For this year summer vacations I had planned to visit friends in Europe including friends in France and in Serbia. I wasn't planning to do CouchSurfing at all since they were friends of mine. However, since one of my friends in Serbia couldn't be able to take vacations as planned I decided instead to stay in France my entire vacation and CouchSurf my way through several cities. I have always heard nice things about the French riviera, and since it was summer time then the obvious option was to head in that direction starting from Paris.
The idea to CouchSurf was simply because I have been hosting CouchSurfers in Portland for several months now, and I have found the experience to be both good and inspiring. I have only hosted so far so I kind of wanted to try being a guest this time around.
In this blog I recount my story as a CouchSurfer during my 14 days stay in France. I had the opportunity to meet and spend time with 8 amazing hosts. Rest assure my experience would have been quite different had I simply stayed at hostels or hotels, as I have done so far on many of my previous trips. So, here it goes, hopefully this can serve as an inspirations to many readers...
AUG 8 - AUG 10
City: Paris
Hosts: Yana & Matthieu
DAY1
I arrived around 6:00AM at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport (CDG) from Portland with a connection in Chicago. There was not custom forms to fill out, and I thought that was a bit strange. Going through customs was super fast, a one minute affair. After getting my passport stamped I made my way to the train station inside the airport. The ticket vending machine took only coins and my credit card didn't work. The night before, I had packed all the Euro coins I could find and I am glad I had more than $10 Euros as that was how much the ticket costed. From CDG into central Paris I took the RER train line B all the way to Gare de Lyon. From there I then I got off and hopped on the metro line #1 and made my way to the end of the line to La Défense. There, I exited through gate G and followed through the end of the tunnel as Yana has explained to me through messages a couple of days earlier. Yana is a friend of mine that I have met a year before in the Bay Area and was going to be my host in Paris. Earlier on the train I have texted Yana several times but there was no response. When I got out of the train station at La Défense I decided to simply call but again there was no response. One minute or two later I received a message from Yana saying that she indeed was getting my messages but she was still in bed because she has been away on a business trip to Rome in Italy and have just come back to France the night before. Fast forward 15 minutes more and Yana and Matthieu were there picking me up.
Driving back to the apartment Yana explained where the bus station was and that turned out to be really handy as I needed to take the bus from the station to Yana and Mathew's place when going to the city center and back. When we arrived at the apartment, we had breakfast at their little terrace. Everything in Europe is super compact yet functional as space is always maximized. After breakfast I decided to visit central Paris instead of taking a nap, I did take a shower though but I refused to take a nap as I thought that would be a bad idea (jetlag wise). I took the bus back to the train station with a ticket Matthieu gave me, and after taking the metro made my way to the Champs Elysees-Clemenceau area. Not far from the metro station I came across the Musee the Beaux Arts de la Ville de Paris, le Grand Palais and le Palais de la Decouverte. I crossed the bridge Pont Alendre III and onto the Avenue du Marechal Galliani, the green lawn was inviting and I kept walking towards le Palais des Invalide.
I then continued on to the Eiffel tower which I could spot in the distance. It's summer time in Paris so the crowds and the street vendors were in full display. Everybody has either seen the Eiffel tower on movies or in photos but being really close to it it's pretty incredible as the structure is simply massive. It was definitely larger than I had expected.
DAY2
The next day was Sunday and Yana had mentioned about sleeping in. We all slept in until about noon. We then went to the local market to get some food, mostly fruits and vegetables since most of the vendors were closed (August in France is when everybody take their vacations and that means everyone). Back at the apartment we had brunch, and sometime after I was in central Paris exploring once again. This time I started off at the Place de la Concorde and from there I walked to le Musee de Louvre. This part of town is really pretty, specially the views of the bridges over the Seine river.
My next step was the Cathedral Notre Dame de Paris. The line to get inside was extremely long (even though it seemed to move quite fast. I took several photos of the Cathedral and then made my way back to the apartment. At around 8:30pm or so we had dinner at the terrace accompanied with wine and good conversations.
DAY3
Day #3 in Paris was Monday and so both Matthieu and Yana had to leave early for work. I woke up around 10ish, ate something quick, cleaned the dishes from the night before, and started my day at the Basilique du Sucre Coeur. It's super impressive inside and outside, and because it seats atop a hill one gets a commanding view of Paris. Not far from this place, towards the back of the basilica there are many artists or so they appear to be. I saw many people getting their drawing of their faces done right on the spot.
After visiting the Basilique I made my way to the Luxemburg gardens, a city park with a very impressive garden. It's a very charming part of town, the building itself is part of the French government (the Senate sit here). It was a sunny afternoon and there were a lot of Parisians just having a lazy day sitting on the grass or in benches. It occurred to me why I hadn't brought one of my books along with me. After taking a very slow stroll through the park I went back to the Notre Dame Cathedral once more, to try take a look inside. I must say the inside wasn't as spectacular as I thought it'd be. I guess what makes this place really famous is its history. After visiting the cathedral I started walking back to the metro station but first I stopped at the Hotel de Ville de Paris (or city hall), where the local government has setup temporary sand volleyball courts during the summer. I thought that was a pretty neat idea. After resting my feet for a little while, I then had an idea of visiting the Eiffel tower one last time. Since it was starting to get dark I knew I was going to get some nice shots If I play with the angles and light.
AUG 11 - AUG 13
City: Lyon
Hosts: Zoe, Pierre and Christine
DAY 4
After a short walk and a train up the hill I reached la Fourviere. Both the exterior and the interior of the Basilique are amazing, one of the best ones that I have seen so far in Europe. Towards the side and back of this place you have a nice view of Lyon from above. After some photos then I walked back to the old town near the Hotel de Ville or city hall as I was going to meet up with Pierre, another CouchSurfer that offered to showed me Lyon. Pierre was punctual and at about 5:15pm he showed up. Pierre has an excellent command of the English language and has a very welcoming personality. He has traveled abroad as well and have just started hosting CouchSurfers. I believe I was his first CouchSurfers that he has hosted in Lyon. After a quick introduction, Pierre then took me on a guided tour of the city. It was just great, we went to several places in the old city and Pierre explained to me the history and importance of some of these places. This is exactly one of the many benefits of doing CouchSurfing. At around 8:30pm or so we had dinner at a nice restaurant. It was very French, three courses including salad, main course and cheese, and then a dessert. I ordered their amber beer which turned out to be really excellent, and Pierre ordered wine. After dinner, I returned back to Zoe's. It was probably 11:30pm or so when I finally reached the house, and shortly after Zoe also showed up with one of her coworkers. We had some tea and spend some time getting to know each other, we spoke mostly about the pros and cons of CouchSurfing.
DAY 5
I woke up sometime around 10:00AM and Zoe shortly there after, we had more conversations, mostly about Zoe's incoming trip to the states of Florida and Louisiana. Sometime after I was in central Lyon, starting off with la Maison des Canuts, a museum dedicated to the city's past silk industry. The district is located at La Croix-Rousse, in one of the hills in Lyon, the other being where la Fourviere is located. The silk district is still dotted with houses from the silk workers where the roofs had to be built tall enough to accommodate the silk machinery.
After the museum I walked my way down through the district through a series of stairs. My next stop, le Musee de Beaux Arts in downtown Lyon. The museum was simply fantastic, the sculpture collection was breathtaking. I enjoyed it very much.
After the visit to the museum it was time for a lunch break. It escapes me exactly where or what I had for lunch... After the break I wanted to visit some Romain ruins up the hill near la Fourviere but somehow I couldn't find them. Instead, I did more exploration of Lyon by foot and waited for my next and last event of the day, a tour of Lyon by boat in the Rhône river. By the way, the tour was included as part of the Lyon city card. The following photos were taken from the boat.
DAY 6
The next morning Zoe had an early meeting at school. I woke up early as well. I told Zoe I was leaving later this morning and that took her by surprise, as she thought I was leaving the next day. Honestly, it would have been much easier to stay at Zoe's another night since I had already taken a good hang of the surroundings, specially getting downtown by public transportation. However, I thought I wouldn't have been nice to my next host down in Charly to simply cancel last minute. After taking Zoe's picture and saying our goodbyes I was on my way to Charly.
The metro line C from Zoe's place ended at the city center. I switched over to line A and from there connected once again to line B. I then took line B all the way to Gare d'Oullins. The night before I had sent a message to Christine about my estimated time of arrival at her place in Charly, but because it was a bit late when I had sent it (close to 9:30PM) I figured she wouldn't have time to reply to my message until the next morning. Right before leaving Zoe's I had checked my messages once last time but there was no response. I thought if it worse comes to worst (getting lost or delay) then I could simply call her cellphone. After reaching the end of the line in Oullins I found the bus stop rather easily, I then paid the bus driver for my ticket, and after about 35 minutes or so I had reached my designated bus stop close to 11AM. To my surprise Christine, her 2 grandchildren and her 2 adorable dogs were waiting for me at the bus station! I still remember thinking that was awfully nice of her to have done that for a complete stranger. Christine's personality is very chill and relaxed and makes you feel totally welcomed in her house. At the house I got to meet Emmanuella, Christine's daughter in law, who was visiting from Italy and was also staying at Christine's house. After some introductions and more conversations we had a delicious lunch. Now thinking back I wish I had taken a photo as it was a rather well presented lunch in the terrace.
After lunch Christine and Sabrina (Christine's daughter) invited me to visit a museum, the options were the Gallo Romans museum (which I had wanted to visit) and the musee de la Confluence. Sabrina opted for the latter option and so that was it for me to visit the Gallo-Romans Museum. My Lyon City card was still valid so there was no need for me to pay an entrance fee. This museum is simply massive and also very new, its name derives from the fact that it sits right exactly where the Rhone River and the Saone River meet. We started by visiting the natural history gallery and the exhibition was quite good, although the lighting inside the museum was quite poor.
After the museum Christine and Sabrina invited me to sample some crepes de chocolat, however, once at the shop they were out of the crepes! We ended up getting waffles with nutella, which was still a decent option. After this, we drove back to Charly to get some goat cheese, the place was as authentic as it can get as the shop was a family owned business and the goats were right and there!
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/04/16/youre-welcome
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