Well the last week and a bit has been crazy, before I can turn around twice I realise that my blog is completely out of date. I'm writing this from Barcelona. To catch up I'm going to do one blog outlining what had happened so far and then a couple of blogs on some specific areas.
The rest of the time in Prague was spent catching up with friends and shopping. We visited Plzen on Sunday morning and had lunch with our friends there which was fantastic. On the Monday I took a fairly lengthly walk through the park and up to the Strahov Monastery. I didn't go into the Monastery but I stood looking over the park watching the snow flakes tumbling down. Enchantment!
Tuesday we flew to Marseille and we were all ready for some warmer weather and colour after the bleakness of Prague.
The little place we were staying was called Collobieres. It was about a provincial french as you can find. A village on a river a bit run down in the heel but coming back because of tourists and city folk who want a place in the country. Our place was owned by a lady from Ireland..
Barcelona was playing Paris St Germaine so after basically a beautiful home cooked meal in the local hotel, I stayed with the locals gents at the bar and watched the football. Couldn't understand a word they said to me but it was a great experience.
The next day we headed to a town called Hyéres. The old quarter was typically beautiful area. They had some gardens at the top of the old town looking over the area which were excellent, it was great to see some colour after all the drabness. Some young people thought so too, locals without much to do sitting listening to music, including a wonderful piece from a Korean maestro... Gangnam Style.
I took a long walk along the Réal Collobrier to see the countryside when we got home and then we settled down to a meal from a small local restaurant - Hamburgers and Pomme frites. I have no idea how we ended up with that but apparently they opened the grill for us as a favour so we didn't argue. It was pretty good actually.
The next day saw us visit Grimaud to see the ruins of an old castle, we then visited Cogolin for lunch. There was what turned out to be an Algerian restaurant which advertised a chicken curry - sadly, it was like no chicken curry I have ever had before although what we DID get wasn't too bad. It had been threatening to rain all day and it absolutely bucketed down after lunch so I walked in circles while the girls scurried from shop to shop, finally I took refuge in a laundromat and hooked into someone's open WIFI (thank you unknown benefactor) until it was time to go home.
The next day it was time to travel to Toulouse which we did via Montpellier for lunch. We were so hungry and fed up at the same time (isn't English a great language) that we settled for the first thing we saw - thank you McDonalds. At least they had toilets which is a real lottery in some of these french towns. After lunch the girls headed for the shops while I wandered around looking at the mediocre fusion of old and new architecture, oh I guess that's a bit crusty - it's not bad.
I say wander, but lets be clear - I never wander I always stride reasonably purposefully around where possible try to look as remote from being a tourist as possible - you have less chance of being bothered by beggars, grifters, snake oil salesmen and the rest of the motley collection of chancers that like to prey on tourists. I've only had one persistent person trying to sketch me and I gave him my eyebrows and my sternest Gaullist "non" to send him on his way. Indifference is a most powerful weapon.
Finally we were on our way to Toulouse where we checked into a lovely flat right on the river. The process of checking in took forever, the old couple who owned it proceeded to point out all the features as though we had never used cutlery before. It might have been OK if we understood what they were saying. I tuned out although when I saw the lady point to the crockery and say "le mug, le bowl". Luckily Helen was there to provide the quality attentive feedback... although she told me later she only understood 25% of what they said - the mind boggles.
We had an invitation to tea that night at our friends (who we had come to see) from Sydney and so it was very pleasant to spend the next few days with them. More about that next.
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