Bonjour tout le monde!
After crossing Switzerland in the fastest mode possible, dressed like an onion to escape the +-0 degrees there, I finally arrived in Grenoble where I was very happy to stay at Pierre (thanks Reda for introducing us!) and his flatmates' flat for two nights - and the first time having a whole day 'off' driving :-)
After a short welcome and a quick beer, we headed out to some 'stand-up' show, hosted by the BDE (student association) of Pierres' university. After a long day of driving, crossing the second border with a stunning view on Mount Salève - I was really done and it challenged my French a lot :p
One interesting side note to mention here is, that we had to walk about 45 minutes home (in the cold night), due to the massive strikes taking part in France at the moment (the Tram did stop their service early due to the strikes). Anyway it was a funny experience, as all the students were walking on the railways towards the city - as it is the fastest way, sure that no train would come.
Luckily, I was able to understand some jokes and it gave me a quick and dirty throw-back into French. The following day off I enjoyed sleeping a lot, and went on the 'small' mountain nearby where the old "Fort de la Bastille" is located and gives a stunning view over the the whole Grenoble and the surrounding mountains which are already / still partly covered by snow.
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| View of the Fort de la Bastille |
The next day, I continued my trip around (not over!) the mountains to go to Avignon, where the first time on the trip I had the feeling of almost having warm weather again (10 degrees and sunshine). Here I had a nice evening with Charles-Henri, a Couchsurfing host. We had some good talks about politics, stuff that is going on in our crazy world and his travels (8 months by bycicle, starting in the middle of the winter from Paris through Germany eastwards :o ), and a little night-visit of the city center of Avignon.
Next stop on the journey was back to Nice, where I was getting a really warm welcom by the parents of Agnes (a former Couchsurfing guest in our residence in Munich). They introduced me to their home, and we enjoyed two dinners together, improving my French and making my stay really comfortable! Thanks a lot for that :-)
In Nice I had the first time the pleasure of spending a few minutes topless in the sun at the beach .. afterwards I was cold again. (I wonder why everyone was starring at me ...)
Also remarkable, are the people with whom I spent my Erasmus stay at in 2017 - and how many of them continued their stay at the university to go on with a PhD - big respect!
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| Beach at Cannes :) |
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| One beer I wouldn't have expected at Marseille |
After a short and pleasant ride from Nice to Marseille (mountain roads at the Côte d'Azure are amazing!) - I was welcomed by Clement and Pierre (thanks for introducing us Lola!) - and first thing we actually did was going out to have some nice beers at a remarkable bar in the city center of Marseille.
The amount of different tap beers avaiable was great (and they were delicous, too) and we started to get along well with a mixture of French and English (and a few German words too) :-)
Next day we did a nice little hiking trip at the "Calanques de Marseille" where we enjoyed out little lunch and relaxed in the sun with an incredible scenary surrounding us <3
After taking the long bus track in the rush hour traffic back home, we had a little Glühwein (vin chaud) at the christmas market at the vieux port and were all pretty tired when arrivnig at home.
Last morning Pierre gave me a quick tourist tour close to the old harbour, buying some post cards and then it was already time to say goodbye and head south(-west) towards Barcelona to take the ferry to Maroc :)
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