France Day 9 Marseille & Bach

May 21, 2013May 21, 2013 Timothy Price5 Comments

We went to Marseille today. Marseille is beautiful, bustling port city that has lots of energy and lots of people from all over the world in the streets. Since Marseille was founded by the Greeks over 2000 years ago, a the locals think of Marseilles as the true capital of France. There is a lot of old architecture, and a couple of churches built in neo-Bizintine style with the alternating color of the stones and mix of Eastern and Western architectural styles. We have shrimp for lunch, which was great.

We got back from Marseille just a little late for Lundi de Pentecôte, a concert of Bach’s BWV 173 Erhöhtes Fleisch und Blut et 184 Erwünschtes Freudenlicht at the St. Jean de Malte Cathedral. Bach wrote the music for Pentecost, and fortunately the priest was still explaining the music when we walked in, and there were a few open seats, so we didn’t miss a note. The performance was fantastic, and sound in the 13th century cathedral was outstanding. The musicians played baroque instruments and the vocalists were phenomenal. They also had a couple of modern pieces which were performed by three people playing the pipe organ simultaneously. The pieces were Le jar din suspendu by Jehan Alain (1911-1940) and Le vent de l’Esprit: sortie se la messe de la Pentecôte by Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992). The modern was not the type of organ music I would seek out, but it was well performed and interesting. The orchestra and vocalists got a standing ovation, and we brought them back for an encore.

France Day 8 Aix Water Bells

May 20, 2013May 19, 2013 Timothy Price7 Comments

We went to the service as St. Jean de Malte this morning. It was a beautiful service with two infant baptisms and other people doing their first communion. The baptisms were different from the Methodist tradition in that the babies were presented naked and immersed in a big copper caldron of water three times and then dressed with little white shirt and either water or oil put on their heads. The choral music was great and the pipe organ was wonderful. We walked around Aix after church, talked to an Australian for a while and then went back to the house where we are staying, and I took a photo of the view from our walk to and from Aix. After we got home, I helped our hostess build a chicken coop, which looks more like a chalet than what we’ve used for chicken coops in the past. Then we went to cooking class in the evening, learned to make quiche, ate it and got home late again. We have to get up early to go to Marseille.

France Day 7 Aix Art in the Rain

May 19, 2013May 19, 2013 Timothy Price21 Comments

We left the house at 9:00 am in pouring rain, walked around Aix all day in the pouring rain, visited a museum, a couple of artists, a bridge, a garden, a spa built over old Roman baths, photographed Death at a wedding, and got food and coffee in the pouring rain. We went to a Mass with confirmation of adults by the Archbishop at the Aix Cathedral the evening, and finally got home at 11:00 pm, cold and wet. The photos are in order of the day, with the exception of the Tapestry Museum where I couldn’t take photos.

The tapestries were of scenes from Don Quijote, and they had a show of photographs by Roland Leboye, a French photographer who has taken Cartier Bresson’s “the decisive moment” to the extreme! Leboye’s street photography was wonderful and often very funny.

The giant insects are by a local artist from Aix.

The piles of paper and paper skull are part of a Paper Art installation we ran across by chance, and the arch Laurie is standing under is at the end of the courtyard were the Paper Art was.

We stayed in the tapestry museum until around noon, so by the time we got done looking at the insects and paper art, we got some food and hung out and ate and drank coffee until it was time to go to the art installation to meet the artist.

We got to the studio and installation of artwork by Nicole Catannéo about 2:15, met Nicole and Laurie discussed art and life with her and another older woman, in French, for over an hour. Nicole has quite a story as she had an illness when she was in her 40’s which left her partially paralyzed, and then her husband died when she was in her 50’s. She got herself together and went to art classes, and now creates wonderful paintings. She and Laurie really hit it off.

After the studio, we got another coffee for some warmth and energy, and headed toward the gardens at the northwestern edge of Aix. We walked through the modern shopping area on the western side of Aix, but when we got to the planted bridge, we were too far west and had to backtrack. We finally got to the gardens and found a bathroom on the grounds which had one of the “hole in the floor” fixtures. The garden was formal with mostly grass, but it had a nice rose garden behind the main garden. It also has a mansion with a museum, but they were closing when we got up to it. The mansion has a interesting entrance.

We stopped by a spa the is built over some old Roman baths to see what it cost to do the spa and get a message — about 100€ for both and 60€ for a 30 minute message.

On our way back to the center of Aix to find some food before we went to Mass, we walked by the cathedral and there was a VW and an Audi decorated for a wedding. Sophie told me that the Saturday before Pentecost was a big day for weddings in Aix, and we saw cars from 3 different weddings. While we waited for the bride and groom to come out, death walked by the VW.

After getting a bite to eat, we got to the cathedral at 7:30, an hour before the service to get good seats. We ended up siting more in the middle because the seats in front were occupied by the folks being confirmed, which looked to be well over 100 people plus their parents, bothers, sisters, husbands, wives; whoever was presenting them to the priest and Archbishop. The service was good, and the music was fantastic with the pipe organ and choral music. Laurie and I saw Matilda, the Brasilian who told us about it after the service, and we shook hands with the Archbishop on the way out. The boy in the last photo was cutting up during most of the service with a couple other boys. He looked quite shocked when the Archbishop stopped, put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, and blessed him at the end of the service.

France Day 6 Aix en Provence

May 18, 2013May 18, 2013 Timothy Price2 Comments

I think this may be the most photos I’ve ever posted at one time. The photos are a random set of Aix en Provence which has a lot of old stuff — remnants of Roman baths, a part of the medieval wall, 13th Century churches, churches built on churches that have baptistries that go back to 800 — and modern old stuff alike — Honda 70 trail bikes, phone booths and Renault 4 GTLs. You probably would have figured it out from the photos that Aix has lots and lots of fountains, and the old city that was originally inside the walls has a lot of narrow winding streets.

The activities yesterday were a walking tour of Aix, visiting an art gallery and the cooking classes. After visiting the art gallery, and while we were waiting for to go to the cooing class, Laurie and I visited the St Jean de Malte church, which was built between 1270-80 by the Nights Hospitaliers. We visited with a woman from Brazil who sings in the coral group and she gave us the schedule for the Pentecost services for the main Cathedral in Aix and at St Jean de Malte — she said both will have special music.

On our way to the cooking class I noticed a doorway open with an exhibition sign at the opening. We walked through the tunnel into a yard with bamboo and other stuff in the yard stuff. We felt a little strange at first, because we were in a private yard, but there was a little shack with paintings. The owner came out and told us about the painter, whose 70 years old, and he and Laurie discussed the artwork. We talked a little bit about life in general, and then he invited us to go back this afternoon to meet the artist and have a drink with her. We’ve only been in Aix a little over a day and we already have social activities outside of class activities.

As we continued on our way to cooking class, we came across a guy outside a bar with a kitten on his shoulder. The little kitty was really soft and cute.

France Day 5 Travel to Provence

May 17, 2013May 16, 2013 Timothy Price4 Comments

Laurie and I got to Notre Dame at 8:00 am, right after it opened, listened to mass, and then looked at the exhibits behind the altar area. The French government restored the pipe organ and the bells for the 850th anniversary, and the exhibit noted that renowned musicians play the pipe organ on Sundays. They also have concerts at Notre Dame, so we are planning on attending a concert and going on a Sunday to listen to the organ when we return to Paris at the end of the month. After mass and exploring a little more of the church, we sat out on the bleachers and ate bocadillos for breakfast before we had to go back to the hotel and collect our luggage to catch the train to Provence. Since there were few tourists sitting on the bleachers that early, the sparrows mobbed us to get our bread. They were quite aggressive little beasts, and I think they would have preferred to have eaten us if they were big enough.

Getting mob of 20 students plus a few parents and a kid to the TGV (high speed train) on time proved to be quite challenging, as we all barely got on the train before it left, and three people managed to get on the wrong train, but fortunately the two trains were attached and stayed together until we got to Aix en Provence.

The countryside was covered with green fields punctuated by fields of yellow Colza flowers (used for canola oil) and a few brown fields waiting to be planted most of the way to Provence. Low clouds hung in the sky all the way to Aix with the atmosphere below the clouds alternating between clear and mist. The landscape became drier and rockier the further south we went, but it was still much greener and wetter than New Mexico.

We are staying with a family in a large house on the northern edge of Aix en Provence. Sophie, the hostess, is a native of Aix, but has lived in England with her Husband Paul. She has one daughter living at home, a couple of other students who go back to the States on Wednesday and a dog name Lilly, who insists that I throw a ball for her and give her lots of attention.

We are starting on classwork this morning and our first cooking class is this evening.

France Day 4 Paris Free Day

May 16, 2013May 15, 2013 Timothy Price12 Comments

We had a free day today, which means we didn’t do anything as a class, so everyone was on their own to do whatever they desired. Laurie and I walked over to Norte Dame and sat in the garden behind the cathedral. There was free Paris WIFI available so I was able to finish placing a photo order that I got right before we left for France, and Laurie worked on an ad to try a get people to meet with us and exchange French conversation for English conversation. The interchange was called an intercambio when we were in Spain, and we would hang ads on public bulletin boards where we lived, at language academies and Irish pubs in Spain. So we figured we could do the same in Paris, except, once we got everything prepared and started walking the streets, we noticed that there were no public bulletin boards or kiosks around.

The University of Paris, Sorbonne is very near our Hotel, so we asked the guards at the front door if there were any public bulletin boards at the university to hang notices. They told us to go up the side of the building to 17. We asked the guard at entrance 17 and he said yes, up by the next entrance. The next three guards at the next three entrances looked confused at our request and said we had to have university IDs to get in. We walked the rest of the way around the building, which is huge, taking up several blocks, but there were no entrances on the west side of the building. We asked a student if he knew where any bulletin boards were, but he wasn’t from Paris, so he didn’t know. He said they had them in Lyons, but he hadn’t seen them in Paris. I looked on line and found a language interchange website that’s kind of like a Craig’s List for finding people to exchange languages with, which might be our best option.

In the late afternoon we dropped by a little grocery store and bought some food, then we walked back to Notre Dame and sat on the bleachers facing the façade, looked at the church and watched other tourists while we ate dinner. I had photographed a lot of the gargoyles with a telephoto lens when we were there in the morning, but then after we ate, we walked all the way around the cathedral, and I took more photos of gargoyles. The sunset was brilliant as we crossed the bridge on our way back to the hotel. When I turned back to look at Notre Dame from the other side of the bridge, the light was perfect, but I had a telephoto lens on the camera so I couldn’t get the whole church in a single frame. I didn’t have time to change lenses because I’d lose the light, so I took 9 quick shots in a grid and stitched them together. I got the color and feeling of the light, and the building is straight, except for the towers ended up leaning back in the finished photo.

France Day 3 Paris & a walk at night

May 15, 2013May 14, 2013 Timothy Price14 Comments

Today we went by the outdoor market on our way to the Rodin Sculpture Garden, Napoleon’s tomb, the Military Museum and Map Museum as part of the class. Then Laurie and I walked to the Cimetière du Montparnasse, found Serge Gainsbourg’s grave, then walked back to the hotel. We walked to a restaurant that specialized in crepes for dinner, which was a mile and a half from the Hotel. The crepes were delicious, and a couple of women sitting at the end of our table gave us a sample of their apple cider, which was really good — it reminded us of Spain. After dinner we walk back to the hotel, which was mostly along Rue Mouffetard. A light rain was falling making the air slightly hazy and the stone streets glisten. One of the stores we walked by had Moulin Rouge Goth style dresses and an ad for a Goth-style model. There were several bars and food places along the walk, and the dog in the second photo was part of the crepe restaurant. I measured our walk on Google Map Pedometer and got 6.5 miles for the day.

France Day 2 — Paris

May 14, 2013May 13, 2013 Timothy Price4 Comments

Today we went to Notre Dame, Paris City Hall, the Pompidou Center, and a tower commemorating a king as part of class, then Laurie and I went to the Medieval Museum in the afternoon. We were going to go to the Deportation Museum, but it was closed, but then we walked by the bridge over the Seine where lovers put locks on the bridge to seal their love (or something like that). One of the students said his parents had placed a lock on the bridge many years ago — we decided it would be impossible to find it.

I used a super wide-angle lens for the exterior and interior shots today, so the buildings are distorted. But then, you can Google the building and see photos of the buildings closer to the right perspective.

Notre Dame is 850 years old now, and the exterior has been cleaned and the cathedral is free of scaffolding on the exterior. The interior is dark so the stained glass is very luminous. There are a lot of nice gargoyles on Notre Dame, but most are very high and difficult to see well with the naked eye. I have some details of gargoyles on Notre Dame, but the gargoyles I posted today are on the commemorative tower — I had better light at the tower, so the definition is better in those photos.

City hall (not pictured) is a big, recently cleaned building, with a lot of statutes of famous statesmen, artists and people who were involved with the arts and sciences. There had bee some kind of celebration or fiesta over the weekend, as there were work crews taking down tents and amusement rides.

The Pompidou Center is a large, modern building that was very controversial because of it’s raw, skinless, functional structure. The multicolored pipes on the one side of the building are color coded by function — hot water, cold water, HVAC, etc. — and are exposed and color coded throughout the building.

The tower was built by a king for himself and serves no other purpose but as a monument to the king. It has great gargoyles, so I included a statue of St. George flanked by gargoyles and then a detail of St George and one of the gargoyles. The second detail shows how expressive the gargoyles are. Professor Janetta Rebold Benton, in her talk on gargoyles in April, said the gargles were made for God, because they are so high and hard to see. Fortunately we have telephoto lenses today that let’s us see want my have very well been for God’s eyes only.

The Medieval Museum was fantastic, but we didn’t have time to really look at everything. We will go back to it when we return to Paris in June. There a lot of groups of school children in the museum listening to lectures on the art, running around and finding pieces on their worksheet, and drawing some of the artifacts on display. The last photo shows a class in the room with swords, shields and other accouterments of chivalry.

Laurie has a little magnifying glass on the compass, so we were looking at some of the illuminated manuscripts with the magnifying glass. Tiny details about the size of a pin head have amazing detail of faces with expression and realistic looking flowers, and lines no thicker than fine hair are perfectly drawn. I can only imagine that the artists used some type of magnifying glass to do the work, or they had amazingly good vision.

France Day 1 — Paris

May 13, 2013May 12, 2013 Timothy Price7 Comments

We didn’t sleep a wink on the flight from Salt Lake City to Paris, so if parts of today’s blog doesn’t make sense, it’s because I haven’t slept in in past 40 hours. I don’t think many did by the number of monitors of at around 5:00 am. There was darkness then cloud cover over the Atlantic and England, but the clouds started to breakup along France’s shoreline, and the there was green and yellow farmland up to and surrounding the airport.

Our plane landed about 20 minutes early, but we ended up getting off the plane about 45 minutes later because there was a problem at our gate, so the tower sent our plane to back to the remote unloading area, but then either solved the problem at the original gate or got us another gate close the the original, because the pilot taxied the lane across the the airport again before docking the plane and allowing us to get off. So we were among the late arrivals.

The class met outside the Hotel at 2:30 and we all followed our professor as he lead us on our way to lunch. When we got to the spot where the restaurant used to be, it wasn’t there, a gift/luggage shop was in its place, so we headed for a Greek, Gyros place for lunch/dinner.

After we ate we headed to the Eiffel Tower, via the long RER and Metro route. Part of the long route was metro seasoning for the students, but it also put us out at the top of the park, with a full view of the tower. It’s impressive, but the really fun part of photographing the Eiffel Tower is photographing other tourists photographing each other doing silly things in front of the Eiffel Tower. Most of us climbed the stairs up to the 2nd level of the tower, but the had the top closed because of wind when we got the tickets to climb the stairs, so no one in the class got the the top.

Before we climbed the steps, the professor gave each student a metro ticket and left us — our assignment was to make it back to the hotel without his help either by ourselves or in groups.