French Voyages (in English)

(This is a rough translation from an old blog post that was written in French)

This is a summary of my experiences (journeys) in France. My country, the Netherlands is not very far away from the French Republic and I had the chance to visit the country in 1984. Of course that’s now 39 years ago (my age was 7 then) and memories have faded.

According to my Dad’s old super 8 films, the vacation took place in Normandy, department  14 at a camping site in ??? I didn’t remember of course, but my Mum told me it was in Bayeux. We(the family, i.e. my Dad, Mum, 2 brothers and me) went to the beach one day but it was a rainy summer. I vaguely remember there were WW 2 museums in this area of France, since here D-Day took place on 6 June 1944.

Our holiday destinations from ’85 to ’88 were: Zeeland (southwest Netherlands), Bregenz & Kitzbühel (Austria), Maschwanden & Verbania (Switzerland & Italy respectively) and Sempach (Switzerland).

In ’89, 5 years after the first voyage to France, we democratically decided to visit France once again since I would have the subject in my 1st year of secondary school. My Dad decided to stay away from the French toll highways, driving over routes nationales far away from the famous Autoroute du Soleil (Highway to the Sun). He made a phone call to a friend who told him: We’re in the village of Montferrat in the Isere department. Be careful not to drive to Clermont Ferrand that’s a whole different city. Take care and have a safe journey.

When we stopped in Chalon-sur-Sâone  (dep. 71) it suddenly hit me. Dad was taking the scenic route for a reason because we spent the whole afternoon here.  We visited a stage of the Tour the France at 3 KM from the finish.

Montferrat, situated on the D1075 (a route departementale) near the Paladru lake and not far away from Voiron. We had a space on a simple camping site but there was a swimming pool to wash away the French “chaleur”. I learned to count in French and had a growing crush on the French culture.

In 1990 we went back to France. I acquired an acceptable level of written French at school. We chose to head south west and visit a camping site in Sarlat La Caneda, department 24 (Dordogne)

At age 13 you are not allowed to have alcoholic beverages so my brothers and me we spent a lot of time in the arcade corner of the camping. There was a 1981 pinball machine (Jungle Lord) which would give free credits if you’d manage to hit the table in the right spot. This way we didn’t have to feed the cabinet the francs we didn’t have.

After a week we went to a different camping site where the arcade room consisted of the 1988 Taito Cabal cabinet and a jukebox. Also we visited the caves of Lascaux and rented a canoe to peddle on the river Dordogne.

4 years passed. Destinations in ’91, ’92 & ’93: Denmark,Sweden & Norway;Cisano (Garda lake in Italy) and Velence (Hungary).

The 1994 summer was spectacular. It was a great time for music (grunge) and my Mum got a brand new telly so we could watch the USA World Cup decently. The day after the final we headed south driving via a shortcut through Germany, Wallonie (francophone Belgium) and Luxembourg to the sleeping village Villefranche-sur-Saône.

The next day we continued towards department 04 (Alpes du Haute Provence) finding a camping site in Volonne, a village near Sisteron where you can climb the Citadel.

A camping site is like an international village. We met a lot of young Dutch people here and we’d be kind to our Dad (preparing his coffee, breakfast and newspaper in the morning) so that he’d occasionally give us 50 Francs to spend in the pub or to buy a carton of Kronenbourg beers. This was my last holiday with Mom and Dad.

In 1995 there were college trips of 1 week to Prague, London, Paris and another city I can’t remember (probably Berlin).

Most people wanted to visit the Czech Republic (very cheap beer & booze) but Paris was a marvellous alternative for me and it’s less than 300 miles from the Netherlands. Not all students had learned French, which often lead to funny situations when they tried to explain things in English.

Our hotel was in the quartier Voltaire and we visited: The Eiffel tower, La Notre Dame, Le Sacre Coeur, le Centre Pompidou, le Louvre, the quartier La Defense, some kind of theatre and the Pere Lachaise cemetery (an emotional moment).

Our teacher spoke the unforgettable words: Well now dear students, are you ready to visit our friend Jim? One moment later we stood at Jim Morrison’s grave taking photos and listening Riders on the Storm.

In the year 2000 I felt it was time to return to France. Probably some kind of “french holiday blues” that struck me for the first time after the 1984 trip, a type of “vacation spirit” which tells you where you have to go if there is no alternative.

The 2nd reason was that my knowledge of the French language deteriorated a little bit: since ’93 I had only been learning Spanish (a then new to me language) and English (compulsory) in college.

My good buddy Niels told me he wanted to take the Interrail tour and he already found a camping site so we packed in some enormous rucksacks and on July 1st our trip began from station Ruurlo to Zutphen, Nijmegen, ’s Hertogenbosch and Maastricht, the southernmost city in the Netherlands. Here we took the first international train to Liege, a big Walloon Belgian city on the river Meuse. From there we travelled via Namur, Luxembourg, Thionville (entry point to France), Metz and Strasbourg.

In Strasbourg we hopped on a different train to Saverne. The north east part of France, Alsace Lorraine is a curious melting pot of French & German cultures: the territory was French until 1870, Germany (then Prussia) took it over. In 1914, France fought and won the land back in 1918 (end World War 1).  Over 20 years later, Germany invaded the land once again but after World War 2 it was definitely given back to France.

From Saverne there were no more trains but we took a bus to get to Sarrebourg. No problem, we just wrote on the interrail card the journey Saverne-Sarrebourg by bus.

The village where our camping site was located, Gondrexange, was approximately 12 miles heading west on the N4 from Sarrebourg. Since it was a bit late already we had to take a cab there which had a cost of 110 Francs (approximately 18 bucks).

When we woke up the next morning I had only one thing to do. Find a telly to see the EURO 2000 final France-Italy.

In the afternoon I had the blue french soccer shirt on and went searching a TV set on the camping. Nothing, nada. Not in the bar, not in the reception. What kind of a village is this?

I asked the dude at the reception. Excusez-moi  Monsieur, ou est-ce que je pourrais regarder le match football ce soir?

The guy told me: Ben alors Monsieur, vous prenez le chemin d’Hertzing, a l’est environment 3 KM d’ici, lá il y a quelques bars.

I left my buddy Niels at the camping. He said: Good luck maestro, see you later.

A few minutes later I stood at the N4 and decided to hitch-hike anywhere. Shortly thereafter 2 young dudes hit the brake of their car and asked me: Hey, where do you need to go?
- I don’t know really I just want to see the soccer match somewhere

*No problem at all, we’re heading to Sarrebourg, there will be a great ambiance there.

The final took place in the Feyenoord stadium in the lovely city of Rotterdam. When Italy scored the first goal, the whole pub was in shock. Luckily Sylvian Wiltord equalized and in the extra time David Trezeguet scored the golden goal, giving France the EURO 2000 title.

The beer kept flowing and I got back at the camping site very drunk.

My buddy and me had to go regularly to Sarrebourg for several reasons. To buy groceries enabling us to prepare our dinner at the camping and also to visit the pub in front of the central train station where I kept feeding the pinball machine.

One afternoon we sat in front of our tent, smoking Gauloises and suddenly I saw the dudes who picked me up days earlier to see the final.

"Tiens, ça va? Voulez vous du Schnapps?" Hey, how are you? Do you want a shot of liquor?

Sure, that’d be very nice, thanks.

We had a conversation about our German neighbours on the camping, 5 young guys who had put their tents in front of us. The French guys said:

We want to have an evening of booze with these Germans but unfortunately we don’t speak their language and they don’t speak French. Dommage, n’est-ce pas?

 Why don’t you two come as well so that we have interpreters, if you don’t mind.

It seemed a great idea since Niels and I both had learned plenty of German in school/college, so we had a blast.

Some days later we went to another remarkable event with the French. In the nearby village Lorquin a wooden train had been constructed and it was set on fire that night. Some strange tradition probably…  Of course we had a few beers too many and in the early morning it began to rain a lot.

After 2 weeks on the camping we got a bit bored. We had found a friend, Michel, who had decided to return home in department 67. We stashed all our stuff in his Renault and went to visit him in Schirmeck where we had lunch, then continued to Strasbourg. We spent the afternoon taking promenades in this bilingual city whilst we were singing Another Brick in the Wall.

That same evening we encountered two girls (Julie & Laure) we had become acquainted with during our pub visits in Sarrebourg. We went in search of a discotheque. Michel drove his car practically parallel along the French-German border (the river Rhine), we found a place and ordered a good but expensive whisky.

Just before 4 AM we got back to Strasbourg and entered a night pub where the whole Pink Floyd Wall show started all over again.

Michel brought us all to the train station where the group split. Julie and Laure took a trip back to Sarrebourg, Niels and I jumped on a train to the south of France.

At 4 PM we finally got off the train in Avignon, situated in department 84. My idea was to travel further to South West France (Basque country) or the Basque territory of Spain but the connections were not as good as we hoped for.  Besides, we were exhausted from the train voyage, we hadn’t properly slept the night before.  We entered the very first bar and drank a large bottle of Perrier, then hit the streets and did some Avignon sight-seeing. The hotels were way out of our budget so at midnight we took the same train back to Strasbourg.

Here we had a little problem. On of our tent poles was broken. On the night out in Strasbourg Michel had left the keys in his car. We used the tent pole to manipulate the lock which eventually opened the door…

We spent the last week of the vacation in a hotel in Sarrebourg which was reasonably cheap (15 bucks per night for the double room). 

On the day we went back to the Netherlands we had to solve a small issue, since we would arrive too late to make our last connection back to my friends village. My friend’s folks were not at home, neither were mine, so I phoned my neighbour lady who was so sweet to pick us up.

More stories (about the South of France) will follow.