France. I went there, so now I’ll talk a bit about my trip.
The first city I went to was Paris, and it’s not exactly how we’d picture it; it’s a lot more metropolitan-like than I expected. I suppose it’s natural, considering how popular the city is. There’s tons of roads, lights and metros (which are really complicated to navigate in). When walking throughout Paris, I thought it looked how I pictured a typical European city, and not really how we’re shown France in Hollywood movies and stuff like that. The Eiffel tower wasn’t that impressive, and is actually not that tall, but it was still pretty cool seeing the surroundings from a higher point of view. We went at night, and the lights made it look pretty interesting.
Wherever there were bridges with water is where the prettiest scenes were. Also nice, a few places had pedestrian streets, where no cars went through and so just a bunch of people walked through, surrounded by boutiques and in one place a cool little park that combined well with the surroundings — those were the areas that were note-worthy, and I wished there were more places like those.
Buildings in France are a good change of pace from all the PVC and plastic I’m used to in Canada. That was probably what I liked the most about the buildings in Paris, was that they were all made with a classic touch to it, from material that looked more natural and stony.
By far my favorite part of Paris were the Catacombs. It’s something so different and wicked, and being able to traverse through that dungeon-like passage really feels like being immersed in a dark part of history. Walls packed full of bones and skulls, some with cool patterns, and… I swear, at one place the skulls were placed so that it looked like the shape of a heart, it’s really funny and eerie at the same time.
For food, at a restaurant, I tried some Duck; The texture is interesting as it’s more firm than chicken, and the skin is fattier… and the actual meat tastes great. I’d eat duck over chicken any day.
And of course, a fun part about being in France was eating baguettes and pastries. It’s all individually made and just generally tastes better than average pastries we can get in North America. You can bet I ate my share of em. Though I’m surprised I didn’t eat more than I did.
One curious thing though, is that they don’t eat butter with their bread. If they put anything on it, it’s Jam.
Now, are people in Paris truly rude? I’d say no, but they are pretty boring. They don’t smile and only mind their own business. Though there was this one guy that got real pissed off when we simply passed in front of him. They definitely have a different list of what they consider polite and impolite over there.
We went to Versailles, to see the famous castle, and were actually disappointed by it. It was more of a museum than a castle. Very touristic, and overrated. What we found awesome was actually a part outside close-by called “Petit Trianon”. It had beautiful scenery and old french village-like houses, as well as a few greek-like structures. Very nice place to walk around.
The next city we visited was Tours. And it was pretty damn cool. The city was generally just prettier and it felt a lot less chaotic than Paris. The environment looked even more natural and classic in Tours, and things just felt more relaxed. The people were less serious too, and greeted often. One odd thing though, it was almost as if people were expected to greet others, there. When they said “Bonjour”, they would stare at you until you’d greet them back.
Also, people in Tours speak french really well. They don’t have an excessive accent like the ones in Paris do.
We went to see multiple castles around Tours, now that’s cool. I was still hoping to see a real medieval castle, where I could picture soldiers and horses battling around. Unfortunately, most castles we saw weren’t of that nature, but they still looked cool. It’s the kind of castles you’d see some rich nobles buy.
When we got to the castle at “Amboise”, we finally got to see some cool fortress-like walls and there were actual suits of armor in the castle, along with some swords and spears hanging on some walls, mahaha! Now that’s what I’m talking about. I felt like grabbing one of them and slashing some knights.
Last big city we went to was Nantes. It felt a lot like Paris, in many ways, but with a bit more open space.
For some reason, there were alot of insects flying around, and let me tell you something, there’s no screens for windows in France.. at all. So if you’re thinking of getting some air by opening the window, don’t mind the mosquito infestation you’ll get. Seriously, we left the window open for about 20 minutes, and when we came back there were hundreds of bugs flying in our hotel room. They didn’t even warn us about such a problem — unacceptable . I managed to get them to move us to another room.
By far the best place we visited was a small town called Clisson, not far from Nantes. Being small, the surroundings were less industrialized, and more open. There were some older houses and there was green growing everywhere; on the walls and gates, as well as the houses.. it just made everything look unique and sort of artistic. There were multiple pedestrian streets with restaurants having verandas and tables outside, with a nice relaxing scene to dine at.
A popular dish around those parts was something called something like “Cricke”, which was basically slices of potatoes with different melted cheeses on it. It was seen as fancy, but to me it just resembled nachos, with a fancier presentation.
The French spoken in those parts is really particular, and we had trouble communicating with the folks there. Canadian French just didn’t cut it. Example: When we wanted the bill, we couldn’t ask for a “bill”, or “recu”, or “check”, or even “facture”, we had to say we want the “Addition”, else they didn’t understand.
Now, the last thing I visited was the best. The Clisson Castle, was exactly the kind of castle I wanted to see. It dated from medieval times, and was now partly in ruins, with vegetation growing on it and birds flying around. Roaming around with old stone walls and towers, you can really picture there being soldiers around and all that. It would’ve been a great place to film a movie or stage an epic war.
Overall, France is interesting, but I felt like The most popular places weren’t actually the best. Places like Paris are overrated, and smaller towns with older buildings, castles and ruins are way cooler, not to mention there are less tourists, so it’s easier to roam around and get good views.
Oh, and, they really take good care of their parks over there. Roaming around the parks was one of my favorite events. Lots of vegetation. They also have lots of ducks fiddling around them(mmm.. yummy ducks..). One park in Tours was pretty big, and had about a dozen different animals living in them too, behind fences — kangaroos, ostriches, turtles, goats, and flamingos. It was odd that nobody had to pay to get in, but really nice.
As far as prices go. Traveling is very expensive, especially if someone wants to see multiple areas. Food in Europe costs a lot. Just a sandwich at a store can cost about 4.50 Euros, which equates to like 8 Canadian dollars. That’s crazy (Something similar might cost 3.50 CAD in Canada). Thankfully bread itself is pretty cheap, and one decently long baguette is only about 0.60 euros. But the costs of living over there really is high.
By far the most annoying expense is water. Having to constantly buy water whenever thirsty, is not only troublesome, but very pricey. One small bottle of mineral water is typically 1.50 euros to 2.10 euros, depending on where bought.
Temperatures were warm and humid.. and it was cloudy often.
I’d say It was worth it. I don’t think I’ll be going back to France though. Going there once is enough.
That’s all I have to say about the trip for now.
