Bordeaux

Wine tasting was the highlight of being in Bordeaux! we signed up for a Medoc vineyard trip cost 25 euros per person.. half day trip bumpy bus ride beautiful scenery wines that are apparently very nice but i don kno hw to appreciate drink abit only face red eye red wan to sleep bumpy bus ride back to city centre so bumpy we all got motion sickness but only shujun puked haha.. yup so that was it.. some kind of highlight hor...

See so pretty right.. the lil sprigs growing in spring. before you know it they will be human height and above n its time to harvesttttt!

A chateau.. the ONLY chateau owned by one single proprietor. they are so expensive that most of them are owned by companies.. isn't it jus gorgeous.. i'll marry the guy who offers me this house to live in..

This reminds me of a lyric that Cherysa sang/recited : All we have in common is the same blue sky.. or smth like that.. n shujun and i hear wrongly.. sky became guy.. haha.. we were so perplexed for a good min or so.. haha..

Barrels and barrels of wine... haha.. all sitting inside there fermenting.. until the time is right for them to be bottled.. sorry for the blur photo.. haha..

In the city area. they operate by trams which look very high tech n modern. saw an owner bring his dog into the tram. it was a big black labrador. velvety black fur very handsome looking. n very well-trained cos it jus sat down when its owner flicked a finger at him haha.. how cool i wanna train my dog to be like that too...

Nothing much happened in Bordeaux. I miss those times in Europe. but yet given a choice i wouldn't want to experience it again haha.. cos i kno that a second experience will not be the same as the first one.. it will jus pale in comparison..

Cannes

Plenty of expensive shops here like D&G, Ferragamo all facing the beach somemore how chio can.. i'd be more than willing to be a salesgirl in one of these shops got such a nice view haha..

These 4 wheelers are for rent.. but a tad expensive.. so we can only watch from afar..

The red carpet that all the celebrities who appear for the annual Cannes Film Festival graze upon! woo we left our footprints there too! haha..

Not much photos for Cannes but it is truly a very pretty place.. also built for the rich i gather haha..

Monaco!

The land of expensive fast cars and rich people. If i did an ad of Monaco, I'd portray rich people living a luxurious lifestyle, sipping champagne on a yacht without a care in the world. The first car we saw was a red-hot Ferrari! Porsches are so passe here haha... there's an abundance of Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Maseratis, Ford GT, Bentleys, etc etc its insane man.. all the expensive cars of the world unite at Monaco...

The interior of a BMW convertible.. how chio can...if i drove a car like that, i'd b sure to drive like a tortoise lest i scratch the exterior or in my panic to E-brake, scratch the interior with my lovely manicured nails muahaha..

Another Ferrari this time in black! Ppl go n buy 4d or smth with those numbers lah.. win already pls don forget to treat me dinner k haha..

Sleek black irresistible..
One of the many casinos in Monaco.. u kno when we first got there we stupidly wanted to find a tourism office to ask where the grand prix racing track and the casinos were.. only after asking did we realise that in the process of getting to the tourism office we already walked past it all.. so we had to backtrack..
Part of the racing track.
We wanted to go to Monaco bright and early, however, a strike at the Nice train station prevented us from doing so, hence we only arrived in Monaco at 2pm. But by 530 we were out of there already.. see poor ppl cannot last long there.. we don haf the money to play so we got kinda bored and opted for the free form of entertainment - photowhore.. haha..

Nice, France

After Rome we took the train to NICE! yay we're back in france! missed the place so much haha..

Nice is a very beautiful picturesque place i swear anyone who goes there will fall in love with the place. On our first day there, we promptly trooped off to find food cos i was feeling peckish and we haven had lunch or breakfast..

We found a really nice rustic balinese setting of sorts restaurant serving nicoise salad which we loved very much... i went for the 8.90 euro set lunch that had a main course and drink.. not much of a set lunch hor haha.. where's my 3 course meal tsktsk haha..


They offered a choice of side dish and i chose roasted potatoes which were absolutely yummy! Not to mention the grilled chicken thigh was also damn sedap haha.. crispy on the outside, soft and tender on the inside.. suddenly im thinking of peking duck and how much i miss it haha..

Our affinity with tiramisu.. we can never get sick of this dessert.. mayb cos everytime we try it we share a serving? haha.. so not jelat mah...

We chanced upon a market on our last day in Nice! Pretty pretty and...

We found a local delicacy! Socca (below), and oignon tart (in my hand) and spinach tart (in shujun's hand). The thought of these foods making me feel hungry all over again! damn haha..

Socca is an egg-pancake that is creamy and soft, best taken with some salt and pepper. It is toasted on this large pan until slightly chao-ta den cut into odd pieces and sold at 2.50 a piece. The lady folds the pieces onto a piece of tracing paper and hands it to you and you eat it like that! There was such a loooong queue for the socca (ps that was how we stumbled upon it..typical singaporeans see long queue onli mus join haha)

Sights at the market. There were other non-food items sold in the market too however us foodies naturally zoomed in on the foodstuffs only ignoring the rest haha.. :)

A cookie and sweets shop we chanced upon in Nice. Lovely place delicious cookies but exorbitant price. I guess this is what u have to pay for freshly baked cookies.. haha.. i bought 5 pieces and it cost me 4.70 euros i think... so its almost 1 euro per piece.. siao rite.. but very nice to eat lah haha.. n i ate it for a meal so i guess it made my meal cheap? haha.. if only singapore can open this kind of shop it'd b one of a kind! but the cookies will surely lao hong in this kind of humid weather very fast..

Sugar coated bars of diabetes causing chewy gum

Lovely.. more cookies... i love i love i want i want!

This sandwich deserves special mention! On our first trip to the beach we decided to each buy a 'snack' to munch on.. This poulet (chicken) sandwich that costs 3 euros was a godsend! Usually french people like to make sandwiches with baguettes which is dry n hard. however, this bread, i think its called a crudite, is soft with a slight buttery taste. It makes the whole meal so delectable!

We bought it twice (the second time i tried the surimi filling (crabstick) also very nice!) however, on our last few days in Nice we wanted to eat it again, but the shop just wasn't open.. it was unbelievable 2 days in a row we made a special trip to the shop but it was closed.. our biggest regret is not being able to taste this sandwich for the last time before we left haiz... all cos of labour day! din kno it was that big a thing in Nice haha...



By now you shud haf guessed that Nice was a very beachy place for us. Out of the 5 days we spent there, 2 days were day trips and the rest of the time in Nice we spent it by the beach or walking along the beach or to the beach or from the beach... u get my drift.. it was soooo lovely and the weather so fine we couldn't resist... even tho lying down on pebbles can be a tad challenging the experience was still an unforgettable one.. given another chance i'd go to nice again haha!
Our very cluttered room...no actually its jus cherysa's very cluttered corner.. see see its all cherysa's stuff strewn all over the floor and her bed.. haha.. do u pity shujun n me do u do u????


We loved this Pastoral Hostel very much too for its friendly owners and their adorable son.. the sad fact we only stayed there for 2 days cos of lack of availability.. we moved to another hostel for the rest of the time where we chanced upon a halal butchery that sold grilled poulets.. oh man sedap we had one nearly everyday haha.. :) another one of our loves thanks to Rouen..



I met a friend, Xiaowei, on my way to Monaco! can you believe it! Dunno how many donkey years never see each other but fate allowed our paths to cross again on the European continent! I only haf this one photo that is blurred... damn the photog! haha... who took dis photo hurh???



Next up: Monaco in my next post!

Rome #4

Pompeii City! We spent a whole day in this historical place... it was fantastic tho pretty dusty.. by the end of the day our bodies were covered in a layer of grey ash... but wad to expect rite.. this Roman city was once buried under volcanic ash!

Here is a brief background info from Wikipedia!

Pompeii is a ruined Roman city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. It, along with Herculaneum, was destroyed, and completely buried, during a catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning 2 days on 24 August 79 AD.

The volcano collapsed higher roof-lines and buried Pompeii under many meters of ash, and it was lost for nearly 1600 years before its accidental rediscovery in 1748. Since then, its excavation has provided an extraordinarily detailed insight into the life of a city at the height of the Roman Empire.


Do you see a faint outline of Mt Vesuvius in the background? Its not declared dormant yet, calculated to erupt once every 30 years since Pompeii time but it hasnt erupted since then..


This is a Palestra or gymnasium in the area as seen from the amphitheatre. Picturesque and peaceful looking isn't it? Makes you wanna take a stroll in there now...







You'd think volcanic ash from an active volcano enough to bury an entire city would probably wipe out everything but no... the mosiacs, motifs, paintings were all relatively intact.. This represents one of the few motifs drawn at the entrance of the house left unspoiled by the ash.



So volcanci ash preserves everything it might seem.. yup.. it also preserves the humans.. This was the body of a man they found preserved beside the remains of a cow.. apparently he was on his way somewhere with his cart and beast when the ash descended upon them.




Here's the creepy bit: his facial expression... i feel his pain...

This is a supposed whorehouse/brothel of Pompeii.. so 'advanced' in that aspect hor.. to have prostitutes back then in early AD times.. haha.. This is a photo of one of the 'beds' in the brothel where customers are served.. looks a bit short to me.. but mayb Pompeii men aren't very tall? I mean look at the contorted body of the 'preserved man'...


To further add to the brothel look, here is an 'adults only' illustration on the walls of the brothel.. Use your imagination can you make out what the picture is about? haha...
As with all the things that remained... here is another fresco of sorts painted on the ceiling and skirtings of a room.. if i remember correctly, it depicts the Trojan war, but im not really completely sure...

There were very interesting stories behind these 2 murals on the wall! Very very interesting.. The one showing a couple i believe is a story of the man dying and the woman who loved him very much being very heartbroken and wanting to follow.. the one on the left.. i cannot remember.. must ask cherysa or shujun mayb they can recall!

Painting of Venus, goddess of lurrrrve! :)


An amphitheatre... i can imagine what it would look like whole... nice..haha..

Verdict: Rome is a must go for their rich history.. but beware of the weather in summer.. it can get really scorching.. the foods are a must-try too! People are friendly and although its said to have many pickpockets, we didn't really encounter any, but we did encounter lecherous indian/ bangladeshi/sri lankans who operate the call centres.. they see asian girls only they get all touchy feely..