Snails... TGV... Arles

Snails... those things that the very young eat willingly... but hit 7 or 9 and there is the oooooohhhh yuk factor... then apparently the eating of snails is not the done thing... well not willingly that is...

I was however very proud of both my girls for actually trying a snail each... not that you can taste much of the snail over the herbs and garlic... but it is another thing ticked off the list... Frogs legs are still on it right along with Creme Brulee...

The TGV was an experience right from the start... thankfully we had decided to go and print out our etickets the day before we were due to leave... thankfully because we had a hiccup... rather a large one at that... the reference number we had been given should have actually been a 6 letter reference rather than the strict numerical one we had... after a short wait we were helped by a supremely helpful lady... who while admitting to only speaking a little English... helped us by not only finding our "lost" booking but by giving us a whole lot of very helpful advice... it meant that we didn't walk in the following day to a "huh what do we do now" thing...

301 kms an hour is the fastest we saw appear on our GPS screen during the 3 hour trip from Paris to Avignon... seriously weird in itself... considering we travelled the equivalent of Picton to Dunedin in that time... now we all know that the Picton -Dunedin trip is quite frankly not possible in twice that time!!!!!

There was a surprise awaiting us in Avignon though... sadly even though we had booked and requested a Citroen C5 to drive while we were here in France... alas and alack there was NOT a C5 to be had for love nor money... instead we got given a... WAIT for it... a Swedish car instead... a Volvo V50 1.6 diesel... the ride is shall we say... HARD in comparison to what it would be in a Citroen... and yes this comes from prior experience... surely someone else other than me remembers the delightful Eloise? Built for style and comfort... Chris has come to grips with the fact now that we will NOT be driving a French car in France but is happy to know that we are at the very least protected by more airbags in one single car than we have in all our cars put together back home!

Arles ... or more importantly the ancient part of the city has become our home for the last few days... full of two lane roads and the have to be seen to be believed one way system... where traffic slows for pedestrians on the roads to slowly amble there way to some sort of safety which is often only an illusion most times... we are staying in a gorgeous old home that has been converted to a hotel... it even has a swimming pool that we have all enjoyed at least once when the temps got so high here that even the shockingly cold entrance to the pool didn't put you off...

Our first day here we visited the Roman Amphitheatre... or the lion stadium as the girls refer to it... It is quite simply massive!!! It was built in the First Century AD and considering it has stood for pretty much 2000 years its in pretty good nick... it has been used for many different things during the millennia it has been standing apart from its original purpose... it apparently housed 200 dwellings and 2 churches at some stage since this is the numbers mentioned during a "clearing out" of the amphitheatre... I have to say I was totally impressed with the amount of "refurbishment" of the whole structure... and the fact that they are using and have available the very same ancient materials that the original builders use...

Now I have to apologise for the lack of photos with this post... I do promise that we have taken more than a few photos... its finding any kind of time to edit some down to a size that blogger and or facebook won't throw a complete hissy fit at... hopefully in the next few days this can and will happen...

in the mean time stand by for not only photos but more on an old bridge that we couldn't get to the top of! Fish... big and small and not a one to be seen on a dinner plate... Haribo... dinosaurs, evolution... and much much more...