Barcelona
Claire and I left France from Avignon in the early morning, when the city’s streets were for a moment quiet after another long festival night. The prospect of was travel easier and more exhilarating in the early morning, when the sun rising over a quickly moving landscape promised both a new place and a new day.
Two regional trains would carry us slowly into Spain, and then through it, to Barcelona. We boarded the first. It was made up of old fashioned carriages, the seats all confined to small compartments, which we reached through the narrow space that had been left to a corridor. In the compartment two short brown couches, sitting three to a side, faced each other, so that people sat with legs and arms intermingling. The carriage quietly conjured up black and white images of lovers solemnly parting on a platform edge, or of coated men, smoke and subterfuge, from an age when rail travel was glamorous. Continue reading Barcelona»
Provence
I sat in a poolside chair on terracotta tiles, the silver handles of the pool’s steps glinting into the pale blue water. Beyond the roof of the house, the tops of cedar trees were sparsely spread between thick flowering bushes, abuzz with stripy bumble bees. I heard only the noise of the cigalles in the garden, the strange chirping creatures that resemble a small piece of bark, and chirp strictly when the temperature reaches 25°C. I felt relaxed and content, inspired by my surroundings. The simplicity of the comfortable life I languished in for a week made me long for a piece of it myself. Although my desire to continue moving was still present, after the flurry of Paris, I felt incredibly relieved to be able to exhale.
We had arrived in Cabrieres d’Avignon the evening before and were kindly being put up for the week by friends of Iain’s mother, Rosie and Carlo. Rosie, who has lived mostly in London, between various travel adventures (such as an overland trip through Africa), relocated to France three years ago with Carlo, who considers himself South African despite Belgian origins. They have since become the ever-welcoming hosts, often offering the tranquillity of their home to their friends. A friend of Rosie’s, Mel, was staying there for the same week as us. Their house, named Voix des Cedres (Voice of the Cedars), was a sanctuary in which we could relax. Weary from having moved around every few days since the trip began, we now had no agenda, no expectations, and no obligations. It was bliss. Continue reading Provence»
Montmartre de Paris
Paris is the world’s most photographed, most written about, most visited city. More than 30 million people arrive on the banks of the Seine each year, only 45% of them French. “Paris,” according to my literary guide to the city, “comes to us second-hand. Our imagination has been there first, worked upon by the imagination of others. It is through the filter of their memories, desires, dreams, descriptions, lies, gossip that we experience the city. What we respond to is an imagined place.”
Claire and I did the things so obvious that guidebooks needn’t bother to mention them. We dangled our feet in the fountains outside the Louvre, before entering through glass pyramids to see people seeing the Mona Lisa. We sat in the Parc du Champ de Mars, below the Eiffel Tower, and sketched swaying oak trees against the building’s complicated network of steel. We got rude service at a Parisian café when I was moved, still in my chair, from the edge of the pavement.
We went to the Musee D’Orsay and I watched Claire dance between her favourite paintings before a picnic on the banks of the Seine. At Notre Dame we joined the thick, fast moving queue, and once inside were pushed forward, past altars and scattered stalls, selling paraphernalia. At Père Lachaise we joined a hunt through foreign names for the graves of the famous. We laughed at a packet of rolling paper and a lighter placed considerately below Jim Morrison’s modest headstone and read Oscar Wilde’s name below his mock Egyptian tomb, through the lipstick marks of thousands.
In my fondest Paris imaginings, I sat sipping cold beer at a Montmartre café, absorbing an atmosphere relished by generations of artists. Renoir, Degas, Hemingway, Toulouse Lautrec, Picasso, all spent time here, and remembered the many cobbled streets that wind slowly uphill to the Basilique du Sacré Coeur in their work. Continue reading Montmartre de Paris»
St Malo
Our bags dampening our backs, still close to St Malo’s station, Iain and I spotted three bright awnings, a red, a green and a blue, all advertising “Hotel”. We split up to find the cheaper of the closest two, and agreed to meet back at the third.
The blue and the red establishments out of our price range, we entered the last of the three, Hotel l’Europe. “Bonjour. Combien ça coute pour… une chambre pour… deux personnes?” I attempted, eyebrows raised meekly. “€30 pour une chambre sans douche” he smiled, inspecting us from under his eyelids. I agreed, as he ticked the room off as occupied in his diary, repeating the type of room, “Sans douche”. Iain looked at me as if to ask, “What does sans douche mean?” to which I chirpily replied that that the room simply would not have an ensuite shower.
We tackled the five storey climb to our douche-less room, perspiring heavily by the time we reached the top. We were met by an unpleasantly familiar smell, seemingly embedded in the coarse carpeted walls. Iain sat down to finish off an article while I braved the supermarche, to buy us some lunch.
The simple act of going to the supermarket in a foreign country cannot possibly leave one bored. The absolute mystery of the signs, the foreign brands on often foreign looking foods, and the speech that hums around you, faster and faster, can leave one quite giddy. New stimuli are everywhere. Even the ordinary becomes intriguing. Continue reading St Malo»
Crossing the Channel
Our last night in Ireland was spent in Cork, drinking Murphy’s, the local stout, while drifting between the pubs near our hostel. We caught a bus to Rosslare the following morning to meet the first ferry to France, Cherbourg to be precise, and watched the rain drip down outside the window as we passed through the river ports on Ireland’s south east coast.
Boarding the Irish Ferry, amongst a trickle of other foot passengers, we sat down at the nearest available table, one of a long line stretching through a corridor, its carpet a dirty red. Fruit machines had been placed in the small space between every set of bolted down furniture.
The captain’s voice eventually crackled down the public address system, warning of typically rough seas, the engines quietly started, and we left the British Isles. The sea was initially soft and we went quickly beyond the sight of land. Standing on deck, watching Ireland fade, I turned to see the ship’s jail, an occupant bashing on the door. I had never been this far out to sea, where land is forgotten and the ship becomes a world unto itself.
The calm seas eventually became rough, not long after sunset. The ship was pitching heavily, an angry spray occasionally splashing against our window. The glass front of a duty free shop ran alongside the corridor. Its bottles jangled with each dull thud of the prow, and occasionally broke. I watched people walking down the corridor bump into tables as we rose, and the opposite wall as we sank. Most were leaving the cabaret bar at its far end. Continue reading Crossing the Channel»
Doolin
Doolin, population 200, is a village on Ireland’s West Coast. It is renowned for its traditional music, hence the busloads of tourists trafficked through its tiny strip of small shops. Claire and I, eating Guinness stew outside one of the three village pubs, watched these branded coaches, with names like “Authentic Ireland”, squeeze through the narrow country roads.
We had left Dublin earlier that day, travelled first to Oranmore, outside Galway, and from there to Doolin. The route is operated by Bus Eireann, Ireland’s only nationwide bus carrier. It profits from an inadequate rail network. Continue reading Doolin»
Down to Dublin
Heads aching, eyes burning and skin clammy, Iain and I took a bus from Belfast to Dundalk, far too early in the morning. It was ten o’clock, but our agony made the hour feel quite unsuitable for anywhere but bed. Our ailments had arisen from walking down Belfast’s University Road the previous night, and succumbing to the lure of a flyer handed to us on the street. “The Bunker”, it read, “Tuesdays – Student Night: Free Entry”, “Bulmers £1”. Being budget conscious travellers, we were sold.
Bulmers is an Irish cider, to which we had become accustomed in England (at £3 a bottle), where it is known as Magners, under license. A refreshingly crisp apple cider, usually served on ice from its pint sized bottles, it is lethal stuff. Needless to say we had a duty to make use of the give-away price. Continue reading Down to Dublin»
Belfast
Claire and I walked off the ferry from Stranraer to Belfast, through the strange contrivance that takes you from land to sea without seeing either, and queued at the escalator leading down to the baggage collection area. Ahead of me, a swarthy middle aged man, his bald, shiny head and large pointy nose swaying as he staggered, took a few steps forward, tripped, and bounced down the escalator, step by painful step, arms and elbows flailing.
He lay momentarily in a heap on the floor, chuckling, then stood. And immediately fell over. He was sitting, still chuckling, arms heaped on his marshmallow body, when we reached the bottom of the escalator. I watched as he refused all offers of help through a stupid smile. Continue reading Belfast»
