Ten years on from Z2A, now Z2A1, here we are, still pumping out semi legible travel content just because someone once said we couldn’t do it, and still mostly toilet references because someone said we shouldn’t.

There’s no way we can hope, or would dare try to relive the original, life defining experience of 2015, this time the aim is to enjoy the journey, so much familiar, so much new, but always together…and after so many travels together we now know if something doesn’t go to plan, that we were both right…and move on.

Our exit from Aus was inauspicious to say the least. James knocked off early to meet a colleague for a beer only to later realise one of us (not me) got their wires crossed and went to the wrong bar, meaning James got the chance to drink alone for the last time for a while…well…until right now writing this. And then we handed spare keys to a trusted neighbour, of dexterity true (we thought), only to see said keys immediately tumble to the floor periously close to a drain in what looked like a skit none of us had the comedic timing to execute. Two long flights and joining the mile high club later (I think that’s when all the Champagne you drink on board can reach a mile stacked end on end) and all of aforementioned sagas had been forgotten…until I read my notes promising to never forget.

We’re now (at time of writing) over a week into the trip and leaving the mainland for our island adventures. After 6 months of planning, we’re still wondering “when will this feel real?”  A strange sense of familiarity has dominated the first leg, with half the time spent in towns we already knew, and one, Paris, we have already been to in 2025 <insert definition of lucky>.  A feeling we’re sure, and hopeful, will get knocked out of us as soon as we try to check into Air Corsica.

Our first full day in Paris was coincident with the arrival of the final leg of Le Tour!  And what better way than to start a honeymoon reunion with multiple full body friskings while exploring the city of love.  It was made more cordial with a line for females for female officers and vice versa, but it was disappointing that James’ offers to switch lanes to help out weren’t accepted.

Watching Le Tour we got to see a man run on the track before the yellow jersey passed, only to be followed by a cop sprinting after him with his machine gun bouncing all over the place. We couldn’t help but laugh (partly in terror but mostly in irony) that this poor guy was being weighed down by a gun he was not even allowed to use and thus would never catch the culprit.  The irony continued into the night as we finally made it into a recommended restaurant called Frenchies only to be met with the realisation that this was their spinoff Italian restaurant.

We tried some new experiences in Paris and recycled the old.  New included at least 2 new galleries and old included picnics in our favourite spots – Ile St Louis and under the Eiffel Tower.  Our classic picnics of baguette, fromage et Champagne this time enhanced by un petit chaser of Metamucil to ensure we (James) could pass (pardon the pun) 8 weeks of cheese.  Under the tower we ruminated over how things had changed over a decade and what Lea meant by the names she gave to some of the Instagramer photo poses.  One poor chap was labelled with performing the “reverse teapot”. Now…I don’t know where your mind is going, but whichever way, mine went there too. And after being unable to picture one of them, I soon couldn’t see anything else.

Malheureusement, for reasons unknown, and definitely unconnected to the mile of Champagne, we both started to feel a little under the weather in Paris. Which is ok, except that when we’re really trying to do a good job with the language, it can seem a little insincere with what must seem a faux, nasally accent like Nanny Fine. But I think it was Victor Hugo* who said, “French is merely English, spoken with a blocked nose and only half the written letters”…or something to that effect. *Thanks to my editor for picking up the typo, originally “Victor Huge”…who I think is actually a popular porn actor in France for those with a hump back fetish.

Anyway, our time in Paris reminded us how much rich (old money rich) people love a good tapestry, how opportunity lies around every corner…most often for locals to create a urinal out of nothing, and how a simple moment of lost in translation can really get the mind boggled. Lea, reading “feu a bois” as “bushfire” was super impressed at the lengths Parisians would go to bake a pizza.

De Paris a Lyon.  Lyon, a city that holds a special place in James’ heart and much less special place in other parts a la derrière, after discovering the true meaning of Bouchon in 2015. See: Bouchon 2015

One night in Lyon passed smoothly (pun intended) as we then ventured to a new territory of the Jura.  An unplanned coincidence that after Lyon (and the pre-planned supplements that came with it) was that we spent our first night on the Loue…the river Loue that is, in the stunning Ornans. The Loue even more handy after James (accidentally) ordered his first prawn dish since THAT (ESL) prawn in Sri Lanka….here, in the prawn laden mountains of the Jura.  It worked out well, a truly convivial dinner, apart from once again squabbling over who would get the pigeon for the main course.

After spending too much money in Ornans, we picked a town we thought should help get back a little…Dole.  Having survived the prawns, James somehow managed to order two dishes in a day that clearly looked to contain death cap mushrooms. Morels, it turns out, are ok for a beef welly too. Someone who likely knew that was born in Dole, Louis Pasteur.  We visited his museum, to get some…cultures, but didn’t stay long as Lea, who is yet to catch rabies, considers him more of an enemy of good cheese.

We visited many towns in the Jura-tion of our time, the home of my favourite Vin Jaune, Chateau Challon, where we tried some humdingers (sly nod to Lea), stayed two nights in Arbois and on the way out passed through the home of Comté and Lea bought so much cheese it left James feeling super un-Comté-ble…but worth it to hear Lea (after some years of practice) utter those three elusive words: BEST. CHEESE. EVER.

After testing our cheese in-Jura-nce…we spent a night in a large barrel, in the vines of Cerdon.  Now I don’t know what you need to make you happy, but if limestone mountain cliffs, steep grape laden vines, a cabin shaped like a wine barrel, the best cheese ever and wine (and one average tomato for fiber) from the Jura and a stunning sunset don’t work…then…je ne sais quoi will.  What you shouldn’t do is think you can climb 70 degree sloped, rocky vineyards just because you’re still pretending to be backpackers.  The rocks of the Jura lending their name to the Jurassic period should have had us acting our age and thinking more of our ankles.

Speaking of ankles…En route to another night in Lyon, we passed through medieval villages including Perouges, whose cobbled streets of river rocks had clearly been paid for by ancient physiotherapists looking to ensure long careers in ankle strapping.

We spent our final night in mainland France in Lyon, going from one bouchon (car traffic) to another (restaurant). We stayed at an airport hotel because Lea, on a rare occasion taking after her Dad , was nervous about the early morning start even though James thought we could “almost” walk to the airport from the old town…turns out that not only does Lyon have an old town and a new town, it also has an old airport and new, rather distal, airport.

Next stop, the islands!!