Hooray hooray it's a holi- holiday

LT 27 June 8.30pm
After another delicious “French” breakfast from the bakery, we headed for Chalon-sur-Saone, which is a reasonably large town about 30km away, in the hopes of sorting out our internet. After much effort, much French conversation and several return visits to the agent stores, we finally came away with a connection… of sorts. It is very limited, but at least allows us access to emails etc.

Driving around and parking in Chalon was a bit of an effort for poor Peter – when we finally parked he slapped the steering wheel and announced he was done for the day. There were lots of one way streets, numerous intersections where it was unclear who had priority, pedestrian crossings (some you had to stop for, some apparently you didn’t), and a GPS advisor who wasn’t aware of quite a few of the one way streets. The area we ended up in looked quite flash, with pedestrian malls, and fancy clothes stores everywhere. We thought to ourselves “This place will never close for 2 hours at lunch”. But we were proved wrong when at about 5 to 12 the first shops started pulling down their blinds and shutters. All that was left open after 12 was food shops/cafes/bars, one supermarket and of course McDonalds. Even the public parking is free from 12-2!! It’s just such a different culture, one that emphasises family time and free time and food, rather than minimising them the way our culture does (perhaps not food). The downside for the workers I guess is that the shops then stay open until 6 or 7 at night.

Five years of French study at high school finally paid off as we were trying to sort out the phone/internet issue. I had expected that most people would speak English to some degree, but actually pretty much no-one does. But it has been a very cool experience for me (25 years after I first started learning French!) to actually be in France talking to French people.


The weather has got very hot again so we have found out about a river nearby that might be suitable for swimming. There are also numerous small chateaux and historic buildings in the region, and we also have a map for a walking tour of St-Gengoux, pointing out the history of the old village. St-Gengoux is also on the ‘voie verte’ which is basically a rail trail running through Burgundy, and our accommodation has 5 bikes in various sizes tucked away in the garage, so we may venture out on 2 wheels in the coming days as well. The pace of our adventure has certainly slowed in the last few days – by necessity though I think. It is nice to have the time and space to relax for a couple of days without needing to pack in as much tourist activity as we can into every moment.   


29 June 12pm 


Our time in France so far has felt more like a ‘holiday’ than any other part of our trip – we have not done any ‘sight-seeing’ specifically , just relaxed and watched a few videos, gone on walks, the kids have become very creative with paper and games, and eaten lots of croissants. Caelan has managed to buy croissants at the bakery on his own and the girls are getting quite practised at saying “merci” or “au revoir” at the appropriate moments. Peter was chuffed to buy petrol the other day and conduct the whole (not particularly conversational) operation without the attendant knowing he didn’t speak French. 


Yesterday we dusted off the bikes with great anticipation and walked them carefully down the steep hill outside our house, then the kids tore off around the corner. Unfortunately due to some technical issues (involving the braking capacity of Katriel’s bike and a stationary object) we decided to can the biking and we pushed the bikes back up the hill and into the garage. 


Feeling a bit deflated we decided to take on the walking tour of St-Gengoux. The village is quite picturesque, old stone buildings, cobbled streets, and there is a reasonable amount of history. With our earthquake-opened eyes we thought that a Canterbury EQC inspector would probably have the whole village (and most villages nearby) entirely demolished by lunchtime – the stone walls are so old that the mortar in the bottom foot or so or every building has deteriorated so much it is basically non-existent. On top of that the walls rise up on some not-entirely-vertical angles, and some of the rooflines have great big sags. As with Turkey, Italy and the temple area of Cambodia, this is not an area I’d like to be around in an earthquake. The walking tour was quite interesting but the weather here has got very hot again, mid to high 30s, so after the first half of the tour we canned that also and crawled back up the hill to our house, this time appreciating the cool cave-like atmosphere. 


Feeling hot and bothered we got togs on and went in search of a good swimming area. We had some information that suggested a beach area at a nearby river, and other information about pools in nearby towns. We set the GPS to the river first, and then followed the subsequent directions down narrow lanes and then narrow unsealed lanes through the French countryside. It is actually very very pretty – green, crops and vineyards in every direction as far as the eye can see. Every few km you drive through a small village, with cute little stone buildings and invariably a village church. But these particular roads were really rather narrow, and meeting cars coming the other way was a little stressful. Unfortunately the river, duly found, had a sign saying that swimming was forbidden. We then decided to go to the pool in a small town about half an hour away. Arriving there and piling out of the car with towels etc we discovered that the pool was closed except for school use until 4.30 (still an hour away). So we made the decision to head to another town, slightly larger, about half an hour away again. More villages, lanes, churches and a couple of beautiful chateaux later, we arrived at the next pool, which unfortunately was only available for school use up until the school holidays (2 weeks away). Super. So we bought icecreams and headed home in the air-conditioned car to watch Ice Age on video. 


Caelan is very keen to watch a French movie while we are here, and we have seen ads for “L’Age de Glace 4” (Ice Age 4) etc, but we have pointed out that it won’t be that interesting for the 3/5 of our party that don’t speak French at all, and probably not even that comprehensible for the rest. Nice concept maybe but probably one we won’t follow up (sorry Caelan!) 


Dinner was at the local pizzeria, a short walk from home. The young owner of the business (only 21 years old) was quite friendly and chatty, and the pizzas were delicious.