I have promised someone from the #WorldMapPin team that I will put one red pin on the map of France as I didn't have any, so here we are! I did visit many places in France, and I think that I created a few posts too, but somehow, I forgot to pin them on the map! I will have to search my photo database for more places to add them, but today, it's time to visit Narbonne, France!
The main problem with writing travel posts after a year or more is that you forget those tiny details that make a good travel blog stand out... 😃 last few years, we have been "practicing" traveling by car on our "summer route" to visit our families... As the trip is around 2500km long, we like to split the journey into 3 days, to 3 similar parts... Because we are doing the same route, our 2 "night breaks" are taking place in similar areas... One in France, around Marseille, Montpellier, and in Italy we are a bit more "adventurous", as we were experimenting in the area around Treviso, Padua, and Vicenza, but we visited some other places out of that area...
To make things more interesting, we try to change cities where we take breaks, trying to see as many places as possible... The only problem is that when we arrive at a "checkpoint", it is usually already late in the afternoon, and we are tired from 7-8 hours of driving... On the other side, after that long drive, the best thing is to go out for fresh air, stretch your legs, and relax your mind...
This was our first time in Narbonne as it is a bit "out of our route", so it wasn't on our eyesight before... We were on our way back to Spain, it was the end of July last year (2023), and we were pretty tired of driving on that day, as we passed almost the whole of Italy and France in 1 day! We went to a hotel, dropped our bags, and hit the road to the city center... Luckily, as it was summer, it was still daylight at 7:30 PM when we took our first photos...
Usually, I like to write about the buildings and places around the city, but as I mentioned, this trip was more than a year ago, and I was completely unprepared for Narbonne... It was just a stroll around the city, with the mission to find something to eat...
And there lies the biggest problem... If you've been to France, you know that they are very "picky" with food... I mean, there are some famous French chefs, and the food SHOULD be great, but that's not always the case... But, that wasn't the primary problem... The biggest problem is "EATING TIME"! You can't eat in France when you WANT to eat, or when you are hungry... You HAVE TO eat when the "kitchen is open" and when they serve food!
As I have mentioned our arrival time (7:30 PM), I suppose you are getting the problem that we had... 😃 The lunch time is well passed, dinner isn't very important in France, and most restaurants were already closed!
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Strolling around the narrow streets, trying to find an open restaurant...
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What I have to say about Narbonne is that the city "screams" a lot of history! When you think that you are lost in those narrow streets, you bump into a huge Cathedral, out of nowhere!
As it was late in the evening, we couldn't enter any of these magnificent buildings as they were already closed... And these underground tunnels are probably awesome!
And there it was! We spotted it! In the middle of a small square, there was the first restaurant that was open, and serving food! The truth is that it was an Italian restaurant, and we were just coming from Italy, so we decided to take a walk and try to find another one...
As the city had many Romans remaining, I suppose that this sculpture was an image of Romulus and Remus...
The search for food continues... Nope... These were just bars, not food there...
Most streets in Europe are safe, but I wouldn't like to go into this alley in the middle of the night... 😃
There was no luck for us, and in the end, we went back to that Italian restaurant from a few photos above and had a terrible experience... My plate (that you can see under this text) was fairly good, but my wife and son had very bad dishes... I mean, the dish was great on paper, but it was undercooked in one case, and in another case, probably warmed up in the microwave from who knows how many days ago... On the way back to the hotel, we bought bread somewhere and had the "second" dinner...
So, how did I like Narbonne? The strange thing was that the city has over 50K inhabitants, but at that moment, when we were there, it looked like a ghost town... 😕 We were probably there in the "worst hour" for eating and socializing, but on the other side, we had many space to take photos! Speaking of that, I had to heavily reduce the number of images as I had over 100... All taken in less than 2 hours that we spent in our walk around Narbonne...
Did you visit Narbonne? As I mentioned France and Italy, and if you have been there, which cuisine do you prefer more? French or Italian?
Thank you for your time,
--ph--
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