For summer 2023, we’re taking a trip to the south of France so that Anna can visit her friend Genevieve at their house in Bonnieux. While the girls are supervised by Genevieve’s parents, Anca and I are going to explore Provence, Carcassonne, and Monte-Carlo sans-child.
We're packed and ready to go! Stephen came over, ready to take us to the airport and then stay at the house to look after all the animals (thanks man!). I’m so glad we allowed plenty of time, because the stress level is way lower when we don’t have to rush.
The lounge in SFO billed itself as the “best in the world” (!) and I don’t know about that but it was pretty cool, and definitely useful because checking in and getting through security didn’t take nearly as long as we feared. We’re flying on Scandinavian Airlines, which is a first for us but I’m optimistic. We splurged on business-class fare because it can turn a long flight like that from a nightmare into a comfortable joy, and it turns out that Scandinavian does a fine job.
The last time I went to Europe I felt a bit battered by jet lag, so I’m trying something new this time: the Time Shifter app. It gives you instructions for when to use (or avoid) caffeine and when to get (or avoid) sunshine, to have the easiest time adjusting to a new longitude. Partway through the flight it advises me that it’s time to keep myself awake, have a coffee, and get sunlight if I can. The sunlight part is tricky because everyone else is asleep and the windows are all closed. I find that the lavatory has its own window through which I can get some bright arctic daylight, so that helps. With some earl grey from the flight attendant I dive into one of the books that I brought, Good Without God. Somehow it’s easier to be in a philosophical state of mind when your body is 30,000 feet in the air.
By the way those water-color pictures in the left column are Midjourney creations I made to decorate each of these pages. Yay AI.
Today is nothing but an overnight layover in Paris, but I appreciate that the airport (CDG) has IMHO is a brilliant piece of midcentury modern architecture. It’s a building of cylindrical shape with a hollow center that’s criss-crossed by sloped tubes containing conveyor belts that take you from one floor across the middle to the opposite part of the next floor, like escalators but not so steep. It’s definitely not the most practical thing ever built, but I love the Jetson-esque whimsy.
Outside, we discover a heavy rainstorm. That feels like a pleasant shock compared to the California summer that we’re coming from. By the time we find ground transportation to take us to the airport Marriott, the restaurant is closed but room service is still available to bring us (of course!) French onion soup. It’s amazing.
Now it’s back to the airport to find our flight to Marseille. The aircraft is tiny compared to the giant one that we crossed the Atlantic in yesterday, but it does the job and we find ourselves in a climate that’s much hotter and drier than where we left. We get our car and make our way to our friends Dror, Louise, and Genevieve in Bonnieux.
It feels trite to say “Provence is beautiful” but the place doesn't disappoint… the lavender is in full bloom and there are big fields full of bright purple flowers.
The cicadas provide the soundtrack, because they’re everywhere and they sing incessantly and loudly. Fields of grapevines are scattered liberally across the countryside, punctuated by ancient farmhouses with plaster walls and orange terracotta roofs.
Our friends’ house is stunning. It has the benefit of not only proximity to its adorable medieval village on a hill, but beautiful design, lots of elegant landscaping, private parking and a glorious swimming pool. (Yes I feel like we might have to come back and rent it sometime, and you should too!) The village has plenty of twisty little streets, a church on top, and several nice restaurants.
This morning we go to a nearby village called Roussillon, which boasts brightly-colored ochre rocks in the hills.
The geology provides coloring for their construction, so the buildings in the village are beautiful shades of orange, yellow, and red. We do a hike first to see the rocks, and after that it’s market day in Roussillon so we see what’s for sale and come away with some tasty pralines. The weather is blazing hot (again)... we learn that the southern Europe heatwave is so intense that it's been given a name, "Cerberus". Yikes. We make our way back to the house for a siesta.
In the evening, we have a reservation for a fancy dinner with our friends at Clover Gordes. Gordes is charming like Bonnieux, but decidedly more gentrified. The zucchini blossoms I ordered were stuffed not with ricotta like I fix them, but with a ratatouille-like mixture… very tasty. For dessert, Anna and Genevieve were very excited about the churro (!) served with ice cream, and it didn’t disappoint. Provençal chefs know how to fry a churro, who knew?
Sadly it’s time to say au revoir to our friends and (for a few days) our dear daughter, so we packed our bags and set off. The first stop is L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, a town with a river running through it and lots of bridges. Sounds nice, and maybe it is, but we catch it at midday when it’s just way to sunny and hot so we don’t appreciate it much.
Next we make our way to Avignon, the home of a palace inhabited by the French Pope for about a century. I say “French Pope” because this occurred at a time when there was some disagreement about who was the real Catholic Pope, so Avignon and Rome were competing for the honor. It sounds like a strange situation for a person who supposedly has infallibility bestowed on him by none other than God, but okay :). The castle tour included lots of neat history with a fairly well-implemented augmented-reality tour on an iPad.
But after the tour it was still blazing hot, so after a quick iced coffee we get on our way again.
As afternoon was turning into evening we arrived at Carcassonne, a brilliantly restored fortress that has history going back to the first century BCE.
It turns out that our hotel Hôtel de la Cité isn’t just near the fortress, it’s in the fortress! It used to be the bishop’s palace. The view out of our hotel room is the the castle, right next door.
Its lush garden that sits between the building and the city wall features sycamore trees and ivy, and this evening there’s a woman singing and playing guitar too. Wine and charcuterie make it easy to relax after the long drive.
Today we’re staying in Carcassonne. After a satisfying breakfast in the aforementioned garden courtyard, it’s time to tour the castle. It’s long history includes lots of sieges with catapults and trebuchets, and defense from arrow slits and portcullises. This is totally that kind of castle, and apparently it’s one of the best maintained/restored of its kind.
The church was impressive too.
The hot weather hasn't given us a break, so Anca cooled off in the pool.
The green courtyard is still my favorite spot.
There are a lot of little cafes, stores, and restaurants inside the city walls. We had fun exploring the twisty little streets. Anca saw one restaurant that advertised duck cassoulet for dinner and île flottante for dessert, so got super-excited because she (a) loves duck and (b) has fond memories of her mother's île flottante. The cassoulet (with sausage and white beans) was amazing, because they figured out a way to make the duck tender yet crispy at the same time. Sadly the île flottante turned out disappointing, but she's now determined to make it herself when we get home.
Time to depart Carcassonne (sniff).
Our first stop today is in Sète because Anca has heard it's cool. It's a bigger city, on the sea.
They do water-jousting (I did not know that was a thing) and although we weren't able to witness any of that, the town is in party mode because of it and there was a band parading around town.
We're not blown away though, so time to move on. Next step: the aquaduct bridge at Pont du Gard that used to supply water to Nîmes.
This was a Roman construction, and those guys sure knew how to do impressive engineering. The scale of the structure is breath-taking: it's 160 feet tall, spans about a thousand feet, and some of the arches are huge (up to 80 feet). Unfortunately when the Roman empire lost its steam, nobody maintained the aquaduct and it fell into disrepair.
We're interested in cooling off, and luckily the river is a popular spot for doing just that, so despite the fact that we forgot to change into our swimsuits back at the car, we hopped in for a very refreshing dip.
Then for dinner we make our way to the beautiful old village of Lourmarin. It's charming (twisty little streets hundreds of years old), and we find some yummy gnocchi and pizza.
But we're not sleeping in Lourmarin, we still have to get to our hotel in the seaside town of Cassis. It's after dark by the time we get there, and although the GPS says we're only ten minutes away, the geography still feels mountainous! We're worried that we're going to completely the wrong place. But, that's how Cassis is... rugged cliffs that drop abruptly into the sea. After a few more turns, we arrive at Hôtel Les Roches Blanches.
Today we're doing something different, and having a more atheletic adventure: sea-kayaking from Marseille. We get up early and go meet up with the kayak company, meet our guide, and get our gear. The cool Mediterranean water is a very welcome companion for the blazing sun, and its clear turquoise color is stunning! We're going up the shore for about an hours, splashing around a bit, and coming back. On the way we poke around a couple of little caves too, including starfish and anonemones (we didn't poke the animals).
Two hours of paddling was exhausting, so it's time for lunch. I so wish we had bakeries like this back in the US. We took a picture of the bread because it was just glorious.
The hotel has a jazz art deco theme, and the owner likes to show off by keeping his wheels parked out front.
After some rest, we're ready to walk down to the town and find some dinner. There are so many boats in the harbor!
Here's another shot of the boats, after dinner. I love how they light up the fortress perched on the cliff over the bay.
Breakfast over the Mediterranean.
Time to pick up anchor and move on! Cassis has been very pleasant but we've done what we wanted to do. Next stop: Nice.
We hit the local museum of modern art, which is okay but not great. As we drive over to our hotel, we learn that Nice is not an easy town to drive in. Narrow, one-way streets and aggressive drivers make it a challenging experience but we finally make it. After a little rest, we go out to explore the old port district. The city has some pretty parts (certainly better than Marseille) and the old town has a vibrant vibe.
Although there's a gelato vendor on every corner as usual, apparently in this town there's only one hip place to get your ice cream, Fenocchio. I don't know whether the quality is that much better than elsewhere, but they definitely have one of the biggest selections of flavors I've ever seen.
Bye bye Nice!
We're going to make one last stop in the south of France, which isn't even France at all... time to visit Monaco today. We decide to take the scenic coastal route, which ends up being a little more challenging and twisty than we expected. This was a tunnel that the car just barely fit through.
Just as expected, this place exudes money. The harbor is full of super-yachts.
We tour the royal palace in Monte-Carlo. Prince Albert II is the current regent, but there's an exhibition about Prince Rainier III because although he passed away he'd be 100 years old this year.
He was the one who married Grace Kelly.
Prince Rainier III was a huge car collector... apparently he'd see some rare old car and would just have to have it. Now they're on display for the public at a museum in town and we got tickets to see it, so we climb back down the hill for that.
First up, James Bond's Aston Martin DB5.
There were a bunch of other great ones too. This is a 1954 Sunbeam Alpine MKI Roadster. 4-cylinder 139 cubic inch engine, top speed 93 mph.
1927 Rolls-Royce Phantom I Springfield, Coupé-Chauffeur Brewster.
Not just classic cars, they had formula one racing cars too. I don't know what a "Lola F 3000 899/50" is but the paint job looks pretty awesome. Sort of Mondrian-meets-Memphis.
It was a looong travel day because we woke up in Monaco, drove to Marseille, returned the rental car, flew to Paris, got a taxi to our hotel in the 8th arrondissement, and rendezvoused with Anna (yay!) and her friend Genevieve. Anca has been very excited about seeing a show at Moulin Rouge and that's the plan for tonight. When we get there, the friendly bouncer explains that my tevas are too casual but if I put on a pair of socks they'll be fine, so we scoot over to the gift shop on the corner for a second. They have a snazzy pair of socks featuring blue-white-and-red eiffel towers, so I buy them and put them on, and then the Moulin Rouge security is mollified (and amused).
Anca didn't realize the show girls would be showing bare boobies quite so much, but although that was initially a little bit surprising, she realizes that very soon the excitement wears off and she's quite used to it :).
Unfortunately the seating is incredibly cramped, and it's not really possible to get comfortable. But the show itself is great... we expected the music, dancing, and costumes to be impressive and they didn't disappoint, but there were also several mind-blowing acrobatic performances. For instance, our favorite one was a man and woman on roller skates, spinning fast on a tiny little round platform. (Sorry for the stock photo, they didn't let us take our own pictures during the show.)
Bastille Day in Paris! We knew it would be a mad house today, with crowds eager to join the festivities. In the morning there's a parade on Avenue Des Champs-Élysées, and we tried to see it but the crowd was so intense we couldn't even get close. So instead we head over to Musée d'Orsay to take in Art Nouveau and some Impressionist classics.
I love the old train station building they used for the museum. It's got so much light and space, and sounds echo softly in a way that seems to add to the depth of the artwork.
This is the piece that surprised me the most. It's "Tetrahedra", an oil painting by Serusier from around 1910. By today's standards, exploring abstract geometric forms and color is pretty familiar turf. But 110 years ago I imagine it it must have seemed pretty novel, standing far apart from the portraits, landscapes, and still-lifes that other artists were cranking out. I sometimes wonder how great art would be received if it went back in time... what would people think of The Dark Side of the Moon if they heard it in the Roaring Twenties?
Would be a good place for a ball. :)
At night they put on a show at the Eiffel Tower! Fireworks shooting out of the top of the tower (pictured), fireworks shooting out of the sides of the tower, and fireworks launched from the ground. Lots of lasers, and of course sparkling lights on the tower. The crowds were insane, but this time we manage to squeeze ourselves in.