France Day 16 Chateau d’If

May 28, 2013 Timothy Price15 Comments

Our last day in Provence, and the sea was calm enough for us to get a boat out to Chateau d’If, the island castle turned prison that was made famous by Alexandre Dumas in his novel The Count of Monte Cristo. The most famous prisoner on Chateau d’If was Edmond Dantes, Dumas’ fictional character who was wrongly imprisoned on d’If for 14 years, and who meets the Abbe Faria after Faria digs a tunnel into Dantes’ chamber. Faria educates Dantes, Dantes escapes posing as the dead Faria, and becomes the Count of Monte Cristo. Even though Dantes and the Abbe never existed, there is a tunnel adjoining two chambers that are labeled Abbe Faria and Edmond Dantes. The castle is in great condition with access to almost every room. In some of the rooms they have sound effects to give added ambience. There are lots of seagulls nesting on the island, and ignoring the signs saying that seagulls are dangerous, I got very close to one that sitting on her eggs. She was very vocal about my close proximity, but simply held her ground.

France Day 15 Grand Canyon Du Verdon

May 27, 2013May 27, 2013 Timothy Price6 Comments

We drove northeast of Aix to the Grand Canyon du Verdon. We turned around at the first photo, which was the Clue de Chasteuille Réglès at 1447 meters above sea level. This is the lower end of the Alps, and at that point we were about 200 kilometers from the Italian border. At one point we had a really good view of the snowcapped Alps, but the road was too narrow to stop and get a photo, and by the time I could pull over, the snowcaps were out of view. Along the way we passed the remaining supports of an old suspension bridge at the confluence of the Durance and Verdon rivers, a castle at Allemagne en Provence where a group of men were playing pétanque. At the mouth of the canyon is Moustiliers St. Marie with churches built up in the steep walls of a small canyon above the village. Moustiliers St. Marie is well known for the fine pottery produced there. We drove through the canyon on very narrow roads hugging the cliff, which made Laurie very nervous, up to the top where we encountered the view of Clue de Chasteuille Réglès. On the way back down, we stopped and hiked about a third of the way down into the canyon. To hike all the way down to the river and back would have taken three or four hours, which we didn’t have time to do.

France Day 14 Montagne St. Victoire

May 26, 2013 Timothy Price4 Comments

We took a drive around Montagne St Victoire, visited the Barrage de Bimont, a lake with a dam that was built between 1946 and 1951 and went into service in 1952 to supply water to Aix en Provence and other villages in the area. We drove on mostly very narrow and winding roads through forest with scenic views on the north side of the mountains, and through villages and vineyards on the east side of St Victoire. The weather was still cool and windy, but it was a beautiful day.

France Day 13 The road to Avignon

May 25, 2013 Timothy Price10 Comments

We took the long road to Avignon and visited the market at Lourmarin where we got cheese, meat and bread to eat along the way. The large, half round of cheese in the first photo is Cantal. We have a recipe that calls for cantal, but I couldn’t find it in Albuquerque. There is a castle in Lourmarin as well. Then we drove to Bonnieux, a picturesque 12th century village built on a hill. The photo with the church in the foreground shows Mont Ventoux in the background. We passed by an old bridge that was probably either Visigoth or Roman on our way to Roussillon. There is a similar bridge in northern Spain that is Visigoth. Roussillon is painted with the red and yellow pigments they make from the soil in the area. We ate lunch on a bench in an area protected from the wind and watched the light change on Mont Ventoux in the distance. You can tour the valley and the operation for making the pigments, but it was cold and windy so we didn’t do the tour. Gordes is an amazingly beautiful village built on and in the rocks on the side of a hill. After Gordes we visited Fontaine du Vaucluse, which is a headwater, but instead of a trickle of water from a melting snow pack that eventually turns into a river, Fontaine du Vaucluse produces volumes of water gushing from a spring. Parking was expensive, so we didn’t stop and get photos. After almost seven hours visiting , we made it to Avignon. Avignon is a large city, so it takes a bit of driving to get to the old city still surrounded by a wall. The Papal Palace is quite an imposing structure, a very well fortified building.

A18W7625 — Between Bonnieux and Roussillon

France Day 12 Cassis

May 24, 2013 Timothy Price10 Comments

Cassis is a beautiful village tucked into a cove with a couple of small, but nice beaches. It’s like a dream village for those who would like to get up, have coffee looking out on the water, lay in the sun and wade in the clear, blue water. There is a scenic road the winds along the cliffs above the sea between Cassis and La Ciotat we were going to drive, but it was closed. The road up the mountain on the way was so steep that the VW Up! we are driving could barely get Up the road — truly “hors catégorie” on the grade of that road. The last photo is face of Mont Sainte Victoire. Cézanne painted the profile of the Sainte Victoire looking east.

France Day 11 Arles Roaming Where The Romans Roamed

May 23, 2013 Timothy Price6 Comments

We went to Arles yesterday where there is a lot of really well preserved Roman ruins, Arles has a lot of interesting old architecture as does all the old cities in Provence. After Arles, we drove down the Rhone peninsula to a little strip of beach. The area is a large nature preserve with flamingos. The wind blew hard all day and is was really strong on the peninsula — it was so strong that I was having trouble getting clear photos of the flamingos.

France Day 10 Les Baux de Provence

May 22, 2013 Timothy Price2 Comments

Yesterday was a free day, so we did laundry, then our hostess drove us to the TGV station where we got our tickets back to Paris on the 28th and where we picked up a rental car for the rest of the week. After talking to locals and getting recommendations of places to see, Laurie and I decided we needed to rent a car so we could get out in the countryside and really explore the area. So we are still going to the same places as the class, but we are going to do a lot more exploring. After we picked up the car, we drove out to Les Baux de Provence, an old fortified city built on top of a rock at a pass in the hills, which was highly recommended. You can only get there by car or hired tour bus.

Baux is a popular village. There were a lot of people visiting the village, a lot of large groups of bicyclists slowly making their way up the hills into the city, and lots of tour buses. We parked in the village in the valley below Baux and walked up on the the stone stairways that brought us to gate 6. Just below the gate there were areas where buildings had been built into the rock that were now just cutouts in the rock that reminded us of the cliff dwellings at Bandelier National Monument. We were going to go into the old fort that would have given us access to the highest points on the ruins of the old fortification, but two or three groups of about 100 schools kids were going in, so that slowed down the process of getting in, and we had limited time as we had to get back by 6:00 at the latest for cooking class.

There are a lot of shops and restaurants tucked into odd shaped places and on terraces. We ate crepes in the narrow, almost triangular building (photos 7, 8, 9). It was pretty late so we and another person were the only people in the restaurant. The crepes were excellent and while were eating, the waitress and cook where busy bringing things in and taking things out the door. When we left, they had set up an ice-cream machine and slush machines and had a soft drinks available on the street. The weather was cool, but I’m sure when all those kids came back through after touring the fort, she would get a lot of business.

We also stopped and explored some of the vinyards and olive groves along the way, and I got my first French drive-by photo of the shark on the truck — the drives can be quite wild in France, but drivers seem quite wild everywhere. BTW we are driving the VW Up! to the left of the Mini Cooper in the second to the last photo.

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 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.