fév 21-24: Aix-ventures and Avignon arrival

Aix wasn't actually all that adventurous since I went to bed around 9pm every night on account of a cold, but it was a good time. I arrived via TGV then shuttle from Nice early afternoon which meant that I had to lug around my 25lb+ backpack until the 5pm check-in time at the hostel. I spent a while at the tourist office; I've come to really appreciate this instution of every French city/town/village. The people are so helpful, and there are resoures galore. It makes me wonder what the Cambridge tourist office is like after all of my years there.

I also thankfully stumbled upon a fantastic little restaurant that I'd recommend to anyone looking for lunch in Aix. Named "pourqoui pas?," it's a one-woman operation -- both chef and front-of-house are run by this very nice lady who seemed to be in her early 40s. The concept is different for a French restaurant with everything on one plate at once rather than in courses. This meant carrot soup, potato and cheese tart, marinated mushrooms (I ate them!), green salas, cold zucchini couscous pilaf, nice ham and onion jam all together. Everything was delicious. I was too late for dessert as she ran out on the guy before me. But thankfully I returned two days later and had pear crumble with salty caramel! It was a small, relaxing space just what I wanted.

I was at the hostel for three nights which was a 20-minute walk from town on a busy, ugly street. The place felt deserted and a bit run down, and the breakfast left a lot to be desired -- think not-so-fresh slices of bread, jam packets and concentrated oj. But I did meet some nice folks including a girl from Chile who's been traveling aroudn Europe post-college, a Norweigan cyclist who works 12 12-hour days of concrete construction in a row then has nine days off, an Irish guy looking for work teaching English in France, and three Quebecoise women -- two young exchange students traveling together, and one older retiree in France for the year-long trip of a lifetime. I found the Quebec girls nearly incomprehensible with their thick French-Canadian accents.

I spent my second day in Marseille, a 30-minute bus ride south. It's France's second largest city at 1.5 million, and it's also the most international. I certainly saw more men in robes and scullcaps and more people of different races than in other cities, but it preserves French tradtitions, too. I was particularly excited to see the morning fish market in the vieux port where fish are sold just out of the water, many still flapping or wriggling on the ice and water-filled tables from which they are sold. Lots of sea-roughened men and women who reminded me of New England fishermen, too.

I mostly walked around the city, hitting up two churches in particular, the first and second striped churches I've seen in my life. The guy at the hostel reception told me this was the North African influence at work, and the historical markers noted the Byzantine influence in both of their architectures. The second was Notre Dame de la Garde which is on a hilltop that watches over the city with a 9-ton, 9.7-meter high, gold-leafed Virgin and Child on the top.

There was also lots of grafitti in Marseille, some of it pretty cool.

Saturday morning in Aix, I checked out the market which was awesome. There was a 5-foot-wide paella, lots of produce, cheap clothes, and bustle. I later happened upon the second Saturday morning market which was just as great with a fish and shellfish section and some old-timey farmers. In between I took a guided tour of Aix in French. Some of the info was familiar from my French class last semester, and I did understand the vast majority of what was said. In general, it's a city of fancy 18th-century houses, fountains, a twisty Medieval section, and a cathedral with an architectural period identity crisis.

Today it was the TGV to Avignon, a 20-minute train ride covering about 60 miles. The landscape changes amazingly when you head here, getting more arid with scrubby plants and rocky hills, but also more and more vineyards as I'm now in prme Côtes du Rhone territory. Avignon is best known for the children's song "Sur la pont d'Avignon...", its summer theater festival, and the Palais de Papes where the papacy resided for some years in a decidedly un-papal palace. The city also retains its remparts which are formidable, though apparently crumbling to some extent as there is a sign posted in the parking lot next to them which is usually in a falling rock zone.

I had a long walk around the Ile de la Barthelasse, an 800-hectare (nearly 2000 acres) island in the Rhone just across from Avignon. It remains remarkably rural and agricultural and had some superb tiny roads for walking or cycling which it seemed that all of the Avignionnais were doing on this gorgeous Sunday.

Tomorrow is supposed to be the marginally better of the next two days weather-wise, so I may rent a bike and get some suggestions for toodling. I already like Avignon quite a bit, and I believe the next few days will only improve it.

fev 20: B-day in Nice

(Another abbreviated post owing to the silly French keyboard.)

My birthday in Nice was quite enjoyable with an early morning trip to a fresh pasta shop and then the market for dinner supplies. I had an interesting chat with a farmer who I bought a slice of squash from (this squash was like a four-foot long butternut that she sold coins off) about horse meat. Apparently there are very few butchers left who know how to deal with horse meat, but she thought it had a better taste than beef. Not sure I'd go for it if the opportunity presented itself...

Had a birthday chat with Tim, a walk around, lunch and then the Bataille des Fleurs, a parade with lots of flower-bedecked floats and people in crazy costumes. I also enjoyed watching the elder folks in front of me get each other with silly string. I did not enjoy their standing up when each float came, though, since it was quite tough to see. It was also COLD and windy, and I think it was during the parade that I acquired my current cold.

Had a good dinner and then chat with hostel folks and my folks. There was one Irish guy at the hostel who had visited a friend in Boston and gone to see Harvard during the recent shopping week. He and his buddy decided they wanted to see Widener and so, with the Irish gift of gab, they talked their way in as false recently-arrived exchange students. Perhaps more amazing, and certainly more funny for me, they talked their way in to eat in Annenberg (the freshmen dining hall). He thought it Harry Potter-like and was amazed by the all-you-can-eat and the sundae bar and the friendliness of the students. And to top it all off, they went to some sort of career or concentration fair where they got free Harvard t-shirts and bags. It was a super story.

That's my birthday hot chocolate and palmier cookie sandwich with strawberry jam at a candy store/salon de thé that's been in Nice since 1820.

The following day I was up early to catch the train to Aix where I am now just til tomorrow morning. More from there where I hope to find a QWERTY keyboard!

fev 19: Nice and Eze

(Apologies about photos at the start of the blog. I cannot get them to the bottom.)

I got an early start this morning with an hour-long run through Nice. Like Paris, it seems that people only run in certain places, here, the Promenade des Anglais which is the boardwalk along the Mediterranean. I again wonder how those runners get down there since one never sees people running elsewhere. I got my share of funny looks as I ran down and down and down the hill to get to the sea. But I was rewarded with a beautiful sunrise and nice tired legs at the end of running up and up and up to the hostel.


Then it was hostel breakfast which was yummy and off to the market to pick up a picnic. It was much less impressive even than the one in Valbonne in its scope, but I managed to pick up a baguette, small goat cheese, pears and tapenade. The off to Eze yet another pretty little medieval village. But this one unfortunately made its highest point with the best panorama of the Mediterranean a 5 euro paid only spot. Did not go in.

Instead I had a fantastic hike down the 460m from the village to Eze Bord de Mer, or seaside Eze. The path was steep and rocky, and it got pretty hot once I was out of the trees, so once I reached the beach I sat there in just a tank top and rolled up jeans. It was much less built up than other beaches I've been to with just a wall behind that had houses right on the edge. There was a little group of Frenchies having a picnic lunch too. I sat for a bit with my feet just close enough to the water to get wet when there was a wave; the water is not warm. But the beach pebbles were smooth, varied and beautiful.

Back at the hostel now for dinner before the illuminated parade tonight. No huge birthday plans for tomorrow except the Matisse museum and the flower parade in the afternoon. And maybe some special birthday cake at a nice pastry shop. :)

fev 15-18: Two quiet outings, then Nice

Writing from a hostel computer in Nice, so not to be too long here. (Will upload photos when there are fewer people) Last Friday was a final day of olive tree pruning which was just as enjoyable as the others, especially with more sunny skies and reasonable temperatures. I took another challenging trail run that afternoon involving many hills with lots of rocks. I survived.

Saturday I caught the early bus to Cannes, hit up the market for some picnic fodder, and then took the 25-minute ferry to Ile St Honorat. It's the smaller of two islands off Cannes, inhabited only by a small order of monks who have been there in one incarnation or another for 16 centuries. Apparently the monks who once owned Domaine de la Sylviane moved down there when they left Valbonne. It is quite a small island -- you can walk from coast to coast across the shorter axis in about 10 minutes. One of the most astonishing things about the landscape was the fact that the coastal rocks all seemed to have heaved up enough so that their layers ran vertically instead of horizontally, all craggy white stone bleached by the sun. Lots of cypress and other evergreen trees, plus birds including some kind of game bird (pheasant, quail or partridge, don't know the difference...). I did see two monks as well, one of whom smiled at me instead of saying Bonjour since they are a silent order.

These monks, though, apparently make some very fine wines. I didn't taste any, but I did buy myself a sampler pack of their five liqueurs, one of which is made with 44 different herbs. Perhaps the coolest thing on the island, though, is the ruined fortified monastery that was built over the course of the 13th-16th centuries, I think. Unfortunately, my camera battery died just as I got there, but it was the stone shell of something that looked like a large castle tower with different rooms for prayer, working and sleeping inside.

Sunday, after a leisurely breakfast, I took my walk to the town of Biot along the river Brague. It was nice enough, but the scenery varied too little for my taste. Lots of ivy-covered trees, bare trees, mossy trees, the small river, and the path in front of me. The path, in fact, was the most interesting part. I've never been on a path in the woods before that was paved; it was paved with stones and built up like a kind of wall along the river bank. Quite the contrast to see this piece of mad-made masonry in the midst of the forest.

Both days I had Filipino dinners including learning more about everyone's families and watching the video of last year's pig roast that celebrated one of their friend's 50th birthdays.

And now in Nice where I walked around lots today and took a somewhat disappointing tour of Confiserie Florian, a traditional candy company. I did splurge on clementine confit which are these incredible whole candied clementines that just drop syrup when you bite into them. I'll make the bag last for at least a week. Just like my birthday present to myself -- the box of chocolates from Maison du Chocolat that I bought on Saturday in Cannes. In fact, off to have one for dessert right now.

fev 11-14: More olive adventures

My work week began with more compost. Finally finished filling up the two bins, then shoveled the older stuff into the wagon attached to a tractor which unfortunately had to be left idling while I shoveled since it needed a jumpstart from the Land Rover to get going at all. I swear the people who made that other compost mixed dirt in with the grass and poo since there was just tons of gravel in it. Ah well.

After a morning of that, though, I was invited to head off to Gourdon for lunch. It's a "village perchee" really perched at 760m altitude on a bit of rock that sticks up all on its own amongst other mountains. It also has the offical distinction of being one of th emost beautiful villages in France. I LOVE that the French actually classify things like that. The approach to it was incredible, up some 10 and 15% grades on twisty roads in the VW Golf convertible. One really wonders why people ever chose to settle in this place, but it must have had some incredible strategic advantages in defending.

The village almost completely relies on tourism now. Streets are only for pedestrians and are flanked by cheesy trinket and candy stores. I didn't spend nearly long enough in the 12th-century church, but it was a dark sanctuary from the tourism without that had some simple stained glass with clean lines that reminded me of my mom's.



The village highlight and reason for going there was lunch. We four at at La Vielle Four (the old oven) which was reputed to be a good spot. Holy moly, it was hands-down the best meal I've had in France, not that I've been here long. Started with soupe de courge, a large winter squash that resembles our friend the Long Island Cheese Squash. It was the smoothest sqash soup I've had in my life. Came with a small salad and toast with fromage frais, crisp bacon and balsamic vinegar. Then grilled dorado on top of mashed potatoes (that had olive bits in them!). And a parfait of pureed candied chestnuts, vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce and creme fraiche. The front-of-house was the wife of the chef, and it was quirkily decorated in a basement space. Simply an amazing little place.

Tuesday morning I got my lesson in olive tree pruning from Jerome. There are lots of rules to follow, but the general idea is to create a kind of umbrella shape, opening up the tree to allow branches to droop, because it's the droopers that give olives. You also cut off anything that looks dry or dead. Jerome seemed to cut pretty much everything. He would grab a branch, give a reason, and then say "Il faut l'enlever," "It must be cut off." Tools of the trade are a ladder, little hand clippers, shears with long handles, and a skinny-bladed saw.

Pruning is addictive. You're giving order to this thing that's crazy and natural and all over the place, making it work for you better. It seemed a bit odd to me that Jerome would say this after pruning a little tree withinn an inch of its life, but he remarked "Regarde sa belle forme naturelle," "Look at its beautiful natural form." I think that olive trees have been cultivated for so long maybe that they've grown used to human intervention and thrive with it. Hanging out in trees is also just a blast: finding where to best position myself amongst the branches, how to get to the next higher point in the tree, gradually snipping out a space for myself in the canopy.


It took me five hours to do my first olivier (olive tree). I go so slowly to make sure I'm cutting the right branch, looking for ones that cross each other, cutting one of the two, determining just how dead one looks, struggling with theh clippers to get through a large branch. Compared to me, Jerome looks like an LP at 78rpm, but I'm ok with being slow since I feel thorough. Tomorrow will bring more pruning, then the weekend for some more outings. It's supposed to be another beautiful weekend with sun and temperatures around 60 -- good weather for a trip to one of the islands off Cannes.

fev 9-10: Visits to the coast

In Valbonne I'm onl 6km from the Mediterranean as the crow flies, but it doesn't feel that close. With twisty roads, forest and lots of other villages in between, it takes at least 45 minutes to get there by bus. The bus system is quite good, and I took one Saturday morning (after a trail run and breakfast) to Antibes. Like other towns on the Cote d'Azur, it has attracted artists like Picasso, Graham Greene and the French poet Jacques Prevert, plus many wealthy Americans who built homes here throughout the early 20th century. It's also built on the site of an ancient Greek city, Antipolis, and has some fantastic ramparts bordering the Mediterranean that are from the 17th century.


I had a half day of wandering around the old city and along the beach-side. The market here was great -- in a covered hall without sides, featuring quite a few farmers, plus olive/tapenade vendors, meats, cheese, olive oil soaps, and more. I got some no-spray Brussel sprouts, in-shell hazelnuts (such a pain to open!), and some not so great cookies. But I also came across a great little fair called Pain, Amour et Chocolat, essentially a small market of chocolate, baked goods and other specialty foods producers from near Antibes but also many from nearby Italy, especially Turin. One sample of chcolate liquor, a slice of zucchini/tomato tart, and some fresh pasta later, I wandered some more. (That's the Antibes bus station below.)


Sunday I went down to Cannes with Lesley to do their shopping at the bustling Marche Forville. We got flowers for the house and her mother-in-law, tons of cheeses and some sliced meat, and then met up with Robert, her husband, and their American friend who'd just flown in, Roger. We then piled on produce and picked up lobsters which they later had for lunch. I stayed in town and walked a bit, though many shops and things were closed because it was Sunday. Cannes is indeed a place to see and be seen. Lots of people sitting outside at cafes just watching things go by. The main film festival building is a hideous bunker, and many of the apartment buildings along the coast are ugly 1960s-era things in pastels. But the sea is gorgeous with the small mountains of the Massif d'Esterel to the west. I sat on the beach (actually in a lounge chair) for lunch, a total treat.

That night it was brasiola for dinner, which in this context was a thinly-sliced cured beef that we plated up with olive oil, pepper, and mango. It was super yummy. (FYI, brasiola apparently can also be a stuffed roll-up of beef that you braise.)

fev 5-8: Sounds of Valbonne

First, inspired by Tim's blog, I'm going to try to keep things a bit more orderly and give some structure by numbering my days, or at least noting the dates to which my entries refer. Thanks, Tim.

Even thought I'm sort of out in the country here, there are lots of sounds to be heard. First in the morning is the alarm clock on my running watch, better to use that which I can attach to the tubing of my bunk bed than the cell phone which I could knock off in the night. I've been waking up around 7:30 or 8am in order to have a good breakfast before heading outside to work for the morning.

I took my first run near here yesterday morning, and it felt like my panting breath must be audible for miles. There are some SERIOUS hills here. If I keep on like this I will be totally set for running in San Francisco. I plan to go for another one tomorrow.

On the way over to breakfast in the morning, my feet crunch on the gravel driveway. I've had coffee from the schmanzy Saeco machine a few times in the morning which grinds and spits out a very good little cup of French-style cafe.

I spent two day walking through the entirety of the 450 olive trees here and labeling them with last year's harvest. Labels are on little slates with white pen which have a tendancy to break their string and fall off the tree. It's a miracle I found some of them hidden under the dry grass. My work those days was accompanied by the sounds of the construction going on across the road. Apparently, 20 years ago, you couldn't see a single other house from the olive groves. Now there are quite a few, small, in the Cote d'Azur style with blue shutters and stucco walls that cover up the cinder blocks from which they are made.

Lots of the houses have dogs, too, which seem to bark at anything that moves. I'm told there is a big burglarly risk, so these dogs are not just for show.

My last two days have been spent on the edge of the forest on the property (still in view of olive trees and the, ahem, tennis court) mixing up compost. This is why I bought boots and not
shoes! I first raked out the pile of horse poo so it was more even, then forked dry grass on top, and finally got a lesson in using the rototiller. It was some seriously hard work, but the rototillilng was especially fun and challenging.
While I was working on this, Jerome, the French "chasseur," was busy felling some trees and then chainsawing them into smaller logs and burning the balance. (As a side note, there is lots of open burning here -- people clearing land, cutting trees. And while that's ok, apparently the EU is going to ban those heater umbrellas resaurants use?) So there was chainsaw buzzing, fire crackling, trees falling, and tons of little songbirds.

Today, no Jerome, but the sweet melody of hedge trimmers instead. There are gigantic cypress hedges on the property, at least 30 feet tall, and the landscapers were here today to deal with them.

There are also the periodic pops of shotguns in the distance as people hunt wild boar or rabbit. Little motorcycles blow by at amazing speeds, too.

In town, there are more cars, more French chatter. There is also English spoken, if only a little. At the patisserie yesterday, the owner could clearly tell I was not French and so started speaking English. It's a habit that annoys me to some extent since I would like to practice my French more. But maybe he just wants to practice English? I think I'm well-versed enough to carry on a conversation, and certainly to order a tart and piece of pound cake (which were both very good).

I also here a good bit of Tagalog, the Filipino language. I had another nice dinner with everyone last night, but I couldn't really understand a word of conversation. They all speak English quite well, though, and I had an interesting conversation with Noel yesterday over compost. It amazed me that he was aware not only of the fact that Hugo Chavez was president of Venezuela, but that he was a socialist and can't stand Bush. But as Tim noted today, it does seem that the average non-American citizen is a bit more informed about the world than the average American. Disagree if you want, but it certainly has seemed that way so far here.

I also got to hear Tim today via some free skype calling, and even a Taiwanese car horn in the background!

My rototilling seems to almost be over as the two empty compost bins are nearly full. Next week it's on to learning to prune with Jerome (more French spoken) and maybe spreading some of the extant compost on the olive trees.

fev 2-4: Valbonne introductions

It's finally gotten sunny here today after a morning of serious rain. Apparently there has been a drought for about two years here, so soaking rains like that are uncommon. I had a drive to the supermarket with Rose, one of the women who works here, in the Kissins' VW Golf which was fine, a good practice with my stickshift driving. One difference about French supermarkets that I didn't learn til we were at the cash register is that you weigh and print out your own label for produce! Whoops. And even though it was just your average grocery, there was an astounding collection of cheeses and butters. I can't wait for the Valbonne market which is Friday...

My introduction to Domaine la Sylviane, as the farm is called, has been a hodge-podge. I arrived here via the bus from Cannes and was met by Rose in the village. The house is about a 10-minute walk from town, up into a more country-like area. The house where I eat my meals and Lesley lives is beautiful, well, all of the buildings on the property are. The Kissins have owned the place for about 40 years I think, but it was a former monestary and even has a tunnel from the main house to the church in town! Lesley's mother-in-law lives here, too, , and is a ripe old 97 years, though I've not met her. There are four Filipino live-in workers including Rose who's been with the family more than 10 years here.

I had a great Filipino diner last night in their house with a bunch of their friends. Food plus a kind of video karakoe which was really entertaining. Lots of American songs that they all knew that I'd never heard of! The all sounded remarkably similar, though, with a kind of elevator music feel, no matter whethere it was Elvis or Elton John.I did myself proud on Zombie by the Cranberries. Not as fun as Rockband...

Lesley arrived last night from London and we had a nice chat and glass of wine before heading to bed. It looks like one of my main tasks is going to be to label the olive trees with last year's harves. I'll also learn a thing or two about pruning from the French guy who takes care of the trees, a true "chasseur" or all-around man-of-the-earth type who does things like hunt game and pick wild mushrooms and know about things that grow. I'm excited to have more French countryside interactions.

Yesterday afternoon was quite French country-ish, though, with a walk into town to go to the Fete de St Blaise. It was a weekend-long festival that included a blessing of the local products by the parish priest, sales of produits du terroir from honey to jams to sausages, plus the parade that I witnessed. I could hear the music all the way up at the house (sound travels here where there is no traffic to compete), and it sounded Klezmer-y. Indeed, there was a marching, more like walking and dancing, Klezmer band as part of the parade. They were fantastic and periodically would run up stairs inside houses and play out the windows! For some reason, in addition to the musicians, there were also two women dressed in 1940s-type clothes who danced and carried suitcases.

The parade consisted mostly of floats, though, pulled by tractors and made by local children, each representing a different activity group from the karate club to the music school to the club omnisports. The theme of the parade was culinary (how appropriate) so each float, regardless of the group, had kids in chefs outfits or something else to do with food. One urged kids of eat their fruits and vegetables, and one was Ratatouille (the movie)-themed. The kids also threw flowers off the floats, so everyone was walking around with big bunches. Quite the scene.

Once I've done some work here and taken more photos of the property, will update on where I'm actually staying. With the slow internet, photos forthcoming...