Le Not-So-Grand Tour

So, I figured that to be official and everything, I would need more than one post on my blog. So here we go.

Once I get to England, I'll have a couple weeks before check-in starts on Sept. 24 at Darwin, my Cambridge college. So, in the interim, the plan is for me and my boyfriend Nick to take his car and do a part-climbing, part-tourism trip to continental Europe. The ratio of climbing to tourism is TBD. Initially, we had discussed a fairly ambitious plan involving climbing at Fontainebleau, Orpierre, Chateaudouble (a small area somewhere outside of Orpierre), and Siurana, as well as touristing at Cannes, Nice, Monaco, Barcelona, Andorra, and Paris. Additionally, Chamonix, Frankenjura, and Versailles had been discussed as well. However, due to a number of factors (Nick's work sending him, ironically, to America in late September; there being two Siuranas near Barcelona in Spain; etc.), we had to cut back significantly. So, instead, our current plan is very France-centric.

On the morning of the 11th, we'll be leaving Nick's parents' house in Baldock, England, at 4:30am (11:30pm EST, which I may still be on) for Dover. From there, it's the ferry to Calais, and a drive to Fontainebleau, which is about an hour south of Paris. We'll probably be bouldering there by mid-to-late afternoon. From there, there will be a few days of bouldering there and camping at that campground where the showers are free...but you have to push a button every five seconds to keep water coming out. Then, we're driving diagonally through the country (in a car with the steering wheel on the right) down to Orpierre, a mid-grade sport climbing area near Gap. Now, if suddenly we turned into very strong, bold climbers, we could always go to Ceuse instead -- but with me and Nick, it's probably best for us to just stay at Orpierre. Again, we'll be camping. After this, we may go to Chateaudouble, but only if we can find a guidebook and hear promising beta about it. Reviews are mixed, but since it's partway between Orpierre and the coast, it may be worth checking out.

Now, tourism-mode will probably start in earnest. I'm hoping to drive through Cannes and Nice on the way to Monaco, which should be pretty cool to see. Additionally, there's some bridges somewhere in this part of France that Nick wants to see (unsurprisingly), and he also claims that there are lakes somewhere along our drive that are filled with flamingos, of all things -- which, if true, I want to see. At this point, we may stay at a cheap chain hotel outside of Nice.

Then, from here, we start to drive back up to the Northwest, visiting Versailles, Paris, both, or neither (depending on how much time we have left) on our way back to Calais. Back at Calais, if past performance is any indication of future results, I'll have quite a struggle at immigration before I get back on the ferry to Dover. I believe we're returning on the 23rd. Then, it's back to Baldock and up to Cambridge!

Now, this is a pretty rough outline of our trip, and it's all subject to change. I'll keep track of what we actually do on Nick's little palmtop-with-foldup-keyboard and try to post what I did on the trip sometime during the week after I get back (late September), since there's not really going to be any internet access during the trip.

For the next week, though, it's just doing laundry, packing, and organizing...