France

May 25, and we arrive in France. It felt a bit weird initially to have our main holiday in Europe, when we have been focusing on Asia for the last 4 years. Friends of Antony's - Sarah and Lawrence - were getting married in Nice, so we decided to combine the wedding with a holiday touring Provence in the South.
Paris
First stop though - Paris. I love Paris. We took a direct flight from Hong Kong and were lucky enough to sleep for 10 hours, only waking up when they served breakfast!
Since I have never been to the Louvre, I convinced Ants that we should spend a day and a night in Paris at the start of the trip. We booked a small hotel in the Bastille area Hotel St Paul le Marais.The hotel was lovely, in such a beautiful, classic area of Paris. We enjoyed wandering around the Marais area, following a short Lonely Planet walking tour before heading into the centre of town.

The Louvre was amazing - such an interesting building and full of classic collections. It wasn't too busy and we didn't have to queue to get in. Of course, we headed straight for the Mona Lisa, avoiding the Da Vinci Code tours on offer!
We then headed to Monmartre, to the Sacre Coeur. We walked into the Cathedral and then took the steps to the top. The view was fabulous.
That evening we had what turned out to be the most amazing meal of our whole trip - and that's quite an accolade as there were lots of amazing meals I have to say!!
We decided, on recommendation of our mate Charlie who used to live in Paris, to take a walk down Rue de Lappe just off the Bastille. It was fabulous, a street full of activity and we browsed menus looking for a place to eat. Of course, we wanted to eat french food and decided on the restaurant "Les Sans Culottes". We liked the look of their menu. The ambience and hospitality were superb. It was a compact, full and bustling place with low lighting and plenty of french feel.

Provence

Early on day 2 we took an easyjet flight to Nice and picked up a hire car to start our tour of Provence. We had planned 6 nights visiting some of the remote hilltop villages and wanted to focus on countryside and national park areas. First stop was the Gorges du Verdon, the "Grand Canyon" of France. Of course, given my experiences in the real Gand Canyon I was really looking forward to seeing it, and we both were keen to hike to the bottom.

We opened the huge Provence touring / driving map that Mum had leant us and decided immediately to follow all of the small country and b-roads to the Gorge. We planned to spend the day driving and stopping whenever we wanted. It only took about 20 minutes out of Nice for us to know that this was going to be an amazing trip and exactly what we had hoped for. The views and villages were stunning, the weather was glorious. Living in Hong Kong had helped us to forget the feel of European history and culture, and boy, was it good to be back.

The scenery en route

The Gorge


Moustiers Sainte Marie


Bastide Du Paradou

The view from our room

Hiking in the Gorge
One of the main reasons for visiting the Gorge, and the Provence region in general, was for us to tackle some serious day hikes. We are used to hiking in Hong Kong and were eager to take in the French scenery on foot. Jean Louis had recommended a 5 hour trail that would take us right to the bottom of the gorge and along it. It was a steep and slippy descent down on a gravelly trail, but once at the bottom it was worth it. The river was flowing nicely, and there were great plunge pools of aqua marine water and beaches for us to sit on and enjoy a swim.

Saint Remy de Provence