The hardest part of traveling is the frustration and exhaustion of getting to the place you'd rather be traveling around.
It's the queues, the waiting for approval from security personnel, emigration, airline personnel.
I almost lost it in Brussels.
We made the mistake of settling for the cheapest tickets we could find on Priceline, and in hindsight realize it might have been better to pay a little more for less transfers.
We had two. We flew from Philly to Newark, Newark to Brussels, Brussels to Lyon, and I was glad we got there, even though we'd been traveling for almost two days.
We thought we'd missed our flight in Brussels. Getting off the plane, we ran through the airport to our gate, but were stopped in our tracks for over an hour by the long lines at the emigration station. I was furious because none of the lines were moving and there were obviously issues with people coming off one of the flights. My logic was screaming, 'Why can't they move all the problem people over to one line and get everyone else through?'
No one was happy and one man was able to move himself up to the front of the line and probably caught the flight we should've been on.
When it was our turn it was a quick, 'Oh, American? Have a nice vacation!'
Could've moved us through a bit faster if that was it.
But Brussels gave us the finger in more ways than one.
We ran down a flight, got through a security line, up two flights, down three halls, only to find no one at our gate.
One very kind woman working for a different airline helped us figure out where we should go to get another flight since Air France had no one inside the security area.
All the way back the way we came, across the airport, up several flights of stairs then back across the airport again, and winding our way through a poorly organized, giant check-in area, we finally managed to speak to someone about a transfer. Luckily they spoke English because I have no knowledge of Flemish.
And with that there went my hope of being a travel writer. (Just because they teach English in European schools doesn't mean everyone knows it. The lessons are likely equal to teaching high school kids Spanish: They really don't care so it doesn't sink in.) To travel well and get the skinny on an area, you need to know the language. There's no way around it.
Next time I hear someone whinefully wishing they could have such a lush, "fun" job as a travel writer, I'll ask if they want to learn foreign languages, then tell them to shut it, cause you're not serious about the idea if you don't.
Back through the airport and to the security line, again. Three times through security and this time I get stopped. I'd forgotten a small pocket knife in my bag. After a quick pat down and OK by the security chief ("What a girlie knife," he probably thought in a thick Germanic accent.) we were on our way .. to the pub, where our first meal of the day was a beer.
As we sat in the News Cafe, which offered papers in several languages (none English), I noticed a group of students come through and they picked up a discarded newspaper with great interest. Very different from the U.S.
Wondered how I could get the American youth to give such a damn.
Bourgoin-Jallieu: Our first stop and introduction to French wine and cheese.
After a long travel time, all we wanted to do was sleep. The screaming children and restless people on our plane ride over the Atlantic had kept us awake and exhaustion had made us unable to remember a damn lick of French. So wine and cheese it was. Then sleep until late Friday morning.
The stereotypes preached to me about the French had all been dashed — a positive thing since I'd been told they hate Americans and could tell us by our jeans.
Au contraire. EVERYONE in Europe wears jeans. They are the garment of daily wear by anyone in their 30s and younger, or anyone doing a lot of traveling or laborious work.
And our host told us it's not the Americans they hate in France. Everyone wants to be in America, since you can get wealthy a lot easier. What they hate are the Brits (sorry Anglos and Saxons) because they tour France a lot more than Americans and tourists apparently have left a bad taste in the mouth of locals.
And once again, unless you are in a major city, don't assume they speak English. It's unlikely someone can speak it unless they use it in business. If you don't use it, you lose it, and their native tongue is French.
It's also better to know the language well enough to blend in. We were mistaken at one point for being German because we were trying to speak as much French as possible in public but were mixing it with English.
First observations:
Going in circles saves gas, keeps traffic flowing and makes drivers less frustrated. I think there was one solid intersection we had to stop at the entire time. Every intersection was actually a circle, regardless of large highway or small town, and it worked!
Of course it helps that they all use their turn signals over there and know how circles are supposed to work. Unlike here, where drivers have no clue what they are supposed to be doing in a circle.
As long as it's registered, you can drive it.
Two wheelers were everywhere. We saw people driving dirt bikes and ATVs on the road the moment we drove into Bourgoin. As long as they were properly registered it was A OK, and I'm sure it saved money, since even the little Euro cars aren't cheap over there. Like the one we had: The Chevy Matis.
Unavailable in the U.S., maybe because it was only automated in the front and I was stuck in the back with manual windows and was lucky to have a seat belt. This thing is shorter than my Mini Cooper. Yes, and it's four doors.
Helmets are the rule: You can't ride a motorcycle, scooter, moped, ATV without one. They can get away with riding scooters and motorcycles in closed off pedestrian areas, but you've gotta have your helmet on.
France is litter free, well almost, and the graffiti's not bad either. For some reason you can't escape the graffiti in France. It's everywhere.
The litter, on the other hand, is not, even though secular thinking will claim the two go hand in hand.
But they don't seem to mind their graffiti. Then again it's not the typical "knave toof" tag I see every weekend driving home to Jersey on a Turnpike overpass.
No, their graffiti is art. Check out what we saw in Grenoble.
And my favorite ... Cheese Attack!
Ah, only the French would grace their graffiti with cheese.And it's more like art, appearing everywhere, on overpasses, barns in the middle of nowhere.
But never on historic structures or monuments. Don't know if that's due to pride or just strict policing and cleaning. Hopefully the first.
When we first arrived in Lyon, I thought my boyfriend might have rented a scooter, as he started walking toward a giant touring model in the parking lot. But it wouldn't have held our luggage.
The Matis served us well in the cold Alps, our first stop on the tour of the Rhone.
And the pizza was thin and scrumptious, just don't ask for three cheese unless you like Roquefort.
Our drive took us through Grenoble, Chambery and into a small town that was famous for its hot springs, accessible in a public park, that was right next to the thing my boyfriend loves the most — gliders. As we drove into a town looking for a cup o' joe, there they were, spinning in slow circles above us at the height of the alpine cliffs. 
So our next stop — the airport.
It was an old airfield that might have been used in World War I, but only was used for gliders.
Despite the language barrier, we found someone to ask about a ride, but were told unless my boyfriend had an international license he'd have to take an instruction ride only, and arrange that ahead of time.
If he wanted to do more on his own, "learn French," we were told, jokingly. Let's face it, in an emergency, you'd better know what they are saying to you.
After a petite cup of cafe au lait (No mega javas in Europe. They drink in moderation.) we headed to the hills. And saw sights I'd never could imagine.
The Alps are cold and the snow was high. The roads were steep and very few guard rails protect you. And believe me, with the switchbacks the likelihood of falling off the road is very high, since there's no shoulder.
We were turning so quickly in that tiny little car, and I was in the back feeling most of the turbulence and thought I was going to lose my pizza. I was so afraid to look out and see where we were on the road because it was like looking to my death.
We saw snow covered tunnels that we had to go around, towns shut down because nothing could get through and the steeple of a buried church. 
To the French Alps, it was still winter.
After realizing we couldn't reach the top of the mountain as our host hoped, we headed back, hoping we didn't fall down into the river valley on our return.
Lyon is a city of wonders, hidden in little alleys and wondrous shops. House boats cruise its two rivers, and there are ancient treasures in places you wouldn't suspect. We were searching out the ancient Roman Theater, built in 15 B.C., but after wandering for almost an hour down cool alleys and past brasseries then down the alley Croix-Rousse, which Napolean scaled with his horse on his conquests, we realized were were on the wrong side of the river. 
We made our way south and found it, tucked in behind a school and hotels near the mini eiffel tower known as the Tour Metallique, built in 1893, about four years after Gustav Eiffel's successful structure was erected. It was built by E. Colonge who was asked to build a replica of the Eiffel tower on Fourviere Hill. You can't visit it, but from what I've read, there used to be a restaurant in the bottom and you could take an elevator to the top at one time. It would have an excellent view of the valley below, despite being only 80 meters high.
The Theatres Roman is one of those places where you can ramble as you like amidst the ancient homes and no one yells at you. There were few foreigners there as an astronomy club had taken over the area and was offering views of the sun. We sat down and enjoyed a rest after our wandering, pondering the view from the ancient Roman seats.
Then we headed to the nearby underground museum dedicated to the amazing finds from Lyon that documented the city's use by the Romans. It is built in a circular style, and there you can see the remnants of Emporer Augustus' appeal to the Senate to allow the Gauls representation and, basically, citizenship in the empire.
Augustus was born in the ancient city that stood where Lyon sits now, called Ludugnum. You can also walk on an ancient mosaic floor.
We wondered if we were breaking some kind of rule by doing so, but it was quite an experience, and unavoidable.
The museum has large windows looking out upon the large amphitheater, and they offer quite a view, as seen below.
If you would like less of a crowd, as this will get busy on the weekends, I recommend the smaller Odeon theater right next door to the Grand Theater. I wished we'd thought to stop over since it has a tiled floor still intact despite the years.
The Grand Theater is still used for performances and if you are lucky and plan ahead, you could get tickets to a concert or play there. In fact the British band Blur will be playing there on May 7 of this year. You can buy tickets here.
(I cannot vouch for this site or their reliability/honesty.)
All the cities we ended visiting had long connections throughout the centuries because of one thing, they were on the road to Jerusalem.
We took a step back to the ancient days of pilgrimages when we visited a tiny town on the way to Avignon (a city worth visiting). I forget the name but hopefully will be able to add it to this some day soon.
We actually had to take a very roundabout route off the turnpike to find the place, though you could see it from the highway (I believe it was the D570), so I'm not sure how to get there. We had to take an exit farther south of the castle (which you could see from the highway on the left going south) and then go north again and look for it, finding our way by sight and chance.
It was above a beautiful, ancient town that was as old as the castle, but still inhabited. Old doorways and windows had been stoned over and replaced with new, but the houses were mostly still as they once were, and quite beautiful.
But we had one helluva long walk up a hill to get to the castle.There were many French natives coming as tourists as well, since the castle had re-enactors. (Likely because it was a weekend.)
Built around the ninth century, it had a lord, and was also occupied by the Hospitalier, a group similar to the Knights Templar that helped those who were traveling on the road to Jerusalem. They would assist the injured or sick with herbal remedies but often had to sleep 30 to a room during the pilgrimage seasons.
They explained weaponry, torture and how people lived, but all in French, so my boyfriend and I had to wait until the end of the tour before our host, a native English speaker, could translate for us. In fact, we were the only English speaking people there, and were a bit confused when the re-enactors tried to engage with us. At one point we thought they were going to take off our host's head because they asked who hadn't "paid their taxes", ie. bought tickets, but had no idea what they were even saying. A bit frightening.
But we stayed to the back and let all the kids whose parents had dragged them their be the center of attention.
It was quite a wonderful demonstration, and the actors stayed in character and were never awkward.
I would've taken more photos, but I wasn't sure when it was allowed.
The last stop was the ramparts overlooking the town and the valley. We couldn't actually go in the towers on the outlying ridges, as they were falling apart and very dangerous. I also wanted to get down below the ancient chapel in the middle of the structure. It was one of the few intact buildings left and had two ancient ninth century icons of saints inside that had the faces marred. There were stairs down below the floor.
As my boyfriend put it, "That's where they must hide the treasure."
We did ramble around the place and found a doorway that wasn't blocked leading into one of the towers, but we could only go on the ground floor. The door to the stairway up was blocked.
So back down we went, and as we walked the steep hill, I noticed stone steps leading off over the hills, and wondered if it wasn't an ancient trail, or at least a current hiking one. Likely there was, at one time, houses all the way up to the castle, but weather and disrepair may have lead them to crumble. There were stones everywhere and it was hard to tell if they had just fallen off the cliffside (or castle), or were at once time used to build walls.
We rambled about the beautiful little streets of the sleepy town, marveling the beauty and noticing some of the houses backed up to the cliffside and the ou
tlying ramparts of the castle, which makes me believe the houses must have caves as rooms.We wondered just how do you get into those caves. There had to be ways. There were windows in the hillsides. We theorized about whether there really was treasure sill hidden away somewhere. Though the town itself was quite a treasure. With a sleepy little main street with its own unique, and rather modern boutiques, a great bar, and a barber.
It is the type of town I dream of retiring to. Being in the south of France proper, the wea
ther was in the high 60s in the beginning of April, unlike Pa. which still is quite freezing until almost May.We stopped for a couple of drinks and an Orangina (I became addicted over there since you could get them everywhere, though they are not cheap.) at the local bar, which was perfect for sitting for hours, with the bartender lounging with friends at an outside table.
We decided if we wanted to get to Avignon, we couldn't go exploring. Though it's a town worth getting back to.
Avignon was definitely a highlight of the trip and this video will give you some idea of why.
The heart of the city is taken up by the Pope's Palaces. Originally on the site was a bishop's palace that was torn down in the 1300s. Apparently the whole city was inhabited since neolithic times. Along the Rhone river, which you can see in the video, there are fortifications built out of the rock, which is also where the Pont d'Avignon (made famous in a song) begins
. The rock was dug out and used as a Roman fortification, and when the Barbarians began attacking in the 700s, the people in the area lived in the confines of its walls. The fortification later housed a abbey. In 1309, Pope Clement V fled to the city because a group that supported the pope was fighting a group that supported the Holy Roman Emporer (who was NOT the pope). The emporers had trouble keeping power over their lords who would more often listen to and respect the pope.The papacy was overseen from Avignon for about 100 years. In that
time a Bishop's Palace was torn down where the Pope's Palace now stands. There are two palaces, an old and a new, built into each other over the years.The palace itself is an amazing feat of architecture, tho rather bare inside. But you can take a tour in English using an automated tour guide and it will take you into many rooms going through severe reconstruction. You see, the palace was ransacked over the years by Revolutionaries and then other uses destroyed many of the beautiful paintings that graced its walls. There was also a great fire in the main dining hall that destroyed the roof (though that is now repaired). Most impressive was the treasure chamber where the pope's hid their treasure.
There are also tw
o chapels with paintings on the walls, some by Giovannetti.In the pope's room you can also still see the original paintings on the walls that look like birds in cages and wainscotting.
It is well worth a visit, and a proper tour. You can also get great souvenirs in the gift shops, such as a necklace made to look like the ancient painted tiles that graced the floor of the pope's bedroom.
Because it was the center of the papacy for so long, there is much Italian influence in Avignon, brought in along with all the artisans commissioned to build the palace. There are stunning little boutiques and gift shops everywhere. And one thing you will definitely see everywhere are locusts: Locust magnets, locust garden sculpture, locust necklaces. Apparently the locust is a symbol of good luck and a symbol of Avignon.
I highly recommend a great little shop down an alley directly across from the front gate of the palace. Here's the picture of tourists looking in the window, though I don't remember its name.
I also recommend you buy material in Avignon, as in Lyon. Both cities were considered part of the heart of textile manufacturing in France and they still may be as there are a great many independent clothiers in both cities with unique fashions. (Wish I'd had the money, I'd have bought myself some. But the American dollar is weak these days in relation to the Euro).There are many more English speakers in Avignon than elsewhere we'd been, but to be polite try and use French as much as possible. You'll get a much better reception.
And in Avignon we did the one thing I always wanted to do: eat in an outdoor cafe. Most of our meals had been on the fly, but here we took it easy and sat for hours under the sycamore trees that lined the street, across from a park where it seemed a church had been burned out, leaving only it's window arches behind.
It was wonderful, but since the drive took so long we had to make a night of it and stayed at a cheap hotel.
The bar scene in Avignon appears to be hopping, even on a Sunday night. But it might get kind of rough if you don't know enough French to apologize and keep out of trouble.
We opted for an early night and headed out the next day for a traditional breakfast and to see the Palais. A traditional breakfast of course being croissant and really strong coffee.
Staying for the Pope's Palace was well worth it. A temporary home for the pope during the troubles between the small principalities and Roman Emporer, it was added on to for almost a hundred years. There are still two chapels with walls painted by Italian masters, though one was closed off due to restoration.
The most amazing moment, though, was when we entered the great chapel. It's a vaulted room where Mass was held by the Pope. It's bare, except for a stone alter and some benches for sitting along the walls. As we sat there a group of older women came through and decided to test the acoustics by singing a hymn, and it was the most beautiful thing in the world. They were barely whispering it yet it echoed around the room and crescendoed as it bounced off the arches above, and made everyone stop in their tracks in awe.
Then on to the Saint Benezet bridge over the Rhone.
A sheep herder from the Ardeche valley (a beautiful valley that winds along the Ardeche river and is a popular vacation spot for the French) showed up in town a couple of hundred years before the pope and told everyone God told him to build a bridge across the Rhone. The river had to be crossed by anyone wishing to go south and it was often treacherous and took many lives. He apparently convinced everyone this had to be done at God's will by moving a coloss
al stone that no man at the peak of strength could even move. So they built the bridge, and it successively got knocked down by flood after flood until they abandoned it and built a higher bridge upstream in the 1600s.The shepherd was never canonized but the locals called him a saint and buried his body in a chapel in the bridge.
When the bridge was abandoned in the 1600s his body was supposedly exhumed and moved, and it was said it was in perfect condition. Odd considering the bridge was renovated several times over the years, including raising its height and adding a chapel to Saint Nicholas on top of the mausoleum in the 1300s.
According to a visitor's guidebook available at the Pope's Palace, there is a belief that a Roman bridge once stood at the site of the Saint Benezet bridge and perhaps Benezet really just raised money and support to have it rebuilt, but it is still speculation as there is no proof of an earlier bridge.
The most famous thing about the Saint Benezet bridge, though, is not its origins but a song, that probably isn't quite right. At some point in the bridge's history there used to be a cafe of sorts underneath one of the arches and there would be bands playing. From this came the song, 'L'pont d'Avignon'. But the words to the song say on top of the bridge when it should be underneath it.
It goes like this ...
Sur le pont d'Avignon
L'on y danse, L'on y danse
Sur le pont d'Avignon
L'on y danse tous en rond
Les beaux messieurs font comm 'ca
Et puis encore comm 'ca
Sur le pont d'Avignon
L'on y danse, L'on y danse
Sur le pont d'Avignon
L'on y danse tous en rond
Les Belle dames font comm 'ca
Et puis encore comm 'ca
We left Avignon and decided to stop in a little country town for lunch. It was a beautiful area and the lunch was huge.
They have set lunches in most small restaurants in France, which means they have one main course with the option of having a starter and a dessert, one or the other of those, or just the main course.
You also get two carafes, one of wine and one of water. You're supposed to mix the water and wine to make it less strong (it is lunch after all), but my fellow travelers drank it straight. I think the bartender was a little surprised he had to refill it.
My fellow travelers had charcuterie, which is a plate of different kinds of meat, either pate, or sohsees (sausage) and some cheese.
The lunch was immense! A huge plate of pasta and a giant pork chop that was melt in your mouth delicious. I couldn't finish it all, especially after the salad. I wanted desert anyway. But the waitress thought I didn't like it. I would've taken it back to the apt., but our host had no fridge.
The dessert was amazing. It's called fromage blanche (I incorrectly identified it earlier as creme fraiche, which is is not), and it is a type of cheese that has the texture of yogurt but is whipped and creamy. They serve it with either fruit on top or sugar on the side.
We drove through the Ardeche region, which is dry and sunny and in the midst of mountains there is a canyon that carries the Ardeche river, which was very dry for springtime.
I'd heard there were caves, but we had no luck in finding any. Though the scenery was as beautiful as the Alps with towering mountains, their gold, red and brown sides covered in scrub and small vineyards everywhere.
There are some lovely little city-towns along the road we took and one was set out on an island, the only access a one-lane bridge that looked like it was from the middle ages. We couldn't even figure out how to get to the top where a small church was. It was amazing that people were even living there. I'm sure in the U.S. they would have evicted them for some code violations, but they seemed to managing fine .. and I envied them.
Our final day was a toss up: What do we see? For staying so close to Lyon we certainly had plenty of options. We could have seen Vienne, gone back to Lyon, or even just traveled to wineries in the immediate countryside. We decided to try and find a castle my host had trouble getting to. It was visible from the highway but there was no exit there. We ended up wandering instead into the most amazing of cities: Cremieu.
You get to Cremieu off the D24. We were on the A432, a toll road, and you take exit 3 toward Charvieu-Chavagneux. Then the D302 at the circle to the D517, and from there follow the signs.
It is an amazingly large town that formed around an abbey on the hillside, which has fallen over the years. Many tourists come to the town, as attested by the tourist's office in the old Augustinian monastery that is now the town hall.
There are public bathrooms, but I warn you, they are the ones where you stand over a hole in the floor ... basically pit toilets.
The tourism office is open most days and offers maps of the area. And there is a lot to see, but since it was such a rainy day we opted for a couple of drinks and then a hike up to the ancient abbey along the old streets, which have grafitti and signs from WWII.
If you are lucky enough to go on a Saturday, all the small farmers and artisan food makers sell their wares in the medieval market that sprung up in the middle of the city.Across from this, if you are desperate and failed to get to town in time for the short lunch hour, is a Casino, a type of mini market that offers sandwhiches, drinks, snacks and household goods. We had to opt for that after our hike.
And a good hike it was. It was no easy hill to climb, and a hard entrance to find since the road leading up to it is hidden between two buildings, and houses still back up to the crumbling walls that once housed a nonexistent village around the base of the abbey.
Like many fortified structures in France, it was carved into the rock. Someone at some point keeps goats up there as we stumbled onto a small stable constructed into one of the old towers. The grass is green and lush, and you could probably camp out up there, though someone lives in the remaining stable tower. We tried to find a doorway we could knock on but every time we tried to walk up to it we ended up at a cliff face. The only thing we could determine is that one of the house down below in the valley backed up to it and had an inner doorway to go in.
Literally right in front of me, where those trees are growing, is a sheer cliff that runs several hundred feet down.
At the very top, a conservation group is trying to reconstruct the medicinal herb garden that once would have been planted on the crown of the hill inside the abbey walls. It was ripped up and a cement slab for a gun was put in likely around World War II. The clock tower for the abbey still stands and is still working as well.
Down the other side of the hill there are roads leading to private residences and another way out of town.
I wished we'd stayed for dinner, or at least visited the chocolatier, my one regret on this trip. I didn't go into any of them, despite the amazing displays of crafted chocolate items. One shop had a chicken sitting atop a nest, and all these eggs and little chicks around it, all designed exclusively out of chocolate.
True food artistry. I wanted to snap a photo but was afraid I might cause it to collapse.
I'd have to say, each town there is worth a full day's exploration and I'm not sure how it is you can ever see all of France. The amount of history readily available at each step is stunning.
I guess there's only one thing to do: go back.
Traveler's Tips:
Know your French. Unless you are going to Paris it is unlikely anyone will understand what you are saying in English. Think about what you will be doing and what questions or needs you are likely to have and make sure you know those phrases. Let's face it, knowing how to ask where the telephone is isn't really helpful in the age of cell phones. Know how to ask what is in your food, how much something costs, how to say "Just looking", and how to introduce yourself and those in your party. Our biggest faux pas was not speaking enough to get a better deal at the car rental agency or asking where the check-in counter for our airline was at the airport. Much more complex than you'd think since they do not understand our terms for things.
Dress appropriately. They don't wear sweats in France, so unless you want to stick out like a tourist, don't wear them. Jeans are fine, everyone wears them, old and young. But they are never sloppy. Even at the Carre Four, their version of Wal-Mart, all the women looked like they were ready for a dinner out.
Don't drink to excess. The French don't and you'll be considered an idiot.
Changing money. We considered travelers checks and special check cards, but the easiest thing turned out to be just using our ATM cards for our banks. Be sure to ask what the charge is and take out a lot of money at once. If you are worried about having your wallet stolen, then take some back up cash. Also be sure to have the phone numbers to report your lost or stolen cards written down somewhere else than in your wallet. There are pick pockets in France!
Rental cars: You get the best rate if you reserve one ahead of time. You should also check to see if your auto insurance in America will apply overseas. Many times it doesn't and you should buy a temporary insurance policy on the car just in case. You don't need an EU or international license. Your U.S. driver's license is fine. They also drive on the same side of the road as in the U.S., but know how to use a circle and USE YOUR TURN SIGNALS. This is very important over there since drivers depend on them. And the French actually do use theirs.
Bringing wine home. I learned after the fact that if you take a U.S. airline to and from, or have transfers, you will have trouble getting your wine through security. You could hide it in your bag or ship it back, but unless you know enough French at the post office, you'll have trouble.
The best thing to do is to take a European carrier. They don't have the same security protocal as the American airlines and do allow you to take wine on board in your carry on or duty free bag. You also won't go through the third degree like you do with U.S. carriers when you get on your return flight. The best airlines are Lufthansa and Air France for this.
