Sur Le Pont d'Avignon

Today I hopped the 0716 direct from Carcassonne to Avignon, arriving there just about 10 am.  I wanted to see the city and in particular the Palais des Papes, the palace which the Popes of Avignon used--for 100 years, the Pope didn't live in Rome, but in Avignon (1306-1406 AD)--it was a political thing.  Clement the VI was French, and he got fed up with Rome for some reason, so he moved the whole shebang to Avignon--perhaps the wine was better.  Anyway--I wanted to see that palace.  It's lovely, and big, and lavish in that cute little medeival way they had of making things "fancy", as my grandmother would have said.  I got to see the Pont d"Avignon from a distance--this weekend (starting Wednesday!) is their big annual festival of Avignon, and the place was PACKED with tourists.  I heard more than one English-speaker cursing at the winding little alleys which one would think would take one around the block--no such thing!  I didn't get to dance on the bridge because the line was SO long to get there, and I didn't wish to miss my train.  Also, they only allowed photos inside the Pope's Palace in 2 rooms . . . but I got some of the outside, at least.

On the train on my return trip, I sat with 3 young ladies (18, 19 and 20!) from Germany who were doing the 2-week backpack trip.  They are going to see Carcassonne and then go to Barcelona--both wise choices!  We started in French but quickly switched to English (their request) because, while they study English for 10 years of their 12 years of school, they don't have to take French at all.  We chatted right along about lots of things--one of the things they noted is that some French people recoil when they hear the German language spoken--probably understandable in an occupied country for most of WW II.  However, they said most of the French folks have been friendly and helpful, and they said that THEY were trying to be "ambassadors of goodwill amongst nations"--I agreed that was a noble goal.  They had been at the Taize Community for 6 days before heading south to Lyon and then Avignon.  I showed them where the Tourist Information kiosk is, right by the train station, so I hope they could find a hotel in town.  It was a nice day adventure, and maybe the nicest was seeing sunshine over Carcassonne as we pulled into the station!

When I got home, I just walked along the road towards La Cite, taking photos every hundred steps or so, so I won't forget the walk to the Medieval City on the Hill, which has been my backdrop for 3 months.  It's nice to see the sun after TWO SOLID WEEKS of rain!

More Castles and Stuff

The weather here has been as weird as it is in Seattle, so I'm told--it's been gray and rainy with a lot of wind every day since Ben left on July 15th.  So today I decided to see if there might be some sunshine down by the Spanish border, and I took off late morning for Chateau Peyrepertuse, one of the Cathar castles on what used to be the border with the kingdom of Aragon.  It's pretty close to Perpignan (the last big town on the coast before the Spanish border), and right across the valley from Chateau Queribus, where the wind took Ben's glasses off his face.  It took 2 hours of intense driving on little windy country roads to get there, but it was indeed a crowning sight on the granite "massif" hillside.  (Le massif is what they call the granite foothills of the Pyrenees--they ARE rather dramatic, just rising 1500 feet straight out of the rolling hills and farmland.)  Peyrepertuse, as I mentioned, was one of the "five sons of Carcassonne", along with Castles Aguilar, Puilaurens, Queribus and Thermes.  It's very dramatically placed on top of the hillside, and from a distance you'd have to know that it's there in order to see it--it's masquerading as part of the granite hillside, so you don't see it unless you look closely. 

I also saw Chateau d'Arques, which is a lowland Castle on the way to Peyrepertuse; but it was raining so hard I didn't want to get drenched to walk across a field to the castle!  I did have lunch in the town of Arques (pronounced just like Noah's big boat), which was fun--a little funky cafe which filled up right after I showed up.  One of their proud displays on the wall was a framed front page from the local paper announcing the complete and unconditional surrender of Hitler's Army back in 1945!  The memory of that War is still with the country of France--since they were occupied by the Germans for 4 years, there's still a lot of feeling about it.

After seeing Peyrepertuse (and I only took ONE wrong turn!), I tried to see the Abbaye at Alet-les-Bains, but it's under renovation work, and so it's closed.  I did get a photo of the remains of the 9th century cathedral which they are restoring just now.

And I DID see sunshine, briefly, between Peyrepertuse and Rennes-les-Bains, so I accomplished my goal.

Well, Albi . . .

I got to see the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum in the city of Albi (about 85 miles from Carcassonne) on Friday last.  It is a remodeled palace, and so the architecture was interesting.  The entire museum is dedicated to the works of Toulouse-Lautrec, an artist who ties the impressionists to Picasso and cubism, I believe.  They have the world's largest collection of his works, and there are over 1,000 paintings--all this from a man who died at age 37 years (the same age as Mozart . . . ).  He was apparently very fond of absinthe, an alcoholic drink made from wormwood--well, some of the chemicals in wormwood apparently do hallucinogenic things to the brain and over time caused him to create more and more surreal paintings, as well as ultimately killing him, they think. 

The town of Albi is about 45,000 strong, so about the same size as Carcassonne.  It is on the north side of the Black Mountains, north and east of Toulouse--that area probably counts as the very southern tip of "The Dordogne", the large river valley through which the Dordogne River flows.  It is beautiful country, hilly and with greener vegetation than my Mediterranean climate down here in Carcassonne.
It is altogether lovely country.

Today I'm going to try to see Peyrepertuse, the castle which Ben and I missed on our VERY blustery day at Chateau Queribus (where the glasses were blown right off his face).  I'm not going to think about packing up and leaving until Thursday, when I have to do laundry to face the return journey.

Ben in France

Well, really, there are too many stories to tell.  Ben arrived in Paris on 7/1/11, and I was there at the gate to meet him when he came through customs.  I had taken the 0637 train from Carcassonne, and at 0721 caught the TGV (high speed train) from Narbonne to Paris-CDG airport.  The train comes into Terminal 2 at the airport, so I had to catch a shuttle to Terminal 1, but I was there waiting for him.  It was kind of funny, watching folks walk through the door after customs.  Several planes of dark-haired folks came through, and one military flight from Germany came through (everyone had on fatigues and carried camoflouged duffle bags).  But we could ALL tell when Icelandic Air landed and those folks started coming through the gates--white-blond hair on everybody (except Ben).  He kind of stuck out--too tall, too dark to be Icelander.

We took in Notre Dame after arriving and settling in at our hotel--good to keep moving, so as not to go to sleep (we were both tired! He'd been flying for 10 hours and I'd been on the train for 6).  We ate a meal at the restaurant next door to our hotel, Hippopotamus (the European equivalent of Denny's) and passed out for the night.  The next day, we went to the Louvre and Luxembourg Gardens.  The following day we took the 0910 train for Bayeux, in Normandy--2 hrs from Paris.  We saw the Bayeux Tapestry there (77 meters long!) which tells the story of the Battle of Hastings and William the Conqueror in 1066 AD.  I hadn't remembered that he was "William the Bastard" prior to that Battle--he was probably called worse by the Anglo-Saxons he conquered!  We were fortunate in that there was a Medieval Faire in Bayeux that Sunday afternoon, and what a wonderful place to have it!  The medieval town of Bayeux was just the best setting for that Faire.  There was music, and jugglers, and costumed folks on stilts amusing the crowd, and Norman apple cider (a specialty of the area) to taste.  It was altogether perfect!  On the Fourth of July we went around the town in the AM, saw Bayeux Cathedral and went to Omaha Beach, gun battlements at The Hook, and the US Cemetery and Military Memorial there.  A great way to spend Independence Day, remembering those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for freedom in 1944.

We took the evening train back to Paris, and on the 5th we went to Musee d'Orsay, the Impressionist museum in Paris which was made out of the old train station there.  Very interesting.  Walked around the Eiffel Tower area, ate dinner and went back to the Eiffel Tower for their nighttime show of twinkling lights on the Tower, which they do for 10 minutes every hour from 10 pm to 2 am.  It was fun.  The next morning we headed out of Paris for Beaune, a town in the middle of Burgundy.  We stayed at Lion d"Or, a nice hotel in the town, and went to Marche du Vins, a community wine-tasting experience held in an old abbey in town.  The next day, we met our guide, David, at 0900 and did a full day tour of the Burgundy Valley, complete with a great 6-course lunch with 10 wines to taste!  (Glad I wasn't driving!).  We saw the Cotes-de-Baune area and the Cotes-de-Nuits area, both of which produce great Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays (the only 2 grapes which grow in Burgundy, where the winters are pretty cold).  For Steve Schiebel: we saw the vineyards of Joseph Drouhin, the father of the Domaine Drouhin folks in Oregon!  It rained all day, but we got to taste wines in 4 different places, so we didn't care . . .

The next day we returned by train to Carcassonne.  Left Beaune at 0653 to Lyon, and caught the TGV around to Carcassonne, arriving here at 1320 in the afternoon!  (we thought we wouldn't get here til about 1630, but our reservations had us going to Toulouse, waiting for an hour, and then returning on a milk-run train to Carcassonne--as it turned out, the TGV stopped in Carcassonne on its way to Toulouse, so we hopped off and saved ourselves 3 hours!).  We toured castles, abbeys, museums, and just generally enjoyed a more relaxed schedule.  Ben LOVES cassoulet, the local specialty--a white bean stew with confit de canard (duck), and sausage, with or without pork added.  He had it four times, I believe.  Now he's gone back to the US, in search of the perfect cassoulet recipe.

On the Fourteenth of July (Jour de Bastille, their independence day), we watched the most amazing fireworks show over the walls of the old city that I have ever seen.  They really take their jour de Bastille seriously!  The day before that, we had visited some castles in the south, the "sons of Carcassonne"--the Castles which were on the border between Occitaine and the Spanish kingdoms of Navarre, Catalonia, and Aragon. We went to Queribus Castle on the day it was raining in Carcassonne, and for awhile we missed the storm--but while climbing up the long hill to the castle, the wind picked up to 80 mph gusts going through those castle walls/gates, and the wind actually blew Ben's glasses off his face!  (He caught them).  So we cautiously came down the hill and didn't go to Peyrepertuse, the neighboring castle which we could see from Queribus--we could see the wind and rain pounding that castle, so skipped it altogether!  But we had fun.  Ben has always loved climbing around on old castles--he loved it as a 3 year old in Ireland, and he loved it this trip, too.  He was very taken with the history of the area, as am I.  The apartment seems too quiet now that he's gone.

The Cave of Lombrives (Le Grotte Lombrives)

Yesterday I went to the Cave of Lombrives, in Ussat-les-Bain (Ornolac), Ariege (the region).  It is about 110 km from Carcassonne, south and west of my adopted "home".  When I got to the cave, I was only about 25 miles from Andorra.  The geology of the Pyrenees is very interesting.  The Pyrenees are relatively "new" mountains (hence their jagged peaks); and all along the area of the mountains, there are these HUGE granite and limestone cliffs which got "thrown up" at the same time.  They seem very incongruous with the countryside around them.  It's not a gradual transition to mountainous territory, as in the Pacific NW.  You're just rolling along in gently rolling hills and suddenly, it's as if some huge giant had just put these big boulders in your way.  And I mean BIG--often 5-10 miles long.  One can easily see how the Pyrenees were a major barrier to people trying to cross from what's now France into what's now Spain, or vice versa--why the Romans, who were pretty adventuresome,  didn't try to cross them, for example.

The Cave itself labels itself as the "largest in Europe" though how they measure that is apparently controversial.  It has at least 8 caverns which one can see, with guided tours lasting from 1-7 hours.  I took the 1.5 hour tour, which lets you into 3 of the caverns.  Unfortunately, one cannot take photos, even with flash "off".  And, my camera battery seems to have gone dead, so I couldn't take photos of the massive granite faces of the cliffs, either.  But it was very interesting to be there.  I was very interested in the fact that they are NOT preserving the vapor-lock on the caverns, which means that the caverns will be "dead" in another few years--no living algae, fungus, etc.  America learned that lesson with Carlsbad Caverns in California--they opened them up to the public in the late 1940s, creating new wider openings, and the algae were dead within 10 years.  I was very impressed with the precautions taken by the folks who run/preserve Karchner Caverns in Arizona (east of Tucson).  They are careful to limit the number of daily visitors, put you into 2 vapor-lock chambers before you actually enter the caverns, all in the name of preserving the caverns as a "living" entity.  Good to know we've learned a few things over time!

The grisly part of the history of Grotte Lombrives is that, in 1325, the Inquisition walled up 521 Cathars in the walls of the caverns, still alive.  They show you the wall of rock, but they have never excavated the bodies.  Another fine example of what the human animal does to itself.  The weather yesterday, incidently, was grey and foggy around the caverns, and that developed into full-blown thunderstorms in Carcassonne last night.  Somehow, knowing the history of the place, that fog and chill wind was just right.  The grey clouds and wind are still with us this morning.  Still, we're having real summer here, as opposed to the Seattle area, where (I understand) it's still mostly rain. (Click on the location map, below, to see where the Cave is--where it says "Ariege, France".)

Tracking the DaVinci Code

Boy, that title really makes it sound exciting!!  OK, at least made you look . . .

Today I went to Rennes-le-Chateau, a little village on top of a hillside overlooking the foothills of the Pyrenees to the south.  The name actually means "Reindeer of the Castle" so I need to ask somebody about that--are there really reindeer in southern France?!  Bet not!

 The signs which tell you that you're entering a town are rimmed in red like this.

 You can just see the peaks of some of the Pyrenees over those hills yonder!

 The Tower of Mary Magdalene, built by a priest who had avowed poverty. ("La Tour Magdala")

 The baptismal font in the church is held up on the shoulders of the Devil!!

 Notre Dame in Paris isn't the only place with gargoyles!

Every churchyard should have a skull and crossbones, don't ya think?

Rennes-le-Chateau, of course, is where the priest Berengar Sauniere supposedly "found" a treasure of something under the altar of his church sanctuary and went from being a pauper to being VERY well off.  He revitalized the church in the small town, and left some very bizarre decorating schemes behind, as well.  His maid and friend (?!) of 30 years, to whom he left his fortune, had promised to tell the source of his wealth on her deathbed--then she went and had a stroke, and couldn't tell anybody anything.  The DaVinci Code, of course, built up the idea that what he found were the documents "proving" that Mary Magdalene, who was pregnant by Jesus, came to that area and gave birth to the Holy Lineage, the Merovingian royal line.  (Pretty far-fetched, as my grandmother would say!)  But the church and the village have spun it into a tourist trade of note.  So I took photos in the church, in the village, and of Sauniere's "Magdala Tour".  But the nicest thing was stopping on the way up--one ascends the hill to the village on the north side of the hill, and the actual village with the church is on the south side of the hill; I stopped on the north side at the summit, and just gazed for a full 15 minutes in the sunshine (84 degrees with a nice breeze) at the silent world below me.  From up there, you couldn't hear cars, trains, planes, or mp3 players--it was blissful.  The Pyrenees even made an appearance!  And it's all less than an hour from Carcassonne.  I am loving the southern hills of SW France.  For the record, Tom Hanks was NOT there.

Getting a Haircut in France

So, time marches on.  And so does the growth of my hair; so I stretched it out (from April 26, my last hair cut) as long as humanly possible--until I was regarding the world through my bangs, which made me feel uncomfrotably like a teenager again.  So I asked my landlords who they use for haircuts, and got the name of a nice man in the ville of Carcassonne who does hair--he always does a good job, they said.  So I walked to the hairdresser place, and hoped I didn't need an appointment a month ago.  When I walked in, the (male) assistant was there, who assured me that yes, they could give me a haircut.  Mr. Franck Richard had only stepped out for lunch and would be back--soon.

In fact, he was back within about 10 minutes.  I got the obligatory shampoo (I tried to tell him that Marti always cuts the sides DRY and then does the shampoo!) and then sat in the chair.  And then, he took off my glasses.  And asked me, "what do you want done?" and I explained it had been 8 weeks since my last haircut and I didn't wish to change styles, just get it cut.  [I was proud of myself for remembering that the word for hair in French is 'le cheveu' (plural is "cheveux" which sounds just like the singular), while the word for horse is "cheval".  For some reason, I have always gotten those mixed up because they sound similar, and I had nightmares about telling him I wanted my horse cut, with him charging out onto the street with a butcher's cleaver in hand . . . but no, he understood that I wanted a haircut (taille de cheveux).]  He certainly took liberties with the styling . . . I'm going to have to call or email Marti and BEG her to cut my hair either Saturday late afternoon after I return or on Sunday afternoon, before I return to work on Monday.  Around the ears is ALL WRONG--I even considered--briefly--putting my hair on the prayer list at my church, but decided that some people would think that was petty, so I didn't.  But it definitely needs work.  For someone whose entire nod to beauty is getting my hair cut every 4-5 weeks, the haircut is IMPORTANT--it needs to stay out of my eyes, surely, while I gaze at babies, but it also needs to look good.  What can I conclude from this mortifying experience?  Never trust someone to cut your hair who has TWO FIRST NAMES.  I didn't go into the salon business, now, DID I?

A Visit to Nimes

The lovely thing about being in the south of France is that everything ALSO in the south of France is pretty close--so, yesterday, I jumped on the train and rode to the city of Nimes in about 2 hours and 20 minutes.  Taking the European trains is a great way to see the countryside and also (as it turns out) meet some nice people.  Besides, you don't have to drive, you don't have to use up gas, and you can actually READ on the train! 

Nimes is the ancient city which was claimed by Rome at least prior to 28 BC--it was the "Colonius Nemensis", and for soldiers who served Julius Caesar for 15 years, a tract of land in that colony was their reward.  Even then it was known as a great area for vineyards!  It was a vital city with 50,000 people at the time of Caesar Augustus; later, it was known for its cloth and dyes in varying shades of blue, due to a certain species of WOAD plant which grows there, and the serge (cloth) de Nimes became famous even in medieval times--we know it as "de Nimes" or "denim" now.  A Frenchman named Levy-Strauss (not to be confused with the anthropologist of the same name) came to America in the 1920s with his cloth and began making work-pants for farmers and ranchers--they were called "Levis", and we know them today as (blue) jeans.

Nimes has the oldest, and most complete, Roman Colisseum in all of Europe (or the world, for that matter)--it's still in shape after 2,000 years, such that they use it as a venue for concerts today!  It's elliptical in shape, whereas the one in Rome was round.  They also have a complete Temple to the Goddess Vesta, which was dedicated to the sons of Caesar Agrippa at the time it was built (we saw the site, on Palatine Hill in Rome, where the two temples of Vesta used to be--the eternal flame there was tended by the Vestal Virgins, you know).  Anyway--pretty cool that these structures still exist, and that they are just in the center of town--the modern city has built up around them.  France does have history, that's for sure.  (They use the arena, or colissum, for bullfights--which were actually an ancient Roman sporting event--I know we all think of bullfights as Spanish only, but they also occur across the south of France--the entire area of southern France and northern Spain was once the country of Occitane.  The culture of southern France is more similar to northern Spain than it is to the northern part of France.)

On the way back from Nimes, I sat on the train with a gentleman who is 72, named Joc (Jacques) Arnal, a Frenchman who grew up near Nimes and is here on a reunion trip, or, as he says, "a trip down the lane of memories".  He had been at a reunion and was on his way to his sister-in-law's house (his "belle soeur") in Perpignan, a town on the seacoast near the Spanish border.  We chatted in French and then English and then back to French again all the way to Narbonne, where I left that train to catch the local train back to Carcassonne.  It turns out he lives now in Vancouver, Washington, where his wife, a linguist, teaches in Portland, OR.  He is retired now, but has travelled the world for his work (he met his American wife in Tunisia).  We talked philosophy, politics, children and (his) grandchildren, and how one can leave a legacy for family members.  He was reading Stendahl's "Le Rouge et le Noir" ("The Red and the Black"), one of the 100 Great Books Curriculum for colleges.  Now I'm going to have to read that . . . it was altogether an enlightening day!

Oh, did I mention that it was 78 degrees with a light breeze?  As Joc said, "in Washington State, rain is a way of life, but not in France!"

Saint Guilhem le Desert

Yesterday I went to St. Guilhem le Desert, an Abbey which figures prominently in the book I just wrote.  It's one of the protected Historic Sites of France, much like la Cite in Carcassonne.  There were hundreds of people there--but that's getting ahead of myself.  I got directions from "Maps" on my iPad, which I dutifully wrote down.  But the directions said to go on A-6, which is a major road--and a toll road.  I decided it would be fun to take the "back roads" instead, so I tossed the directions in the passengers' seat and drove!  By following signs, first to Narbonne, then to Beziers, then to Montpellier, I actually DID find it, and a straight shot route, which my directions did not give. 

It's an 11th Century Abbey, though it was originally founded in 806 AD by Guilhem, first cousin to Charlemagne--Charlemagne apparently gave to Guilhem a relic of the one true cross, which is housed in a little reliquary box, and so the place became a "must see" on the pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela  (the route called "Via Tolosana").  As a result of the relic, the place flourished and so it plays a role in the plot of my book.  Today, it's been restored/rebuilt in the places it was falling down (the French Revolution seems to have put a lot of historic places "out of business").  It was wonderful to be there, and to see the Cloisters area which my protagonists are VERY familiar with.  (The Cloister Pillars from the 1400s were "relocated" to the Museum of Fine Art in NYC, a fact which the French are still not happy about--this as a result of Napoleon's defeat in the early 1800s--lots of French artifacts were auctioned off, or just plain stolen, at that time).

The day was gorgeous, one of the crystal blue days with not a cloud in the sky, 76 degrees (F) and sunny, with just a hint of breeze.  So perfect for driving, and sight-seeing.  The government must make millions on a yearly basis just from the parking fees to St. Guilhem!  And it's always exciting to be going down a hillside with high stone walls on both sides, with a large car coming at you, and your rearview mirrors scraping the sides of the walls--well, within an inch or so, anyway.

I have included some photos of St. Guilhem le Desert, just so you can see a bit of what I saw. 
And, oh yes--the REAL triumph of the day.  I was running low on gasoline in my car, and needed to get some.  I stopped at two different pumps, and they wouldn't take my bankcard (which is a MasterCard debit card); on Sundays there are no cashiers at any gas stations.  So, I knew I would run out of gas if I didn't get some by the third pump I stopped at; I was able to speak with the nice man in line behind me, explained that I was American and that the machine wouldn't take my bankcard, and would he use HIS card if I paid him cash?  He did, I did, and I got home safely.  I think the real mark of knowing a language is, can you use it to solve a PROBLEM?  Yay for communication!

Cloisters of the Abbey

 Inside the main sanctuary

 The original Abbey on top of a mountain!

More cloisters--the art of building those arches is practically a lost art now.

The Canal du Midi

One of the interesting pieces of history in this area of France is the story of the Canal du Midi.  It was originally conceptualized and designed in the 1600s by a gentleman (forget his name at the moment) who built it at his own expense--and he died 6 months before it opened!  But he had the right idea--an avenue, by water, for France to get goods from the Atlantic side to the Mediterranean side--all without bothering Spain, its neighbor to the south.  Since the French and the Spanish have a history of fighting A LOT through the Middle Ages and beyond, it was dangerous to transport French goods around the Iberian peninsula and through the Strait of Gibralter--pirates and all that.  So, someone came up with the bright idea of building a canal system from the Mediterranean to the city of Toulouse, whence the river system would lead to the Atlantic Ocean.  This greatly enhanced French commerce, and the south of France became wealthy because of its trade opportunities.  Marseille made its reputation as a port city because of its ability to gather goods, wine, olives, etc. from the western agricultural regions of France and transport these goods to other Mediterranean ports.  The problem was the altitude--the southwest of France, which is cut through by the Canal du Midi, is also on the plateau which begins  the Pyrenees, and there needed to be 121 lock-systems to get goods from the Mediterranean to Toulouse (or vice versa).  This took a lot of building, and after the railroads came, people abandoned the Canal as a major route for transporting goods.  Now, however, it's a lovely trip down the Canal by boat, and lots of people rent boats to go down a section of the Canal (you can even take a 'cruise' down the Canal if you like).  And the Canal goes right through the town of Carcassonne, so it's possible to see it up close, and follow it right out of town!  Which I did, a couple of days ago.  And here's what it looks like in the countryside!  Tres bonne!

Lovely Little Villages

Today, between writing Chapters 7 and 8, I needed to just get out of the house, so to speak,  So I asked Mrs. Woodman if there were anything to see within a short driving distance, and she suggested Lastours (Las Tors in Occitan).  There are 3 smallish castles up on the side of the mountain there, and one can make a short hike up to the castles themselves.  So I went.

First off, I was proud of myself that I made the correct choices through each of the round-abouts, which is how the major roads intersect both in cities and in the country.  One takes the road to Mazumet, near the train station, and then look for signs to Lastours.  So I found the way to Lastours, and found myself going through small village after village.  Lastours is north of Carcassonne, in the "Black Mountains" (which we in the Pacific NW would judge as hills), and as you wend your way north and up, you run into little village after little village.  Many of them date from the 12 and 1300s, and you can clearly see the textures of stone walls beneath plaster on the sides of many buildings.  Of course, flower boxes are everywhere and right now all the flowers are in bloom.  I passed one field which was just breathtaking--as far as the eye could see, red and orange poppies, interspersed with lavender--so stripes of red, orange and purple off into the distance.  Reminded me of the tulip fields of Skagit County in April, only we've had such wet Aprils the last few years that it's been no fun to see them.  Well, today I saw big-time color in the fields and I did not get rained upon!

The villages, for the most part, have red-tile roofs, and the color of the buildings is yellow.  So you see red, yellow, purple, pink, yellow, green and orange as you pass the little villages.  It's really a riot of color; and the jasmine and roses smell wonderful, too.  I did stop in the small village of Conques-sur-Orbieres to check out one winery (it was advertised from the main road) and bought a bottle of red wine for 2,50 euros, labelled "La Cite de Carcassonne".  We'll see how good it is--perhaps Ben and I will have to go back there to check out their wines, when he's here to visit (next month).  I haven't had a bad red wine yet, and I never pay more than about 4 euros for a bottle--I can see why the French can afford wine for dinner every night!  I think I prefer the countryside to the cities of France.  Fortunately, there's a lot of countryside.

Incidently, the folks who are here from England in the other apartment (downstairs from me) are here for two weeks, and they just went to Andorra--and they went on and on about how treacherous the driving is to get there.  So I'm not alone in thinking that Andorra, tucked way up into the Pyrenees, really prefers NOT to be visited--that is, you have to have a lot of guts or maybe be pretty stupid to drive those roads!  (They said the alcohol prices are great there--we never stopped to look--not that I drink whiskey, vodka or gin anyway).  I'm content with my memories of the mountains and the snowfields, and the mysteries of a tiny principality way up in the mountains.

Chocolate for Breakfast

Most Americans have some kind of appreciation for "French cooking", mostly due to Julia Child and her TV show.  My generation watched her show--and then watched Dan Ackroyd parody her on SNL in its early years.  My kids' generation either read or watched "Julie and Julia", and so everybody knows a bit about Julia Child.  Most folks think if you throw enough butter and a cream sauce at a recipe, you will get "French" cooking.  And it's true--the typical "farm breakfast" for working farm families (and that's the majority of folks in France--it's still primarily an agricultural country)  here involves eggs, cheese, butter, cream, ham or another meat (think sausage or a few things we don't typically eat in America), and bread--after all, where did "french toast" come from?  But for the non-physical laboring public, breakfast in France is usually either coffee or tea, maybe a glass of fruit juice, and a pastry--this can be a croissant, a brioche, a chouquette, or (in my opinion) their very best invention, the PAIN AU CHOCOLAT.  Yup, the French actually put two thin bars of dark chocolate into a pastry and bake it into the very bread itself.  This is an idea which borders on divine inspiration.  The two thin bars running lengthwise through the dough means that you get chocolate in every bite of the thing, AND it's their great dark chocolate, to boot.  Several medical studies have been published in the past few years indicating that, as Woody Allen predicted in "Sleeper" years ago, dark chocolate does have medical benefits for our health.  It supposedly lowers blood pressure.  It creates higher levels of HDL and lowers the production of LDL (the bad kind of cholesterol).  In moderation, it appears to be a good thing.  And here I am, in the south of France, where they make them fresh every day--it's too good to be true!

The Mediterranean at Collioure

The Door of St. Nazaire Church in Carcassonne

Making a Point in LaGrasse

Driving Above the Snow in Andorra

Out our window in Andorra

Poppy Fields

Textures of Lunch

Speaking French in a Foreign Country

As some of you know, I have had French studies in my life since the age of 10 years, when our 5th grade teacher (a WW II war bride from France) stepped into our 4th grade classroom one day and began to teach us French!  Now, in a small rural community in Indiana, this was quite novel--but, bless her heart, she kept it up all that 4th grade year, and then in 5th she was MY teacher, so we had 1/2 the day in French and 1/2 the day in English, and then in 6th grade she made arrangements to return to our classroom (good old Mr. Kerr) and keep us going with it.  In 7th grade we moved to Oregon, where French was an elective in Jr. High, so I kept up with it, all the way through High School.  I "quizzed out" of French when I took the AP exam of the SAT exams, so I was entitled to count that as one of my two required languages at Bryn Mawr (the other was ancient Greek for me, which is still mostly Greek to me!), but I wanted to keep it going so I took a 202 French Lit class my Freshman year.  We read Voltaire, and Les Miserables, and poetry, and several other things which I've now forgotten (oh yes, "Huis Clos" No Exit by Jean Paul Sartre).  All of which is to say that at one point in my life, I ws pretty comfortable with French.  Over the years I've had the opportunity to use it with the Vietnamese refugees who were served by Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, and occasionally with families who are from France or French Canada, or the western African countries.  But I haven't really had LOTS of practice until I got here.

One of the things one realizes right off the bat is that, in real life, people don't speak in sentences all that much, unless they are having a conversation about ideas, political or otherwise.  Mostly, people speak in short phrases (parents: "don't!"  "I said don't do that!"  "Hear me?"  etc.)  Teens speak with "like" or "cool" interspersed throughout--the French equivalent for both of those is "d'accord" which can also mean OK.  Interesting to listen to teenagers speaking to each other, from a distance. 

Secondly, as David Sedaris points out in his wonderful book of essays "Me Talk Pretty One Day", French is like most of the other Romance languages in that there are male and female designations for all nouns.  Who knew that a table would be female?  Or that a radish is male?  (The Greeks are ahead here--both ancient and modern Greek have a third, neuter, gender for things one is not sure about, or for things which have no obvious characteristics of either gender).  Remembering the word for umbrella is bad enough (parapluie), but then to recall whether it's male or female can be daunting before you've had coffee. 

Third, we rarely speak in the past pluperfect verb tense, or any one of 5 or 6 other arcane English-isms; many Americans don't get that right, even in English ("I wish I WERE in France" is correct--many of us say "I wish I WAS in France").  So forget all the endings of the French verbs which designate temporal or active status--and Heaven help us with the French IRREGULAR verbs (the ones they got from German or English or Dutch).  Fortunately, most French are very forgiving about verb tenses, and I can say "I enjoy music last night", meaning I went to an outdoor concert evening before last, and they still understand my meaning. (At least we have a way to express the past--my understanding of the Asian languages is that they don't actually have past-tense verbs, which is why my patient parents from China, say, will struggle with telling me the history of their child's illness.)

What's really throwing me here in the SW of France is the TEMPO of the speaking.  We are only about 50 miles from Spain, remember.  And the Spanish speak VERY fast--so do the French down here.  And they tend to swallow the final consonants on some words and SING the final consonants on others, so that it's fairly unintelligible at some points.  I felt a little better when our native-French guide (she was taking Jan, Ryan and I to a castle in the area), who grew up in Lyon, said SHE couldn't understand some of the Languedoc folks, either.  I am getting to be able to hear the accent and sort out the native Languedocians from the transplants.  I had such a lovely SLOW conversation with my taxi driver this morning on the way to the airport to pick up my rental car--he grew up in Paris, where they speak more slowly and enunciate more clearly, and cut off the word at the end rather than singing an extra syllable onto the end of the word; we chatted about the weather, and the people of Carcassonne, and different accents around the different parts of France--made me feel as though I really MIGHT be able to speak this, after all!

And, of course, it's true that the French are like anybody else--if you give it a TRY in their language, they are most willing to be helpful if they can.  They are really a lot friendlier than some folks make them out to be!  Bien sur!

Getting on the Train in Europe

I have been away, in France, Spain and Italy, and had minimal WiFi connections, so have not blogged in 2 weeks--sorry about that!  Jan and her older son, Ryan, and I did Paris, (including Versailles and Chartres), back here to Carcassonne, Barcelona, Madrid, Venice, Florence, a day in Rome, and two nights in Montorosso al Mare, on the Cinqueterre (actually the Italian Riviera, as it were).  Just returned at 10:30 pm last night, after walking the 30 minutes from the train station (no taxis out and about at 10 pm in a small town).  My blister-on-a-blister situation is pretty much resolved now, and my clothes are getting the bath they desperately need.  It was all a glorious 3-week adventure.

Getting on the train in Europe is unlike getting on the train in the States, in several ways.  First, when you get on a fast, long-distance train, you are assigned A SEAT in A COACH, and you are supposed to occupy that seat and no other.  Which makes for interesting confrontations when someone is in your assigned seat (often a local who ought to be in a different coach altogether--the Eurail Passes they sell to Americans are for "first class" coaches, while most Europeans (except sophisticated business people) travel in second class.  So occasionally one has to chase an interloper out--otherwise, if you sit in any other seat, at the next stop the person who is supposed to be in that seat arrives, and everybody has to shift around. 

Second, the trains are posted by their ultimate destination (as are all the metro systems in all the big cities)--so you just have to KNOW that the train taking you to Narbonne, France is actually the train to Montpelier.  Mostly, you orient yourself to the system by the NUMBER of the train you are assigned, and the time it's supposed to leave (down to the minute)--and European trains are so prompt that they sometimes leave 1-2 minutes BEFORE the posted time!

Thirdly, if you have luggage, or you get behind someone who does, it can take several minutes to even board the train (yesterday in Barcelona, I got behind a group of 5 people, all in their late 60s-70s, who weren't sure that coach 2 was REALLY coach 2, and they stood there for 4 minutes debating whether to get on or not--completely blocking anyone else's entry onto the train--they each had 2 suitcases!).  The train will actually leave while someone is attempting to board, if it's the right time to leave, so you'd best make a dash for a door somewhere and figure out where you belong after the train has pulled away from the station!

All of this is predicated on the idea that one can actually KNOW which track your train is on--which can change halfway down the track in the station.  That happened to us in Rome--we were going back to Florence, in the train on track 7--only half way down the track, they changed the numbers so that track seven was not where we thought it was--so, we got on a train which was going to Napoli (Naples) instead!  It was a lovely ride to Naples (1 hour 10 minutes), but unfortunately it was the last "fast train" for the night, so we returned to Rome that night on a milk-run train which stopped at every small station.  Finally got into Rome at 11:30 pm with no option to go to Florence til the next morning, no suitcase, no toothbrush.  Found a hotel, found a place open for dinner at midnight, and the next day we returned to Florence in time to have a great story to tell our grandchildren!  So yes, I've been to Naples--but only to the train station.

How to Get Cream for Your Coffee (in France)

We come from the land of eternal choices, I realize.  Liviing in ANY other country for awhile convinces you that we have too much, too many choices in too many daily items of living.  But when it comes to cream in my coffee--now, we're messing with a morning ritual which MUST NOT be messed with!!  So--I go to the grocery store to obtain coffee cream (and those who know me well know that I have my grandmother's lactose intolerance, and therefore look for NON-dairy options first)--no such thing as soy creamer, or non-dairy "creamer".  Next option (good thing I brought Costco's lactase tabs with me):  look for creamer in the dairy case, where the milk ought to be.  Only most milk in France has added preservatives, so that it's not refrigerated at all . . . OK, here are my choices:  lait fraiche, "lactel" (milk with lactase already in it), creme legere semi-epaisse, creme entiere, creme fluide legere, creme epaisse legere (which turns out to be sour cream), creme fraiche epaisse entiere (which turns out to be what you'd put on strawberry shortcake).  My solution?  Purchase one of each and try them all!  (I like the creme entiere fluide, myself).  And in French class they only told us there was one word for milk (lait) and one for cream (creme)--who were they kidding?  Had they ever been to France when they told us those lies?!  Another of my childhood reveries dashed to pieces (but if you need cream anytime soon, come visit me!)

Driving in France

My buddy Lenore has a rented car--so we have been going around town, doing little errand-ish things which I won't be able to do once she leaves (she actually left about an hour ago).  She rented a Fiat Doblo, which is a funny-looking SUV (for those of you who know what Tinkerbell looks like, my electric car, blow it up about 25% and that's the Doblo).  It runs on diesel, and gets GREAT gas mileage (about 60 m/gallon, we figured).

One would make the assumption that traffic lights are universal--red means stop, green means go.  But what to do with a flashing yellow arrow at a corner?  And when you're trying to make a left turn off a major thoroughfare, what does a red CROSS mean?!  So, the cautious adventurer waits until someone honks at you, to know you should be going now.  This results in many frustrated-looking Gallic drivers, but at least keeps one out of the intersection when you shouldn't be there!  Triangular signs seem to suggest that the road is going to do something interesting, anywhere from 20 yards to 300 yards ahead.

In America, we have gotten used to the idea that our towns--relatively recent innovations--will have been laid out on "a grid", which means you can actually go around the block.  Not so in towns which began 900+ years ago--little lanes meander along, changing direction, sometimes becoming ONE WAY (the other way) with no warning.  You're just supposed to KNOW these things.  And, of course, as in every European town, a road will have many names as it goes along--it's Rue Andre Dupre in one block, and Rue Jean-Louis Guillard in the next block.  European towns, as well as cities, are built on the idea of a "square", in which all 4 roads which come together to create the space are named the same name.  This makes it rather difficult to follow directions, as you might imagine.  And the direction "2 blocks over from Place LeClerc" also becomes problematic--in which of the 4 directions does one go 2 blocks?!  I understand the concept of cultural relativity (I majored in Anthropology, for heaven's sakes), but sometimes I just want a road to go STRAIGHT and stay named the same name for a 2 mile stretch . . . maybe it's OK that Lenore took the car to the Toulouse airport.  I'll stay "home" and play a game of solitaire, where you can lay the cards out in a STRAIGHT LINE--who cares if I win?

Grocery Shopping in France (or, I thought I knew the rules, but was wrong)

Well, my good college buddy Lenore has been with me for a week, and she has had a rental car, so we have made a few trips to the big "super-Marche" ("marche" rhymes with "bouquet"), to get me stocked up before she leaves WITH THE CAR.  It turns out that there aren't a lot of shops open within comfortable walking distance here, so having A CAR is a very good idea and offers freedoms which not having A CAR eliminates.  (Did ya follow that?!)

So--off we go to the grocery store.  We found it--fine.  We park the car--OK.  We go to the little storage area where the carts are--and they are all LOCKED TOGETHER.  You can't just grab one and go.  Turns out you have to have a 1 Euro coin to insert into the lock, and that unlocks the cart from all the others; when you return the cart, you re-lock it to the group and get your Euro back.  OK, so I can do that.  (Leslie, Lenore's friend, lived in Bordeaux for a year so she knows these things).  The super-Marche is like a combination of Home Depot and Fred Meyer--and it's in a "mall" with a laundromat, dry cleaners, coffee shop, candy store, clothing stores and shoe stores.  So finally we figure out how to enter the grocery-store part.  Finding things is interesting--for example, they don't sell paper napkins with other paper goods (like t.p. and paper towels)--they are ONLY in the "party" section, even though they have some which are plain white and clearly meant for everyday use.  Also, the array of cheeses is something which would bring a smile to the face of any fromage-o-phile--easily 300 choices.  And both milk are cream are NOT refrigerated, but on the shelf--you're supposed to refrigerate them after opening.  The bread section is heavenly, as are the pastries--so many fruit tarts it makes your blood glucose climb just to walk by!  And when was the last time you saw a real chocolate eclair in the bread aisle?

Getting vegetables is an adventure, also--one puts them into a plastic bag and weighs them IN THE VEGETABLE area, applying the little sticker which the scale spits out at you--you have to know the name for the vegetable or else look at the picture which looks most like what you just picked up.  If you fail to do this, you are sent back to the vegetable area from the check-out counter (don't ask me how I know this).

If you ever wanted tripe in a can, this grocery store is JUST FOR YOU!!  Also chicken gizzards (a delicacy), many different kinds of sausage (canned), and the local specialty, CASSOULET, which is a white bean stew with bits of meat in it--you can get rabbit, pork, beef, veal, duck, or "sweetmeats" of several species along with your cassoulet.  I went with a meatless variety, to which I will add the leftovers of the smoked chicken which we are having tonight for dinner.

The wine aisles are amazing--every region of France (including the island of Corsica) is represented, with wines which range in price from 2.60 Euros to 19.00 Euros (that's the Chateau-Neuf-du-Pape from the eastern Rhone area).  You can get splits (1/2 bottles) or the usual 750 ml bottles quite inexpensively.  I have not located any local shop which sells table wines by the barrel, as we encountered in Venice in 2008; but I'll bet there is such a place.  I'll have to become "a local" to be told about it, I guess.

Anyway--I got out of there with all the things on my list, and my Euro back from the cart-lock, too.  It feels like a BIG DEAL to have survived a trip to the Grocery store!  This is NOT the same as doing the little shops every day which most French folks do, for bread and vegetables (at "l'epicerie")--there's one within walking distance, I think--I'll have to try that next.

Standing on Top of the World

On Friday, we (my college buddy, Lenore Ralston) and I went to Andorra, which is a small country ("principality") in the Pyrenees mountains.  As you all know, the Pyrenees are the mountains between France (to the north) and Spain (to the south).  The Pyrenees are "in" both countries.  And the Pyrenees, easily as high as the North Cascades and Mt. Hood (Portland), are stacked in two "waves" as you come from the north.  Andorra is tucked into the narrow valley between the waves of mountains.  And, since there is no "pass" in the first wave of mountains, you just drive up and over the mountains.  I mean OVER--we were higher than snowfields and the timberline for much of the climb.  If Lenore hadn't let me drive, it would have been a bad scene--somehow, driving all those hairpin curves was NOT too tough on my (usually carsick) stomach.  It took 5 hours from Carcassonne to arrive at our destination, a small B & B style holtel called "Parador de Canolich", which sits in the middle of the mountain range at an altitude of 1635 meters (that's over a mile high).  We could see weather changes happening in the valley below us (clouds, which were below us, moving all day long). The quiet, the fresh air were wonderful and inspirational as well--I got the outline done for both of my writing projects; at which time, Lenore swore that there was steam coming out my ears (literally?!)  It rained the Saturday (our full day there), but that was perfect for writing, too.  When we stepped out of the car at the hotel, it felt like standing on top of the world.  Andorra uses Catalan as its primary language, though our host and hostess use Catalan, Spanish and French.  It's nice to know that a country somewhere is intent on preserving Catalan.  Looks like Spanish sometimes, sounds a bit French sometimes . . . "x" is an sh sound, like Portuguese.  All in all, it's another world--and you can literally stand on top of it!

Then yesterday, we descended the mountains to the east and arrived in the resort town of Collioure on the Mediterranean Sea--the town which Matisse, Dali and Picasso all called home at some point in their lives.  What a bright, sunny contrast to Andorra!  Lovely in its own way.  It felt good to arrive at home in the early evening.

The Ancient City of Carcassonne ("La Cite")

Don't forget the accent "agu" over the last "e" of Cite!  I just can't do it with an American keyboard. 

La Cite, which is about a 12 minute walk from my apartment, was originally a Roman fortress, then a fortress for Charlamagne in his attempts against the Moors of Spain, and then it passed into the hands of the Cathar rulers of the Langued'Oc region--which was, until 1271, a separate country from France.  In 1271, of course, the French king teamed up with the Pope to take over the rich farmlands and vineyards of Langued'Oc (which means, literally "language of Oc", with "oc" being "yes" in the Occitan language).  As in many stories of power and resources stolen, they made up a scenario by which the Cathars were "heretics" and therefore needed to be exterminated.  All so they could steal it all and feel good about it at the same time . . . seems that human history repeats itself once again.

Le Cite itself, the largest walled fortress in Europe, is now a maze of stores and restaurants--which are fun to see.  The placement of La Cite on top of a hill means that you can see for miles in every direction when you stand on one of the ramparts.  The sense of history at the location is palpable.  I hope to take that sense of history and turn it into a story worth reading . . .

A Field of Poppies and a 14th Century Town

My friend Lenore arrived, and she has a CAR!!  So today we drove to Lagrasse, a 14th century abbey and walled city about 25 miles south and west of Carcassonne.  It was a lovely drive, full of vineyards and fields replete with vegetables--and POPPIES!!  Today we passed a field which was straight out of a Monet painting--or else the painting came from the field.  Bright green grass, and everywhere across the field a riot of poppies, from orange-red to deep red, almost magenta.  It was breath-taking.  Of course we stopped for a "photo-op".  Then we progressed into Lagrasse, which is indeed a small walled town with a historic church and abbey;  at noon the bell of the church tolls and everything STOPS--shops close, the post office closes, the pharmacy closes, the tourist information booth closes.  Of course, we arrived at 11:55 am; so we wandered around looking in windows until things actually opened again after lunch--meanwhile, we ourselves had a lovely outdoor luncheon--tossed salad with fettucini noodles, cream sauce with bits of ham in it, and an apple tart for dessert.  Gazing at the foothills of the Pyrenees while you eat lunch is a great thing to do!

We wended our way back to town after hitting a few shops in the Lagrasse town--they were lovely things.  Lenore figured out that the French postal system sells a box which one can fill with 7 kilos of "stuff" to send home--prepaid postage.  So she had this box she wanted to send home, and we had tried the Carcassonne post office--only open 9-10:30 am and 3:30 to 4:30 pm--with no luck, so we had the box with us.  Well, lo and behold, there's a post office in Lagrasse, inside the walled town.  And we found this at 2:50 pm, and it was open until 3 pm--so I RAN back to the car in the public parking lot, drove the car down the VERY narrow streets (think Honda Fit with a very tight squeeze between walls of the buildings), and parked the car at the intersection when I couldn't drive any further.  Raced the box back into the post office with 2 minutes to spare!  She sent her box--for some reason the post office people thought she was very humorous--after filling out the appropriate forms IN TRIPLICATE.  I was able to translate for her a little, which helped.  (Her French is, as she says, "long gone", though it was one of her two languages for her PhD program--she keeps saying "y" for and and "si" for yes--can you tell she's Californian?)

We then went to the grocery store, as she's helping me "stock up" while the car is here (she leaves on May 10)--since there doesn't seem to be a grocery store within walking distance. So I went to the carts in the parking lot to get a cart--and they are all chained together!  Turns out you pay a euro to "rent" the cart, which you get back at the end of your shopping adventure; the euro fits into a locking mechanism which then "releases" the cart from the whole bunch of them.  And the store we went to is called Le Geant (anybody could figure that one out!) and sells TVs as well as household items, food, wine, licquor and acres of CHEESES.  We had quite a good time at the cheese counter.  And being able to get GREAT Bordeaux wines for 3 euros isn't bad, either!  All in all a "geant" experience.

Boules in the Park

Today, I went for a walk along the Aude river, which is just half a block over from my "house".  It was lovely weather, about 72 degrees and sunny.  I saw a group of folks playing "boules", the French version of bocce ball.  It was interesting for two reasons: 1) there were women playing, as well as men (which is very unusual in Italy, but apparently France is moving into the 21st Century) and 2) they were using a magnet on a string to retrieve the balls off the ground, so nobody had to bend over!  Something to keep in mind in my 90s.

The Wonders of Bread and other things

One of the most wonderful things about France (aside from the fact that people speak French, even the children!) is the bread.  In America, we think we know what bread is; some of us even make a pretty decent loaf.  But there is nothing this side of Heaven to compare to biting into a piece of fresh French bread.  It's crunchy on the outside and oh, so soft and chewy in the middle (reminds me of a few people I know).  Flakey, soft, just waiting for a slice of good cheese or ready to sop up a wonderful French sauce--nothing better.

At the little restaurant where I ate dinner on Saturday night in Paris (Parnass 138, near my hotel), I watched the head waiter cutting loaves of fresh bread.  His cutting board was a bit wobbly (it had lost one of the feet)--so he calmly sawed the end off the loaf of bread in his hand, slid the bread-end under the cutting board, and continued to cut away!  Many, many uses for French bread!