Chamonix: "Remote, serene, and inaccessible"

When Eve decided to join me on this France part of my adventures, she had very few requests.  However, one of those was to see the French Alps at some point during our trip.  So I looked at the map and picked Chamonix, thinking that it looked kind of close to Lyon and not really much further away from Nice than Lyon was in the first place, and said that we'd do two nights in Chamonix between Lyon and Nice.  I made this decision without actually checking on any relevant facts whatsoever, such as, for example, how much it would cost to go between said cities or what kinds of hostels were available there.  So our last night in Lyon, we looked at the train schedules and discovered that getting to Chamonix is not exactly easy or inexpensive. But we were committed, so we packed our bags and prepared for our three separate trains that would take us into the mountains, and which incidentally had 11-minute connections.

But hey.  We made it.  The walk to the hostel was freaking loooooong, but we were never actually technically lost, just amazed that we weren't there yet.  But it wasn't all bad, because as we walked we got to stare at this:

Mountain High Hostel is pretty basic, but we were put up in a three-bed room with an en-suite full bath and no roommate, so that was kind of awesome.  We dropped off our packs and headed back out into town for exploring and dinner.  Eventually picked the Jekyll and Hyde bar because they had actual jalapeno poppers on the menu, and enjoyed some really excellent comfort food along with plentifully flowing drinks.  Eve discovered a fruity lambic beer that she kind of fell in love with a little.

Went in and got seats at the bar when it started getting dark, and made a bit of a night of it.  Good times all around, although it did end with my ("somehow") headbutting a stone wall and our not being able to get back into the hostel until some kind souls heard our frantic knocking and let us in.  Hooray.

The next day started a wee bit late, but eventually we caught the cable car up to the top of the Aguile du Midi, which is hands-down one of the coolest things I've ever done.

Riding the cable car with my forehead injury, and a hangover.

Up at the top, we were greeted with THIS amazing sight:

Mont Blanc is to the right!

Out with the Serious Business climbers.  For just a sec.

The cable car stops halfway up and down the mountain, so on our way back we got off here to do a little hiking of our own.  Not quite as extreme as up above, maybe, but still pretty breathtaking.

Then, us two responsible adults humped it back to the hostel and had ourselves an early night.

Chamonix was tremendous, and totally worth the aggravation of the travel time it took to get there (but especially to get out again!).  We loved the mountains, and I really wish we had maybe extended another day.  But Nice was waiting for us, and how crazy awesome is it to go from snow-capped mountains of the Alps to the Mediterranean Sea?

Lyon: puppets and cokeheads

The next day in the Mary and Eve France Adventures brings us to the travel day between Dijon and Lyon.  One thing that I had been kind of disapointed about in Dijon was that Eve and I had been unable to find the Good Luck Owl that was supposedly near the Notre Dame cathedral. (I think every town in France has a Notre Dame.)  But on our way out of town we passed a bunch of French tourists touching a small lump on the outside of the church wall.  So this was the Owl!  I'd thought it would be a stand-alone statue for some reason, but no.  So wonder we hadn't been able to spot it.

Nothin' but blue skies from now on.

The train from Dijon to Lyon is easy enough, but as I mentioned in a previous post we did not realize that Lyon has not one but two train stations.  I had gotten directions to our hotel from the other one.  So after wandering around in an increasingly confused haze, wondering why we couldn't find any of the streets we wanted on any of the posted maps in the station, we humped it into a nice hotel and begged for help.  Which we graciously received, in the form of a map and instructions as to how to catch the tram from this train station to the other one.

So with only a minor delay we finally did find Hotel Victoria.  The common areas were kind of sketchy, but our room was clean and bright -- with one double bed (I'd requested two separate twins) and one of those awesome teeny all-in-one bathrooms... so not exactly perfect but at least it was all ours!  We set out to explore and quickly learned that our hotel was not in the best part of town!  Poor Evie saw a dude snorting coke on the corner and to get to the rest of Lyon we legit had to go through this tunnel that smelled like a latrine, probably because it was often used as one.  Don't get me wrong, once we got into the right part of town, Lyon is beautiful.  We just weren't in that part.

Our hotel was just a short 35-minute walk from here!

So we cut our exploring short, and went to enjoy a couple of drinks at the oldest restaurant in Lyon, which is right across the street from our hotel and doubtless has had an uncomfortable series of decades watching the neighborhood around it steadily degrade.

Happy to no longer be in the tunnel.

After, we picked up some cheap wine and headed back to the sanctuary of our room, hanging out the window and playing a drinking game which I invented, wherein we took a drink every time we saw something unsavory happen outside.  We may have gotten ourselves a lil bit tipsy sticking to this rule.  We also had no end of a good time watching all of these older well-to-do couples come up for their dinner at Lyon's famous oldest restaurant, and slowly stare around them in dawning horror.  Prostitutes, drug dealers, and all-around creepy-looking folks were in abundance, but at least it stopped being off-putting and started being hilarious.

For our actual day in Lyon, we headed off to have our usual total saturation of museums and churches.  It was Saturday, and we also came across several cool street markets, including one crazy bazaar that reminded me so much of Dry Bridge in Tbilisi.

Everything from stuffed badgers to severed doll heads

We had one of our better lunches in Lyon, at a small place down one of the narrow back streets.  They specialized in tartines, which are open-faced sandwiches piled so high with stuff you need to eat it with a knife and fork.  I opted for the chicken curry and actually got one of my only tastes of heat in this country!

After lunch, we caught a tram up a big hill to see yet another church up there, and also get some really excellent views of Lyon.

Saint Something-Or-Other 

One of the things I really wanted to do in Lyon was visit the Puppet Museum there.  We walked down the hill and actually were able to find it without too much trouble.  I knew this stuff would be creepy, because puppets are, as a rule, freaking creepy.  But I readily admit I did not expect them to be this creepy.

How is this not supposed to be horrifying?

Definitely NOT the stuff of nightmares.

We managed not to be taken captive by the world's most terrifying puppet collection and headed to a sidewalk cafe for crepes and cider to help us recover.

Then it was just walking around the city a bit, picking up salads for dinner at the market, and an early night.  We had a busy day ahead of us, heading to the Alps.

Dijon, and ruminations on dragons

Oh mah good-ness.  Here we are in Marseille, a gorgeous and exciting day capped off with yet one more expensive travel mistake.  I'm having a hard time not being just so pissed at myself, feeling like I'm bumbling around this strange foreign place without even the barest trace of a clue, but Eve assures me that this is how travelers just sort of feel most of the time.  I seriously do not  know what I am going to do without her when we part ways in just three extremely short days.  It seems redic that soon I will have to solve every problem on my own, that I will have no one to laugh with, no one to chill me out or snap me back to earth.

I would not trade this time we have had together in France for anything in the world.  It has been, simply, awesome.

We are staying an extra day in Marseille tomorrow, because we both unexpectedly completely love it here.  Then it is two days in Bordeaux (see above, expensive travel mistake), and then shit is over.  Evie goes to Paris to fly home, and I head to San Sebastian, Spain.  All by myself.  I am super excited at the prospect of not having to eat another bland-as-all-fuck baguette sandwich, but otherwise the idea of saying goodbye to my travel partner, at the moment, leaves me with a sort of feeling like "here, there be dragons."

And yes, the dragons were supposed to be the whole point.  But I will say that facing dragons from the onset is different than facing dragons alone after you have become accustomed to facing them with a fellow warrior you have come to depend on rather implicitly.  One thing I am certain of -- I will laugh less in Spain than I did in France.

When I last left you, Paris had rocked our worlds and we were on to Dijon.  Let me just say, Dijon was such an unexpectedly beautiful, picturesque breath of fresh air after the chaos of Paris.  We scored such a stupid lucky break with our hotel, Hotel Le Jacquemart.  It was dead-smack in the center of town and right next to a bunch of pedestrian streets stuffed full of shops, markets, bars, and restaurants.  I instantly fell in love with Dijon.  It looked almost tailor-made to be beautiful.

This was Eve's and my first try at an inter-city Euro train with finding our new accommodations at the end.  All did not go totally smooth, but we did finally find it and checked in.  Room on the fourth floor, walk up.  Shared shower and toilet.  But the room was huge, and it was ours!!  After the Paris hostel, this felt like Paradisal Luxury.

Our first afternoon and evening, we just sort of wandered around, happy and unwinding.  Evie bought mustard.  We got one of our best meals yet in a creperie near our hotel -- chicken dijonaise crepes in Dijon!!

And we ate EVERYTHING.

In the evening, we walked around some just for fun.  Dijon is just as charming and beautiful at night.

Got some wine in a cool little bar we found.

And then came home to do the Best Room Picnic Ever.

Eve with her pink champagne and mustard.  The oranges make it healthy

The next day, we went on a self-guided walking tour of the town, as laid out on a map furnished by our hotel.  The map was kind of crap and hard to follow, but we saw probably 90% of it.  One of the highlights was climbing to the top of the Phillipe le Duc Tower.

As you can see, the weather was not the greatest but we made the best of it.  Dijon being awesome helped a lot to keep our spirits up.  We saw a bunch of churches (go figure), and the Musee Beaux Arts which had a lot of interesting Medieval stuff as well as a couple zombies.

Sadly my sister was really sick with a bad cold during our whole Dijon stay.  She was a total trooper though!  But we had an early night our second evening in town.  Got to see THIS sunset though.

Overall, Dijon was a 100% complete pleasant surprise.  I honestly did not know what we'd find here other than mustard, but this town was a joy.  I was sorry to leave it, leave its perfect tudor houses, our lovely clean bright hotel with our gigantic room.  I would have been even sorrier if I had known what we were in for...

A Happy Paris-Shaped Blur

Well.  Peter Pan Escapism Eurotrip is officially a week and a half done.  Backpacking is happening, some times more happily than others.

In line to check in at Dulles

I've been having a blast with my sister, laughing our heads off and making one travel mistake after another!  Yesterday we learned in the most inconvenient way possible that Lyon has not one but two train stations.  And just tonight, we learned that it is a really, really good idea to check the prices of trains (not to mention duration of the ride) to the town you want to visit before you book your hostel there.  So we will be taking a four-hour, two-layover train ride from Lyon to Chamonix tomorrow, which is a walk in the park compared to the nine-hour (and bloody expensive) train ride we will soon be taking from Chamonix to Nice.  I am really excited about seeing the Alps, especially the mighty Mont Blanc.  It will be great to get away from the city vibe and do some hiking.  Eve wants to ride horses too. :)  So no doubt that it will be worth it.  We will just have to be very... patient with each other as we try to figure out all the steps of our long travel day.  Nothing if not a learning experience, and an entry for the travel books.

Our week in Paris was one giant, happy, hectic, chaotic blur.  Paris is an amazing, ridiculous city.  Thank goodness for their Metro.  We stayed at Woodstock Hostel in Montmartre, and they were great.  Any accommodation in Paris is going to be freaking expensive and this was no exception, but both the staff and the clientele were very friendly and fun.  We had several good nights out in the hostel's courtyard, making new friends over 2-euro bottles of wine.  When a fellow hostel-stayer and I began boasting about our champagne-opening skills, it was decided that we should have a contest.  I won (natch!) with a foil-to-pop opening time of 11.5 seconds.  Never doubt the skills of a master.

My Challenger and I

Impromptu accordion concert in the common room.

But we seriously did a lot more in Paris than hang out in the hostel and drink wine.  In fact, we did so much that there's no way I can tell you everything in any kind of detail, and anyway you can probably guess how most of it went.  But there are two Paris investments that I have to highly recommend you make should you ever find yourself in this city.  The first is a sort of all-access metro pass.  It's expensive, but we used the metro a ton, and this pass made it so easy, rather than having to constantly replenish and keep track of a book of tickets.  The only bad thing is that the pass goes from Sunday to Sunday, so if you visit mid-week to mid-week (like we did), you lose some days on the value.  But it was still worth it as far as I'm concerned.  The second is the Paris Museum Pass.  Again, expensive, but 100% worth it.  We bought the 4-day pass for 54 Euros.  It lets you into over 60 Paris attractions for free, but best of all -- you get to skip all the ticket lines!!!  We visited the Louvre and were one of the first people down the hall to see the Mona Lisa.  I actually got right up to the rope for the obligatory Proof Shot.

Waiting to get in.

Ever so appropriate.  You can take me anywhere.

The Louvre was wonderful, but so completely overwhelming.  Also most of the captions and info are only in French, so I wasn't exactly certain what I was looking at a lot of the time.  We motored through the Big Three (Mona Lisa, Winged Victory, and Venus de Milo) in 30 minutes and beat the vast majority of the crowd, and then spent most of the rest of our time in the Egyptian wings.  I had originally wanted to do an entire day in the Louvre, but this was when I thought I'd be alone.  Suffice to say, my travel partner got Museumed-Out before I did.  We left in the early afternoon, and I was fine with that because Paris has more to see than can ever be accomplished in a mere week, even if you go 110% like Eve and I did.

We saw the Eiffel Tower both during the day and at night.  Of course.

Evie lovin' life.

Sisters lovin' life

Notre Dame, also of course, although the line to get into the bell tower was EPIC (our pass did not help), so we did not go up.

"Say 'Esmerelda!'"

Eve said "It looks like you're leaving."

We took a day trip out to Giverny to see the Monet Gardens.  The gardens were beautiful but the crowds were awful.  At least we had a beautiful day though!

Famous Japanese footbridge, complete with crowds not featured in his paintings

Our last day in Paris, we spent at Versailles.  Which will likely get a post all its own for a variety of reasons.  But for now, let's just say that the weather was not the best, and the crowds here made Giverny look empty.

Versailles in the rain.

Croooooowwwwds.

Oddly, our favorite part of Versailles was not the palace at all, but Marie Antoinette's Petite Triannon and neighboring village.

And holy hell, we did so much more.  Our first afternoon after finding and checking into our hostel, we found a perfect sidewalk cafe with a view of the Sacre Cour, and had quiche, veggie lasagna and a bottle of wine.

A-MAZ-ing

One night, a fellow hostel-stayer invited us along on a pub crawl through the Moulin Rouge district, shepherding us through three local bars and finally ending in a small but quite lively Montmartre club.

Our BFFs for the night.

Lawd.  What else?  We saw Napoleon's tomb, the Rodin Museum (The Thinker is in the garden!), and climbed to the top of the Arc de Triomphe.  We saw so many churches Eve is now counting them in the eighties.  We visited the Conciergerie where Marie Antoinette was held before her execution, took a river cruise on the Seine, and saw the famous Water Lily rooms in the Orangerie where Monet's famous gigantic water lily paintings are housed.  Took the metro out to the end of the line and visited St. Denis Cathedral, which is in a surprisingly sad sorry state, given that it is the place where all (most?) of France's kings and queens are buried from the time of the Merovingians, including Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI, and Louis XIV.  We climbed all over Montmartre, visited the breathtaking Sacre Cour, fended off pickpockets and gypsies, and spent an hour looking for Paris's only vineyard because we misread the guidebook and thought they had a tasting room there.  (They did not.)  We walked through the Tuileries and Eve touched the Forbidden Grass at Versailles.

On the Seine

From the top of the Arc

Sainte Chapelle

St. Denis, where the kings and queens of France are buried.

I loved Paris, every second, even the frustrating ones.  It meant so much to be able to see this incredible city with my sister, because Paris makes her feel like this:

But that's okay, because Paris makes me feel like this:

And Paris was already two whole cities ago... there's Dijon and then Lyon to talk about, and no rest for the wicked because tomorrow we crazy girls are off to the ALPS.  There's been no shortage of adventure so far.  And I see very little chance of that changing any time soon.