TGT2.5: Tour de France Pt 3 Roman Holiday

After the subterranean journey under Paris it was time to board another TGV but from Gare de Lyon this time for the speedy journey south. We hopped on the early train and I will never tire of them. Everyone Australian who travels on the TGV in France then questions why on earth we don't have them in Australia and we were no exception. I blame Australian economists and their dodgy 1950s transport models which come up with "Boondoggle" every time. The whole railway experience gets me every time.  The huge latticed archways in the station, the lines of trains waiting to zoom off to different places, the cafes within metres of the tracks, the lugging of your bags on to the train, inadvertently giving someone a whack, the slightly maniacal check to make sure all members of TGT2.5 are on board. Love it.

The journey to the south was very pleasant indeed and passed uneventfully. We were headed south and it was a little bit of a mystery for us as we'd never been to the Mediterranean coast of France before.

We arrived and the endless European summer continued on. Even more so given how far south we'd travelled. The short trip from the train station to our charming little hotel in the old town, down a narrow street, left us completely drenched with sweat but by then TGT team were operating pretty smoothly, each with their own bag or two. Thank goodness for the air conditioning though. Of course TGT2.5:3 had identified the wifi password and entered it into his phone before we had even got our key. Can be very perceptive when he wants to be that one.

As previously mentioned Montpelier was a new city to us and it too had that slight street edge to it that made it sort of exciting. I continued to butcher the French language and TGT2.5:2 joined in occasionally at the supermarche. Not as badly as my sister when we journeyed to Paris in 1993. It was the only French she knew, as we wandered the less salubrious parts of town she started singing very loudly "Voulez vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?" (You may need to look it up?) Very proud of herself she was, however, she didn't stop to worry about she was actually saying. As her brother I felt slightly uncomfortable, but who was I to judge.

Montpelier is yet another Roman town and frankly it's a bit great too. We went for a wander later in the day and circumnavigated the old walled town, walking past the university which just happens to have the oldest medical course in the world that is still running. Got going in the 1100s it's said. Blimey, that's a fair chunk of history. TGT2.5:5 occasionally talks about becoming a doctor and it dawned on us that as an EU citizen she could attend the oldest medical university in the world if she chose. Slightly confounding that one. Took me a while for that to sink in. A slightly different heritage to my current employer Victoria University, not that there's anything wrong with that. From here, we headed up to the roman aquaduct (every town should have one) and their mini arc de triomphe, (again every town etc etc), before heading home via the street market (so French). A beautiful city and certainly sucked us in.

The next day we had organised to head to the town of Arles for the starting point of our Camargue Safari. Arles is where a certain Vincent van Gogh based himself for a couple of years and pumped out the odd painting or two I've been told. You might be familiar with a couple, Bedroom in Arles (bit wonky that one), the yellow house (sadly blown up in WW2), sunflowers. We didn't know his house had been blown up and confused ourselves silly for a while trying to work out on the map what we were looking at.

Arles is yet another ridiculously picturesque town in France coming fully equipped with a Roman amphitheatre and arena, both still in working order (we watched the end of a mock gladiator battle in the arena- tell you what, tough gig that one, even with wooden swords). They also have an extraordinary street market that's over 3kms long. C'est fantastique. After buying a few yummy nibbles we went to meet our next appointment, a 3 hour 4WD tour of the Camargue. This was one of TGT2.5:5's requests about our trip to France as it had 2 key things: horseys and flamingoes.

Sometimes ignorance is a wonderful thing as it makes things so much more interesting when the ignorance is brushed away. When you sit, watch and listen for a bit. Our fascinating guide, Veronique (it wasn't Veronique, but I can't remember her name and that sounds suitably French), was a local lass who spent half her time teaching French in Africa to primary school kids, the rest of the time she does guided tours around the Camargue. She also spoke a bit of Provencal which was a new one to me (sort of halfway between French and Italian in a completely unsatisfactory approximation that will no doubt offend everyone). When we booked the trip to see the Camargue I knew it was a national park of sorts and that there were horses running around and assumed it was similar to the ones in Australia. Hmmm, well no. A very different concept of national park as most of the area was actively being farmed but only for certain things. The horses, for example, were all farmed but they were a breed apart, have distinct colouring as well as being adapted to the wetland conditions of the Camargue, eg they can close their nostrils and eat under water. Quite stubborn too apparently. We stopped by the roadside a couple of times to have a pat. Lovely creatures. TGT2.5:5 was extremely happy. There are also Camargue cows and bulls, again a distinct breed. There is also Camargue rice would you believe, brought over by the Romans, a distinct breed and now only grown in that region. In fact, I think it's the only part of France that grows rice. The farmers share the water through an elaborate system of channels and gates at certain times. The channels are the same ones the Romans put in place. What have the Romans ever done for us?

All these things were completely new to us as well as the fact they still do bullfights which stopped us in our tracks for a bit. Veronique was unapologetic. "You don't like it, we do. Pfft" They also have a slightly less bloodthirsty sport particular just to the Camargue where the bulls have a rosette attached on the bull's forehead and the game, should you be so foolish to try, is to grab the rosette off the bull before getting skewered. Extremely popular. WTF!?!?! And the hero is never the person who grabs the rosette but rather the bull who stops the poor fools doing so and skewers them in the process. We even got to see (well we think we did, they all look the same to us) the most famous bull of them all, the one with Number 55 branded on him was the champion 3 years running and now there's a statue of him in Saintes Maries de la Mer, and he sits out the rest of his days chewing the cud in a field. Veronique was very proud of him.

After Sainte Maries de la Mer we saw a flock of flamingoes and TGT2.5:5 was very satisfied indeed. Veronique said they do not mate for life, only for one year. I whispered to TGT2.5:3, "Just like the French!" but before I had finished my sentence Veronique said. "And do not zay just like zee French,  Hoh hoh hoh hoh!!!"

Tres bon!

We headed back to Arles before catching the train back to Montpelier for the night and it was back on the train the next day to head to Carcassonne. Carcassone was TGT2.5:2's choice and what a fine choice it was too. I thought it was just a board game. Aha more ignorance which made the joy of discovery all the more delightful. Not only that but unbeknownst to us until we arrived, we had timed our run to the walled city perfectly because as we arrived the finish of another Tour de France rolled into town. Again TGT2.5:4 and I headed to the finish line but this time we had arrived too late and had to settle for the 400m mark. Still made plenty of noise banging on the boards as they raced through. Poor suckers who roll in 15-20 mins after the finish don't get quite the same kudos.

Then it was time to settle into our AirBNB literally at the base of the medieval walls. So explore the walled city we did. But before that, we had to check out the extraordinary artwork painted on to the walls. Very difficult to describe but TGT2.5:2 took numerous pictures. We had a guided tour by Amelie (that really was her name, easy to remember). She was another local to the area but I swear she looked Spanish. This was not surprising as she considered herself a citizen of Occitania which covered a bit of the Spanish side of the Pyrenees. (Probably got that wrong). Anyhoo she looked a bit Spanish to me. Amelie was very entertaining and kept banging on about the 13th century as that's when everything changed for Carcassonne. It was sold from one rich fella to another. How do you sell a whole city? It became a military town after that and the walls were built up to their current impressive height. The Romans, (remember them?) had already built up sizeable walls (still standing) but they added to them and it's no great surprise this town was never taken in a siege. The old narrow streets were completely captivating and TGT2.5:2 and I left the kids at home that evening to go for an indulgent drink or two by ourselves in one of the stunning squares.

From Carcassonne we were leaving behind Roman towns and heading towards Tour de France mountains and Gallic presidents.