The Views from France

vftt.org

Help Support vftt.org:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Toe Cozy

New member
Joined
Sep 1, 2004
Messages
497
Reaction score
102
Location
Springfield, Springfield!. Avatar: Spruce Peak Kim
Just to give people something to consider for a vacation.

My husband and I went on an 8 day trip to France last week. Three days were spent in Paris and 5 days in Provence. Of course in Paris, the VFTT are spectacular off of the Eifel Tower, from Le Sacre Coeur cathedral and looking down at the insane roundabout from L'arc de Triumphe. The Louvre, Notre Dame and a walk along the Seine are not VFTT, but views not to be missed none the less.

But getting out into the countryside of the Dentelles de Montmirail was fanstatic! Vasion-la-Romaine, Malaucene, Le Barroux, Suzette, La Roche Alric, Gigondas, Sablet, Seguret. We walked on everything from dirt roads, to rocky mountain trails to dry creekbeds and right through the middle of vineyards, olive groves, apricot and cherry orchards. Stops throughout the day in tiny medieval mountain villages that are older than anything we can imagine here. We got a fabulous topo map on which we plotted our next day's course each night after consuming 4-6 course meals and delicious wine. We got turned around, lost, confused, found and always had fun. The weather was 70 - 80F every day with no clouds, fresh breezes and everything in bloom. We saw hardly anyone else while we were walking. Wildflowers everywhere and rosemary and thyme growing wild all over the place. Fantastic. Here is a link to some of the pictures and a link to the company that organized it for us.

And of course, the real reason for a walking trip to France was so we would not need to feel any guilt about the copious amounts of pastry, bread, amazing local cheeses, wines and creamy sauces the french are famous for!!!

pictures from paris/provence


Discover France
 
I did a bike tour of france with a friend of mine from a company called Bikestyle and followed the 100th anniversary of the TdF from the Pyrannees to Paris. You get to see a lot of france, however, you don't spent much time in one place. However, it's fun in that you do get little thumbnails of France and places that you'd like to return to explore more. The Loire valley, Bourdeax, the Pyranee/Basque regions are three that come to mind. The architecture is just soo interesting.

I keep thinking I should plant a whole ton of sunflowers in my backyard just to simulate the sunflower fields I biked by and like you see from Graham Watson's photos from the Tour. :)

Nice pictures..! Not sure about you, but my friend and I did not realize there was/is a tunnel to get to L'arc de Triumphe and you didn't have to cross like the 6 lanes of insanity. We stood there for a good 5 minutes wondering how all the people got over there and why isn't there blood everywhere, until we noticed a sign for the tunnel...

Jay
 
Jay H said:
Nice pictures..! Not sure about you, but my friend and I did not realize there was/is a tunnel to get to L'arc de Triumphe and you didn't have to cross like the 6 lanes of insanity. We stood there for a good 5 minutes wondering how all the people got over there and why isn't there blood everywhere, until we noticed a sign for the tunnel...

Jay

The tunnel is used for other things not just for safe passage.
 
When we were in Paris 6 years ago we were so fascinated watching the traffic from the top of the Arc. We watched a tiny little french car decide it had missed it's street, stop, back up, turn completely around and head the wrong direction through all those lanes of roundabout traffic and exit where he had wanted to! C'est encroyable! I was pretty relieved to see that I didn't have to walk across all that craziness.
 
Love this shot of Ventoux!:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/chipaudette/detail?.dir=/f534re2&.dnm=5ff3re2.jpg

As a cyclist, I actually found it quite fun to ride around in Paris. It is still a city with congested seats but drivers actually look for cyclists, even large groups of them like us!

In addition to the cars zipping around, scooters and motorcyclists are everywhere and apparently, it's legal over there to split lanes so you driving to our hotel from Charles de Gaul, you would see motorcyclists zipping everywhere...

Liked Montmartre too alot, especially after seeing the movie Amelie. My friend and I walked over the place and visited the windmill and other sites. We even went to the canals in Stalingrad section. And the sewer tour! :p

Jay
 
Top