How many holidays can you get into one year?

Link to photos

The month of August in France doesn’t exist. It’s the summer holidays and everything grinds to a halt. Shops close, restaurants stop serving and everyone leaves. At the university people take up to 6 weeks off, slowly the chemical supplies run low and solvents run out until you are reduced to washing your stuff with WATER (that’s a joke for all the chemists out there, because everyone knows stuff should be washed in either acetone or HPLC grade alcohol).

I was seen as dedicated because I ONLY took 2 weeks off (I get six weeks of holidays) and managed to cram about 35hrs of train travel and a trip across France into it.

First stop: Bordeaux
City of Wine
The city of wine, wine and ...well more wine. Having not stayed in a proper youth hostel here in France I was quite surprised to walk in and hear pretty much everyone talking English. It had been 4 months since I had spoken to an Australian and probably about a month since id spoken to an English national. I was quite amusing to watch the "youth hostel" high achy with the young innocent 20 year olds worshiping the woman who had been backpacking for 7 years etc. I of coarse come somewhere near the top of this pecking order because I speak French. I was quite surprised to hear stories of people walking from shop to shop saying "do you speak English" and not even trying French. I read an article about the arrogance of backpackers and that they are experiencing the "real country" compared with people on tours. However, they will only ever see the items listed in the top 10 of their Lonely Planet :-). The attitude was often "ok I'm in Bordeaux, entertain me". I guess I do exactly the same thing, but it’s still amusing to observe in others.


Some street in Bordeaux...unfortunately sans wine

Second stop: Arcachon
Atlantic costal resort village and haven for German tourists.
Since I don’t get enough of beaches living in Australia and Marseille I decided to go to another beach resort...Arcachon. I arrived to storming rain which didn’t let up for my two days here. I was either bound to my tent or the bar reading my book. However, this wasn’t so bad since it made me relax a little. The "campground" was just bizarre. 80% of the people there were foreigners, mostly Germans and it was huge. There were a number of supermarkets, swimming pools, a bar, 3-4 restaurants and even a gum tree in my campsite!!! Not at all what you expect when you book a campground. Anyway, the major attraction here is the Dune de Pyla which is the largest sand dune in Europe...what can I say, its big...it’s a sand dune...its in Europe...but its also pretty cool.


Playing like a child on the Dune de Pyla

Third stop: St. Emilon
Medieval walled village and major Bordeaux wine producing area.
For those who don’t know, France does not name their wine by the grapes used to make the wine, they do it by region and vineyard. To try to at least be able to make a slightly informed decision about the wine I was drinking I decided to do a wine course in Bordeaux. Which told me there are 53 regions and over 3000 different wineries IN BORDEAUX ALONE and they all produce different wine...so you cannot even go "Oh a BORDEAUX wine would go with that..." BASTARDS, I guess ill just have to revert to trying as much as I can :-)

Anyway, St Emilion is a medieval walled town that makes lots of wine. I arrived at about 8am before the tourist hordes and drank coffee watching the town appear out of the mist. Drank wine, walked in fields, visited massive underground cathedral carved out of a single piece of rock...drank more wine...


The rows of vines coming out of the morning mist

Forth stop: Puy De Dome
Range of extinct volcanoes in the Center of France
The next stop was Clairment-Ferrand which is a city in the center of France. All up I actually spent about 3hrs total in the actual city of Clairment-Ferrand and according to consensus at my work; this is about as much as you would ever want to spend here.

My plan was to do a 3 day hike though the Park of Volcanoes, finishing at Puy de Dome. After a number of false starts trying to find busses, baggage storage and maps I ended up on a tiny bus heading out to some small village vaguely near where I wanted to be and began my hike. I spent the first night camped at the Puy de Vache (peak of the cow) which was a mountain constructed entirely out of red pumice stone and ate dinner watching the thunderstorms roll in. I then continued on to Puy de Dome which is the largest of the volcanoes and delightfully described as having a radio tower that looks like a "rectal thermometer" in the Lonely Planet guide. It also sees over 10 million visitors each year so my stinky unwashed self joined the photographing hordes that were shuffled by the coach load onto the summit.


Nik needs shower BADLY

Puy de Vache

Final stop: Les Alps.
A big mountain range that divides Italy, France and Switzerland.
Finally to the highlight of the trip and I arrived in the Alps at Friday midnight in BAD need of a shower. Unfortunately the place was completely booked out because of a race around Mt Blanc.

Anyway, I've put the report here. Really, even if you are illiterate and cannot read this sentence, at least look at the photos...you wont be disappointed.

Finally it was back to Marseille and it felt so good to finally have a proper shower, change of cloths and to be back home. Living out of a backpack sucks, especially when you shun "more clean cloths" for "lots of mountaineering gear" :-)


Sampler photo of the Alps: Me running around on the Mer De Glace (the Sea of Ice)