Archive for the 'travel' Category

Nice

Published on 11 July 2008 in holiday and travel. 2 Comments

REM.

Oh. My. God.

I am a confirmed fanboi. Definitely.

The venue, the Theatre de Verdure, was great. Open air and yet cosy. Michael Stipe looked well (not as skinny as he was last time), as did Peter Buck (not as chubby as he was last time), and Mike Mills (looked the same).

Play List (from my super wobbly notes taken in concert):

  1. Begin the begin
  2. Living well is the best revenge
  3. Harborcoat
  4. What’s the frequency, Kenneth?
  5. Seven Chinese brothers
  6. Man-sized wreath
  7. Ignoreland “This is a song we wrote way back in 1924. It’s about the 1979 hostage crisis which led to the presidency of Ronald Reagan and George Bush senior”
  8. Walk unafraid
  9. Disturbance at the Heron House
  10. Drive
  11. Hollow man (Michael Stipe’s new favourite song, apparently)
  12. Great beyond
  13. Houston
  14. Electrolyte
  15. The one I love
  16. Imitation of life
  17. Nightswimming (Stipe stood with back to audience, leaning against a piano, played by Mike Mills)
  18. Let me in
  19. Pretty persuasion
  20. Bad day
  21. Horse to water
  22. I’m gonna DJ
  23. Supernatural superserious (encore)
  24. Losing my religion (encore)
  25. Fall on me (encore)
  26. Man on the moon(encore)

It was a great show. Michael Stipe was very comfortable, and flirted a bit with the audience. This was the first time REM have performed in Nice - it was Stipe’s idea, apparently. The support act was a French band, Le Deal (sp?). They were alright but I think everyone was waiting for REM.

Because we forgot to pack the cord for the camera I can’t upload any pictures; I suppose it will wait until we get back.

A very pleasant warm evening, only slightly marred by the fact that many in the audience were smoking.

As for Nice, we only spent a night and a few hours there. It was very pleasantly warm. M swam in the Mediterranean while I sat on the pebbly beach. Greatest thing about having been to France: I have now lost my fear of the French language!

Paris

Published on 8 July 2008 in holiday and travel. 3 Comments

Oooh la la!

This city is beautiful, smelly, chic, ornate, dusty, busy, delicious and wonderful.

So far we’ve only had one dodgy meal, when we found ourselves in the middle of the 1st arrondissement at 7pm on Sunday evening - the only open restaurant we could find was a tourist trap which served overpriced and not-very-tasty food. However, since then every meal - even the simplest pain au chocolat eaten while walking - has been very good. We are staying in Montmartre, and this morning we had breakfast (a la Anglais, which meant it came with tea and an omelette) in a local bar, where the neighbourhood drunk was regaling people with wild gestures and incomprehensible tales. Eventually he fell asleep on a chair on the footpath, and when we left he’d just fallen out of his chair onto the pavement, fast asleep (or in an alcoholic coma). This was at 9am.

So far we have climbed up the Arc De Triomphe (284 steps! 9€ a ticket, wonderful panoramic view of Paris), wandered around the Louvre (also 9€, spectacular art), walked around the Eiffel Tower (didn’t go in - the lines were daunting), walked along the Champs Elysee, got covered in dust in the Jardins des Tuileries, ridden the Metro (surprisingly easy to navigate), and sat in the Sacré-Cœur Basilica.

I am still wishing I spoke even a smidgeon of French, but so far my trusty Eyewitness Travel French Visual Guidebook is doing its job and we are surviving. It works fine when I need to order deux chocolats chaud, s’il vous plait (two hot chocolates, please) and ask for cinq timbres (five stamps), and all the rest.

Tomorrow we head to Nice, where we are seeing REM at 8pm! Unfortunately our stay in Nice has had to be cut short, as the trains are all booked up for the Bastille Day holiday. We are lucky we decided to buy first class Eurail passes, as an American couple in the line at the station also wanted to go to Nice but there were no second class tickets available! Thus:

10 July 0854 Gare De Lyon station, arriving 1051 Lyon Part-Dieu. 1107 Lyon Part-Dieu to Nice, arriving Nice 1537.

11 July 0939 Nice, arriving Gare De Lyon 1519. Then we take the Metro to Gare Du Nord station where we board the 1655 train to Bruxelles (Brussels). We arrive Brussels 1817, and hop on the 1915 train to Amsterdam, where we will be arriving at 2206.

We might be able to wake up early on Thursday morning to walk on the beach in Nice before getting the train back to Paris, assuming the REM concert isn’t too rollicking. (We can sleep on the train, after all, right?)

London

Published on 4 July 2008 in holiday and travel. 6 Comments

I hate London.

1. It is so noisy, busy, colourful and vibrant. Sickeningly so.

2. It is disgusting how cheap books are here. It is wrong when you can buy new paperbacks for £3. And the bookshops? There are far too many of them. The ones in Oxford make me even more cross. (Thank you, KR, for showing them to us!)

3. My feet hurt because there are so many sights to see.

But seriously, folks, it is truly amazing being here and seeing all these places I have only ever read about or seen on the telly, before now. Windsor Castle is bigger than it looked on Spooks. Oxford and Cambridge - phwoooaaar! I have now driven on a Roman road. Big Ben is spectacular. The Thames doesn’t smell. The museums - I think my favourite so far is the Natural History Museum (dinosaurs and ichthyosaur fossils - what’s not to like?).