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| Detail of Arc de Triomphe in Orange |
It
had been ~5 months since they last saw Lilah, too long. I'm sure they missed us
too but they weren't as vocal about that. We have obviously been keeping in
touch with them on Facetime/Skype, and Kimmy regularly uploads
pictures to a Lilah-centric photofeed that fills her iPhone with gigs of
lil'L jpegs; but it was time they saw their granddaughter again In The Flesh. Andy
and Nancy were coming to France. They arrived in Paris and moved into a little
Bed and Breakfast they had learned about through word of mouth. We picked them
up the next day at their doorstep and took them on a wander through Paris. We
took them to the Musee d'Orsay (which lasted as
long as Lilah would allow) and Montmartre. It turns out that
Montmartre is becoming our place to take tourists. You might remember from a previous post that our Parisian friend
took us there when we were Paris-newbies. And since taking my parents we've
also taken another set of tourist-friends. I suppose it has the perfect mix of
famous landmarks, tiny streets, art, and food.
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| Grampa Andy always comments on the pictures of Lilah enjoying our knotty wood floors, now he got to join her (in her favorite chore/game, unpacking and packing containers). |
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| Pont du Gard aqueduct. |
After a taste of Paris we all got on a series of trains, much to the culture shock of Mom and Dad, and headed to Avignon in the Provence region of France. Mom had clipped an article about the region from a newspaper long ago and had been eager to visit all the roman ruins found there. The article advertised it (Orange, Nimes, Marseille) as the Rome of France. And that proved true, as the first ruin we saw was the highest of all Roman aqueduct bridges,
Pont du Gard. I wasn't so much impressed by its record-breaking height (160 feet), but more by the fact that over its entire length it only descends 2.5 cm. Pretty impressive for something that was built in the 1st century AD. Afterwards we had just enough time to look at the outside of a Roman colosseum in Nimes (Arenes de Nimes) before checking-in to our
AirBnB in the small town of Chateaurenard. It was a beautiful old farmhouse with artistic tile-floors, murals, and Asian-inspired furniture.
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| Early walking skills made this tough terrain to walk on for Lilah. |
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| Mom wishing the weather was just a little bit warmer so that we could partake in the cliff jumping below. Lilah, in the distance, finally gets a chance to walk/fall. |
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| We packed in too much for one day and didn't have time to go inside the Arenas de Nimes. Luckily there was another amphitheater on the agenda. |
The neighboring hills are dotted with small provincial towns. Exploring these and getting a country-France feel was our goal for the next couple of days. One of these small towns, Roussillon, was known for Ocher cliffs, and lavender. Well... most towns in the area were known for lavender actually, it is kind of Provence's "thing". Every souvenir shop was inundated with it, Kimmy and I couldn't resist and even got a lavender ice cream. It was a beautiful purple and was delicious at first, then it just tasted like soap. Besides the ice cream though, most everything we ate in Provence was delicious. I developed the opinion that the food in southern France is generally much better than that around Paris. That conclusion of course excludes all the expensive Michelin-starred Parisian restaurants I have not yet saved up for.
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| Chocolate & Lavender with a hill-top town. |
Kimmy sat alone on a perch overlooking the ocher cliffs and tentatively licked her lavender ice cream, as me and my parents wandered a nearby cemetery. Kimmy declined the offer to join with a shiver. As we wandered down the aisles, inspecting years and statues and taking pictures, I realized that this activity may be unique to my family. I feel like we have always visited cemeteries, even ones not associated with our departed relatives; I first learned to drive in a cemetery, and Lilah and I had sought shelter from the rain in the awning of a mausoleum just a week prior to this trip with my parents. I really like cemeteries, and am desensitized to them, to the point where I don't necessarily think about the dead when I'm there, they're just a park.
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| Purple, red, yellow, and white cliffs of Le Sentier des Ocres |
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| Exploring the world and living life hand in hand. |
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| Dad wandering the back-roads roads of Gordes |
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| After the red hue bias of the Roussillon, the white of Gordes was shocking |
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| Imagine lavender flowering all along those parrallel lines. Well, just do yourself a favor and Google Image= Abbaye Notre-Dame de Senanque |
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| We had already stuck our heads inside some opulent churches, so this monasteries' large chapel was very simple in comparison. |
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| Dad picking up the culture of the typical French male. After so much walking around he had to wet his whistle from time to time. |
On another day we drove to Orange, but followed the back-roads to get a better feel for the countryside. Between our BnB and Orange is a vast wine-growing region that includes the famous Cote-de-Rhone. We were excited about wine tasting, and wanted to come across a winery sign on our drive with the right... Je ne sais quoi. When we found it, we pulled over for a taste. It was around lunchtime though, which in France means 'closed time', but my naive demeanor convinced the owner of
Domaine La Coste Du Puy to open his doors. Intuition served us well, as it was our ideal wine tasting atmosphere. We usually like the experience and wine more at wineries where you meet the wine producers and are able to casually converse with them while tasting and learning about their wine. In this case we tasted at a counter built into the winery office. The wife typed away at invoices on the computer while the husband poured. We went through the whole list, and even doubled back to make sure. Kimmy wowed both Mom and me with her proficiency in French. At first I was a little bit ashamed that I knew so much less French than her, then I got over my ego and just tried to keep up. One thing I'm learning about wine here in France, is they do not identify their wines (or cheeses) by the grape varietals that they are composed of, but by the geography of origin and production. It is a concept called, "
terroir" which categorizes the emergent sum of geography, geology, climate, plant/animal genetics. And I think it works better for the Old World than the New World because the former stick to more rigid recipes. All Cote-de-Rhone wines taste like a cote-de-rhone, they might have a different personality but their baseline is the same. I don't think you can say the same for a Napa Valley wine. For a Napa Valley wine you'd have to identify it first by varietal and then name-drop Napa.
Eventually we made our way up to Orange, home of two very famous Roman ruins, the Theatre antique d'Orange, and the Arc de Triumphe de Orange. The Roman theater is a big deal, "they" say it is the most impressive one still existing in Europe. It was built around the same time as Pont du Gard (early 1st century) and was a major part of the daily life of citizens. I don't remember all the details of the audio-guided tour, but it seemed like there were performances here most, if not every day, that were all free to the citizens. And when you went to the theater, you knew your social class, and sat in your peers' section. The theater was not an "event" that they would go to now and then, but more like the mall of the stereotypical teenager. Unfortunately, when Christianity became the official religion, the theater was closed, and then sacked and pillaged as the Roman Empire declined. One more interesting fact, I have always incorrectly thought, as did everyone I know, that a "vomitorium" was a special room where Romans purposefully threw-up their food and drink so that they could return to the party and continue to consume. But actually it is just a passageway behind the seats of a amphitheater/stadium through which crowds could rapidly exit.
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| Mom at the Theatre Antique d'Orange |
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| Imagine watching a show with this view |
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| Mom outside the main gate to Le village des Bories. A town of mortarless huts built sometime before the 1800s |
We finished up our southern tour with a shop through the famous outside market of L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue. The market was situated in the old part of the town, which existed on a small river island. All the streets were filled with stands selling food, clothes, antiques, and stuff. It was a wonderful people watching opportunity. Dad snapped pictures of French shoppers, Mom sampled the local delicacies, and Lilah weaved through the crowds with all of us in tow. But then it was farewell...for now. Mom and Dad headed out to Barcelona for a couple of nights. Afterwards they returned and moved into our apartment for a quiet night of food and family.
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| Lilah show-boating |
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| A giant stone ear in the river of L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue. Ancient roman ruin? Post-modern street art? I don't know! |
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| Grandma and Granpa are gone... now what. |
