Christmas in the vineyards

Hello! Welcome to my adventures around the world, part 239 or something. I'll be chronicling here my month in France, and my semester in Turkey. And whatever comes next, which I haven't figured out yet. Enjoy!

Hello from drizzly Nice, France! I've been in France for about a week, enjoying good food, wine, and temperatures above freezing.

I started this trip by flying Boston-Dublin-Paris, then waiting for a chilly, hungry, sleepy 4 hours at the CDG train station before boarding a train to Bordeaux, and then another one to Macau, the town near which my mom's friend lives. I finally arrived at our friends' house, which is in the middle of thousands of vineyards. We spent a few cozy days taking walks in the vineyard and celebrating Christmas with my mom's friend and her two daughters. Lots of fires in the fireplace, and good soup, cheese, bread, wine, and sweets! It was a very cozy Christmas.

Our first excursion was a drive along La Route des Chateaux—driving through endless vineyards, passing a chateau (castle-like building hosting a specific type of wine) every 5 minutes or so. We visited a few chateaus, but mostly enjoyed driving by and seeing the beautiful façades and slate towers in the late-afternoon sunlight (the sun goes down early here!).

The next day we explored the city of Bordeaux, which is smaller than Paris but still as beautiful. We got some beautiful pre-sun-set views from the cathedral tower and did some serious exploring of the city.

Our next excursion was to the walled town of Saint Emilion—straight out of the middle ages or so, filled with old stone buildings, and cobbled streets (which are actually not made with cobbles, but paving stones--cobbles are small round stones. fun fact). We had a wonderful lunch at a restaurant near the beautiful old church and cloister, and bought some of Saint Emilion's famous almond macaroons.

Finally, we made another day trip to Arcachon—a cute sea-side town. Though in winter it's pretty empty, it was still nice to explore a bit and see the cute houses and the beach. We took a detour to la dune de pyla—the largest sand dune in Europe. It was quite large, though given that I haven't seen any other sand dunes in Europe, I'm not quite sure what to compare it to.

After an early night on New Year's Eve and a 9-hour train ride from Bordeaux to Nice, we are now ensconced in a cozy apartment here in Nice, ready to explore some of this city's sites and some of the rest of the French Riviera. After today's drizzle the weather is supposed to be nice—and in the 60s every day—so I'm looking forward to it.

:)