There is a light at the end of the tunnel

Wow......hard to describe all that has happened in the past few days.
We left St Chamas at 6:00 a.m. last Thursday.  For an idea of what we did that day, put your finger on a map of France near Marseilles, then go up to Lyon, over to Paris, then west to the coast......a long time on the train.
We left our new friends in St Chamas a little teary eyed..... the baker lost business, the bar lost business, the grocery store lost business and the bus company is thinking of cutting back now that we are no longer spending bucks in their community.
We spent three full days in the Brittany area of France, with a friend of Dan's.  One thing we noticed about the French..... they sure can cook!  We had wonderful meals and on our last night went to a crepes restaurant in the area and stuffed ourselves.  Unfortunately, I lost a bottle of wine.  Well, actually the contents.  I had the bottle, shattered, in my suitcase.  I smelled like wine for a little while until I could get clothes washed and dried.
We drove to an area where there are Stonehenge shaped rock formations..... pretty cool to see.  They are in several places. To me, they look like something aliens would place....but there seems to be other explanations as well.
We also went down the wild coast and spent some time watching the waves pound the rocks... all on a peninsula that juts out into the ocean.
Today we were up at 4:30 so we could catch a 6 a.m. train.  We spent about three hours wandering Luxembourg Gardens, having lunch, looking at pretty girls (that was me, Linda) and in general enjoying the last few hours in France.
Dan took  1,167 pictures, and I was close to that.... some are good, some bad, and we will have to look at all of them to figure out which are which.
Maybe when I get home I'll pick out a few from this weekend...... but it may be a day or two... and share them on line.

Like McArthur ....we have returned

We have had an interesting couple of days.

Our train from Geneva to Grenoble was rolling along nicely until we hit a little town…maybe Seyelles Cordono in France…. when the train ground to a halt.  Half an our later we were still there and all hopes of catching our connecting train were gone.

So I got out to stretch my legs, get some air and possibly see what was wrong.  I had a hunch it wasn't good when I saw a pair of legs sticking out of one of the doors, and the legs were not moving.

However, some men were.  They were getting a white plastic bag and going on the train.

A 70 year old woman had a fatal heart attack.  They had to follow protocol and the train was delayed about an hour.  Then that car was cleared of people and the train eventually moved on.

When we got to our connection, they put us in a taxi.  A nice red head served as a translator for us and told us what was going on.  We (about 7 of us) piled in the van and headed to our next station.  It was a wild ride!  We drove along the longest lake in France, near Aix les Bains, then arrived in time to catch our train to Grenoble.

We finally made it to Dan's friends house in a small town near Grenoble.  At 8 we sat down for a traditional french meal:  green salad and bread; deboned guinea hen stuffed with chicken, served in a gravy with carrots and cardon and bread; followed by the cheese course; followed by a dessert of fresh strawberries and a raspberry tart.  We finished about 10:15 and waddled off to bed.  Waddled, because the four of us had 2 bottles of wine.  And I have no idea what cardon is, but it was pretty darn good and I did not swell up in an allergic reaction.

We left Grenoble on Tuesday and took a local train to Valance Ville, where we were to catch the TGV back to Miramas.  Impulsive me saw a stop that said Valence TGV and insisted we get off, only to be told we had to catch a train to Valence Ville and our TGV, which does not stop at the place we were at.

We made it with 2 minutes to spare.

For those of you who don't know, the TGV is a high speed train.  It goes about 320 k per hour on parts of its route.  I am not a math person, but that is about 190 mph.  We were passing cars on the highway (speed limit 130) like they were standing still.

Back in St Chamas we wandered past the Petite Cafe de France and saw Yves sitting in the sun.  We said hello, promised we would come back, went home and eventually returned to the bar.  Yves was happy to see us.  He bought wine, cheese,  bread, coffee, more wine and eventually we opted to leave and save ourselves.

But we promised to come back tomorrow for a final glass or two and to say farewell.

We topped our day with a white pizza from Chez Jerome.  Instead of tomato sauce he uses cream.  There were olives, mushrooms, ham, and emmental cheese on top.  It was great. 

We even took pictures of him with his huge vat of dough, the wood fired oven, and we parted with our pizza, hit the house and consumed one half of that and one half of a beautiful red from Dan's friend near Grenoble.

We are back to using the Poly Bureau office…. at least one more time.  We leave here Thursday morning, headed toward the west coast of France for a visit with friends of Dan's.  Next Monday we head for Paris and Tuesday we head for Chicago.  Seems hard to believe the weeks have gone so quickly, and yet so slowly.

On the trail of the narcissus

There is an event by Julia's in the spring, when the narcissus begin blooming.  You buy lunch, then you walk for it.  The first stop is a wafer like appetizer matched with some wines from the region.  The next stop was soup, then the main course, then cheese, then dessert.  People are given a glass at the beginning then just wander the trails.....upward, through forest, fields, and amazing views.  We went today.
It was great an terrible.  Great when the sun was out.  Terrible when the hail hit.

Pictures notes: In the beautiful sun, we could hear the gentle tinkling of the cow bells.  Picture two....soup course:  fish soup with wine.  Scene of the first course....lots of people.  Walking the trail to the next course, note how the sun is shining.   Oops...umbrellas up because of the rain.  Those streaks are actually rain and hail pelting us along the trail to stop four.  Field of narcissus at stop four, weather was a little dark but no rain.  The alpen horns were out, their haunting melodies echoing across the fields and forests. Dan under the umbrella....note the hail on the roof of the umbrella.  Enjoying the main meal of risotto and sausage.  At stop five...wine and cheese.  After five, we skipped six and went home.  We were walking, eating, and drinking for about four hours.  We were a little muddy, but as soon as we got back to Julia's, the sun came out.

Fondue

Well, we went to a typical Swiss restaurant for fondue Friday night.  We sat on a beautiful outdoor area. had some great white wine, visited with lots of Julia's friends from India, Turkey, England, New Zealand and Canada.....a truly international meal.
The meal......bread and cheese. The cheese is a blend of two types, served in a pot.  You rip the bread into pieces, then stick it on a skewer and and dip.  And dip.  And dip.  Yum.... And you drink white wine because it aids in digestion.  Dip. Sip. Dip. Sip. Dis. Sid........

Then we had dessert.  Dan had Pear William... a pear sorbet with a pear liquor poured over it.  I opted for the meringue with glace and creme. (Note to wives:  Switzerland is a little more expensive than France.  Example:  Lunch of three courses in France:  15 E.  Dessert in Vevey:  16 Franc.  Or a $22 lunch in France and a $24 dessert in Switzerland.  .... .... .... Please add more cash to the accounts.)

On the road again

Well, we are now in Switzerland, visiting my daughter and some big Swiss sights....like the Matterhorn.  We took a day trip up there May13...Friday...an omen.  All went well until we were on the second leg of our journey.  Traveling with a rail pass means you don't have to pay for tickets for national rail systems.  Unfortunately, the trip from Visp to Zermatt was not on a national rail system.  I did not know that.  When the man came to collect tickets, I whipped out our first class rail pass and gave it to him.  He looked at it and leaned in and said, "Sir, this pass is not valid on our line."  He then huddled up Dan and I and explained the situation...we were traveling a private line without tickets.  He said we would have to buy tickets.  He was very nice.  He sold us a second class ticket back from Zermatt and allowed us to stay in the first class car for the ride up.  He really could have made life difficult for us.
Anyway, the cog train took us to Zermatt, where we bought tickets for the Gornergrat area and rode up to were we could almost touch the Matterhorn!  What a view!
We got here on the TGV....France's high speed rail.  At some point in the route from Avignon to Lyon, the train was hitting well over 120 mph.... amazing to travel at that speed and not even know it.

Pictures attached include:  Dan hanging out his clothes, the TGV in Avignon, the train up to Zermatt, The Matterhorn, two Americans in front of the Matterhorn to prove they were there, a guy who was riding his bike down the mountain.....said it would take 20 minutes!!!

St Chamas revisited

When I had this idea for a French experience, I was looking for a small town.  Dan agreed, so we settled on St Chamas.  Once here, we discovered a couple of problems:  no wifi; limited transportation.  Buses stop running at 6…. so our day trips had to be ended in a neighboring town so we could catch the 6 p.m. bus back to St Chamas.

We frequented three of the local  bars.  We settled on one for our favorite.  Marcel and Josephine are the owners, and they speak no English.  The second day we were in "Le Petite Cafe de France" we were approached by a young woman who spoke English…her name is Nayma.  She teaches English at a local technical school and loves to practice.  She also took us under her wing and gave us maps, suggestions, translations and help when we needed it.  She goes there for lunch regularly, so when we needed help, we could find her.

One day I ordered a sandwich and Marcel asked if I wanted Mayo…I did not understand.  A really obnoxious Frenchman mocked me for not understanding Mayo, saying "Mayonnaise, mayonnaise."  The next day he mocked me again when I ordered wine.

Two days ago we saw Nayma at the bar and stopped to visit….and he was there.  He looked at us and said, "Ah, the Americans…."

Next came a great French experience.  He mocked us, I mocked him.   He laughed, we laughed and three hours later we were hugging each other.  Not only that, Marcel closed the bar.  When someone came for a drink he said, "Non…open for only my American friends."

Wednesday night we went back and Yves came and sat with us for an hour, talking in broken English…. which is better than our broken French… and we had a great time.

My sunglasses fell apart and the local eyeglass shop put them together with no charge.

We actually know about 9 people…. who smile and sometimes wave when they see us.  We don't always know their names….the Wifi lady, the sculpturer… and sometimes we do…. Jerome the pizza guy, Siverene the baker..Chantel the housekeeper.  Dan is taking their pictures as we see them so we have a visual remembrance

OK, maybe we didn't see all the towns we wanted to see.  I know we missed some of the must see sights.

But what we have found here is friendship.  It crosses borders and bridges languages.  

And it has made for a great trip.
Our bar, the living room one half; living room other half; stairs to the first floor!  Don't attempt in socks or while under the influence of rich red wine!!

Avignon is a pretty big city…. and it also has a place where popes used to live.

The Palace of the Popes is a huge complex.  In the 1300s the Popes moved here from Rome as the Catholic  Church bought Avignon and turned it into a papal palace.  There is no furniture, much of the tapestries and frescoes are gone or faded, but it is still an impressive building.

There is also a bridge in Avignon that is the center of a French nursery song. "On the bridge at Avignon we will dance, we will dance.  On the bridge at Avignon we will dance all in a circle."  The bridge itself once bridged the Rhone River, but a few hundred years ago a flood washed out part and it was never replaced.

Now tourists come by the hundreds to walk on the bridge and if their heart so chooses, to dance around……

Dan and I did not know the tune.  So when we were eating sandwiches I went over to a group of school children and asked their teacher if they could sing the song.  She gathered up her kids…ages maybe 5/6….and they sang the song for us. 

Then the teacher said we had to sing to them!

So we sang a verse of Old McDonald and the kids stared at us … and chuckled.

We said he had a duck and should have said canard…..but next time.

From the top:  Avignon bridge of nursery rhyme fame; three shots of the Palace of the Popes....note the size of the halls:  Dan doing a little window shopping....and no, we did not go in....they were closed; me dancing my heart out on the Bridge at Avignon.

  

a long update.... hope ya read it!!

Whew!  What a busy week this has been.  Dan and I ventured to Salon de Provance one day.  We found out how to take the bus, which cost 1.5 Euro for a one way voyage.  What was exciting there?  We saw a great museum in a chateau.  The museum was a military museum and had some pretty cool displays, including rifles that were five feet long!    One display featured a document signed by Napoleon.

Also in Salon there is a soap factory.  I know, that's not very exciting.  But this is a well known factory and we joined a tour of older people.  We learned how soap was made and cut and packaged.  Of course, we bought soap also. 

We also saw and heard the French Air Force Red Arrows,  an acrobatic flying squad.  They practiced over town in the morning and in the afternoon.  You could hear them coming, but it was impossible to get pictures because they are so fast.  We could see the pilots head outlined….that is how close they were to the ground.

Julia, my Swiss daughter, came Friday.  We went to the cafe, I introduced her to Marcel, we all had wine and watched the 5:30 traffic jam.  Then we went to Chez Jerome for take out pizza and I introduced her to him.  Saturday morning we saw Chez Jerome making pizzas as Chez Marcel.  When Dan and I went to ask him how this was, Marcel came over and joined the talk, referring to Dan and I as friends.  It was kind of cool being in a partially understood conversation with two locals.

We all piled in the rented car and I drove to a winery, where we met Marie, owner of the place.  They bottle 100,000 bottles a year of red, white and rose.  We sampled, we bought, we left.  Actually, Dan and I had already met Marie and she invited us out to the cave to sample and buy wine.  We spent an hour with her and we were sorry to go.

But Pont de Gard called.  This is the remains of a Roman aqueduct from 2,000 years ago.  Dan was just a kid when they built it!  This is the last standing complete remnant of an aqueduct that brought needed water to Nimes during the Roman age.  Dan always taught it in history and has always dreamed of seeing it…and now he has.  We even have pictures to prove it!

Les Baux then called.  This hilltop castle dates from around 1,000.  It was ordered destroyed in 1300 and the ruins are spectacular.  From high atop a rocky mesa, the castle commanded a wide view of the plain below.  We climbed up and down, got put in stocks for being bad Americans, and were amazed by the beauty.

Sunday we went to L'Isle de la Sorge, the "Venice of Provance."  This was market day and there was also an antique sale and flea market.  The city of bridges was overwhelmed by buyers and sellers.  Julia bought two weird shaped lights….and after a great lunch in a perfect setting, got back in her car and went home to Switzerland.

Dan and I continued to Aix en Provence, the city of fountains, and spent about two hours roaming the streets and taking pictures of fountains.

Now we are tired. 

I apologize for the long post…..but we are limited by our lack of wifi.  We are going to Julia's on Thursday for my birthday and will have more exciting updates, including why it took us so long to get home.

Cheers  

From the top:  Dan with his new bar of soap in Salon de Provence....Linda should be getting this in the mail sometime next week:  Pont du Gard and two guys almost as old;  part of the castle as it is today and as it was 1300we were imprisoned by the local gendarme for violating sweater codes; one of the bridges in L'Isle de la Sorgue; the fountain in DeGaulle square in Aix en Provance

Update number...... dix?

Bonjour!
No pictures, because we are in the Poly Bureau and it is late.
We went to Salon de Provence yesterday... nice time exploring this home of Nastradamus.  They had a great museum of ancient weaponry.....really cool.
My daughter Julia has arrived for a visit and we have rented a car....should be fun.
Our arrangements have changed because of reservation issues.....so we are leaving here May 19 instead of May 20.....not so long from now.
Anyway, pictures on Monday!!

Merde happens..... or a three hour cruise goes bad

Well, the safari from Arles to the Caramargue started out well.  We boarded our lovely jeep in Arles and joined a Swedish man and his French wife and three children, who did not say a word.  We stopped at a wildlife viewing platform to look for birds, horses and bulls......but what we found was a flat tire on the jeep.  Now, one would think if you are going out into a semi wilderness area, you would have a spare tire.  But no......90 minutes later the relief corps found us, bring a beater for the group to continue their trip.  I told Dan the three hour trips were always a danger....too bad there wasn't a Ginger or Maryann to watch...just a snake and some horses, and Andre our driver, who kept saying Sacre Bleu over and over. 

Anyway, we have seen the ruins in Arles and the flamingoes......

Info on pictures.....Van Gogh's Yellow House in Arles, at least where the yellow house would have been if it hadn't been bombed in WWII; Arles amphitheater outside; amphitheater inside, night cafe, me drinking pastis at the cafe.....imagine Dan in my place and you get the idea; wild horses of the Caramargue; merde! flamingoes in flight.

Still no internet at the house, so our trips to the poly bureau in St. Chamas continue.

Weather has generally been in the mid and lower 70s and only one day of rain.

We've both lost weight because of all the walking, despite the croissants.

Till next time!