed the first domaine. Mandy was elated. Aaron wasn’t ready to stop, though. The highest goal for him was to taste wine at Mount Redon, a domaine producing some of the choicest wines in the world. Mandy was a little annoyed, but they continued on. After passing a number of perfectly good domaines and walking up a good-sized hill (there’s a reason it’s called Mount Redon) in quasi-gale-force wind for nearly two hours, we had reached the pinnacle. The winery and tasting were amazing, and even Mandy, with her limited knowledge of wine was very impressed. We were also able to purchase a couple bottles at phenomenally inexpensive prices. So that was very cool. After this, we trekked back into the town of Orange just as we lost daylight and caught the first of our trains back. It had been a bit stressful, but we had made it. Or had we? The first two connections went perfectly. The third didn’t. Our train was nowhere to be found – something about a transportation strike. We could catch a later train, but that would put us in Toulon (where we had visited yesterday) after the buses had stopped running to Heyeres, where we had a nice comfortable hotel room that was already paid for. So after we struggled to make it to Chateauneuf, walked for kilometers and kilometers in the cold wind, and had nothing to eat all day except half a baguette with peanut butter and some grapes we stole off a vine, we found ourselves stranded in Toulon, which for all its niceties during the day, is a little bit seedy at night. (Are you feeling sorry for us yet?) We walked around for about two hours past the prostitutes and sex shops before finally finding a hotel we could afford – you know the kind with the vertical neon sign where one of the letters is blinking out. The front desk actually looked promising, but we started to get nervous when the attendant made us look at the room before agreeing to pay for it. So we did: the building was quite old and the hallways were pretty dark and smelled like urine. We saw a glimpse of a fellow tenant, who basically looked like a homeless guy who scraped up enough money to stay there for a couple nights and was trying to tell us something albeit incoherently. The room had a dingy neon light and a stained bedspread and holey blanket, but thankfully it was odor free, and the sheets looked clean. The bathroom even had a “Touch of Charm” complimentary soap bar. Classy. Luckily we were only there for a few hours before catching the first bus back to Hyeres in the morning. What a day! Southern France proved to be beautiful as well as…memorable.

Pictures are same from Segment One