Paris-Italy: 22 Dec (12 Dec 2011- 2 Jan 2012)

7.48pm and stuck in a jam which could have been 10 min from rottiserie dinner :( and with a pseudo racer.

Picked up a Citroen C1 from CDG airport yesterday before we headed straight to Saint Malo on a 5 hours drive. Traffic in Paris was a nightmare with rougue drivers every where and jam at peak hour 7pm. Traffic signs were confusing initially, which was why Alv drove on an opposite road during a left turn. That was pretty scary because the moment he joined back the other cars on the correct direction, a queue of oncoming cars zoomed past. =Z We had reached Saint Malo 5 struggling hours later at 12am to Alpha Ocean Hotel for the next two nights. Even though I couldn't see the beach then, I could smell the sea that was just to the left of the hotel- the English Channel. Woke up to breakfast on the balcony and to the smell of beach. It was nice.

For the first part of the 3rd phase of our trip (1st phase: Paris, 2nd: Chamonix, 3rd: western France, 4th: Italy), we drove up to a sea port town called Cancale for seafood lunch. There were stalls selling fresh oysters at cheap prices by the dozens and there was a pool of dead oyster shells covering the beach. :X People buy the oysters by the boxes. Lunch at 60€ consisted of a seafood platter, a bucket of wined mussels, white wine and desserts. The seafood platter made for one was huge. I had my 2nd and 3rd oysters in my life, my first taste of the swirly shells, which I don't know if they were the chut chuts, the la las or the gong gongs in our terms. I also had the most number of mussels in one sitting. They were really good, except the oysters which confused me with a love-hate a bit. After lunch, we headed for Mont Saint Michel. This was a walled medieval town on an island and was a severe tourist slaughter house , prices wise. Our toilet trip cost 0.40€ each. :Z Mont Saint Michel was beautiful though. Too bad we arrived late and couldn't get inside the cathedral.

The day ended with a drive to San Malo city centre for dinner. Stoned brick walls, stoned brick ground and pretty streets. By the time we finished pizza and pork ribs (fabulous ribs!), we were only looking forward to sleep.