Domaine des Fumades Allegre

We have enjoyed many good meals in France, but two stand out from the vast number in restaurants that tend to offer a menu with generic dishes (well prepared though), rather than distinctive cuisine. This could relate to our budget of course.

Nimes
We arrived in Nimes in the late afternoon and booked into the Hotel des Tuileries, a lovely hotel in the old part of town very close to the Arena. The host, Andrew, recommended a ...

... found lunch, which was good before we were starving. Part of lunch was a raspberry tart that was so good that I didn't even bother to have gelato today. Unbelievably good. Having admired several churches and the temple, we moved down the street to the Coliseum where we took a lengthy audio tour which described the evolution of gladiator contests from the first century through the 7th. Today the venue is home to bull fighting.

Nîmes, Languedoc-Roussillon, France 3beansabroad

At the Chateau de Malerargues, surrounded by trees everywhere, Sebastian has voice training for the next couple months. The work consists of a mixture of breath, movement, and massage, as well as singing, sounds, and group work. It's hard to describe exactly what goes on, and each day is different. But the isolation, beautiful weather, and delicious fresh foods make for a great place to work, relax, and reflect. So why do so many people have so many nightmares here?

... to crash while focusing on other activities and those that view hostels as a significant part of the destination. There is a huge German group that seems to be mostly hanging out at the hostel with short day trips.

I meet several folks who are travelling solo. A teacher from the UK and an olde3r grad-school student from the US have both been at this hostel for a couple of weeks or so. Just a place to chill. It has camping which is real cheap. Mardi from Carcassonne shows up.

... t believe it just by chance we had found this GPS... qnd get this, it was 50 percent off and had english as a language option. **** i should have gone and bought a lottery ticket then and ther as i don't think we could have got any luckier with that find!

So things are looking up for the 4 fun bus amigos! But the good news of the day didn't stop there. Nunce through her connections with Events SA managed to score all of us VIP ...

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On The Road Again

Connecting to the slower TER train (Transport Express Régional) on my pilgrimage to Orange, I noticed that beyond the borders of Lyon, no more English was spoken on the overhead speakers. I was now so far deep in the countryside that everything was monolingual. I also started to notice a little variation in the French accent, a country twang, if you will, used by fellow passengers. It was not as pronounced and striking as the ...

Only for Brenda! Driving down the upper Ardeche gorge on the outside of the road with 1m retaining walls and vertiginous views. Big lorries using all the bend were coming the other way ...

... took off my flip flops and zonked out, next thing I know, vuala we are in Avignon. Ready take on another city we stepped off the train and were once again greeted with the heat wave that seemed to be taking over all of Western Europe. Dragging our bags inside we found the train station to be nicely air-conditioned but our joy was soon overrun by the disappointment of the expansive bus tickets to get into town ...

... fell asleep on the curb with a sandwich in my hand. My so called contiki "mates" then proceeded to form around me and have a photo taken with me in front passed out. How sweet of them. My state didn't improve and I had to return to camp. Missed out on seeing the Statue of David, which was disappointing, but mum has one at home so it didn't matter too much!

... we mixed the gin and the Kas and passed it around the bus. We arrived to the beach, ate lunch, and went for a swim. The sea is cold! I jogged for a few miles along the beach, it was great! Jogging on the Mediterranean. When I came back one of the teachers had found the empty gin bottle in Brian's backpack and we were in trouble ...