The fortified city was almost demolished in the 19th century but after much protest by the locals, it was restored and now it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

We happened to visit Carcassonne at the same time as the Carcassonne Game Festival – a Carcassonne board game themed festival. I had played the board game before, but I had no idea that it was connected to the actual medival city itself. People got to play the board game Carcassone inside the walled city of Carcassonne. How cool! There were other events like axe-throwing, archery, and bowling (using the little meeples as the pins)! If I was a kid, I would have definitely enjoyed it a lot.

There are paths to walk along the defensive walls of the city. Luckily by today the weather had cooled down compared to the previous days and it was actually comfortable walking outside.

As usual, the castle is built on top of a hill – it’s the best defensible position. But because of that, visitors have access to views down into the town.

The castle itself isn’t just a fortification, there’s also a city inside of it too. Mostly it’s souvenir stores and restaurants. From a local store owner, I learned that the animals in French don’t sound the same as in English – it makes a “quah quah” noise – the guy made what I thought to be a super strange noise at first as I walked by his store presumably to attract customers, and after giving him a super confused look, he explained what it was.

The storeowner was actually selling earthenware for cooking cassoulet, a local dish. The dish is said to have originated in the town of Castelnaudary, and is particularly popular in the neighbouring towns of Toulouse and Carcassonne. We got to try it at a place called Méli et Zéli. It’s a slow cooked stew with beans, sausages, and goose/duck confit. It’s super rich and heavy. The duck flavour is very apparent. I want to learn how to make this.

Next, we headed to the Châteaux de Lastours. They are the ruins of four castles sitting on top of a hill. We reached the base of the mountain, but we weren’t prepared to hike the whole thing, so instead we looked for a car road up to some sort of view point.

The road I could see go to the top was a single lane road and it wasn’t apparent whether or not it was a one-way, but after seeing another car go up, I decided to follow. I just hoped that there weren’t any cars coming the other way because it was either drive off a cliff or into the trees.

We found a wider part of the road and pulled over to get a good look. If we had more time, we would have hiked up there – it looked fun. I ended up going back town the same way, again hoping I didn’t encounter another car. Eventually I did, but luckily the speeds were slow, the road was bit wider at that point, and I was able to swerve enough just in time.

Check here to see more photos of Carcassonne

We went back the next morning and got to see how tight it really was in the day. Each day’s driving was more challenging than the last. I felt like the trip so far stretched my driving abilities so much, and while it was a bit hectic, it only made our travel experience richer. The night life was actually quite lively but sadly we didn’t really get to experience much of it since we got in so late, and had to deal with the whole car thing.

Luckily, our AirBnB host was nice enough to let us check out at noon (he seemed like a college student who stayed up late anyway), and we took him up on it since we were so tired from the night before. In the day, we got to walk on top of the old Roman city walls to take in the view of the city and the Mediterranean Sea.

Originally, the plan was to hike La Garoupe, but it was too much to be in the sun and humidity the whole time. Besides, we had already woken up too late for that. Occasionally, we’d walk under an archway in the shade that channeled a constant cool breeze to cool us down – it was rough walking back in the sun though. Instead we just spent our short stay walking around the town.

Antibes is an immensely popular place for people with yachts. It makes a lot of sense – the water is super blue, it’s sunny all the time, and it feels super tropical without being too remote. I even saw a yacht with a helicopter on it – same as the ones I saw on the plane as we arrived in Europe. There’s millionaire yachts, and then billionaire yachts.

After visiting Antibes, we headed over to Cannes for a brief stop. Thus far in our trip, we hadn’t really noticed any sketchy spots until we arrived in Cannes. As we walked from where we parked (near the train station) to the main part of the city, we encountered a few shady characters standing on the side of the street seemingly with nothing to do but to people watch. We walked past them quickly and moved on. Still it was nothing like the sketchiness of the Paris metro. We walked through the main street and eventually reached the Les Murs Peints (“The Painted Walls”)

Not only is the mural showing a film being made, there are a bunch of easter eggs from classic films to look for. For example, there’s C3PO standing with R2D2, the “I’m flying scene” from Titanic, Batman/Joker, and Mickey standing with Minnie Mouse. Afterward, we walked up a hill to a viewpoint of the city.

On our way down, we noticed a quiet little courtyard, and when we went in, a person greeted us telling us that it was the Association of Beaux-Arts of Cannes, a local art school. They were very welcoming and let us wander about admiring their garden in the courtyard. Once we went back down, we stopped for a light pre-dinner snack at Astoux et Brun. We were completely enticed by the smell the aromas of the seafood as we walked past. The appetizer was quiet peculiar to me, but I’m sure was quite normal to the locals.

It’s basically an escargot, but much much smaller – I don’t even know what it’s called. A small toothpick is provided for picking the meat out of the shells. It had the texture of clam but of course much tinier. The rest was quite familiar fare – raw oysters and baked mussels Provençal style. People here love eating outside – it was hard pressed to find any restaurant that didn’t have primarily outdoor seating. The tough part is that when the wasps come, they never leave. We kept having to wave them away and after we finished eating, they started bugging the table beside us to the point that they lost their appetites – there’s no shortage of food for these wasps.

Check here to see more photos of Antibes and Cannes

Initially when I turned on the car, I couldn’t even figure out how to drive it. The car turned on, but I didn’t hear any engine noises, not even the noise of the engine starting. I was so confused and we had to ask one of the attendants, who told me that the car was actually a hybrid, and if the electric engine was being used, there’d be no engine noises. I’d never driven a hybrid car before, and certainly didn’t know a Renault Clio had a hybrid version, but now I know.

Since it was our first day and we needed to adjust for the jetlag, we took the day easy by walking along the beach, and the windy cobblestone streets of the old town.

We met our AirBnB host who showed us into the underground parking garage of the building. I mean underground parking garage very loosely. The spot itself had maybe about 30 cm of clearance on either side, and barely any space to setup. I knew driving in Europe would be more challenging than in North America, but this isn’t what I expected. I was more so expecting narrow streets and parallel parking, but not this. I’d say this was the toughest parking spot I’ve had to navigate in recent memory. Luckily I had help from the backup cam and people standing outside to guide me.

Our AirBnB host was super nice, asked us where we’re from and told about how she used to live in Montreal, but moved back to France because it was too cold there. As a greeting gift she gave us a bar of artisanal soap from Fragonard, a local perfumerie. After dropping off our bags, we took a brief nap to get over the jetlag, and then walked around town. For lunch at Le Bistrot de Jennifer, we had a giant bucket of grilled/smoked oysters, an octopus salad, and a truffle pizza with a panaché to drink. We walked along the beachfront and then up to the top of Château de Nice.

Walking through the old town of Nice, there are colours everywhere. There’s blue from the water, the green from the trees, and the buildings have all sorts of assorted colours. Even the street signs have colour – the signs aren’t always even in French – sometimes they’re in the local dialect called Niçard.

It’s a pretty big city and very very hot even when visiting in September. The sun is relentless, yet people sunbathe on the beach. People here refer to it as “bronzette” in French. Surprisingly, the beach itself is rocky instead of sandy – not what I expected.

The annoying part in Nice, like many cities in Europe, is how much people like smoking in public. We have this imagery in our minds of visiting the Mediterranean and feeling a nice breeze of fresh sea air, but this isn’t what happens. The heat is filled with cigarette smoke, car exhaust, and the occasional whiff of urine and it can be quite suffocating. At times, we just want to dunk heads in the water for some relief. However, the people have been very nice to us (they don’t have the stereotypical snobbiness of Parisians) and there is lots of things to see.

Along the beachfront, there are blue metal chairs (so called les chaises bleues) for people to sit in and soak in the sun. They’d be nice to sit on if there was a breeze to cool us down.

The blue chairs are so iconic, to the point that they’ve become part of its identity – to the point that there’s a monument dedicated to it.

That’s about it for the first day.

More photos of Nice here

Even from the trailhead one can see Taipei 101 in all its glory. I never did make it up to the observation deck of Taipei 101 though – I’m not one to particularly enjoy those kind of sights. The thing that did pique my interest about the Taipei 101 though is its counterbalance – its system of minimizing vibrations (e.g. from wind), only because I learned about them in university.

After the hike, my appetite was so good I ate two full meals one after another. A friend told me to try this turkey rice from a stall at the Taipei 101 (apparently it’s a thing), but to be honest, I didn’t enjoy it all that much. As I walked through the food court though, I saw a Liao Fan Hawker Chan – they’re famous in Singapore for soy sauce chicken. Despite having already eaten the turkey rice, I was determined to eat this too! I missed it a lot since I went to Singapore two years back.

The food coma hit me pretty hard though after those two meals, and that was a sign for me to go back to my AirBnB and rest up for the next day.

See more of my trip to Taiwan here!

First order of business after arriving: food. The last two times I was there as a poor student, we never splurged on food, but now as working professionals, I can! Frog legs? Okay.

With the Eurocup games being hosted in France and the terrorist attacks that happened in Paris, there were soldiers on the street in just about every place with crowds. If any terrorist attacks were to happen in Paris, it wouldn’t be during the Eurocup games.

Later that night, we met up with one of our friend’s coworkers for dinner. Time for more food. Escargot? Okay.

Beef tartare? Okay. We all had one for ourselves, and if anything bad were to happen, there was only one washroom in our AirBnB. Would have been game over.

The next day, we went to Versailles. Instead of taking pictures of things, I played Pokemon Go instead. It had just launched in USA, and since I had an account from that launch, I got to play. Everywhere I went, there was Pokemon. Never mind that it was a blazing hot day without much shade in the palace gardens. Gotta catch’em all. It was Pokemon Go everywhere I went – there’s even an arena at the Arc de Triomphe.

Make Napoleon great again!

After all the walking around, it was time for more food. Foie gras this time.

The next day was a trip to the catacombs and saw the skeletal remains of a lot of dead people.

And also visited a famous dead guy: Napoleon.

After that, it was time to go to the fan zone at the Eiffel Tower to watch France VS Portugal. All these people are trying to get in through the many entrances. The police guarding the gate were letting women and children go in without lining out while everyone else had to. Chivalry is alive and well in France.

After a long while of waiting we got in. There were so many people walking on the gravel road that it kicked up so much dust everywhere and it was hard to breathe and I was coughing every few minutes. It wasn’t comfortable at all. There were long lineups everywhere and nowhere to sit. But the atmosphere was really good. Lots of cheering and anticipation for a France win.

A friend of ours, who was coming from another location came too late and couldn’t get into the fan zone to meet up with us. After a grueling ordeal of deciding whether or not to stay or go, we left and watched the game from a small restaurant near our AirBnB.

After Portugal won, people still cheered in the streets and set up firecrackers and stuff. I couldn’t have imagined what it would have been like if France won. All the France fans would have lost their shits and the streets would have been even more rowdy.

The next day, it was time to fly back home, thus ending my 3rd European adventure.

Link to photo album: here