Is a little peace too much to ask....?

You know you are living in a city when the area is never quiet.... In fact I thought I was living in a quiet neighbourhood, but it seems you can be wrong! Being the summer, the air is filled with the noise of screaming..
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SWIFTS!
(Wiki ref and they also feature on a musical track too... see I&T for more information)

Daylight is filled with these wonderful screaming creatures, and sleeping with the window open you wake to them too. I love watching their aerial acrobatics in search of insect prey and the knowledge that they have to drop from a perch to gain flight, they can't just take off from the ground. In fact I have several certainly roosting and possibly nesting in the building opposite, winging their way into a small hole at high speed at dusk. I guess not all the urban noise is artificial.

So off I wander into the countryside at the weekend, for a walk, an explore and possibly some peace and quiet....? Nope, large crickets/Egyptian grasshoppers? fill the air with their churring from trees and reportedly you can hear each one from a couple of kilometres away. Frankly I wouldn't like to comment because every 50 m of so another one is calling from the next tree. The only time they seem to stop is when your presence is perceived and then they are as still as possible to hide their location!

Who said it was hard to observe nature and that you had to get away from it all?
Step outside tomorrow morning and search the air for the sickle-shaped wings and then listen for the screams..

La Fete de Musique

Tuesday the 21st, for those not in touch with the natural world, was the longest day of the year, commonly known as Midsummer. To some this means rituals, to others staying up all night to see the sun rise again is the objective, to the French it has become a festival. I can’t tell you the origins of the festival without looking them up, but midsummer is celebrated in Marseille through a Fete de Musique. On this day anyone can play any music they like, anywhere, anyhow, any time without jurisdiction.

Walking through Marseille last night after seeing a friend off to the airport, the streets were alive. In some sections life went on as normal, notably the Algerian section near St Charles, but in others music was being performed in a variety of locations. I walked into the city centre and around the Vieux (old) Port area and was amazed at the number of people out and about. It was a cross between a huge demonstration and a street party for numbers. I stopped beside a backstreet bar where an electro-rock band were performing covers (rather well I might add) to a 100 or so people – many drinking, some dancing, everyone enjoying the music. In other places there were little groups performing their version of music from hymns to a hiphop DJ beside the port, African drums to a full-blown orchestra on a purpose-built stage. The orchestra had an audience of at least 1000 people in a square, all watching for free, just like all the other music. Other notable musicians included an appalling one man playing over a vocal backing track and singing along in time; and a pick-up truck that pulled up at the busiest traffic-lights on the front, stopped and turned on a sound system complete with DJ and seven dancers on the back of the truck. This rapidly turned into a throng of 500+ people blocking most of the traffic and dancing outside of a ‘quality burger’ chain of restaurant. Ten or fifteen minutes later the car horns became irate and the truck moved onto another location. All in all, in the right locations you could walk for 30 seconds and get another genre of music to stop and listen to or avoid. The whole evening was certainly memorable.

Surrounding this mayhem you had all the standard street sellers marketing their wares. No I don’t need a pair of sunglasses at 11pm thanks! No, a flashing light-saber/rotating toy is not what I want. There were also many people taking advantage of the evening dragging around a coolbox hastily attached to an old person’s shopping trolley base selling cans of soft drinks at €1+ a time. There was also a wide range of ages of people out and about from the teenagers, through students, families with their small children, adult groups and even some old people looking on with interest or enjoying a meal in a restaurant and listening along to the music too.

Finally I had the general impression that there were a number of people on the lookout for a cheap steal of a wallet or phone, but by keeping my things firmly in front of me I don’t think anyone tried. I guess it happens everywhere, but it more or less obvious to the tourist or passer-by.

If I am in a French city on June 21^st next year I shall once again be wandering the streets looking for a party and enjoying random musical performances. This country holds many surprises for the inexperienced!

Swallowtail

The renowned Cameron Binns was recently commenting on the difficulty of photographing a Swallowtail Butterfly. I have to say I whole-heartedly agree with this statement, although I have had rather more opportunity recently to try. I have to say since his post I have been noticing Swallowtails whenever they are on the wing, but trying to get close enough to photograph one, particularly with my petite 18-55mm lens is quite difficult. So I thought I would share my latest (not very sharp on the front) effort in the hope that it may inspire further photographic endeavours on all our parts. Try as I might it would not let me out of its sight so I could get behind the little ****.. so the full front approach got me within about 18". Needless to say this is cropped to about 1/4 of a frame.

A wary Swallowtail, St Pierre cemetery, Marseille, June 12th 2011

Virtual Calanques

I realise that most of my posts from France so far have been descriptive rather than visual, so to give you an idea of part of the area I have put together a selection of images to take you on a virtual walk through the Calanques – a protected area between Marseille and the south coast. The region is predominantly Limestone and gives characteristic scenery which is further specialised by the southern Mediterranean climate and heavy human usage of the area. So without further ado get your boots on, pick up the essential bottle of water and follow me.

A path through the Calanques just above the last buildings as we climb steeply out of the valley floor. This isn’t the most popular route, but it gives us a good overview of the area.

Stopping to drink some water on this hot morning after the climb you take in the view which has opened up over Marseille. The centre is around 5km away and can be found behind and to the right of the hill in the distance.

Looking the other way you see the strange sight of a university nestled into the countryside. I point out my building as behind the long building, but the campus itself isn’t as pretty as the location may suggest. After dark you can find wild pigs grazing the grounds though in the style of Asterix and Obelix….

Further along the ridge walk, following little dashes of different coloured paint and paying attention to whether the marks are lines (indication path direction) or crosses (the pathe doesn’t go this way) you stop again atop Col de Luminy and look out to an offshore island hidden in the haze.

Coming a bit lower we enter some deciduous woodland composed of a variety of trees, generally stunted. Among them though there are a few wild flowers among the low scrub and a butterfly is perched on one, resembling a Hedge Brown from back home, but I suspect it is not the same.

Crossing the path every metre or so are strange black centipedes like this one. Whatever they are seems to do rather well, but you can’t afford to be watching your feet the whole time. I suspect the mortality rate must be quite high on the busy paths.

After a path junction we descend down a steep valley on a concrete road, seemingly out of place in this semi-natural landscape. Around a corner this view of Sugiton calanque opens up and we marvel at the strange pale landscape.

In a sheltered corner we get a better chance to photograph both the vegetation and the scenery. Here Sugiton calanque is below us and the headland of Cap de Morgiou is in the distance.

After a swim at Sugiton in the clear 16 degree water of early June we take a different path away from the calanque and pass beneath a huge cliff. A momentary glimpse reveals quite a number of climbers on this face and we stop to watch them at their games – generally hanging in space and cursing… not like the Traditional climbers back home….!

Climbing high once again we stop for another breather as the vista has opened up again. Once again we can see Sugiton calanque and Morgiou in the background, but showing the elegant profile of Cap de Morgiou. The path along it is a killer in the heat. Strangely we seem to have caught a lull in the middle of the day where most of the tourist boats have departed. At times this morning we had seen three or four boats crammed with people within these calanques, paying €30+ a time from Cassis or Marseille.

After heading beneath a headland, we climb up a secluded valley at the back and finally feel like we have the area to ourselves, rather than the ever present human being. Up at 400m above sea level the cloud closes in and we can hear a rumble of thunder.

Cresting the ridge we can once again see down into Morgiou and this time along the South coast of the Calanques. However we don’t stop here for long as the rumbles are getting stronger and a few drops of rain have been felt. Experience says that rain here is a deluge or not at all..

 And so scurrying down the other side we make it back into the woodland and down a broad path to the university campus where we join the hoards of people waiting for a bus back to Marseille. Luckily they are quite frequent and we board one before the downpour starts bouncing off of the road. We have only walked 7 or 8 miles, but in the heat it feels considerably further and the lack of places to fill up a water bottle is obvious. 1.5 litres just lasted the day.

Stair Energy

Taking time to get used to a long commute, I have had time to ponder a few things. The obvious first thought is which route is the easiest to do, which is the most comfortable, and which is the quickest? There three are not always the same when you have the option of a walk and a bus, a walk, a metro and a bus, or a walk, two metros and a bus. The bus line is also not the same if you get off at different metro stops, or you wait for the express bus which may or may not overtake the stopping everywhere bus.

Anyway the point of today's post is: Do you expend more energy going up stairs two at a time or one at a time? Or alternatively does the energy expended depend on the height gain and therefore (when walking, rather than running) the expenditure would be the same however many stairs you could comfortably walk up in one go?

Any thoughts? I have approximately 250 stairs each way per day plus horizontal walking!

Essentials of Marseille

Well as you might have guessed the blogging has lapsed as other things have taken control of my new life. On the accommodation front I spent a week in a hostel in town with a night in a hotel because the hostel was booked. By the end I was glad to move out of a room that I shared with people and got woken at night into a single room in an international hall of residence which is where I am now. The postgrads who live here are a generally quiet and friendly bunch. There isn’t the sociableness that the hostel provided but I can spend more time cooking in the evenings and relaxing. There are downsides though, not having wifi and the internet really cuts down your options when you are in a new place and generally alone. Life is difficult certainly. However there has been a particular person who translated for me initially and has been a good companion in the evenings. Unfortunately she leaves at the end of this week. Hopefully other people will continue to fulfil the role...

Marseille as a place can be summed up in a few lines for me. This may be true for many urban areas too, but new for me.

1)      Cosmopolitan, multiple races and origins of the people. This makes for little communes and centres of population.

2)      The Calanques - the national park on the outskirts of the city divides the city from the natural coastline, in contrast to the urbanised section around the city itself. The Calanques become infested by people at the weekend and bank holiday and lose much of their dry, limestone, charm at this point. You can get away from people but it is a lot harder and less appealing than Snowdonia for instance..

3)      The Urban Commute. I am still staggered how it can take anything from 35 mins to an hour to go about 6km to the campus each day. Relying on two metro lines and a bus route there are numerous combinations which can save a few minutes here or there, but despite going against the main commuter flow it takes an age! Maybe this should be a good time for reading and relaxing, but it certainly makes it harder to stay late in the office…

4)      Commercial centres. I was told that Marseille has over 300 commercial centres. This seems to be true, every so often there is a cluster of shops, a bakery, a tabac, and various others on a couple of street corners. It is just as if a small village had been enclosed in the city, but they are much closer together than British villages or even estates. It does mean that will very little planning you can pick up a baguette or croissant almost anywhere you are..

5)      Finally I have to say the traffic. Stationary or moving, car or motorbike, there is an awful lot of vehicles on the roads. There is a good system for regular bike rental, but not enough people use them as far as I see. The Metro, trams and buses run well too and at times appears close to capacity, but the cars outnumber them.

On this last point. Is it possible to do without a car in Marseille? In the city, yes definitely. But as an outdoor person, I am less sure. I am wondering how long the abilities of the city to satisfy me are going to last. I guess day trips into the surrounding towns may also do an exploratory job too, but to get to the places in between or in the wilds, difficult. Again this is something I need to explore. How easy is it to rent a vehicle to come and go as I please?

One thing at a time, I need to find permanent accommodation first and make a choice about how long a commute I am willing to make. Maybe for a better place to stay, that is furnished the commute will have to remain. Difficult choices to be made. The job is enjoyable, now I just need to settle myself for the evenings and weekends. 

Day 2 in Marseille

As forecast, a bank holiday in Marseille means that there are lots of people out and about, a limited number of shops open and little opportunity for sorting the problem of finding accommodation for tomorrow night. At this point I was only aware of potential hotel rooms at €80+ for the night in the city, although by the end of the day I had the names of some cheaper hotels to look for. All the cheaper hotel and hostel accommodation had gone for the Friday night long before I arrived in Marseille. Anyway this morning I put this thorny problem to the back of my mind for a while and concentrated on exploring Marseille.

Notre Dame Cathedral

I had a couple of initial plans. I wanted a dictionary, ideally I wanted a map (other than the pocket leaflet from the hostel), and I fancied getting up to highest point around and looking at the whole city from Notre Dame cathedral. I also started to explore the whereabouts of doctor’s surgeries as I need a medical for the new job – vis they don’t exist, you call on the doctor’s residence with an appointment…

Anyway after refreshing my mind with a couple of Pain-au-chocolate from a Boulangerie and a bottle of water from a corner shop I wandered through the main shopping streets and found my way into a Virgin Megastore. They may have fallen under the radar back home, but this was alive and kicking with a choice of multiple dictionaries for sale. A ‘pocket’ –sized model made its way into my pocket for a worthwhile €8.50. Over the course of the day it got multiple usage as I wandered the streets assimilating words via osmosis and looking up how to say phrases that came into my mind. For instance alleyways labelled Monte ____ mean to go up (vis. Stairs!).

View over the 7th Arrondisement to the Ile Frioud

The narrow streets, packed with cars, tall buildings and many shutters reminded my of previous visits to Brussels. Maybe it is a continental style, although I can see the reasoning for the shutters in the summer in terms of keeping the properties cool (see photos). The view from the top of the hill beside Notre Dame was well worth the climb up there, counting steps in French and avoiding being photographed and then having money demanded from me! ( I suspect). The importance of Marseille as a port came back to me as I saw ferries from both Algeria and Tunisia coming and going in the short period I was watching.

A compact boatyard, Marseille-style

Among my wanderings I was particularly taken by two bridges on the coastal road over inlets or valleys. In this built up area the natural contours of the landscape are not so obvious, but here they were and every small corner of land was being used up. In this case beneath each of the bridges, or small viaducts, the ladn was being used for boatyards. Innovative slipways for dragging boats out of the water and separate winches for each mooring spot caught my attention (see photos again). The close-packed nature of the region is most apparent when you view it from above and make the prime residences with gardens stand out.

Back at the Vieux Port (a bigger version of Swansea’s marina only four times the size), it started raining heavily and I took cover alongside my first Bouledrome – pitches for boule – on which a pair of gentlemen continued to play despite the rain. They could see I was appreciative of their sport although no words were exchanged.

My French confidence took a slight battering today as I could make myself understood in a Boulangerie for my tasty lunchtime sandwich, but had no idea how much the lady was asking for. In the end I just held out my handful of change and she took what she wanted. I have a long way to go.

Finally I discovered a shop called Fnac (a cross between Virgin, Waterstones and HMV) and found the local climbing guide to the area. The hand-drawn diagrams look great and the routes seem to be graded from Fr4-6c so there will be plenty within my range. I’ll wait until I have someone to climb with and then buy a copy, dictionary in hand! Maps of the area however appear to vary between a 1:15,000 map of the Calanques and 1:200,000 or worse general maps. I think I’ve been spoilt by the UK series.

Cider with Rosie?

Cidre with Rosie?

I’m sure this isn’t what Laurie Lee meant when he wrote his famous book Cider with Rosie, but at the time I doubt rosé wine had made it to rural England. However it appears that the French now drink cider… or maybe they are trying to tempt the ladies of this province off of their Rosé wines and sparkling tipples. Either way I shall wait to see if pink ‘cidre’ takes off over here.

There is a saying which goes that if a film needs to be advertised it can’t be very good….

Kid in a Sweet Shop

In the third of this series of little windows on French culture… I just found a good sized supermarket. Up until now I had only found bakeries and small food shops in the centre of Marseille. An enforced move to a hotel on the outskirts landed me next door to the Casino. Consulting the dictionary Casino = casino… but I had been seeing Petite Casino around Marseille already (although they were all shut as it was a bank holiday), and now here is a Geant Casino, in reality comparable to Tesco Extra in the UK.

I guess I was like a kid in a sweet shop, or possibly a better description as a child exploring another child’s toy cupboard. Wide eyes, wandering around vacantly, you can’t find what you are used to, but there is this whole maze of lively items to choose from! Despite not drinking much at the moment I did have to wander down the wine aisle to see what I was missing out on at the moment. If my impressions based on the bottle are correct there are some rather nice bottles of Alsace white wine waiting to be sampled at €6-8 a piece, Montbarzillac at €8 and full bottles of Sauternes for €6-11… NOM!!!

Other things that caught my attention was the profusion of cheeses (fromage) and preserved sausages (Saucisson, take Choritzo and change the flavour a bit and you won’t be far wrong). Bread will never be the same as the UK, but there was a good selection of baguettes and other types of bread too, along with the expected Croissant, little tartlettes and sweet puddings. I was rather tempted. Yoghurt doesn’t appear to come in the large Onken/Yeo Valley size that it does at home. You can get little pots in all shapes and sizes or absolutely massive pots of plain yoghurt. There also appeared to be less in the way of fresh meat available too than the UK.

Excluding food products there were plenty of books and magazine for sale, but all appeared to be in French. For some reason I had expected a selection of both.. I recognised a number of authors, but in each case they had been translated. William and Kate – un bon amour (or something like that) and Clive Cussler stuck with me.

I’m sure there will be other observations that will come to mind over time, but these were my initial impressions of my first Geant Casino!

Car Parking

In contrast to the post about the toilets, the French are very good at many things from car parking to food. I have only been here a few days but watching the small spaces that cars can and have got into is amazing. Any little nook and cranny seems to be capable of holding a car. In most of Britain, London excepted?, you need at least two foot at either end of your car once it is in the space in order to get into it. Here you can halve that at least. I guess if you have a lot of practise you know exactly where the bumpers of your car are and how to get into small spaces, but I am impressed. I don’t know if I want to try it..
As you might expect many cars have scrapes and dents down them, so I suspect that in parking tightly many of them scrape bollards, nudge up too tightly to other vehicles and so forth. I think it was a good thing not to bring my fairly new car down here!

Thinking of food. I could get used to popping into a boulangerie for a sandwich most lunchtimes. We are not talking your delicate triangular British jobs, sur ou sans crusts, but full-on demi-baguettes. Your typical French sandwich will set you back 3-4 euro, but be 30cm long and full of salad, ham, tuna, egg, meat, cheese etc. I had a particularly good goats cheese and salad one yesterday (Thursday), although I didn’t understand how much it was and had to hold out my handful of change to have the relevant 3.50 extracted from it. Such is the life of a poor, but hopefully improving, French speaker.

Anyone for a fresh croissant or pain au chocolate as I pass the bakery? 

Toilet Humour

The French have a way of doing things that is different to the UK. Maybe that is us, maybe it is France. Who can tell? (Comments on the back of a single postcard or equivalent please!) Possibly they are just ‘special’.

If anyone can enlighten me as to how you are meant to go to the toilet without touching the bowl, I would be interested. For those who don’t know many toilets lack seats and in some cases bowls at all from memory. As far as I can see it must be some trick of contortion or very strong thigh muscles to enable you to lean back against the wall behind and brace your legs either side, but frankly it doesn’t seem possible! Thankfully many touristique places, such as hostels, have toilet seats for their international guests, but there are still many who would like you to be as quick as possible.

On that note, I have also met a timer on the light which must have been set to one minute and 20s if you are lucky. No reading time for you mate! Although my arms were long enough to reset it from sitting down…

Welcome to Marseille

The Vieux Port, Marseille

Having travelled down from the UK the day before, my first day in Marseille, the first of a new month, was an eventful one. After getting up at a sensible hour of 9am I walked down to the Vieux (old) Port and had a wander around. I was amused by the strange mix of old and new buildings in the area and cultures too. From block to block the scene changes. Marseille was historically a major port and there are many North African cultures here as well as French. A waterside Spar provided an expensive breakfast, as it would also have done in the UK, and I found where the 21 bus for Luminy campus left from.

Arriving at the end of the bus route and the end of the road, I was struck by just how rural the campus is. If you type Luminy into a image search engine you’ll find a few aerial photos showing what I mean. Set in a valley away from the conurbation of Marseille itself limestone outcrops from scrubby vegetation provide the views, while dry Mediterranean soils shelter drought-surviving trees and thorn bushes. The campus buildings themselves were built in the 1960s and show that typical concrete squared off corners and covered walkways. Many of the buildings show signs of crumbling and neglect, strange for a University in my view. The corridors and stairways remind me of schools and the lifts have a hinged door to access them and tend to only be trusted on the way up! Set within this there is much sophisticated equipment.

I bumped into my supervisor/boss on the stairs and after a few flights we put two and two together and introduced each other! The rest of the day was spent filling in forms, meeting people and touring the laboratories of our building. For the most part there are various research groups working in many fields of chemistry, oceanography and biology, but they are split up by floors and stairways and I wait to see how much interaction goes on. My research group is small and I will be sharing an office with equipment and my supervisor. That will be a new experience. I did meet some lovely people working in the department though and found one doing her PhD on some very interesting jellyfish populations in a local lagoon.

I also got a taste for how the French system works when you realise you can’t have a contract without a bank account, or a bank account without bills and a place of residence, and likewise residence without a job or bank account… There are always ways around these things, but they are designed not to be easy. Equally I hadn’t realised that the 2^nd of June was a Bank Holiday (Ascension Day?) and so work was closed this day, and that most people would take the one ‘bridge’ day between the Bank Holiday and the weekend off too. I suppose in the UK most bank holidays are on a Monday so this doesn’t apply. The holiday didn’t help the visit to the bank or the search for accommodation for me.

Eric with his Gambas

In the evening I went down to a restaurant in the Vieux Port with someone from the hostel and ordered food. At first I thought we were being ignored by the waiter, but overlooked was probably closer to the truth. My opening gambit of “D’accord pour manger?” (Okay for food?) was a bit Franglish, but I managed to get through the rest of the ordering and meal speaking to him only in French. It did wonders for my confidence. I also had a small carafe of wine without any ill effects. Maybe I am gradually relaxing…? Either way I still think that the alcohol isn’t the cause of my recent allergy, but the thing that tips the balance between health and ill-health.

There is hope for this Englishman yet.

Weatherwise – 20 degrees, strong winds and showers is not pleasant for the French but was quite nice for me!

Le Grande Voyage

Well I’ve started my movements to Marseille after a bout of fieldwork in Greece, a quick flurry of properly learning to dive in the Red Sea, and some frantic to and fro-ings to Swansea to collect my things. As with all these things not everything fitted into the car and I ended up having to leave a pile of things for collection by a friend. Still I was glad to have a day at home to sort through all my stuff before packing for Marseille.

For the moment I am keeping a diary (thanks Ruth) of my movements on the way to and around Marseille. How long it will last I don’t know, possibly until it stops feeling like a travelling holiday and starts to become reality. Anyway I thought the best way to keep all you readers updated was to post excerpts from it onto this blog and take it from there. I haven’t really advertised this blog to date, so you may have come across it by surprise. Happy reading of the archives! I suspect there will also be a series of frenchisms added to the text which may or may not be actually correct… but they seemed right at the time.

Travelling to Marseille or Le Grand Voyage

And so it begins.

The time has come to move on, to start a new job and a new life in France.I am excited about going to Marseille, but I’m having trouble convincing my body of this. There was certainly a considerable reluctance to leave the house this morning, rather like that shown by anxious divers. Combined with that the regular sneezing when I drink alcohol at the moment would suggest I’m stressed. I’ll get over it I hope.

I hope I’ve made the right choices with what to pack, not forgotten anything essential and taken nothing needlessly. Some would argue that the climbing harness and shoes, set of speakers and even a laptop were unnecessary… All in all I probably have 30-35kg of luggage.

Departure (from St Pancras) 2 minutes early under sunshine and cloudy skies. I’ve been collared by a lady from Ipsis Murray conducting a survey on board the train. All the usual questions about what you think of the train and station and where you are travelling to. I hope they have to create new codes for some of my answers!

Ha! Technically I’ve already crossed the border and am in French diplomatic territory despite being on the outskirts of London still and stopping at Ebbsfleet on the way.

I had also forgotten I got food on board (travelling first class as you do ;))! I can’t have the wine at the moment but pasta with pesto, pate on fresh bread, potato salad, carrot cake, orange juice and a cup of tea goes down very well. It rather settles the nerves. (Into the tunnel). It is nice to feel pampered and to have extra legroom. It makes you relax in a way that you don’t get on the airlines in cattle class.

Amazingly muddling up French phrases in my mind has made me laugh. I think I’m crazy, as if that is anything new.

Ah good, announcements (on the TGV from Lille to Marseille) are in French and English!

There is also something distinct about every country (or county for that matter). Things I have noticed so far – architecture (of course), motorway signs are much bigger and above your head than in the UK, and the shape of roads near a village. I think the absence of fences or hedges (further inspection suggests they rely on ditches) beside the lanes make them more open.

Landfill site, followed by farmland and a buzzard, followed by a quarry. There aren’t apparently many patches of woodland here (in the middle of France)… as promptly we went through a large patch of deciduous woodland – mainly oak and birch.

18:00 – This area, I guess would be middle eastern France, is much hillier with the ground rising and falling and more trees than northern France. A deep wooded valley with only a small river in the bottom would be good to explore.

British trains will feel slow after le TGV.

The lady (opposite me) and I have been communicating with hand signals. I’m sure I could do French, but it is the quiet coach and I lack confidence, of course!

Lyon Part Dieu station – Someone smoking on the platform, I suspect it was a quick sneaky fag before the train departs. It was, he moved fast when the whistle went.

On the outskirts of Lyon – Funky allotments. Better than erecting your own garden shed, each pair comes with a shed building back to back, complete with a red tiled roof and a veranda. You’d have to see it to get the full image, but wow! Ah, now a new bunch of allotments. These are only second-rate ones further out from the centre. They were again a pair of buildings, but with a boring/enuyeax felt roof. What makes both sorts special is the veranda on the front with (in many cases) plants growing up them.

Finally found the hostel. The road I wanted was marked on the map at the station but absent from those around the town, and I got the direction wrong. As I walked around several blocks searching fruitlessly I got hotter and more frustrated. Eventually I walked into a local police station and asked for directions in English. Very thankful to be here now and we’ll see what tomorrow brings.

To be continued (as they say, written on the third day from leaving the UK) but probably not so lengthily ;).