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C’est La Vie
By Administrator | May 12, 2008
This last week I went on a five-day road trip with three other friends (pictured left to right - Miquel from Spain, Jocke from Sweden, Ana from Spain and I) through Southwest France. On Wednesday, we rented a car and a GPS, burned a bunch of road trip cd’s, packed it full of junk and blasted off. Along the trip, we stopped in the sleepy villages of Carcassone, Arcachon, and Lourdes and hung out in the student city of Toulouse, in wine-o Bordeaux, and in France’s surf town of Biarritz. It’s hard to put into words an experience like this, so I’ll just summarize by saying it was full of awesome.
It was a holiday weekend in France and a lot was happening. Our prime destination was Bordeaux and its neighboring wine country but we knew some people in Toulouse and heard great things about some of the other places, so we made the trip one big fluid journey.
The driving component of the trip was fun because it was my first time driving standard in Europe (although the gas was painful, $100 to fill a tank). Aside from stalling at least once a day and nearly missing my first round-about, it was a relatively smooth driving experience, totally enjoyable in wine country, on the coastline, and through the Pyranees Mountains. It’s hard for France’s picturesque countryside not to leave a memorable impression.
We started on Wednesday by touring Carcassone’s main Castle grounds, which people say is one of the nicest villages in France. It’s important when you road trip to see some things that aren’t that fun, but are historic and pretty so you don’t feel so bad when your boozing later that your trip isn’t just one big party. Balance is key.
They had all sorts of toy weapons for sale in the gift stores that littered the castle grounds so we had some good reenactments of the battles that probably took place a long time ago.
Afterwards, we drove the hour to Toulouse, which is a big university city. We stayed with students that my friends knew, in a university dorm room, which was not that ideal all things considered. In fact, so much that I just couldn’t bring myself to sleep cramped on that floor and made the 3am decision while walking home after eating tasty late night kebab to get a hotel room at the nearest establishment for super sleep.
We were hanging out with mostly Spanish people and they don’t understand sleeping at night, taking their evening until 8 in the morning which made it hard to move them the next day, but nothing a little French McDonalds (Royal with cheese, please) couldn’t help to motivate.
Next stop was Bordeaux, which I have to say, has moved into my top five cities (in no particular order - Austin, Capetown, Amsterdam, New York, and Bordeaux). The city was beautiful, full of life, classic architecture, lots of outdoor cafes and cosy eateries. People flock to the river’s edge (that runs through the middle of the city) in the evenings to hang out. It’s has Paris’s charm and intimacy, good food, and of course, is surrounded in good wine.
Before we discovered Bordeaux’s offerings, we secured a sleeping post while at the tourist office and planned Friday’s journey into wine country. We chose to go East to Saint Emilion, a 30 minute drive (contrary to common sense, it’s best to have a car when visiting this area) because the town is the nicest, the vineyards are small and personal, and it was a rare open-house weekend in this area were you didn’t need to make reservations beforehand in order to taste, which left us with more flexibility.
Some of the larger, more known Bordeaux vineyards are north of the city, regions like Medoc, where it was once swamp land, but a feat of engineering by the Dutch some time ago to drain the swamps and create an actual river left the earth super fertile and perfect for creating complex and powerful grapes. (That was copied from my travel book.) With more time, or a future visit, I will check it out.
As for this trip, we picked three vineyards amongst the many and had a great day. The vineyards are all family owned, small, and many have beautiful chateau’s where the families live and make their wine. After the first visit and tour of the vineyard, house, and winemaking facilities, we were just ready to taste. The problem with doing these tours is that once you see one, you pretty much know the routine and just want to skip the process and drink the wine. But these owners are all very passionate and proud and it would be rude, so we put on our best behavior and spoke our best French throughout the day.
The neat part was that each vineyard got more personal and we actually enjoyed the process more than we thought. At the last vineyard we visited, Chateau Mauvinon, the children (oldest was our age) showed us around while the parents cooked. We met their peacock named Carlos (named after a character on Desperate Housewives). After the tour we sat down at their dinner table, ate typical French, drank their wine, and listened to their stories. It was an unbelievably cool experience.
We returned to Bordeaux charged and ready for Phase 2 of the day. We cleaned up, went to dinner, and hiked down to the water to open a bottle and practice our French skills on local girls (I mean the language - those stories can be told offline) before heading out and dancing till wee hours in the morning.
The next day we crawled out of bed and drove west to the Atlantic to a town called Arcachon, which is known for its oysters. Along the way, we stopped at Europe’s largest sand dune. I wasn’t that hyped about this experience or climbing up to the top. Fortunately, it was awesome fun getting sand blasted at the top and going down, and the views were nice.
What was ironic about this tourist attraction is that families bring their children to have fun on this huge dune, but at the top, all the children are crying because super strong winds are flinging high speed sand at you, which feels like you’re getting aggressively rubbed by sand paper all over your body. Sand is everywhere, you can’t see and your entire body hurts. I found this all to be tremendously funny, particularly since I lived in the desert for two years and never experienced this type of madness, so I couldn’t stop laughing.
I wanted to do massive summersaults down and down, but I figured that could be dangerous to myself knowing the speeds I would probably generate, I was still feeling the effects of the previous night that massive, tumble-dry style spinning wouldn’t help, and the amount of sand I would have accumulated on my body would not have been tolerable for the next phase of the road trip.
It was Saturday and after the dune and oysters, we were headed south to the seaside surfing town of Biarritz. We were concerned about a place to stay because everything was booked online and by phone. As a last resort, we could stay on the beach. Turns out, we got same-day lucky with a great two bedroom place for the four of us, right in the middle of the town on the water. Road trip karma strikes again.
This town was also beautiful, very much similar to San Sebastian in Spain (30 minutes south), with ancient architecture nestled in the rocky cliffs and a good beach filled with surfers. I won’t lie; I also liked the beachside casino. Apparently, they now like me too.
Sunday, the final day, we drove on the edge of the Pyranees and visited Lourdes, where an alleged religious miracle occurred some time ago that now brings hordes of pilgrimers to wish for their own miracle and cleanse themselves in the holy water. I won’t go into real detail about the legend because it deals with seeing the Virgin Mary in a rock by the church, and we all know how many places people see the Virgin Mary these days. The town, once really pretty, was now riddled with stores and vendors capitalizing on this allegation, which was a little concerning, so we pretty much saw it, drank some holy water, and got out fast to drive back home to Montpellier, which was waiting for us with open arms.
The Killers, Ben King’s, Stand by Me, and some euro dance stuff were the music of the trip (all trips need theme songs) so I have solidified remembering this trip any time I hear those songs. This is good because I reminded myself a number of times during the week that I need to appreciate these moments. It’s hard not to love Europe when you live it this way. As they say in French, C’est la vie.
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