Le Midi

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Le Midi

My final weekend in France and my last chance to see the remaining item on my list of "must-see destinations": Carcassonne. Famed for its citadel and as the home of cassoulet, the town is an icon of France. It is also in a poorly serviced area with respect to public transport, so I broke my trip into stages, also stopping in Narbonne and Toulouse. Narbonne was unexpectedly beautiful, even if I did not get access to my accommodation until well after midnight as someone had stolen the after-hours entry keys - for which I got a free breakfast. Carcassonne was as magical as I had hoped, but having cassoulet when it is above 30 degrees was a tough ask. I only had a few hours in la ville de rose, but from what I saw it is a gorgeous city thriving with culture.

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Hartford and New York City, U.S.A.

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Hartford and New York City, U.S.A.

The United States of America has always been a bit of an enigma for me. As an Australian, I was raised in what is effectively a British environment; however there is almost no aspect of life that is not flooded with popular culture from the U.S.A. and consequently, I have always had pretty mixed feelings about going. I have little to no interest in modern american culture, but their landscape is captivating and diverse. As it happened, my work would see my attend a conference in Hartford, Connecticut. I had just spent 2 weeks in Iceland and had no time nor money for adventuring in the U.S.A., so it was to be pure business. That was until I found out the most efficient way to Hartford was via New York city.

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Provence

/ Provence/
Provence

When one thinks of Provence, normally one thinks of hilltop villages surrounded by fields of lavender. We had visited Provence previously, but for outdoor activities, but not the classic provençal experience. The weekend of le quatorze julliet had once again arrived, so we wanted to be somewhere to enjoy the fireworks; googling around let me know that Avignon was a good choice, so we set our sights on a weekend of enjoying all that Provence has to offer and seeing what is supposed to be one of the best fireworks displays in the country.

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Les châteaux de la Loire

/ The Loire Valley/
Les châteaux de la Loire

There are few destinations in France, perhaps only Paris and the Côte d’Azur, as iconic as the châteaux of the Loire. Since 1995, exploring the area by bike - following the Loire à Vélo trail - has become the way to see the homesteads, gardens and towns of one of the most fertile parts of the country.

The trail itself runs some 800 kilometres, so when we discussed how far we could get along this trail, in the end the answer was “not very”. With long weekends and holidays allocated to other destinations, we had but one weekend to enjoy France’s longest river and all it has to offer. The real “meat” of the area lies in the UNESCO World Heritage area, which runs from Sully-sur-Loire (upstream of Orléans) to Chalonnes-sur-Loire (downsteam of Angers). In an effort to see as much of the crème de la crème as possible, we selected the section between Blois and Tours.

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Zürich

/ Zürich, Switzerland/
Zürich

One could not be faulted for saying that Zurich is not really a natural excursion when on a journey from Mainz to Paris; however there are direct trains between all three cities, and it was cheaper to travel from Zurich to Paris than from Mainz to Paris, so work did not complain. I had visited Zurich previously in 2011 and my memories of the city were that it was pretty, but that it also stank of money which really put me off. Having visited Switzerland somewhat more extensively since then I wanted to give it another go, not to mention I was very keen to visit the nearby Rhinefalls, which are the largest in Europe.

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