La France

After a week in the UK, it was time to head to continental Europe. We flew from Edinburgh to Paris where we were met by a friend of the family, Jean-Claude (aren't all French men called Jean-Claude?) who is married to a Serbian lady. With our small smattering of French and my rather rusty Croatian, we managed to fumble through some greetings and make our way to his car.

Finding a spot for all the luggage was another lesson in spatial recognition and a fair bit of shoving and swearing (in English). We managed and then headed to Paris. It was pretty late, so we had a quick bite to eat over some more translational fumblings with Jean-Claude's wife Zivka and then hit the sack.

After guiding us to the local Metro stop (Gambetta for those in the know) we headed out to see the sites. We figured the Arc de Triomphe would be a good start, so we hopped on the next train and got off at... the wrong station.

Well, in our defense, it did say 'Grand Arche' on the Metro map, but that's not the one we wanted, nope we could see the Arc de Triomphe, but it was MILES away!

Good news is, the two arches are on the same bit of road, so we just headed back the way we came. Along the way we witnessed one of the great European traditions, the Siesta (not sure if that's what the French call it). Everyone knocks off at 1pm and has a two hour break for lunch, which means you can sit down and have a nice meal, glass of wine or beer and not run around like a blue-arsed fly in your lunch 'hour'. Great idea. How about it Johnny?

...of course, they work until 7pm.

It was a pretty hot and humid day, so we stumbled into a large building that looked like it would be air-conditioned and whaddaya know, a car show (of sorts). Honest to goodness, I had no idea it was there, but mixed amongst some odd (or boring) Euro stuff were these absolute gems. A real AC Cobra, 427 of course.

And this very sweet and also very real GT 40. Oh yeah...

We found it!
No we didn't try and cross the six-lane round-a-bout, we used the pedestrian tunnel. Once we got under the Arc, we soon discovered that the French don't really care if you can't read French. You would think that such a popular tourist site would have translations in English and maybe German, nope, it's definitely a case of, "You stupid tourist scum, if you want to come to our country and look at our magnifique stuffe, you can learn French!"

OK...

We then headed up to the Eiffel Tower, which in the French people's defense, did have some English translations. It's a very cool place and well worth the cost to get up to the top. It was only 10 or 12 Euro from memory.

The view is really amazing and as Paris lies on fairly flat land, you can see the whole city. You're also a bloody long way up!

The next day we headed to the Louvre. There's lots of old paintings and stuff, but I don't find them all that interesting. The sculptures on the other hand are pretty cool. Here's Venus de Milo, but my favourite sculpture wasn't quite so famous.

Nope, I really liked this baboon with its tackle hanging out. Just like in real life.

After the Louvre we headed to a cafe to watch the world go by and have a coffee. We thought we'd see if Luka liked the froth. Yep, looks like some kind of food, must be good!

We then found a pretty cool and busy patisserie and Sue was in heaven.

The Jardin de Luxembourg was mentioned in our Lonely Planet guide and we thought we'd try to find it and let Luka have a bit of a play on the grass. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

We found a lovely patch of grass in the shade, got settled and then two seconds later, the Gendarmerie are walking by telling some bloke to move along. I thought he must have been some vagrant. Then the copper turns to us and tells us to move our arses. What the!!??

It turns out that the lovely grass is not for laying on. What the locals do is sit NEAR the grass and look at it. Weird...

So we went to another park where the grass wasn't so nice but you could at least lay on it without getting sworn at in French! See, we're not doing any damage!

Luka thought he'd get stuck into learning some French just in case that grumpy copper came back (and so he could figure out what was going on at all the tourist traps we were taking him to).

This is the Pantheon. We didn't go in, just walked past to see what all the fuss was about. The columns were cool, so I took a photo.

The Notre Dame was definitely on our must-see list though and I'm glad it was. It's a breathtaking cathedral and we spent quite a bit of time having a look around. Best thing is, it's free!


Check it out, what an amazing place.

Sue and Luka on the Metro.

And here's our lovely hosts Jean-Claude and Zivka, that put us up (and put up with us) for the three nights we were in Paris.

From Paris it was off to Epernay, the capital of the Champagne region. I had a beer, but I had to earn it!

I was surprised at how many Harleys I saw in France. It's not surprising though as the roads are all very good and there is some fantastic scenery to enjoy.

It seems every French village, no matter how small, has a very impressive church. Epernay's is pretty cool and looks as though it still wears a few battle scars from various wars. Either that or they've got some bad-arse Woodpeckers out this way!

While exploring Epernay we stumbled across the Moet & Chandon building. We figured it was the sales office and cellar door as it's right in town. Not so, it's actually where they create and bottle the legendary champagne.

There are over 28km of tunnels dug into the chalk below the city and it's a fascinating tour, even if you're not into Champagne (like me and many other manly men).

It's a close race between this bubbly stuff and Scotch Whiskey for Sue's favourite drink.

Yep, it's really been around that long!

Sadly, Pol Roger weren't open. They'll be hearing from our lawyers!

A view of the Champagne region as we headed South.

We stopped in Dijon for lunch. It was a pretty interesting place with yet another cool old church.

The facade had all these weird looking monkeys and odd looking animals.

We stopped for the night in Beaune, a lovely old city in the Bourgogne (Burgundy) region. Had a lovely dinner and tried some of the local wine recommended by a friend (thanks Toni, it was nice).

I can't remember exactly, but this is a hospital that dates to 1443 or thereabouts. That's older than some of the hot rodders I know!

Our next stop was Grenoble. I had been in contact with a local hot rodder (one of four!) and we met up for a bit of a guided tour. Here we are at the top of the hill overlooking the city. Gilles is a pretty handy bloke and has built some nice cars. If you think you've got it tough in the US, England or Australia, forget about it. These guys do it TOUGH!

We went for a bit of a cruise up the mountain and I took a bunch of shots of Gilles' '32. It's got the usual 350 Chev, four-barrel, T700, but some kind of Chevy diff out back. With the overdrive, Gilles reckons he gets about 24mpg, pretty good going. It goes alright too!

Later that day, another 25 per cent of Grenoble's hot rodders showed up. Christophe owns this roadster pick-up which is actually a chopped up old Citroen (I think?) truck and runs a Ford SOHC four-cylinder. Christophe has a very cool French hot rod forum called Bielle Chaude, you can Google it and find the link.


This is our car. Nuff said.
From Grenoble we headed down the Route Napoleon to Nice. We cruised through Cannes, but that didn't seem too exciting, so we kept going. Our first day near a beach for a while, so Sue thought she'd dunk hers and Luka's feet in the Mediterranean.

Nice was kind of OK. The weather wasn't great, but compared to Aussie beaches, we couldn't see what all the fuss was about. Not sure what's going on with this bloke, but it kind of sums it up.