from France, one last time

I don’t even question it anymore. It rains, it will rain. The only unknown is how much. And will there be pauses.

There are few guests at the hotel now. With only three rooms per floor, le Grimaldi has always felt intimate. But now it feels positively ours. If we leave the tiny elevator on our sixth floor, it will be there in the morning when we take it down for breakfast.

The desk clerk fusses over our breakfast. Can I scramble you some eggs? Yes! Eggs, rolls, cheeses, breads, croissants. Tangerines. Sweet sweet tangerines. I work on my computer, Ed reads. And reaches for breakfast foods in a way that I never see back home. It’s that it’s free, sure, but also it is because breads, cheeses and eggs here are beastly good.

And then he naps.

I use this time to go out. Past the square with the discombobulated tree.





I'm itching to shop. Meaning, to try on things that I would like to wear. I know I am tempting myself. Still, between the acquisition of things and travel I’ll always pick travel. And so I shake my head to the clerk and retreat without anything. Except for a lipstick. A lipstick? – Ed asks back at the hotel. Can’t you buy the same thing at Walgreen’s?


In the early afternoon, we ignore the skies and head out for a hike. Past blocks of houses that combine the colors of Nice (orange houses, green shutters) and the colors of Provence (yellow houses, blue shutters).




Past houses and gardens that are all Nice (orange house, green shutters, orange tree, olive tree).




We make our way to the old port first – deeply atmospheric in this weather.





And now I want to eat lunch. At home, I never eat lunch, but when I travel, every meal is an opportunity to fall in love with new foods in new, locally colorful spaces. Ed is the opposite, of course. At home, he eats throughout the day. Here, except for breakfast, he resists regular meals. And so again I eat alone. Water, do you at least want water? I ask. No, nothing. He fiddles with my camera while I make very important food decisions.




The waitress asks me – he is a professional photographer?

I think that life is funny in this way: a guy, who is comfortably underdressed, wrinkled, unshaven, gruff, preoccupied, if, moreover, he is consuming nothing, or the wrong thing -- all those things cause him to be intriguing.

She is smiling at the man who is confidently snapping away. No, I say emphatically. The camera is mine. [And the endless, endless flights that earn me business lounges at foreign airports? Not his! He is the tag along, not me! I am the employed person who has work to do on her laptop, me, that one is me, not him. Sigh.]

I eat delicious slices of raw artichoke, with lettuce and slivers of cheese, all dressed in lemon juice and olive oil.





We continue our hike. Ed talks about details of the boats we see in the harbor. Some are monster boats – huge private vessels of the Onassis type. To me, they're an eyesore -- pompous and overbearing. But, the port has all sizes. From the monsters to the shrimpy ones – colorful and well tended.





And now we head up to the forest and the summit of Mont Boron. The air is moist but it is not raining. The wetness gives us a fresh, earthy smell. I want to tell Ed – there: even in Nice, there is quiet. See? You can find it up here, on the path up the Mont Boron: quiet.

The views are surprisingly majestic.





You would think visibility would be poor, what with the clouds, the rain, but it’s not. Hey, the Alps! I can even spot the Alps just north of us!





On the east side of the summit, we see the coast of Villefranche and Ed becomes wistful. Imagine sailing here, in this protected bay between Mont Boron and Cap Ferrat (a peninsula extending on the other side of Villefranche)!





I look at the sea, and at the port where ferry boats from Corsica come in. Imagine coming here in spring and heading out for a few weeks in Corsica!

This is it: right there on the summit of Mont Boron, we have before us the reason why we are only occasional in our traveling companionship: neither really likes what the other regards as sublime. I cannot sail. It makes me ill. Ed finds staying at b&b’s or inns boring. So boring in fact, that he squirms at the mention of any future travel.

We hike down Mont Boron. It is our last hike here, along the coast of the Mediterranean and I no longer feel the lightness that should be mine on this descent.





We pause near a small school. Children noises. I miss children, my children, even though they’re not children anymore. We smile as we look at the notices posted on the board by the gate. School lunches for the week. I remember arguing with schools back home about what kids should have for school lunch. They wont eat it if it’s healthy was the common response. I’ll not translate this school’s menu for you, but I’ll tell you this much: it’s healthy.






And again we are by the port: first one side...





...then the other. It's dusk and the lights are coming on. Port lights, holiday lights.





We walk along the shore, back to Nice, centre ville...










…and return to our hotel. Not for long though. We have an early dinner at a very unassuming, very atmospheric Nicoise restaurant. The food is simple but good: salads with chickpeas and onion, fried zucchini (both vegetable and flower), stuffed sardines. The waitress gives us a homemade orange liqueur. To Nice. To return trips. To dinners where someone else cooks with imagination and with zest. To all of it.






In the morning, we leave while it’s still dark to catch the local bus to the airport. And for the first time on this trip, I get wet from standing in the rain.





Did I oversell travel in early December? No, not at all. But there is the inevitable long return. And in December weather, only the patient and the hearty will not be bothered. Nice has rain. Flight is delayed. In Paris, the fog is dense. That we land on the runway is amazing. Not surprisingly, the flight to Chicago is delayed. In Chicago, there is a snowstorm. We circle the airport for hours. Finally we do land and there is the applause of relief as we touch a completely snow-covered runway. The bus to Madison? Running hours behind schedule. It eventually does come, but the three hour ride becomes a five hour ride and it is well past midnight when pull in at the Union. Where the cab we called is … delayed. All that waiting, much of it in bad weather. Nothing chills you more than waiting for a cab in the freezing night after 24 continuous hours of travel.

I’d do it again tomorrow.

from France: come to Nice!

Listen, if the city of Nice has 300 sunny days per year (so counted in, for example 2005) and if most of the rainy days are in October and November, only a handful (of days where there is no sun at all) remain for the rest of the year. And I’ve had them all! So your chances are overwhelming that you will experience that fantastic deep blue of a Cote d’Azur sky.

In our last four days in Nice, we had none of it.

(Even the sea, typically so blue it hurts, had a vast spread of brown from where the river gushed silt into it -- see photo below.)

But, undeterred, on our last day here, we set out on the great Nice hike in the park above the old harbor.



I wont write more about the day as we have a bus to catch and then a flight and another and then a bus again and one hopes that at the end of it all we’ll be in Madison. From there, I’ll post a summary of our final quirky, splendid, seasonally appropriate, and still unusual day in Nice.

A bientot!

from France: droplets and photos

We’re on our last two days in Europe. It rains, we go out, it pauses, resumes, pauses.

We ignore it.

Let me do things differently in this post. Let me put up a few photos from the day and describe these for you. Nothing more, just a fistful of images:



The market in Nice is a six-day-a-week event. I have been curious how they handle winter. And now I see that they pretty much ignore it.










We leave the market for a few minutes. I'm curious -- how is the Mediterranean reacting to all this added rain?










That's a very agitated sea. We watch for a while, but the wind is strong. We retreat back to the market.





It's still raining, but there isn't much force to it. All this time, Ed walks without an umbrella. Why, I ask. That's girlie stuff, he tells me. Fact is, many men here are indeed into umbrella avoidance. Instead, they wear hats. The rain bounces off the rim and they (basically) stay dry.















So, what's an everpresent item at a Nice market? Especially on Sunday?




Roses! To take to you Sunday meal hosts.


Another detour away from the market: this time to Old Nice.





...with old habits, old foods, old pots.... etc.





So now I am getting hungry. In the marketplace we come across a place that totally draws me in by its display of meringues. I love large meringues! Large usually means that they retain some softness inside.





But I'm thinking I should have something healthy first. Ed? Ed's not hungry. Ed dozes while I eat.





We're done with the market. Ed's rested, I'm satiated. We walk back to the sea. It's loud!





Ed records the retreat of the waves on his cell phone. Imagine what it's like to hear water retreating over a beach of pebbles clashing against one another...





We walk along, mesmerized by the sounds, the many colors of the water. We're not the only ones.





Oh, you've spotted the trees? They are selling them in exactly the same spot where I used to go to the beach a couple of Julys ago.




The tree stands are much like the ones I remember from my childhood in Poland. We watch people pile on trees onto their small cars.

And now the rain has let up again. We walk through the Christmas market on the Square and Ed asks if maybe maybe we could do his very favorite food for dinner...





I cannot say no... The guy loves the bread and cheese here too much. And so we make our way back, pausing at a store so that I can take care of some holiday purchases...





...finally to retire to the quiet warmth of our attic room at the Grimaldi, where on a towel, we spread out dinner.

from Italy, then France: accidental tourists

We leave Levanto and the Cinque Terre in clouds.




As usual, we are lucky and the rain holds off for our hike to the station. Or maybe it is the tail end of a rainy period? Even as in Nice, where we are heading, they are predicting more rain? (You remember Nice – the place with 300 days of sunshine per year?)

The train ride is uneventful. I watch the coastal scenery, Ed reads. The compartment is full (yes, the regional trains still have compartments) and there is a pleasant silence as each of us does mental calculations about where and for what purpose the others are traveling.

A little girl leaves her compartment and sits next to the window. We pass the building where her father works. The mother calls him on the cell phone and they wave as we go by.





In Genoa, we have a half hour layover. And from there, we have a direct three hour trip to Nice.

Or so I thought.

At the Italian border there is commotion. What are they saying? Ed asks. I don’t know, I wasn’t listening. I should have been listening. Because now it’s clear we have to get off. There is a strike. The train will go no further.

And so here we are again, in Ventimiglia. There will be a Pullman! - someone shouts. I never heard that term used for a bus. But it seems that everyone expects a bus. Or, because of the great number of us, perhaps many buses. But as I get my turn at the ticket counter, the agent says no, no bus. In several hours we should get on a local to France.

Maybe you would have used the opportunity to walk around Ventimiglia once again. Me, I worried that someone would change his or her mind, or the departure time would change and we would have missed the one and only transport to Nice. So we sit and wait. Ed reads, I people watch. Fellow travelers, counting off the minutes until we can move again.

And a train does appear, a nice commuter train, and we pile on. Ten stops later we are in Nice.





The walk to the hotel is not too long. Fifteen minutes maybe. And we are almost there, just at the corner now. I’m about to say to Ed this is it! – when before us, a car turns into our street and there must have been a blind spot, because the driver doesn’t see that he is right in the path of a motorcycle. They crash.

The two riders are wearing helmets, which is a good thing because they fly off the crushed bike and in my memory of this, they both land on their heads, with a bounce. His leg is injured, she cries out and then grows quiet. A fantastically beautiful woman (yes, really) stops, sits down on the pavement and starts tending to the woman on the ground who appears to be in shock. She covers her, feels her pulse, takes her hand, calms her.

Being nearest to the accident, my first reaction was to shout out are you all right? In English no less.

We stay for a while, in part to see if all goes well, or well enough, and in part because I think like an American: there will be a law suit, I am a witness. But, Ed tells me that it’s pretty obvious what happened. And now, the ambulance comes, the beautiful woman talks to the paramedics (she must be a doctor herself). The accident victims seem lucid and not incapable of moving and so we leave.





So how many more accidents will we witness on this trip?

At the hotel, as a returning guest, I am treated to a splendid room. But truthfully, all rooms here, at the Grimaldi are lovely, especially if you ask for the top floor, with views over the city. In this season, the hotel offers a “come to Nice and shop for the holidays” special. For 270 Euros, we get three nights, breakfast daily, a bottle of champagne on arrival, and one three course dinner at an excellent restaurant.



fish cake, egg, toast, greens



seafood in broth




mandarine soufflé with chocolate Madeline



Have I made my case for traveling in early December? What, you think the weather isn’t perfect then? Okay, maybe where you live it is more perfect than what we have had on this trip. For me, so long as it stays above 50, I am happy.

We are in France. And for at least one reason, Ed’s face lights up. It is, for him, the country with the best bread in the world.

from Italy: in retreat

Maybe I could stand the Pacific northwest after all. I have gotten comfortable with gray skies and wet pavements.

We have only a few minutes in Florence. We walk to the river, curious how high it will be after a night of rain.





But, the heavens are acting kindly toward Florence. Even as the Tiber in Rome floods the city, the Arno shows signs of retreat.

As we walk to the train station, we see streets blocked off from traffic. Why? I could ask the police, but I’ve had bad luck with this in the last day or two. Florentine folk are too busy to listen to how terribly foreign I really am: I have been getting a lot of incomprehensible to me rapid fire Italian answers to questions. And so now I don’t want to ask.

But as we approach the station, the answer is there before us.





City shuts down for small, lefty student march (in support of the general strike that today is crippling much of Italy). The students are moving slowly, to music. What happened to anger? Doesn’t a demonstration by definition have to show anger? Not here, not this time.


Okay. One last look from the train station. Sigh...





I’m thinking that traveling backwards, in retreat, seems mildly depressing. As we are about to purchase train tickets back to Levanto, it strikes me that we should do this differently: I ask Ed – you want to stop for the day in Lucca? Lucca? It’s lovely and historically interesting and it’s not completely out of the way… I am making this up. I have never been to Lucca (though have wanted to go, so there’s that).

An afternoon in Lucca. On the downside --I can’t say that I feel unencumbered. There’s the constant opening and closing of the umbrella. It goes like this: from Ed - Nina, it’s not raining. I close the umbrella. I feel a few drops. I worry about the camera. Up goes the umbrella. - Nina, it’s not really raining. And so on. Additionally, my backpack, which was heavy before, is even heavier now that I have added a pair of boots (yes!) and some bottles of olive oil from Tuscany.

And still, it is a lovely walk. The walled city center is mostly a pedestrian zone – easy to navigate, pretty to look at. We’re told to be sure to catch the Murano glass Christmas tree on one of the squares. We do. Possibly it looks spectacular when lit at night.





The town center appears almost completely empty. As elsewhere along the Mediterranean, the doors close for a several hour lunch break in the afternoon and we happen to be here, poking around, during those hours. We see kids walking home for a meal and later, returning to school. We see the occasional person scooting from one point to another. But basically, we see very few people.





And then, just as we’re turning back toward the train station, the city opens up. Lights go on, shops open, the pedestrian traffic picks up.





This isn’t a town that is especially besieged by tourists. But this makes the shops especially interesting. And we are tempted. By this place, for gifts to take back for the holidays (the shop is called "The sisters;" it's run by four of them):





And by this place, to restock my dwindling supply of dried porcini mushrooms. The shopkeeper is proud of the salami, the cheeses...





...but especially of the porcini. The stems are removed, the caps are set free of dirt! They are the best! He tells us. And then the inevitable – where are you from? Germany? No? America? Really? I have a brother in law there. I have always wanted to go too. Here, life can be tough…





[I pass on reminding him about our failing auto industry and the tanking market; I would imagine that the three automakers would draw little sympathy here anyway. Ed and I see small electric cars everywhere. We see recharging stations where they are plugged in, side by side. Tiny and so very pretty. Some are made of fiberglass. Wont rust. Practical. Cheap. And for distance travel, there are the trains. When no one is striking. Here, life can be tough. There, life can be tough. On balance, what can I say, life can be tough.]


Our last train ride for the day. We’re on the coast now, but it’s dark. And still, it’s all so familiar. Riomaggiore, Monterosso and finally Levanto.

Here, too, I notice now the holiday lights.





It is funny to see the Americanization of the Italian Christmas. The Santas, the music – to me, it’s like a clumsy package of American holiday cheer. We’ll walk by a shop and hear Jingle Bells (hands down the most popular shop song here) or White Christmas. What does that even mean in a region that knows no snow? And right next to images of Santa, there’ll be the more traditional images, captured so well in this bakery display in Lucca. Baby Jesus, in chocolate, sheltered in a carved out Pannetone (or is it bread?). And with a 'Merry Christmas' train on top.





In Levanto, we go back to Miki’s, our favorite pizza place. Salads, anchovies in lemon and oil, and the wonderful wonderful porcini pizza with extra garlic and olives.










We are giddy from the good food and the carafe of Levanto white. It’s past ten and the waitress, happy to have us back in this slow season, brings us limoncino. We watch the Italian version of Funniest Home Videos on the TV screen. They seem especially funny this evening – to us, to others in the room, to the waitress.

Our last night in Italy (we’re heading back to Nice the next day). I ask Ed – did you like it? It’s okay, he answers.

I suppose there is the upside: if you plan a trip with a person who doesn’t fully engage his (non wilderness) surroundings, you cannot entirely fail. You can never achieve magnificence, but at least you cannot fail.