France Road Trip

Over the next 2 weeks I'll be embarking on a road trip through all of France for my big trip this summer.  I plan to eat and drink like royalty from Burgundy, to Bordeaux, to San Sebastian!

Burgundy

Wade and Sally arrived on 6/25 in Geneva from their UK choir trip to begin the first leg of the trip.  This was Wade's first time in Geneva so I gave a quick tour of the highlights (jet d'eau, flower clock, and chez moi cuisine) before beginning the journey with the first stop being Burgundy.

In Burgundy, we stayed in Beaune (2.5 hour drive) and our first night we had drinks near hotel d'ieu where there was a ford model T gathering.  For day 2, we went on an all day wine tasting in wineries between Dijon and Beaune (Côte de Nuits and Côte de Beaune); tasting the many Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays of the region.  For Day 3, we went to the various landmarks of Beaune, a mustard tour where we made our own mustard, and another wine tasting (Patriarche).  Patriarche was an old women's convent opened to the public in 2000 with wines dating back to 1904; very cool place where the tastings were in the cellars that were so large that they ran beneath the entire city.  The process of tasting was also quite until unique as they had all of the tastings set up where you would progress at your own pace and pour all of your own drinks.

On our last night, we discovered the fact that various of the city landmarks are illuminated at night (path of lights) to summarize the history of the building so I was able to see 4 of the 7 exhibits from 10p-1am.

Of the entire first city, our only faux pas involved ordering the wrong dessert at a restaurant so I was pretty impressed by our ability to navigate the French countryside.

The following day we started our drive to Paris with a slight detour to through Hautvillars (champagne region).  Hautvillars is where champagne started and Dom Perignon's tomb is located.  The city was very small, on a hill in the vineyards, with only a handful of restaurants, bed and breakfasts, and at least 80% of the remaining buildings being wineries.  After seeing the church and a few tastings, we started or drive to Paris.

Paris was a fun driving experience that I would recommend avoiding at all costs ha.  The drive took 3 hours when it was originally estimated to take 1.5, we sat within a 10 km radius for at least an hour, and I also almost killed a motorcyclist that was going between the car lanes passing stopped cars.  Once actually getting into the city, it was quite fun to drive in the 5 - 9 lane traffic circles in/around the Arc du Triomphe with unmarked lanes.  After dropping off Wade and Sally, I ran around the city to see the Eiffel Tower, Cathedral of Notre Dame, and the Arc once again before grabbing a late dinner with Wade and Sally and heading to my hotel near the airport to pick up Noah the following day.

Normandy

I picked up Noah at the airport and we started the journey to Bayeux and Normandy; CDG is slightly less confusing by car as it is when flying in/out of the airport if you're flown through there before you should understand my point.

When reaching Normandy, we went to Port du Huac, Utah beach, Omaha beach, and the American cemetery.  Very eery experience, but something that we felt we had to observe and witness. 

At night, we had some Normandy cuisine (seafood and an apple tart) followed by calvados and cider; cider was good, but the calvados taste like pure gasoline ha.

Mont St. Michel

The following morning, we drove to Mont St. Michel.  Driving the countryside is quite pretty as its full of small French farms and greenery and then out of no where Mont St. Michel rises on the horizon; there were several cider/calvados farms while heading to the expressway.  While we were in Normandy area, I also wanted to note that the Tour de France started on July 2nd here (so two days after our trip) so we were contending with that traffic quite a bit.

Following Mont. St. Michel, we had a 5.5 hour drive ahead of us to Bordeaux to meet up with Kevin for the next leg of our trip.  First impression from the drive was when reaching Southern France it was the first moment we'd seen the sun in since leaving Paris.

Bordeaux

We arrived after the long drive with enough time to catch dinner and the last soccer game of the night.  The following day we spent in St. Emilion visiting wineries. The wine tour was very interesting as the city is located on limestone quarries so all of the cellars are in the old queries that run 100+ kilometers beneath the city and vineyards.  That night we made it back to Bordeaux and found a bar to watch that nights Euro game and play some foosball aka baby fut.

The next day I did a run and we prepared ourselves for the Euro game; check out my other post for more information on that.

Saturday, we drove to Dune du Pilats (Arcachon), which is the largest sand dune in Europe.  Quite a bit different than my typical 4th of July weekend at the Ludington State Park and having House of Flavors.

For the last night with Noah in town  we watched the France v Iceland game at the local bar and then prepared to drive to Spain following day.  Along the way we stopped for lunch in Bayonne, the capital of the French Basque region, to try the local seafood and see the local church:

San Sebastián

This was probably one of the few times where I wish had been more French words around me as everything was in Basque, which is apparently different than Spanish.  I spent the first day running and then Kevin and I went to a Petritegi cidreria; the place was great as they had 15+ 15K gallon barrels where you would fill up your glass to try each of the ciders.

The next day we hiked to the top of the mountain where there was a statue of Jesus (similar to Rio) and spent our night eating through the city.  The specialty food of the region are Pinxtos, which are their version of tapas; quite an interesting ordering process as places serve lunch, take a siesta break, and then re-open for dinner where it is packed shoulder to shoulder and food is on display and ordered directly from the bar.  All of the food was quite tasty!

On July 6th, we went to Pamplona for the opening ceremony of San Fermin.  During the opening ceremony, everyone was crowded into the city square awaiting for the Mayor to launch a rocket to signify the beginning of the festival.  Everyone wears white clothing with red scarves and the culmination of the start of the festival is everyone being doused in Sangria either from other people in the square or dumped on from balconies.  We stuck around for some time and then took the bus back to San Sebastián for the night as we would have an early start as we wanted to see the actual running of the Bulls.

On July 7, we went to the running of the Bulls and watched the event from the outer balcony of the arena before watching the Bulls in the arena.  We got up at 5am to get to Pamplona by 6:45am; while walking to the arena it was quite obvious there were a few people who had partied all night strung about the streets.

Watching the running was quite interesting seeing the thousands of runners in front of the Bulls and the piling into the Plaza del Toro to see the short show.

We didn't stick around long before grabbing lunch and heading to Lourdes as we did have a relatively long drive ahead of us and after the running in the morning (8AM) there is not much to do if you plan to drive later that day.  I do want to point out that I got randomly breathalyzed for the first time in ages as they flagged many drivers and I was wearing a shirt from the prior day already stained in red wine and while wearing the red San Fermin handkerchief so this was no surprise...it was non and I obviously passed lol.

After lunch we started the road trip to Lourdes, which is a city halfway between San Sebastián and Marseille.  Fun fact is this city has the highest amount of hotels in France after Paris.  The city is famous as someone sited a vision of the Virgin Mary in the 1850s and then built a church here that I understand has become a Catholic pilgrimage.

Watching the France v Germany soccer game I was quite the outcast being the only German fan, but felt I was in no really danger compared to being an away fan within the big ten.  It was quite unfortunate they did not win though.

Next day we started the largest leg of the road trip driving to Marseille with a pit stop in Carcassonne and we toured the castle.

Marseille

Marseille I'm told is the Detroit of France; not quite.  City has a very different vibe from the other places on the road trip as it was extremely hot and had a beach culture compared to the wine region and/or WWII historic site.  While in the city, I had a sightseeing run (@95F), we visited the church, and tried the Pastis in the region.

On our way home we took a few pit stops and had lunch in Provence and went to the Chartreuse distillery; surprisingly, this was open on Sunday!

Note worthy facts from the road trip are the following:

1) We spent more money on tolls compared to gas (150 vs 200+).
2) We added 3,697 KM to our Renault Megeve.

3) I leveraged more French in the two weeks of that trip than all my prior time in Geneva

4) The French use their hazard lights to signal a hazard, traffic jam, and to warn other cars; rather than in the US where it's typical use is to for illegally parking.

5) I took advantage of the time off and grew the largest beard of my life, which was still not that impressive; I then proceeded to run into a coworker after returning the rental car and received a few looks.

All in all, the road trip was a blast and fun to spend time with family and friends; in retrospect, the only regret would be to spend more time at leach location.  Therefore, I need more time off I think!

Euro 2016

During the month of June and beginning of July was the Euro 2016 soccer tournament; the tournament runs opposite of the World Cup and is the same format, but only for European teams.

This was quite a fun time to be in Europe as many of the larger cities had large game watches setup; for example, Steve and I watched a game in a theatre in Bern that was arranged for a large viewing while he was in Switzerland for the Interlaken trip.  There was also a large screen setup in Geneve at the Planpalaias square with many food stands and bars where a few of us watched another game.  Paris also had a large game watch set up at the the Eiffel Tower so there was a ton of security there while I was doing my run.

Paris Game Watch

Geneva Game Watch

I went to the Ukraine v N. Ireland game in Lyon on June 16 with a coworker who was in town from Prague.  The atmosphere of the stadium was very loud; much louder than a US game as the stadiums are smaller (50k people) and partially covered over the stadium where people sit.  It was great having some cover as the weather was terrible; the game was suspended about 1 min. due to hail at one point.  Game was a lot of fun with the final being 2-0.

Game was postponed one minute due to hailing

We went to the semi-finals game in Bordeaux on the France road trip and saw Germany play Italy.  Game was a 1-1 tie at the end of 90 minutes that then went to a deep shootout to the 9th kickers on each team so that was pretty exciting and a bit unique.  Getting back from the game was a bit of a debacle as everyone was trying to take teams so we didn't end up getting back him until 2:30a.  Only other unique thing I noticed when watching games in Europe is rather than a moment of silence they do a moment of applause ha.

Italy fans pregame

Pregame Show

In the stadium!

Our entire France road trip was during the games and it was always fun to be able to catch the games from bars in the neighboring cities and find a team to root for; everywhere had so much energy even to watch teams from other countries.  I highly recommend being in Europe during the Euros or the World Cup!

Finals ended the day I returned from my road trip and the city was loud after Portugal upset France.  Probably a good result as there are so many coworkers of mine from France....

Prague and Interlaken

During the the last week, I spent several days in Prague for a team planning meeting.  The visit was quite a bit of fun as my primary responsibility was entertaining all of the European teams so there was a tour and large dinner in addition to the actual meetings during the day.  Prague is a very different city from what I'm used as the food is Slovak and it's less of a wine culture and more beer focused.

Following Prague, I landed in Geneva on Thursday, to then immediate drive to Lyon for the Northern Ireland v. Ukraine soccer game, then drove back to pick up Koinis.  I've started a separate blog post on Soccer in Europe; see there for details.

While Steve was in town, we spent Friday in town at a friend's going away party.  Highlight of the day was finding a local bar one block from my apartment that had a foosball table where we proceeded to hustle locals unsuccessfully :).

On Saturday, we took the train to to Interlaken for a canyoning trip on Sunday. During the train ride, we took advantage of an extended stop in Bern and had dinner and watched the last game of the night for the Euros at the Bern game watch.

We were in Interlaken primarily to go canyoning, which is a mix of white water rafting, mountain climbing, repelling, and hiking.  I want to point out that it was extremely cold in Switzerland and during our visit to Interlaken it was 50° and there was snow on the mountains next to the river.  Every jump into the water was a bit dreadful!  

Canyoning Video - https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByJ4_6pL1xvpWmxScnNUUXRHa1k

All-in-all it was a great time having Koinis in town!

Catching Up!

Alright; it's been a while since I've made any blog posts so I'll use this one to catch everyone back up and will hopefully be able to stay on top of this going forward as I have a string of traveling planned soon.  I think the issue being its easiest to catch up when flying, which I haven't done much of lately. and marathon training seems to always be a good excuse:p.

Val Thorens - April 16

Last ski trip of the year was to Val Thorens; skiing was a little wet, but not too bad as Val Thorens is on a glacier and one of the last resorts to close.  We stayed at a Club Med all inclusive so that was a definite blast.

Waiting for the lift to open for first tracks

Ski Bar Crawl - April 23

I hosted a ski themed bar crawl with a few friends starting from my apartment; I think the only ski themed aspect of this was everyone wore ski socks, Flip Cup was Ski Cross, and Buffalo was Pole Plant.  All-in-all good times to keep the ski season yet alive even when off the slopes.

Epesse Wine - April 30

First wine fest of the year in Laveaux; you'll recognize the photos again later....

Geneva Marathon - May 7

I ran the Geneva Marathon as part of corporate challenge (run as any size team, but only the top 3 runners count) and the good news is we won!  Bad news is it was one of my slower times and luckily my teammates in the group of 3 were 20 and 30th overall.  The weather was a little warm and I was under-trained; there were so many times I wanted to quit and only finished because I knew the team was counting on me....we won by 1 minute and 30 seconds so I'm glad I didn't slack more than I did.  I guess that'll happen with a training program that entails trying to balance with ski season and a wine festival the prior weekend. 

All-in-all the race was very pretty and it started on the country side and then we ran into the city so it was net downhill.

In action at the Marathon - In a red shirt, disregard the PwC shirt above, ha.

Vaud Wine Fest - May 14

To celebrate being done with the marathon; a few of us went to the Vaud (canton-wide) wine festival.

Yes...these look familiar as we're in Epesse again, but we also went to a few other towns within the Laveaux area.

Lucerne - May 21

I was planning to teach training in Zurich the following Monday so I used the opportunity to go to Lucerne and also Brunnen.  Lucerne is gorgeous and I spent the day wandering around the city and hiking up the old town walls; in Brunnen, I went to the Swiss Army knife museum where they allow you to assemble your own knife and then took a boat on Lake Lucerne back to Lake Lucerne.  Brunnen is about 45 min. from Schweiz where Switzerland was formed. The region is quite pretty with many lakes connecting the cities within the mountains.

Balesky Going away and company weekend - May 28

No major traveling this weekend, but it was the Balesky going away apero on Friday and then the company weekend on Saturday.  I may have said this already, but given the number of expats here and the close network that forms it seems that every summer that there is a going away party every weekend and every fall there are quite a few welcoming parties.  Odd tradition in Switzerland is its customary for you to pay for your own going away party ha.

Company weekend is an event that the Romandie branches of PWC have each year where the offices go to a location for the weekend for team building, a huge dinner, and then a night out with everyone.  Very different event from the US, but quite fun as all levels participate; the current years event was in Diablerets and the activity was going to the top of a glacier and hiking.

Weekend of June 4 and following

On Saturday, I did my first major road biking ride and rode up and down the Jura mountains for 4 hours with Mario.  Good times and great work-out, but extremely sore as I haven't biked in over a year.  On Sunday, I went to Yvoire to get lunch with friends and found my new go-to restaurant for visitors.  The restaurant (Jardins du Lemans) is in an old town that is reached by taking a boat across Lake Geneva from Nyon and is great when the weather is nice.

The week following was full of travel for work:

- First 2 days in Morasch, which was 10 minutes from Brunnen

- Day 3 - Basel

- Days 4 and 5 - Zurich

Basel was the only new city on this list and I spent some time running around the city to get acclimated; very pretty place!

Needless to say at the end I was exhausted and actually skipped a trip to Madrid over the weekend as the prior week was out-of-town and now its Monday and I'm on a flight to Prague currently (hence the blogging).  The EuroChampionship started last Friday and it has been a blast to have soccer on every day and night.  The event really ignites the nation as its on in every restaurant/bar and everyone is talking about it as well (the stewardess announced scores on the loud speaker of the flight about 5 min. ago).

I did manage to get my Swiss Driver's License this morning in anticipation of the France road trip in 2 weeks; I'm not sure the continent is ready for me on the road.  One thing to note about this process when compared to the US is the Swiss have got the DMV process figured out as I was able to walk in, turn in my forms, pay a fee and have my ID within 10 minutes!

Lisbon (Easter Weekend)

For Easter Weekend, I went to Lisbon from Thursday to Sunday morning to meet up with an old roommate from the US (Alex).  In Switzerland, and much of Europe, both Friday and Monday are public holidays so this led for a nice extended weekend.

Lisbon is a very fun place with great food, lively people, and many pretty sites.  On the first night, we grabbed a late dinner and then went out for a few drinks in Barrio Alto, which is a fun area of the city that has 250 bars in an 8 block area.

Saturday morning we hit the sightseeing hard with a morning tour of Belem, walking tour of the city center, and then a bar crawl with some of Alex's friends at night.  One important fact to note is the Spanish and Portuguese live a bunch different lifestyle than the Swiss and Americans; for example, our tour guide took us to our last bar at 2:30a, we left early, so that we could get to bed by 5am given we had another tour planned the following day in Sintra that required us to get up at 7am.  If going back, I would recommend another day to sleep and sightsee and possibly spending the night in Sintra or Caiscais as the area is gorgeous.

Pasteis de Belem

Most Western Point of Europe

After flying back in Easter Sunday, I enjoyed Easter dinner at the Baleskys with our American visitors that were still in town from skiing the weekend before and the Lawrences (UK Manager that did a secondment in Detroit I knew).  Great dinner with friends, followed by introducing friends to Settlers of Catan, and then missing the last train and being stranded so I had to stay in a packed apt. until the next morning.

All in all a great weekend!