Monday, June 16, 2008
11:56 PM

Spain + France

4 to 16 Jun.

Thirty-fifth. Marseille. We were excited to meet Caroline, again, this time in her hometown. I guess it makes the place more special when you have a friend there. She even brought us to her work area for some good shopping. After her work, she brought us to Aix-en-Provence to have a look at the pretty little old town, which was filled with fountains everywhere.

With Carol and her hunky bf!

Reason why Aix-en-Provence is Carol's fav town!

This too

Thirty-sixth. Monaco. Once again, we were to set foot on a country smaller than Singapore. Not only that, it would be a country famous for its Grand Prix, gorgeous cars and rich people, including its royalty.

We were lucky as the bus was free that day, maybe because the Prince felt like it. Who cares as long as we benefit! We took the bus and ended up in a garden decided to Princess Grace. A first look at the famous and beautiful late Princess Grace, I thought she was really gorgeous and reminded me of the actress Grace Kelly. It turned out that she was indeed the American actress Grace Kelly, who later married into the Monacan royalty.

Lovely sculpture in her garden.

Even more lovely.

Sense a bit of Bbbollywood here?

The actual landscape in Monaco is really quite different from what I expected. I kind of expected big houses and quiet roads, but instead of that, it was steep slopes and flats built on them. It was indeed one of the most densely populated place, but still beautiful, especially its coastline.

The density of the apartments reminds me of Hong Kong.

Not quite what I imagined Monaco to be like.

Visited the car collection of the Prince.

These are his extra cars.

Casino!

The icon of Monaco.

Another one.

Cote d'Azur

The night was spent in Nice where we tried Bouillabaisse (pronounced as Boo-ya-bes) which is seafood soup from Provence, and a variety of Provencal starter dishes such as octopus salad, sardines, vegetable fritters and ratatouille.

Yummy bouillabaisse

Thirty-seventh. Nice. Flower market was nice with the sale of Provencal produce such as lavender, olive oil, dried mussels, delicious sun-dried tomatoes, local cookies and cakes, spices and herbs.

My fav flowers!

Everything looks pretty and yummy.

The beach at Nice is part of the Cote d’Azur which meant azure coast, as the colour of the water is azure, which is really true. Not only that, the beach was also full of boobs, which I kinda got used to seeing after more than 5 months in Europe.

Not exactly hot enough weather, but they just love to bask topless.

Beautiful place.

Looks diveable.

Thirty-eighth. Marseille. Caroline brought us out today to visit the fish market by the old port, followed by a trip up the hill to the Notre Dame Church located at the top of the hill, visible from the highway and many parts of Marseille, making it a top tourist spot. The church was dedicated to Virgin Mary and was possibly one of the most special church I’ve visited so far. From the top of Marseille, we had full view of Marseille as well as the blue blue sea. The coast of Marseille belongs to the Cote Bleu, which meant blue coast, as the water, instead of being azure, is deep blue. The wind was so strong I was certain it could blow a little girl away, so strong that it rose all the way above the breakwater and splashed onto the ground!

Notre Dame Church on the hill, spotted from far.

Panoramic view of Cote Bleu

Man, the wind was typhoonish

Fish market by the port.

Big wind, big waves

Another David!

Back in Caro's town, we visited her mum and her grandpa's places. We finally understood where Charly and Caro got their genes from. Her mum was soooooo pretty. She beautiful from all angles, and pretty beyond my imagination. Looked so young it seemed so impossible to be a mum of 2 young adults! Her grandfather, on the other hand, was a football player and still active!

Caro has a cool family!

Ratatouille in progress by Caro!

Cosy Provenςal dinner!

Thirty-ninth. Barcelona. The first place we headed to was Camp Nou stadium which belongs to FCBarcelona.

We had to watch a stupid animation about FCBarcelona in that stupid specs.

Supposedly biggest stadium in Europe. Second biggest in the world.

La Sagrada Familia was a work of Gaudi, which started building since 18xx and have yet to be completed, making it the most visited construction site. I mean not many people like to visit construction site anyway huh. It was ridiculous that they had to take so long to complete this project, which made us suspect that they don’t even intend to complete the building project to create this hype.

Most visited construction site. Not surprising.

Painted glass - signature of Gaudi.

Where else can u find such architecture?

Tried Tapas consisting of calamari, mussels, tortillas, samosa-like snack, potato cubes, chili, mushroom, fish and potato fingers. Tried tortillas which was made from eggs and potatoes baked. rocksss to have snacks as your national food!

Tapas.

Tortillas. First fell in love with it at EBS International night.

Another masterpiece by Gaudi, Casa Mila (La Pedrera) had an exterior like a sea, and an interior that cost 12eur to see, which of course we gave a miss, and only managed to sneak a peek from postcards on sale. Windows like seaweed.

La Pedrera

Barcelona was kinda defined by modern architecture, especially by Gaudi, as we visited yet another famous apartment, without entering which cost 13eur. Casa Batllo was special as it was colourful and had scaly rooftop akin to dragon’s scales, as well as balcony akin to remains of the victims.

Casa Batllo

Tapas again.

Finally got to eat paella and sangria in Spain! Paella elsewhere tasted nicer I think.

Plaςa Real

Fortieth. Barcelona. Somehow we loved to visit the markets when we're in Europe.

doesn't look like a rabbit anymore.

Besides shopping at Zara, we visited more of Gaudi's work in Parc Guell. One of the reasons we went there was due to postcards featuring Parc Guell we found at previous sights!

Another signature of Gaudi - coloured tiles

Port Vell, beach.

Fountain closed Palau Nacional :(

Forty-first. Madrid.

I love how the road names are so nicely decorated on tiles.

The bear by the cherry tree is the mascot of Madrid.

The day was to be the soccer match between Russia and Spain. We watched it in a gelato shop only to realize that there are big screens at Place de Colon where locals were so crazy. So we headed there, scared of rain but were rewarded with a 4-1 score, loud fans with their faces painted and finally an interview from the local tv station in Spanish! It was awkward as the camera was facing us and we did not know how or what to reply! So a throng of fans came to save us by waving flags behind us and shouting cheers! It was so fun!

Look at the crazy fans behind us!

Forty-second. Madrid. Prado museum in Madrid was probably one of the nicest museums I've been to. Bullfighting ring (coridos) at the torre reminds me of the colosseum, except smaller. Too bad the bullfighting season was over when we were there :(

Forty-third. Paris, Versailles. Heard that Versailles has the best palace in Europe so I was expecting quite something. However, the weather was so horrible and we were faced with strike which meant that only 1 kind of ticket was available and the prince and princess’ rooms were not available for viewing, so we only managed to visit the king and queen’s chambers and looked at the jardin from atop. It was nice nevertheless except that the interior of the hall of mirrors was not as stunning as I had expected.

The famous Hall of Mirrors is not that impressive.

The Hall of Mirror is also where they signed the stupid treaty that indirectly led to WW2.

Nice feeling upon reaching Paris.

Nice showroom.

Walked to place de la concorde and walked down the straight avenue des Champs Elysees, which was beautiful, and finally reaching Arc de Triomphe. Finally, Mathilde contacted us and we had to leave to meet her back in Versailles. So Mathilde brought us home for dinner, where we visited the ponies, tomato plants, wheat plantation and the neighbourhood.

Forty-fourth. Paris. Went to Arc de Triomphe only to realize it was just closed for an event. So we headed down to trocadero for a good view of the Eiffel tower and up the Eiffel tower which was the ultimate panoramic view of the whole Paris town, followed by the Moulin Rouge. Some miscalculations of time caused Yinghao to miss his train so he had to pay a few hundreds for a first class ticket.

Great view from the Eiffel Tower.

Moulin Rouge

Forty-fifth. Paris.

Lourve

Finally got to see Nike, goddess of victory!

Venus.

My favourite sculpture, so romantic.

Cathedrale

After dinner with Clement, Isabelle and Clementine, we had a nice tea by the road, facing the road, like what the other Parisians do! Mathilde then brought me for a good view of the Eiffel which sparkled every hour. Dazzling. Superb. Beautiful.

Fourty-sixth. Paris. Heading home. Up to the last day in Europe, I’m still living life dangerously. Mathilde’s sister was kind to offer a ride to the airport. I was told to arrive 3 hours earlier, but I can’t possibly demand them to wake up so much earlier to send me to the airport so I thought 2 hours in advance should be enough since Mathilde said it takes about an hour or less to get to the airport. She stays in the suburb outside of France. We were kind of running late as we left late from her house anyway. Besides Camy didn’t really know the route that well and was pretty amateurish at driving and thus not too fast a driver. Just when I asked Mathilde the question, out of curiousity, whether she has been to CDG airport, she screamed, “What? Merde, merde! Merde!” (which meant shit). She quickly screamed at Camy for the directions to get to the correct airport. Of course I was taken aback, as CDG is the default airport. Orly is kind of like the smaller airport for travel intra-Europe or to nearer countries. She realized she had assumed the wrong airport all along, and CDG airport was not that near. After some heart attacks, we arrived at the airport carpark, which meant I had to take a shuttle train to the correct terminal.

I was about 1 hour before the flight and usually the counters close 40 minutes before. I was not so sure about CDG airport as I guess it’s pretty big; I have to take a long time to reach the gate from the main hall. I ran to the airport check-in counter and asked “Is this to Doha?” The lady said, “Closed!” And I was like, “No, please!”, and wanted to cry. I love Europe of course, but I was so prepared to go home, so ready to take the long 15-hour flight, start packing for Hong Kong, get set for a hectic worklife in a new city and so treasure the 800sgd-worth air ticket! When the lady started laughing, and assured me she was joking, I really wanted to slap her. Of course, she was a nice lady, speedily helped me with the check-in and advised me to hurry. Indeed, CDG was pretty big. The customs queues were long, and finally the baggage check was the killer. Through the glass I could see my plane. I was set to enter about 1 hour before I was there queuing, but I was still queuing for my hand carry to be checked. The wait was unbearable and I was so scared the wait would be so long I had to squeeze through everyone and beg them to let me go first.

My attempts to relax, and telling myself that I shouldn’t worry and everything is going to be alright failed. After all, it’s not like I have another ready or cheap option available unlike traveling within Europe. This was no joke – more than 15 hours and 10,000 km travel. So far, I have been lucky not to miss any flights or train, unlike poor Yinghao, who missed his train to Frankfurt and had to pay a hefty 170eur to secure a seat.

At first I was still fantasizing about how I would spend time talking to Mathilde at the airport, or shopping at they duty-free shops getting my chocolates and books for the flight. In the end, all we had was time for a picture before I enter the departure halls. Mathilde was sweet to have printed some photos and bought a frame for me! The day before I was still commenting about how nice I thought the frame was and that I wanted to get one for myself when I get back to Singapore!

With so much experience taking long trains and so many flights, I was pretty comfortable I felt with my flight to Doha, enjoying the meals, music, papers and legroom. Now, 15 hours of flight did not seem that long anymore.

The plane was making a turn over Pulau Tekong!

You feel a sense of familiarity when you see tropical landscape.

One of the first few customers in T3 Arrival Hall.