La Rochelle, France

Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside. And so here I am, getting a dose of fresh sea air for the first and (spoiler alert) last time on this trip. 

Also, I've now travelled far enough north & west that I've reached the parts of France which used to be part of England, politically at least. We got booted out of La Rochelle by the French (assisted by the Spanish) in 1372 but at the time of writing there are no plans to take it over again.

I remember somebody telling me many years ago that in France they serve pizzas where the base is coated with crème fraïche rather than tomatoes. I finally got round to trying one here. See Edd vs Food below. It's not bad, and it's not as radical as it sounds, but I think I'll stick to old school pizzas in future. Perhaps the French are just trying to commit the same playful outrages on Italian cuisine that they've already perpetrated on Mexican cuisine (viz 'French tacos')? 

As for British cuisine -  I haven't tried the local attempts at fish & chips, and I don't think they even know what a sausage roll is. Most of our dishes tend not to travel well. Some years ago I ordered an 'authentic English cottage pie' in an 'authentic English pub' in Nashville, Tennessee. When the pie arrived, it was smeared all over with mozzarella.

Here in La Rochelle I encountered an outrageous 'Le British' supermarket sandwich. Made with vegetarian bacon! We've fought wars for less. My favourite bit was a little asterisk & footnote clarifying to the locals that 'British' means 'britannique'. Also, Heinz beaked beans are on sale here, but they're ridiculously expensive and you can get the same product in a different (French) tin for less than half the price. 

Finally, throughout this trip I've been collecting photos of the eye-rollingly unoriginal names that they give to 'British-style' pubs. On all three counts - sandwiches, beans, and pubs - see pictures below. Back to proper French food next time round.

Port des Minimes

The Old Port by day, from the inside

The Old Port by night, from the outside

Quai Duperré

What they think we eat (see above)

What they think our pubs are called (see above)

Bean branding (see above)

Edd vs Food #174
Pizza San Gennaro at Pizza e Basta, 41 Boulevard Joffre, La Rochelle
Tomato-free (see above)

Bordeaux, France

Bordeaux is the world capital of wine. According to the French. If they do say so themselves. I'm not a wine expert, but I enjoyed my trundles through both the Yarra and Napa valleys in 2013 and 2015 respectively, and I wonder if perhaps the French are getting a bit complacent on this point. Arguably they've been so for half a century now. For 'twas in 1976 that a group of French wine judges, to their own subsequent mortification, accidentally blind-tasted California wines into the global top spot. That event is known today as the Judgement of Paris, a witty pun on the Trojan wars (as in Orlando Bloom playing Paris in the film "Troy").

There is a bit of dispute about the origins of the name 'Bordeaux'. Some will tell you that it derives from the French au bord de l'eau, ie "by the water". Others think it comes from the original Latin name given by the Romans: Burdigala. I'm inclined to side with the latter, if only because the former would have been spectacularly unoriginal. All of these French cities sit on rivers. Actually, in recent days, it's been more a case of rivers sitting on cities. There has been record rainfall and riverbanks are being burst everywhere. 

One consequence of which was my train here being cancelled, and then my replacement train being delayed, giving me an unexpected aggregate wait of roughly 8 hours in Toulouse. First world problems, of course. It just meant a very long lunch and then a few slow beers in dodgy French dive bars. Even the dodgiest and diviest of dodgy French dive bars still feels safer and more bohemian than their equivalents back in the UK. Perhaps this is partly because beer is so ruinously expensive in France - €3.50 for 250ml (not even half a pint) of generic fizzy bathwater - that the average nutter simply can't afford it.

As well as transport disruption, Storm Nils and Storm Pedro have caused widespread damage across France and Spain. But worst of all, this kind of weather makes for very dull photos, as you'll see below. There hasn't been even a peek of blue sky during my whole time in Bordeaux. A separate issue is that I always leave my camera flash turned off, out of consideration for others, and so my evening dinner photos are never as good as my daytime lunch photos, as you'll also see below.

Not that I'm eating out twice a day every day. Even if I could afford it, my long-suffering guts wouldn't tolerate that amount of rich, fatty, creamy, buttery food. Most of my diet is home cooking. I'm now out of illicitly smuggled post-Brexit Bisto, but thankfully I've gained sufficient familiarity with the powdered sauce offerings of French supermarkets that I can manage without it. I hope you're all as proud of me as I am of myself. 

Monument to the Girondins in the distance, National Opera to the right

Another angle of the National Opera

Place de la Bourse

Cathédrale Saint-André

Rue Condillac

Edd vs Food #172
Shredded duck & feta on dauphinoise potatoes
At Samos Greek Food, 2 Pl. du Séminaire, Bordeaux

Edd vs Food #173
€35 for a 3-course set menu, which is about as pricey as I'm ever likely to go.
Onion soup, pork knuckle, and raspberry tart.
Poor photography from me, but first-rate food from...
Clochette et Fourchette, 7 Rue des Faures, Bordeaux.

Toulouse, France

On my very first trip back in 2008, I carried a naff second-hand backpack that went in the bin as soon as I got home. I then bought a new Berghaus backpack in 2011, and that's what I've travelled with ever since. It's a bit worn, but everything still works. Even now that I'm way too old for youth hostels, I still cling to the idea that I'm a backpacker rather than a tourist. I feel that buying a wheeled suitcase would be a kind of surrender to old age, an acceptance that I'm essentially giving up on life, rather like getting married or taking up golf.

My backpack isn't huge but it's too big for airline cabins so it always goes in the hold. I have a much smaller secondary backpack for the cabin. It's a soft bag, which means it never gets pulled over for weighing or measuring; it just goes under the seat in front. Both my bags generally weigh under 10kg so weight restrictions are never a problem. 

I used to take a slightly masochistic pleasure in walking long distances with one bag over each shoulder, and of course it's always nice to stretch one's legs after a long flight. But nowadays - with my 50th birthday coming at me like one of these high-speed French SNCF trains - that kind of thing does more harm than good, especially where my back is concerned.

Toulouse is probably my favourite French city so far. There's nothing particularly spectacular to see here. It's just a very nice place and I like strolling around it. I've been here a full week and you'd think that would have been long enough for me to think of something interesting to write in my blog. As you see above, it wasn't. I'll try harder next time.

Place du Capitole

Le Capitole itself

Rue de Metz

Along the banks of the Garonne

Basilique Notre-Dame de la Daurade

Basilique Saint-Sernin

Pont Neuf
('new bridge', though it is in fact nearly 400 years old) 

Edd vs Food #170
A croque monsieur for the ages at Mam Street Food, 11 Ave de la Gloire, Toulouse

Edd vs Food #171
Vietnamese-themed set menu at Zig Zag, 9 Pl. du Pont Neuf, Toulouse
L: Rouleau de printemps (spring roll) containing chicken & veg
R: Beef & onions with pilau rice
I don't think Vietnamese curry sauces are normally laced with red wine, but I'm not complaining.