Aigues-Mortes

The Chef is in town for a few weeks to pack up his house for the final move back to the US. He brought his two daughters and their cousin with him, and as the cousin has never been to France, he thought a day trip would be a good break-from-packing, I mean educational outing. So a bunch of us loaded up into two cars and headed out of Marseille.

In the car, Creedence asks if any of us have ever been to Aigues-Mortes (where we were headed first). Flower responded no, she had not. I turned to her and said, "Yes, you have. You went with me. In 2008." She responded, "No, we went to Arles."

I then explained to the car my confusion between Arles and Nimes, and that I finally got them straightened out back in October. But while I am often confused between Arles and Nimes, I'm not confused between Arles and Aigues-Mortes. Aigues-Mortes is a medieval walled-in city, and Arles has a colosseum and the cafe that Van Gogh painted...and I'd never been there until October. Flower said, "Well, I've been to the walled-in city." Yes...in 2008 with me. I seem to remember taking photos then, but I can't find them now, and I didn't even blog about going. But I do know that we went, because I remember there was a temporary exhibit that had stuffed sheep being thrown over the city walls, and well, that was just weird.

Once we'd arrived in Aigues-Mortes, we went straight to lunch. We found a pizzeria and I was surprised to see that the special of the day was a filet of kangaroo. I asked the waitress if that was really true and she assured me that it was. I immediately thought, "Well, I can eat pizza any time, but how often do I see kangaroo on the menu?!" So I ordered it. It tasted like steak and was very tender. Very good. I laughed afterwards that it could very easily have been from a cow, because it sure didn't taste different, but would be easier to sell as kangaroo. Because really? What's a random pizzeria in a small medieval French town doing selling kangaroo?!

After lunch, we did a little bit of souvenir shopping. While I was in a shop, a man approached Pantene and me and immediately began to speak to us in English. For about 10 minutes non-stop. About how he's a blues musician and plays with Michael McDonald. And how he lives in Cuba because it's a great place to live and there aren't that many communists anymore. And that his name is Patti Fatti, P-A-T-T-I-F-A-T-T-I (he spelled it twice for us), and that we can google him and here is his business card. And "you're from Alabama?" and of course he had to begin singing Sweet Home Alabama including the guitar riffs until he couldn't remember the second line of the song and needed my help.

Oh my.

So once we escaped the-man-no-woman-would-want-to-marry (because her last name would be Fatti), we headed over to the Tower of Constance. There is a memorial to the Huguenots (French Protestants) in front of it that was pretty cool to see. I've been reading some French history stuff lately, and when you add the fact that I am a Protestant living in France, the Huguenot part is really interesting to me. Aigues-Mortes is a walled city that King Louis IV (Saint Louis) built during his reign, leaving for two of the crusades from there. He was "the first king of France to have a Mediterranean port...Sheltered by the city walls, in 1278 the port became the only southern port in the kingdom, handling goods such as spices and wool. But when Provence became a part of France in 1481, Marseille took its place. After the revocation of the the Edict of Nantes in 1685 (which established Protestantism as a religion in France), the towers of Aigues-Mortes, formerly a Protestant city, were turned into prisons for the Huguenots." (From the brochure at the Tower). There were several statues of Louis around town. Even though he was taken captive during one of the crusades, the book I read didn't mention that his hands were cut off...

The Tower of Constance is not famous for Saint Louis, though.

It's famous for Marie Durand, a Huguenot who was imprisoned for her faith. She could have won her freedom by simply stating "recant." She refused, and instead carved the word "resist" in the stone of her tower cell. She remained there for 38 years until she was justly freed. What a testimony to persevere in the faith!

Because of the persecution the Huguenots faced for their faith,they fled France, and carried the Protestant faith into the world. I am thankful for that. (This memorial represents that with their cross in the top left, the prison bars in the bottom left, and the sail boats on the right.)

After seeing the "resister," we had some fun storming the castle...

Above is a view of the city walls, and the town within the walls. Below is CSI, me, and Pantene showing our excitement about being up in the tower.

And then we headed over to Nimes. I just loved the way the sunlight was hitting this church steeple.

We walked by some Roman ruins (although this one doesn't look too ruined).

Me, CSI, and the Artist in front of some ruins.

Took a spin around the colosseum.

And called it a day. What a good day it was! On days when Marseille gets to be too Marseille-ish (yall who've been here know what I mean), it's good to get out into the beautiful small-town southern France.

Arles

A few years ago, I went to two towns in Southern France called Aigues-Mortes and Nimes. Ever since then, I've gotten confused about whether I've been to Nimes or to Arles. They both have colosseums from the Roman days. I don't know why I mix them up other than that, but now...I can honestly say I've been to both.

I went to Arles with Joy and the Real McCoys this weekend. I was expecting lots of Roman ruins. It did have that...

But what I wasn't expecting was so many cute Provence postcard-like streets! Click HERE for all the photos from Arles.
Something I didn't know was that Vincent Van Gogh lived in Arles and painted several pieces there, including Starry Night. Here is the very spot, the same yellow cafe, just no cobblestones or stars. It was REALLY cool to see that!
Another special thing about Arles was that the little man let me carry him around all day. In the beginning of the week, he wouldn't let me near him, and cried any time his mom wasn't in the room. Then, one morning, he woke up and decided I was his best friend. His mom had been holding him in the car on the way to Arles. I took him from her so she could climb out of the car, and when she went to take him back to load him into the Ergo, he clung to me! So I asked if I could carry him in the Ergo for as long as he would let me...and he let me the whole afternoon!!! He even took a nap on me! It was precious and one of my favorite things about the whole day.
Me and the little man at Van Gogh's cafe. Cool, cool day!!!

Summer blogging...

Once upon a time, I started a blog because I wanted to write pretty little prose about the places I wander. Somehow, over the years, the pretty little prose has gone out the window, and it's just become a "I went here and I went there" blog. Maybe one day my muse will return and bring the prose back with it.

Until then...

I went to the Chateau de Fontainebleau. Which I'd always pronounced, "fon-tan-blue," because that's how I'd heard all the other Americans pronounce it. Hugs and I stared at the sign for awhile while we were there and decided that all the Americans (us included) had been pronouncing it wrong. It's "fon-tan-blo." Leau is pronounced "lo." Beau is pronounced "bo." Thus, it must be "blo." Anyway, it cost us an arm and a leg to get there (20 euros between the train and the bus!), and well...it just wasn't worth 20 euros. We had a good time, though, as it was a beautiful day and it was good to get out of Paris for a bit. You can see the photos on my photoblog HERE and HERE.

About a week later, we went on a day trip with some friends and once again got to get out of the city. When we got in the car that morning, we had no idea where we were going. The options were...

1. The Chateau at Chantilly (been there)

2. The Chateau at Pierrefonds (and there)

3. The Chateau at Vaux-le-Vicomte (and done that)

4. The wine country in Bourgogne

As as Hugs and I have gone to several chateaux together over the summer, we decided to vote for option number four...plus it was the furthest away from Paris, which is always a good thing when the city is wearing you down. You can see my photos of Chablis, Vezelay, and Auxerre on my photoblog (just click each name and it'll take you there).

A few more blogging notes... I added a video to the Bastille Day post, and back blogged another post about the Week of Fun, and I've added a bunch of photos to the photoblog. So scroll down. Click away. And if I can ever get the videos to upload, expect another post about some fun Metro Moments from the summer.

Chateau de Chenonceau

I've been to the Loire Valley before to see chateaux. But there was one chateau that I've seen pictures of, but had never seen myself. It was on the list of things for me and Hugs to go see this summer: Le Chateau de Chenonceau.

The week I arrived back in Paris, some planning on how to move my things from Besançon to Marseille went a little crazy, and I called my friend Mrs. X to get a little peace of mind. She said, "We'll be in the north of France at the end of the month, if you meet us in Tours, we'll drive you over to get your stuff and take it down to Marseille." My boss approved it, and next thing I knew, I was off to Tours to meet up with Mr. and Mrs. X...and see a chateau along the way.

Hugs and I had purchased our train tickets a few weeks earlier to get down to Tours. The morning of the excursion, we timed how long it would take to get to the train station, and gave ourselves 20 extra minutes to print out the tickets and get on the train. That would've worked great, except...

...Hugs had forgotten her bank card at home.

She got in line to try to sweettalk the lady into printing her ticket for her anyway. I watched the line, watched the clock, got more nervous, and wondered what to do. I finally went to a ticket machine, bought Hugs a whole new train ticket, hollered for her to come on, and we RAN across the station, jumping onto the last door of the train right before it left. (Seems like running for trains to Loire is a common occurrence for me...)

The chateau was totally worth running for a train. It is built on a bridge over a river, which was really cool to see. Each room was so interesting (I can't say that about all chateaux), but especially the kitchen! I was fascinated by it, and kept wondering what Julia Child would think of all those copper pots!

There was a garden labyrinth, which Hugs and I raced through. (She won.) There were gardens galore. There was a wax museum (not interesting). There was history oozing out of the place, which made me excited to get home and read up on the internet about the place and the people who had lived there.

You can see pictures of the outside of the chateau HERE and the inside HERE.

Hugs took the train back to Paris that night, and Mr. and Mrs. X and I began our trip to move my stuff. Nothing too exciting to tell...although playing the license plate game in France means looking for other countries' plates (we saw 20), and all the departments of France (we saw 76 of the 100). It was a fun little get-away trip...and now everything I own (except the one suitcase with me here in Paris) is all in Marseille.

I took the train back up to Paris...and crossed one more thing off my touristy wish list.

Giverny

When I arrived in Paris at the beginning of June, I made a list of all the touristy things that I had never gotten around to doing when I lived here back in 2007-2008. My roommate, Hugs, has been here since October, has also not done the things on my list...so we thought we'd work on tackling it together.

Our first outing was to Giverny, the home of Claude Monet. I've always been a big Monet fan, and after seeing his Water Lillies paintings at the Orangerie museum, well. He's my favorite. I'd wanted to go to Giverny so badly while I lived in Paris, but it just never worked out. I'd seen pictures and I'd heard how beautiful it was. Would Giverny live up to all I'd hoped it would be?

Yes!

I said while we were there that sometime after I went to Egypt, traveling changed for me. (Maybe traveling in this part of the world?) Everything is starting to look the same. Castle, castle, big church, pretty town, big church, yummy pastry. All.the.same. Nothing seems to wow me anymore. Nothing overwhelms. Lots of stuff still whelms...not over, not under, just...whelmed.

But Giverny overwhelmed me with its beauty. Tranquility. Serenity. History...paintings came to life. I loved every minute we were there.

I took a million photos, and none of them do justice. But you can look at my photoblog if you want to see a glimpse of the pretty pretty.

Click HERE for pictures of Monet's house.

Click HERE for pictures of flowers.

Click HERE for pictures of the water lilly ponds.