FRANCE Summer 2010: Days 1, 2, and 3

Hi all –

Here I sit in Albi France in the little St. Antoine Hotel off a teeny teeny street in this charming French Languedoc town… Who would ever know what it took to get here.. mmmmm…. shall we say the worst 48 hours of travel in history?.. and all for just 5 days of visiting.

We left San Francisco at 6am (taxi to SFO).. and boarded our flight to Dulles en route to Marseilles via London. The first flight was mostly uneventful, save for the fact that it was 100% booked.. and there were 96 people wait listed for upgrades into first class. I was number 3 and it looked good until about 8 minutes before takeoff when one first class paid passenger arrived, booting me back into coach.

Arrived in London with about two hours three hours until the flight to Marseilles (via Frankfurt). There was an earlier flight but since we had a “non-flexible” fare with Lufthansa, we could not make the change.. So we sat in the Red Carpet Club until departure time.. but the flight got delayed and delayed and delayed.. for about 4 hours, which meant we would miss the connecting flight to Marseilles (there aren’t any direct flights to Marseilles, except from Paris).. So we arrived in Frankfurt and then had to wait 4 hours for the next flight to Marseilles. By then, we were way too tired (and it was midnight) to drive to Cairanne to stay at Mike’s brother’s house. The roads are windy and small and not much signage so we opted to stay in Marseilles and meet up with them this morning (Thursday).. By now we had been traveling for more than 40 hours and had not really gotten anywhere.

So, next crisis.. all the hotels in Marseilles were booked, because of all the flight delays. So we headed toward Nimes where we had decided we’d meet up with Mike’s brother and sister in law instead of going to Cairanne (since the plan had always been to spend a night in Cairanne (where we’ve been several times before) and then take a two day trip together to Rozier and Albi a bit west of them and to the south.. .. We had to drive all the way to Arles to find a hotel room (at 1 am)..

We thought we’d head to the Arles Palace Hotel which was just a bit off the main road, rather than venture into town at 1 am… We arrived at the Palace but could not see any lights on in the hotel and it looked rather seedy. So we noticed that there was a sign for the ETAP hotel down the road and it said it had four stars.. Sounded good. By the time we got to the next sign the hotel had only three stars, and at the door to the hotel it was down to two stars.. Oh Well..

Checked in by 1:30 am and fell asleep.

Woke up too late for hotel breakfast, so we went into the town to check it out. Very cute.. big claim to fame is that Van Gogh lived there for a few years and was very prolific during that period. But we were really too late for breakfast in the shops also (10:15am) so we just got some croissants and stopped for liquid refreshments.. and then headed to Nimes where we would meet up with Richard and Elizabeth… at a cafe across from the Colisseum in Nimes.

Had to rely a lot on GPS on the iPhone to find our way, and despite a lot of construction and closed streets, we got to the destination… But “the cafe across from the Colliseum??” there are about 100 cafes surrounding the place. Eventually found them and ordered lunch.. A few minutes went by and lo and behold a childhood friend of Mike’s appeared at our table.. He was in Germany visiting his college son who is studying abroad.. He had contacted Richard about visiting, heard we were in town and decided to surprise Mike at “the cafe across from the Colliseum…” It was indeed a surprise.

Got on our way at about 3pm to drive to Albi (home of Toulousse Lautrec)..

We did fine until getting to the center of Albi.. We are staying in a small hotel, and there was no easy way to find it.. Despite GPS, maps, and verbal directions. But find it, we did… and we found Richard and Elizabeth too.. We are traveling in two cars because after Roziers, we head back to Marseilles to get to London for two days.. and they head to Cairanne and it’s easier to go the most direct route.

Settled in at the Saint Antoine Hotel.. and then headed to the town square for a wonderful, typically French meal.. with duck as the centerpiece, as it is a special dish here in this region… and of course lots of wine.

Back to the hotel now.. and headed to bed.. Tomorrow we’ll explore Albi and then drive to Roziers.

Au Revoir –

Fern