mai 3 - 10: Nice, Valbonne parts deux

We arrived by train, and our first night, we took Lonely Planet's advice and ate at Restaurant Gesu for the "no-frills, local experience." They were on the money. While waiting, we chatted with a former local who recommended the pizza, but we'd had some for lunch. We were served by the "gravelly-voiced patron" himself who was a short, friendly, slightly frantic man. Our zucchini beignets, raviloli and fettucini were super, but we decided to break the bank and belly and each get chocolate mousse as well. At some point our waiter changed to a younger guy who I chatted with about Americans' and French people's views of each other. And after our good chat, he treated us to limoncello! We went home stuffed and feeling welcomed to the city.

Our hotel was near the train station, in an interesting immigrant neighborhood. We walked by at least four Halal butcher shops on Sunday morning, plus lots of internet spots including my favorite name, Allo Mama. We were headed for a departmental bike festival at the beach, and then I enjoyed showing Tim some places I had visited in the city in February.

That afternoon we went to the city's Matisse museum (he lived in Nice for a good while). It was a great overview of his life and different periods of his work -- everything from his earliest copies of other masters' works to his late color block collages. Sadly, we didn't see the last floor since the fire alarm rang; Tim and I were convinced that the museum folks wanted to leave an hour early for the Sunday afternoon festival that was happening in the park just outside. There was local music, people dancing, and lots of picnics.

We had a quiet Monday except for getting afternoon pastries at a nearby bakery where we sat and took in the after-school moms and kids scene. It's a French tradition to take the kids to get a little treat after school, and it gives them and the moms a chance to socialize at the bakery.

The next day we went to Vence, a nearby town, to see the chapel there that was designed entirely by Matisse. A sister in the convent had been his nurse and asked Matisse to do the work. It took him four solid years, and he called it his greatest work. Every aspect of the chapel was designed by Matisse from the blue and while tiled roof to the altar made out of a porous stone that resembles bread, a nod to communion that happens there. The chapel itself has stark white walls, two of them filled with stained glass in yellow, bottle green and deep blue. The other two were covered with black line paintings on shiny white tile, one of the stations of the cross, one of Mary and Jesus, and one of St Dominic since it´s a Dominican convent. Matisse even designed the vestments, too. (Sadly, no photos allowed inside.)

Our next day's outing was to Monte Carlo where we gawked at and along with the hordes of tourists at the changing of the guard at the Prince's Palace. The Monaco Grand Prix was only a few weeks away, so we saw bleachers, jumbotrons and barriers all over the city. More gawking at cars (Aston Martins, Bentleys, Ferraris, an Excalibur?!) in front of the Paris Hotel, the four-star-plus kitty corner to the casino which itself is a gorgeous art nouveau building.

We had a quieter time after at the beach in Eze where it was warm enough for a dip. We felt extra glamourous since Brad and Angelina had been there the day before. And we ended Nice time with another visit to Restaurant Gesu.

Our last destination together in France was the first farm where I had WWOOFed. Lesley and Robert opened us with open arms, and we spent two days living it up in four-star accommodations at the Domaine. Meals of market-fresh food outside on the terrace, a visit to the Valbonne market, drive to Gourdon, and lots of playing with and chasing down the two new beagle puppies: Daisy and Buster.

One final night at a funny airport hotel in Marseille included ping pong on their run-down outdoor table. And them Tim was off early the next monrning to Bournemouth, and me to Paris.

avril 26-mai 2: Luberon reunion

I spent the 26th in Avignon waiting for Tim's train to arrive and amassing what would be our dinner feast that night. I returned to Pain § Cie, the fantastic bakery I discovered the first time around, for half loaves of flaxseed and vigneron (walnut and wine-soaked raisin) breads. Then on to the butcher for some jambon de Savoie, an aged ham in the Parma style. And finally a long, but very nice walk to La Reboule, the farm on Ile de Barthelasse for strawberries, carrots, zucchini and snow peas. I was already packing dried fruit, digestive biscuits, a Snickers bar, a hunk of aged cantal and two goat cheeses from the last farm. Good thing Tim arrived hungry.

We met up at the TGV shuttle stop and had a great sit in a nearby park. After a short walk around town and some grocery shopping, we hopped a little train to Cavaillon where we stayed for the next four nights. Our room had doors out to a terrace with table and chairs where we enjoyed many a dinner and breakfast. Cavaillon is a town of about 25,000 in the heart of melon country. The Cavaillon melon is somewhat like a cantaloupe, but people rave and rave about it. Sadly, they're not in season until July. We saw tons and tons of fields, though, many bordered by high cedar hedges that cut the fierce Mistral winds that can blow here. (It's the typical wind of Provence that usually comes roaring down the Rhone.) We did see tons of strawberries at the market, though, as well as an anti-GMO protest where people were chained together using bike locks.

Cavaillon is at the edge of the Luberon regional park, an area named after the mountain nearby that we could see from a hike in town. Cavaillon is also the most westerly point on a cycling loop that swings through the park for 230km round trip. We saw lots of cycletourists in town and also serious-looking mountain and road bikers. In fact, we became part of the cycling crowd for four days, too. The bike shop just down the block from our hotel was a high-end place with one really sweet Cannondale RAW up for show that was sadly already sold and not available for a test ride.



We rented nice Cannondale Backcountries with panniers and handlebar bags. First up was a day trip to Carpentras inspired by reports from my first French hosts of an incredible pastry shop there that they used to frequent. We passed through Isle-sur-La-Sorgue where the Sorgue river cuts through the middle of town. This was followed by some getting lost and a long, long climb to a point where we could see Mt. Ventoux in the distance, the biggest mountain in Provence.



The pastries from L'Atelier des Mets did not disappoint. Tim, on his crusade to have at least one pain au chocolat a day and try lots of different places, stuck with his standard while I had a lemon tartelette. We also each had an incredible macaron. On the way back we took a little break again in Isle-sur-La-Sorgue next to a canal.



The cycletouring began in earnest the following day with a rainy, windy ride. We followed the sign-posted route out from Cavaillon, and the weather was wretched until Bonnieux where we stopped for lunch. One great, long downhill later, we arrived in Apt where Tim discovered that "pain frite" with cheese, lettuce and tomato doesn't actually mean grilled cheese. It means a pocket sandwich stuffed with fries.



The following day we took a loop day trip to Rousillion to see the famous ochre rocks there as well as the village which is classified as one of the most beautiful in France. After yet another cheese, bread, olives, fruit and chocolate lunch, we left Rousillion down an enormous hill and got ourselves off the route. It took some frustratingly hot biking to get back on, only to lose it again. But all ended well with a 15-minute-long downhill without pedaling or braking back in to Apt. We rewarded ourselves with delicious Moroccan dinner.



Tim classified the next day of cycling back to Cavaillon as the best he's had while touring. Indeed, the crisp morning air was perfect for the hard climb out of Apt. Bonnieux was buzzing for market day when we came through, so we stocked up for a picnic which we then had in Menerbes and which Tim classified as probably the best picnic he's ever had. (So many superlatives!) Biking-induced hunger, fresh food, a table in a garden and a view of the Provencal countryside were hard to beat. Apricot jam with lemon pulp was the highlight.




We spent one more night in Cavaillon where we had pizza while watching "Borat" in French. Then off for five nights in Nice.

avril 22-26: Nîmes

I decided to skip Carcassonne on the recommendation of my last hosts who said that after walking around the old medieval part of the city there wasn't much to see. I decided instead to spend all four nights before Tim came in Nîmes, a fairly big city with lots of Roman history.

My first day, I headed for the Arènes, or Roman amphitheater, one of the three major Roman sites in the city. Nîmes was Nemausus in Roman times, a very important city in southern France on the Via Domitia, a road that connected Rome to Spain. The amphitheater here was built in the first century and used for gladiator battles, etc. But after that it went through centuries of other uses such as a fortress for the Visigoth invaders and even a small walled town in the Middle Ages until the 18th century. In the middle of the 19th, a restoration was undertaken, and it's evident in some parts just how "restored" it was with stone and brick that resembled very little the original structure. Today, the arena is used for bullfights which were happening the week after I was there, and I wondered if they left the wooden bleachers up all year round or just for the season.



I also walked around the city quite a bit, passing this ridiculously-named clothing store. I don't think I'd want to shop here.


Nîmes also boasts an incredibly beautiful park on a site where the Romans had some major public buildings and a temple to the goddess Diana. The park's major feature is a fountain and series of canals and ponds fed by the powerful spring that was one impetus for Roman settlement.



On the same subject of Roman water, I took a bus the next day to the Pont du Gard, the Roman aqueduct over the river Gard that was part of a system to bring water from Uzès to Nîmes, about 25 km. The structure is amazing, rising almost 50m from the riverbed with three levels of arches of differing sizes. I was able to see the aqueduct from a few different veiwpoints since there are trails all around and a second bridge that has been built running right next to the Roman construction.



One of the trails was particularly great because you could see the continuation of the aqueduct as it ran off into the forest. Parts were overgrown and falling down, while others looked quite intact. And still others had had the arches filled in at some later point, perhaps by opportunist folks looking to build a wall in the area and taking advantage of the existing structure.



Back in Nîmes the next day, I wandered more, stumbling across the place in the city where water came in from the aqueduct and was separated into different flows to areas of the city. And I went to the city archeological musem which was quite the place. It felt like a somewhat dinky municipal museum in the U.S. where you might find things that have been sitting around attics for years, but things like old polictical propaganda or furniture or clothing, not Roman artifacts. Somehow the lack of interpretation and jumble of set up is more shocking when the objects are that old. Perhaps it's not just age that imbues things with importance and these Roman stones and pottery were not so valuable. But seeing thousands of years old statues, mosaics and carvings in a courtyard with lots of pigeons and bird poop was pretty startling.



And then after my last night of sleeping with a loud, snoring Australian in my room, it was off to Avignon to meet up with Tim!