Just Hanging Around in Nice

Well, big news - after 4 weeks here - we saw RAIN for the first time yesterday (Friday).  Naturally, I had gone to get my hair done and it started to rain just as she was putting the final touches on.  It was actually wonderful to see the rain and I enjoyed the two block walk home inbetween the rain drops.  Since the sky continued to look somewhat threatening, we decided to stick around Nice for the day and take in some of the museums we wanted to see. 

First we went to a photography museum which was quite disappointing but it did have a lovely theatre in it - although we have no idea what they use it for.  (Cary Players would so love to have a place like this to perform in.)  There was a large book of black and white photographs of the area take 100-150 years ago.  We looked through that for a while. Fascinating.

Then we walked over to the Modern Art Museum which is in a cool building.  The art was mostly not of interest to us although we walked through it all and did see some cool stuff.  It mostly defies description, however.   The best part is the roof walk.  You get really magnificent views of the city from atop the roof.

After that little touch of culture we headed home on the tram.  The tram is something that is new in just the past few years.  To reduce congestion in the middle of the city, they closed off the main street and installed a very modern tram.  It is so well used during tourist season that it is a struggle to get on it.  It makes a striking contrast with the ancient city.

We had intended to take a short break at home and then head out to the amazing Russion Cathedral.  We checked the guide books at home for the hours and noticed that shorts and t-shirts were strictly prohibited.  We declined to dress for the visit and decided to skip it.

Instead we rested then trammed down to old town, shopped and had dinner.  Then we strolled slowly along the Promenade des Anglais by the sea and watched the sun set over the city.

Notice there are still people on the beach and in the water - it was about 9:30 at night when I took this.

Cap d'Ail and Monaco

Many of the things we are doing are things we have done before but we are also trying out some new activities and finding new things....like the absolutely gorgeous walk (called Sentiers Littoral) from Cap d'Ail (the last town in France before coming to Monaco) into Monaco's Fontville section.

It was incredible and not too tough a walk. It was only a couple kilometers probably, and in fact, it was over too soon. It was mostly up above the water. At times it was hard to not jump right in, it was so inviting.

The color of the Mediterranean has to be seen to be believed. Near the shore it is clear and light azure blue but out a ways, it is a deep, deep blue unlike any water I have ever seen anywhere. Walking along here made me realize that we need to get out in that water more - on a boat, in a kayak, swimming, sailing, whatever - just out in it. That is my goal for next week.

Our walk led us right into Monaco which we thought we remembered well, but we were still blown away by how spectacularly beautiful it is.  We bought an all day pass for the bus - but finding the bus stops turns out to be a challenge.  The maps you get are (obviously) just two dimensional and Monaco is very three dimensional.  You can think you are in the right spot on the map but the real place you want to be is 100 feet above you.  The entire place is basically on the side of very steep hill.

We eventually rode the bus we wanted out to the end of the line (Monaco is only about a mile long), waited for it to change directions and then rode it up to The Rock where the old town and palace are.  The palace (bottom right-hand picture below) is huge and still lived in - in fact Prince Albert just got married a few weeks ago.  That must have been quite  a party.  The church (bottom left) is where Princess Grace married Prince Ranier.  They are both buried there as well.  My favorite spot in Monaco, however, is the exotic garden which runs along the cliff.  It has beautiful sculptures, incredible varieties of plants (lots of flowers and, well, exotic plants).  I just love it there.  If you are ever in Monaco - make a point of strolling through it.  The views of the sea are also really magnificent.  Yo ucan see all the huge yachts going in and out of the harbor and watch the helicopters ferrying the really rich to and from the Nice airport.

Then we took the bus over to the other side of town to the area where the casino and Hotel de Paris are.  Apparently the next town going east on the coast, Menton, used to be part of Monaco, but they voted to join France in 1860 when the county of Nice was given to France by the King of Sardinia. Napoleon paid Monaco 4 million francs for the area and allowed them to build the casino by providing trains and other services into Monaco.  France still provides much of the public services in Monaco.

Anyway, below, the top left picture is of the harbor looking down from the rock.  The other three are taken in front of the casino.  The bottom left is the Hotel de Paris - a VERY swanky outfit.  We attempted to walk through it last time we were here and we were asked to leave and we just in the shopping area.  I guess they could tell we weren't about to buy anything. The gardens and fountains in front of the casino are lovely and make approaching it from the hill above a real pleasure.  It is hard not to think of James Bond when you are here.

We didn't go inside the casino (it costs money to do so) and we were in there several times in 1998. We remember being disappointed by how dark and empty it seemed - at least the parts we saw.  

It is impossible not to notice the CARS in Monaco. All around the casino there were tons of Ferraris, Porsches, Mercedes, Astin Martins but we didn't see a single Lamborghini - and we looked. Just watching the cars go by on the street any where in Monaco, you can tell this place is all about the Grand Prix and fast, fancy cars. 

 

A lovely day!

Memory Lane

One of the things we have been doing here in Nice is going back to find things we remember from twelve years ago.  It is a strange and wonderful trip down memory lane to remember going places, being with friends who visited us and discovering this wonderful area for the first time.  It is different doing it again now.  Still wonderful but in a different way.

The other day we took the bus west from Nice back to Villeneuve Loubet Marina where we used to live.  We wanted to see if our favorit restaurant was still there and still served our favorite meal - hamburger with 'au poivre' sauce.  Before dinner, we took a lovely walk along the sea across from our apartment.  I think we were on the 5th floor looking directly out over the marina to the Med.

Well, good news - the restaurant is still there and is still just the same and, it was just as good as we remembered - but we weren't able to drink nearly as much wine as we used to and we were much too full to check out if the chocolate mousse was still the same.  They used to serve 3 boules (scoops) of mousse - one dark chocolate, one milk chocolate and one white chocolate.  It was to die for!  Perhaps we will get there again in the next 10 days and will get a chance to check on it.

Part of the trip from the bus stop to the restaurant involves walking under the railroad tracks.  We remember driving our car through there - a very nerve wracking experience.  Much easier to walk through.

Then yesterday, we returned to our absolute favorite restaurant in Monaco - La Polpetta.  I had originally picked it out of the guide books back in 1998 and we loved it - probably dragged all of our visitors there at least once.  Larry's favority dish - penne arrabiata was just as good as ever.  My favorite dish - tortellini della nonna - wasn't quite as good as I remembered but still fine, but the mozzarella and tomato salad was fab. 

Nice Chateau and Harbor

We started out yesterday morning to try to figure out how to mail a package to the states.  I had spotted a UPS/Mailboxes Etc just a block from our apartment.  I also had a letter and 2 postcards which I needed to mail.  I have a large carton of stuff I want to mail home, but I thought I should start small trying to just mail a couple things to a friend and see how it goes.

Good thing!  At Mailboxes the woman very nicely informed me that it was very expensive to send packaes via UPS to the states - $130 for the first kilo (2.2 pounds).  Outrageous!  I couldn't even afford to mail the small package there.  She said a few disparaging things about the French postal service but off we went to try them anyway.

A very nice man there helped me figure out the postage.  The small package  (I didn't notice the weight but I would guess it was just under a pound) costs just shy of $15 - so I went for it.  Now we will have to see how long it takes (and if it gets there at all).  The postcards and small letter were  $1.13 each - not bad.

However, my plan to ship stuff back to the Cape has fallen by the wayside.  We now plan to purchase another bag of some kind that we can check at the airport and pay for that instead.  Whatever it costs, it has to be cheaper than postal service and anything is cheaper than UPS.   Interesting experience.

Then we bought a one week pass for the buses -  $19.50 for the week.  We can ride unlimited and I expect that we will make good use of it once we start heading out of Nice to other places nearby.   You can get pretty much any where around here by bus. 

We took the tram down to the old town, wondered through the outdoor market.  On Mondays, it is antiques so we didn't spend too much time there but we will go back again.  It is normally a fantastic flower market and a produce market.  The guide book we are using advised us about a flight of stairs that we could climb up to get a birds eye view of the market.  It worked well. ===>

See the yellow building all the way at the end of the market?  Matisse lived there for the last 17 years of his life.  This area is just crazy with artist stuff - Chagall, Matisse, Renoir, Picasso, etc.

Then we took the elevator up to the castle on top of the huge rock over looking the city.  It has Greek ruins, Roman ruins, and has been used for thousands of years.  The views from the top are magnificent.   From one side you see the beaches and the old town.

And from the other side of the mountain you look down on the port.  This port has some really serious yachts in it but it isn't deep enough for cruise ships to come in - they have to disembark up the coast a bit in one of the most beautiful spots on earth - Villefranche-sur-Mer (picures soon).

(I am going to have to get a real panaramic camera so I can stop piecing these together.)

We walked down from the mountain to the port side and had lunch in the porch - the fixed price menus are really good deals if they have something you want on the list of main courses (plats).

Around 4:30 pm we walked to the beach - it is about a 10 minute walk but it took us about 30 because we stopped to buy beach shoes (the beach and bottom of the sea here are rocks and pebbles - smooth, but still hard to walk on barefoot).  We also bought straw beach mats ($4.00 for 2) and I bought a sun hat.  Eventually we made it to the very crowded beach, found a spot and plunged into the wonderful water.  It was over our heads almost immediately.  The water is so clean and just the right temperature - a little hard to get into but delightfully cool while you are in it. 

We dined at home last night and then walked back to the beach to see if we could see the full moon rising over the sea.  Unfortunately there were too many clouds but we did see it later in the night from our apartment window. 

It was forecast to rain here today but we awoke this morning to another gloriously sunny day.  There is no rain in the forecast for the next 10 days.  We have not seen a single drop of rain the entire 3 1/2 weeks we have been here. We have barely seen any clouds.  Amazing.

Our pace is definitely slower here - perhaps partly because hanging around our apartment is so pleasant.

Nice is Nice :)

I was very excited when I woke up on Friday morning to realize that today we were actually going to get back to Nice to stay for a while.  As some of you know, we lived outside of Nice for 4 wonderful months back in 1998 when Larry was on assignment here with IBM.  We had a wonderful time - especially me, as he had to work while I played.  We love this area and are excited to be able to explore it again.

On the way to Nice we stopped for breakfast (flower pic to the right) and lunch (view pic to the right) at lovely spots.  We also found the heavy beach traffic that all the guidebooks warn about.  Most of it was around St. Tropez.  It is definitely vacation season here. It was nice not to be on a schedule.

We arrived without much difficulty at our new wonderfully located apartment in the heart of Nice.  We couldn't be more pleased with this place.  It is bright, airy, comfortable, well appointed and, as I said, extremely well located to train & bus connections (5 minutes), beach (10 minutes) and main drag through town (3 blocks).

We are on the fourth floor and have windows in both front and back which gives us a nice cross-breeze.  

The elevator in the building is pricelessly charming.  It is a wire cage with a handsome wooden elevator within it.  It is almost silent, seems very sturdy and reliable. 

We are very grateful for the elevator.  We aren't travelling as light as we had planned.  (I'm actually going to ship some stuff home with week.)

The first evening we were here, we wondered towards the water, had an unremarkable dinner and then continued to the Promenade des Anglais - the broad boulevard along the sea.  We found the promenade to be closed to cars for what they call a Prom' Party.  There were people everywhere, bands playing, people parading.  It was such a nice welcome to the city for us!  They really shouldn't have gone to all that trouble just for us.  As it was dark, I couldn't get too much in the way of pictures, but these 3 ladies on extremely tall stilts were really something.

On Saturday we took advantage of having the car from our first exchange for one last day.  We did a huge grocery shopping (thank god for that elevator) and then went off to the fabulous town of St. Paul de Vence.  This was one of my favorite places when we were here before. 

I'm pretty sure that I dragged every one of our visitors to see it.  It is one of the biggest hilltop towns - beautifully restored and in use today.  There are tons of shops and restaurants.  There used to be more souvenir oriented shops but now it is mostly art, but a lovely place to spend the afternoon and to buy gifts. I'm sorry I don't have any pictures of the village form the outside.

From St. Paul, we could see our old building that we lived in back in 1998.   Seethe strange looking white stairstep buildings in the middle of the photo to the right?  It is right on the Mediterranean!  We even managed to drive by it (no small feat of navigation I might add) before we went to the airport and gave the car back to our first house exchange person.  We are actually glad not to have a car in Nice.  It is expensive and difficult to park.  Buses and trains will be easier to use, I imagine.

Today (Sunday) was a day of rest, relaxation and studying (guide books for Dot, spanish lessons for Larry).  We took a short walk around the area for lunch.  While Larry went to look at something, I took shots of a couple of buildings.  These 3 shots were all taken from the same spot.   The building in Nice of absolutely amazing and gorgeous.  There will be more pictures, I am sure, but here is a quick sample.

I am pleased to report that the heat wave here ended overnight on Friday.  Since Saturday we are back to the low 80's rather than the mid-90s.  It is wonderful.  It is supposed to stay this way for the next 10 days - I hope even longer.  We are in Nice for two more weeks - then on to Spain.

Ile de Porquerolles

Wow!  I was really kicking myself after not jumping in the water when we were in Cassis yesterday looking at the beautiful Mediterranean water in the calanques, so today, when we came across a somewhat similiar (but better!) swimming spot - there was no stopping me (although Larry did try to discourage me at first).

We started off the day a little frustrated trying to find the tourist information bureau to get a local map.  It is impossible to navigate around these busy towns without a detailed map.  After going in circles for a while, we found it, saw the sign that it had moved down the street and then went in a few more circles trying to find it again.  I eventually went in and got a map and also inquired about the island we were trying to get to.  They said I could buy tickets for the ferry right there and save a little, so I went to the counter to do that.  The woman there said I could buy a package deal which included renting bicycles and save a little on that as well.  So I did.  (That was the really short version of the transaction.  The real one took quite a long time and required that I translate our heights into meters...I did it on the fly and was only off a few inches.) 

Then we were off to the ferry!  It was actually somewhat cloudy when we left on the 20 minute ferry ride out to the Ile de Porquerolles - one of the 3 islands that are just off of the city of Hyeres.

One there we located the bike rental place, got a map and we were off down the dirt road to the beach - about 2.5 kilometers from the little village.  By now, of course, the sun was out, no clouds in sight and it was getting pretty hot.

This island has NO cars on it.  It used to belong to a very rich industrialist but it was purchased by France in 1971 and turned into a preserve.  It was lovely.  The water was magnificent but we miscalculated and didn't bring any food or water with us to the beach.  We only spent about an hour there, as I was dying of thirst.  I did get in a great swim and Larry just enjoyed the shade and the absolutely perfect breeze.

We road our bikes back into town, bought some liquid! and then had a lovely lunch of pizza and diet coke.  Who knew that the French could make such good pizza. While resting we studied the map to see where else we should ride to.  The island is about 5 miles long and 2 miles wide and has very little in the way of development on it (as we had discovered).  We asked the waitress if a particular beach was a nice beach and she sort of shrugged and said yes but them she came back and pointed out a spot that was "tres, tres beau".  We took her suggestion and headed for it after eating and man-o-man was she right!  We should have left her a really big tip.  As we arived at the spot here is what we saw!

And....there were clearly people swimming down there!.  Well, as I said above, I had missed my chance yesterday but I was determined not to miss it today.  We had a lengthy discussion - Larry wasn't gung-ho for climbing down the rocks but I wasn't going to be dissuaded, so of course in the end he gave in and came with me.

Climbing down was quite difficult as it was very rocky and pebbly which made it a little slippery. We had to go very slowly.  But it was so worth it.   There were only about 8-10 people down there when we got there. 

Below, bottom left picture is me, turning around to look at the camera.  The water was fantastic - incredibly clear and nice and cool.  We had the most magnificnet swim.   There were a few fish in the water, but not a whole bunch (I had my swim goggles.)

Fortunately, the climb back up wasn't as hard as the one down.  You could really use your hands to steady yourself on the way up so it went quickly and easily.  Here's a picture of me working my way back up the cliff.

After some more riding around the island, ice cream and rest, we took the ferry back to the mainland, took a swim in the pool and are now resting before dinner.

Another wonderful day in the south of France.  I don't know if I can keep this up for 8 1/2 weeks.  We will be completely exhausted and overwhelmed by what we are seeing and doing.  I'm thinking perhaps we will do a little R & R when we get to Nice. ...   or maybe not.  We shall see.  :)

Cassis

The town of Cassis, France, is, in my humble opinion, one of THE most beautiful places on earth.  It is set on the very, very blue Mediterranean sea.  It is an old fishing village which has become a mecca for tourists because it so spectacular with a beautiful harbor, buildings of many colors surrounding the harbor, sheer cliffs, sandy beaches...something for everyone!   Nearby there are what is called 'calanques' which are pretty much french fjords.

We had a lovely day today.  We packed up and drove south to the sea.  We strolled around Cassis for a while - it happened to be market day - always fun.  We had a wonderful lunch right next to the harbor.  Then we drove over to see the nearby calanque.  There were a couple thousand sailboats moored in it, I swear. 

Then we walked back to the other side of the penisula and saw people swimming off the rocks.  The water was so clear.  Unfortunately, we didn't have our bathing suits on or we would have gone in for sure.  It was gorgeous.  

Then we drove down the coast a little to La Ciotat which is a beach resort. The weather is a little cooler here (85 ish rather than 95ish) but it is more humid so it still feels very hot.  The sun is very strong.  We swam for a while (the water was wonderful), rinsed off and drove to our hotel.  Our room is fine - spartan, but has some air conditioning.  There is wonderful swimming pool right off our patio.  Tonight we dined in the restaurant at the hotel - it was terrific.  We have been enjoying the food quite a bit as we find better and better places to eat and learn more words that we find on the menus.  Tonight we learned the words for ribs- when Larry's pork turned out to be pork ribs!

I need to add just a word about the challenge of driving in France.  We have pretty much mastered the art of navigation.  All you really need to know is what city (or cities) you are heading towards.  That is how the signs are set up.  You pick a direction. Route numbers aren't teribly useful.  For example, this morning when we went to get on the highway we had a choice between Lyon (230 km or so to the north) or Marseille (100 km to the south).  You have to know where these places are to pick the right direction.  So anyway, we have gotten pretty good at that, but we have yet to master the tolls.  The stress of entering the toll booth is enormous!  As you approach there are many different lanes - ALL LABELLED differently with symbols we can't decipher.  We have figured out that 't' is to ticket and CB is for credit card, and sometimes there is a picture of a person (which means that lane is manned), but it seems that each time we approach there are new and different symbols. 

We got caught a couple of times today.  Once we were in the credit card lane which we were feeling pretty confident about, as we had successfully negotiated that kind of transaction before.  Well, this time it rejected my card and said 'try a different card'.  It then rejected Larry's card and then our other credit card.  By now the people behind us are backing out of the lane and going to another lane.  I finally, in a panic, pushed the button to call for help.  Since the machine had swallowed my ticket, I couldn't just take it and go pay in cash at another lane.  A very nice women came over in less than a minute.  I explained the problem and I paid her in cash - the machine I was at didn't have any way to pay cash or I would have gladly done that.  She opened the gate and told me not to worry about the 'whur-whur' sounds that would occur when I drove through and sure enough, as I exited the toll booth, the alarm sounded but I drove on anyway....what an experience.  I trembled as we approached the next toll booth.

Tomorrow is another beach day - this time on a lovely island off the coast.  I can't wait to see it.

Toujours Provence!

We had an amazing final day in this area.  We headed east into the heart of Provence - the Luberon mountain area.  We visited 4 really interesting places.  Get ready for a lot of really neat pictures.

The first place was called Villages des Bories and was up in the hills.  This open-air museum consisted of preserved buildings and walls (called bories) made entirely of dry laid stone with no mortar to hold them together.  The area was extremely rocky, obviously and the wood that was available was no good for building.  While the buildings we saw were inhibited from 1600 to about 1800, people had lived in this general location in similar structures since way before the romans, perhaps as much as 2000 years before the romans.  It was hard to figure out how they could build such high buildings with no ladders or scaffolding or anything.    They put a bunch of vertical stones on top of the walls to help weigh down the stones.  See the top left picture. Fascinating!

Then we roamed onward further into the mountains to visit the Abbey de Senanque and to see the lavender fields that surround it.  We first came upon the abbey when we were high on the mountain next to it and could look down on it and the lavender fields that surround it. (See top left corner picture to the left.)

If you have ever seen professional pictures of the lavenders fields, I swear they were taken here at this abbey.  The lavender had cooperated and gotten significantly more purple since we had last gone looking for lavender fields.  It was lovely - to look at and to smell. 

The abbey, built in 1148, was beautiful but we chose not to tour the inside - just admired it from the outside. 


Then we wondered through the hills back to the spectacular town of Gordes.  This is one of the primary tourist spots in the Luberon/Provence area and for good reason.  As you approach the town you start to get glimpses of its cliffside setting. 

It is a fairly typical hilltop town from the inside, but there is nothing typical about its setting or splendor from the outside.  We had a great lunch (pizza - yeah!) and checked out the market day stalls which were just packing up.  The views from within the town of the countryside around it were equally thrilling. 

One thing that was interesting about Gordes is that it was pretty much a ghost town until the 1960s.  When this area got discovered partly thanks to the great Avignon theatre festival and partly due to people travelling more, it was fairly quickly renovated and became a very high rent district.  It was clogged with traffic and tourists, but SO worth the trip.

After lunch we headed to Roussillon - about 10 kilometers away on another hill top.  What makes this town so different is the color - of the buildings and the ground and the red and orange cliffs that surround the town.  The hills are full of a mineral called ochre which was mined and quite valuable until WWII.  It's primarily used for pigment. 

The town is in the Luberon Parc Preserve and all development has been strictly controlled since 1943, so the town is gorgeous.  Every time we turned a corner I needed to take another picture.  The picture in the bottom right corner here shows a 150 year old grape vine - one that has not been pruned.  It was enormous - the picture doesn't do it justice.

I will spare you the bulk of the pictures that I took, but I know you will enjoy seeing a few of them.  It really was breath-taking - as were the views of the valleys around town.

The heat was bad today so we called it a day around 4 and headed home, did a little grocery shopping, rested and had dinner at home.  Tomorrow we will get up, pack and head to the sea!

At Home in France

I wanted to share a couple of additional pictures. 

The first one is of the results of a typical grocery shopping for us.    The items picture includes breakfast (4 chocolate croissants), lunch (turkey, ham, cheese, bread), snacks (chocolate, cookies and chocolate mousse), drinks (apple juice, wine).  

The tablecloth pictured is the cloth I purchased at the St. Remy market a week or so ago.

This next picture is of a lovely gateway located in a round-about (of which there are thousands in France).  It is coming into our 'home' town of Chateaurenard from Avignon.  Through the open gate you can see the 'chateaux' up on the hill overlooking the town.  It is a beautiful spot.  The town we are in is definitely off the tourist trail which has been very nice.  We are most likely the only Americans in town so people recognize us easily.  This is a town of about 14,000 people.  Everyone has treated us very, very well.

I have had a lot of fun speaking french - asking for various things, including reminders as to what the word for something is (like spoon, knife, napkin) etc.   We have gotten along very well and have had no problem making ourselves understood.

Alone Again

Sadly, our friends, Dick and Eileen, departed for Paris this morning and we are alone again in Chateaurenard.  It was WONDERFUL to be able to share our love of this country with them and to explore around with them.  They did get the benefit, however, of having sent an "advance team" (that is, us).  We were able to drive them up to various view spots which we had to initially climb up many stairs to get to, as we didn't have a clue where the road was. We could also guide them to a number of the very best sites.   However, they were quite appreciative which made it all worthwhile.  We had a great time. 

Yesterday, we had one last wonderful day.  We started by taking them up to Orange, north of Avignon, so they could visit the wonderful roman theatre there.  We explored the town a bit while they checked out the magnificent theatre, then we drove through the beautiful vineyards to Chateauneuf-de-Pape had a delicious lunch in the town square.  After lunch we visited a vineyard  (see the bottom two pictures to the right!) and sampled a little wine.  The wine sampling wasn't very impressive but the vineyard sure was!

Then it was off to Avignon.

We visited the Papal Palace and the famous Pont de St Benezet (Pont d'Avignon of nursery rhyme fame).  (Pictures are to the left).  The audio guide that comes with admission to the palace, we all found very frustrating.  It was hard to follow what they were talking about and it generally wasn't very interesting.  The one for the bridge was much better and even sang the song to us at the end.  We then had a lovely final dinner (in St. Remy of course).  Our friends had a wonderful time.  They even got to experience the great Le Mistral wind which howled the night before last and nearly blew us over yesterday.  It was gusting to almost 40 mph - which is ALOT.

We are starting to wind down our exploration of Provence and will head to the Mediterranean coast shortly.  We will spend two nights in an air conditioned hotel!!!  on the way to Nice - just for a break and to get access to some of the wonderful beach towns in the Var region - Cassis, Hyeres, and the islands.  Then it will be on to our new home in Nice on Friday.  We will have to give up the car we have been enjoying as part of this first exchange, as the people whose house we are in now return to Nice airport on Saturday morning.  Initially we felt bad that we were putting alot of kilometeres on the car, but then we got email from them that they had just spent 3 days wandering around Vermont, New Hampshite and Maine - and we were no longer concerned.   I would say this exchanged has worked out pretty well, all in all.

Fun in France

I've gotten a little behind in posting as we have some good friends visiting us and we have been busy, as you can probably imagine.  The first day they were here we went to the beach :) and then wandered a bit on the way home.    One of the places we went to was Aigues Mort (translates to 'dead water'.) This was a wonderful shopping spot and we all enjoyed walking around this medieval town.

To the right here you can see one of the signs that we saw posted on a door - it tells the reader to NOT URINATE here.  It appeared that not everyone obeyed the sign.

On the way home we stopped in St. Remy-de-Provence for dinner.  (Can you tell this has become our favorite haunt for dinner?) I finally got the pizza dinner I had been craving and it was wonderful!  We took the most beautiful road into town (see the road picture above).  It goes for miles lined on either side by huge plane trees - a relative of the sycamore, planted initially by Napoleon to provide shade for his troops while they marched about France.  As the sun gets low in the sky, they are a truly magnificant site.

The next day, Friday, we went back to Pont du Gard, the three story roman aquaduct we had been to before.  This time we experienced the movie (kind of silly) and the museum (incredibly impressive), as well as took in the aquaduct.

Then we drove down to Arles to see the town, especially the arena.  See the separate posting about the wonderful experience we had in the arena seeing bull 'fighting' Camargue style.

Arles was crowded and a big town, but not nearly as big as Aix-en-Provence where we went today. It is huge, trendy, very crowded and has way too many English speaking people for my taste. We had a lovely stroll around town and enjoyed the open-air markets (flea market, flower market and produce market). I purchased a good sized bundle of lavender for just 2 Euros ($2.60). It smells wonderful here at home on the table.

Aix-en-Provence doesn't have any major sites, but is a lovely city with many tall plane trees, wide boulevards and fountains, and wonderful buildings.  Nothing roman remains, although this was initially a roman city.  It is best known for being where Paul Cezanne lived and painted. 

One thing that we saw that was kind of cool was a driving school lesson in progress.  Now you need to understand that the French are amazing drivers - weaving in and out of traffic, motorcycles whizzing down the center of the road, and parking pretty much any where at all that you can manage to get your car in.  In tight spots they will park very, very, very close to a wall or building and then both people will scoot out of the driver's side door.   To the left is a picture of the driving school lesson on  parking.  I swear it took just one swift backing up to get the car within about an inch from the wall.  Incredible to witness.

Bull Games in Arles roman Arena

Okay, this was a really amazing way to experience to Arles arena (which was built by the romans and is still in use today.  Twice a week in the summer they stage what they call "bull games" or bull fighting Carmargue style.  The bull is not injuried in any way - in fact I think they enjoy the game almost as much as the toreadors.  They attach ribbons to the bull's horns and the young men (there are about 12- 15 in the ring with the bull) have 15 minutes to try to get the ribbons off the horns.  Then there is a brief rest period and another bull is brought out.   The bulls mostly won the competition from what we could see.  As the bull runs towards the young men, they leap over the walls at full tilt which is almost as much fun to watch as the bulls.  They land, a la spiderman-style, on the fence with a loud thud.  They must come out quite bruised.

It got a bit scary when the second bull jumped over the arena wall right in front of us!  No one was expecting it and there was lot of screaming and the people in the arena area just behind the wall (not spectators) all jumped INTO the arena.  We were in the second row, so he was pretty close to us but we were never in danger.   Another one of the bulls repeated jumped the wall over at the end of the arena. I even managed to capture one of them jumping the wall. It was great to see everyone scatter and then they had to work to get the bull to come back into the arena. 

The arena looks like it was empty but it was just that everyone was sitting on the shady side.  We estimated that there were probably 2,000 or so watching.  It was hot, but not too bad in the shade.

I definitely couldn't ever go see a real bull fight.  Even this started to make me a little uncomfortable as I couldn't tell if the bull was feeling taunted or was 'playing'.   But I do know that he wasn't being hurt.  It was a really unique experience.

What a day!

It is hard to know where to start with a description of yesterday.  It was a long, amazing day.  We began with a simple plan to head to the beach for a cool refreshing swim.  We stopped in town for croissants and a bagette to complete our picnic plan and were on the beach in Stes Maries de la Mer by around 10:30.  Not too crowded, no problem parking.  It was another wonderful day at the beach.  Larry walked.  Dot studied maps and guidebooks and sunned.  We had a great picnic.  

French beaches are a quite different from American beaches, aside from the topless women.  First of all, while there are children there, they are not all screaming at the top of their lungs.  In fact, you don't even realize there are children there.  There are also no radios or noise makers, so it is a peaceful place, even when full of people.  Secondly, the french do not need changing rooms.  They are all skilled from an early age on how to change into their bathing suits on the beach.  It is pretty amazing to watch.  They simply wrap a towel around their waist, take off whatever they have under it, put on their bathing suit.  Bikini tops are put around the waist and pulled up.  It is amazing to see a whole family standing on the beach talking to each other as they put on their bathing suits under their towels.  Thirdly, as I mentioned before the fresh water showers are a god-send at the end of the day to wash off the salt.

The Mediterranean has little in the way of tides and even less in the way of waves.  While we have seen people windsurfing, there are no surfers.  To make up for this, they have something called 'Stand Ups' which are basically surf boards you stand on and paddle!    We didn't try it but it was neat to watch.

After our fill of the beach, we took another boat ride up the rhone River into the Camargue region.  I wanted to see the bulls and horses and we did.  The boat ride was so-so but seeing the animals  made it worthwhile.  I'm still puzzling over the fact that there were female bulls, and of course baby bulls.   The baby horses are born brown/black and turn white/gray as they grow up.  We are hoping to go see a bull 'fight' (Camargue style) on Friday night in Arles.  Unlike the spanish type of bull fighting they don't harm the bull.  They put ribbons on it and the bull 'fighters' try to get the ribbons.  It is a timed event.

Well, after the boat ride, we decided to do a little further exploration of the coastline by car.  We saw all sorts of wild animals driving through the wetlands, as well as a huge port and another massive beach.  The most fascinating thing we came across was the salt flats.  This region used to have lots and lots of salt flats but most of them have been turned into rice fields (which are an amazing green, by the way).  Anyway, the pile of salt and red flats were very interested.  We haven't been able to figure out yet why the water is red.  Anybody know?

Then we started to head for home.  It was already 7 o'oclock and we were getting hungry.  Since we have little more than cookies and soda in our frig at home we decided to stop in St. Remy de Provence for a quick dinner.  I was hankering for pizza and it was more or less on our way.  As we approached centre ville, we noticed first that it was very parked in (usually indicates a festival, of which there are many).  Then we noticed that there tall metal fence rails along the main route.  We amazingly found a parking space right in the center of town (someone must have JUST pulled out).  There were signs warning about the danger of bulls from 8 pm to midnight.  That's what the fences were for - to protect the spectators from the bull.  We found a restaurant right next to the main road and learned from the water that the bull run would take place in about a half an hour.  We lucked out, but I had to have spagetti - no pizza at this place.

I have no pictures of the bull run, unfortunately because it was fairly dark by the time they let the bulls (I think there were two or three) out of the truck.  There were about 12 cowboys and cowgirls on white horses.  They basically herded the bulls, one at a time, through the street into the truck.  It was quite a spectacle but not what we had expected.  We were thinking Pamploma where there are tons of bulls, but this was pretty interesting.  The fences were such that people could go through them but the bulls and horses couldn't.  The young boys would squeeze through and chase the bull as it ran up the street trying to touch it.  We felt a little sorry for the bull, of course.  Must be a little terrifying for them, but they appeared pretty well trained - except for the one who came back out of the truck immediately and chased the cowboys back down the street.  That was pretty exciting.

After several detours for closed routes, we finally arrived home around 10:30 at night.  We had travelled 265 km (160 miles).  Below is a map of our route yesterday.  I think we are done exploring the wetlands!

Life in France

Today was a rest day, as well as, laundry.  The washing machine is so small that you need to really stay on top of the situation, you can't just let things pile up like at home - it gets away from you.  I am in charge of running the washing machine and Larry is in charge of hanging it up to dry and bringing it in.  So far, so good.  That's a full load hehas hung up - a beach towel, a  couple of tops and two pair of shorts and even at that, I'm worried I'm putting too much in the machine at once.

When we are home in the house, we spend most of our time upstairs in the office and in the bedroom.  Larry uses the desk to study Spanish and I relax on the bed reading guide books and studying maps.  After dark we can open the metal shutters which cover the windows and get a little cool air in, but during the day we need to keep it shut up tight because of the heat.  By doing that we are able to keep it at 84 degrees inside when it is 97 outside, but it is kind of depressing - feels a bit like a cave.  We rarely open the shutters downstairs at all as the fans are upstairs and it is more comfortable up here. 

Today after chores (gas for the car, chocolate croissants (buy 3 get a fourth free!), groceries, and laundry) we drove into Avignon (25 minutes to the heart of town).  We parked (with difficulty) and take a lack luster

boat trip on the Rhone River.  The really good part about it was the view of the old town, the papal palace and the famous bridge at Avignon of nursery rhyme fame, as well as the cool breeze on the water.  It did cool us down, which we needed.  It was 98 again today.  It makes us both a little grumpy.

After the "cruise", Larry went for a ride on a huge ferris wheel (he called it the Big 'O') which afforded him

wonderful views of the town.  I didn't go as I really don't like the movement and the heights.  The picture of the ferris wheel doesn't look too impressive but it really was huge - one of the largest I have every seen.

Then we wandered around town, had a sandwich and an ice cream cone.  Larry discovered that they can make a Croque Monsieur (grilled ham and cheese sandwich) with blue cheese - so he was in heaven.

There are all sorts of street performers.  It really is a wild place.  I got these pictures of street statues.  They stand perfectly still until someone puts some money in their can.  They then come alive for a minute and salute you or wave or change positions.  It is great fun.  These guys were really good at standing perfectly still.  I swear they don't even blink.

Up in front of the papal palace there is also this really bizare statute of an elephant stnading on it's trunk.   Very strange indeed.  The people milling about there were watching some street performers demonstrating a duel.

We are getting very good at navigating around France.  Once you learn the geography enough to know what town you want to go towards, you've got it made.  Route numbers are interesting but not terribly helpful.  You really need to know if you want to go towards Avignon or Arles or Nimes or whatever.  We still get lost in our own little home town because the streets all seem to be circular which is confusing - even with a map in hand.

I am sorry to have to report that we haven't fared terribly well in the meals-out department.  We are finding it expensive and not terribly high quality nor interesting.  Last night's dinner even made me sick - I had the most severe stomache cramps for hours afte eating....not going to try the spagetti bolognese again soon.  When you go into the restaurants you generally have a choice of plates - like a steak with french fries and vegetables.  I've had lamb a couple times and it has been terrific - just small.  Larry has had some good tuna, but the great meals we were hoping for haven't materialized.  I think that when we get to Nice in 10 days or so, we will be happier in the restaurants - we certainly were when we lived there in 1998.  The food there is heavily influenced by Italy - which is literally right around the corner.   Here, however, the bread, the croissants, the wine and  the chocolate are all superb.  We are certainly not starving.

Tomorro, we have decided to go to the beach again - the only sane thing to do in this insane heat.  It is nice that it is only an hour away.  There is a boat ride that we might take into the Camargue (marsh/delta) - we'll see how the day goes.