Visit to the Mordor.....only Alsace!

Sunday 21 May 2006.

A couple of months ago we visited some friends in Alsace, in the North East part of France, near the border with Germany. We hit the road for an eight-hour drive across the country and two seasons (it was almost spring time in Toulouse, but still winter north of Lyon). It was a long but good drive. Cruising along the motorway at a decent speed.

The first thing we found upon arriving in Alsace was the cold. Christ! It was freezing! It actually snowed overnight the first night we were there. But what mattered was to see our friends Val and Romain. They moved up to Fessenheim for work after Romain got a new job at the nuclear plant there.

We thought they were staying in the middle of nowhere. The soil was black everywhere, the mountains loomed dark and ominous in the background and the Black Forest was...black. But most of all there was this strange feeling in the air. Something oppressive was lingering in this extraordinarily flat part of the country...then, Lisa described the place rightly by saying: "It's the part of the country where millions of people from all over Europe died during the First World War. This land was soaked in their blood." That was it! The strange feeling in the air. As if the Spirits from those who died in the trenches were never to be at peace nor rest. Like the Mordor in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings film trilogy.!!!

Still it was interesting to see another part of France neither Lisa nor I had ever visited before. It was also a good experience to jump the non-exisiting border and go for a quick visit to Germany. That was good. Especially buying crates of beer in the local supermarket across the border. It was funny to see so much beer. Like a third of the whole supermarket was made up of beer crates. You just go in, grab a crate, feel it up with any of the 40 types of beers on offer there, and leave. GREAT!

Val and Romain took us for a tour of Colmar. It is a nice city and I particularly enjoyed the colourful buildings around the town centre. Like in Germany, what also impressed us was the general cleanliness of the place.

Not like in Toulouse where there are quite a few dog turds on the pavements as well as litter scattered everywhere. In Colmar and Friburg, Germany, it was so clean! Dogs (and their owners) are even given clear instructions as to where their basic instincts may be released....

Funny or what??




Romain, Lisa and Val in Germany...........




We had some lovely pâtisseries in a nice and cosy little café where two women dressed in 19th century clothes were knitting a jumper or something like that. It was like being faced with Hamish farmers in the middle of New York. You know, you're not quite sure if it's all real. It makes doubt which century you're in.... In the evening it was Choucroute and beer all round in a lovely typical restaurant with stained glass windows. It was good and really filling. A perfect winter warmer meal!!

One of the four days we spent in Alsace was spent going up to the Haut Konnisbourg castle on a hill. What a sight! Unbelievable and so well well preserved! It was restaured by the German Kaiser Guillaume II in 1905.

Well thank you Guillaume II. A job well done. And it didn't cost a cent to the French tax payer!!!

It was freezing and the cold made the visit physically painful especially as the weather kept changing every 30 minutes. But it was really interesting and made for good photos opportunities.

After that, we hopped across the border one more time and visited Friburg where Lisa and Val envoyed cheese and grilled ham pretzels.

Friburg has an interesting historical central square around the cathedral. It was like a Grimm Brothers' tale. Strange. It made us shudder a bit.

But it's a nice town all the same and the people there were friendly. And all the time, more German beer.. Not as nice as Belgian beer but so much better than French beer.....

Finally, we took a stroll around the town of Neuf-Brisach, a fortress town built by Vauban. A feat of military defensive work.

All his fortresses are built in the shape of stars with several moats and broken lines of sight to prevent would-be attackers from seeing into the town and noticing its defences. That was quite cool. Here is a photo I took of Lisa. Could be an episode of the x-files!

Here's Toulouse!

Wednesday, 17 May 2006

Here are a few photos of Toulouse, the Capital of the South of France and the fourth largest city in the country.

Moving into our flat in Toulouse back in August 2005. We've got some help from a mate, Christophe, who is tying up the furniture to a rope so we can swing them up to our second floor flat and in through the balcony window!!!Clever!!!








And here is Lisa and her own way of carrying things into our flat.....no comment!

Still, it's funny......

And this is Lisa trying to scare me while I'm watching TV with her own impression of the Classic Japanese horror film "The Ring"..... Not bad, hey?

A bit of Toulouse by night...it's the New Bridge or Pont Neuf. Not because it's the most recent one but because on the contrary, it's the oldest built in town...."new", because in the Middle Ages it became "new" after rebuilt in stone. Before it was a wooden bridge.

And this is some weird modern art street exhibition in the old city. It looks like a series of giant condoms hanging in the air in the middle of the street....well who am I to criticise....it's art, isn't it?



More Toulouse pics another time......

Camping in the Cévennes

Wedesday, May 17 2006.

Today it's the Champions League Cup Final (football) between Arsenal and FC Barcelona in Paris. I hope Arsenal led by its French contingent will win. Arsenal, perhaps for its French players is my favourite English team. It also annoys my future brother-in-law, who is an ardent Manchester United supporter.

Actually I don't really care about football. I want the French team to win in three weeks time during the World Cup in Germany, because of national pride, but I won't beat my fiançée or get drunk and go on the rampage taunting the riot police with hooligan behaviours. No my real love is rugby. And rugby is the sport of predilection in Toulouse and in the South of France in general.

The Stade Toulousain is my team and I wish them all the best for the semi, then final of the French Championship. Nothing would please me more than if the Stade Toulousain beat the Stade Français Paris in the final, pipping them to the post one more time.

Anyway back to the camping in the Cévennes....We bought a huge four-man tent on eBay a few weeks back and decided to try it out during a long weekend. So we drove to the Cévennes area of France which is roughly three-hours away north east of Toulouse and another 40 minutes west of the Mediterranean Sea.

We thought camping on a farm site would be cool and it was....not that it was a farm. It was more like a 16th century castle with turrets and pointy roofs. Located by a small stream near the small village of Nant and the lovely Valley of the Dourbie River. GREAT!

We pitched our tent in the field at the back of the castle and envoyed the view. We were the only one there and the lady farmer who owns and manages the place had only opened the camp site for us because it pleased her to do so.

After a well deserved cup of tea, we set out to explore the nearby village of Nant and its side streets and old 14th century stone bridge.

The water level markers on the sides of the bridge, right down to its base had notches up to six metres! For such a small river it must be quite somthing when it goes crazy and rises up by six metres! After eating half a baguette of bread sitting on the parapet of the river, we returned to our tent for a really cold night. Higher up in the mountain, there was snow on the ground for godsakes!

The following day, we visited the roquefort caves where the world famous blue cheese is made. It was interessting and no we could not resist the urge so we ended up buying a slab the size of a small car wheel of the stuff. Hummmmm!!!

My advice to would-be visitors of Roquefort: visit the caves for free in one of the major cheese making factories such as, say, Papillon, then leave after some welcome cheese tasting and walk across the road to a smaller producer where it will be much cheaper!!!!

In the afternoon, we combined medieval history with modern architecture. We stopped off in some Hospitalers or Templars fort, looked at ancient dolmens before arriving in Millau to have a look at the tallest suspended bridge in the world. It was simply breathtaking.


Lisa thought that from far away there were certain lines which could be pleasing to the eye, but up close and personal with the thing itself, then it was "a monstruosity!". I liked it. So much so, that I stopped off everywhere like some bridge spotter saddo so I could to take some snaps.

And yes, I happily spent my €5,10 to drive across it. It was awesome. Like floating on a vast sailing barge. Really cool! A great example of Franco-British cooperation. A bridge designed by Lord Norman Foster and built by the construction firm founded by some Gustave Effel guy, you know the one who designed the Effel tower!

Another day and we took the car for a spin down the twisty roads of the Valley of the Dourbie. There was so much fog, we couldn't see further than a few metres. It made for quite an eerie drive.

Lisa freaked out when we stopped by an ancient railway bridge now used by bunjee jumpers and mountain bikers. Indeed there was this huge dark opening into the rock face, an old train tunnel linking various small towns in the area.



But when I put the car facing the opening as if to drive into the mountain side....then Lisa panicked and there was no taking this weird shortcut!!! She thought some freak hillbilly would appear to murder us and cut us up into bits, or something like that.

So we just nicked a well preserved clay tile from the omd railway house on the other side of the road instead and drove down the mountain side to another village....what a strange place. It looked and felt like some old depressed mining village...perhaps it was. One quick coffee in the local bar as an excuse to use their toilet and we left off back to our camp site via one more dolmen.


Back in Toulouse, where the weather has been more than pleasant with a nice 30°C (and rising). We have been spending a big chunck of our time on the balcony, basking in the sun reading a good book.

I am currently looking for a new job b ut I am using this timle to do something I have always wanted to do that is, working on a short film project. It's going quite well actually, to the point where the script, storyboard, locations, and most of the props are ready. I have met several potential actors and in the coming weeks I'll be organising a casting rehearsal. Still I am pleased to see how interested and motivated some of the actors have been. For a first-time project, with no money to be made, it's heart warming.

Shooting should start early in July. By then my actors will be ready and so will my assistant and I . I look forward to it. More about that another time........

Summer begins!!!

May 16th 2006

Well, I'm quite new to blog pages, so we shall just see how things go. I hope to post info and photo's of the places we visit here in Toulouse, France as well as other information about living here. Not only all the good stuff but the down sides too!!!
Right now we are making the most of the glorious summer sunshine. It gets too hot to sit out on the balcony during the afternoon, though a few nice thunder storms keep freshening thing up.
Still, I don't spend all my time sitting in the sun. Working as an English teacher takes up quite a bit of my time, not just the lessons but all the planning I have to do before hand! Having never taught before it's been a steep learning curve and I think, the hardest thing I have done since moving here! Still tomorrow I have a lesson with a client over lunch......so it's not all bad!
Oli is spending his time writing and working on his latest short film project and hopes to start filming soon. It's been fun watching all the preparation he has been doing, especially the ever rising mound of props in the spare room!
This week we MUST get our paper work sorted out for the wedding in August......not an easy task as the French are rather particular over paperwork! What we are looking forward to is visiting the restaurant to choose the dinner menu......think Foie Gras, fish, meats, cheese and of course good French wine!