Month: October 2018

And so, we’re done. 25 years in the making, we finally made it to France. Where we found great people, great scenery, great food and many, many great memories.

À la prochaine France, et, merci.

Once more, our GPS led us on an adventure but this time, it worked out well. We’d been recommended to visit Èze, a hilltop village above Nice. Rather than taking us to the village itself though, our robot directed us through the town and up even higher, to Fort de la Revère, overlooking the Côte d’Azur in all its glory.

The drive up (and I mean up) was beautiful, taking us up through the suburbs and billion dollar lifestyles but the views once we were near the summit were just breathtaking. Here we’re looking over to Italy.

Although the fort is long closed; as military postings go, this must have been one of the better ones.

The village of Èze is on the outcrop towards the bottom left. Nice in the bay below and that’s Cap-Ferrat in the middle distance.

As it turned out, we were unable to find anywhere to park in Èze. Who knows what it must be like in high season. So we simply made our way back down to Nice and bade a fond farewell to the rental car, which had served us well, GPS or no.

Still, we didn’t feel that we’d missed out in any way.

We loved the hotels in Paris and Avignon but they didn’t have views. Our hotel in Nice? It has a view.

I wasn’t really expecting to like Nice all that much, which was one reason we only scheduled a day here (and spent most of that out of town.) However, it was a really charming resort, with none of the faded glory I had anticipated.

Even in late October, the weather was glorious and people were sunbathing and swimming in the Med. You’ll be relieved to hear I kept my shirt on.

But had many happy strolls up and down the Promenade des Anglais.

Still a sucker for a Sand Yacht. We didn’t see too many on the streets of France but this baby was in beautiful condition.

Bonne nuit Nice.

Not just a day out today but an homage to my favourite painter, Vincent Van Gogh, who lived in Arles for more than a year. He experienced great productivity there before suffering from a mental breakdown.

Enterprising café owners have refurbished this establishment to recreate Van Gogh’s “Café Terrace at Night”. We had lunch here and it wasn’t half bad.

Van Gogh was admitted to hospital but discharged shortly after. Later however, he suffered two more attacks, and returned to hospital for a longer spell. Eventually, he left Arles to be voluntarily committed to a psychiatric institution in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.

The hospital in Arles, where Van Gogh was treated and from where he produced many of his famous works, is now an art-gallery and public library.

Not tecknickly part of the Luberon, L’Isle sur la Sorgue is an “island city” lying at the foot of the Vaucluse plateau in the plains of Comtat Venaissin.

The river Sorgue surrounds the city, while within the town, narrow canals run between the narrow ancient streets. There are little bridges to cross and great wheels to look at with mossy blades turning in the river.

The bright green of the moss is so famous, it has been incorporated into the towns colours.

L’Isle sur la Sorgue is twinned with Penicuik in Scotland so be sure to drop that into the conversation next time you’re drinking there.

One characteristic of mountain towns is that they tend to be a bit uppy. Bonnieux was no exception and I’m pretty sure it would only take a few weeks of hauling groceries up to your doorstep before you could cancel the gym membership.

Another rainy day – no, matter, say “La Vee” and all that.

Today we’re off to explore The Luberon, a region of natural scenic beauty which the guidebooks describe as “France at its best.” Again, this meant dealing with our sociopathic GPS, which continued to direct us onto non-existent roads, cart tracks and in one instance, a ditch. No, I’m not making that up.

First stop was Gordes, a picturesque hill town where we apparently both forgot to use our cameras. Take my word, it was very pretty and better yet, had one of the town markets for which the region is famed. Like everywhere else around here though, it was made up of tiny, narrow lanes. At one point, watching a car trying to negotiate its way down the tortuous footpaths which serve as roads here, I quipped “I’m glad it’s not me doing that.”

Guess which route our GPS chose to get us out of town.

Anyway, moving on. Next stop was Roussilon, which is officially ranked amongst France’s most beautiful villages.

Located in the heart of one of the world’s biggest ochre deposits, the many combinations of different oxides in the rock give Roussillon’s surroundings their distinctive colours, and are also used in building the walls of local houses.

We did spend a good bit of the summer making sure we’d mastered the very basics of the French language and as a result, were met with kindness and help from the locals pretty much everywhere we went.

In Roussillon, we had the pleasure of watching a British couple leave a restaurant in a huff claiming “Obviously foreigners aren’t welcome here!” after they refused to understand why the staff wouldn’t sit them at a four-top when the place was packed. In contrast, the waitresses bent over backwards to make us feel at home.

Karen’s attempts to order la crème glacée brought smiles from everyone and they patiently helped her with the pronunciation.

Like the people who complain about British food, I’m convinced the only people who encounter rudeness from the French, are those who go looking for it.

Our second UNESCO Heritage Site of the day, the Roman aqueduct of the River Gard, is also over 2,000 years old. Family members engaged on the Forth Road Bridge work should take note.

The sunshine we’d enjoyed since arriving in France deserted us this day and we trooped around the site under a persistent drizzly rain. That didn’t detract from the Wow factor one little bit.

The aqueduct formerly carried an estimated 40,000m (8,800,000 imp gal) of water a day to the fountains, baths and homes of the citizens of Nîmes. It may have been in use as late as the 6th century, with some parts used for significantly longer, but a lack of maintenance after the 4th century led to clogging by mineral deposits and debris that eventually choked off the flow of water.

Constructed largely without mortar or clamps, the 456m long aqueduct was part of a larger system winding around the countryside for around 50 kilometres.

A few brave souls were canoeing off in the distance but we opted for a seat in the cafe and un sandwich au jambon instead.

The Romans knew what they were doing when it came to putting up structures that would last. Today we’re off to visit a couple of sites which have been making people say “Wow!” for a long time.

First up, the Théâtre Antique d’Orange, which has been around for over 2,000 years. The High Heid Yins saw it as means not only of spreading Roman culture to the masses but also as a distraction from the politics of the day. Reality TV for the Gauls.

In case you were wondering; the scaffolding is modern and part of a refurbishment project which will hopefully preserve the ancient stone from the stresses of modern pollutants for a few more years.

By the 4th century, the Roman Empire was in the hands of the Christians and in decline (Cough, cough, USA, cough cough.)

They closed the theatre in AD 391, considering it “uncivilized spectacle”. After that, it was abandoned completely. It was probably pillaged by the Visigoths and like most Roman buildings was certainly stripped of its better stone over the centuries for reuse. It was used as a defensive post in the Middle Ages and during the 16th-century religious wars, it became a refuge for the townspeople. Early social housing, if you like.

Fortunately, the young lady didn’t notice the slightly creepy middle-aged guy working her into his composition.

Today the theatre hosts a summer concert series. I wonder if Red Rocks will still be on the go in 4108.

And like at Red Rocks, you also get a nice view of the town from the top rows.

One thing I’ve noticed since moving to the US is that European roads are a lot narrower than they used to be. Never more so than in medieval villages such as Avignon, obviously built in the days before rental cars.

Given my druthers, I wouldn’t have brought the car into the old town at all. Most of the parking appeared to be outside the city walls and on my very first day, I lucked out and found a free space next to the police station. “Free” as in, if there was a way to pay for it, I couldn’t see one. None of the other cars appeared to have permits on display but there were no signs or machines from which to buy tickets. Good deal, right?

Yeah, no. There’s a lot I haven’t learned in this life but if there’s one thing experience has taught me, it’s that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. It was nagging at me, so after a couple of hours I went and retrieved the car, and relocated to another car park. Except this one had a maximum time limit of 12 hours. And because I didn’t fancy getting up at 4am to shift it, I did what I should’ve done in the first place and asked the hotel for advice.

Their recommendation was in the old town but only a few minutes walk from the hotel, so that’ll do. Even though we’d been in Avignon for 4 days by now, the maze of alleyways and narrow streets was still a mystery to me. No worries though – our rental car came equipped with a GPS so what could possibly go wrong.

Well, nothing unless you count the damn thing not being able to tell when roads were closed, (Avignon does this at different times of day by means of bollards which rise out of the ground on command), under construction, or flat out non-existent. Round and round I went, creeping ever closer to the nervous breakdown I’m convinced is in my future. Each corner was an adrenaline rush as I wondered whether this would be the time I’d scrape the doors along the wall.

At one point I did ‘see’ the car park but accessing it would’ve meant driving the wrong way down the street for 20 yards. Did I do that? Nooooo, like the goody-two-shoes I am, I tried to get there legally. Which meant I got snarled in a back up due to an accident and the ambulance having no more luck negotiating these streets than me.

It took me well over an hour of sweating, stressing and making up new words before I finally found my way back to the car park. And even then it’s possible I may have driven over a rather large kerb in order to avoid having to reverse down a narrow winding lane for the second time. But I’m admitting nothing.

I drove a total of 16 km that first day, although I was in the car for the best part of the afternoon. Still, the GPS would have to be more reliable once we took the car out on the highway, right?

Right?