Reflections on France as a Host Nation

We got on the tram back in after about 45 minutes waiting, it probably helped that we had already bought 3 day tickets so no queueing at the ticket machines. 

We managed to get a burger place open but it closed about 10 minutes after we got into it and they had ran out of chips.

Went down to the square at 'tir nan nog' but the pub itself was closed due to a blocked jacks, the smaller place across the square was open but it was jammed so we walked down rue solferino to 'lirlandes' and it was hopping. We left it at 3 and there was no sign of them closing. We were in there for 3 of the 4 nights that we spent in lille and it was a cracking spot.

I liked lille and lyon, bordeaux was good but Paris, apart from the nights up at the harp, wasn't up to much.

Bordeaux- weather was awful first few days, welsh fans down there were great banter, nice city great kebabs pity about the result

Lille- bit of a kip, craic before and after game in main square and outside tir na nog was brilliant

Lyon- best city, weather unreal, thought stadium was so far located away from the city it was ridiculous we left it behind us which took a bit of gloss off the trip

But it's a city where you need to be very streetwise. The amount of scammers on the streets is incredible. Everybody seems to want to make a cheap buck from you and they will if you're not alert. 

But I can't understand anybody who wouldn't enjoy going there and if you do it shows a serious dullness of mind on your part, in my view. There's always something to do, there's always something new to see no matter how many times you go back there.

Stuck largely to local bars in my days there and enjoyed the atmosphere in them a lot. A particular highlight was accidentally getting talking to a French guy and his Irish girlfriend on the street, who let us drink in their house and brought us up to a local bar near the top of Montmartre.

That's not to say there aren't things to complain about. The customer service in particular is very poor, and that's common to pretty much all of France. 

In some ways I like the more relaxed and lazy pace of life but it can be very annoying at times. 

As with others, I found the lack of taxis and late night shops very frustrating. 

Lille was the worst in this regard although Bordeaux wasn't much better. It was very disappointing to come back into Lille city centre after the Italy match and find so little open. Getting back into town was a farce, couldn't get a beer unless you were willing to queue for 20 minutes minimum once in town, couldn't get a packet of cigarettes for love nor money, found it very hard to even get a takeaway kebab, and then the taxi queue was nightmarish, with pickpockets hanging around and "unofficial taxis" wanting to scam you (and I believe they did, from at least one other story I heard). That's a pity because Lille is a surprisingly good city by day. 

Bordeaux is a really good city, with a very vibrant centre, quite different to how I remembered it from being there one my one previous visit in 1991. I felt the public transport was quite ill-equipped to deal with the fans getting to and coming back from the stadium, however.

Had some terrific food there in the La Plana restaurant and also enjoyed the wine excursion to the lovely but pricey village of St. Emilion (kudos to culture vulture horsebox on both) - the cheese plate at a restaurant there was just divine.

I eat in this place five nights in a row in Bordeaux, absolute top notch grub and perfect soakage. 

 

Bordeaux the best spot for me (La Plague nightclub was lethal) followed by Lyon. Paris was great too, mainly because of the Swedes who I was expecting to be boring but turned out to be deadly craic

 

Bonus tip: If visiting a vineyard in France, make sure to interpret your destination as the stop rather than the train's destination, otherwise you could end up in a town in the middle of nowhere half way to Switzerland.

 

Also try not to get caught out in pissing rain if you do accidentally do it. 

Had the pleasure of sitting with McG in Bordeaux  
The end