We are in love with Marseille

We arrived in Marseille last night, after dark, met up with our wonderful couchsurfing hosts with whom we chatted with until late last night. So we didn't officially introduce ourselves to Marseille until this morning. It was love at first site! The city sits snug between mountains in a bay overlooking the perfectly blue and green ocean. Think caribbean blue and that's how perfect it was!

This morning, our hosts, Sarah and Max took us on a scooter ride to the Notre Dame de la Garde. It sits high on a hill overlooking the entire town. The people of Marseille believe that the church protects the entire city of Marseille as well as seagoers. After standing on the terrace, it is very easy believe.Here we are wearing our helmets before our scooter ride to the top of the hill! We have never been on scooters before and it was the best way to meet a city. It was also fun to see how the European's race around cars and cars move out of their way.
The inside of Notre Dame de la Garde was filled with gold leaf mosaics that just sparkled. Our necks started to hurt from staring up at the ceiling so much! Most Notre Dame cathedrals are very dark and gothic but this one was truly remarkable. Brilliantly lit on the inside it is hard to take in all of the detail and intricacies that went into its creation.
A beautil island that is easily viewed from Notre Dame. You can take a ferry there and visit the Chateau d If, something we are planning on in a couple days.
Another spectacular view of Marseilles! It is definitely one of the most beautiful places either of us has ever visited!
Us with Max and Sarah, our couchsurfing hosts in Marseille. Max and Sarah just returned from a 9 month trip in the United States and Canada where they bought a car and drove down the east coast couchsurfing the entire way.
The notre Dame cathedral sits at the top of Marseilles and can be seen from almost anywhere in the city. A golden Virgin Mary with baby Jesus sits atop and watches over the people.
Us with the bay behind us, taken from the rocks below the palace of Napolean III. It was incredibly windy but kept us from cooking under the sun all day.
The old port is full of boats, hundreds of them! All those posts are the hundreds of masts that take up the harbor.
For lunch we decided to try some European fastfood...Quickburger! It was pretty tasty although AJ was dissappointed they didn't have a dollar menu! We have gotten much more comfortable with the language barrier, it is easier for us to communicate with people even if we are not speaking the same language. (or maybe we are better with talking with our hands!)
Here is a palace that was built by Napolean III which was given to Marseille.
One of the billions of cathedrals in Europe. This one was very cool because the inside had such a massive center aisle. Most cathedrals only have so much space in the center but this was double the size.

Overall a very successful day filled with the usual excitement of getting lost and finding cool things. Make sure you check out the blog below and leave comments because we posted twice today!

Screw the beach, its Tour de France time!

Yes! That's right! The Tour de France came through Montpellier while we were there. We walked out of the apartment with every intention of going to the beach, swim suits on, towels in hand, books and sunglasses. But when we started walking down the street, we noticed police cars everywhere and eventually stumbled upon some barricades and then it hit us....the Tour de France was in town!

We hurried back to the apartment, changed and got everything we thought we might need for the day.
After walking through the hubbub for several hours, we found a great spot near lots of people, but right up to the barrier. And that is where we stayed for several hours! We were about 1/4 mile from the start and we were able to see every team just after they were sent at the start.

Each team was released 7 min. apart and were proceeded by a police motorcycle and lots of cheering. Then after each team were several cars full of media and whatever else they might need.

Here is our video clip of Lance Armstrong and his team, Astana, just after they started!!! They went past us so fast we weren't quite sure which one he was....but we saw him!

Today was a wonderful surprise and we had so much fun among the excitement!

Carcassonne and Montpelier

Every place we go, we are not quite sure what type of internet access we are going to get. Sometimes we are very lucky and have excellent access, other places, the computers are slower than molasses (when you compare the speed of molasses to that of a computer, its a very scientific process!)

We are so excited to show you the photos of Carcassonne, but the pictures just do not compare to how beautiful the city was. Carcassonne is the largest fortified city in Europe and is also the only one still inhabited. The fortified section of the city is on top of a hill that overlooks the lower part of the city. The medieval fortified city was started almost 2000 years ago by the Romans and portions of their towers can still be seen today. Throughout history it underwent many additions and in the 1800s a majore rennovation.
Here is a picturesque and perfect view of the medieval fortified section of Carcassonne. Yes, people still live there! There are around 50 homes and 130 people living within the walls. The people of Carcassonne like to believe that this was the inspiration for Cinderella's castel at Disneyworld.
Carcassonne has two walls, one around the entire city and one around the castle. We walked completely around the outer wall where we got fantastic views of the city below. We also got to walk around the castle where we were blessed with this view. On one side of the fortified city was the lower part of the tow, on the other side was vineyards on a hilly landscape! The fortification in its final stages was never taken.
Here is us from the top of a tower where archers would have been. Now, this is where we enjoyed a lunch of a nutella crepe and a steak and french fry sandwich, which is called American. After the city had its last addition, no one even bothered to attempt to overtake it, it was that intimidating and impossible to take. This castle once shared a border with Spain.
Here is a view of the castle as we are approaching it from inside the fortified medieval city.
We will leave you with one more beautiful view before we talk about Montpellier.

Last night we arrived in Montpellier and we are staying with our second couchsurfing host, Tamera. She is so delightful and sweet, we have already enjoyed two dinners with her and lots of good conversation and laughs. Tamera is a jeweler and she is currently concentrating on recreating historical pieces. We have been lucky enough to see some of her beautiful work.
The first spot on our tour of Montpellier today was a section of town called Antigone. An architect had designed this section of town to have strong Roman influence and named different buildings after gods and goddesses. It was incredibly beautiful, clean, lots of fountains, few cars, and a continuous design style throughout the entire place. AJ was in love, especially with the olympic sized natatorium and the many sculptures of gods and goddesses.
Another example of antique inspired architecture we stumbled upon today.
Montpellier's Arc de Triumph, not as grand as the one in Paris but it led into a beautiful park where we enjoyed our picnic lunch.
This place was so impressive but unfortunately we were not able to get inside. It was an enormous cathedral, these are just two pillars supporting the portico!
We were able to get inside another cathedral, a small but beautiful one. It was unusually ornate and had more color than the majority of gothic cathedrals. Overall a splendid day and definitely worthy of mention. Tomorrow we set off for a nice bikeride to a lake!

Arachnophobia

For the last two nights, we stayed in a town called Carcassonne. Actually, we stayed in a town nearby called Prexian which has a population of about 480! We were at a hostel that was created to be more of a travelers retreat, very secluded from just about everything, with mutant-sized bugs!

Our day in the city of Carcassonne was magical but we have not been able to upload photos, so we are going to keep you in suspense and wait to talk about the city until we can show the amazing photos. To keep you a little intrigued, Carcassonne has a section of town, completely fortified and is the last inhabited midevil town in Europe. It was breathtaking!

But alas, no photos yet, so we will keep you waiting! We will talk about the bugs briefly. Last night Erika went to take a shower, climbed in, started adjusting the temperature, went to close the shower curtain, only to find one of the largest spiders she had ever seen, second only to the tarantulas in Oklahoma! It was so big and it was staring at her! (Bigger than the punch bowl spiders dad!) Immediately, she lept out of the shower, onto the cork flooring where she slipped and banged into the door yelling 'AJ! I need you!' When AJ walked into the bathroom and saw the spider, even he jumped back out of surprise of its massive size! Thank goodness for toilet paper! Erika proceeded to shower without touching the shower curtain ever again!

Today we made our way to Montpellier where we are staying with our second couchsurfing host, Tamera. She is so sweet, she made us a delicious dinner where we supplied the wine and we chatted with her and her boyfriend until it was time for bed. Her apartment is a little hole in the wall, but it is so cozy and has a homey feeling.

Long Day

Today was full of frustration! We left Dijon this morning and made the long walk to the train station. Upon arrival we found out our train was late, 10 min. which was exactly the amount of time we had to switch trains to get to Carcassonne. Needless to say, we missed our second train. Luckily we weren't the only ones, but that meant the next train was packed with people just like us, not enough seats, no air conditioning, hot and cramped. But we made it, to a lovely little retreat in the back hills of France where we can see the small mountains in the distance.

Today we spent quite a bit of time on a train, so we took some time to make some reflections of our trip so far:

-As annoying as it may be to clean up after your dog while going on a walk, it is far better than walking through a city avoiding a ridiculous amount of dog poop.

-We hate smokers, and there are lots of them. There's nothing quite like trying to walk through a street and get a face full of smoke, especially on a hot day. And people will smoke anywhere with no regard to those around them.

-Thank the Lord that men's style in France is not the same as the style in the U.S. Never, under any circumstance should a guy wear capris and a man purse, we don't care if it is a designer, LV man purse....shouldn't happen.

-The French are not as rude as people say. They are very proud of their language and as long as you approach them and attempt to say 'bonjour, parles voux anglais?' you will get a warm response.

-We should be thankful for our public restrooms and drinking fountains. It sucks having to pay about a dollar to go to the bathroom.

Tomorrow should be fun exploring the anceint city of Carcassonne!

Leaving Dijon

While Dijon may not have been the most exciting place we have been, we have thuroughly enjoyed our stay here. We met wonderful people, enjoyed delicious food, tasted fine wines, and we had the opportunity to relax. It was to a point that our hosts would laugh at how late we would sleep in, (only until 8:30)! During the next few weeks, we are going to be moving around quite a bit and won't have the same leisure we have had here.

While Dijon may house 30,000 students and 70,000 residents, everything is within walking distance and never seems crowded. You can walk from one side of Dijon to the other in about 20 min. passing all sorts of sites, cathedrals, parks and gardens, homes that are older than we can imagine, cobblestone streets, chocolatiers, modern shops, antique shops, cafes, a palace, several musuems, even a famous Pompon polar bear statue.

Because Dijon is so small, we really did not mind getting lost every once in awhile, there wasn't anywhere far we could go. Yesterday we pretty much wandered around town. First we stumbled into Saint Michel, a fantastic cathedral.

Next to the cathedral, was a small museum with several statues by Rude, who was the sculpter of the reliefs on the Arc de Triumph. The museum was only two rooms but had a copy Rude had made of one of the scultpures on the Arc. It was massive. Because we were seeing it by itself, it was not dwarfed by the size of the arc and we really got a sense of how large it really was.
The symbol of Dijon is an owl, whiwh you find everywhere. Here is an arrow on the ground, there are hundreds of them which make a historic path around the city. On the Cathedral Notre Dame, there is an owl sculpted into the one of the stones and you are supposed to touch it with you left hand while making a wish, we did this twice!
Next we found our way to the opposite side of town and enjoyed a picnic lunch in the botannical gardens. Yesterday was the last day of school for many students and most of them were also enjoying a picnic lunch in the gardens. We chose a quiet spot near a cute fountain but soon were overrun with middleschoolers having a waterfight using the fountain as their filling station. Even though we couldn't understand what the kids were yelling at each other, there were several times we could make a pretty good guess. (This is another viez of St. Begnine and the colorful tiled roof.)
Here is an interesting house we passed a fe times, it has the most beautiful glass tile work on the outside.
After lunch we wandered through town and found the Sacred Art museum. It was housed in an old church and contained artifacts from several other old churches, including chalices, paintings, crosses, and a hefty collection of saint relics. Both of us have now seen enough pieces of bones to last us a lifetime.

Tonight was our night to make dinner and we tried to think of something 'American' to make, but we decided on one of our favorite dishes, beef stroganoff and a side of mashed potatoes. It has been really nice to be able to cook, but it is also quite an adventure. First we have to find the right ingredients or hope to find good enough substitues, then we have to figure out how to light the stove or oven withough singeing our fingers becuause they have to be lit with a match!

We really can't say enough wonderful things about our hosts, Christophe and Mathilde, here in Dijon. They did more than just let us stay with them, they taught us a lot about wine and culture here in France and we definitely enjoyed several laughs. We will remember them and their kindness throughout our entire trip and we hope that all of our couchsurfing hosts are as wonderful and hospitable as Christophe and Mathilde.

Who Cut the Cheese?

We cut the cheese! For our second night in Dijon, AJ and I decided to cook dinner for Christophe and Mathilde, broken spaghetti risotto with chicken and fresh zucchini and tomato. It is customary in France to have a glass of wine and a small appetizer before the meal and either cheese or a dessert after the meal. Here we are enjoying a spread of cheeses all made in this area of Burgundy, France that included a goat cheese, a delicious creamy cheese, a harder but parmigian resembling "prince of cheeses" and a really stinky cheese referred to as the king of cheeses! Oh and just so everyone knows how exclusive the king of cheeses is; several people died from eating it a few years ago. The cheese is illegal in AmericaOur first stop of the day was Eglise Notre Dame of Dijon that has a facade with, as you can see, tons of gargoyles. Each and every one is different and has its own frightening grimmace. It is said that if you stand directly underneath them you are able to see every single one.

Inside Notre Dame, which was refreshingly light and bright compared to other Notre Dames we have been in. The clearstory windows were in fact clear and allowed in much more light than traditional stained glass. The clearstory windows were not decorated with any pictures but the church was beautiful nonetheless.

We just could not pass by these without snapping a shot. These mannequins were so strange and eye-catching! They sort of resemble the smile of Jack Nicholas in Batman. Creepy!

Our next stop was the Cathedrale St. Benigne that also housed the Archeological museum. We are finding that since all of the plaques and descriptions are not in english, we have been moving through museums at a much faster rate!

This is the outside of St. Benigne where you can see some of the famously tiled roof located on the left. This region is famous for the colorful tiled roofs which were created to show power and prestige both with citezens and with the church.

Us in front of the impressively huge organ inside the Cathedrale St. Benigne. Most of the churches we have visted have been relatively empty, a couple of times we have walked into a church and have been the only ones there! After having to shuffle through Notre Dame in Paris among hundreds of whispering tourists, I think we really enjoy the times when it is quiet and peaceful.

The light coming through the clearstory windows onto this crucifix was so beautiful.

Another interesting view of St. Begnine. We have really enjoyed staying in Dijon not just because of the amazing history, but also because everything is within walking distance. We can walk all around the town in 30-45 min. which provides us with a huge relief from public transportation.

On our way back to the apartment for lunch, we took a detour so that we could see this statue, Foyer du Renouveau.

Tonight Mathilde and Christophe are cooking a ratatouille for us! We are so excited to try it! They have been excellent couch surfing hosts and have been treating us to wonderful foods from this area, mustard, wine, cheese!