Final image of France

Nice, from above, on a clear September day.

The sunshine of Nice

Paul and I have both loved this trip to France. But we agree on our favorite place so far: Nice. This is the last place on our tour, and it surpasses our highest expectations.




Yes, it's the Riviera. But it's not the beach that we fell in love with. The beach, in fact, is rocky! We didn't know that before. I love walking along the edge of the sea, but I couldn't do that here. It's just too painful on the feet!






However, there is a looong walkway just above the beach, and it's wonderful to walk along it and enjoy the view of the curving seaside of the Bay of Angels. Part of this walkway is called "The Promenade of the English" and the rest is called "USA Street." Our hotel was right on USA Street (Okay, in French it's called Quai des Etats-Unis), just across from the beach. In fact, when we walked down the hall toward the lobby, we could see the ocean out the glass front door.






What we loved the most about Nice was the quality of the sunshine. In late September, the sun was warm but not hot. A slight breeze made the temperature just perfect. And the bright sun lit up the pastel colors of the Old Town, where most buildings are yellow, pink or orange, with contrasting colors for shutters, usually pale green. Our hotel, Mercure Marche aux Fleurs, is right next to the Old Town of Nice, near the flower market and the fish restaurants.






Not far away is the newer part of town, also lovely. Where once a river divided the Old Town from the New Town, there is now a long park with fountains.









A few blocks down from our hotel, the beach ends and you can take an elevator up to the top of a rocky hill where Nice's fortress once stood. Now it is a lovely park with a few architectural ruins, a playground, a cafe, and the most stunning views I've ever seen. The color of the sea was so blue even a man from Nice said it was "incroyable" - unbelievable. This is why the French call this area not the Riviera but "The Azure Coast."


















We found a charming cafe right on the water, where we sipped "kir" and beer and enjoyed the sunsets.


We ate our best meal in Nice, drank the best wine, enjoyed the best views and basked in the best sunlight. What a glorious way to end our trip to France!

French shop names - guessing game!

Okay, students of French and all who are curious about the French language!

Try to guess what each of these places sells:

French poodles - and petit chat

We have seen many dogs in France - the French love taking their dogs everywhere, even when touring famous sites.

Here are two French poodles! (for you, Catherine) -

and also a kitten . . . (for Connie!)

Glitzy Cannes

It's funny - Paul and I both decided we didn't like Cannes very much, because it was too chic and fashionable and glitzy. But the photos make it look great! So maybe we'll have better memories than we thought.

We stopped for a two-hour lunch break at Cannes, where they hold the famous film festival, giving awards to the best films and actors from around the world. Once a year, in May, famous actors and directors dress in fancy clothes and walk up the steps on the red carpet in Cannes, and the photographers snap pictures. We saw the steps they walk up and the handprints of the stars in the cement.

We also saw lots of brand-name luxury goods shops, like Louis Vuitton and Ferragamo and Cartier, and women dressed in high heels and skimpy clothing. Lots of fancy cars, too.

But what I liked best was the beach! It is what you'd expect from the Riviera: soft sandy beach, crowded with sunbathers. Some of the women were topless! We took photos but won't post them here. I took off my shoes and walked in the soft sand on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. Aaaaah!

They also had places where you could take your photo as if you were in a movie. Here's one of me in Star Wars - La Guerre des Etoiles!

Gambling in Monaco

Monaco is a tiny principality, nominally independent but actually dependent on, and surrounded by France. It is ruled by Prince Albert of the Grimaldi family, which took over Monaco in 1297. And he is not married and doesn't have a son to take over! What will happen next?

His father, Prince Rainier, married a beautiful American movie star, Grace Kelly, in the 1950s, and their family has been in the news ever since. Both Rainer and Grace are buried in the church in the old fortress/castle area of Monaco. We saw their graves, which have flowers on them. The grave markers are written in Latin, so "Grace" is "Gratia."

We saw the palace where Prince Albert lives, and where his parents raised their three children. Every day, at noon, there is a changing of the guard in front of the palace; we got a chance to see that!

Today, Monaco is a rich little city, squeezed between mountains and the Mediterranean Sea. Its harbor is crammed with yachts.

Its biggest money-maker is a world-famous casino, in a part of Monaco called Montecarlo. The photo is at the top of this blog. Maybe you've seen this casino in James Bond movies. It is a gorgeous 19th century building, built by the same architect who designed the Opera in Paris.

Paul and I saw the outside, but we didn't go in and gamble. Instead, we had a cafe au lait in the Cafe de Paris in the square in front of the Montecarlo Casino.

Water wheel town

We're on a tour organized by a company called "Europe Through the Back Door," and they make a point of taking us to out-of-the-way places that show us a side of the "real" Europe that most American tourists don't see.

In sunny southern Provence, our guide, Arnaud, took us to a tiny town called Isle-sur-la-Sorgue. That means 'Island on the Sorgue River,' and this town is like a little Venice, with rivers and canals everywhere. The views are lovely, since the water in the canals are crystal clear.

Once, this was a mill town, with more than 70 water wheels supplying water power to mills grinding flour and making paper, textiles, silk, and wool. Today, you can still see many big water wheels scattered through the town. The running water in the rivers and canals keep them moving. Most of them are covered in moss, and none are used any more.

It was wonderful to visit this little town. We had a picnic dinner in a park alongside the river here and had fun wandering around the town.

This is truly Europe through the back door!

Van Gogh's France

Vincent Van Gogh's paintings burst into bright colors when he moved to southern France. He lived in Arles, and we took a walking tour of the city in which our guide, Jacqueline, pointed out some of the places he painted. This included one of his "starry night" paintings over the Rhone River, as well as a cafe in the main square that glowed yellow in the evening light. (It has since been painted yellow, so people will recognize it!)

He tried to get his painter friends to move here from Paris, but only one of them came, Paul Gaughin. He and Paul got in a big fight, and when it was over, Paul left town and Vincent cut off part of his own ear and gave the piece to a prostitute. After that, Vincent Van Gogh was put in a hospital that had a lovely garden - see photo!

But then he had to go into a mental institution, in the nearby town of St. Remy.

We visited St. Remy on a market day. It is charming.

It's sad that Van Gogh never sold any of his paintings during his life time. Such a genius, and he was able to continue painting only because his brother Theo supported him.

Award-winning photo: Please vote!

Paul took these photos of the Roman arena at Arles, on the night we arrived. I couldn't decide which was better. Please vote: which is the award-winning photo for this blog?

Photo #1

Photo #2

The Romans in France

It's hard for many Americans to fathom, but more than 2,000 years ago the Romans built an advanced civilization here in France and throughout the Mediterranean. They constructed roads, theaters, aqueducts, public baths, and fancy homes with tiled floors. After Rome fell, Europe went into the Dark Ages, where they produced almost nothing lasting in architecture, art, or literature. After 20 centuries, a surprising number of the Roman structures remain standing.

In Southern France, relatively close to Rome, the most impressive remaining structure is a bridge called Pont du Gard - built not for roads but to carry fresh spring water 30 miles from the mountains to the city of Nimes. Nimes is on a river, so it had a source of water nearby; but the Romans wanted fresh, clean mountain water - so badly that they spent huge sums of money to build a 30-mile canal over hilly terrain. This canal had to travel over a river canyon, so they built this huge bridge to take the fresh water across it. This system worked for 150 years, and the water could reach the city from the spring in just 24 hours, dropping only 40 feet during the journey. It is an engineering marvel.

We enjoyed walking under the bridge and marveling at its many arches - three layers of them, including a huge one that crosses the river itself. The bridge was built entirely with stones, with no mortar. It must have taken thousands of workers to complete it.

The city of Arles also has some awesome Roman ruins. Our hotel was a stone's throw from the two biggest. The Roman arena, or coliseum, was built for entertaining the masses: as many as 20,000 Romans would go there to watch gladiators fight to the death against lions. The exits were called "vomitorium" because they would "vomit" the people out onto the strees. Today, it is still in use - for bullfights. During the Middle Ages, townspeople lived inside it, for protection against marauders. In the late 1800s, it was reconstructed so it could be used again as an amphitheater.

Arles also has the remains of a Classical Theater, for plays and lectures. The seats are still there, but the stage has fallen apart. You can also see remnants of the old Roman forum, the central square. The Romans had a large "circus" for chariot races; on that site the French have built a museum that holds a lot of marble statues left over from Roman days, including one of Julius Caesar, who built a big city at Arles to thank it for making ships that helped him in battle.

It's cool to imagine what this city was like in the Roman days. They had quite a life.

Ruins or Reconstruction?

Here's a good question: Which do you think is better: to leave an old castle in ruins, or to reconstruct it to look like it did during the time it was used?

Of course, it's more fun to visit a castle that has been reconstructed. It's easier to imagine how people lived here in the old days. But it's not very authentic. How is it different from visiting copies of castles in Disneyland or Las Vegas?

We visited both, here in France. First, we went to Carcassonne. This was a medieval city, with a sturdy, high wall around it, almost impossible to invade. You can see the ramparts - in fact, a double set of thick walls. You can see the slits in the rocks, where the archers shot arrows at attackers. You can see the moat, and the drawbridge, and the portcullis, and the wooden walkways, high above, where the defenders could stand to shoot arrows or drop stones on invaders who tried to scale the walls with ladders.

It is easy to envision Carcassonne's history, when you hear how the Romans first built this fortress, how the Saracens defended this city against Charlemagne in the 800s, and how the Crusaders attacked this city in the 1100s because it was protecting Cathars, who were Christians who had different ways of worshiping than the way approved by Rome.

Carcassonne is probably the best-preserved medieval fortress city in Europe. Many parts of the walls and towers are original. But much of it was reconstructed in the 1800s. Not yesterday, but certainly not during the Middle Ages. And the place is crawling with tourists. Little shops sell lots of plastic swords for kids to play with. So, while Carassonne is awesome, it's also a bit unreal.

By contrast, Les Baux was also once a strong hilltop fortress and castle during the Middle Ages. (It's pronounced 'Lay Bo' but it is also the origin of the word bauxite, a mineral found near here and used to make aluminum.) But when we visited Les Baux, we saw only ruins. We saw authentic stone walls of the castle and the fortress, but it's much harder to imagine what it looked like in its prime. You have to use your imagination. Also, they give you an audio guide, so you can listen to a voice tell you what used to be in each spot, and how people lived.

So - What do you think? Would you rather visit a place like Les Baux, left as it was found? Or Carcassonne, rebuilt to look as it once looked? Please comment!

P.S. This is how prisoners were punished in the Middle Ages; they were put in the stocks and left to stand there for hours. Paul says it is very uncomfortable!

Serendipity: Two Unexpected Luncheons

When we signed up for this tour, we were given an itinerary with the plans for each day. But we were happily surprised by two lunches that we did not expect.

On the day we left Sarlat, we stopped at the Canal du Midi, which is the canal that connects the Mediterrean Sea with the Atlantic Ocean, across southwest France. (I didn't even know it existed!) We took a short trip on a barge, up the canal and through a lock to a higher level. The locks are needed because the canal has to cross higher and then lower terrain. We ate our picnic lunches on the barge.

The following day, we stopped at a vineyard, where a woman named Sylviane explained to us the sustainable agricultural methods she and her husband use for growing wine grapes. They use pheromones instead of insecticide - to cause "sexual confusion" in the butterflies so they don't mate and produce caterpillars that destroy the grapes. !! They pick all the grapes by hand, and they use natural cooling methods and gravity in their wine production, which we also toured.

After the tour, we had a chance to sample several of the wines they produce. Then, Sylviane treated us to a delicious country-style lunch on their terrace, with yummy foods I had never seen or heard of before: something that looked like a tomato pizza, cold zucchini soup in a glass, pumpkin squash with duck meat, pasta salad, mackeral, tuna - and, of course, their own red wines. I wish I had taken photos of the food they served, but I was too busy eating it to take photos!