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.

Narbonne/Perpignan, France

"Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to speak French."

― P.G. Wodehouse, The Luck of the Bodkins

I'm far from Cannes, and even further from being young, but basically the above still applies. Learning French at school and via Duolingo, and then going to France and trying it out? Well, that's a bit like learning English from 'Downton Abbey' and Bond films, and then rocking up in Glasgow. It's a journey, and one with a very long way to go yet.

One thing that helps is the huge number of words that are spelled the same in both French and English. You just have to tweak the pronunciation a bit. Not only words where you can clearly see and hear the French influence (debris, omelette, reservoir, genre, ballet) but also some others that aren't quite so obvious (rectangle, apostrophe, occasion, parachute, machine).

Admittedly there are still a few foodstuffs on restaurant menus that I don't recognise. But in fairness the same applies back home. I was into my late twenties before I learned what a shallot was. Here they call it an échalote. 

People who are genuinely bilingual have a kind of unconscious 'switch' in their brains that lets them move between languages instantaneously. My own 'switch' is more like a big rusty lever that I've spent years laboriously hammering into place. Now I'm trying to make the lever go three ways, and at times the lever crumbles and my brain just shuts down altogether. It almost makes me miss the days of travelling in South-East Asia and happily using amateur sign language for 'chicken' (flappy side-arms) or 'beef' (finger-horns above head).

That said, I think I'm still doing better than most of the other foreigners here. In McDonalds I saw an Eastern European family clutching ticket number 97 and they were left utterly perplexed when the store manager yelled out "Quatre! Vingts! Dix! Sept!" ('four twenties ten seven', that's how they say 'ninety-seven' in French.)

Anyway I don't have much to report from Narbonne, or from my day trip on the train to Perpignan. Hence the waffle above, and the double dose of Edd vs Food below. Til next time.

Palais-Musée des Archevêques, Narbonne

Outside my front door in Narbonne

Weird statue of Salvador Dali in Perpignan.
He once proclaimed Perpignan train station to be 'the centre of the universe'.
If you look at his Wikipedia entry, whatever you do, don't scroll down to the part subtitled 'Sexuality'.

Looking west over Perpignan from the Palace of the Kings of Majorca.
The mountain in the distance is Cañigo (9,134ft), about 30 miles away as the crow flies.

Perpignan again

Edd vs Food #168
Set menu at Au GousTous in Perpignan
Paté for starters, pork cheek with mashed potato for main course.
('Mashed potato' sounds much less sophisticated than écrasé de pommes de terre.)

Edd vs Food #169
Taco/fries/drink combo at Enjoy Tacos. Kind of like the French version of Taco Bell.
Special offer: 10 free chicken nuggets!
Felt a bit sick afterwards TBH.

Nîmes/Avignon/Montpellier/Arles, France

I've been quite busy on these French trains recently. You can get special offers as low as €1 for a single fare if you look hard enough. Also there's a French app called BlaBlaCar for car ride-sharing (as opposed to car ride-hailing) which can get you from place to place cheaply if you're travelling flexibly and solo, which I always am.  

Anyway, I have four places to report from:

• Nîmes is where I've been staying and it has a remarkably well-preserved Roman amphitheatre, at which Metallica filmed a feature-length concert movie in 2009.
• Arles is chiefly famous these days because Vincent Van Gogh lived there. There's a signposted walk that takes you round some of the scenes he painted.
• Avignon was where one of the Popes lived, back in the days when there were two Popes. (This has nothing to do with the 2019 film "The Two Popes". See here for details.)
• Montpellier, well, I can't think of anything to make your eyebrows go up. But it's very nice.

Wandering around places like these, or their equivalents in Spain or Italy, makes me feel a bit bashful about just how much wilful ugliness we put up with in our towns and cities in the UK. I know it's not fair to compare everywhere with Seville or Florence, but even so, it sometimes feels like even the most obscure and run-down continental towns have nicer architecture and more greenery and less litter than almost anywhere back in Blighty. 

In my own home town there's been a lot of redevelopment recently, and it's very welcome, but must it always be limited to glass & steel & concrete? Couldn't it involve water or grass or trees? And must 'regeneration' always mean just adding another street full of vape shops and bookmakers? 

It must however be said that France isn't immune to municipal ugliness. In Paris, the modernist area of La Défense is like some kind of huge dystopian sci-fi fantasy; basically it's Milton Keynes on steroids. Also, our beer is better & cheaper than theirs. So on the whole it's looking like a draw. Until the World Cup, at least.

Place de la République, Arles

Alyscamps, Arles

A sidestreet in Avignon. Painter at centre, painting.

Palace of the Popes, Avignon

In Montpellier:
an apartment building where balconies are taken very seriously indeed.

Hôtel de Région Occitanie, Montpellier

Place de la Comédie, Montpellier

Nîmes
L-R: Roman amphitheatre, Court of Appeal, and Pradier fountain

Les Jardins de la Fontaine, Nîmes

Edd vs Food #167
Chicken supreme at Le Bistrot de Tatie Agnès, Nîmes