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Ahhhh Sunday in Paris: Despite the over-cast skies and the impending downpour, we still awake once again, in our favourite (well,one of our favorite) cities. It is 9:00 before I break mon reve and we both hustle downstairs to join Robin for coffee and breakfast. John B joins us shortly there after and we have a brief de-brief over croissants and a second coffee about our wonderful yet somewhat language laden dinner the night before. Some at the table spoke little (no!) English, others spoke only halting French. But all seemed to communicate our various and different ideas and points of view effectively and with passion. Of course, the wine helped as well!

We have been invited to dejeune chez Isabelle et Bernard, along with Isabelle's two daughters Claire and Aude. I wander up to Monparnasse and have a quick walk through the weekend Marche du Creation, essentially an arts and crafts fair tended to by local artists; some good, some excellent, some truely atrociaous. Both Johns and Robin pick me up and we walk the wet 10 block-20 minute route to Isabelle's. Lunch of smoked salmon to start, blanquette de veau pour le plat, a full cheese course (but of course!) and une tarte au citron avec mereingue await us. And of course the requistite bottles of wine. How rude of us to rush off back to the hotel to pick up our bags and grab a cab for our 3 pm train to Lyon as I am sure we could have lingered over another mouthful of tarte and encore du vin.

The rain is truely pelting now as our cab driver bobs and weaves against the Sunday Parisian traffic towards la Gare de Lyon. We arrive with some short time to spare and get comfortably ensconced in our seats, a bottle of water, and some reading material at the ready as we pull out of the station. The train to Lyon is certainly on time; in fact verging on 30 seconds early. It is a good thing that we did not waste any time with extended goodbyes over lunch! We are surrounded by what appear to be extremely polite and genteel Francais: a handsome young couple with their 7 year old seated in a 4-seater in front of us with a well coiffed eldery woman of 70+ years who appears to have no concern about sharing her 2 hour train ride with this family. An older coulple to their right, sweater vests and glasses, engrossed for the entire trip in their puzzles and Paris Matches. Single stylish guy to our left and a young couple, also stylish and talkative directly behind us, munching, eating and kissing their way to Lyon. All politely whispering so as not to interrupt their fellow guests. The first half hour all spend with furtive eyes, checking out the travellers, trying to figure out our collective stories.And wow...we certainly are travelling fast! Soon some eyes are closed, books and magazines opened, ipods and earbuds engaged and yes, even a laptop opened and a followsummer blog updated.

We arrive on time: the 480 kilometers, roughly the same distance between Toronto and Montreal, is traveled in less than 2 hours...incroyable! Why can't we figure out a functioning and practical yet affordable train system in Canada? The rain continues on and off as we exit the train with many similiar tourists coming to Lyon for La Fete des Lumieres. People-jams ensue as we try to grab the escalator up to the upper platforms and hall; all hopefully exiting at the taxi stand or close by, to whisk us to our hotel. We stumble out to a notice that all of the Pres'quile is closed for la Fete: no taxis to be found and especially at the taxi queu. We decide to hoof it. Our first attempt deposits us on the wrong side of the Gare Parrache; we turn around and retrace our steps through the pouring rain and end up in a square that has one of Lyon's Marche de Noels. The first stall is flying the Canadian flag and is fashioned after a Suger Shack. We feel a little better. We drag our bags onwards, onwards towards the Sofitel and some 25 minutes later, wet feet and runny noses, we arrive at the Hotel and our comfy room.

We barely have time to turn around when it is time to head out to our 7:00 p.m. (early) dinner reservation at a restaurant that Greg had researched on the New York Times called Le Petit Flore: a bouchon typique de Lyon. The Lyonnais take their dining very seriously, and a month earlier when I had called to make a reservation, they offered me 7:00 p.m. or nothing. As the restaurant has good reviews and a guarantee of authentic Lyonais food, we decided to take it. The streets around Place Bellecour are teeming with thousands of people out enjoying not only the Fete installations but also the many Christmas lights that have been hung in the myriad of interconnecting streets throughout the centre-ville. We figure out the Lyon metro system and head off to dinner. The restaurant, when we arrive, is charming to look at, and the menu seems authentic. Greg plays it safe, but I decide to live on the edge, and order veal foot salad to start, and andouillette (sausage – per my dictionnaire) as my main, having read in a review of the place how good (and authentic) they are. The salad is – think of a jello salad where the jello is oddly shaped, some of it gristly, and not sweet or flavoured at all, but instead in a mayonnaise based dressing. The andouillette has an odd smell – like a cow pie. (Later, back at the hotel, I google andouillette and discover that it is a sausage made of tripe and chitterlings.) One of the odder dinners I've eaten in my life. If eaten is the right word. Oh well – nobody can ever say I haven't tried it.

We head into the night, deciding to walk all the way back to our hotel, only 2 stops away on the metro. The street has wonderful lights in the trees, and an atmosphere of festivity. There is no sense of menace, despite the huge crowds. We wander along, oohing and ahhing at some of the installations until we find ourselves in the Place Jacobin, where I recognize scenes from La Dolce Vita playing on the fronts of the buildings that line the square. This is the first “show” we have encountered in the Fete – and it is completely fun. The movie is of course deconstructed and lasts maybe 7 or 8 minutes, shifting shapes and sizes and moving around the square and onto the fountain in the centre and back. The imagination at work is amazing – as is the lighting technology, using multiple projectors mounted in a number of different places around the square. We have read that the entire additional electricity bill to power the lights for the Fete is less than 3,000 Euros for the entire 4 nights – so not only is the technology complex yet completely seamless, it is also very efficient.

We make our way back to Bellecour, 1 block from our hotel, and discover that the ferris wheel in the square is being used as a giant canvas for a show called a night at the museum, projecting masterpieces from various Lyon' museums into the night. We watch only for a minute – we are both tired, and this will be here for 2 more nights.

John sleeps through the night until almost 8 in the morning, unheard of for him. (Thank goodness for earplugs). Greg continues to be awakened by the rowdy Friday night bar-hoppers on the rue Delambre and also from the other guests, and passes a less restorative evening. In the morning, we take petit dejeuner in the hotel, and are joined by our friends from London, John and Robin, who have escaped to Paris for the weekend. After much coffee and conversation as we waited out the torrential rain (the man on the desk promised it would stop, and stop it did), we head to our favourite shopping street in Paris, the Rue des Francs Bourgeois. The 4 of us amble, John B. looking into every patisserie and chocolate shop we pass, wishing he could partake. And we pass as many patisseries as we do clothes stores and shoe shops. Robin, Greg and John M. are more interested in clothes shopping, but nothing appeals. After the Place des Vosges and a delicious lunch just outside the Place, served by a charming but overwhelmed waitress in a restaurant highly recommended by a shopkeeper from whom John and Robin bought new numbers for the front of their house, we head back into the Place to continue our shopping expedition. We head north on a less charming street that is filled with discount shops – the sort of stores you go to after you've seen what the expensive shops are carrying, and you're ready to buy but not to pay those prices. And a bit of buying occurred – John B. some dress shirts for work, John M. a new duffel coat comme celui porte par tous les jeunes hommes a Paris. Having gone a little bit north, we turn west, walking along pleasant but non-descript boulevards that bring us into les Grands Boulevards. We watch in wonderment the Christmas lights on the front of Galeries Lafayette (going full tilt in broad daylight, as over-the-top as they could possibly be, in complete contradistinction from the charm and intelligence of the windows at Le Bon Marche. Into the Place de la Madeleine we go, for wonderful mustards at the Maison Maille and for amazing chocolate and macaroons at Fauchon.

Then a quick trip home on the metro and naps before we reassemble for dinner at Le Petit Zinc, a classic Parisien restaurant in a beautiful art nouveau space. We are met there by John and Francois, friends of ours who live in Paris, and by Isabelle and Bernard, friends of Robin and John's, who also live in Paris. Everyone is in a festive mood, not just for the sake of being together, but with the approach of Isabelle's and Greg's birthdays. Truly a festive evening, a crazy mix of Franclish spoken throughout. Hours pass as though minutes, and into the night we finally pour. We stand in the street, all of us amazed at how warm it is (the pharmacy signs all say that it is +12, warm enough to be in fall coats without scaves or hats) and say our goodnights. Greg and I walk home together, reflecting on the day's events, enjoying being together, enjoying being outside in this most beautiful of cities, amazed at how quiet the streets are as soon one gets away from the big boulevards. 20 truly enjoyable minutes later, we arrive at our hotel as midnight descends.

CDG is as always, CDG: the Friday morning sun and crisp December air only point out, at least to me, the incredible ugliness of the building. A grunting security guard, stamping our passports as we quickly glide through customs, is the only detriment to our arrival. Bienvenue en France?! Our priority bags come up quickly and we walk a bit to grab the RER into Paris. Easy. No crowds, no hustle bustle. What gives? The only annoyances are the travelling bands of accordian players pumping out 'Over the Rainbow' and 'La Vie en Rose' for ready-money and the not paying or not paying attention tourists and hard-core locals alike. We schlep easily through the metro and continue on towards the Hotel Delambre in Montparnasse, check in (our room is not ready yet), leave our bags and stroll the neighbourhood in search of direction and some lunch. A disappointing and very quick walk-through the Marche de Noel de Montparnasse leaves us even hungrier and unfortunately feeling a little jeg-lagged. We settle for a somewhat pedistrian lunch special at a local brasserie called A Saint Malo, wander the block and a half back to the hotel, check in and do a quick unpack and have a lovely snooze for an hour or so.

We learn that all of the museums in Paris are closed because the workers are on strike for higher wages. Only in France, we think to ourselves. At least the metro isn't en greve.

After lunch, we amble through streets redolent of artists (think Picasso and Rodin) into les quartiers bourgeois (think the Eiffel Tower and Le Bon Marche). We buy new bow ties for our tuxes, and after gazing in astonishment at the wondrous Christmas windows of Le Bon Marche, which make anything we've seen back home look distinctly 3rd-rate, we take the metro to Le Marais to see the Christmas lights at Hotel de Ville (disappointing). After a late afternoon beer in a bar that we always seem to end up in whenever we are in Paris, we head to the Champs Elysee to see the Christmas lights – and are not disappointed at all. They are magnificent: the whole street is done up to the 9s, with shooting stars to boot. We stroll all the way to the Arch de Triomphe, then take the metro back to our hotel and grab some dinner before crashing and burning at about 9 p.m.

Emails, phone calls and a defective driver's seat belt add to the overall last minute panic as we finish a frantic pack and load the newly-returned body shopped car (someone went through a red light and right into John - no damage to John, but lots to the car) for the drive to the airport and our overnight flight to Paris. We have left ample time for traffic and any delay; so much so that, as is always the case when you leave lots of time, we arrive at the airport within 20 minutes and have over 2.5 hours to amble, catch a casual dinner, a trip-toast in the Maple Leaf Lounge and get settled in for our flight.

No issues to report. How unusual. The check-in gate at Air Canada is functional, polite, verging on fun. No issues getting through screening. Everyone seems in high spirits. I must admit that we are somewhat suspect of all of this, waiting for the hammer to fall. But it does not. The plane is barely 3/4 full, we get comfortable, watch some 30 Rock, take our little blue pills and wake up over France to sun, orange juice, and coffee.

Our morning comes early; a sunny and crisp 6:00 am. Our last two nights have been difficult: restless and sleepless for the both of us. We toss and turn all night, waiting for sleep to grab hold and take us away. Robin is off to work at 7:00 am. John B packs the boys and John and I into the car around 7:30 to be dropped at school and Heathrow respectively. The M25 is bumper to bumper the entire way and we arrive according to predictions around 9:15 for our flight to Ch. De Gaulle. We say our goodbyes in the diesel smelling air of the drop off lanes and jump on our very easy, 1 hour flight to Paris. The baggage Gods continue to smile on us-we are again number 3 and 4 off the belt and glide through the arrivals gate where Francois is waiting to wisk us into Paris.
The Parisian weather is verging on non-descript: grey, flat nothingness, an occasional turbulent French cloud dropping the occasional drop of French rain.

The crazy Parisian traffic pulls us into town and to our over-night Hotel, the Ibis, another followsummer 2004 remembrance. A no-frills familiar place to sleep for this one evening and then again for one night upon our return to the city. We are going to John and Francois’ for dinner tonight and are only a 10 minute walk to their apartment in the 18th near Place Stalingrad on the Quai de la Seine. It is just after 2 pm, we drop our bags and wander into the streets for a late lunch of omelettes, croque mousiers and salade verte, eyeing the busy traffic of Paris and its familiar welcome.

The off and on rain continues in earnest after our naps so we grab our umbrellas and walk over to meet Francois. John is working late this last day before their vacation and we spend an hour walking along the canal, our umbrellas perched high, the blinking, wet lights of Paris beginning to reflect on the ancient and wet cobbles.

Tomorrow we head nord-ouest; first to Amiens and it’s famous Cathedral and then on to Ste. Cortoy and the Hotel Les Tournelles in the heart of Normandy and La Baie de la Somme for three days of touring, walking and of course, eating.

Our morning comes early; a sunny and crisp 6:00 am. Our last two nights have been difficult: restless and sleepless for the both of us. We toss and turn all night, waiting for sleep to grab hold and take us away. Robin is off to work at 7:00 am. John B packs the boys and John and I into the car around 7:30 to be dropped at school and Heathrow respectively. The M25 is bumper to bumper the entire way and we arrive according to predictions around 9:15 for our flight to Ch. De Gaulle. We say our good byes in the diesel smelling air of the drop off lanes and jump on our very easy, 1 hour flight to Paris. The baggage Gods continue to smile on us-we are again number 3 and 4 off the belt and glide through the arrivals gate where Francois is waiting to wisk us into Paris.
The Parisian weather is verging on nondescript: grey, flat nothingness, an occasional turbulent French cloud dropping the occasional drop of French rain.

The crazy Parisian traffic pulls us into town and to our over-night Hotel, the Ibis, another followsummer 2004 remembrance. A no-frills familiar place to sleep for this one evening and then again for one night upon our return to the city. We are going to John and Francois’ for dinner tonight and are only a 10 minute walk to their apartment in the 18th near Place Stalingrad on the Quai de la Seine. It is just after 2 pm, we drop our bags and wander into the streets for a late lunch of omelettes, croque mousiers and salade verte, eyeing the busy traffic of Paris and its familiar welcome.

The off and on rain continues in earnest after our naps so we grab our umbrellas and walk over to meet Francois. John is working late this last day before their vacation and we spend an hour walking along the canal, our umbrellas perched high, the blinking, wet lights of Paris beginning to reflect on the ancient and wet cobbles.

Tomorrow we head nord-ouest; first to Amiens and it’s famous Cathedral and then on to Ste. Cortoy and the Hotel Les Tournelles in the heart of Normandy and La Baie de la Somme for three days of touring, walking and of course, eating.

We drive today to the Normandy beaches where the Allied invasion of Europe began in 1944. This means that we drive through Caen, home to William the Bastard, renamed the Conqueror after 1066 when he became King of England, without stopping to explore. Next time.

Our main focus today is the pretty town of Courseulles-sur-Mer, otherwise known as Juno Beach, the Canadian D-Day landing site, and the place where a few days later General De Gaulle landed on French soil.


From left: Juno Beach; German positions at Juno Beach

Last year, in preparation for the 60th anniversary of D-Day, the largest military operation in history, Canada opened a museum on Juno Beach, documenting both the events of the day, and in particular Canada’ role in it. We spend over 2 hours in the museum, learning things we hadn’t known. It is truly impressive, and made us proud and incredibly sad.


From left: Centre Juno Beach; the flags of the D-Day invaders

From Courseulles, it is a short drive to Bény-sur-Mer, the Canadian cemetery for the Juno Beach dead. We spend an hour walking through the graves, thinking about the horror of the day, and of all wars, and of the lives represented in this place, beautiful in the late fall sun, with the English Channel visible in the distance. So many men, 20, 21, only a few as old as 25, boys really, their lives over almost before they had begun. We are truly unprepared for the enormous sense of loss we feel at this site.


The Canadian War Cemetery at Bény-sur-Mer

We drive along the coast, through some of the other beach towns (doesn’t that imply something quite different) where D-Day made history. Then we turn inland, to visit Bayeux and its famous tapestry, which record another invasion across la Manche, this time from France to England in 1066. It tells the story of how on the 14th of October, William the Conqueror invaded England. The tapestry is over 70 metres long, embroidered shortly afterward in England on coarse linen, and hung so that the entire tapestry can be seen in one long viewing. It is laid out in the same manner as a storyboard - panel after panel depicting scenes in chronological order. My favourite is the scene showing some of the soldiers trapped in the quicksand at Mont St-Michel.

After we finish our tour of the tapestry, we head back to the coast where Jan, one of the 2 Kiwis we met on our tour of Turkey back in May, is camping with 2 friends, Shelly and her son Nick. The 3 of them have been touring around Europe since late June, and finally, after much planning, we are able to connect. We sit and talk, everybody talking at once, sharing stories and comparing notes, then head into town for some food. The stories continue through the meal, and could probably have continued long into the night if we had not had a 90 minute or so drive back to our hotel. It was fun catching up with you, Jan, and meeting Shelly and Nick!


From Left: Greg, Jan, John and Nick in front

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Avranches to Rouen: 222 kilometers

The days continue grey and autumnal. It is this way as we head out onto the autoroute for our drive to Rouen, and it stays the same until we arrive in the city a couple of hours later.

We check-in to our hotel, and then head into Rouen to explore. By now, the grey has turned to an autumnal drizzle. We drive down Avenue des Canadiens to get to the centre of town. There are Canadian flags flying here and there, our first experience of how the French in this area regard the Canadians, who liberated them from the Germans, and then went home.

We begin our explorations at l’Hôtel de Ville, and walk along streets that have that clearly show that Rouen was heavily damaged during WWII; a beautiful stone door, leading into a 20 year old building. We come across the Palais de Justice, faithfully reconstructed after the war, but left with gaping battle scars.


le Palais de Justice, showing its war wounds

We find to our surprise that much of medieval Rouen still stands. There are half-timbered buildings everywhere; unlike those we have seen in England, these are painted brilliant colours, which certainly brighten the day.


Half-timbered Rouen


On the rue du Gros Horlage, the big clock that it is named after; beside the clock, in praise of Louis XV, who donated the clock

Rouen is most-famous, at least with English-speakers, as the place where Joan of Arc was held by the British and then burnt at the stake. We head to the spot, in the old market square, and find that the original church was destroyed in the war. In its place, a striking Église Sainte-Jeanne d’Arc has been built. Inside, the stark lines of the modernist belie an unexpected beauty, the beautiful, medieval, stained glass windows which were removed from another church before the war, and never reinstalled because that church was destroyed.

The spot where Jeanne d’Arc was burnt is now a garden, with but a simple marker to show the exact place.

As we are standing at the very tiny entrance to the church talking, a very helpful man fills in some of the gaps in our knowledge. Christian, as he turns out to be, is full of information (he knows, for example, that it always rains in Rouen; and that even when it is nice everywhere else in France, it is raining in Rouen). We take shelter from the rain, and go have a coffee with Christian.


From left: the spot where Jeanne d’Arc burned at the stake; l’Église Sainte-Jeanne d’Arc; la Tour Jeanne d’Arc

After our coffee, Greg and I head off to do some more exploring. We find the Tour Jeanne d’Arc, the one remaining turret of the old castle where Joan was imprisoned by the British. From there, we head to Rouen Cathedral, much painted by a certain M. Monet, some of whose paintings of it we saw in Paris at the Turner, Whistler, Monet exhibit. The Cathedral also has the highest wrought-iron spire in Europe, and is home to the heart of Richard Coeur de Lion, who stated in his will that he was to be buried near his father, and whose tomb we saw there, but that his heart was to be buried in Rouen Cathedral.


From left: Rouen Cathedral; its wrought-iron spire; the grave of Richard Coeur de Lion’s heart

At this point it is late in the afternoon, and although the rain has let up, we are cold and hungry, having skipped lunch. We walk around looking for a restaurant, but although many brasseries are open, we find not one that is serving anything but pastries and beer - it is Sunday, after all. Finally, we find a pizzeria that is open, and are happy to be able to sit down and eat.

Happy Hallowe'en to all!
Congratulations to Stacey and Mayeer on their wedding, on Hallowe'en!
And on the same day, Happy Birthday to Alex Browning!

The long history of Mont St-Michel is thought to date back to 708 when Aubert, Bishop of Avranches, built a sanctuary on Mont-Tombe in honour of the Archangel, Michael.

The site soon became a place of pilgrimage and the Benedictines founded an Abbey here in the 10th century. It’s ramparts and fortifications resisted the English assaults 3 times during the 100 Years War, but today they succumb to the thousands of tourists who assault the Mount and storm the many stairs to the Abbey; some trying their feet in the quicksand before the tide comes in.

There is a cloudy and dramatic English Channel sky today as we drive from the hotel the short 20 or so kilometres. Le Mont St-Michel is visible from practically everywhere around le Manche, poking its spire out of the mountain top.


le Mont St-Michel

We park at the lower end of the parking lot and walk to the only entrance that exists on the ramparts. We are greeted with an almost Disneyesque version of “Ye Olde Medieval Towne” complete with restaurants, tacky souvenirs and Japanese tourists. We make our way up to the top of the mount and enter the great gothic cathedral and do the tour, quickly and with purpose, and decide to beat a retreat from the oncoming wave of tourists washing up the mount, almost as if the tide had just come in.


From left: the views from the top; watch out for that quicksand!

We break through the upwash and return to the car, where we continue northwest to St-Malo, our only stop in Brittany. We will stop there for lunch: the restaurants can’t be as tourist oriented as they are in le Mont St-Michel, can they?

80% of the old town of St-Malo was destroyed in WWII, and its major monuments were restored in the 1970s. The rest of the quaint, ramparted town was restored to an 18th century standard and style of French architecture. It is an odd combination to view when you walk through.

We have a very uninspiring lunch of pizza (we are happy for the change from the roasted meats, sauces and frites that the “gastronomie française” is so famous for), with a pichet of white wine, and wander a bit amongst the Saturday shoppers on the main street.


From left: une scène typique de St-Malo; the ramparts

Our uninspiring lunch leads us to an even more uninspiring dinner at the Ibis; we don’t even consider heading across the parking lot to the line-dancing steakhouse. Their friendly staff continue to compliment our French. We have been practising; so much so that we are actually speaking to each other in French. It is really nice to be able to communicate in the language of the country you are travelling in! We wonder how we will do when we return to Belgium in a few days.

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Tours to Avranches: 237 kilometres

Around the corner from our hotel is the Tours Cathedral, and we visit it this morning before we head of on our drive to Normandie. The cathedral is Gothic in style, flying buttresses and all, except for its 2 towers, which are clearly Renaissance, and appear from a distance to have been highly influenced by the Spanish Renaissance.


From left: 2 views of Tours Cathedral; the Princes’ Tomb

The Cathedral is not particularly inspiring, and would probably not be worth a visit except for 2 things: a spectacular Renaissance tomb, one of the 1st in France, of 2 French princes, and its cloister.


cloître de la Psalette at Tours Cathedral

We finish our tour of the cathedral and the cloister, check out of our hotel and hit the road. It is a beautiful day for a drive, sunny and bright, and we drive happily through the French countryside and into a different agricultural landscape than we are used to. In both the south and the Loire, most of what we have seen is vineyards; as we move north and west, we move into dairy and cattle territory.

We arrive at our destination, Avranches, which we chosen solely for its proximity to Mont St. Michel, and discover that our hotel is actually in the country. A restaurant next door, a kitchen supply store across the way. We drive into town, hoping to find that it is interesting or that at least there is a restaurant that inspires us. There is not. We head home for a nap, and decide to have dinner at the restaurant next door.

Naps finished, we walk over to the restaurant, and find that it is a “steak house”, modelled on somebody’s idea of what the Wild Wild West looked like. (At least the steaks are “steak-frites”, and not “a la steak sauce”.) Inside, we discover that the local line-dancing club has booked most of the restaurant for the night (we get to sit on the enclosed veranda, which, given what was going on inside, was not such a bad thing) and that most of the line-dancers are women of a certain age, tall and bony, big hair, badly-applied makeup, wearing U.S. flag t-shirts or vests with their cowboy boots. We eat our meal as quickly as we can, and escape back to our hotel, glad that at least a handful of people in France appreciate the U.S., despite all the France-bashing that has been going on in the U.S.

Today is our last full day in the Loire, and after 2 intense days of exploring, we have planned a much quieter day, including a morning of doing our laundry. I discover that the shop next door is owned by the same man as the laundromat, and that he is a bit of a jack-of-all-trades: he fixes shoes, makes keys, and also makes car licence plates – something that either was never done by the government in France or has been privatized. Greg has a pair of shoes that need some minor repairs, so I get them and bring them in, and also get him to make us a copy of the licence plate of our car, to bring home as a souvenir. We have avoided acquiring a lot of souvenirs, but we should have something to remind us of our time driving around Europe, and of the close to 20,000 kilometres we will have put on our car by the time we leave in just under 2 weeks.

Laundry clean, lunch eaten, we head out for our afternoon of exploring 2 châteaux, Chaumont and Chenonceau, close to each other and inextricably linked in the same manner as the interlocking C’s (for Catherine) and D’s (for Diana, but made by adding the up and down stroke to the interlocking C’s of Catherine).

We start at Chaumont, where a château has stood since the 10th century. In 1465, Louis XI had it burnt to the ground, to punish the owner, who had rebelled against the power of the king. The château was rebuilt between 1465 and 1510, and was purchased by Catherine de Médicis, widow of Henry II of France, and France’s powerful regent for the young Dauphin, in 1560. Catherine then forced Diane de Poitiers, Henry’s favourite mistress, to exchange Chaumont for Chenonceau, and so many, but not all, of the interlocking C’s of Chaumont were altered to become interlocking D’s.


Le Château de Chaumont


From left: interlocking C’s on the exterior of Chaumont; the Loire from Chaumont

Chaumont was lived in almost continuously until the Depression, and its last owner, the heiress to a French sugar fortune, spent a fortune modernizing it, ultimately to see her fortune disappear in the 1930s, when it was bequeathed to the state.

From Chaumont, it is but a short drive to Chenonceau, possible the most beautiful of all the Châteaux in the Loire, and certainly more liveable than Chambord, which we saw on our first day of touring, and which is Chenonceau’s only rival.


Chenonceau seen from land

Chenonceau, standing in the middle of the river Cher, did not originally cross the entire river. But Diane de Poitiers, who was left the home by Henry II when he died, decided to enlarge it and to connect both sides of the Cher, in order that she could have gardens on 1 side of the river, and a farm by which to earn an income, on the other. After the forced exchange of homes, Catherine de Médicis completed the construction.


Competitive in all things: at left, the gardens of Diane de Poitiers; at right, the gardens of Catherine de Médicis

During WWI, the bridge across the river served as an army hospital. During WWII, the river Cher was the border between occupied France and Vichy France, and the château was apparently a favourite crossing point for those who wanted to move from one to the other.


Chenonceau as it truly is, a bridge across the river Cher; in the photo at left, the original house is on the left and has one arch in the centre


From left: the 60 metre gallery that occupies the bridge portion of Chenonceau; the sphinx, one of a pair that guard the entrance to Chenonceau

After we get home and have our dinner in one of the charming little restaurants that fill the area near our hotel, Greg goes out and takes photos of the area around the hotel, which, in our enthusiasm for discovering the Loire, we have not yet explored. It is a shame, as Tours itself strikes us a very enjoyable city, its history and its students making the streets alive.


From left: Tours Cathedral; the Tours Château

The sun shines brilliantly as we start our second day of châteaux-hopping. We go the opposite direction (downriver) today as we head out of Tours, passing through little village after little village, all alive with life as people take advantage of the beautiful day.

Our first stop today is the beautiful Château de Langeais, which still has a working drawbridge, although the moat itself has disappeared. In this castle Anne of Brittany married Charles VIII in 1491, and thus Brittany became part of France. In its garden are the remnants of a much older castle, built and used as a dungeon, about 1,000 years ago. The Château de Langeais was never put to the test as a château-fort, a good thing because although its town side is imposing, its garden side would have been easy to breach. When stable peace arrived, it was never converted into from a château-fort to a château-plaisir, and was falling into ruin when it was bought over 100 years ago by a wealthy industrialist, who restored it to its original condition and filled it with treasures from the Middle Ages, then donated it to the people of France. It is fascinating to see the furnishing and clothes of the period.


From left: the Château de Langeais from the town, and from the garden; the ruined castle in the garden

We drive across the Loire and to Chinon, home of the wonderful Loire red wine. The smell of crushed grapes perfumes the air, and while most of the harvest is in, we see the occasional harvester at work, finishing the last of it.

The Château de Chinon, another castle that didn’t survive the transformation from wartime to peacetime, is more akin to what we think of when we say castle. Home to the English kings Henry II and Richard Coeur de Lion, it was the place where the young Joan of Arc successfully identified the disguised Dauphin, and so was to change the direction of the 100 Years War and help lead the French to victory, and force the English to relinquish their claims to Normandy and Aquitaine.


The Château de Chinon, where Joan of Arc recognized the future King Charles VII of France

In Chinon the weather turns, and from the brilliant sunlight of this morning, we now have torrential rain. We take refuge, conveniently, in the local brasserie, and have a lovely lunch, accompanied of course by a pichet of Chinon.

From Chinon we drive in the driving rain to l’abbaye royale de Fontevraud, which was once one of the most important monastic complexes in the world. Here, Eleanor of Aquitaine took refuge on numerous occasions. Two of her children were raised here, and she, Henry II and their son Richard Coeur de Lion (without his heart, as we discover later, more on this to come) are buried.


l’abbaye royale de Fontevraud


From left: the tombs of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry II of England, Richard I of England

The rain has stopped as we drive back up the Loire. At one point, the road is closed for some construction, and our detour takes us inland. We see a tower through the mist, and think it belongs to another chateau, but one which is not marked on our map. As we get closer, we realize that it is, in fact, part of the Loire Valley Nuclear Power Station.

By the time we get to Ussé, inspiration for the story of la belle au bois dormant, or Sleeping Beauty, the sun is peaking out again. Originally a château-fort, it was successfully transformed into a château-plaisir, a process that included removing one of the walls to open the courtyard to the valley and give it spectacular views. It is still privately-owned and inhabited by its family, and the inside can only be viewed by guided tour. This tour is somewhat disappointing; its uninteresting narrative communicated by a rather bored and uninterested guide. Greg does Sleeping Beauty’s tower and is up-and-down rather quickly; miffed by the tacky costumes and wigs on the over-posed and over-wrought mannequins.


Le Chateau d’Ussé, Sleeping Beauty’s Castle

Our last stop of the day takes us to the Azay-le-Rideau. Originally constructed for François I’s Treasurer, who apparently used some of the tax revenues to help pay for construction of the château. Upon discovery, he disappeared and François seized the château, giving it to one of his generals. From then on, it was one of the most beautiful private homes in France until at the end of the 19th century it fell into disrepair, and was taken over by the state and turned into a museum.


From left: the approach to Azay-le-Rideau; front view of Azay-le-Rideau; rear view of Azay-le-Rideau

It is almost 7 p.m. by the time we get home, exhausted but invigorated from our day of exploring a different universe.

It truly is a fall day as we head out into the Loire. Wet leaves blow across the road as we drive north and east towards Blois and into a grey and threatening sky. We anticipate the rain and we are both dressed for cool weather. I love this kind of day and am happy to layer on whatever I have in the suitcase. We have re-packed my big suitcase when we left Spain, filling it with most of our summer clothes. It is Day One of Our Châteaux Hunt.

This area is not only châteaux-filled, but also crammed with the sagas concerning the tumultuous history between England and France as chronicled so well by a certain Wm. Shakespeare in his famous history plays, particularly the Henry series. Our first stop is the city of Blois, where much French and English history was shaped. We stop in the town centre and climb up to the château, but decide that we will not pay the 8 Euro each admission fee to go in. Its main drawing card is a double helix staircase; we know we will see another, better, later on this châteaux tour, at Chambord.


From left: The chateau in Blois, the main entrance, the double helix stairway (all from the front gate)

We do a little walking and sip a quick coffee. We pull the car out of the public parking garage (the company Vinci has the parking-under-a-major-monument business all sewn up in France. Everywhere we go they have developed a system that is simple, safe, convenient and above all, relatively cheap. And there is always a parking space available!), and move onto our next destination.

We continue down the A10 to the domaine at Chambord. The skies continue grey and overcast but that sets a beautiful backdrop for the white, majestic castle that is Chambord. Built in 1519 by the ambitious young King François I, he designed it as a genuine fortress mostly to make a statement about and to establish his power. It is a Renaissance marvel. The white stone used in its design is locally mined tufa and is a beautiful if somewhat fragile building material that appears to have been very popular with the Loire Valley Châteaux Builders Association. Many of the châteaux we will visit are under extensive exterior renovation because of the predominate use of tufa. Here at Chambord, the roof lines are covered with numerous chimneys, turrets and dormer windows and one of the highlights is a Da Vinci-inspired double helix (double return) stairway, slicing thorough the middle of the château from top to bottom. It was a major hunting lodge and was where Molière premiered many of his plays for Louis XIV.


From Left: Just over the bridge and…; Chambord; the roof line of the main entrance

As it seems with all these châteaux, the building process is started by one ego and completed, years later, by another. Chambord was completed in 1685 by Louis XIV, who provided both good and bad modifications to the building. Even though Chambord was primarily a residence, it was actually only inhabited for 20 years over a period of 5 centuries! There are only a very few rooms that are furnished and these are representative of the supposed daily life in the Château, and there is a cold wind blowing through most of it. I would hate to try and stay warm here in February.



The views from the roof

We have lunch on the Château’s grounds in a very small restaurant that is part of a “village” designed to service the tourists. We have soup and a sandwich and some white wine, and feel ready for the next château on our list, Cherverny.

The Château of Cherverny still belongs to the descendents of the Hurault de Vibraye family, who were well known in Blois from the 13th century. They were a family of financiers who had given distinguished service to 5 different kings of France. It is a “smaller” warmer and much more manageable château, and the current family’s photos (in fact, the count, his wife and their two little girls live in the 3rd floor apartments) attest to the family life of this château. Each successive generation has enhanced and maintained the beauty of the Château of Count Henri, guided mostly by their own tastes and those of the period. We spend about an hour in and around the Château and its grounds before starting the drive home.


The lawns and the Château of Cherverny

We wind our way back through quaint towns and backwaters that front onto the Loire and its various tributaries and babbling brooks. The parking gods reward us for a very productive day with a spot right outside our hotel and we trundle up the stairs and kick off our shoes for a nap.

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Paris via Chartres to Tours: 255 kilometres

The sun finally shines today as we sadly say goodbye to the city that we love so much. We both agree on our fondness for Paris and actually talk about re-routing our trip and staying here. Alas, it is not to be. Paris is comfortable and familiar; we wear her like a much loved warm, intimate and favourite sweater.

We are up early and take our last metro ride to Stalingrad and the Quai de la Seine to pick up our car, and François greets us with a lovely breakfast of croissants, brioche, coffee and some of his mother’s homemade preserves (sorry John J, you had to go to work!). We say our sad goodbyes and take the car back to St. Germain and our favourite garret and lug the bags down those Parisian stairs and are on the road by 11 a.m.

Merci , merci, François and John for your hospitality during a very busy week for both of you. We had fun!

The beautiful drive to the Loire Valley is full of sun-drenched vistas of fall beauty. Occasionally, a chateau pokes its turreted head out of the trees as if to entice us on. At this point we have no idea of the beauty that awaits us further along the valley.

We stop at Chartres and its magnificent cathedral. The city of Chartres sits on a vast agricultural plain, freshly-ploughed and ready for the spring. You can see the two spires of the cathedral, one Gothic and the other Romanesque, rising above the plain from miles away. The odd recognizable maple is turning a familiar orange or red and it is easy to spot the poplars turning yellow and losing their small leaves. I feel somewhat nostalgic for a Canadian fall but it is just enough for me to feel a little homesick and get over it.

We arrive in Chartres just after 1 p.m. and find a typical French restaurant that (obviously) caters to tourists. Americans, Germans, Americans, two Canadians (us) and a spattering of local flavour make our lunch of soupe a l’oignon, salade verte, and le club sandwich full of conversation and gossip.

Fortified, we make our way into the cathedral and stare at the vast gothic space. We quickly decide to buy the guided audio tour and are rewarded with a wealth of wonderful information, particularly about the beautiful stained glass windows, most of which are still the originals from the 12th century. It is said the Cathderal of Chartres is an optical history of Christian chronology: the carvings and the stained glass serve as a testament and teaching narrative of the history of Christian teachings. Our audio guide is full of beautiful and specfic information concerning the life of Christ. I am particularily moved by the history and presence that the stained glass windows bring. At one point I find myself on the verge of tears, not knowing entirely why.


The approach to the Cathderal


The ornate carved front portal


Those ancient and beautiful windows

It is well after 3 p.m. before we make our way out of Chartres and we still have a 2 hour drive to Tours, our next stop. We are driving the RN or Route National today which takes us through quaint towns and back roads. Again, more chateaux coyly hide behind their walls and high hedges and trees. The landscapes and houses are different here: long stone rowhouses facing internal farm courtyards. The towns have thin brick and stone houses, many with tall, steeply pitched roofs. Many houses appear to be build around a dyke, to perhaps protect them from the flooding River Loire.

We pull into Tours just after 5 p.m. and find our hotel for the next four nights. We are staying at a quaint and old “hotel particulier” named the Hotel du Musée, on a small square call Place François Sicard. By now we are used to hauling the baggage up tight, winding staircases and here is no different. We do a little unpacking, John heads to the tourist office and by chance discovers an internet café. We find a local and very busy restaurant and have a late dinner. The two businessmen beside us engage us in a lively discussion (mostly in French) about George W. Bush and are delighted to eventually discover that we are Canadian.

Paris to Fountainbleau: 70 kilometres

Sunday’s are a favourite day for me in Paris. The streets are quiet and calm and no one seems to be in a hurry. Even the church bells are gently pealing on this their busiest day of the work week. It is nice just to laze in bed over coffee and yesterday’s Herald Tribune. But we do have a plan and it is to pick Francois and John up at their apartment and drive the 70 or so kilometers to Foutainbleau (pronounced Foun-tain-blow,as Francois continuously points out to me!) which is south east of the city and spend the afternoon there.

We arrive at John and Francois’ in the early afternoon and John easily navigates the Paris traffic and quickly we are out of the city and into the fields and farmland that surrounds Paris to the south. We arrive in Fountainbleau just as the sun starts its slow fall from the late afternoon sky.

The town of Fountainbleau is renowned for its enormous 1900-room Renaissance chateau which has played host to the who’s who of French royalty since the 12th Century. It is one of France’s largest royal residences and full of period furnishings. Comparing it to Versailles and considering the time of year, we hope for an easy visit.


Welcome to Fountainbleau

We wander in and about the enormous chateau and realize that we are only seeing a small part of the huge site. The courtyards and wings were expanded by Francois I, Henri II and Catherine de Medicis to name a few and it is difficult to discern where exactly modifications were made. There is much more natural wood carving and panelling in Fountainbleau compared to the other chateaux we have seen and it lends itself very well to Fountainbleau’s overall warmth and welcoming.



Inside Foutainbleau

We move outside and have a look at the beautiful gardens in the late afternoon sun. There are a few locals out with strollers and grandparents enjoying the park and we wander amongst them snapping photos and enjoying the vistas.



Les Jardins de Fountainbleau

It is now well after 5 and we decide to stop at a local coffee shop for some hot chocolate and Madeline’s. We walk through the remnants of the Sunday flea market, the last of its buyers and hawkers packing up in the setting sun. The music and laughter from the carousel close by contribute to the overall scene and we sip our chocolate and talk away the hour.


At the end of the day

Traffic is horrible on the way back to Paris and we stop near J & F’s for bistro food of, 3 hamburgers and steak tartare (for François, the true Frenchman!)

We will leave Paris tomorrow and I am sad to do so. Paris is one of my favourite cities and it has been an easy and comfortable fit. Easy to navigate, easy to communicate and especially easy to live in.


Bye bye!

We decide to split today. No, not what you think, but pretty close. John and I continue to work through the travel and personal issues that exist in any relationship no matter where you are, made even more complex by day-to-day living, 7/24/365. Even in the beautiful city of Paris, there are bound to be days of travel fatigue.

I decide to spend some time on my own today and head out early to use my ticket for the Louvre. I shower and head out by 10:45 and grab a Starbucks coffee and head to the Palais Royal/Louvre métro station. The day is a typical Parisian one (or at least the Paris that I have become accustomed to): big white and grey clouds undulating and rolling across ancient vistas; threatening at any moment to open up and rain down. The sun occasionally comes out and brightens the monuments but never long enough for you catch that perfect picture of reflected sun on a beautiful vista.

The Louvre is, well, the Louvre. Built as a fortress in the 13th century and then rebuilt as a palace in the 16th, it is, as we all know, a daunting structure. I figure I will get “the hits” taken care of early and walk into the Denon wing and visit La Jaconde, or as popular culture (and fans of the Da Vinci Code) knows her, the “Mona Lisa”. It frightens me to think that the management of the Louvre have succumbed to popular pressure and are presenting a “Da Vinci Code” tour of the paintings and clues that Mr. Brown has so successfully written about. I brave the Japanese tourists and it take at least 15 minutes for me to elbow my way to the front of the crowd, only to be blinded by the thousands of flash cameras that are supposedly not allowed in the Louvre. I stand my ground for some 10 minutes, trying to absorb La Jaconde’s intriguing smile but eventually not even her tempting smile is enough for the thousands of people here today.

I catch some of the Spanish painting (saw much better offerings in Madrid), tons of Italian paintings, and the 3 Da Vincis that were not so crowded and therefore splendid. The Winged Victory of Samothrace took my breath away as did the Reuben’s Gallery devoted entirely to his mythological portraits of Catherine de Medici for her house at the Luxembourg. The French master David and his Coronation of Napoleon and his other works were also an eyeful. I finish with the Napoleon III apartments as a reminder of what life is really all about. I leave three and a half hours later feeling overwhelmed, exhausted and somewhat unfulfilled. Next time, I guess.

I wind my way back in the late afternoon sun, a welcome relief from all the rain. The sun is short lived however. By the time I finish my shopping for salad and dessert for tonight’s dinner at John and François’, it is raining again. But it is a gentle and insignificant Paris rain.

We are doing le Grand Tour of Museums these days: today, our grand tour continues today with the Monet, Turner, and Whistler exhibit newly-opened at the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, which was built for the 1900 World ’s Fair, just south of the Rond-Point of the Champs- Élysées. Ten minutes into the exhibition we notice that some of the works have been loaned by the Art Gallery of Ontario and we proudly beam to be Canadian, silently gloating over all the references to the AGO. We later see in the gallery program that this exhibition was originated at the AGO. More pride and more gloating! The exhibition originated in Toronto and is an incredibly interesting example of these three great artists of impressionist painting and how they influenced each other. One would not ordinarily see these particular canvases together, and it is a seamless and geographically-connected exhibition. I have not looked at another landscape in the same way since.

The rain has started again and as we view the last painting, I look out and see the long line of expectant gallery goers, their faces hidden by their black and multicoloured umbrellas, chilly and wet from the Paris rain.

We walk to place de la Concorde and take some very touristy pictures in the breaking sun.



Top from left: from Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe, looking up the Champs- Élysées; the Assemblée Nationale, across the Seine
Bottom from left: the obelisk in Place de la Concorde, with the Tour Eiffel in the background; next time, can we stay at the Crillon?

The wet cobbles take us to the Madeleine and we stick our heads into the church for some moments of solitude. The reflected sun on the wet rue Royale greets us as we amble down the slippery steps of the Madeleine.


From left: the Madeleine; the view down rue Nationale to Place de la Concorde and l’Assemblée Nationale from the Madeleine

Then we make our way along the Grands Boulevards to the Opéra. More tourist shots here.


l’Opéra Garnier

We head for home relatively early today - 4 p.m. - and have a quiet early evening of it. We are planning to meet John, François, and their friend Tom after a concert that they are attending. The arranged time is 11 pm so we nap, grab some local supper and take the métro to the infamous Pigalle, home of the Moulin Rouge and the old red light district of Paris, for 11 o’clock.

Today we dawdle through the Musée d’Orsay. Greg enjoyed it more than I did: the crowds on the top floor, where the impressionists hang, made me crazy; I admit that I was tired after hanging out last night with Bob and Bill on their last evening in Paris. Greg, on the other hand, is an impressionist aficionado, and could have spent another couple of hours just hanging around, if not observing the art, then observing the observers.


From left: the main hall of the Musée d’Orsay; the view of Paris from the museum, with Sacré Coeur in the background; looking at the Louvre through one of the museum’s clocks

I, on the other hand, discover that the museum is “polyvalente”, as the French say (i.e. multidisciplinary), and make my way to the 3rd floor, to the rooms and furniture exhibit, where I was more or less alone and could really enjoy them. I discover that the Gare d’Orsay had a grand hotel built onto one side of it for the 1900 World’s Fair, and some of the rooms have been preserved in their original, over-the-top state. A precursor to Skydome?

Greg and I meet up again on the main floor, and discover the opera spaces, with incredibly wonderful maquettes of the Opéra Garnier and the whole neighbourhood around it as it was in 1914. We spend an extra ½ hour studying them, both of us fascinated by the technology of the theatre, and the detail of the maquettes themselves.

The museum itself is lovely, soaring space if a somewhat complicated one to manoeuvre around. Perhaps those who wish to turn Toronto’s Union Station into a cultural beacon should begin their research at the d’Orsay.

Walking back to our place, we walk along the Seine for a bit, then turn away and walk along the rue des Saints Pères, full of wonderful little art galleries and antique stores. We see a florist’s shop we think should open a branch in Toronto.

Everyone has been commenting on my new scarf and how stylish and popular it is with Parsians. Just luck in the selection, I guess, and of course a strong sense of style. Bob needs and wants one too (a scarf that is, not a sense of style). So we set out today to do some shopping and a small museum called le Musée Jacquemart-André on the famous Boul. Haussmann.

We poke our heads into a few stores and spend some time in Printemps, followed by a quick buzz through C&A. Bob decides on the Printemps scarf and we continue our walk along the boulevard. Lunch is in a typical Parisan business-man place, and we all have salades composés amidst the smoke and the cramped quarters of the restaurant.

La Musée Jacquemart-André is housed in a beautiful hotel particulier on Boul. Haussmann and is about a 15 minute walk from our boisterous lunch. We arrive and walk up the carriageway to the front of the mansion, ingeniously placed away from the street so that there would not be a traffic jam when the Andrés entertained, and enter. As we were in the small palaces in St. Petersburg, we are greeted by opulent splendour and transported back to the house that the Parisian portraitist Nélie Jacquemart, a Catholic aristocrat who was commissioned to paint M. André’s (a Huguenot) portrait made their home and the showcase for their amazing art collection after their very unorthodox courtship and marriage. Throughout the museum we see pieces that they purchased from around the world on the advice (and request) of the Louvre curators, because the acquisition budget at the Louvre at the time was too small to allow it to purchase truly important pieces. It is an easy and lovely museum to walk. The temporary exhibit is a fascinating show, “les Trésoires de Napoleon” and traces many of his and Josephine’s personal belongings, both political and everyday.


From left: Printemps; Eglise St. Augustin, off the Boul. Haussmann; La Musée Jacquemart-André

After 2 hours we go our separate ways, only to meet again in a few hours for dinner. It is Bob and Bill’s last night in Paris and we will head out for dinner later on. But not before getting caught in a power outage at Chatelet station on the Métro. We have had constant praise for the Métro in Paris: you never have to wait more than 2-3 minutes for a train and there hasn’t been any issue with service or trains (except for the long walks at some of the transfer points). It takes us over an hour and a half and six trains to get home and we only have time to change our clothes and head out again for dinner.

Dinner is in a renowned Parisian brasserie that is listed in the Michelin guide and very close to the Place de la République. We have a very French waiter in a suit, some lovely seasonal charcuterie, and a couple of bottles of wine. We wish Bob and Bill bon voyage and head for the last métro across the Seine to the left bank.

We allow ourselves the luxury of a lazy morning, and sit in the apartment, reading the paper and drinking coffee, once we wake up. Our plan today is to visit the Musée d’Orsay, the train station on the rive gauche that was turned into a museum 15 or so years ago, and which holds the nation’s art collection dating from the 1848 revolution onwards.

We decide to walk to the museum, along Boul. St. Germain, past the chic cafés, les Deux Magots, Flore, and Lipp, past the chic designer shops, past the chic furniture shops, past the chic home accessory shops, then past the chic kitchen design shops, the last 3 types eliciting sighs of “if we only had a home”, sung to the tune of the song from The Wizard of Oz.

We turn towards the Seine. The change in atmosphere is dramatic: we walk into an area dominated by 4 and 5 star hotels and the art galleries and restaurants that serve their clientele. We round a corner and there is the museum, but there are also at least 1,000 people in the line waiting to buy tickets. (We realize that coming here on the day the Louvre is closed was not such a good idea). So we head to the advance sales window, and buy tickets for later in the week. The sun has begun to poke through the clouds, and we decide to take advantage of the sun and to spend the rest of the day walking.

We walk a few hundred metres along the Seine, and then cross over to the Tuileries and the Louvre. The Tuileries are full of people enjoying the sun. We walk through the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, the arch at the Louvre end of the Voie Triomphale, the long straight line that heads through the Place de la Concorde, up the Ave. de Champs- Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe and on to la Grande Arche de la Défense.


From left: The Louvre, across the Seine; l’Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel; les Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, across the Seine

From the Tuileries we take the Métro #1 to the far-end of the Champs- Élysées, and walk backwards, towards centre ville. We window-shop, but are not tempted. When we reach the Rond-Point, at Ave. Franklin D. Roosevelt, our feet lead us down the stairs into the Métro and to home, where we dine on pizza and have an early evening.

The weather is so incredibly changeable these days. It is hard to decide whether to make it a museum day or a day to be outside enjoying everything Parisian. We take our chances and our umbrellas today as we plan with Bill and Bob to walk some of Paris’ chic-est shopping streets, and to eventually ending up at Place Vendome.

The metro takes us to Republique (thank goodness for the 7-day Carte Orange, the very cheap weekly pass that allows unlimited use of the amazing Paris Metro and RER system, where the trains run every 2 minutes, all day long) and we have a very quick coffee with Bob and Bill before returning to Chatelet station and our stroll along the rue de Rivoli, through the grounds of the Palais Royale, along rue St. Honore and into Place Vendome. We stop frequently to window shop at the mostly exclusive clothing, jewellery and antique stores along the avenue.


From left: Some museum we saw; Le Palais Royale

We turn right into the Place Vendome and walk its perimeter, lingering again to window shop at Bulgari, Cartier, Mikimoto, and Van Cleef & Arpels. I emphasize “window shop”.


From left: the intrepid map reader; Place Vendome

We stop near the Madeleine for lunch in a busy creperie where we leave our guide book. I don’t realize this until we are several blocks away and so Bob and I scoot back to the restaurant and it is being well looked after by some already well-fed Brits who took over our table after we finished lunch.

Our next plan of attack is Sacre Coeur and we take the metro to Abesse station and walk the short walk to the funicular up the hill and the wonderful views of Paris. The interior of the church is nothing really, and it is extremely young compared to many other churches, mosques and temples we have been in this year. The views today are somewhat overcast, but it is part of the pilgrimage of Paris and the many tourists visiting today attests to its popularity.


Sacre Coeur

Bob and Bill head home for naps; we will meet later for dinner. We meet Francois for a very quick coffee and an even quicker stroll around Le Marais ensue as we are both tired from a full day of walking. We do take time to stop at a beautiful “hotel particulier” that is now part of the National Archives, although we find it hard to believe that there is such a beautiful palace right in the heart of Paris. The sun comes out just in time for these shots. For once the camera is on and ready.


In the Marais

We head for home, put our feet up for half and hour, then Bill and Bob meet us in our neighbourhood. We wander St. Germain and find a warm and inviting Italian restaurant with a very friendly host named Sam who seems to be big fan of John’s. Three bottles of wine later and probably one of the most expensive meals we’ve paid for on this trip, we wander back to our beds and some red wine dreams.

What else do you do in Paris on Sunday but sleep? But the pealing church bells gently rouse us from our bed and we join the locals for omelettes in Le Danton, our bistro on the corner, leisurely enjoying our cafés au lait and the English Sunday papers for a good hour and a half.

The drizzle continues to drizzle, turning to downright rain on occasion. Everyone is wrapped in their fall finest and we feel a little underdressed with what little we have in our followsummer suitcases. But we are warm and dry and that is really all that matters. Ha! If you ever want to feel insecure about what you are wearing, rent a flat in St. Germain! The scarf and fleece I bought in Montpellier have come in very handy but we can’t compete with the furs and leathers and pashminas being displayed in the 6eme Arr., formally known as Luxembourg, popularly known as St. Germain.

We wander our neighbourhood today, getting a sense of where things are and where to pick up our milk and baguettes. We find an internet café by chance and they are happy to let us connect our “portable” to their network. We run into Bob and Bill just outside one of the 4 recently-opened Starbucks in Paris in our arrondissement and we take them on a tour to St. Sulpice and Le Jardin de Luxembourg, which are just behind our flat. The Parisians are enjoying their Sunday in the park, the drizzle has finally stopped, and despite the yellow, falling leaves, the gardens are still beautiful and full of colour. Children are launching their sailboats in the big circular fountain in the middle of the park; older Parisians are sitting in the grey metal chairs provided, watching the world go by. It is just as we remember this place the last time that we were in Paris, when we spent a glorious All Saints’ Day reading in the garden at the Luxembourg.


Le Jardin du Luxembourg

We have dinner plans this evening with John and Francois and we walk Bill and Bob to Odeon station and pick up flowers to take with us.

The early evening turns dark and rainy again; the shimmering red, green and white lights of a Paris twilight reflected in the wet, watery streets. We make our way to John and Francois’ apartment on the Quai de la Seine for a lovely home-cooked meal and great conversation. A friend of John’s, Tom, rounds out the group and we spend a merry evening speaking English, much to Francois’ chagrin.

October 8: St. Fréchoux to Issoire: 265 kilometres
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Overnight in an Ibis hotel in the middle of nowhere. Beers in the lobby before a mediocre dinner at a French “Ponderosa” style steakhouse restaurant before going back to the Ibis lobby for more beers and the company of a rollicking GB couple Glynn and Marcelle. Bed late/up early.

October 9: Issoire to Paris: 455 kilometres
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Ahhhh, Paris. Wonderful, glamorous Paris. Hustling and bustling Paris. The Paris that is so far from St. Fréchoux Paris. And why is it that every time we come to this magical city it rains? There is a constant and persistent rain pelting Paris as we arrive in the early afternoon but it is the kind of rain only the wonderful city of Paris can pull off. The romantic “Paris is for lovers” kind of rain that doesn’t even get you wet. You know what I’m talking about.

We have rented a garret right in the heart of Paris: rue de l’Odeon and boulevard St. Germain, near St. Germain des Pres, and what it lacks in some amenities, it makes up in its location and is a fabulous spot from which to explore Paris. We are feeling lucky to be in such a busy and glamorous arrondissement, so close to everything Parisian. We unload the car amongst the very chic shoppers and Saturday strollers and lug our bags to the very top of the building before we drop our car at the apartment of our friends Francois and John. We met them in Croatia and they have graciously offered us their parking spot for our ten days here. They live on the Quai de la Seine near the Gare du Nord and we have a surprisingly easy drive through Paris to get to their apartment.

The car safe and secure, we quickly get caught up with John (Francois is at work) before we head back downtown to our garret to do some organizing before our dinner rendezvous with our Toronto friends Bill and Bob, who are also in Paris at the moment. We weren’t supposed to be in Paris quite yet; we were going to explore Bordeaux, but when we heard they were going to be in Paris right now, we changed our plans to spend some time in Paris with them.


From left: no 4, rue de l’Odeon; the views from our garret

The garret organized, we take the Metro to the Place de la Republique where Bob and Bill are staying. They have a great B&B overlooking the Place and it is very Parisian, a dark, winding, dangerous stairway included. They too are on the very top floor, and we huff and puff our way up the ancient stairwell to the top.

We have our traditional martini(s) before dinner in Bill and Bob’s room and we head out into the Marais for a rollicking Saturday night dinner, with lots of wine, toasts, and stories to welcome us to Paris.

Happy Thanksgiving!
And Happy Birthday to Tom Bouffard and Lina Milone!







Au revoir, St. Fréchoux!
Merci, Monika and Ditmar!
Nous nous souvenons!

We drive north today, the same route that we will drive tomorrow as we start our move to Paris. But we only go 50 or so kilometres, to Millau, at one end of the spectacular Gorges du Tarn, where the Causse Noir and the Causse de Larzac meet, these 2 large plateaux creating a huge gorge between them, hundreds of metres deep. Millau is famous for glove-making, and the village of Roquefort, which has a monopoly on cheeses of that name, is close by. Today, it is the main entry to the Parc Naturel Régional des Grands Causses, and because of the thermals that come off the causses, hang-gliding and parapente are big attractions.


The gorge

Until now, the A75 autoroute has stopped at Millau, and a 2 lane road has gone down one side of the gorge and up the other. But in January 2005, the Viaduc de Millau will open. An engineering masterpiece, it will have the highest piers in the world, and be something just under 3 kilometres in length.


Under the viaduct

The day is grey and misty. We round a corner and there is the gorge. Ahead there is a viewpoint. We stop, and all of a sudden, barely visible in the distance, we can see the almost-completed viaduct. We drive down into the valley, through Millau and along the Tarn until we are under the viaduct. It is incredibly high, and an elegant structure.


Le Viaduc de Millau

My only regret is that we cannot drive across the viaduct. We will have to return to Millau! (This is not, of course, the only reason for coming back to Languedoc Roussillon!!!!!!!)

Our wake-up call rings promptly at 4:30 am and we dress and wash our faces and pack the car for Rosemary’s drive to the airport and her trip home. After our sleepy and teary good-byes, we head back to bed (getting quite lost on the way back - John says that Montpellier is the most confusing city he’s driven in in Europe) at 5:30, and re-awake at 9. The hotel provides a wonderful continental breakfast (at a price) and we indulge in the café aux laits and pastries before heading back to our room to shower and check out.

Thank you, Rose for your friendship and your generosity. We had a lovely time with you and both St. Fréchoux and we miss you!

The day is completely overcast; a flat grey nothingness greets us. Seemingly overnight, the seasons have changed and we are in fall. As we walk into the centre-ville to run some errands, brown, dry leaves are blowing up the street, accumulating at the curbs and in the corners of buildings. While it is cooler than it was last week, I don’t think that it warrants the extra sweater or down vest that some of the locals are wearing, but we buy some cheap fleeces and a scarf for me in anticipation of the next month of coolness as we head north.

We wander a bit, consider finding an VO movie (version originale, in English), but ultimately head home about 3 pm and have a nap, a glass of wine, a light supper, some new books and bed – in that order.

I, know - the glamorous and exiting life of the international traveller.

Although Greg and I have gone through Montpellier many times since our arrival in Languedoc Roussillon, our trips into the centre have been focussed on finding a specific place, and we have not really explored it. Mid-morning, we head over to explore it before we head to our hotel for the night.

We somehow find our way to the heart of the city, many of the streets of which are tunnelled under what is now pedestrian-only zones, and park. When we walk up from the garage, we discover that we are in the middle of the Place de la Comédie, the heart of Montpellier. We stroll through the streets of the centre, a huge area without any cars; there are lots of people about. This is no longer a sleepy provincial town, and we learn that it is the fastest growing city in the fastest growing area of France.


Place de la Comédie

Rose does some shopping for souvenirs to take to family and friends, and we wend our way into the part of town that we did find on our earlier visits, the Place Royale du Peyrou, near the Arc de Triomphe, built in 1692, and France’s oldest botanic garden, founded in 1593 by Henri IV.


From left:L’Arc de Triomphe and Place Royale du Peyrou; Le Palais du Justice; Les Arceaux

After our wandering and exploring, it is late afternoon and we head to our hotel to check in. We discover that Le Jardin des Sens is a beautiful, simple hotel, despite having one of the best restaurants in the world, and we all settle in to indulge ourselves. Rose has a bath, Greg naps, and I spend a wonderful hour studying the menu, reading it cover to cover.


From left: the dining pavilion at Le Jardin des Sens; les jardins

We meet in the lobby at 7:30 for Campari and Perrier before heading across the street for dinner; although the hotel’s restaurant is not open on Mondays, there is a brasserie across the street, a proving ground for chefs, waiters and new dishes, before any are allowed to move across the street to the restaurant proper. The room is beautiful, although we wish it were warm enough to sit outside in the equally beautiful courtyard. By 9:00, the room is full of Gallic flair - we feel like the only people in the room not exhibiting it! And although it is a brasserie, cheap it is not. Despite which, jeans and t-shirts (beautiful jeans and beautiful t-shirts, without question, all beautifully worn) seem to be the preferred clothing of those who can afford to eat here.

Our meals are truly spectacular! Our mains - lamb for Rose, sushi for Greg, and taureau for me - are perfect. If this is the brasserie, we cannot imagine the quality in the restaurant itself. And yet, the service still exhibits that carefree “charm” that we have observed elsewhere.

We retire to our beds as soon as we leave the restaurant; tomorrow will start very early. I dream of living in le jardin des sens.

Our typical Sunday in St. Fréchoux: quiet, sleeping late. Today I make scrambled eggs and smoked salmon. We warm the slightly stale baguette for toast, make another pot of coffee and ease into the day. There is a hazy sun poking through but it doesn’t really show its warmth until after noon.

Our plan is a very simple one and easily executed: we will stop at the small town of Gignac on our way back to St.-Guilhem-le-Désert. Gignac has a lovely church and interesting monuments that we have seen from the highway every time we drive to Montpellier, which have piqued our interest from our first day here. Rose had not arrived when we initially went to St.-Guilhem-le-Désert and it really is a must see in the area.


But before we get to Gignac ... Rose and her new friend

Gignac is typical of the local towns: an old “centre typique” and much newer subdivisions that are full of orange and yellow stucco houses, newly but unobtrusively spread out in her surrounding fields. It seems no different than in North America where farmers, when they reach a certain level of prosperity, buy their nagging wives new houses with all the latest conveniences. And we just drool over the beautiful old stone houses that they have left to the fields, and to the self-seeding trees and bushes that have made their new homes there. We talk about how much work that house would take or how much money a new roof would cost. Beautiful dreamers.

We drive up the small hill in Gignac to Notre Dame de Grace and are greeted by an unusual edifice. A huge old church with a Spanish front to it. It is locked today and seems to be guarded by a local, very grim man (in a tie, of course - it is Sunday!) who isn’t persuaded to crack even a small smile by John’s ultra-friendly “Bonjour!” We walk down the drive to look at the monuments that line it and I quickly realize that these small buildings are all Stations of the Cross, each depicting a different scene from Christ’s tortuous trail to Calvary. We end our trail at station number 6 and enjoy the scenery across the Vallée de l’Hérault.


Notre Dame de Grace


From left: The Stations of the Cross; the view

We navigate through and around the vineyards and arrive in St.-Guilhem-le-Désert by a different route this time, via the Pont du Diable, which crosses the huge gorge that the valley drains into. It is a much different greeting today than the quiet town of last Monday. The town is full of tourists, many with dogs and noisy children. We have learned to keep constant vigil lest you should step in a big pile of steaming dog merde. The French just don’t get it when it comes to their dogs and don’t seem to care about ruining their expensive shoes. We walk, and despite the crowds, are still impressed with the beauty of the town. We see a sign posted that announces the upcoming celebrations of the Town’s 1200th anniversary of its founding by St. Guilhem in 804. There are a series of lectures, including one titled “Who Sold the Abbey’s Cloister?” (to the Cloisters Museum in New York City). Book a room now!


L’abbaye de St.-Guilhem-le-Désert


From left: St.-Guilhem-le-Désert; now these are tourists we like!

I make a very Provençal dinner tonight for Rosemary’s last evening in St. Fréchoux: a small roast of beef surrounded by roasted potatoes, artichokes and onions. We finish our store of wine, do some packing for our overnight in Montpelier tomorrow and say our good-nights.

Saturday is market day in Arles. We pull off the highway and right into a traffic jam caused by the market. Cars are zipping in and out of invisible parking places (called sidewalks), adding to the mayhem. We finally find a place to park on the top level of a multi-story parking garage.

We walk out the back entry and find that we are on the main street of Arles, totally closed to traffic because of the market. Directly across the street is the Roman theatre, we walk around it without entering, having seen a finer example in Orange. We discover a wonderful shop nearby full of Provençal potteries, including these wonderful hens.


From left: the Roman Theatre; Provençal pottery hens

From here we walk in a big circle through the city, past the Arena, and into the church of St. George, the patron saint of les gardiens, the cowboys of the Camargue, where we discover a rehearsal in progress for a recital by a soprano with a lovely voice. We sit in the back of the church and listen for a few minutes before we move on to the reconstruction of Van Gogh’s bedroom (the maison jaune was destroyed during the war), up to the Rhône, past the Thermes de Constantin, the only part of Constantine’s great palace left standing.


From left: the Arena; St. George’s; Van Gogh’s bedroom

We complete our loop, and decide to lunch at a lovely looking hotel, just off the square of the Roman theatre. The restaurant we choose, Le Calendal, serves a delicious buffet at lunch in its beautiful golden yellow sunlit garden courtyard. We enjoy the atmosphere almost as much as the food.


From left: l’Hotel de Ville d’Arles; shutters

Arles is the gateway to the Camargue, the broad delta of the Rhône, and after lunch we head out of town to explore it. As we go back to the car, we discover the market is gone, not a trace left.

The Camargue is a vast wetland, much of it now a national park, which supports a huge array of birdlife, including flocks of flamingos, as well as the famed white horses and black cattle. It has also been, for many centuries, a major source of salt, called fleur du sel, formed when seawater evaporates. Today, fleur du sel is gourmet salt, and is priced accordingly.


One of the famed white horses of the Camargue

Our drive through the Camargue is beautiful; close to Arles we head through yet more vineyards, but the farther away we get the wilder the land gets, until close to Les Stes.-Maries de la Mer, where the Petit Rhône meets the Mediterranean, and where we find - yet another beach resort!

After we walk on the beach for a few moments, we continue on our way, this time to Aigues Mortes (Dead Waters), the royal town established by Louis IX in the 1200s, in order that the French crown could have a Mediterranean port – as most of what is now southern France was not yet part of France at that time. From Aigues Mortes, whose walls still stand complete, Louis launched both the 6th and 7th Crusades, sending 1500 ships to battle in the 6th Crusdade. Today, Aigues Mortes is a long way inland, the delta having expanded seaward, and is connected to the sea only by the Canal du Rhône à Sète.


The walls and lighthouse of Aigues Mortes

We have gone in a big circle, and at Aigues Mortes we are only a few kilometres from Montpellier and home. We head home to our simple supper of cheese and wine, and to bed.

We decide to take today a little easier and do some local driving, hitting some of the neighbouring hamlets and following ancient routes and highways that traverse the windswept hills and valleys called La Route Causses et Vallées de l’Hérault. The Hérault is the major river of this area, and it gives the département its name. The signpost beckons us to “set out on a journey of discovery of the land of the great highways, following the trail of the Chevalier Pons de l’Héra”. This takes us from St. Fréchoux up into the mountains through lovely little towns with incredible vistas. Winding up and down through hairpin turns, we follow the route of the Chevalier whose young, privileged and obviously boring life lead him to steal everything he could get his hands on, mostly from his neighbours (and particularly their livestock). After years of plundering, he announced his miraculous conversion one fateful Christmas Day and sold off all his worldly belongings to repay all those to whom he had caused suffering and hardship for all those years, and committing his life to God. What a guy!

The weather is incredible – warm sunny days, in the high 20s, breaking into coolish evenings, the sun setting just after 8 pm. Today is no different, providing wonderful views from the craggy hilltops.


The village of St. Privat

We wind our way back to Lodève and a very late lunch with a very jolly host. He has a very limited lunch menu today - there is in fact only one item left, a lovely lamb kabob salad with couscous. What he lacks in food choices he certainly makes up with his quirky sense of humour. He also informs us that because we are no longer “in the season” it is hard to keep staff and to offer many food choices. All of this is in French, of course. Still, we are happy to be able to eat outside on a lovely patio on the first day of October.


Bon Appétit!

Our drive brings us back to Clermont l’Hérault and our internet café, where we update the website and finalize some bookings for our two day drive to Paris on Friday and Saturday. Rosemary answers some email, sending notes to her daughter Madeleine at school in Massachusetts, and to husband Charlie and son Foster in Michigan.

We book a very lovely hotel as a treat for Rose’s last night in Montpelier before her 6:40 a.m. flight home on Tuesday. We will be staying at a Relais & Chateaux hotel called Le Jardin des Sens, which has a restaurant as its main drawing card that is rated 3 stars in Michelin’s Le Guide Rouge. Unfortunately for us (but fortunately for our wallets!) the restaurant is closed on Mondays. Perhaps John and I will have to return before we leave, and really blow the budget.

We make a dinner reservation for 8:30 tonight at Le Tournesol, back here in Clermont l’Hérault, and head home for quick naps and a change of clothes before turning around and coming back into town for dinner. Frick and Frack are on duty again, and we watch their antics and laugh at their slapstick service. We have noticed - not only here but in other restaurants in France in which we have eaten - that there is generally a throw-the-plates-on-the-table style of service that, for us, takes away from the ambience and quality of the food that is being presented. The French, however, seem as unfazed by this style of service as they are about everything else.

We seem to be happily stretching our already overstretched eating budget, as we have certainly been eating very well during our time here in the south of France. Rosemary’s company has been a wonderful incentive to enjoy all the pleasures of both Provence and Languedoc Roussillon. Her friendship and company is also very welcome after our months of travelling together. 10 months of twenty-four/seven is, admittedly, starting to wear on us both. We predicted that there might be a time to welcome friends into our trip, and Rosemary this week and David and Kathryn last week have been appreciated companions: we have had familiar and lively discussions and lots of catching up over dinners and glasses of wine in our little chateaux in Calonge and St. Fréchoux.

Happy Early Birthdays to David Blandford and Lucy Peacock!

Provence beckons! Traffic on the A9 is light as we head out to Orange, home of the family that includes St. Guilhem, the Dutch royal family, and William of Orange, the King of England. Orange is also home to the only Roman Amphitheatre in Europe with its stage wall intact.


Theatre Antique d’Orange, with its stage wall

From Orange, we drive the 8 kilometres to Chateauneuf-du-Pape, home of one of the world’s premier wines. Harvest is in full swing as we drive along the country roads, the air is pungent with the smell of grapes. As we get into town, we see that many of the caves are closed, and have signs directing enquiries to the vineyards themselves.

We climb up above the town to the remains of the palace that the popes built for themselves when the papacy was in Avignon. There is a wonderful view of the Rhone from up here.


From left: the remains of the Chateauneuf; Rose contemplates the view; the Rhone valley from the Chateauneuf

On the walk down into town, Rose spots a restaurant she has read about in her restaurant guide, La Mere Germaine, and we decide that it is just the place for lunch. We sit on a terrace, protected from the heat of the sun but with a view over the vineyards, and we have a truly wonderful meal. As is quickly becoming the norm, we order the “Menu”; our desserts are truly amazing!

Now it is time for some serious touring, as we head to Avignon itself, the famous bridge and the Palais des Papes.

The papacy resided in Avignon for close to 100 years in the 1300s; although the information given at the Palais des Papes itself treads lightly on the history, we come to understand that the Pope was forced to move here by the French-born King of Naples, “for his own protection”. The Avignon papacy of course ended with the schism that saw 2 cardinals both claiming to be Pope.


Le Palais des Papes

The palace built by the Popes whilst in Avignon is huge and hugely impressive. We are fascinated that the tour itself starts in the Treasury, where the Pope’s right-hand-man counted the money coming in from the sale of indulgences.

Following the Revolution, the Palais des Papes was for many years a military barracks, until Napoleon III visited and recognized its historic importance, and ordered the military to vacate. Much of the original décor was destroyed during this time, but we see glimpses of the former splendour, particularly in a tile floor that is original in the Pope’s study.

We spend a long time at the Palais, fascinated by the history and the building itself. When finally we leave, we head to the Pont Saint Benezet, the famous Pont d’Avignon where everybody dances. The first bridge over the Rhone south of Lyon, it was opened in 1185. Today the Rhone is calm, thanks to many dams that control its flow; it used to be anything but, and the bridge meant that Avignon became an important town for both trading and pilgrims heading to Santiago de Campostello.


Sur le pont d’Avignon, l'on y danse, tout en rond!

From Avignon we head back towards home, but we are not yet done for the day. As we cross back into Languedoc from Provence, we see signs for the Pont du Gard, and realize that it will take us only 6 kilometres out of our way to see this feat of Roman engineering. And so off we go.

The Pont du Gard is a 275 metre long, 3 tiered aqueduct that is part of a 50 kilometre long system of canals built under Agrippa in 19 BC to bring water to Nimes. Engineered to carry 20,000 cubic metres of water per day, it was known as an engineering masterpiece even during Roman times. Today it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.


Le Pont du Gard

By the time we get home we are ready for bed. Supper, such as it is, consists of cheese and crackers – without question, French cheese and French crackers, with a nice bottle of red wine from the vineyard down the road from the house.

A horn blasts every morning in our little village, somewhere between 8:30 and 9:00. If we were at home, we would think we were near a construction site and the coffee truck had rolled up. This morning we investigate and find that it is a patisserie-on-wheels! Our little hamlet is not big enough for a shop, but we can still get fresh baguettes and pains-au-chocolat for our petit dejeuner.


Our wonderful front door

Today is market day in the closest “big” town, Clermont l’Herault, and we head in to spend the morning among the townsfolk, savouring the smells of the butchers, the cheesemongers, the epiceries. The only thing that isn’t on wheels in town today is a patisserie. We walk through the stalls of clothing and wonder who buys this stuff?


From left:Clermont l’Herault: the church; market day

We are heading to the car when we spot umbrellas on a terrace, above the river (although, it being fall in a dry climate, the river has no water running). It is Le Tournesol (the Sunflower), a restaurant we had been told was quite good, and so up we go for a delicious lunch. The menu is priced in that uniquely French way, where an entrée, main and dessert are barely more expensive than a main alone. So we go the whole way, and order some wine as well. The restaurant is full, and it seems that lunch is a family affair, as there are many children here today. We enjoy watching the 2 waiters playfully make faces at the kids as they race by with their loads; we nickname them Frick and Frack, and wonder how they avoid an upset, as they are always running into the backs of chairs, and even each other as they go in and out the single door to the kitchen. The food is heavenly, and we linger longer than we should, enjoying the sun and the coffees, turning into sunflowers ourselves.


Lunch at Le Tournesol

We head to Lodeve, the other “big” town in the area. As we pass the turning to St. Frechoux, we drop Greg at the chateau so he can take a nap. Rose and I continue on to town. Although only about 12 kilometres apart, the difference between Lodeve and Clermont l’Herault is striking. Clermont l’Herault is almost medieval in feeling, its streets winding up and around the church. Although the church in Lodeve is almost as old, dating back to the 12th century, it feels like it has been dropped into place, for everything else, including the beautiful Hotel de Ville that used to be the bishops palace, feels no newer than the French Revolution.


From left: Lodeve: the church; 2 views of l’Hotel de Ville

We walk around a bit, discovering the charms of this sleepy town on what feels like a midsummer’s afternoon. The museum beckons - there are posters all over town, and we respond to their siren call. The museum is inside a beautiful hotel particulier, and the special exhibit this year is of Van Dongen, a Dutch painter, a good friend of Picasso’s, of the late-19th to mid-20th centuries. The show is impressive, and definitive. Both Rose and I are quite taken with it, and given the size of Lodeve (about the same as Mitchell, Ontario) totally surprised by its quality.


Musee Fleury, Musee de Lodeve

We head home, happy, to find Greg busy making a light pasta and salad supper, which helps us assuage the guilt we felt after our big lunch.

Letters from St. Fréchoux:

Dear Charlie:

Rosemary arrived safe and sound today from the U.S. but was been delayed an hour due to equipment issues on her connecting flight from Paris. We greet her with European kisses for each cheek and bundle her bags into the car for our drive back to St. Fréchoux. Hope all is well with you back in Kalamazoo. Give a big hug to Foster for us; we hope he isn’t missing Midgie too much. And say hi to her for us too. We hope she is settling into school.

Groceries are needed and we do a pitstop with the somewhat jet-lagged Rose in tow, bleary-eyed and dealing with the French supermarket. We grab our supplies and head into the late September sun and a quiet evening over roast chicken, potatoes and some haricots verts. We have chardonnay already chilling for Rose and we toast her welcome to St. Fréchoux over several glasses of wine. How French!

Letters from St. Fréchoux:

Dear Eric:

We hope your Sydney spring continues to be springy and say hi to Graham for us. We trust he is keeping out of trouble but we somehow doubt it!
It is a rather sleepless night for both us last night and I finally fell asleep long after the very early grape pickers have set out for the day. We sleep till 9:30 and are greeted by a clear blue sky and glorious sunshine. Our plans today are to drive to Lodève and Lac Salagou which are really only a stone’s throw away from our little chateau.

Mondays are not the day to do things in France and especially the south of France: everything is shut tighter than a drum! Lodève is very quiet and we vow to come back later in the week. We buy some stamps (for John’s mom, who collects them) and a Herald Tribune, and drive to Lac Salagou for a quick look. It was so windy we didn’t get out of the car. This too will have to wait.

We head back to the chateau and make some lunch and decide to drive to St. Guilhem-le-Desert and are rewarded for the quiet Monday visitation. The sun is starting to fall to the west and over the mountains when we arrive after 2 p.m. The village is situated in the natural gorge of the high, rocky mountains, with tall, sheer cliffs surrounding it on either side. We drive up through town, park, and from this vantage point we see further up the Gellone valley and the via Tolosana, part of the famous and arduous pilgrimage to the shrine of Santiago de Compostella (or St. Jacques, as the signs here say) on the Atlantic coast of Spain, that winds it way through this area, heading to Toulouse on the way to Compostella.

We find that the town is yet another Unesco World Heritage site, and enjoy the advantages this brings, particularly evident by its neat and tidy streets and organized tourist information. We lock our car and stroll a very short distance into the main town square with a statue of Liberty and her flame gracing the small public fountain. The shops and cafés are doing a small but consistent business from the insignificant number of tourists here. Ahhh, the end of September in the south of France: glorious weather and not too many tourists.


From left: the main square; Lady Liberty; a quaint front entrance in St. Guilhem-le-Desert


From left: on the street; looking up the valley; the ruins of the castle on the mountain

Our strolling takes us down the main street and past small, upscale shops and galleries; all the restaurants, whether they are one star or four are all shut for Monday. We have saved our visit to the monastery for our return jaunt up the hill and we enter the gothic building late in the afternoon.

St. Guilhem had a knightly history, being one of Emperor Charlemagne’s hand-picked band of champions and, like his grandfather, fought bravely against the Saracens of Spain. Folklore has it that under the name “Guilhaume d’Orange” he became famous for his knightly prowess and chivalry and was immortalized in medieval ballads and verse commonly known as “chansons de geste”. St. Guilhem was a faithful and devout Christian and had resolved to end his days at the Monastery at Gellone. He richly endowed the abbey with many of his own possessions and was also in possession of a portion of the True Cross which was given to him by Charlemagne. He became a monk in 806 and died, revered as a saint, in 812. The abbey became a pilgrimage site and the monastery prospered and was rebuilt largely on the wealth and generosity of the splendid offerings made by the devout pilgrims who later came to see the remains of St. Guilhem and the relics of the True Cross. He gave his name to the abbey and to the small village that grew under his protection.

The church is true Gothic. Simple and austere. Some slim bands of sunlight from the small windows high above pierce the cool, musty darkness. We wander out to the cloisters which were destroyed by vandals and thieves at the beginning of the 19th century. What remained was removed and later reassembled in New York at the renowned Cloisters Museum. It isn’t difficult to see how this sunny courtyard, with its carp filled reflecting pool was a place of peace, solitude and respite.

The sun has just passed over the mountains and we make our way home, stopping for a late afternoon picture of an abandoned farmhouse, nestled unkempt and unloved on the edge of a bustling vine-yard.

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Calonge to St. Fréchoux: 267 kilometres

Letters from St. Fréchoux:

Dear Gary:

Bet you are sorry you closed the pool so early this year! We hear you are having a wonderful September. Say hi to Louise, Kim and Shannon for us.

St. Frechoux is as we remember it: quiet and peaceful and Monika and Dittmar’s house is a cosy and charming retreat from the hectic pace of our over-paced trip. We had a lovely and relaxed time with our neighbours David and Kathryn last week. We left them to 4 more days in the Costa Brava at an exclusive hotel and then a flight to London. We are so glad to be their friends. They have offered us their house in January for our (hopefully) soft landing in Toronto in December. They are truly generous and wonderful people. We wish them the very best of luck and love in the next part of their lives.

Our mobile magically rings this quiet Sunday morning in the vineyards and it is the rental agent in Paris who we have been trying to secure and apartment from. We finally have booked an apartment in Paris for our time there. Our best buds Bob and Bill will be in Paris roughly the same time and we have bent our already flexible schedule to spend at least 4 days with them. Bill and Bob hosted our stag the night before we got married last New Year's eve.

It is sunny and blue skied. Our petit chateau is full of sun in the mornings and the wild roses continue to bloom on the small, shaded terrace off the front door. We have unpacked some of Monika and Dittmar’s summer furniture and set ourselves up. There is a mighty wind blowing that chased us up the Spanish coast and into France yesterday and it lingers today. We listen to the gentle droning and humming of the grape picking machines doing their annual thing.

Monika tell us that the house is 208 years old and was once the summer-residence of the archbishops of Lodèeve. They built it in the vineyards close to a romantic river, the Lergue, which is easily seen from the balcony. The original massive cooking hearth remains as does the first stone sink and large water pumping apparatus. The kitchen is warm and welcoming, especially at night, where, I expect, we will congregate around the table with one too many glasses of the local wine.

Today we must get out and view the hamlet and its residents, saying hello to any and all who dare to poke their head out and say bonjour to the new strangers in town.

Congratulations to Dan and Bonna on their wedding day, September 6th.

We set out around 11 this morning to run some errands in the closest “big” town of Clermont l’Herault about a 10 minute drive away.

The market is on today and there is a gentle and pleasant ambience about the town and its people. An organ grinder plays at one end of the square while a jazz singer serenades at the other. People are coming and going in the dappled mid-day sunlight, baguettes in hand. No rushing or pushing; a calm but purposeful attitude prevails on this market day.

Also on our itinerary today is a drive to see Monika and Ditmar’s house that we have rented in the very, very small hamlet of St Frechoux for two weeks upon our return at the end of September. We have instructions from various emails from Monika and we head out. We cross the autoroute and double back along the side road, following the signs for St Frechoux. Vast fields of grapevine stretch out to gently rolling mountains. We pass some out buildings down by a gentle bend in the river and another sign post for St Frechoux but no town on the horizon. We continue the drive to the next roundabout and see a sign for St. Frechoux heading back in the direction we just came from. So we turn around and follow the side road back along to where we have just driven and of course the directional sign for St. Frechoux had been turned the wrong way and indeed those few buildings by the gentle bend in the river, all 11 of them, are St Frechoux. We park on the side of the field and find our small house with the white shutters. It is quintessentially French; a small outside patio that greets you first, wooden shutters on squeaky hinges, low-beamed ceilings and well loved and lived in furniture. It is very charming.

We find the keys and open the door, finding the fuse box to turn the electricity on. We throw open some shutters and get our bearings. I open a window on the second floor and am greeted by an elderly woman across the road standing on her balcony and sternly staring me down. Strangers, it seems are an unusual occurrence in St Frechoux. I say “Bonjour” and explain to her who we are and that we have rented the house from Monika and Ditmar and she immediately changes her demeanour and wishes us “une bonne vacance” but reminds us before she turns and leaves that “this is a very quiet place”.

Monika tells us later that this is Mme Gaujoux, the monarch of St Frechoux, and she lives with her four grown children who are viticulteurs. Monika tells us that Mme Gaujoux would be more than happy to show us the chapel and probably happier to keep tabs on the comings and goings of the new strangers in town.

We finish our brief tour; making mental notes about what we’ll need and what we’ll buy, drop some of the wine that we purchased and head back to the guest house and the pool.

We expect to have a lovely and very quiet time in the hamlet of St Frechoux.


Our little house in St Frechoux

Hot and sunny weather greets us today as we get the scoop on the surrounding area over breakfast from our host Yann. We are in the region of Languedoc Roussillon and it seems to be the hot spot for real estate and tourists. In our small village of St. Jean de la blaquiere, we count 3 pools at least. St. Jean is the quintessential French hamlet, a very small square surrounded by small, pretty stone houses, one very narrow street and a church. No grocery store or pharmacy but three pools! Real estate is being snapped up in Montpellier and many of the small towns surrounding seem to have British or Belgian owners. We actually hear English spoken in the supermarche in the nearby town. This is grape growing country and we are surrounded by vineyards and the thick, purple-blue bunches of grapes are just asking to be picked. Indeed, we have already heard the “grape trucks” pass up our lane into the fields and vineyards beyond.

The afternoon is entirely by the pool. A couple of good books, the new Lonely Planet guide to Spain (and one for France for our return in three weeks), the Herald Tribune crossword puzzle and we are set. The tinny bell of the church in St. Jean de la blaquiere is the only reminder of the wasting of time. A gentle and soothing pealing of the hours as they pass from three to four to five o’clock and beyond.

Tonight we sit in the gathering darkness, punctuated only by the rising moon over the mountains across our valley. We play satellite bingo, a game where you sit in a deck chair and with a glass of wine or a beer, stare up into the sky and try and spot the fast moving satellites as they cross the night sky. Points are awarded for every confirmed sighting and shooting stars (harder to confirm) are the ultimate prize. At this time of year we usually have a game going perched on the upper decks of John’s cousin Jim and Joanne’s cottage in the Madawaska Highlands near Calabogie, Ontario or on the dock, in fleeces and PJs, on the Big Island at Bluesea Lake in Maniwaki, Quebec, sharing our annual Labour Day last hurrah weekend with our friends Bob, Brian and Bill.

We try to explain Labour Day to our fellow guests, Gerard and Craig, Gilles and Jean- Michel, comparing it to France’s May 1 holiday which to me signals the beginning of a summer of vacations, beaches and fun. Labour Day is the end of summer, back to work and school. The fun and sun are done for another 8 months. I am feeling somewhat nostalgic this weekend. Labour Day somehow signals the beginning of the end of our journey; the end of following summer, of getting back to work and reality (although this is not really for another 4 months). We think about our friends and family, old and new, back home and scattered abroad and what they are doing this Labour Day weekend.

Lanqadoc Rousselion
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Nice to St. Jean de la Blaquiere: 396 kilometres

Barcelona is a longer drive than we had expected and before we leave Nice we decide to break up the trip a little and spend a few days in a small guest house with a pool about 30 kilometres from Montpellier. Coincidently, this is also very close to the house that we will be renting at the end of September in St Frechoux. We email Monika and Ditmar that we will be driving through and ask for more specific instructions to their house.

The autroroute takes us through towns big and small as we head west and then south. We are already making mental notes about what we want to see and explore when we return in a month. We arrive in wine country outside of Montpellier, choose one of the many “caves” (cellars) and decide to buy some wine. 5 cases later (alas, they are only cases of 6), we load the car and continue the search for the guest house, quietly secluded in the mountains, surrounded by olive trees and grape vines. We drive through many quaint French hamlets and find “LaVallee aux Ours” and like it so much we decide to spend a couple extra days here.

Our unit is self contained and this gives us an opportunity to cook. We buy some groceries for a couple of days and settle in, grab a glass of wine and some pool time.

We meet a fellow Torontonian today by the name of Yvette. She is a seasoned traveller, having spent a month in Calcutta working with the Mother Teresa foundation and, like us, is heading to Spain. But unlike us, she will be doing the gruelling Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, walking with her life on her back for over 30 days. The conversation turns to our trip and how long we have been traveling. She is surprised and awed by our 7 + month journey and she asks an important question: “Aren’t you exhausted?” In some ways we are.

During our time in India I wrote about travel weariness and how that weariness affects your ability to really know a country and all its unique beauty and offerings. How this psychological weariness somehow makes you blind to the incredible wonderment that these places have to offer; how it turns humbleness into anger and bitterness about not having Western trappings and conveniences available to make your journey easier or more comfortable. It was also a physical weariness, brought on by the tough travel and conditions of both Thailand and India. Both the psychological and the physical were amplified in those countries by seeing so many tough things, things that we still speak of a little uneasily and with hesitation, even to this day,

We have only three and a half months left on this incredible journey and I find that we are having trouble filling in some of the precious time that is left to us. This pattern really started when we arrived in Vienna, exhausted after cramming so much of northern Europe into our schedule. The constant living out of suitcases; never unpacking your toiletries bag, wearing the same clothes day after day, all these things begin to burrow into your psyche and your soul, wearing you down. Of course, in the grand scheme of things, these are small and petty annoyances. But I secretly and enviously watch people checking out of the hotels we are in, jumping into waiting taxis that will drop them at the airport and their flights home; home to their own beds and towels. Knowing that they have just had a week of vacation and on Monday morning they will be “back at it”. My real thrill is when we do laundry; it is like a small gift has been given to us.

Now our conversation starts to drift to the reality of what will happen when we return home. To quote a Harry Nilsson song: ‘Summer’s almost over, the kids are back at school, time to drain the water out of the swimming pool’.

That reality is getting closer and closer

Happy Birthday to Kim George on August 30, and to Elizabeth Bailey on August 31!

Nice is nice but Monaco beckons. We met Claudia and her husband Marco when we were in Mykonos and they have asked us to lunch aboard their yacht which happens to be anchored in Monaco. This is a complete and total surprise to us but also a bit of luck because: a) we had not planned to be in France this early, b) we had not expected them to be here and c) they have a yacht! We ring them on their mobile and sure enough, they are expecting us. We spend an hour deciding what to wear and head off in the car for the 30 minute drive to Monaco and Monte Carlo. We retrace our steps from yesterday and climb the rocky hills up to the autostrada and we are quickly there. We wind our way down the curvy roads into the harbour, thinking of Princess Grace the whole time, past the casino and expensive apartments and luckily find a parking spot within a short walking distance of where the boats are moored. Now, how do we find their yacht?? There are so many, and we have but a vague description of it and where it is moored, but neither one of us is really sure what we are looking for. The sun is beating down on us even at 11:30 but it is Cote d'Azur sun and we are hanging with the beautiful people. And there are a lot of beautiful people here with beautiful clothes and beautiful cars and beautiful yachts and beautiful lives. We are just a couple of semi-tanned white boys from Canada, our eyes and our jaws dropped wide open.


From left: John searching the harbour; the Yacht! the view from the yacht

After some walking and practicing our directional French, we find their boat. It is tucked in amongst the other huge boats lining the harbour. John and I look at each other and smile. Claudia greets us grandly in the European way, big wide air kisses to either side of our heads. Marco does the same but with less gesture and shakes our hands at the same time. There is a bottle of white wine chilling on the table and olives and bread sticks are artfully laid out. Some cool jazz is playing in the background. The blue waters of the Cote d'Azur gently lap the side of the yacht. It can't get any better than this. I remove my sun glasses but quickly put them back on, taking my cue from our hosts, who as I remember, never took them off while they were in Mykonos. I sit down in the beautiful rattan deck chairs with a silly grin from ear to ear, thinking that I have died and gone to heaven or even more foolishly that I could get used to this kind of life!

We have a glass of wine which turns into two, which turns into three. All of a sudden I am aware of two other people on board: the help! A young man and woman, in white Lacoste shirts and pants, their sunglasses on, start to lay out our lunch, bringing place settings and glasses and replenishing the wine. All done quietly and discreetly, never interrupting our conversation. Meanwhile the pace of the Monaco harbour is picking up. People are coming and going. Some stop to look at us and our little oasis of luxury. Keep on looking, I say. I'm enjoying this!

Lunch is traditional Salade Nicoise, big heaping plates of it and fresh baguette and more wine to accompany the salads. Bottles of acqua minerale and coffee and chocolates are offered an hour an a half later. I have that "drunk on the sun feeling" but also am drunk on the wine and the heady atmosphere of the rich and famous. Who knew that Claudia and Marco were so fabulous? Who knew that they were so rich? I guess it pays to be open to meeting new people. The chat and the wine flow easily and we have lots of fun, mostly gossiping about travelling and the people we have met.

Suddenly we realize that it is after 5 pm and John is going to have to navigate the windy corniche road home, heading west directly into the sun. We are obviously hesitant about starting the boozy drive back to Nice when Claudia asks what hotel we are staying at in Nice. I look at John hoping that he will answer and see that he expects the same of me and I casually mention the name (a two star hotel at best). Claudia smiles at Marco, who nods his head in approval and she immediately insists that we spend the night as their guests aboard the yacht. They would even provide the tooth brushes and the robes! We could go out for a late dinner and continue the party, no worries about driving home until tomorrow. We are both speechless at this offer and.....I start from my nap, sweaty and slightly disoriented, the sound of the garbage truck loudly collecting late on a Saturday afternoon. The sounds of the street and the low afternoon sun filter in through the green shuttered windows of the humid rooms in the Hotel du Centre, here in Nice. Jeesh, what a dream I had. Must have been something in the Salade Nicoise I had for lunch earlier today in Monaco. Some weird dream about a yacht in Monaco and too much wine. Her name was Claudine or something.

We are in the car by 10:30 this morning for our 30 minute drive to Monaco and Monte Carlo. We retrace our steps from yesterday and climb the rocky hills up to the autostrada and we are quickly there. We wind our way down the curvy roads into the harbour, thinking of Princess Grace the whole time, past the casino and expensive apartments and luckily find a parking spot within a short walking distance of where the boats are moored.....



Really and truly Monaco

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Noventa di Piave to Nice: 597 kilometres

We apologize to all those Italy lovers out there: we are bypassing the rest of Italy and are on our way to France and Spain. There will be no portraits of the wonderful Tuscan countryside, of romantic castles or of towns perched precariously on hilltops. We have spent more time in Italy on our previous journeys than perhaps anywhere else in the world (no, that may not be true: California would be a very close second). Today we are on the road at 10:00, goodbyes said to Stephano, Luigi the cat and Anouka the dog. We estimate about a 6 hour drive ahead of us.

The drive is as easy as can be, the tolls on the autostrada amazingly expensive, but the roads in great shape. We drive through the lush and bountiful Po Valley before heading south into the Ligurian Apennines, where we drive through at least 200 tunnels of varying lengths and at least as many bridges. The border between France and Italy is a very short break between 2 much longer tunnels. Where did border inspections take place before the Schengen Treaty? Before we know it we are in Nice, in a small hotel across the street from Notre Dame, about 500 metres from the beach.

We walk to the beach, and along the Promenade des Anglais. We walk east for a couple of kilometres, only a part of this amazingly long beach. We are pleasantly surprised to see how much of the beach is public, true they are lacking chaises and parasols, but also lacking that 20 Euro charge for access.

Just before La Colline du Chateau, the promontory that divides Nice in half, the beaches on 1 side, the harbour on the other, we turn away from the beach and into the old town, a jumble of narrow streets crammed with tourists fighting their way around the outdoor cafes, and find a place for dinner.

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