"Either this wallpaper goes or I do"

Paris (week 16)

Even in Paris, posted store opening hours are mere suggestions.  The boulangerie across the street opened 20 minutes late one day, and the grocer was over an hour late the next morning.  Granted, both those days were on the weekend, but it's still frustrating when you're waiting to buy bread or milk for breakfast for your children!  If anything, it seems worse here than in Provence.  In contrast, the tourist attractions operate with a military precision.

We wandered around the Cimetière du Père Lachaise in the afternoon after dropping Nana off at the airport.  It has surprisingly good views of the city (for example, the Eiffel tower can be seen from the central chapel - provided the Seine mist has cleared).  We all took a walk through the front end, the only famous tomb we saw wasn't even occupied any more - Rossini's remains were moved to Florence, but the empty tomb was left as a memorial.  We then got kicked out at closing time.

Craig went back the next morning to see some of the cemetery's other famous residents, including Oscar Wilde (who supplied the subject quote), Edith Piaf, Jim Morrison, Bizet, Molière, various Napoleonic generals, and the deportation memorials (one for each death camp that deportees from Drancy were taken to).  Mostly, though, he spent his time trying to find the grave of Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac, one of France's most famous and influential chemists.  It took three visits, consulting online pictures and three maps of the cemetery to find it - probably 45 minutes of searching - and he's right on one of the roads, just the other side of the section from where the maps show him.  I guess the moral of the story is if you want your tomb to be left alone, become a chemist.

l to r: Honoré de Balzac; Frédéric Chopin; and Grand Admiral Joachim Murat

Craig, David, and Andrew had a day on the town while Yolanda was at the tennis matches.  They went up to the top of the Arc de Triomphe (something Craig has wanted to do since 1986 - when it was closed for restoration) and visited the Salon du Chocolate (a food fair dedicated to chocolate).  The convention centre was also hosting a gaming expo at the same time, but the boys chose the chocolate show.

Nana's last day in France

Paris (week 16)

One more packed day of site-seeing before Nana heads home.  On this day we started out where we left off - on the Île de la Cité - visiting Notre Dame de Paris.  It being Sunday, mass was being held when we were there, so we got to see the priests and organ in action.  They still allow tours around the periphery, so we could still see all the chapels, the rose windows, etc.  Again, it was very busy but since the cathedral is so much larger than Sacré Cœer, there was room to move around and ponder if you wished.

After lunch at a café next to the cathedral, and some time for souvenir shopping, we made our way to the Eiffel Tower.  It was also swamped with tourists, even the lines to walk up to the second stage were long.  So we walked around and had a nice snack across the river by the fountains of the Jardins du Trocadéro, eating cupcakes we bought on a side street on the Île de la Cité.

For our final stage, we travelled to the Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile.  We were there as the sun was setting, so we got to see the west-facing wall turn orange in the light, as well as the rekindling ceremony at the tomb of the unknown soldier.  We then ate dinner on the Champs-Élysées lucking out by getting a table with a view of the Arc de Triomphe.

The next day, we all travelled up to CDG airport to see Nana off. 

In Paris with Nana

Paris (week 16)

Sacré-Cœur

After a day of rest and packing, we all made our way to Paris for Nana's trip to the Big City (the one in France, not Caledonia).  We caught the TGV at Aix station, then used the Metro to get into the city from the Terminal 2-TGV station in CDG airport.  We are staying a stone's throw away from the Saint-Maur station in the mostly residential onzième arrondissement.  The closest big landmarks are the Bastille square (you probably know that the Bastille itself no longer exists) and the Père Lachaise (the latter is actually in the 20^e).  We used airbnb to find our apartment in Paris - Craig finds it easier to use than vrbo (a.k.a. homeaway) because the airbnb site facilitates payment (i.e. you can use a credit card). 

UPDATE: we will no longer use airbnb.  Since they have instituted "online and offline personal verification" requirements, they require extremely invasive personal identification requirements, such as scanning government ID and then correlating it with a Facebook page.... and even if you accept that (which we held our noses and tried), the verification fails.  Apparently 7 years of Facebook activity is "not sufficient" for their purposes.  Oh, you could also use gmail if you're willing to let them have access to all your Googledrive files and address books.

The first day of site-seeing took us up to Sacré-Cœur.  As you can see in the picture, the hillside was hopping with tourists, it being a weekend and during the local school break.  That made the tour through the cathedral itself a conveyor-belt affair, without much time to reflect on each chapel or statue.  The kids prefer it that way, I suppose, since they are growing tired of seeing cathedrals that all look the same to them.  It started to thin out when it started to rain....

that's the Louvre in behind

In the afternoon we made our way down to the Seine.  We wandered the grounds around the Louvre (without going in as it was close to closing time) and along a few of the bridges, before boarding the Seine boat cruise (we went with the Vedettes tour since it was at an easily-found location (at the Pont Neuf bridge right at the tip of the Île de la Cité) and they had flexible ticketing.  It was dark by 7 pm when the boat left, so we got to see the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, etc. lit up.

Along the Via Agrippa

Orange (week 15)

The Roman city of Arausio was capital of one region of Roman Provence, and therefore contained all the amenities of home, including a theatre.  The theatre has been restored and today is the only example of a complete Roman theatre - including the acoustically vital stage wall - in existence in Europe.  Just outside the city is a triumphal arch across the Via Agrippa, celebrating various battles and triumphs in the region.  The theatre is very impressive, and we all enjoyed climbing the seating for various views of the stage.  It was a good time of year and time of day to come, as the theatre wall faces south-ish - with the lower sun in the fall afternoon the wall was brilliantly lit.

that's Yolanda by the arrow

The city's name transformed over the years from Arausio to Orange.  Incidentally, the "Orange" of the Dutch princes originates from this city, when landholdings of the Holy Roman Principality of Orange were combined in 1544 with holdings in the United Provinces of the Netherlands, due to the personal estates of Prince William the Silent.

Orange's Roman remains are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and they are impressive.  There is still excavation going on, for example next to the theatre where there was a temple complex (of the Cult of the Emperor).  Like the amphitheatre in Arles, the Orange Theatre is used today for plays and concerts, although more of the original seating is intact and not covered by modern metal (except at the very top).  The lighting is also very discreet.  Inside the corridors under the seating you'll find little films detailing the theatre's use.  Whoever picked the clips for the concert film had good taste, as it included samples from concerts by Dire Straits, Frank Zappa, and Elvis Costello.

bundled up against the Mistral

Unfortunately, we were not able to test the acoustics because a real Mistral blew in today - the car was pushed all over the highway, and the temperature dropped 10 degrees (to a high of 15C) compared to the day before.

Cruising the Calanques

Cassis (week 15)

the camera also got soaked, but it was worth it!

Our next day trip with Nana was to Cassis, which is a very cute seaside town with a tiny marina dedicated mostly to tour boats taking people to the Calanques (fjords) that run along the coast east of Marseille.  We arrived around lunch time, so naturally everything was shut down for two hours, so we had a leisurely lunch at one of the brasseries and headed out on the 8-Calanque tour at 2:30 pm.  Because we started on the water a little later in the day, the wind was coming up (one of the captains called it a Mistral, but I'm not sure if it was strong enough or cold enough to be a real one).  Although windy, the weather at the dock was 25C, so it wasn't too bad on the water.  There were some soakings for those of us who braved the open front-end seating of the boat, however.

We also spent some time on the beach, as documented in the Beach Blog!  On the way back we splurged at Autrefois - we especially like their candy and chocolate-covered almonds (the grey ones that look like stones are the favourite of Andrew, Craig, and Yolanda; David likes the "olives" best).

Nana on the Riviera

Andrew's hand is smaller than Stallone's!

Cannes and Nice (week 15)

As I mentioned in the previous post, we ended up in Cannes at the end of our trip along the Verdon River.  We stayed in Cannes two nights.  On the day in between we toured along the waterfront (the Boulevard de la Croisette), from one marina to the other.  At either end are public beaches, in between is mostly private, owned by hotels and beachside restaurants (but, of course, you can walk along the waterline between them all).  Along the other side of the boulevard are hotels and shops - mostly designer labels like Chanel, Hugo Boss, Louis Vuitton, and Armani (but not Ralph Lauren, who is exiled 2 blocks back from the beach on the rue d'Antibes).  At the east end is the Cannes Film Festival complex, which is only interesting at this time of year because it contains the Tourist Bureau and for the celebrity handprints in the sidewalk around the theatres.


It was a nice day (26C), so we spent most of our time by the pool at the hotel and on the beach - Nana's first dip in the Med!  Both nights in Cannes we ate at the same restaurant - Caffé 72 - which is the first Riviera restaurant we've found that has family-friendly menu items and pricing, and that's open past 6 pm.  For lunch we ate at one of the seaside restaurants (Vegaluna), which was also pretty good family fare, although packed even in the middle of October.

Incidentally, Cannes seems to be the place to spot cars.  We saw two different Rolls Royces and three different Ferrari models.

The next day we went to see the Chagall museum - one of the very few private museums in Nice, and therefore one of the very few that has an entry fee.  Nonetheless, because the space was designed and the installation of the paintings were done by Chagall himself, it has a harmonious and user-friendly feel that you don't get at big galleries. The theme of the museum is the Bible (including some New Testament stuff, even though Chagall was Jewish).  Even the boys enjoyed it, at least for an hour or so.  Luckily there was a small garden area where they could have a snack and run around.

I hope the driver doesn't suffer from vertigo.....

Parc naturel régional du Verdon (week 15)

Fall break has started for the boys, for 2 weeks.  We had always planned to have Nana come during the break so we could take some "real" road trips.  Our first was a trip along the Verdon river, famous for the Gorges du Verdon, the deepest river-carved gorge in Europe.

The scenery along the drive is indeed impressive.  We went along the rive droite, because that's where the signs pointed us (apparently the rive gauche is even better).  We drove around the eastern side of Sainte Victoire through Rians, then up to the start of the gorge on the north side of Lac de Ste-Croix.  We had our picnic lunch at the start of the gorge, which it turns out are arguably the best views on the rive droite.  We just pulled over into a pull-out and set up on the side of the road.  There are some equally nice views further along, but not as many pull-outs, nor as wide.  We then followed D592 through Castellane and out the other side to Grasse.  The trip is not for the faint-of-heart; at least the driver can't be, with a steep bank on one side, often with little in the way of protection (guardrails or curbs) between the road and the drop.

Grasse is a perfume city.  We did not stop in, but if you drive past the boutiques with the windows open, you can certainly catch a sampling of the local wares!  After leaving the parc, we headed for Cannes for the night.

Second Sister

La Roque-d'Anthéron (Week 14)

Loyal readers with good memories will recall that way back in August, there is a post called "First Sister".  Now, nine weeks later, we took Nana to see another of the "Three Sisters of Provence" Cistercian abbeys, Abbaye de Silvacane.  It was founded and built between 1175 and 1220.  As a reminder, the Cistercian order was a reaction to the excesses of certain Benedictines.  Therefore, the buildings are austere - without ornament or creature comforts.

Silvacane is no longer a functioning abbey, rather an historical site.  Thus, the church is completely empty, which makes it feel melancholy.  The stonework of the entire church complex has been restored - including the cloister, dormitory, parlour (the room where the monks were allowed to talk), etc.  Again, only the stonework is restored - there are no beds or anything in the dorm, no shelves nor books in the library, and no water running through the irrigation system.  On the plus side, it makes it easier to appreciate the minimal decorations and the construction of the complex.  Perhaps the highlight of the trip (at least for the boys) was the one functioning fountain, a long cistern containing a school of goldfish.

Two cathedrals

Aix-en-Provence and Trets (week 14)

Fans of The West Wing will appreciate that I've been itching to use this post title since I arrived.  Now I have the chance!

Trets's cathedral: cozy!

On Sunday, during our weekly trip to the Trets market to get a roast chicken (there is a particular place we go, where the boys get chocolate suckers from the proprietress), we dropped in to the Trets cathedral.  It is small and not always open for visitors, so we arrived 15 minutes before the service that morning.  Normally they have their bells pealing (quite impressive given the size), but this morning they had some sort of gathering that was being blessed by the priest (bishop?) - they were carrying banners and wearing what I assume was traditional garb.  Craig still managed to get a couple pictures of the interior, and you can see some of the group in the exterior picture.

the baptistry is the octagonal cut in the floor in the right-hand picture

Lynn/Mum/Nana arrived the day before, and was understandably tired from her trip (an overnight flight to Paris, then 2.5 hours wait, then 3-hour train trip to Aix, then 45 minutes to Puyloubier), so she didn't make it to Trets with us.  Instead, on Tuesday afternoon, she and Craig travelled to Aix to see the cathedral there.  The feature of Cathédrale Saint-Sauveur that is always mentioned in the guide books is the baptistry, the pool of which is from the 6th century (the rest of the baptistry was built later; Wikipedia suggests that the columns are from a Roman temple, which is an admirable feat of recycling, even if questionable theologically).  This is the only Catholic church I've seen with a place to do a real Baptist immersion-style baptism!

"It's the little differences"

Puyloubier (week 14)

As Vincent Vega so memorably observed, "You know what's the funniest thing about Europe?  It's the little differences."  Here is my example.

Pictured is our current cereal selection.  As you can see, the All Bran and Weetabix are identical.  The Corn Flakes are, oddly enought, not translated to "Flaçons de Mais" or whatever.  The Frosted Flakes are renamed, and the Honey-Nut Cheerios box is different but the cereal is the same.

However, this is a picture of what they call Life Cereal in France.  As you can see, it bears no vestige of similarity to the Life you get in North America.

And yes, quarter pounders are still called "Royale with cheese" (you can't get one without the cheese - another little difference).

P.A. Day! (sort of...)

Aix-en-Provence (week 13)

Monday was a P.A. Day for the boys - although P.A. days only cover half-days here, so they had to go to school in the afternoon.  To celebrate, we went to Aix, specifically to what David calls the Rue de Monoprix, or what everyone else calls the Cours Mirabeau.  In David's defense, the purpose of our visit on this day was, in fact, Monoprix.  The visit became "necessary" because Netflix just started up in France on September 15, and we've found that the laptop is not sufficient for watching movies.  The screen is the old-style with angle-viewing difficulties, and the internal speakers are tinny and very low volume.  So off to Monoprix for speakers and a VGA cord to connect to the TV!  (the mission was a success)

You may be wondering why Netflix is just now arriving in France.  Well, like Québec, France demands (and gets) a "cultural exception" from the regulatory agencies and the E.U., so Netflix's arrival was delayed for a long time in the courts as the national cable companies fought to keep it out.

This picture is jumping ahead a little, as you can see Nana is in it, and she didn't arrive until the weekend.  But it's a good picture, and almost on the Cours Mirabeau, so almost appropriate for this post!  It's actually around on the other side of the Rotonde; if you can't read the caption, this is a statue of Cézanne, Aix's favourite son.

Two churches (and an art gallery)

Aix-en-Provence and Puyloubier (weeks 12-13)

Musée Granet entrance and Eglise Saint-Jean-de-Malte

Henry Pearlman was a New York businessman who eventually collected a large and well-respected collection, now nominally housed at Princeton University.  However, the art travels a lot, and since Henry liked Aix's favourite artistic son Cézanne, his travelling exhibition was hosted by the Granet Museum over the last few months.  The Pearlman Collection was impressive, with 20+ Cézannes and samples of other great artists including van Gogh, Degas, and Renoir.  The permanent collection was perhaps less impressive, focussing on lesser-known local talent, but still an interesting mix of paintings of all sizes, sculptures, and excavated Roman antiques.  This Wednesday's trip was our first attempt at an art museum with the boys, and they did very well, probably because of the variety of media and subject matters.  Since there is no photography allowed in the museum, you'll have to click on the links to see the interior.

The museum is located in the former priory buildings of the Hospitallers in Aix, hence the Crosses of Malta adorning the building (in the above picture, you can see one in the foreground bottom-right on a fountain), and the name of the adjacent church: Eglise Saint-Jean-de-Malte.  The interior of the church is very sparse, it having been ransacked and turned into a storehouse during the Revolution.  However, it is in the process of being restored with a mix of old and new: the bells are brand new (they are sitting in a chapel by the entrance awaiting installation) and the organ was installed in 2006.  The organist was practising while we were there.  It's hard to tell the size of the bells from the picture, the middle one is ~one metre tall.

On Sunday, we were out early to take a look inside the Puyloubier church.  The parish covers churches in Peynier, Trets, and Puyloubier, so there aren't always services on Sunday, and the times can vary.  This week there was mass at 9:30 in Puyloubier, so we poked our head in.  The church is bright and airy, with minimal but interesting decoration.  Like in Canada, the number of parishioners was quite small.  Yes, this is what a church in a village of 1800 people looks like!  Because the alter is at the eastern end of the church, the sunlight coming through the windows unfortunately washes out the very nice stained-glass in this picture.

Two cars

Marignane (week 12)

The Peugeot at our place in Puyloubier (l) and the new Renault (r)

We bid a fond farewell to our Peugeot 308SW.  It took us across France and kept us supplied with food and entertained us since we arrived in July.  Due to the short-term lease system they have in France (a tax situation), we have to lease one car in Craig's name and another later in Yolanda's to cover the time we were here.  Therefore, the switch, made at the Marseille-Provence Airport.

It was a painless transition, the bulk of the time being spent by the Renault clerk explaining the features of the car (h spoke excellent English and provided what is rare in France - what we would call actual customer service!). Now we have a Renault Grand Scenic.  It is a little bigger and a little more upscale than the Peugeot, which means we'll have to get used to the new size in these small roads and parking spots (although, to be fair, it's only a few centimetres wider, much of the increased size it in its height).

The Fountains of Puyloubier

Puyloubier

One of the things we've noticed is the large number of fountains even in the small towns.  They seem to be along every few blocks.  Of course, there are famous fountain boulevards, like the Cours Mirabeau in Aix, but each little square and intersection seems to have some sort of fountain, even if just a block away from a major fountain.

By Craig's count, there are four fountains in Puyloubier, not including the various community taps (these are treated potable water taps where anyone can fill up a water bottle).  We thought doing a blog post on the fountains in town would also give a chance to give more information about the town in which we're living.

Starting from the west end of town (a few houses west of our place):

1. Place du Mairie.  This is the fountain in front of the mairie - the town hall.  The term hôtel de ville is also used in France, it seems to be regional which term is used.  Our mairie has a square in front of it with plane trees, as you can see in the picture.  In the afternoon (and evening in the summer), people play boules (lawn bowling) in this area.  There's enough room for 3 or 4 simultaneous games.  It's usually the retired men of the town, although I've seen young men and women also playing - it seems very democratic, with mixed-gender and mixed-age games commonly occurring.  The mairie building contains the town administration offices, as well as the poste and a common room where the town holds its pilates and aerobics classes.  This square is also where they set up the beer garden when the exhibition is in town, and similar social events.

Places de la Republique (l) and Damase Malet (r)

2. Place de la République.  Moving east up the Ave. Pierre Jacquemet (the road our home is on), we come to the Café Sainte Victoire.  This is the local eatery, with plats (what we would call entrees) ranging in the €8-15 range.  It has limited inside seating, so it has taken over the Place de la Republique as its outdoor seating area. In the centre of that is this fountain, which you can see is used by the café to hold up its sunshades.

3. Place Damase Malet.  Continuing east on what might be considered the same street, but with a new name (Grand Rue), we come to this fountain in a tiny square that consists of one tree and a couple of benches (and the fountain, of course).  Just a few homes downhill from here is the Festival des Pains, our usual patisserie (we go in maybe 5 times a week, which is very irregular relative to the natives, who might visit twice each day).  It is a relatively busy intersection, being a T-intersection at the end of the road to Trets.

4. Place Henri Verlaque.  Again changing its name as we move eastward (to rue Jean Jaurès), we come to the local library, which is also a museum located in a former olive oil-production facility (the moulin à huile).  As is befitting such a pedigree, there are two olive trees in the place along with this fountain against the far wall (the entrance to the bibliotheque is on the right just out of the picture).  This building and square also hosts various events such as exhibitions by local artists and, I think, can be hired for wine-and-cheese parties by local organizations.  You may be able to tell from the picture that there is no water flowing in this fountain.  Although not uncommon, far more fountains in Provence have water flowing than are dry like this one, which seems strange since it is quite an arid climate and pumping in the water might seem to be a superfluous expense, especially in a small community like Puyloubier.