We were dropped off at the round about of Arch De Triumph. As we were saying goodbye to Marc, he gave us a rock melon that he thought we should try because it was very sweet. Marc's so nice. What a sweetheart. After admiring the Arch De Triumph, we sat down to enjoy our melon and a man came over giving us a ring that he found which may belong to us but insisted we take it anyway. Being confused and surprised to have a 'golden' ring with us, he came back a few seconds later to ask for money for the ring he gave us. We gave him money that he wasn't happy with and took the ring back.. WEIRD! Super weird! Anyway, turns out this ring scam is common in Paris, along with other stuff. That day we couldn't imagine sleeping in the park with lots of scammers and pickpockets around the city, we'd feel really restless and worried in case someone steals our things. So we tried to get some internet and checked our accommodation situation straight away.
Luckily we had a response from Vincent who was happy to have us on a short notice. We walked 6 km across town with our bacpacks to his place. It was a hot day, 30degrees celsius, so we were sweating alot. Not complaining about the heat though. Altogether, we stayed about 4 nights in Paris and had a great time with Vince. We met at night most of the time and learnt how to drink spirit the French way. Paris was interesting and tiring at the same time. So much walks and places to visit, we tried to visit as much places as we could.
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| From left to right: Apples from Pierre's garden; Our last morning at Pierre's house (photo 2 & 3); Eating melon in Paris before we almost got scammed; Arch de Triumph; Vincent and us; Notre Dam Cathedral, Paris; Pompidou building, Paris, walking towards Vincent's place; Photo with Egyptian princess in le Louvre; Pantheon building, Paris; French kiss under Eiffel tower; Emmanuel and his twin |
The morning we left Paris, it was pouring down rain. We took the train to get out of the city into the suburbs and hitched from the train station. The morning was a bit frustrating with the rain and also because I was having my annoying migraine. But once we got to the petrol station on the highway, we didn't even have to stick our thumbs out. We had Mohammad offering when he assumed we needed one to the edge of Reims and in Reims, we also had Gabriel a.k.a Angel Gabriela offering us a ride to our destination, which was Strasborg. It was a pretty long drive to Strasburg, but luckily Gabriel spoke fluent English so we talked about many interesting things along the way. Not just an interesting ride, we were also catered almond cakes and apparently the car that Gabriel was driving is used for a film set to drive the stars around. So we were basically in a town car. We got to Strasborg at 9pm and we hooked up with my friend Gilles who we stayed with for a couple of nights.
The next day, we walked around town, enjoyed the atmosphere and admired the Notre dame. In the morning, we went with Gilles as he was heading south to another town for work.
We got off just on the north side of Strasburg. It started to rain when we were hitching that morning and my shoes weren't waterproof, so I got out a couple of plastic bags and wrapped them over my shoes. 'Bricolage', as the French would say. A few minutes later, we got a ride from a woman and her son who were heading to town. There was a bit of a miscommunication that went and we ended up being dropped off in the middle of town. We then ended up walking across the border to Kehl, Germany assuming for Frankfurt. We tried to hitch from there for hours while it was raining and ended up taking a bus to Sand. In the rain, we tried to look for a good spot to hitch but couldn't find any place safe that was heading to Frankfurt, so we ended up hitching back to Strasburg. From Strasburg we got a ride with Veronica close to sunset and ended up being invited to her place for the night. Veronica lives in Obernei, it's such a cute little touristy village. We had a few glasses of wine and had a little tour around town.
After a very goodnight sleep, we got up and were given a surprise of the best croissant we've had in France. It was sooooo GOOD! Veronica then dropped us off on the ramp heading south. We had a few short rides and due to another miscommunication, we ended up in the middle of a town called Me......... where Emmanuel bought me a water proof hiking shoes. We then walked a few KMs to find a good place to hitch and after a few rides, we ended up on the road exiting Besanco in the dark. We were going to camp there for the night but had not yet eaten dinner. So we thought, lets try hitching a ride in the dark, since there was nothing else to do anyway.
We stuck our thumb for only 2 minutes when a car stopped for us. A girl was happy to take us to a station on the highway, but after talking for a bit, she invited us to stay at her place. There, we met her mom, sister, friend and boyfriend. We had a great time. It was such a nice experience enjoying the night with such an open and cheerful family.
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| From left to right: Petit France, Strasburg; Notre Dam Cathedral, Strasburg; Cute Mideivel building; Silly photo of me; us and Gilles and housemate; Rainy hitch in Sttrasburg; Wet shoe with bricolage waterproofing doggy bag; Walked through border of France and Germany; Night in Obernia; Our lovely Veronica and us in the morning after a goodnight sleep at her 17th century flat |
In the morning, we were dropped off at the tollgate of the highway where we waited for about 2 hours then moved to a service station on the highway. We had a few nice rides, then ended up getting another crazy ride. We stopped in the middle of the way because we didn't feel comfortable. We continued on hitching in Bonjou Jileu til 10pm, then gave up and found a place to camp near town.
In the morning we continued on hitching trying to get to the highway towards Italy. We got a ride after breakfast, and a few more rides until we got to the Chambeuy, which is just in alps area. This was the first time we saw mountains in Europe. The glacier on it was incredible. The view was spectacular! After lunch, we read a bit about Italy and on wiki travel it was said that Italians are the least people to pick up hitch hikers. Hmmm, after our experience in France. We just had to find out ourselves. So we hitched to the tunnel and to the tunnel and through it, we got rides from the Mont Blanc tunnel workers.
When we got to the other side, we were definitely in Italy. The sound of people speaking was different already, buildings were slightly different. We then walked to the service station to get a map and hitched from there. We stuck our thumbs out for 30 seconds and someone stopped for us already. Pietro, our first Italian ride and wiki travel, proven wrong already. Pietro invited us to stay at his place which was really nice. It was the night of my birthday and I was having the best birthday because I was dreaming about Italian food and drinks and a night out for my birthday and it all came true. Another magical experience of hitch hiking.
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| Route France to Germany to France to Italy |
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