A Good Week

Inspired by the movie, A Good Year (the one with Russell Crowe who inherits a mas in Provence) we decided to go to Provence for our Easter break. We rented a villa, not quite big enough to be considered a mas with our friends from London.

I'll be posting more details and pictures later, but I thought I'd jot some thoughts down while we are still in the thick of lavender, goat cheese, cotes du Rhone wine, Van Gogh, and Cezanne.

We spent our first night in Annecy, France, just over the Swiss border. A very pretty town with good shopping, but a bit of a tourist trap.

The next day we drove to our villa and drove through Avignon on the way. We stopped there for lunch and saw the broken Pont d'Avignon, but we didn't dance. We also saw the Palais du Papes, where the Pope lived in the 1500's or so.

We met our friends in Fuveau, which is just south of Aix-en-Provence. Our villa is quite nice, 4 bedrooms, a playroom and large backyard. It is so nice to get back together with our friends who now live in London, but who used to live in the same apartments as we do in Switzerland. Our kids were ECSTATIC to see each other again, and we adults love the fact that we can put the kids to bed and still hang out together at night without having to go to bed at 8pm too.

We figured that most things would be closed on Easter Sunday, but we were surprised to find many things open. We went to the Musee de Lavande and to a village market and even ran into another family from Aidan's school there! All of these markets have great foods and some art and other bric-a-brac. We also went into the cutest town, St. Remy-de-Provence, and did some shopping. I wish I had bought more there, but I figured all the rest of the towns would have the same stuff, but so far, they haven't. We rounded out the day by visiting the ancient town of Les Baux. Les Baux is an amazingly restored Roman village. Now, it's full of quaint shops and cafes and a castle with reinactments. Even better, it is high above the other villages of Provence and we got some amazing views to be posted later.

We spent Easter Monday in Aix-en-Provence, the closest town to our villa. Aix is more of a big town than I expected. It's not what I pictured when I thought of Provence. Most of Aix was closed on Monday (a European holiday), but we managed to do a little train tour and even better I found a Gap store that was open and had a big sale! I was satisfied :).

Yesterday, we had a great day. We went to Cassis, a small town on the Mediterranean Sea. We went on a boat ride to visit the calanques, or coves, along the sea. The ride was crazy rough-cold and windy. I got a little seasick, but everyone else had a great time. The sun was bright and the sky was blue. What more could I ask for? Well, maybe a little heat, but other than that it was gorgeous. We took a scenic drive that was not for the weak-hearted and ended our day in Marseille.

Marseille might as well be Northern Africa. It was really shady driving through France's second largest city. We were on a tiny street in the middle of the city lined with Morrocan this, and Lebanese that, and Algerian everything else. At one store, we saw a huge row of guns in the window. Needless to say, I was really relieved to see the end of that street which led to the main port area! We had wanted to try the boulliabaise fish soup that Marseille is famous for but trying something new at 25 Euros a dish was a bit more than I wanted to spend. So we wandered a bit and Aidan found the Marseille football team store and bought himself a soccer ball. I braved into the North African markets and got an authentic tagine and lovely spices. A tagine is a pottery upside down cone that is used to make Moroccan stew. I've had the stew a few times and it's and really good, so now I can make it myself. I feel like I've now seen North Africa, and in all honesty, I'm good. I thought I wanted to go to Tunis or Morocco, but not so much now. I think I've had my fill.

Actually, the funniest part of last night was our dinner. We avoided the boulliabaise but couldn't decide on anything else in Marseille. So as we were driving home, we found an interchange on the motorway that could have been on I-75. There were tons of fast food, shops, and other restaurants. We found one called Buffalo Grill, which I can only describe as a French Texas RoadHouse. We walked into pinball machines, balloons, and a menu on a paper placemat. Not exactly haute cuisine, but it was yummy. We had Texas baby back ribs and chicken nuggets. Hilarious. Lainey devoured some ribs. She's a true American, that little carnivore! As I sat there overlooking the highway, I could have been sitting in any American roadside restaurant, save for the French writing on the sign.

Ah, Provence....more to follow.