I’m familiar with the till chat. As an Aussie, when I first moved to Europe I was thrown by the terseness of German checkout chicks and chucks, who all looked suspiciously militant and liked throwing your groceries on the ground if you weren’t quick enough to bag them…needless to say, when my German boyfriend first came to Sydney it drove him up the wall, having to blather on at the Woollies register about the weather and how bloody crap those Poms are at cricket. But he learned…!

Continuing our southbound journey, we made for Aix-en-Provence. Given that we’d heard it was supposedly one of the most beautiful landscapes in southern France, we were kind of expecting…well, beautiful landscapes.

Whether it had something to do with the toy kangaroo having fallen off my backpack earlier that day being a bad omen I’ll never know, but the train pulled up somewhere in deepest Arizona. It was like a barren, desert wasteland.After some minor train station dramas, it transpired that the idea was to catch a bus into town, which was still another good drive away (because, you see, Aix-en-Provence train station is not actually anywhere near Aix-en-Provence).

Eventually we arrived it what was quite a nice old town - not as beautifully restored as Lyon but with the same sort of character, although the periphery was rubbish (literally).

The old walled quarter was great though, all the typical little cobbled alleyways, people’s washing strung up across the streets and shrunken old men with accordions in every corner.

We followed our riveting little map from the tourist office devotedly: ‘To your left you’ll see a medieval building with a particularly interesting wooden door. On your right is a house with a lovely wooden staircase inside…’ Having arrived on a Sunday didn’t do much for the place either - only a few cafes and bars were open, barely any buses were running and we had to wait hours to get into the youth hostel. Verdict: worth a look, but only with highly entertaining traveling companions (lots of them), and don’t go on a Sunday.