so sweet of you to let me off the hook one more time...

Many hours into the day, I climb up a hill to bid a graduating (and therefore parting) student a fond adieu and I am handed a cosmo. I sit down, put my feet up (figuratively) and exhale.

You cannot expect a person to recoup and regroup after that. So, no elaborate postings tonight.

But tomorrow... ah... tomorrow. So many hours, yet unfilled. See you then.

gee but it's great...

...to be back home.

Sigh... I'll be down to one sentence and/or one photo per day. And that may be a good thing. Who needs to read about how it felt to call Sony and Cingular and tell them that I would be returning their products, never again to be traveling with the luxury of a 2.85 lb. computer and an infinitely ready to fire cell modum wireless?

One has to be realistic. The day has too few hours, the bank has too few dollars. That about sums up this Friday, a glorious day of graduating ceremonies for many. A tough day of reality checks for myself.

But, in about two weeks I am packing books, notes and assignments into an old bag and crossing the ocean again. So keep reading. Because everything is always different than we would have predicted it to be and kids manage well without us.

from France: Paris notes

It always surprises me how far away the rest of France feels from Paris (and conversely, how far away Paris seems from the rest of France).

This morning, we picked up a small commuter train in the Provence town of Isle-sur-la-Sorgue…





…this afternoon we got off a TGV (bullet) train at the Gare de Lyon and stepped into Paris…





…just as the about to be President of France was stepping into his new post.

The political events completely passed me by as I reveled in the great pastry & people-watching opportunities of this city.











Ed isn’t much of a city boy anymore and I have given up on selling him on Paris. He speaks with enthusiasm about the place when we are here…

You don’t like Paris!
I like it, I like it!

… but on the next round, looks for every conceivable way to avoid it.

…what if we stay in the south and catch a morning train straight to the airport the day of our flight?
No.

We hike from the train station to our hotel (have backpack, will hike). In the past I have tried to keep Ed away from tourist hotspots…

…so many people here!

…but this time our path crosses this way:




..and so there you have it. We are surrounded. Half the people around me are speaking Polish. I am not surprised.

In the afternoon I go searching for a bottle of wine to bring home. I cannot explain why I think this is a good idea, given that there are millions of bottles of French wine available in the States at comparable prices. I never open any of the stuff I buy here anyway. The bottles are made precious by the fact that they are purchased, fussed over, lugged and finally, lovingly uncovered back home. And so they wait. For something.

Ed tells me we should send the bottles through in a box, wrapped in dirty t-shirts. The entire idea sounds so awful and unworkable to me that I have distanced myself from the effort, handing over the challenge to a person who hasn’t sent a single piece of luggage through on a flight in his entire life.

Meaning, I am writing off these particular bottles with such beautiful labels (for how else do you select here, when so much is so good?) and concentrating on protecting my jars of seaweed tapenade from Brittany.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Tomorrow, it is true, I return to Madison. But this day (I’m still on Wednesday here) still has the fragrance of Provence around it. Must be the country inn shampoo I’ve been using.

from France: lasts

What stays in the mind from a last day of biking in the Provence?

The last field of poppies?





The last lunch salad, with grilled goat cheese aux herbes de Provence and a glass of local rose (carafe: 2 Euros)?





The last vineyard? Olive grove?





The last steep ascent, with a commemorative photo from the summit?





The last bad road, that turned out to be not bikable? And so it was back to walking and pushing? Twice, because Ed lost one of his shoes along the way?





The last town, from which we will be picking up a train to Avignon in the morning and then continuing on to Paris?



l'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue

The last plane tree? The last country inn? The last dessert?






I’m sitting at the train station, waiting. The bikes are returned, the backpack is retrieved. It’s cooler now and my sweater barely keeps me warm. Ed, of course, is in shorts and a T-shirt. (I’ll change before Paris, I promise!)

I’m thinking of the people we met at the inns – the French, the Belgians. And how they described their lives. Lots of low-key travel, not too far from home, always with a nose toward good food.

And the innkeepers: Christophe with his three daughters, keeping the lasagna warm for us, Monsieur Ancienne Cure – taking four months out each winter to be in Chamonix, because he loves the Alps so much, Madame and Monsieur Mas de la Pierre du Coq who keep the inn running for just four or five months and spend the rest of the time with family near Lyons, or vacationing.

We French, we’re not so rich as you Americans, but we know how to vacation well – he tells me. Maybe we haven’t found a balance between work and time off. Maybe the Scandinavians do it better. The next generation here, in France, it is working harder. They are earning more money. Maybe that’s a good thing.

One of the (French) guests talks about how he will be taking his bike up Mount Ventoux, just a short stretch from where we are (the biker’s dream is to do the ride to the summit – a 22 kilometer ascent and a very big moment in the Tour de France), the next day, if the wind dies down.

Do you ride regularly?
Oh, maybe 60 kilometers, once a week. It’s not much.

His little girl is arranging Playmobil characters around my computer. She’s wearing a beautiful pink dress that goes down to her mid calf.

Don’t let her disturb you! The parents say to me. They think I am working on my computer, but I am mindlessly playing with photos. I haven’t done a lick of work for the last five days and I don’t intend to pick it up again until I am on the plane, crossing the ocean.

I have European blood, after all. I am an EU member. I know how to vacation well.

from France: what the wind blew in

I am sitting at a brasserie (Chez Max), out of breath and shaking. What unbelievable luck.

We had left in the morning, right after the rains had stopped and the thunder claps had rolled back toward the mountains. We were on the retreat. Biking along the upper ridge was out. Time to find a more modest route, along the river valley.



turn my back to the mountains




so many shades of green here


Halfway down and around the mountain (there’s still disagreement raging as to whether these are large hills or small mountains; it’s my blog: I say mountain), I hear thunder.

Ed, are we going to be struck by lightning?
We have rubber tires, we’re safe.
Do you know that for a fact, or are you making it up?
I’m making it up.

Please, please, any shelter will do.

My burst of speed gets us to a decent village café-bar. We wait until the rains and thunder pass.

Neither of us are sure if this is the last of it, but the next village is a modest ten kilometers away and the skies are looking kinder, gentler. Rolling countryside. Pretty stuff. I pause, take photos…





But then, a mere 3 kilometers from the town, the wind picks up force.

It’s the mistral.

I am on a downhill, with all gears set at their lowest and I am making almost no progress. Big, ugly clouds are suddenly pushing their way in.

I can’t do this! I shout back to Ed. He doesn’t hear. We are about to get pounded.

But around the corner, there is Chez Max and it is lunchtime and there are happy, DRY customers inside.

We make it before the torrential downpour swallows the world in its wall of water.

And we eat and drink a lovely rose to our good fortune…





Outside, the downpour continues...






…and I wonder, what if we had been halfway up the mountain still? Or on the ridge?

Ed says – we would have gotten very very wet. But it’s more than that. When you hike, being wet means only that – there is moisture. You’ll dry off. On bikes, wetness has a trickier dimension. You are wet. The roads are wet. Your brakes are wet. Your glasses are wet. There is something very threatening about the whole combination.

Another hour and this storm passes as well. But we are done with our race with the clouds. I call a b&b in a village just a dozen kilometers down the road and we make our way to it, this time without the madness of running from a storm.





This b&b (Le Mas de la Pierre du Coq) is different from many of the others. It’s a private residence, sure, an ancient farm, set among vines and olives trees, that’s not unusual. But here, we are the guests and, along with four others, we share the evening with the owners. They cook for us and eat with us and between French, English and Spanish, the talk of politics and life in general takes on the force of the mistral.

By 11, I am spent. Upstairs, I hear the plane tree outside resisting the wind and think about the next day – the last one of our velo run.

from France: men, women and wheels

I had always thought of Sunday as a family day in France. Most everyone eats a big meal en famille in the afternoon. People go to parks, sit in cafes – Sunday is about the embrace of your own little familial community.

Still, if you happen to be riding through towns and villages on any spring or summer Sunday in, say, Provence, you’ll get a glimpse of a separation that is uniquely French. (Or at least uniquely not American): men are chasing hobbies and women are somewhere on the sidelines, or at least – far less visible to the passerby.

We biked relentlessly. What more can I say. I am logging in 60, 70 kilometers a day (ok, a little less today) and I am feeling like my strength is diminishing.

Isn’t one supposed to get stronger over time?

Not me. I wake up, look outside, see a blooming chestnut tree..




..and think: that is some chestnut tree. Good bye, chestnut tree. Me, I am off to bike over hills and mountains.

My attitude on a ride is all wrong. Instead of “go go go!” I think “oh shit, another incline!”

True, at the end of the day, there is that great sense of accomplishment. But before that, oh the swell of feelings of despair! So why do it? I suppose it’s much like labor: kid pops out, you’re elated and go on to have another. We choose not to remember the tough parts of the day, or else we’d never get out of bed.


Ed and I set out ten minutes before noon. We’re ahead of yesterday by ten minutes!

We come to a village that is celebrating old tractor/car/motorbike day. People are driving in old models of all the above. Did I say people? No no. This is a guy thing.





We get off our bikes and walk around, looking at the ancient models of this and that. Maybe I see a woman or two. Maybe. She’ll be the one standing to the side while a guy she’s with swoons over some engine part.

We bike over to the next village. What’s this? A bike race?





Oh, but this is not novel. You need go down any hilly country road on a Sunday in France and you will understand. There are a lot of skinny, muscled men riding around on their velos out there.

Though for me, this particular race, which consists of four repeats of a twenty kilometer loop, is a source of terrific embarrassment. Their route is along the roads we were riding. Occasional cheering groups are parked along the side. Imagine how fun it is to be panting up a hill where some fifty riders are soon to whizz through in a matter of seconds.

People smile and shout encouragement (allez allez! courage!). I feel like a comic sideshow to the main event.

Okay, male hobbies. There is also the matter of what men see and what you sometimes wish they would not have noticed.

We are in the village of the bike race. Eureka! This is the time to go begging for a spare tube! We used our last one yesterday and we are only halfway through our velo trip.

And so I ask a guy (because I think a guy would know this and besides, I’m not seeing many women) about where on this Sunday I may purchase a spare tube.

Not here, he says. It’s Sunday. Everything is closed. Maybe in the next town? But then, I know you were there already. I was driving behind you as you biked through. I recognize that little suntanned strip on your back!
Ed is grinning - I meant to tell you about that...

Sure you did.

The thing is, pants these days are cut low. And my t-shirts are not long enough. So there is this strip of flesh exposed to the elements where shirt and pants don’t meet. It’s not evident when one stands, like this:





But when you lean forward on your velo, well, if you happen to have a tattoo, say of a sparrow on that part of your torso, that sparrow is going to be in a band of suntanned skin by the time the ride is over and done with.

[And yes, one of the support cars to the racers did have spare tubes and yes, they shared.]

The rest of the day is all about mountains. What a surprise. We have entered the Haute (as in high) Provence, the Rhone-Alpes department. I cannot believe I chose this route.

One last village to pass through. This one at least is at the base of a hill. Kind to the biker. Pierrelongue. So similar in name to my Pierrerue of last June!





We overnight in Buis-les-Baronnies, a village surrounded by high, jagged cliffs. I am trying to focus on everything but the fact that there is no way in hell of biking out of here without doing a lot of ups and downs. And even more so, on the fact that it’s supposed to rain and thunder for the next two days.

I’m sure I’ll survive.

Right?

At night, all is calm, all is – southern France villagey.




And the food – oh, so very excellent. As usual.




And tomorrow? Courage! Allez, allez!

from France: conversations

At the Avignon station – the big meet up, between bike people and two renters from Madison. One renter is very very tall and very very fussy about his bikes.

Nina and Ed? Here are you bikes.

I say goodbye to my pack for the week. Everything I will need (including laptop!) is rolled into a yellow sack clipped onto the rack. Do I look nervous?





We take ourselves and our bikes by train to Arles. From here we are to proceed north and east. It’s 10:30. We’re off.



starting point:Arles


It’s 10:35.
We need to stop. My saddle is not right.
We stop. Ed takes out many shiny tools and adjusts his saddle.

It’s t0:40.
We need to stop. My clip pedals are not working well.
We stop. Ed adjusts his clip shoes.

It’s 10:45.
I’m sorry, we need to stop. My saddle is still not right. Is yours okay?
It’s okay. Though I’m beginning to understand why the French aren’t reproducing at the rates they once did…

It’s 10:50.
Don’t you want to stop for a coffee?
No… but I’ll take a look at the market in this town.
Good. I’ll work on my saddle.

The market is small but nice. A southern France type market. They are so ahead in terms of the growing season! Ah well.





We continue.









I have a problem with the next leg of the trip.
What?
The medieval town – Les Baux? You wont like it – it’s very authentic but also very very touristy.
So, should we skip it?
No, no – there’s a magnificent view from it.
So what’s the problem?
The reason the view is magnificent, is because the village was built on top of a mountain.
These are not mountains, Nina.
They’re not hills either. I don’t do mountains. I prefer not to even do hills.


The most remarkable thing abut the following photo is that it was taken from Les Baux, after the ride up. Meaning, my entire being had stopped shaking long enough for me to snap it.





I take time for lunch..





..but Ed is in some kind of biking trance where he insists that food isn’t necessary. Though I coax him to take one of these off my hands:





Okay, the ride down has a few hairpins, so be careful. It’s a nice 4.5 kilometer spin.
(halfway down:) I think I should rest!
You need to rest going downhill??
My wrists are sore from clutching so tightly on the brakes!

Would you believe it, the ride down is harder than up?

At Saint Remy de Provence, I insist on a café break.
Great! I’ll use the time to exchange our saddles!
You are taking away my saddle?
You hate yours, I hate mine, let’s switch.

The problem with riding with a person who knows bicycles better than I know my own children is that he is prone to doing things like this.

That’s okay, I take the time to study the colors of Provence.



2 noisettes? oops...


The next bit is long and on a busy road. We are pedaling fast, just to get through it. We come to a small town with a traffic signal.

Hey, you just ran into me! You want to run me over!
Sorry, I missed the brake.

Two minutes later, at the next intersection, my loaded down bike topples.
I think we are getting tired.

Let’s pause for a minute and look at the map. Why are you sitting on my ankle?
I don’t want to get grass stains on my spiffy new cropped pants!

Are you sure you know where the farmhouse restaurant-hotel is?
It should be right here!

Two hours later (two hours later!), we find it. It is an oasis of tranquility. It has been a sunny, hot day. It’s 7 in the evening, there is a pool, we just want to slide in and release every tense muscle. But in the minute that it takes me to go upstairs and unload the sack, Ed falls asleep.

While he naps, I shower, then settle in the little bar overlooking the terrace, with a campari soda and my laptop, waiting for him to come down for dinner. We unwind in different ways.



And now it’s morning again. The view from the window is all about plane trees and the terrace below.



Mas de Cure Bourse: view from room


Time to set out again. We logged in 45 miles yesterday. Today’s route has more hills…

Can we take a day off?
No.

from France: the matter of air

Late start (determined to put post up). Who sets out biking in the Provence at noon? Hot sun. We get lost quickly. But it’s pretty here. Monet land. A few hills, yes, but manageable.





Refreshing cherries – in season. We pause, eat a whole bunch.





Then starts the climb to Gordes. A punchy climb. I think I may turn around and catch the first train to Paris. But I don’t. I make it to this beautiful hill town, though just barely.







zooming in to valley below


Sustenance. A nice salad (tomatoes on a painted tomato plate), an outside terrace. Okay, I can continue.




More climbing? How can there be more climbing when I am already at a summit? People shout out of cars and at the side: courage! Allez, allez! (Have courage! Go, go, go!). Finally, a descent. Road goes down to a beautiful valley with an abbey amidst lavender fields.





And then starts a brutal climb. I pause once. 200 meters later, I pause again. 100 meters I pause again. I’m panting non-stop. But the pauses give me a chance to catch some air and finally, I reach the top (where Ed is sprawled out in the shade, on a bed of rosemary and sage, having paused far fewer times than me). I collapse and say I am going no further.

Staying on top of a mountain for the rest of my living days sounds appealing for only five minutes. We continue, downhill now, through gorges, down, down,





...to a countryside of vineyards and cherry orchards.





We are considering stopping. We are twenty kilometers short of our destination, but it is 6 pm, we’re tired, I am hungry for a good meal. We tell ourselves that the first nice b&b will be it for the day.

Ed is behind me. He calls out my name – I think he wants to show me something. Indeed.
I have a flat, he says.

The man knows bikes and so a repair is only a matter of time. He tells me to check my tires for pebbles. I do. He fixes his, we’re off.

Except that five minutes later, he has another flat. It’s Saturday evening. We have one more spare tube left. We should be eating dinner.

Ed examines the second flat, finds the hole and decides the spare was someone’s bad tube, mistakenly given to us with the bike. He changes it, pumps it up as best he can and we continue.

By now, it is so late that we may as well struggle til our destination – a b&b (Mas de la Lause) in the village of Le Barroux. Yes, perched on a hill. Why not.

We bike up at 8:30. Christophe, the owner is waiting. He has cooked dinner for us – salad, country pate, lasagna, apple tart. A bottle of rose. Outside on the terrace, with frogs making a racket.





We are surrounded by vines. So you make wines? It’s my wife’s family, he tells us. Ah. He cooks, she raises three daughters and has a finger in the wine making business.

Christophe understands a biker’s day. They all do here. Can’t tell you how many bikers one sees on these mountainous roads of Provence.

I ask who stops here in this remote place? He tells us it’s mainly the French, and Belgians and Swiss, some English and occasionally the Americans. Americans? Yes, a hikers tour group has affiliated with him. They go from village to village and a taxi service takes their bags from one place to the next. Sounds good to me… Oh, but you should see the size of their suitcases!

I think of last night's evening dinner at the spiffy little farm hotel we had stayed in. There were just a few other guests, all French. One woman wore beautiful linen shorts, another had a casual skirt, pressed, well-fitted. Clearly they didn’t squeeze their clothes into a yellow sack to strap onto a bicycle. For a minute, I had wondered why I was stuffing my yellow sack with a only a couple of items that I rinsed out nightly.


And now it is Sunday morning. I look out the window…




Take a deep breath, so that we can strap on our sacks and start all over again.

from France: shifting

Can you tell I’ve gone south? Forget even the temperature jump from the fifties to the eighties. Forget the still air, the clear skies (mistral effect!). Or maybe think of them as the culprits. The people act differently (and eat differently!) here. It’s noticeable.
Photos.



Avignon: southern light




Avignon: southern night




Avignon: southern food


[By the way, may I suggest a "can do" and "don't panic" attitude when travel details unravel? So that if you are waiting at a Brittany bus stop and you learn it's the wrong one, running a mile to get to the correct one before the one and only bus takes off may pay off? And say you have to move from Gare Montparnasse to the Gare de Lyon in Paris, and you have 45 minutes, and say, moreover, that your traveling companion suggests walking and you set out to do so, even though you think it's a bad idea, and say you finally convince him you'd better take the bus and you lead him to the wrong one, and say you then get off and find the right one, and you almost make it except that a passanger picks a fight with the driver and you are two minutes delayed, and say you pull up tp the Gare de Lyon 15 seconds before the TGV pulls out -- don't give up! The train my be on "track A" and the conductor may keep the door open for you as you madly run, backpack loaded with seaweed products from Brittany, and jump inside.]

Tomorrow we set out on les velos. We're so unprepared for this huge amount of daily biking! It should be a bloggable event.

from France: if someone paid me to come up with a plan for a perfect French getaway, I’d tell them – do this:

[A reader commented recently (paraphrasing) – I decided to follow your travels on my recent trip to Sicily. Thank you! We had hilarious adventures! Well now, I feel gratified. Ocean put forth some ideas and the reader took it from there, understanding that it never will be as you expect it to be. So, I get questions about what to see and do when in France. Here’s an idea - though mind you, it wont be as you would expect it to be:]

Oh, to get out of Paris a little! To walk along empty paths, to smell spring flowers and ocean breezes! To eat well, sleep better, to spend not too much…

Sure, sure, there are many ways to slice this banana. How about this: take a rapid train and then a local and alight in Roscoff (Brittany). It’s a town, not a village, but not to worry, it’s a good destination.

Book a room ahead of time at the Le Temps de Vivre. You want details? Click onto Ocean View (it's in the sidebar; no, not now – after May 25th). Ask for the cheaper room, in the tower. It’s beautiful! (View provided in previous Ocean post.)

You’re there. Now what? Get your shopping over and done with. Go to the Algae Center and look at all the fantastic things you may do with seaweed! Impressed? Loaded down with algae purchases? Head back to your hotel room, dump the stuff in the closet and head out again.

Walk along the little streets, admire the detail – the knobs to latch the window shutters, for example.








Go to the port and get your bearings. You’ll want to know what’s what. Walk out onto the footbridge and study the tides. Make sure you have a windbreaker on (see post below).

So now you’re hungry. Lucky you. Your hotel is right next to the restaurant of the same name. Feeling poor? Order from the cheapest set price menu. But if you’re going to splurge on food once in France, don’t do it in Paris, do it here.


Next morning, the hotel will provide a nice little breakfast. Eat up – a crepe, a Breton cake, breads and jams and yogurts. Oh, and the kitchen next door will have prepared a delicious little fruit thing. You wont want to skip that, nor the freshly squeezed juice.

You could, this morning, visit the onion museum. This is the region that wants to give AOC status (special French certification, reserved for such things as wines and cheeses) to the onion. It has a Roscoff terroir, you see. And a history. You’ll want to know about it.

Then, head back toward the little port. You may want to take your lunch now. There’s a great place – Auberge du Quai – it’s bustling at lunchtime, but they’ll find you a table. Tell them you’re in a hurry though. You’ll want to make the 13:30 boat. So order something simple like a half dozen oysters and an Ocean salad (no, I’m not copyright here, on Ocean) – with shrimp and smoked salmon.








Now you’re ready to explore the countryside.

Get on the ferry with the locals. (The docking point is different depending on the tide; watch what the others are doing and follow them.) It’s a fifteen minute ride to the Isle de Batz. You wouldn’t want it to be longer – the waters can be choppy here.



island view


On the island, head to your left and follow a path along the coast. You’re in the village now.

…but not for long. Just always take the path closest to the water and you wont lose your way. It’s about 15 kilometers around the island, so pace yourself well. Don’t be like this foolish American duo I know who had to run like crazy, waving their arms to keep the ferry from pulling out without them. There are only so many ferry runs and it would be sad if you missed the last one.

So what’s the walk like? It takes you past small Brittany homes, through pastures, past coves. You’ll stop to watch the waters crash on rocks as fishing boats brace their bows against the ocean waters.













At the tip of the island you’ll lose a lot of time watching the gulls, so be prepared for that. After you’ve taken the n’th shot of their splendidness, move on.








And don’t forget to look at the other island inhabitants. No, not the people, the horses and ducks and what have you. Looking out at the ocean too long and hard may keep you from seeing a mother duck feed her young one.





So you managed to not miss the boat back? Great. Poke around the little harbor and watch others pick up their lobsters and crab for the evening meal. Don’t be tempted to do the same. There’s no room in the minibar for it.





So, not yet time for dinner? There are great tea rooms and pastry shops that’ll sustain you. Sort of like this one:





It’s evening. You’re wondering if you should go back to the same restaurant or try something new. Choices! You have choices! You don’t expect to be guided here every step of your way? Explore! Consult the hotel staff. It is your last night on the Brittany coast? Make it great – go to a place that serves mountains of seafood. Maybe like this:





Of course, leave room for the main course. And the dessert. And a noisette maybe?

Another night in the tower room, another breakfast of crepes and cakes and then you can return to your Paris.

Anyway, that’s what I would do.