Kim is one of the most genuine people I have ever met. Her ability to see even the faintest of colors in her world is something I aspire to be able to do. Her sense of humor is so kooky you can't help but smile. After 14 days with me, she was still happy to see the colors, and not finding the lavender exactly where we thought we had left it was not a disaster.
Her hunt for real French lavender started 4 years ago, before we knew that Pete had cancer, and long before he died. Mustering the courage to come half way around the world without Pete took Kim a couple of years to do, but she made it with bells on.
Just to give you a brief description of Kim, she arrived on a Thursday in the middle of June(because Wednesday night flights are the cheapest tickets) and we started her trip with free drinks from my favorite italian barrista before a lovely french bistro lunch. As Kim said, she had the most beautiful Niçoise salad ever, so she was not willing to have another during the entire trip for fear she would be disappointed. Then it was off to the chocolate store where she was treated to a free sample of amazing chocolate and we bought a sampler bag to munch the rest of the trip. We limited ourselves to one piece a day, as this chocolate is so rich, it really only takes one piece to satisfy your taste buds.
We had planned the Musée d’Orsay for Sat. and thought we didn’t really have to run into town because we also wanted to see Paris at night. However, our big adventure happened to correspond with the Fête de Musique (June 21), so the Museum closed 2 hours early - unbeknownst to us. This put a kink in our plan, but that’s okay, we are flexible. With a little cajoling and my Friends of Museé d'Orsay annual pass we were able to see the Van Goghs and even some of the artists that Kim had studied in art school by running lickety split through the floors in a record 45 minutes…. So, let’s go to Monmarte – where we were invited to dance with the waiter who said “drinks or dancing?” Which made up for all the hassle at Orsay.
There were street bands setting up everywhere and Kim spotted a street mime who blew her kisses while I took their picture. After a leisurely stroll through and around Sacre Couer we headed back down through the crowd to see the rest of the hillside. For some reason, I had it in my head that Luxembourg Gardens would be a nice place for her to see, so we headed there, and relaxed in the shade of the huge old trees and watched Parisians walking arm and arm or arm on baby stroller through the park. It was starting to get crowded, because the night was so beautiful, so we headed in yet another direction. We bought cookies at a Bake Sale for Peace situated by the French Senate Building and listened to the street musicians drumming out their message.
It was dreadfully hot on the Metro, but we also didn’t want to keep walking, so we took the Odeon stop to the old stomping grounds of Ernest Hemingway and went to my favorite Lebanese restaurant. I had fun showing Kim the remnants of Phillipe August’s wall, and pointing out where Hemingway had his studio and apartment, when he was in his late 20's. Dinner was good, but the street was really noisy and the kids were pretty wild, so we were ready for home. I think Kim was pretty overwhelmed. We traipsed back down the hill and took the 45 minute train ride home, but mused over the beauty and all the noise of the longest night of the year.
Kim was still having trouble sleeping, so we started slowly on Sunday. There were really only two events scheduled for the day. One was to spend as much time as she wanted at the market and the other was searching for our biking fool, who called us to come get him after he spent 22 hours straight in the saddle, and was more than a little fatigued.
Tuesday: On to Provence - We took the train from my house into Paris and to Gare de Lyon towards Avignon. There we rented a car that we couldn't get in reverse - never mind why we needed reverse at that moment, but finally we did get out of the parking lot and were on the road. As we found our way (without any help from the GPS who chose that moment not to work) we talked about finding some food. Of course that only makes one hungrier, and we were getting hungrier and crankier by the minute, and where were we? In the middle of nowhere in Provence which around 4 in the afternoon there is no food available - bien sur, so we just kept driving.
As we entered a small town that seemed to show some signs of life we found this café or brasserie or something that advertised food- once we got inside - it was enormous and looked more like a pool hall. The young woman who waited on us looked strangely familiar. That's because it was her face on the futuristic beauty painted on the back wall of the restaurant. She politely said the kitchen wasn't open, but offered to make us some pizza-like snacks. We were so hungry we would have eaten anything, but our fortune was holding and these pizzas were homemade and delicious, and very far from the frozen pizza stuff we would have had in the US in the same kind of circumstance. Anyway, as we took turns going to the restroom and waiting for our food and drinks, I noticed a steady stream of folks coming in and passing by the man at the front table. I also noticed he was noting something in his ledger after greeting each new person with the appropriate 3 kiss greeting of southern France and then they handed him money. After awhile, I pointed this out to Kim, and we hypothesized that he was probably collecting for the local orphans and was carefully marking folks’ names so that thank you notes could be sent out in a timely manner.
After calling Pat to ask if he could think of a trick to get a 6-speed Fiat into reverse, and thinking it was a small enough car that we could push it out of the spot, Kim and I were on our way to find our hotel. It turned out to be an incredible bed and breakfast in Orgon, France. (Auberge du Parc, Orgon) (Did I mention we couldn't find it because I had forgotten to write down the name of the hotel and all we had was the address - which didn't show up on our maps, or the GPS that was now working).
Anyway, we settled in and went down to dinner. It was gourmand to the hilt. Three magnificent courses - Kim's appetizer was golf ball sized balls of fois gras covered in crushed crumbs of spice bread and then each was skewered and served in a glass filled with rock salt to hold up the skewers. My dinner was lamb that we had smelled cooking from the time we got there, which was served with roasted rosemary and a side of roasted root vegetables. Dessert (which we shared in case you are keeping track of the calorie intake here) was a sampler plate of all the house desserts, and was also incredible. We were stuffed and slept like princesses in our magnificent room that opened onto the park in the front and had a view of the mountain behind us from the bathroom.
Our first full day in Provence was all about finding the lavender, but started with Les Baux, one of the most incredible and oldest towns in France. It's built into the hillside and can't really handle cars - the streets are way too narrow for that, but were after all designed in about the 1500s. Then we went in search of melons, but found nothing all that interesting until we ended up in St. Remy de Provence and the psychiatric hospital where Vincent Van Gogh spent quite a bit of time. The museum there includes a look at his room and the view he had from there.
The lavender and sunflowers fields there take your breath away, and the thought that we were standing right where he stood, was a flash of brush with greatness for me.
We wandered around the Roman ruins of Glanum, also where Vincent had gazed, and then headed into St. Remy de Provence. I was delighted to find an exposition of tapestries from Aubusson which turned out to be exhibited in an old church that is still used once per year on the patron saint's day, but the rest of the time it was used for art exhibitions. The tapestries were modern art (1970s) depicting forests and trees in various colors. The really helpful docent led us around the exhibit trying to speak English and trying to keep me from touching these exquisite tapestries. I was dying to see the fine stitches, and knew not to touch them, but needed to get pretty close just to see the work. She seemed pleased at our interest and directed us to another museum just a few blocks away, so off we trudged. We were hungry and thirsty, but the next museum was going to close in just an hour and a half so we pushed forward. When we did find dinner, it was salads and bread on a slowly awakening street in the center of St. Remy. Each time the waitress came by she would reveal that more and more of the menu was available, and eventually we had a wonderful meal.
The next day was another interesting adventure – in a more complicated way. Our car was broken into over night at the hotel. The only thing stolen (not the GPS) but the satchell holding our maps, notes for the hotel reservations and our return train tickets - of no value to anyone but us - but damn valuable to us!!) So Kim got to see me muddle along in French to police, to the car rental agency, and of course to the locals while I was trying to find directions. After we replaced our car, contacted Pat who helped us retrieve those emails with the hotel confirmations and the travel agent who could help us replace our train tickets, we had lunch at the Avignon train station and then --- we drove off to find the LAVENDER!
Finally, we were within several meters of the most amazing lavender fields in all of France at the oft photographed Abbey of Senanque. I was so nervous that the lavender would be past its prime, or not yet open, I just wanted it to be perfect. As we rolled around the curves of the hillside, I realized something was definitely different! Instead of the brilliant purple fields that I expected, were fields of rich golden hues. All of the lavender had been replaced by beautiful fields of grain. Not exactly what we expected… but amazingly beautiful after all. We poked around, took a lot of pictures and then we headed to Roussillon, a town built into the hillside overlooking vast mines of ochre. There, the reddish brown hues vary from orange to sunflower yellow to rich brick red. Kim loved it, as do I. We ate pizza looking over the valley and reveling in the serendipity of the blue blue sky framing the red ochre cliffs and the washed colors of the rocks used to build the monument at the peak.
About 6:30 at night, we thought we better go in search of this night’s hotel, one that I didn’t hold great hopes for. It had been hard to find on the net, and was pretty inexpensive. As we pulled onto the two-lane highway where it was located, we saw a huge Dinosaur standing in the front yard, and thought --- OH NO. Fortunately, our hotel, quite nice, was next door to a vacant “Dinosaur Hotel” and was a very pleasant and uncomplicated surprise.
Fortunately the next day was our free day (so we could sleep in, stroll around and improvise) Along the way we had picked up a brochure that detailed the criteria and ratings of the Most Charming Towns of France. A small village was evaluated on some criteria, and then was awarded rankings of Most, Charming, Interesting and no mention at all. (I am writing this from memory, so those titles aren’t necessarily exactly correct, but you get the gist of it.) We decided that we would map out a route to take us through the “MOST Charming Towns” and compare them to the lower grades. What a riot we had. Of course all of these towns were interesting and picturesque, and ultimately we think the ratings were likely the result of lobbying. We didn’t necessarily agree with the ratings, but we had a great time exploring them.
Our best treat of the day, among many finds, was Abbaye-St. Hillaire. It is an old abbey that is now owned by a private owner who is restoring it. Kim and I were the only (literally) people there. We LOVED it. The frescos were really interesting, the stone work, and the worn tiles on the floor of the church and the cloisters, spoke of well used surfaces.
The last two days of our trip were spent in Aix-en-Provence. This really interesting French city has preserved a lot of its old buildings, but also has built a tourist supporting infrastructure inside of itself. I recently overheard someone say that it is so well designed it is artificial, but I appreciated the comfort and being able to see the old architecture without having to drive, take a train, or leave the eight block area. We had a delightful city based hotel, with a large room (for European standards) that was right in the old quarter. We were getting tired when we arrived there, but we found a Mediterranean restaurant tucked into an alley that served us tagine and cous cous at a tiny outdoor table where we could see the locals coming home and walking their dogs and cats. After a good night’s sleep, we found the flower market, the tapestry museum, and did a little shopping. Then we found a traditional French restaurant – al fresco bien sur, and rehashed our great trip.
Our last morning together was nearly a disaster, because of an unexpected train strike and a two and half hour ride to the airport - with me driving! But Delta pitched in and gave Kim a first class seat home which seemed to alleviate all the stress of the morning. After two weeks with me, Kim was ready to go home and get back to her own bed, but I think she relished the adventure and the stories even if we really didn't get to see the lavendar this year. After all, it wasn't really about the lavendar, but it was about the adventure.
Her hunt for real French lavender started 4 years ago, before we knew that Pete had cancer, and long before he died. Mustering the courage to come half way around the world without Pete took Kim a couple of years to do, but she made it with bells on.
Just to give you a brief description of Kim, she arrived on a Thursday in the middle of June(because Wednesday night flights are the cheapest tickets) and we started her trip with free drinks from my favorite italian barrista before a lovely french bistro lunch. As Kim said, she had the most beautiful Niçoise salad ever, so she was not willing to have another during the entire trip for fear she would be disappointed. Then it was off to the chocolate store where she was treated to a free sample of amazing chocolate and we bought a sampler bag to munch the rest of the trip. We limited ourselves to one piece a day, as this chocolate is so rich, it really only takes one piece to satisfy your taste buds.
We had planned the Musée d’Orsay for Sat. and thought we didn’t really have to run into town because we also wanted to see Paris at night. However, our big adventure happened to correspond with the Fête de Musique (June 21), so the Museum closed 2 hours early - unbeknownst to us. This put a kink in our plan, but that’s okay, we are flexible. With a little cajoling and my Friends of Museé d'Orsay annual pass we were able to see the Van Goghs and even some of the artists that Kim had studied in art school by running lickety split through the floors in a record 45 minutes…. So, let’s go to Monmarte – where we were invited to dance with the waiter who said “drinks or dancing?” Which made up for all the hassle at Orsay.
There were street bands setting up everywhere and Kim spotted a street mime who blew her kisses while I took their picture. After a leisurely stroll through and around Sacre Couer we headed back down through the crowd to see the rest of the hillside. For some reason, I had it in my head that Luxembourg Gardens would be a nice place for her to see, so we headed there, and relaxed in the shade of the huge old trees and watched Parisians walking arm and arm or arm on baby stroller through the park. It was starting to get crowded, because the night was so beautiful, so we headed in yet another direction. We bought cookies at a Bake Sale for Peace situated by the French Senate Building and listened to the street musicians drumming out their message.
It was dreadfully hot on the Metro, but we also didn’t want to keep walking, so we took the Odeon stop to the old stomping grounds of Ernest Hemingway and went to my favorite Lebanese restaurant. I had fun showing Kim the remnants of Phillipe August’s wall, and pointing out where Hemingway had his studio and apartment, when he was in his late 20's. Dinner was good, but the street was really noisy and the kids were pretty wild, so we were ready for home. I think Kim was pretty overwhelmed. We traipsed back down the hill and took the 45 minute train ride home, but mused over the beauty and all the noise of the longest night of the year.
Kim was still having trouble sleeping, so we started slowly on Sunday. There were really only two events scheduled for the day. One was to spend as much time as she wanted at the market and the other was searching for our biking fool, who called us to come get him after he spent 22 hours straight in the saddle, and was more than a little fatigued.
Tuesday: On to Provence - We took the train from my house into Paris and to Gare de Lyon towards Avignon. There we rented a car that we couldn't get in reverse - never mind why we needed reverse at that moment, but finally we did get out of the parking lot and were on the road. As we found our way (without any help from the GPS who chose that moment not to work) we talked about finding some food. Of course that only makes one hungrier, and we were getting hungrier and crankier by the minute, and where were we? In the middle of nowhere in Provence which around 4 in the afternoon there is no food available - bien sur, so we just kept driving.
As we entered a small town that seemed to show some signs of life we found this café or brasserie or something that advertised food- once we got inside - it was enormous and looked more like a pool hall. The young woman who waited on us looked strangely familiar. That's because it was her face on the futuristic beauty painted on the back wall of the restaurant. She politely said the kitchen wasn't open, but offered to make us some pizza-like snacks. We were so hungry we would have eaten anything, but our fortune was holding and these pizzas were homemade and delicious, and very far from the frozen pizza stuff we would have had in the US in the same kind of circumstance. Anyway, as we took turns going to the restroom and waiting for our food and drinks, I noticed a steady stream of folks coming in and passing by the man at the front table. I also noticed he was noting something in his ledger after greeting each new person with the appropriate 3 kiss greeting of southern France and then they handed him money. After awhile, I pointed this out to Kim, and we hypothesized that he was probably collecting for the local orphans and was carefully marking folks’ names so that thank you notes could be sent out in a timely manner.
After calling Pat to ask if he could think of a trick to get a 6-speed Fiat into reverse, and thinking it was a small enough car that we could push it out of the spot, Kim and I were on our way to find our hotel. It turned out to be an incredible bed and breakfast in Orgon, France. (Auberge du Parc, Orgon) (Did I mention we couldn't find it because I had forgotten to write down the name of the hotel and all we had was the address - which didn't show up on our maps, or the GPS that was now working).
Anyway, we settled in and went down to dinner. It was gourmand to the hilt. Three magnificent courses - Kim's appetizer was golf ball sized balls of fois gras covered in crushed crumbs of spice bread and then each was skewered and served in a glass filled with rock salt to hold up the skewers. My dinner was lamb that we had smelled cooking from the time we got there, which was served with roasted rosemary and a side of roasted root vegetables. Dessert (which we shared in case you are keeping track of the calorie intake here) was a sampler plate of all the house desserts, and was also incredible. We were stuffed and slept like princesses in our magnificent room that opened onto the park in the front and had a view of the mountain behind us from the bathroom.
Our first full day in Provence was all about finding the lavender, but started with Les Baux, one of the most incredible and oldest towns in France. It's built into the hillside and can't really handle cars - the streets are way too narrow for that, but were after all designed in about the 1500s. Then we went in search of melons, but found nothing all that interesting until we ended up in St. Remy de Provence and the psychiatric hospital where Vincent Van Gogh spent quite a bit of time. The museum there includes a look at his room and the view he had from there.
The lavender and sunflowers fields there take your breath away, and the thought that we were standing right where he stood, was a flash of brush with greatness for me.We wandered around the Roman ruins of Glanum, also where Vincent had gazed, and then headed into St. Remy de Provence. I was delighted to find an exposition of tapestries from Aubusson which turned out to be exhibited in an old church that is still used once per year on the patron saint's day, but the rest of the time it was used for art exhibitions. The tapestries were modern art (1970s) depicting forests and trees in various colors. The really helpful docent led us around the exhibit trying to speak English and trying to keep me from touching these exquisite tapestries. I was dying to see the fine stitches, and knew not to touch them, but needed to get pretty close just to see the work. She seemed pleased at our interest and directed us to another museum just a few blocks away, so off we trudged. We were hungry and thirsty, but the next museum was going to close in just an hour and a half so we pushed forward. When we did find dinner, it was salads and bread on a slowly awakening street in the center of St. Remy. Each time the waitress came by she would reveal that more and more of the menu was available, and eventually we had a wonderful meal.
The next day was another interesting adventure – in a more complicated way. Our car was broken into over night at the hotel. The only thing stolen (not the GPS) but the satchell holding our maps, notes for the hotel reservations and our return train tickets - of no value to anyone but us - but damn valuable to us!!) So Kim got to see me muddle along in French to police, to the car rental agency, and of course to the locals while I was trying to find directions. After we replaced our car, contacted Pat who helped us retrieve those emails with the hotel confirmations and the travel agent who could help us replace our train tickets, we had lunch at the Avignon train station and then --- we drove off to find the LAVENDER!
Finally, we were within several meters of the most amazing lavender fields in all of France at the oft photographed Abbey of Senanque. I was so nervous that the lavender would be past its prime, or not yet open, I just wanted it to be perfect. As we rolled around the curves of the hillside, I realized something was definitely different! Instead of the brilliant purple fields that I expected, were fields of rich golden hues. All of the lavender had been replaced by beautiful fields of grain. Not exactly what we expected… but amazingly beautiful after all. We poked around, took a lot of pictures and then we headed to Roussillon, a town built into the hillside overlooking vast mines of ochre. There, the reddish brown hues vary from orange to sunflower yellow to rich brick red. Kim loved it, as do I. We ate pizza looking over the valley and reveling in the serendipity of the blue blue sky framing the red ochre cliffs and the washed colors of the rocks used to build the monument at the peak.
About 6:30 at night, we thought we better go in search of this night’s hotel, one that I didn’t hold great hopes for. It had been hard to find on the net, and was pretty inexpensive. As we pulled onto the two-lane highway where it was located, we saw a huge Dinosaur standing in the front yard, and thought --- OH NO. Fortunately, our hotel, quite nice, was next door to a vacant “Dinosaur Hotel” and was a very pleasant and uncomplicated surprise.
Fortunately the next day was our free day (so we could sleep in, stroll around and improvise) Along the way we had picked up a brochure that detailed the criteria and ratings of the Most Charming Towns of France. A small village was evaluated on some criteria, and then was awarded rankings of Most, Charming, Interesting and no mention at all. (I am writing this from memory, so those titles aren’t necessarily exactly correct, but you get the gist of it.) We decided that we would map out a route to take us through the “MOST Charming Towns” and compare them to the lower grades. What a riot we had. Of course all of these towns were interesting and picturesque, and ultimately we think the ratings were likely the result of lobbying. We didn’t necessarily agree with the ratings, but we had a great time exploring them.
Our best treat of the day, among many finds, was Abbaye-St. Hillaire. It is an old abbey that is now owned by a private owner who is restoring it. Kim and I were the only (literally) people there. We LOVED it. The frescos were really interesting, the stone work, and the worn tiles on the floor of the church and the cloisters, spoke of well used surfaces.
The last two days of our trip were spent in Aix-en-Provence. This really interesting French city has preserved a lot of its old buildings, but also has built a tourist supporting infrastructure inside of itself. I recently overheard someone say that it is so well designed it is artificial, but I appreciated the comfort and being able to see the old architecture without having to drive, take a train, or leave the eight block area. We had a delightful city based hotel, with a large room (for European standards) that was right in the old quarter. We were getting tired when we arrived there, but we found a Mediterranean restaurant tucked into an alley that served us tagine and cous cous at a tiny outdoor table where we could see the locals coming home and walking their dogs and cats. After a good night’s sleep, we found the flower market, the tapestry museum, and did a little shopping. Then we found a traditional French restaurant – al fresco bien sur, and rehashed our great trip.
Our last morning together was nearly a disaster, because of an unexpected train strike and a two and half hour ride to the airport - with me driving! But Delta pitched in and gave Kim a first class seat home which seemed to alleviate all the stress of the morning. After two weeks with me, Kim was ready to go home and get back to her own bed, but I think she relished the adventure and the stories even if we really didn't get to see the lavendar this year. After all, it wasn't really about the lavendar, but it was about the adventure.
