France

[Candiarie]

So this has been discussed in the various Euro threads, but I'll be making my first france trip this winter in between semesters. Right now I'm looking at spending as much time not in paris as possible, just because I can always go back and see that. So right now I'm looking at these cities, and if anyone has any input that would be great.

Also, if anyone is into punk, hardcore or metal and shit (I can also do folk) and know of places to go for that in France, please let me know. I really enjoy soccer/football, so I guess I need to check my shit with the french league schedule. It will be around the beginning of december to the beginning of february.

Any places that are good for bicycle or motorcycle tours would be great too. As always military history, history, hiking and stuff is all awesome if there's something I missed. These are just things that I'm interested in that I haven't seen brought up in other threads.

So top 3 interests besides getting laid and trying new beers are:
Music
Bicycle/Motorcycle trips
Soccer

Bordeaux - Wine country in winter, I believe soccer is big there too? I don't know too much about it

Toulouse - college town, I'm in college, seems like a good mix

Carcassone - looks like a solid day trip, wikipedia says rugby is big here. I think there's a bus trip from toulouse, no?

Avignon - I know shit about avignon except church history

Nice - decidedly NOT beach time, everyone has said they've had an awesome time here, so I plan on most of my time being here

Biarritz is a possibility but I don't know anyone besides my dad who's been there.

Thanks motherfuckers

[woot!]

Originally Posted by Candiarie

Bordeaux - Wine country, I believe soccer is big there too? I don't know too much about it

yes, I belive their soccer team is like first or second in the 1st league. Lots of rugby fans there too.

Originally Posted by Candiarie

Nice - beach time, everyone has said they've had an awesome time here, so I plan on most of my time being here

Nice place, but beach time ; in december ? yeah I would not realy count on it. As active as the south of france might be in summer, I'd wager it must be pretty empty in winter.

Something that doesn't come up ofthen in suggestions : the Alsace region, in the north easter part of france is quite nice. Has great food, a lot of wine (mainly white wines) and beer. The main city is Strasbourg, lots stuffs to visit, lots of students, quite an active town all in all. I'd realy recommend this area for an awesome motorcycle trip ... but in summer.
If you don't like it, the region shares borders with Switzerland, Germany, and is not far at all from Luxembourg either.

[Gurgeh]

Bordeaux won the championship last year, but people there aren't as much into football as in Marseille or Lyon.

Honestly, in, december - february, you should forget about the beach, even in Nice or Bastia you won't be able to bath in the sea. Grenoble and the alps are lovely, and quite tourist friendly. Grenoble is a nice and lively city in winter (don't get there in summer tho) and you're 30 minutes away from the skying tracks. Lyon is 1 hour away from grenoble as well, both Grenoble and Lyon have a L1 team, Lyon should still be running for the C1 or C3 in winter, so you could get to see a couple of decent matches as well as enjoying the alps in winter.

[Candiarie]

Cool, I didn't really know how bad the climactic conditions were. I grew up in Louisville and central Jersey so I'm used to 10 degree weather and shit, didn't know how bad southern france was going to get though. Plane tickets during the summer are twice as much (and 600 over the winter is already fucking ridiculous) so that trip will probably have to wait.

Do you know how much tickets run for French League? I couldn't find that information anywhere on the FL site or Girondins, but then again my french is iffy now.

[Adam12]

Bordeaux is a boring shit hole. Carcassonne is really there just for the castle, but is an easy 1.5hr (at most) drive from Toulouse, and I recommend it highly. Toulouse is a great city, you're much better served spending extra time there than any in Bordeaux.

Nice is expensive, and as others have said, it's not beach time. It'll be cold.

Perpignan (another hour or so south from Carcassonne) is a cool town right where the Med and Pyranese meet. You can hop over into Spain easily from here, shouldn't take more than 45 minutes or so to cross the border, and Barcelona is another 1.5hrs from there.

Edit: More on Bordeaux. Sure, it's wine country, but that means it's ugly in the winter due to bare vineyards. It's France, you can get all qualities and quantities of wine wherever you go.

[Bloodget]

From your list I would choose Toulouse for the city and Perpignan to see southern of France. But I much prefer Montpelier (in summer...).

A lot to see in Lyon, you should think about it too.
One amazing place for listening to music in Lyon is an old roman amphitheater, but obviously not great in winter. I remember seeing Iggy Pop there long long time ago, it was awesome =)
Also it is very very bicycle friendly and a company rent them in the streets (they are placed everywhere).

As said Adam, don't bother going somewhere for wine, you will find them everywhere. Just don't buy those you know, it seems we export mostly the shitty ones for insane prices. In a restaurant in New Orleans they served me a Beaujolais, the bottom of the barrel of our wines best used to cook, bums and getting drunk, thinking it was great, for a price I preferred to forget.

It can be cold in winter in France, it can snow, so the country seems less lively. Better to go between March and September I think.

P.S : Contrary to what is often told, you will find people friendly and they will come speak to you if you go out at night and are not a fucktard, but of course they will be drunk so annoying They will try to get you drunk at any price too, using traitorous weapons like Chartreuse or Pastis.

P.S 2 : I don't know anything about soccer (I know, weird) but I don't think French league is a very good one.

[Adam12]

Yeah, people out in the country are great in France, really welcoming and friendly, even though most of them do not speak English well at all (depending on where you are, Toulousians seem to be pretty good with English). Parisians aren't even that bad imo, but of course I was almost always with locals so I don't think I got the average tourist experience there.

Oh yeah, if you do end up in the Midi-Pyrenees (Toulouse etc) region, don't shy away from the duck and foie gras. It's the specialty of the region, comes cheap (in comparison to anywhere else), and it's amazing. The duck cassoulet at a restaurant in Caracassonne is one of the best dishes I've ever had in my life, hands down.

[Gurgeh]

Originally Posted by Candiarie

Do you know how much tickets run for French League? I couldn't find that information anywhere on the FL site or Girondins, but then again my french is iffy now.

From 25€ to 150€ it seems, PSG / OM 1er class ticket are sold at 120€ at the moment and it's most "popular" game in the league. Lyon - Liverpool tickets seems to be sold around 100€, just looked quickly what I could find on google tho. So you can probably get "regular" L1 match for around 20-30€, and "high-end" will cost you at least 50€, maybe up to 150€ if you want a good seat.

[Candiarie]

Good looking out guys. The coldness isn't too big of an issue, since I grew up in Louisville and central Jersey. 10F days are about to start here. It's good to know to def bring more winter clothes though. Of course I'd prefer to go during the summer, but school schedules and prices during the summer rules that out.

I'll probably end up spending more time in Toulouse and Perpignan now, and keep Lyon/Bordeaux/Nice in mind if I get tired of those two cities.

Adam the french league not being awesome isn't bad, since the most I get to watch here is UofL soccer and EPL internet streams.

Thanks very much. What did you all enjoy most about Toulouse/Perpignan? My cousin studied at Perpignan for awhile and just said that she "really liked it" but no real specifics. Just making sure there's not shit to do there that I'll miss.

Gurgeh thanks much, that's awesome.

[Dr. Rubicite]

Toulouse is pretty awesome. I don't know how old you are, but there's a shit-ton of young people there, so it's pretty active/fun. In terms of tourist type activities: If you're into that sort of thing, there's a really cool space museum (I don't find those things particularly interesting and even I thought it was fun), obviously there's the cathedral and basilica, and there's another big museum of medieval art (Edit: my google-fu found it--it's called the Musee des Augustins) and the like.

Toulouse does have a Zenith, which are these really big venues for music shows, so I'm sure you can find something to see while you're there.

In terms of military history, I don't know what you could find there. All the really famous stuff is farther north or east.

Some thoughts in general--I've had a lot of Americans tell me that they loved France, but hated the French. For whatever it's worth, I got along great, so /shrug.

I've never been to Perpignan, so I can't speak on it. Are you going to be in southern France the entire time then? I lived in Lille for four years and there's really no reason to go anywhere in the south .

[Claedeus]

If you decide to go to Nice, you REALLY should spend some time around , Cannes or Frejus-Saint raphael are really beautiful cities with nice beach even if , like some people said already, you wont be able to swim.

Google image frejus-saint raphael and you will probably want to visit it. (35min by train from nice btw : 7 euro/10dol)