Many years ago, Jeanette and I used to play the French board game, Mille Bornes (translation: thousand kilometer stone markers) with our friends, the Higgins. This year Jeanette persuaded me to spend some more time in France and we thus re-lived many of the vignettes in this game ... although the stone kilometer markers seem to have mostly disappeared.. Despite the unfavorable euro/dollar exchange rate, we figured that there would not be too many more opportunities to see those parts of France that we so far have not enjoyed ... mainly the South of France in the Rhone valley. So, on October 15th, off we went into the land of wine and cheese ... driven to Logan airport by our friend, Dennis (D1).
Rather than take the Bullet Train to Avignon (which was tres cher) and then rent a car, we chose to pick up the car at Charles DeGaulle airport and then drive to Avignon. When we found our Eurocar agent, she asked us if we would prefer, at the same price, a Mercedes mini-SUV* or the Volkswagen Golf we had reserved. Guess which one we picked? However, this decision to drive there was a little dicey. This was about a 720 kilometer (450 miles) trip and, driving it after a seven hour flight from Boston, was, for me, a torture beyond description. I had to stop about every 150 kilometers for some horrible service station coffee (in order to stay awake) and so, by the time we reached Avignon, I was I jagged nerve case. We did stop for lunch, right below Lyon, in Vienne at La Taverne Maitre Kanter. It was OK, but not great. We learned on this trip that, contrary to our previous visits, not everywhere you eat in France is a sublime experience. (We later realized that this tavern was one of a chain ... as we saw another one in Marseilles.)
When we reached the walled city, Avignon, we finally found the entry porte that led to the street (Rue Carreterie) where we had rented an apartment. Avignon was the locus of the Catholic church in the 14th century before it was moved back to Rome and there is a huge palace there where the Popes resided during this period. Our apartment was quite comfortable and large with many accoutrement's including a garage for our car ... and not too far from the Palace of the Popes. Jeanette then went out and bought some wine, cheese, fruit and sausage at a local market which we ate for our first dinner in France. I then fell into bed exhausted.
Our first full day started out in Arles (the Van Gogh's residence there, which is no longer standing, was, for a few years, where he and Gauguin often painted together and eventually had a violent argument ... after which Van Gogh sliced off part of his ear.) Anyway when we left Avignon via back roads on the way to Arles we were somewhat low on diesel fuel, but I wasn't worried for I had seen many petrol stations the day before. Big mistake! The low petrol light came on almost immediately and the further we went without finding a station, the more worried I got. We only found a Total gas station right outside Arles and I was literally expecting to run out of diesel any second. This was not pleasant as most places on the road there had no place to pull over had we run out of diesel. These side roads usually had ditches at least a meter deep on the side of the road ... very onerous for a breakdown. I was near panic when we finally found solace.
Arles is another walled city, so we parked outside and walked in near the coliseum (amphitheater?) which was under restoration so we could not see inside. On our way in, I noticed that the walls of the city were pock-marked with bullet holes from which war I could not even guess. Jeanette did the circuit through the town while I sat and people-watched enjoying a bottle of delicious, bubbly French cider. After leaving Arles we traveled down along the Rhone River to the Mediterranean as Jeanette wanted to again dip her tootsies in la mer. The locus where this happened was the Plage Napoleon which, I assume, was where Napoleon landed after he escaped from Elba in 1815. It was an impressive location near the mouth of the Rhone River with large oil tankers anchored well off shore. (Piece of advice ... don't try to break in a new pair of shoes on a trip.)
The second day we set off on a random drive. We crossed over the Rhone and, on some back country roads we saw a sign for Rochefort. Thinking we might find some genuine cheese we took this turn off. It was a charming little ville with, like many French towns, a church at its apex. We stopped to buy some wine and possibly cheese. "Non, non, c'est RoCHefort, not RoQUefort." was the clerks reply. We drove on. We then saw signs for Chateau Neuf d'Pape. We had meant to buy our son and his wife a bottle of the wine this town is famous for ... so we took the side trip there. We parked in town and visited a few wine tasting rooms until Jeanette found one where she trusted the merchant (female). We also found an outdoor restaurant* right in the middle of town (La Mule du Pape) where we settled in for our noonday repast. It was quite good. Jeanette had the plat du jour, a pork and vegetable melange. I had escargots and sopped up all the garlic butter with the basket bread. And we shared a carafe of the house white wine.. The rest of the day was spent trying to follow a driving tour through the Dome (so named because of all the long-extinct volcanoes) to view the many vineyards.
The following day we drove to Aix (en Provence) driving down alongside the Rhone river. About half way down we saw a sign for the Isle Saint Pierre winery. (Isle Saint Pierre being a small island in the Rhone river.) We took a side trip there and bought some passable wine which we finished off in our evening cocktail hours. We continued on to Aix where we had a toothsome lunch (Le Grillon.) However, the town itself seems quite modern, sprawling, and not too touristy. (Jeanette was happy that she didn't reserve an apartment here.) Jeanette wanted to stop at St. Remy on the way back, but it was getting late and it was starting to rain, so we went all the way back to Avignon. (We saw a rainbow!) I discovered another nicety of the Mercedes -- I had the wipers on "intermediate," but, when the rain came down harder, the wipers turned themselves full on. We went to dinner that night at a restaurant recommended by our landlord, En Tres Artistes. It was pretty good. We started with mussels in a delicious broth that had been recommended by a woman (from Singapore) at the next table. Apparently, these mussels contain small crabs that add to their allure. About every third one there had a crunchy bit that must have been such a crab. I liken this epicurean delight to making a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Many diners would flee from such a discovery unless it had been already touted as something special. (Or as we said in the software business, it was not a bug, it was a feature.)
We decided to spend our next day discovering Avignon itself. We started by walking to the nearby farmer's market and then to the Palace of the Popes. This is an enormous monolithic palace near the northern wall of the city. It is so imposing that I decided to sit outside doing the International Herald Tribune crossword puzzle and people watching whilst Jeanette discovered what the Popes were up to here. Her report was that there seemed to be a room for everything ... a room to put on their albs, a room to receive ambassadors, a room to read the scriptures, a room to flirt with the choirboys (just kidding), etc. By the time she exited, the wind had picked up and it turned chilly so we went for a little nosh on the main shopping drag, Rue De La Republic. We discovered once again that not all restaurants in France are sublime experiences. We ate at a brasserie whose name escapes me (I paid cash since I didn't trust our waiter ... he kept giving us inflated additions). I had a bowl of French onion soup which was clearly made with water and not beef stock. It was insipid. After some more Avignon exploring we returned to our apartment and had some cheese, sausage, a baguette and some wine for dinner.
The next day we went to St. Remy (de-Province), somewhat south of Avignon but north of Arles. We used A7 to get there and the route from this highway into St. Remy was impressively bucolic. For most of its length, this road* lies under a canopy of sycamore trees which were still leaved out and proudly displaying their beautifully mottled bark. At St. Remy we did some souvenir shopping and then had some delicious hot chocolate. But the highlight was a visit to the asylum/monastery* (St. Paul-de-Mausole) where Van Gogh spent a year of his life. Here he painted many of his famous canvases, Starry Night (a view of St. Remy at night), the Olive Trees, and the Irises ... among about 140 others. This monastery was quite pleasant and displayed photos of many of Van Gogh's paintings ... often at the location from where he painted them. Since I have copied Starry Night, I asked a passing monk from where he painted this particular canvas. He waved his arm and said somewhere up on the hill behind the monastery. Sigh ...
After much back and forth, Jeanette cajoled me to driving down to Marseilles. I was apprehensive about this proposition since my image from Marseilles came directly from The French Connection movie. This vision turned out to be off the mark. We arrived and parked in a central lot and then took a sightseeing trip around the city and up to its very top to the church, Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde. This was on an open tour tram that snaked its way through the crowded streets of this port city with great dexterity. We were given 45 minutes to take in the church and then catch another tram back to the end of the port. Unfortunately, on the way back our tram was packed with very loud Russians ... so loud that we couldn't hear the recorded running commentary on the sights. Jeanette shushed them numerous times, but I guess the Russian word for "please be quiet" is not "shush." When we concluded this junket, we stopped for lunch at a rather crowded brasserie, the OM Cafe* at the head of the harbor. (Jeanette's notion of where to eat was based upon crown size. This one turned out to be correct and we enjoyed a wonderful repast.) I, of course, had bouillabaisse. Delicious! Jeanette had seared tuna. We shared a bottle of white Loire-valley wine. The drive back to Avigbon was uneventful.
The last day in the south of France, we spent searching out the lavender market. After much driving we finally found Coustellet and the Lavender Museum where Jeanette stocked up on gifts. Then some more sightseeing driving. On our last night in Avignon, I finally convinced Jeanette to try a Chinese restaurant, the Xuan. I've been asking to eat at a Chinese restaurant in most foreign countries we visit. This was her first relenting to my request ... and it was, to my palate, quite good ... and reasonable.
Our drive back to Paris was not nearly as trying as that going down. On the way up, we picnicked overlooking the vineyards of Beune ... a very pretty sight ... and ate the many treats Jeanette had bought the day before -- local olives, grape juice, sausage, lemon cookies, etc. On the way up, Jeanette also discovered that our Mercedes had a GPS system. She was able to program it to direct us to Charles de Gaulle airport (good thing we knew what a'gauche and a'droit meant) where we dropped off the car. We took a bus into Paris and then a cab to our apartment on the Rue St. Antoine (4th Arrondissement). After settling in we went out to dinner (the male-dominated restaurant, Le Marche) and, once again, discovered that not all food in France is palatable. I had veal with morels ... better should be listed as veal with a morel ... better should be listed as veal with about 1/4 of a morel minced into about 20 itty bitty pieces. It was a ripoff. I think that diners in France should better look for a female manager or co-manager before committing themselves to a bistro.
On our first day in Paris we met with Vincent Imbert*, a Frenchman who had spent a year with us as an exchange student twenty-five years ago. It was a very poignant meeting since Vincent's father had just died and he and his wife had just recently parted ways. We all recounted many of our experiences when he was in the United States and were caught up with his current life. He has three children, two girls and a boy. And he currently is in the vinyl siding business (France is catching up) with his own small construction business. He also told us how his days with us had influenced his life and how grateful he was for that opportunity.
We then left and went under his wing as he took us to the Musée Jacquemart-André* (recommended by Vincent's mother, see: Wikipedia Entry) after a short subway ride. This is a very beautiful fin de siecle home now converted to a museum that displays the art and antiquities largess that was collected by this arms dealer to Napoleon and his wife (his previous portrait painter). There they also had on short-term display the works of Fra Angelico of Florence, Italy. We ate an enjoyable lunch in the museum restaurant. Afterwards Jeanette and Vincent went to the Eiffel Tower where the lines were so long that they gave up waiting and, after a brief visit to the Notre Dame church, they came back to our apartment. I had bought some more victuals so, before Vincent left to go back to Angers, we had a snack with some vin ordinare and a quick dinner at a bistro across the street. We look forward to Vincent (and/or his older daughter) visiting us sometime soon.
The next day we decided to take in the Musée Rodin* (see: Wikipedia Entry) near the Musée D'Orsey (which we also planned to see ... unfortunately it was closed due to a strike ... apparently a frequent event in France). I have been a great admirer of Rodin and was anxious to view firsthand many of his famous works, The Gates of Hell (of which I had also seen a copy? at Stanford University in California), the Kiss, the Burghers of Calais, The Thinker, Balzac (both clothed and nude), etc. We ate a very pleasant lunch in the outdoor cafeteria at the museum with a covey of very aggressive pigeons which would attack any unguarded plate of food. There, I was somewhat surprised to also see so many of Rodin's unfinished works (mostly in marble ... some even seemed to be barely started). I think it was Picasso who said that he doesn't keep his experiments. Rodin seemed not to have been so disciplined and thus he was somewhat diminished in my mind. (Also, Jeanette made an observation about Rodin which I found accurate and compelling -- Rodin sculpted all his subjects' hands and feet as oversized ... apparently one reason how he differentiated himself during his heyday.) But the museum itself is a very impressive venue. Many of his sculptures are outside in a beautifully maintained garden with the golden dome of the Hotel des Invalides towering in the background. Instead of taking the subway back to our abode we spent 60 euros on L'Open Tour, a double-decker open-top bus that snaked its way through this section of Paris with a running commentary of the sights. Then we were supposed to have a free connection to another leg of this tour that went down our apartment's street. Unfortunately, this tour stopped at 6:15 and we were merde out of luck. So we walked home from Notre Dame. I was sweating profusely when I finally got there. We had our viands in our apartment that night.
On our last day in Paris, Jeanette went off to "do" the Louvre and the Arc d'Triomph ... and buy lots more souvenirs. I use my yesterday's L'Open Tour bus ticket to do the bus-tour in the Bastille section of Paris which we had missed the previous day. We then went to dinner at Robert et Louise*, a restaurant in the Jewish section of Paris which had been recommended to us by our son since he and Anne had gone there on their honeymoon. It was delicious! We both had escargots and a nice wine (Irancy) ... then Jeanette, duck and I, a rib-eye steak avec frittes ... and, for dessert, a shared creme brule. What a way to finish!
The next morning (on October 27th), we were up at 5:30 to catch the Yellow shuttle to the airport and then to cram ourselves into those small American Airlines seats for the eight hour flight back to the U.S. of A. We had been routed through JFK airport in New York to connect with an American Eagle flight leaving for Boston at 2:25 PM. As often is the case, our AA flight from Paris was somewhat delayed and we had very little time to make our connection. When we got off the Paris flight, an AA employee, Brandon*, was waiting there with orange priority envelopes to help us (and others) through passport control, get our luggage, and then through customs. He was most helpful and I have sent a letter to American Airlines proffering kudos for him. But this was not all. As you might have guessed from my previous aversions to walking too much, I suffer from osteo-arthritis and could not walk fast enough to insure that we got to the American Eagle gate in time. Our guardian angel then commandeered another employee who had a wheel chair. He then rushed me in said chair while my wife huffed and puffed alongside to American Eagle where we just made the connection to every one's relief. Although somewhat humiliated, I was very grateful. What great service! Dennis was waiting for us at Boston Logan and whisked us, in a heavy rainstorm, back home. Thanks D1!
Then of course, after dropping off our bags we drove over to see Rebecca's dearest twin girls whom we had missed so much.
Fini
* highlights
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