Happy New Year everyone! This year has been amazing for both Dee and I. We’ve managed to suspend our jobs (Dee permanently!), got our apartment rented out, possessions all packed and hopped on an airplane to explore the word! We’ve seen and done some pretty frickin awesome things and written about most of it. So here it is, what we think our top 10 things we did this year traveling.

The DVS top 10 of 2009

We separated from our friends Steve and Karen for a few days. They went off to Switzerland to visit a family friend and we stayed one extra night in Rome to do our adventurous Macbook power adaptor shopping, and then figured ourselves the cheapest route to get to Barcelona. Our options were the following:

1. Take an overnight ferry – We pretty much crossed this option off right away… thinking we have Eurail passes that we paid good money for and should use them.
2. Take an overnight train to Zurich and then jump on a train to Barcelona – From our past experiences with overnight trains and paying the extra costs for the private sleeper cabins we decided to avoid this.
3. Take a train to Milan and then catch a connection train to Nice. Stay in Nice overnight and then catch a train the next day to Barcelona. With only having to pay reservation fees this is the route we picked. It sound the easiest for travel and providing a small amount of time in Nice with a good nights rest.

So, the next day we made our reservations, we picked the fastest connection in Milan so we could arrive in Nice with some time to actually explore it a bit. Arriving in Milan, I ask Scott how long do we have till we get on our next train? He tells me we have just under 2 hours. We noticed on the board there was a train leaving in 15 mins to Nice but since our stomachs were growling and we have all learned that hunger overrules all, we decided to get some lunch and hop into an Internet café to reserve a room on HRS.com in Nice. We were taught from my German relatives that this site gives cheaper rates and great specials for hotels then what you would be told by just showing up. To our surprise, they were right and hotels sometimes even proved to be cheaper on HRS.com then booking a hostel room!

We choose a hotel room in Nice that was right across the street from the train station to make things super easy for our early morning train to Barcelona the next day. Paid the deposit fee, grabbed ourselves a McDonald’s ice cream cone in celebration, and headed back slowly to the Milan train station to catch our train, taking pictures of the outside fountain on the way. We were actually quite impressed by the train station… and have heard that is pretty much the only impressive thing to see in Milan.

Licking our cones in satisfaction we look at the board to see what track our train is on, but couldn’t find it anywhere. Not one electronic line of information stated our train number let alone anything saying its destination was Nice. Scott pulls out our reservation ticket to double-check the time and with much swearing advises me he was always looking at the date on the ticket rather then the time!! Our train was actually the one we saw on the board when we first arrived here. Now we just wasted money on our reservation fee and are starting to worry if we can even get to Nice tonight for our hotel reservation with an already paid deposit.

Now our ice cream cones were not as satisfying.. so we pulled ourselves over onto a bench to collect our composure and finish off the cones. What are we going to do? I pulled out our Eurail timetable schedule and we flipped back and forth through the pages frantically. From what we could see there was no more options available to us. I feel like I kept my cool in this whole situation quite well, but Scott was dreading the worse. I think more because he did a mistake of reading the ticket incorrectly and that little mistake lead us to arguing on this little bench and loosing money all at the same time. It was getting quite hard to reason with him to the point we had to just not talk to each other for 5 minutes.

During those 5 minutes I thought to myself while looking at this tiny little schedule book that there is no way it lists ALL the trains in Europe. It must just list the most popular routes and leave the rest out. It would be impossible for something so small to have all the listings for such a VAST train network across 21 countries that accept the Eurail. Once the five minutes past and I could see the vein on Scott’s forehead decreased in size, I explained to him my thoughts and suggest we go stand in the long line and tell the lady we need to get to Nice tonight and see if there is anyway it can be done. Scott doubted the idea but after some more discussion I convinced him to get up and come with me.

Low and behold there was a way to get to Nice. It involved us connecting 3 or 4 times in small town France locations that we can’t even remember and landed us in Nice at 9 pm. Our reservation deposit was not a waste and we were ever so thankful to have a room just across the street from the station. Unfortunately we arrived exhausted and never saw Nice, since our train to Barcelona was at 6 am the next day.

What did we learn in this situation?

• Make sure you are reading your ticket correctly especially if you can’t read the language on it! Maybe even have your travel mate to look at the ticket as well.
• Always double check your train numbers and don’t just rely on checking for the destination on the board.
• The Eurail time schedule you are given does NOT list all the trains.
• Keep your cool if you mess up and miss a train, as there is most likely another option for you.
• Give Scott about 5 minutes if he gets really frustrated and upset before speaking to him with good solution making ideas.

If there are two things that Paris taught us; always practice the RFN law (right f’ing now) but watch out for your hunger, as that will over rule all!

As you might remember in one of our previous posts “Drinking undercover in front of the Eiffel Tower” we gave up the chance to go up to the top of the Eiffel Tower when there was a short line because we were hungry and wanted to eat dinner instead.

While enjoying our French picnic we thought it be a great time to head up to the top of the tower. We were already feeling on top of the world due to a nice little wine buzz and there was no hunger striking fear into our stomachs since we fueled it up with lots of great cheese and bread. Sounds like the perfect time! We arrive to the line and are shocked again to see it so short, as we just saw it a mere few hours earlier before our picnic and it was 10 times longer.

That is when we noticed on the electronic information board that the top of the tower was currently closed and you could only go to the first viewing platform. A little taken back we regrouped and discussed what to do. Do we take the sub par not even halfway up option or come back the next day? Our group came to the decision that we all wanted to go the top and decided to just be sure to give ourselves some time tomorrow. The only thing we had planned was a little bit of shopping around our hostel and going to the Louvre after 6 for the discounted rate. We could just go after all that.

Well, yet again our hunger took over our rational thoughts and we decided that going for dinner once we were done with the Louvre was more important then going straight to the Eifel Tower. Low and behold the dinner took longer then expected and we soon realized we only had 20 minutes to make it the tower before last entry was refused. Needless to say, we didn’t make it…

And this is what we regret about our Paris experience, never seeing the great city from the top of the Eiffel Tower. Guess we just have to go back one day!

With over 100,000 objects located in over 652,300 square feet, the world famous Louvre is a treasure to both humanity and France. But one thing that people constantly state is that you “can’t see the Louvre” in a day, which I completely disagree with. With 5 giant wings of exhibitions it’s true that there’s a huge amount of things to look at. 50,000 pieces in the Egyptian portion alone, 5000 Islamic artworks, 6000 paintings (comprising of aprox 50% religious, 10% naked breast, 30% nobles and the rest random) and much much more. There’s an immense amount of objects to be sure, but I think the average person can “see” the Louvre in an afternoon with a good pair of shoes easily.

I know many people are reading this and thinking, “sure Scott, but if you look at 1 object per minute then it will takes years to see everything”. But let me give an example for you. When you go food shopping, there are probably 50,000 items inside a supermarket and you probably need less than 100. Do you feel the need to inspect each and every can there is inside for a minute each? One can of tomatoe soup is like the other, take a moment to look, decide and move on. After an hour inside you’ve visually processed everything inside the store but discarded most of it. We do this every day with everything we do, whether it’s the millions of pieces of information going around the internet every day or the thousands of decisions our brain makes each minute while driving, our brains are designed to take massive amounts of information, categorize, sort and give us the important stuff.

So if you’ve seen 5 paintings of Jesus on a cross, do you need to carefully inspect the other 500? What about the single exposed breasts on paintings, there’s hundreds. If you see 20 smiling nobles who paid for their paintings, is it that important to visually itemize the other 1000? Is that 1 headless Roman statue that different from the 75 others all around it that you need to spend 1 minute on each one, or can you walk by them and let the few that are great catch your eye? And while some may disagree, once you’ve seen 30 half clothed 17th century ladies with breasts hanging out, you’ve really seen them all.

Don’t get me wrong here, we walked through 4 of the wings and saw a shitload of stuff. And we probably spent more time in the Egyptian wing than the others because it’s more interesting to us. But to say that I didn’t “see” the Louvre in an afternoon is just wrong, I think we saw the best and most interesting things of the Louvre to us. And probably the most disappointing is the Mona Lisa.

Situated on a wall in the middle of the Renaissance wing, behind double pained thick glass, 4 feet behind a small dividing wall and another 15 feet behind a second roped off area sits the Mona Lisa – or one of 3 copies they display. Standing behind a crowd of 80 that’s 10 people deep, some with spotting scopes and binoculars and all gasping I couldn’t help wonder – WTF? I squeezed through to see if I could look into her eyes, see her mysterious smile that’s so well thought of and be in awe. And I saw and was disappointed. Of the millions of pieces that are in the Louvre, this is what people are so excited about?

I’d say the headless angel was more impressive, the 50 foot by 50 foot painting of the last dinner, the sarcophagus in the Egyptian room, huge roman statues, the mummy.. hell, I’d even say some of the Jesus paintings were better. Perhaps the victim of major marketing campaigns I really wasn’t impressed and less impressed with the fawning going on over old Mona.

All in, the Louvre is awesome and a tribute to mankind’s creative process. But unless you’re an art history major, on a tour, or really care to spend a minute visually inspecting the 3000 miniature statues individually you can do it in an afternoon with a good pair of shoes.

Many items inside the Louvre are there just because they’re old – a needle from the 17th century, a piece of statue, a button from a dress, a piece of a tablet.. you get the point – many pieces are just incomplete. Just bring a snack and pay attention to what grabs your eye, letting your brain guide you along.

The first time our group of 4 set eyes together on the Eiffel Tower was at night, Sparkling in French glory. We were on the hunt for something to eat late at night with a backpacker budget. Two problems with this: French restaurants are not open late and backpacker budget and “tourist” area don’t mix. Steve had been to Paris before and remembered eating at cheaper places on the other side of the tower. So we walked under the giant beast with grumbling tummies. Photos do not give the Eiffel Tower justice to its size. It’s quite impressive!

All of us looking up

We noticed the line was short to get to the top but our tummy grumbles were more important so we said to ourselves “another day” and made out way out of the Eiffel park grounds. Upon exiting we noticed a sign with symbols. From what we could tell it said No drinking alcohol in the park! What?? How can that be? This is France! You always see movies with people drinking wine and eating baguettes in front of the Eiffel Tower.

On the day we did plan to have our typical French picnic we brought our coffee mugs with us as a just in case measure, a North American trick to get away with drinking in public. It must be coffee right? While searching for the perfect piece of grass to sit on we noticed lots of armed guards with automatic assault weapons in the area and also some normal dressed gentleman with earpieces walking amongst the trees. Unsure if this is normal security or if the terrorist alert was a higher color that day, we felt smart for bringing the coffee mugs.

So we sneak poured our wine into the cups, cut up some cheese, and ripped apart some bread. The sky was epic with the most amazing clouds we have seen in Europe, and the Eiffel Tower did its job well. It was a moment to never forget.

Cheers!

In 17th century, the city of Paris had a problem with people dying. So much so that the cemetery’s were large pits where masses of bodies would be laid to rest, often with no coffin. The huge amount of decaying bodies located all throughout the city started leaking into the groundwater, the primary source of water for the city and contaminating it.

In 1786 the city officials started the monumental task of digging up all the bodies within the city limits and placing them underground in long abandoned stone quarries just outside of town. For the next 23 years the bones of the deceased were just thrown in, but in 1810 the new Inspector General of the Quarries decided to do more. His idea was to create an attraction rivaling museums, and he had the bones placed as we seem them now. Over the next 200 years the city of Paris would grow over top of the catacombs, and it’s now well within city limits – conveniently next to a metro station. I wonder what the workers were thinking while digging that tunnel?

Be warned if you go in the summer though, the line was so long I wondered if Steve would stick around and wait, and 2 hours later I was surprised he was still there! Thanks to the iPod and creepy skulls I suppose!

Walking through the dark passageways is a bit creepy, with up to millions skulls looking at you. The arrangements are from standard femur and skull structures to patterns of skulls in different symbols to mini rooms with models carved out of stone by the previous miners in dedication to ones who lost their lives. It takes quite a long time to walk through the catacombs, as the distance with the opened passages is 1.7km long. There are many gated off passages, many of these are said to be un-renovated or too un-navigable for regular tours.

Oddly enough at the end of the line there was a security checkpoint asking us to empty our bags. As he had a tazer we let him look through but then asked him why? He looked over to the filing cabinet with 5 skulls on top, said those were from his shift today only. I guess stealing skulls is a pastime in Paris!

PART 1

PART TWO

What do you think? Have you been in sketchy deathtraps before? Have you ever managed to get your money back once you paid?

Being a bit of a history buff, we decided while in France we’d go to the beaches of Normandy to see where the Canadians had landed on Juno beach. The closest town we could find that had accommodation was Bayeux, where we stayed in a nice little bed and breakfast inside town. One of the ladies at the reception had mentioned a nice way to get to the beaches was to rent a bike and go out for the day.

We woke up on Sunday morning to a beautiful bright sunny day, with not a cloud in the sky. Looking like the perfect day for a short ride we had a late breakfast and went into town to rent 4 bikes for a beautiful ride in the countryside. We told the shopkeeper where we planned to go, and armed with his map and some directions we were off just before noon.

The French countryside really is beautiful, with long flat patches and long rolling hills. It turned out to be a pretty hot day for a cycle with the temperature reaching just over 30 degrees. After two hours of constant cycle we were starting to get tired and looked forward to hitting the next town on the map to refill our empty water and stomachs.
Funny thing about the French is that they like their breaks and days off. We had expected most stores to be closed between 12:00 and 3:00, but what we didn’t know is that on Sundays they shut down everything except their churches in the small towns. We noticed a man doing some gardening, and seeing the water being poured into the ground we decided to ask him to refill our water bottles. Steve’s French came in handy and out came some water with ice in it, as well as some ginger ale.

Refreshed with some distance still ahead of us we continued riding through the countryside wondering if we were ever going to make it to the beach. Another hour of cycling passed by and our bottles were empty again as we rode through another small town. As we were on the side of the road trying to figure out what to do, we saw a family having a picnic that kindly offered us a bottle of water! Refreshed once again we headed out on the most epic bike ride ever.

Around 4pm we finally arrived at the beach feeling exhausted and starved. We refueled ourselves at a small café with some crepes and beer before heading into the Juno beach museum. Inside was a nice display about Canada’s war effort, life in the UK for the troops and the landings on the beach. An interesting fact I never knew is that Canada sent 1 million troops overseas, when the country only had a population of 11 million. 1 in 11 went to war, and many didn’t return.

The museum closed shortly after we got there, and we went out to the beach to have a picnic of wine, cheese and breads we had brought with us. While we enjoyed our picnic we felt very thankful for the generations of men and women before us who sacrificed themselves so that we could have the freedom to be here.

As it started to get dark we weren’t looking forward to our bike ride home, but what could we do? Being stranded out here with the bikes we unlocked them and tried to get the front lights working. It turns out that when the wires are cut, bulbs are missing and they don’t attach to wheels the front lights on cycles don’t work. Luckily Dee and I carry flashlights in our day bags and we tried our best to make it work. It sure does get dark in the French countryside with no lights and a sliver of a moon in the sky; we carefully made our way back to Bayeux. There were many moments of not seeing the road, almost going into ditches and nearly getting hit by cars, but somehow we made the 3 hours journey without killing ourselves or each other.

If you find yourself in Bayeux going to one of the Normandy beaches, I’ll give you a hint everyone forgot to mention to us. Don’t ride a bloody bike unless you’re used to being on one for such long distances! Instead, rent a scooter if you can find one. It would be much more enjoyable and your ass won’t feel as if it belonged to an East Van hooker for the next couple of days.

Oh, and don’t let Steve hold the flashlight.

The term professional partier comes up lots in our dialect. Amongst our group of friends we all love a party and believe we are quite good at it too! We’ve attended many club nights, special events, raves, house parties, concerts and multi day festivals. We have also thrown a good amount of parties ourselves: House parties, huge New Years Bashers, Houseboat Stags, Special Events, club nights, illegal underground raves, and we even had one heck of a wedding that ended with table dancing!

But even with all this previous experience, we had no idea what to except when it came to partying with the French.

Steve found out about this event in Corsept, France named Couvre Feu. It’s a 3-day camping festival that had a beat boxer we really wanted to see performing on the first night. This beat boxer goes by the name of Dubfx and is often caught performing with his girlfriend The Flower Fairy. Dubfx started as a street performer in England, selling CD’s after his performance. He creates music and beats with only his mouth and sings some catchy tunes that all walks of live can relate to. With the power of youtube and camera phones he is quickly becoming a worldwide sensation and is now getting hired to play at all sorts of events.

Couvre Feu sounded like the perfect event to attend first with our friends Steve and Karen. After renting a car in Nantes we headed down an unfamiliar highway in hopes we were going the right way. Our destination was not on the map we had, and directions from the French website were dismal while GPS unit we paid for was of course broken! But our spirits were still high and with smiles and a flyer in hand we made friends with a hippie van on the road. We waved the flyer at them and hoped the nod they gave us was instructions to follow them, luckily they took us right to the front gate!

Dubfx was the first performance of the evening so we rushed inside the circus tent to watch the show. It was a great performance and this is where we started to really get the vibe of the French. Only 15 mins into the start of the entire festival everyone is already grooving hard, smell of Kronenburg on their breaths, huge smiles, and CROWD SURFING! To a beat boxer! This is something we never see in Canada.

The festival was a huge success, and there’s a couple of things that impressed us so much that organizers back home should pick up on.

3 TYPES OF BATHROOMS TO CHOOSE FROM

None of them were prefab outhouse. Option 1: A squat style (but clean) hole in the ground type. 2. Male Urinal TeePee Like Tent Set up (see pic below) Option 3. Normal style wooden outhouse with lights, incense, and a bucket of sood for you to dump over the mess. The result: each trip to the bathroom was always pleasant. We never used the hole in the ground type… thinking that is for guys that are shy about the awesome Urinal TeePees. And with the guys not pissing in the regular wooden outhouse it left the lines short, no wet seats. I need help explaing this?

BEER TENT

Back in Canada you cannot drink at outdoor festivals unless they have a permit to have a beer garden, and then you must drink only in the beer garden which means you can’t watch your favorite act and enjoy a cold beer at the same time. In France it’s open to drink anywhere you want on the grounds. It’s almost like they trust their citizens to be responsible.
WASTE

What waste actually? The ground was next to spotless, it was an amazing sight. The main problem with festivals is dealing with the thousands of bottles and cups. Garbage’s get overfilled and there is no place to recycle your bottle. Couvre Feu solved this issue by making everyone pay an extra euro the first time they go buy a beer which gets you a funky hard plastic re-useable cup that can also be a keepsake item as it has the festivals logo and artwork on it. Each time you want another beer you just bring the cup back. No cup? You pay another extra euro for a new cup. Bam! No more bottle waste except for water…. And well it sure didn’t look like much water was being drank that night! Now the only waste left to deal with is the food with strategically places garbage cans placed where one would sit to eat their food.
BREATHALYZER TEST
Anyone leaving the festival grounds with no wristband (like us as we were not attending all 3 days) were stopped and asked who was driving. That person was then asked to do a Breathalyzer test by festival staff. If you pass they send you on your merry way, and if you don’t pass they give you some tips on ways to sober up and ask you to do another test when you feel ready or find someone else to drive. This is such a smart idea and ensures that people don’t drink too much and go driving.

So, that is Couvre Feu… If you like attending festivals and there is an act you want to see you should check this festival out. It’s a well-run operation and a great party. Where else can you find people going off crazy and crowd surfing to hardcore polka??

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