I have just returned from an amazing trip to France. I went with my girlfriend Hannah, and my friends, Stephanie and Kelsey. We spent about 8 days there, four of which were spent climbing. We did the whole site seeing thing in Paris, like the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, the Seine, Notre Dame, the Catacombs, and even stopped by the cemetery where Jim Morrison was buried. Paris is a beautiful, clean city, that never really sleeps. Everyone is really dressy and always seem to be in a hurry, but they were some of the nicest people I ever met. Everyone is so friendly in France, everyone is either greeted with a handshake or kisses to the cheeks. France actually made me feel a little sorry for Americans, where everyone is so loud and ignorant. We were very happy that we got to be exposed to another country/culture. The people and the food were amazing, and the climbing was unbelievable!
After a few days sight seeing in Paris, we took a 30 min train ride to south of Paris to the little town of Fontainebleau/Avon.
We didn't have a clue of what we were doing. We got off the train and walked to the first little hotel we saw. It was a nice little place ran by an older couple. The rooms were cozy, but I am pretty sure that mine and Hannah's room was haunted. The place was only about 17 euros per person, and they served breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Hannah and I got du chocolate chaud about every morning and night before we went to bed. Fontainebleau itself, is a really laid back town built around the Royal Chateau de Fontainebleau. It's a beautiful palace that the kings used to stay at while they went hunting in the forest.
The bouldering in Fontainebleau is unreal, there is so much for 
everyone to do. We had to take taxis to the bouldering areas--which was quite an adventure in itself. The first and main area that we climbed at was the Bas Cuvier. There were so many boulders, we just ran around like crazy-foreign idiots. The girls had tons of options and I climbed just about every problem I could. Hannah flashed a v3...it was her goal to just complete one. I fired off Cortomaletse on my thrid go, and I finished a v7/8. I worked on the crazy jump/campus problem L'Aerodymaite v9. I was about two moves away from finishing it in about an hours time. I wasn't able to finish because of my wrist injury and time. I'm sure we will be back there within the next year to give it another go. We were planning on only staying in Font for a few days then heading 
over to Switzerland, but Font was so great we just stayed put. There was sooo much climbing there, we could have easily spent a month there and would have been plenty busy.
everyone to do. We had to take taxis to the bouldering areas--which was quite an adventure in itself. The first and main area that we climbed at was the Bas Cuvier. There were so many boulders, we just ran around like crazy-foreign idiots. The girls had tons of options and I climbed just about every problem I could. Hannah flashed a v3...it was her goal to just complete one. I fired off Cortomaletse on my thrid go, and I finished a v7/8. I worked on the crazy jump/campus problem L'Aerodymaite v9. I was about two moves away from finishing it in about an hours time. I wasn't able to finish because of my wrist injury and time. I'm sure we will be back there within the next year to give it another go. We were planning on only staying in Font for a few days then heading 
over to Switzerland, but Font was so great we just stayed put. There was sooo much climbing there, we could have easily spent a month there and would have been plenty busy. Our time was short and it was soon time to leave. We headed back to Paris for one last night of chilling and site seeing. We hiked up to the second platform of the Eiffel at night. We spoiled ourselves and splurged on a nice dinner. Hannah and Steph got their first taste of escargots.
1 comment:
Great vid of Hannah and the elusive escargot............little suckers never had a chance!
D.
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