After Nice we drove along to Cannes, which is even more famous, hosting the big International Film Festival once a year. The kids fell asleep in the car on the way here so we didn't get out, I think mainly because everyone was enjoying the peace and quiet and didn't dare wake them!!! But we didn't really know what to do anyway! It's kind of hard when you drive to a place - really just wanting to 'see the place' with no real plans of actually doing anything. You never really know what to do! It's nice to get out and walk a few streets because you always seem to see more on foot, and soak up the atmosphere of the place, but sometimes it's more trouble than what it's worth! I felt happy with just driving through Cannes anyway - probably would have cost 10 Euros for a drink!!
{There were some fancy looking hotels along the waterfront, actually that's all we really saw - hotels, cafes and brasseries - and the beach and palm trees of course!}
Aix-en Province, where we stayed was a lovely place and felt very French! I didn't really take any pictures, but Mum did so you will have to check out her blog if you want a look. I only had a bit of a walk around one evening looking for food, but it had lovely little streets lined with cafes and brasseries - quite amazing how many there were really - all packed with people sitting around chatting! There were some lovely shop windows there, heaps of water fountains, very old looking tall buildings all joined together and different languages being spoken all around you. Mum and Dad had a bit more of a look around here on Saturday morning, but I stayed in and packed and let the kids have a play. At this stage they were getting a bit over all the 'going here and going there' and needed some time to just 'be kids' and laze around the house!
{Outside our apartment in Aix-en Province}
On Saturday we headed to Marseille to spend the afternoon before heading back to Paris on the TGV train. I'm sure Marseille is a wonderful place to visit, and I'm sure there are lots of things to see and do here. We had just planned to have a short look around, grab lunch down by the water and take it easy. But it was SO hectic driving through the city that we decided to take the easy way out and head straight for the rental car office (which took over an hour to find), drop the car off and sit at the train station and wait for our train!! We had all our bags and it was so hot that we just couldn't be bothered. I quite enjoyed the rest to be honest - it was a little bit dissapointing that we sat in a train station all afternoon when we could have been out exploring a new city, but you can only do what you can do!! Every now and again we went outside and checked things out!!! Mick took these photos, it really does look like quite an interesting place!
Marseille helped prepare us for Paris I think, not just the rest we had there but everything really. When we got a little lost and were looking for the rental car return place I got out of the car and went and asked for some directions and it was the first time I really felt quite unsafe here. To be fair, we weren't far from the train station (and train stations did seem to be the dodgiest places of all) but there really were some 'dodgos' around here! (None of our photos really capture any of this - so I guess you just have to take my word for it!) The streets stunk like wee... and no I don't meant "yes" I mean wee, and I saw first hand some of it being put there! It's just gross, and you had to watch every step you took - you kind of felt dirty - all the time. The houses and buildings just seem so old and run down and unclean. I really felt lucky to be an Australian this day, to come from such a beautiful land which provides me with everything I need. I couldn't really even begin to imagine what it would be like to grow up somewhere like this. Yes there would be lots of benefits - heaps of them in fact, but on the simple side, what more could you really want in life than clean fresh air, a roof over your head that is less than 200 years old, not be attached to 20 other places, and has a back door!?
3 comments:
i didn't realise it was like that when you got out of the car to ask where to go. The things we didn't talk about when we were there! I'm finding out more about what happened now I'm home.
Love the new family photo
When people had described Paris as dirty, I thought they meant all the dog droppings on the path. The smell of 'pee' in a few places was quite confronting.
Nevertheless, France has so many beautiful aspects and thankfully, they far outnumber the other bits, just like our cities and country.
Looking forward to living there for an extended period.
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