from Cassis, France: the wind

Like anyone, I have my share of terrors, but until this day, I have never registered any significant concern about the wind. I mean, where’s the harm in a breeze gently playing with the leaves and pine needles on a sunny day?

Today, I found myself clinging with panic to pine branches, wondering if I could make it just a few steps to safety.

It was only the second time ever that I found myself repeating over and over to Ed – I can’t I can’t I can’t… (the other time was in the Canadian Rockies, where I was convinced that one step would send me plummeting down a mountain side of loose rock).


The day starts out magnificently! The mistral (a wind that comes to Provence and the Cote d’Azur every now and then) pushed away the clouds, creating that clear crisp air that gives this region its magical, bold colors.

We are having a leisurely breakfast downstairs, enjoying the bustle of the kitchen staff at Nino’s as it prepares for the noon and evening meals. Our big hike to the “fjords” is for tomorrow. Today is a day for meandering along the eastern shores of the town. We tell Nino of our plans. He frowns. Le mistral – he say with a shake. The flags are out. You can’t go anywhere. It’s le mistral. It’ll drive you mad.

That seems a tad dramatic. We decide to look for a second opinion.

At the tourist office, madame seemed less concerned.
Can we walk up to the cliffs at the edge of town?
Well, it’s a long walk. Maybe a taxi to the trail?

(I think people regard Americans, or Americans our age, or Americans my age and my gender as frail.)

But the wind, is it okay to walk?
They will close the roads in the mountains if it gets to be too strong.

We take a bottle of water and set out. But after a few steps I want to turn back. Not because of le mistral, mind you.

Ed, I need to change to boots. The new ones that I purchased for the trip.
He stares at me with a complete lack of comprehension.
Look around you! Every single woman is wearing strikingly beautiful boots! I have some in the room…
For hiking??
It’ll be on solid surfaces mostly, wont it? And besides, mine are Madison sensible ones. Still, I’ll feel like I belong.

Our climb begins. At the beginning, it is wonderfully benign. We pass coves where waves crash with beautiful sprays of water…










…and hillsides with vines planted in terraced rows, spilling down to the sea.





But near the summit, as we pick up the footpath, we suddenly begin to feel and hear the force of the wind. Its rush across the planes and mountains of Provence sounds like an airplane engine. At times, as it careens toward the heathered cliffs, it's more like a firecracker. But it is fierce.

The road barricade is up and so it can’t be that bad, can it?

Peter Mayle wrote this about the mistral: (it is) a brutal, exhausting wind that can blow the ears off a donkey.

Ears off a donkey, cars off a road – how about tourists off a cliffside?

As we climb higher, we are whipped and pounded with such force that I utter my first series of “I can’t’s…”

Still, the views are compelling.









Sure, we are alone on the trail, but it is January. Who goes hiking in Cassis in January (in boots that will never, ever be the same)? The wind pushes us toward the mountain and so reason tells us that being blown off is not possible. But it’s finicky. Sometimes a gust will brush to the side and then I feel like it’s teasing me, coaxing me to the cliff’s edge so that it can deliver a final punch and push me over.






At other times, it is deceptively calm. Nothing more than a breeze. And I crawl (yes, crawl; I’m no fool – I will NOT stand up and be toppled by an angry French wind) within three feet of the edge (you cannot get me to a cliff’s edge even when it’s calm out there) and I feel it’s all worth it – the views are that good.





But as we continue along the trail, the wind picks up again and even though the edge is now ten feet away, I feel I am a mere dustball, about to be picked up and carried to the white-capped waters of the blue Mediterranean. I cling to the branches of a small pine and let Ed move forward without me.

We are on the mountain ridge. We see cliffs by the sea and the chalky mountains of Provence all the way to the north. I can hardly recall ever feeling so enthralled by a combination of water and land.






The afternoon light is changing and I am reminded that the day ends early. We turn back.

Along the port, the people of Cassis are milling about, enjoying the week-end sun, the camaraderie of their neighbors, the sweet treats of life in a coastal small town. We join them and as I contemplate which pastry should be the chosen one…





…and how much of the crepe Grand Marnier I should leave for Ed, I think to myself that the danger was completely imagined up there, on the cliffs.





I look outside of our Nino’s windows and I watch the sun leave strokes of orange and pink on the cliffs we had scaled and I think – how tame!



(view to the left: today's hike)




(view to the right: tomorrow's hike)


Still, when we sit down to a seafood Provencal dinner at Nino’s…





… I am not so sure. Our host tells us – le mistral, it can roll cars off the road.

The wind is dying down tonight. They say it has run its course. It is done for now.

Before falling asleep, I spend a good half hour untangling my hair. Ed on the other hand collapses instantly. You can't tell if his hair has been touched by the mistral -- it sort of always looks like this.

from Cassis, France

And so, a flight and two train rides later, we came to Cassis.

Where’s that? Just east of Marseille, on the coast. But a world apart.

The thing about Cassis is that…

It’s large enough to have at least two patisseries open every day.
Last year, it had sunshine on 329 days (source: Nino, of Nino’s Restaurant).
It’s snuggled between the tallest cliffs on the French Mediterranean.
People from all over come here for the bouillabaisse.
Not much is happenin’ in Cassis in January.
It has a port.
It is surrounded by vineyards producing white wine (and rose) that was the first to receive AOC status in France (if you don’t know what that is, trust me – to the French you are nothing wine-wise or foodwise if you do not have AOC status).
Ed wanted to celebrate the sale of his business by going to France.

Now, which of the above lead me to come here just before the start of the new semester? I’d say all but one.

We arrived on one of the few afternoons of the year where there was no sun. Indeed, the cliffs were hidden behind low, gray clouds. And the wind – ah, the wind! We are in the midst of a le mistral spell, when the vicious wind pounds at the south of France with such a fury that, they say, it drives people mad.

I had chosen a small hotel at the side with a view toward the sea. Nothing about my choice was good (meaning – it looked nothing like the cute place I had inspected on the Net and, horrors of horrors, if we wanted to use the Internet, we would wind up paying a sum almost as large as the cost of the dark, dingy room; that, more than the Mistral, would lead Ed to despair).

We set out for a walk so that we could take stock. I mean, the factors above notwithstanding, there is more than one French fishing port by the Mediterranean Sea. And yet... We breathed in the sea air, noted the fishermen on the pebble beach…





…and hiked into town.





It’s not easy to find a room in a place that doesn’t really cater to tourists in January.

But, never underestimate the power of an Ligurian restauranteur who for decades wanted to buy out space above his eatery so that he could open up a trio of rooms for his clients. How fortuitous that he should do so just before we showed up!

We ate at Nino’s to celebrate our good fortune.



fish soup



monk fish



orange cake


Here’s Nino’s (the next morning), the restaurant with the whitest, brightest trio of rooms above.

from Warsaw: one last effort

We are not sleeping well. We doze off alright, but at two we are up. I write, Ed reads, we watch CNN and BBC and wait until sunrise. And then we are too tired to get going.

On this last full day in the city, we get to the lovely old (but really new) café for breakfast after they have stopped serving it. No matter. A morning, sorry, afternoon meal of apple cake and a sweet yeast roll is perfect.









And again, slowly, tentatively, the sun comes out.

I tell Ed that I don’t think I have captured the essence of Polish life well enough here, on Ocean. I suggest a walk through my old neighborhoods. Past shoe stores, schools, bread shops, milk bars, past old churches and old women selling old everything. I take a photo or two. Not of anything unusual, not anything splendid at all. Just the ordinary stuff of an ordinary day. Here's one of women waiting for a tram.





As the sun moves closer to the bare branches of trees, I turn in the direction of Lazienki – the most beautiful of all city parks.





The weather – just at the freezing point, but fairly sunny – has brought out more than a handful of people. Older people, non working people, preschoolers.





Everyone has something in their pocket for the birds that live here. My sister has given us bread and nuts too and, as last year, we are absolutely delighted to throw bits of crust for the peacocks, ducks and birds.

















The squirrels are fewer than before and they are fussier: they dispose of uncracked hazelnuts and walnuts and seem to ask us to break the shell before handing them their treat.






When the sun finally disappeares and the chill becomes more pronounced, Ed heads back to the room and I begin what has to be described as a rush of last minute embraces. Some of my friends and family are more patient with my restless spin through Poland this winter. Others – not so much. I understand their puzzlement – why so short? Why only three days?

It is as much as I can do this time.

I stop in again at my dad's, meet up with my sister, drink tea with one special friend and eat dinner with a family of another and now I feel truly that I have never left, even as I sit there and try to bring Ed, who speaks not a word of Polish and understand little of what it means to feel Polish, into this peculiar world of close ties and long history.



daughter, mother



father, daughter


At the end of the day I am spent and so again, I do not sleep. At five in the morning, we are on the way to the airport. Wet freezing drizzle dirties the window of the car. It’s nice to be driving at this hour – the driver tells us. It’s nicer to be sleeping under a quit, I’m thinking.

I’ll be back soon, I tell myself. And maybe I’ll be calmer and less rushed and maybe I’ll venture out of the city and maybe I’ll capture the faces in new ways, because the old ways are beginning to feel remote, as the country distances itself more and more from the way I knew her thirty years ago.

from Warsaw: photographing Chopin

In the year my father was born, the Chopin Monument went up. Then, during the war, it was knocked down. In 1958, when I was five, it was unvelied again.

Photographing Poland. I ask myself each time I am here -- how should I do it?

I'm posting just one photo from today. If you stare at it long enough, you'll race through most of the questions that I have about my days here. Maybe not all. Maybe not even some. Maybe none at all. But to me, this image has soul.





I'll leave Ocean alone for a night. Tomorrow we leave for France and on my way there, I'll again come back to this theme. Because I have been thinking hard about how best to post (and think about my days here) with accuracy, with flare and with an honest punch.

You have to smile. Visitng Warsaw now, you just have to smile. I know that much.

from Warsaw: soft light

We are sitting at Blikle Café, eating breakfast. An egg in a glass for me. Classic Polish stuff, though in the old way, the soft boiled egg would have been pealed and dumped unceremoniously into a tall glass. None of this delicate poaching in the glass stuff that I see now.




It is a late breakfast. The Café doesn’t open until 10 – an interesting time to contemplate an eggs and toast beginning.

(Okay, we cheated: in waiting for it to open, we stumbled into the bakery next door and snacked on sweet cheese yeast rolls.)





In fact, we are not the only ones now sitting down to a full breakfast. Slowly, the place fills. An older gentleman comes in, looks around and approaches Ed. May I have your newspaper? -- he asks. Ed obliges, as well he might since he doesn’t speak Polish and the paper is in Polish (Ed likes to have reading material ever present, even if he cannot read it).

We learn that the man is Swiss, but born in Poland. First time in Poland? He looks at Ed with interest. No, I smile. It’s his second.

The single woman at another table chimes in. He’s a New Yorker? I nod, though by now, Ed has spent far more years in Wisconsin than in his childhood city. But she got it right and she's pleased. Nice day to be outside! Enjoy it.

Polish people are forever curious about people sharing space, even fleetingly, with them.

Second trip for Ed, but the first time in years that my winter days in Warsaw are dappled with sunlight. Throwing back the curtain this morning, I could not believe that I saw this:





A walk. A long overdue walk. I hadn’t done it last year: too cold, too gray, too wet. But now? Ed, we are in for a hike!

And so we step out for a first real look at my city.

Remember the Square of Three Crosses from last night? With the pudgy looking church? Here’s its cross (one of the three!) against a deep blue sky. Oh yeah. That other tower? The Palace of Culture. Gift of Stalin. No cross on that one.





We walk along the "Royal Way," toward Old Town. The pudgy church is behind, casting a wicked eye at the building up front (on the left of the photo) -- the former headquarters of the Communist Party. I used to walk this way daily, to classes at the university. I was destined to have a more personal connection to the place then too. But that's another story for another for another forum.





Oh, the sun, the sun. In spite of near freezing temps, I am not cold. We walk past stalls of flowers -- so common in European cities! Who gets this morning bouquet? An office buddy celebrating a name day? A sweetie back home?




Further up, we pass the univsersity buildings. Hey, my classes were here! I ran out for tea at nearby cafés more than once. More than a hundred times. None of this Starbucks quick latte stuff. Prolonged, animated tea breaks.





And finally, the old town. We slip and stumble over the cobbled streets and icy sidewalks (sand just does not have the melting power of salt). And, I am, as usual, enchanted. Not by the beauty of the place, though there is that...





...I am enchanted by what was reconstructed here, out of rubble, starting just a few years before my birth and well into my childhood. The Royal Castle at the photo's right side? My high school class helped clear the the old bricks and stones to make room for it. The Castle: not old, but looking as it once did, before the Nazis emptied the city of structure and life during the War.

And of children. The children of the war years. The generation just in the shadows of my own.

Ed and I walk into the Museum of Warsaw History. There is a temporary exhibit of photographs and words. Of children, deported from Warsaw to labor camps and transit camps in the last year of the city's destruction, in 1944.

There is nothing I can say here that would adequately convey those stories, their stories. On the website of the Banished Children Project (banwar1944), you'll find more. But let me at least leave you with one tiny image of this unbelievable horror.





We watch a film on the destruction of Warsaw. I had taken my daughters to this very film ten years ago. I could watch it a thousand times and still, I would not be able to comprehend how Warsaw could be reduced to nothing. And rebuilt with such strength and gusto soon after.

Outside, I am dazzled by the light. If ever I loved the soft play of rays on children's faces, it was now, this afternoon. A group of school kids, meandering across the square, taking a quick look at Syrenka, the mermaid with the shield, the symbol of my city. Who can not smile at this?





And all day, we encountered granparents, caring for their little ones while parents are at work.









We pause at a traditional old restaurant where Polish people, older, nonworking people are eating their mid day meal. Ed is thrilled with Polish mushroom soup and I'm happy with my borstch. Warmth from within.





It's getting late and the sunlight is getting dangerously thin, frail, as if it might disappear behind the trees of city parks.





We turn back. We catch a tram along the main street, Marszalkowska, the one that zips past the Palace of Culture.




We get off just steps from where I first lived in Warsaw, in a most unremarkable, tiny apartment, looking out on a tram stop. Around the corner, you can still walk past the markers of what we not so affectionately refer to as Stalinist architecture.




You're probably noting the graffiti. That's new. I'm noting that even at times of envisioning a utipian society, the mother is depicted as holding her child (similar images are on the remaining pillars, where she is also holding tools of work in her empty arm).

It's just a short stroll to the park. Several parks, in fact. Let me end this for today. A long post. A full day. A gradnmother bending down over her little one, wiping his nose.

from Warsaw: first steps

By late evening, the streets are nearly empty. True, it’s January. But it’s not a miserably cold January. And maybe we’re not hitting the tourist by-ways. (How many tourists are there in Warsaw at this time of year anyway?) Still, Warsaw feels quiet.

Oh, there was traffic, sure, a snarl of cars, especially at the periphery of the city, driving in from the airport. But now, as we set out for a quick evening walk across the Square of the Three Crosses, just outside of where we're staying, we encounter few others.

Warsaw is like that: it can quickly become residential, with only the occasional small shop (sausages maybe?) squeezed in among rows of low rise apartment buildings.

Is there a shopping heart to the city? Ed asks.

Is there? I have to think about that.

Yes and no. This is a city of neighborhoods. You return to your own to shop for foods, to drop off your shoes at the cobbler. The heart of the city is a magnet, but not for commerce so much as for its prettiness, its café life, its parks.

But there is no time for that tonight. After many delays and a missed connection, we are dead tired. We flew in at the darkening winter hour of three, pushing through the gray clouds of a January sky.




After a quick first visit with my sister and her son, we make our way to Srodmiescie -- city center. My old neighborhood. The place where I learned to tie my shoe laces and stand in line for warm loaves of bread.

We stop at a local café-bakery...




... and order a salad of greens, pickles, egg, tomato, beans and smoked highland sheep’s milk cheese.





And, rather predictably, we end the first day with a pastry. We aren’t really hungry, but there are too few evenings here and I can’t pass it up – a bite of apple cake with baked meringue.

appetite for travel

The taxi was late. So we (yes, my occasional traveling companion is along for this ride) had to chase the bus for Chicago. There was fog. And rain. And thunder. The flight out to Paris is delayed. So we will miss our flight to Warsaw.

On the other hand:

Chicago weather is not as wretched. Free champagne is always nice. A longer layover at Charles de Gaulle means time for croissants and a cappuccino.

Travel is for the hearty. Or for those with hearty appetites.

The next three days are in Warsaw. I’ll write once we get there.