the sea wins

Some of the best lessons are ones learned from mistakes. In travel, the opportunities for both -- lessons and mistakes -- abound. But here's something even better -- when a mistake leads to a better outcome.

I had all those on this day. I'm still reeling from it all.

Ed will say repeatedly that I travel without risk. Nonsense! I push boundaries all the time, though not his kind of boundaries. I like to know I have a clean bed at the end of the day. I see that as a very basic requirement. He sees it as unnecessary. He likes the challenge of managing an untamed environment. I like the challenge of finding something unexpected, fleeting, beautiful. For example, standing quite suddenly before a gorgeous sky...




(in Cassis)



...or watching an adult delight in a newborn...



(in La Ciotat)



...or looking out the window of a bus and seeing unexpectedly the winery where years ago I purchased a bottle of wine. I carried it home with me and it still sits in the cooler, because I cannot get myself to open something so special (even as its price is less than 10 Euros).  Or, here's another surprise moment -- I am by the port and here is a man selling sea urchins and I really do remember that I saw him here with his rickety table years ago!








So let me tell you about this particular day and you decide if it's tame (Ed's position) or adventurous (my position).


I'm alone at breakfast this morning. The Canadian couple has left and Odile tells me she'll be having a quiet week before the madness of the holidays.






You're open for the holidays?
Oh yes! French people come to Marseille to visit family -- I'm always busy then.
Her dogs are barking at something imagined outside.







Quiet down! She says with a shake of her head. I have to smile. Her three dogs coexist beautifully with her two cats and it sure seems to me that her dogs have taken on a bit of a cat personality, while her cats are, in some ways, dog-like.







Even though most of the buses are now running, Odile says that the strike is still on. But only 20% of the employees are on strike and whereas they blocked the movement of buses thus far, they've now been pushed back and so the buses are in circulation, albeit somewhat off schedule.

No matter. I had already decided to use the trains and go up the coast. Initially, I had wanted to simply spend the day in Cassis (the small seaside town just a short distance east of Marseille), but Odile tells me that the next fishing port -- La Ciotat -- is also very pretty and so I decide to do a spin through both: take the train to La Ciotat, poke around there for a while, then come back to Cassis and maybe do a meal and a hike there.

Good plan!

Not so easy in the execution.

I take the 11:05 out of Marseille. That should put me in La Ciotat by 11:45. It's a comfortable commuter train and the views are fine...







...though do take note that they are not views of the coast. Had I reread my own Ocean posts from five years back,  I would have recalled that this particular train line runs a couple of kilometers inland.

And there is construction along the line so that it's closer to noon by time I get off at La Ciotat. Well no matter. Surely I can catch the 12:52 back to Cassis.

I step outside the station. Hmmm. I can't even see the sea. Or the town. I go up to a waiting bus. Are you going to the city center?
No. I'm not going anywhere. Missing from this short exchange is any suggestion that another bus might offer service soon. Are they striking here as well?

I ask a young woman who seems to be hurrying in the way that locals do when the late train has put them behind schedule: Is it far to town? To the sea?
No no. Maybe twenty minutes. Just follow the road.

I do that. Briskly. It looks like it's going to be one of those very brief visits. Twenty minute walk, ten minute look, then back on the train for Cassis. That really is one dumb plan. It will not have been worth it: I robbed myself of more time hiking around Cassis (daylight hours are precious! The sun sets at 4:30) for a postcard view of another port town.

After twenty minutes of a fast pace (and I do notice that I am going downhill all the time, meaning that the return trip will be completely uphill) I just begin to recognize the outskirts of a town and I get a first glimpse of the sea -- still some distance away. People who use cars all the time lose their sense of walking distances.

In the end, it takes me a solid forty minutes to get to the sea. Ah well, I'm thinking. At least I get this lovely view of the colors of the Mediterranean.



 



But how is it that I'm going to catch my soon to be departing train to Cassis?

If a taxi had passed by then, I would have hailed it and that would have been that. But no bus nor taxi went by and I know now I have to rethink my options. I walk toward the center of town.



 








And as I round the corner, I come across the protected harbor of La Ciotat.







Odile was right! It is lovely! An perhaps because to the side it has the cranes and equipment of a shipping industry, it doesn't seem to be a big tourist destination. Not in December anyway. By contrast, Cassis is a beloved day trip for the more gentrified French. You need only look at those who dine at the numerous eateries that line the harbor in both places. One calls out -- local! We're taking a lunch break from work! (Scarf's there, just in case.)




La Ciotat



The other -- we're enjoying a moment of leisure before we head home to... wherever it is that we live.




Cassis


So I'm thinking -- scratch the plan to eat lunch in Cassis. I'll eat here and grab a taxi back to the station.

It is an absolutely heavenly moment in the sun. I go easy on the meal: I need to be out of here in a half hour or even a taxi wont help me make a connection. A seafood salad. Perfect: octopus, scallop, shrimp, snails, tomatoes, lettuce -- all heavily flavored with a wonderful olive oil and lemons. (All the countries of the Mediterranean are very liberal with their use of olive oil, whereas we're so restrained and so committed to a good dose of vinegar that no one ever tastes the magnificence of the oil.)







Well now that was wonderful! I'll try not to mind the money spent on a cab now. 10 Euros. Uff. That hurt. (Almost as much as losing my 3 Euro roundtrip metro ticket earlier today.) Retirement puts you in a different mindset. Suddenly you have what you have and you must make do with it. I don't want to have to go back and look for work just so that I can travel. I must keep it simple. And that means limiting taxis to the times when it's absolutely necessary.

I suppose this was one such time.

The train ride back to Cassis is brief - ten minutes. And lo! There is a bus waiting at the station to shuttle us to town! 80 cents! I exhale.

Cassis. What can I say -- it is such a lovely little place! I'd forgotten how stunning the cliffs are to the side, and how colorful the houses are along the seafront -- especially now in the late afternoon sun!







I stop at the tourist office to get a map. No time for mistakes now. I only have two hours of daylight left.

If I had wanted to hike both in the vienyards and along the coast, it was not to be. In the end, I chose the sea. I am very much in its embrace here and I've not spent that much time taking it in. And so I do a calanque hike -- the land between Cassis and Marseille is riddled with fjord-like inlets (called calanques) and I remember how impressive they were when Ed I hiked here. Now, in the light of the receding sun, they are beyond beautiful.

First, I leave Cassis behind me...







...and I hug the coast (noting that the sun is quite low now)...



 



And then I come to the inlet -- the calanque.







I think how this day has had everything going for it and that I am here right now in that rare state -- very rare state -- of being without any load on my shoulder. It almost never happens that you can be somewhere this beautiful and neither you and more importantly, no one you love is hurting. And where the excitement about the next week, month, year -- is mounting, where you think that all the tricky parts of life did not knock you down and now here you are, still breathing, still scheming, still loving the beauty of a bunch of sailboats moored by the white cliffs of the calanque.







Needless to say, it is a good moment.


The walk back to Cassis is brilliant: cliffs, buildings, everything reflecting the last rays of the setting sun.






Back in town I have a few minutes left before the bus for the station is to depart. I use them to go to the Cassis Christmas market. Just a few steps from the shore and the vibe changes. Here, it feels local. Unlike the other holiday markets I had visited (Marseille, Aix), this one is heavier on eating and drinking than on purchasing things.

I don't linger and I don't eat or drink -- I haven't quite figured out dinner yet and so I spend my time people watching and then I retreat to my bus, and my train, to Marseille.

It's 6:30 and I am again cursing myself for losing my metro ticket. My penance -- I walk to the Old Port. It's only a half hour, and it gives me another chance to walk through the gritty market (which I really like, because it feels unapologetically real), but I had really hustled on those white cliffs of Cassis and, too, I have to admit that I am in need of more sleep. I could not stop nodding off on the last train segment. I know already that there will be no long post tonight.

But what to do about dinner? Yes, restaurants will open at around 7. But do I really want to be that one person who comes in to eat at an ridiculously early hour? How hungry am I anyway?

I go back to my last eating place among all those wonderful old books. I thought they served continuous foods in one form or another. They do not. (But they have a sweet little gift shop and several kinfolk back home will profit from my stopping there.)

Alright. I've decided. Time to skip dinner again. And since an early afternoon seafood salad is really not enough food to carry me through a day of hiking and running and doing God knows what else, I stop at a nearby bakery to pick up... something. A sandwiich maybe? No: the stuffed baguettes look like they've been sitting in the fridge all day long. In France, the bread is good, so good, so great in fact, but not after it's been in the cooler for hours. So... okay: here's a salad with goat cheese. That'll do. She throws in a chunk of fresh bread. Pretty good! And a container of Heinz "salad sauce." Oh well. I remind myself that it's good to spend 3.5 Euro on dinner occasionally.


Back at Odile's house, I am greeted in the usual warm way. Pierre, her 'friend' is there as well. They want to hear about my day. I tell them I have my salad to eat and they set the table for me as I were to enjoy a feast -- fine china, beautiful silverware and the best olive oil. Suddenly, my salad is transformed!

And Pierre, who understands my love of the local white wines, takes out a bottle that he purchased for me to try. We stay there at the table exchanging stories of life (they are forgiving of my grammatical impurities) -- in the way that you can do once you pass sixty. The three of us were born in such different places: Poland, France, Morocco. And we have visited each others' countries and we have memories and impressions that bear telling and perhaps bear slight adjustments now with new information.

It is a grand moment. I only took one photo, of Odile, with her dogs. There are times where no camera will provide an adequate image and so it all has to stay within the heart.






The next morning, I eat breakfast quickly. I have a 10:36 to catch for Paris.

I say my goodbyes, promising to return. I know many people throw out such promises. But Odile shows me the little apartment she wants me to have next time I'm here. I'll be back, I tell her. And I mean it.

three ports

I'm going to shuffle the Ocean posting time somewhat for the rest of the trip.  Whereas before, I could stumble in during early evening and post until I had no more energy to speak of, now I'm facing a late hour, a stack of emails and the prospect of an early departure tomorrow (to Paris).

So just a suggestive post for tonight. Find out the details tomorrow.

It was a day of three ports. Here they are, the small one:






Then, the one that looks to be even smaller.






Finally, one that hovers over the histories of the rest:






Where, why and with what result? Let's pick up the story tomorrow.

Sunday

Hello Kitty is making a comeback in France. It wasn't so obvious until I looked through my photos for the day. 



(at the Christmas Market in Aix en Provence)





(also at the Christmas Market)


When did that happen? What drew little girls yet again to that pouting cat face with the ribbon adornment somewhere near the cat ear?



(on the metro in Marseille)



What else have the French adopted as their own? The American Santa. He's everywhere, just as back home. Goodbye gaunt old man in blue robes who stood in for St Nick in the past. Hello jolly fat guy in red, who comes with reindeer and probably demands wine and cookies for his sleigh ride on Christmas Eve.



(at the Christmas Market in Aix en Provence)



And a clarification: no, it's not cold at all here, in southern France! During the day, it continues to be sunny and in the mid fifties. If Ed were here, he'd be in a t-shirt. I do not know why women and men alike are bundled as if ready for a blast of Arctic air. The French relationship with a scarf is, in any case, a complicated thing. True, a French person wears it magnificently, while we only wear it adequately, but surely that's because the French have more practice in knotting, flipping, twisting and tying the thing.



(on a sunny day in Aix en Provence)




(a scarf and a long coat, Aix en Provence)




(scarves and an accordion player, Aix en Provence)



And I should again affirm that dogs here are treated with the tenderness we reserve for newborns. Not a small number take their pooch out for a walk like this:



(in Aix en Provence)


Odile, my landlady, has three dogs (and one cat). Their beds are luxurious. Their lives -- without worry. Sometimes she has a stern word for one of them, but she doesn't mean it and they know it.






One last generalization, okay? The French people - they're an expressive lot. For instance, if we don't like conditions of work, we complain to colleagues who are equally positioned in the office hierarchy. When the French don't like conditions of work, they strike. Over the years, I've come to believe that conditions must be particularly disagreeable for city transportation workers because encountering a shutdown of city buses, for example, is not uncommon.

I've hit such a strike here, in Marseille. City buses haven't moved since I arrived here and though Odile checks each morning, so far there has been no progress.

For the most part, this doesn't affect me. I use the metro, which is in service and I walk. But in wanting to go a little outside the city, I need the bus.

This morning at breakfast, Odile is shaking her head again. Not today, she says, as she slices bread with figs and a Christmas cake, and puts out the traditional holiday sweet tray of figs and dates.











Well then I'll have to take the train. It's a limitation, but not an odious one. I can go, for example, to Aix en Provence.

Aix is to Marseille like Michael Bloomberg is to a Walmart employee.  If Marseille is poor (it is, in fact, France's poorest city), Aix is pompously not poor, even if it cloaks it these days by filling the crevices with student types: for a very small city of 150,000 it boasts three major universities. Other than on a Sunday in December, when all of French humanity pours into Aix to celebrate pre-Christmas, English is often heard on the streets. A number of American universities have exchange programs with Aix universities.

Shops in Aix are a mixture of Provence and Paris. One will have lovely linens, or jars of delicious olive tapinades, or boxes of those incredible melon-almond-honey cakes called Calissons...











...another will be a branch of something I'd expect only in the major cities of France and not in tiny Aix, which I can cross from one end to the next in the space of twenty minutes.


A dozen years ago I took a small group of Americans (strangers: they paid me to do this) to Provence and we stopped for the day in Aix. They liked it. I liked it. Okay, today I will go to Aix.

And so, right after breakfast, I run to the metro and run into the train station (I found on the Internet a 10:08 train and it is now 10:00) and people let me budge the line because they're not in such a hurry and then boom! I find out I'm at the wrong train station for that train.
11:05, you can go on the 11:05. Here's the ticket. That'll be 5.5 Euros (about $8).

So I have an hour to kill. I pace the station. I admire the view from the terrace.





That took all of five minutes. I pace some more and... what's this? Ah, the bus terminal. It should be empty. Why is there a bus with an Aix en Provence sign on it?
Are the buses running to Aix?
Yes. Today it's every twenty minutes. 5.5 Euros. Pay on the bus.

Would you sacrifice 5 Euro (spent on a train ticket) and hop on the waiting bus to gain an hour?

I hesitate, but only for a minute. To get there before the morning market shuts down, before the tourist office closes for lunch, before people hunker down for the biggest meal of the week in France (Sunday lunch) -- yes, it's worth it. But it's a waste -- an annoying one, because I wasn't thorough in checking all options from the get-go.  Ah well. I will most certainly use the train ticket on the return.

Alright. I'm in Aix. The skies are blue, the buildings are golden yellow, I'm charmed!







And I do catch the tail end of the market.






Ah yes, the French pooch.






And could it be? A mushroom stand! And yes, inside that jar, guarded with a vigilant eye are the riches of the Luberon forests: truffles.






I don't buy any. Not I nor anyone else back home gasps with pleasure at the sound of the word "truffle!" In fact, most of us have now grown to associate it with the dark chocolate candy that actually was made to resemble the real French mushroom that's hunted by pigs and men with sticks.
But it is a sort of a dreamy thing to be in southern France right at the incongruous moment when truffles are in season (early winter). And so I smile and smile and I am sure the guardian of the precious treasures thinks me to be somewhat batty or worse.


Other highlights? Well, there are the sun-dried tomatoes, which are really dired in the sun -- they have that much of it here.






And as I wander off into the side streets, I begin to think of lunch. Odile gave me a handful of addresses, but she warned me that she hadn't been at any of them for a year or more. One does look rather pretty.
No, c'est complet madame. We have no more tables left. 
I push it. Not even for one and if I come toward the end?
No madame. We are full.
I try a different tactic. What other place would you recommend then?

It's like asking the waiter for a food recommendation. Who knows what motivation is behind the words -- that one... you must eat that one!

Madame hesitates, but only for a minute. Go to "Just en Face." Right there, across the square.
I walk over and the waiter there puts me down for 1:45. Nina, okay, Nina. See you then, Nina.






This gives me plenty of time to window shop. And go back down to the Christmas Market. And back up again. And down again. And back again. The produce market has long packed up and moved on. They've washed the square where vendors once had tables loaded with foods. They've even put up other tables -- of restaurants on the square. A lot can happen in Aix in the space of two hours.



after the produce market




Aix has a scattering of attractive fountains




the main street (Mirebeau), set up this month for the Christmas Market




a favorite French kid activity at holiday fairs: bungee bouncing!


 It's 1:45. I'm at the restaurant. There is a line and I wait patiently to check in, but the waiter sees me and waves me over. Nina! This table for Nina! People step aside, I in my travel weary clothes and shoes and without a touch of lipstick (forgot, as usual) move forward.

French waiters can really make you feel special.

So who's eating here on this beautiful pre-holiday Sunday afternoon? It's a casual place. Paper place mats and chalk board menus. And still, it's the kind of restaurant where a couple comes in -- she looks to be about nine and a half months pregnant and he looks like he is sacrificing with her and therefore, with a sigh, ignoring the wine list. I don't quite see what she orders, but I know that he has the duck breast. His eyes trace the progression of the plate as the waiter sets it before him. He cuts it right away and peers intently to see if it's pink inside. He calls over the waiter. I'm curious:  not pink enough? Too pink? Too crisp around the edges?

Could you bring me some Camargue fleur de sel please? (Those special salt crystals -- remember? I spoke about them when in Slovenia --  that people sprinkle lovingly over their meats or salads.)

I mean, who back home would think that his meal would be more perfect, more complete if only he could have some delicate "flowers of salt" sprinkled on top his duck breast? I have brought back Camargue salt from near Marsaille, I have brought back Banyuls salt from near Sorede and no one ever uses it! Ed and I love our foods, but we would never think to reach for a very special Camargue or Banyuls (Indeed, I saw Ed once grab an old container that had the label of "popcorn salt" on it and I know it was salt and nothing more than that, but the image was all wrong. In any case, you can see how unfocused we are on issues of salt crystals back home.)


Myself, I order two of the small dishes -- a herring and a creamed cucumber. The herring is excellent, the creamed cucumbers are just okay. Heavy.






For a main course I pick what I think is a proper Sunday lunch dish -- stewed chicken (three small drumsticks) Provencal. Now that's really exquisite!






Dessert? I ask for suggestions (!). I'm offered an orange creme brulee. Perfect.






It's not an expensive meal by any means but it is intensely satisfying. It leaves we wondering if there is a place to take a Sunday afternoon nap. Retired people can get away with these things, no?

Instead, I walk out and move (much more slowly) in the direction of two Aix museums. Cezanne lived and painted here. It would be nice to see a little of his art.

There isn't a lot of Cezanne, but there is quite a lot of Picasso as the former collector was on good terms with the painter. So I finish the day with looking at art, moving at a snail's pace from one room to the next, from one museum to the other and now I really do feel that I have done enough here in this pretty little town of such great stateliness and warm hues.





Such a great day it was.

I catch one of the frequent evening trains back to Marseille.