Wow, does this feel like it happened a million years ago. Writing this is an absolute b****, damn French keyboards. So forgive me if there is the odd q instead of a or , instead of m.

From Barcelona we had about one week before Saul was off to Europe and we were deciding what to do. The first plan was Italy, but we eventually settled on the south of France as it was closer. However, it didn't prove as easy to get there as it should have. We had a Couchsurfing host by the name of Sophie lined up and we told her we would be in Nimes (pronounced Neem) by about 8pm.

So we go to the train station, about an hour earlier than we believed the train was leaving; go up to the info desk just to make sure of everything only to be told "NO TRAINS TO FRANCE!". Apparently there was a train strike in progress in France and so no trains were going there. So then we went to a car hire place and were told that for just one day it would cost near on a grand for one day because we were dropping the car in another country. So we were left with the bus.

In the end it was more like 11pm by the time we made it to Nimes. But Sophie was still totally awesome and picked us up from the station. Sophie had to work during the day so we were up at about 7am each day which was actually a nice change of pace. We actually now had all day to do stuff. And Nimes was pretty damn cool, with a Coliseum and roman temple.

We actually spent our first day in Montpellier, but there's not a huge mount to write about that. On our second night we even got another surfer stay with us. He had a plan to go to Avignon the next day, so we did that, but not without first taking a detour to an old roman aqueduct.

The aqueduct was crazy cool. About 2000 years old and still standing, and it is huge. One of the best things I've seen on this trip. The engineering of it is amazing, they didn't even use mortar. We only had a short time here though as we needed to get the bus on to Avignon.

The history of Avignon is pretty cool. I knew nothing of it, but our new friend Jakub knew a fair bit. Turns out that for about 70 years during the 14th century this is where the pope hung out. Something to do with Rome getting its arse kicked by the Byzantines. So there was a pretty cool castle there, and the town was nice with some nice views over the river.

After this we went back to Nimes, but now all 3 of us had another host. A guy who had hosted hundreds of people before and actually has this tiny little flat that he doesn't actually live at, but just lets surfers crash at. That night he took us out to this little bar where a live band was playing, and oddly enough this band leads on to our next adventure, but that's for the next entry.