French Wine Country

The offer to accompany American artist, Kent Lovelace http://www.kentlovelace.com/, to France for two weeks, was too good to consider turning down.  The experience was wonderful, a whole new way to travel and see the countryside.  We flew from Seattle to Paris and rented a car.  Off to the countryside, Vezelay first, then Beaune, Turenne and Bordeaux.  The day usually started with coffee and a very slow drive along the smallest of roads, sometimes along dirt roads in search of beauty - and it is certainly out there.

Ross Lake Resort

Well, it's been awhile but I did have a little adventure with four other women around the first of September.  We rented a house at Ross Lake Resort here in Washington State.  Ross Lake sits behind Ross Dam in the North Cascades and is in both Washington State and British Columbia, Canada.  To get there I drove up to Diablo in the North Cascades and took a ferry from Diablo Dam to the bottom of Ross Dam.  Then all the gear and passengers are packed onto the back of a flat bed truck and taken up a series of switchbacks to the top.  After that, each group hops onto a series of smaller boats, depending on the number of passengers arriving, and is delivered to their cabin or camp site. 

The cabin was lovely and very clean.  All the cabins at the resort float on the lake and each has plumbing and electricity just like home, all the modern conveniences, except no telephone, no internet.  We also rented an outboard motorboat to use to get around the lake.  Since the lake is sizable, one of the main diversions is tooling around the lake.  Some people fish.  We did a bit of hiking, swimming, and some fishing though the little girl next door caught more fish with her net from the deck by the cabin.

Since we were five women our experience was particularly civilized with each day having a cocktail hour followed by a gourmet dinner, games and conversation.  Mornings we each slept as late as we wished, got up and got our own coffee, tea, or whatever, read, sat in the sun, until all were up, then we had breakfast together before we went off in our little boat to explore.

More and more Paris

The most iconic of Paris symbols, the Tour Eiffel, often just pops out at you when you least expect it.  It was a lovely spring day and I was once again walking all over Paris, my favorite pastime, taking a photo now and then, here and there.

I have to say that most of the truly wonderful shots get away.  It is often just too embarassing to pull out a camera.  Sometimes that embarassment is a product of my own desire to not appear to be a tourist, and sometimes it is due to other reasons.  For instance, I am amazed at the number of drunks who are passed out on the pavement with hoards of tourists stepping over and around them when the sun is out.  I hadn't witnessed this on my previous trips to Paris.  Indeed there was one such gentleman who was not only passed out on the sidewalk on the main street in the Marais, but also had his "Tour Eiffel" fully displayed.  I'm afraid he may now have a sunburn where the sun should not shine.   Let's just say that that shot got away and who would I have shared it with anyway, dear reader?

Some of the other shots that get away are due to the best vantage point being in the middle of an intersection, train track, or river.  One must be aware of mortality and the desire to live long enough to tell the tale.  So for your enjoyment, here are a few scenes of Paris in the printemps, all taken under secure circumstances.

More Paris

Lovely spring weather has arrived in Paris coinciding with the weekend and thousands of tourists.  The rest of Europe, including much of France, has arrived.  The streets and restaurants are filled with a variety of languages and accents.  I'm never quite sure what I'm hearing as those bits of my brain which are connected to my ears adjust and readjust trying to make sense of their world.

I discovered the Palais Royal today.  I was looking for a particular restaurant and stumbled upon it, an inner sanctum in one of the busiest parts of town.  The locals and a few tourists were lounging about enjoying some peace and quite (and lunch of course) in the sunshine in this ancient courtyard.

Speaking of lunch, the French are terribly civilized about this meal.  In the States, most days I eat lunch while sitting in front of my computer,continuing to answer email, take phone calls, and conduct meetings.  In France, the world stops at noon and quite often does not resume until two or three in the afternoon.  While I was in Cotignac, the children had two hours for lunch everyday and could take their lunch at home or in the canteen at school.  If you plan to spend your time sightseeing or shopping, you may find businesses and museums closed.  This could be a great frustration.  Later, when you are starving, you may find that the restaurants are closed.  So please take this small bit of advice:  when you are in France and it is noon, stop and eat.  Trust me on this one.  When I get home from France, this might possibly be the thing I miss most of all, the two hour lunch.

Paris

The days all flow together in Paris. Now that I am no longer needing to see all the major sites and museums, I am free to wander, which is the best way to meet the real Paris.

This is a little courtyard I happened to pass (and had the guts to take out my camera...)  These are the sorts of unexpected treats available to the serious pedestrian in Paris.

Although Lyon is cleaner and more organized, it lacks the soul that you find in Paris.

Les Gorges de l'Ardeche April 4

I awoke in the morning to what appeared to be a nice day in the making, a bit of fog, but with the expectation of a clear sky after a night of thunder, lightning, and heavy rain. I packed up and went to the petit dejeuner in the dining room with the other guests. Again I was told 8:30 AM without an ending time which in my culture means that you arrive at 8:30 AM or miss the boat. In France it must mean that if you arrive before that time, you will not be served, but coming later is more the norm. I was again the first guest in the dining room.
An interesting twist at many dinners and breakfasts in hotels in France, and possibly elsewhere, is that the hosts determine where you will sit for your meals before you arrive. In this auberge, the place was marked with a lovely silver marker on which was imprinted the number of my room. I ordered my coffee (un grand café crème) and was brought the customary croissant and baguette with butter and jam and orange juice. In France, the chances of coming across sausage and eggs, pancakes, or waffles is about as low as you can imagine. Wherever you happen to be, the French serve you the same breakfast: café, orange juice, baguette, and croissant. You can get a fried egg on the side if you happen to be at a restaurant with cooking facilities and a chef on hand, but don’t get your hopes up.
I packed up the car and set off for the gorges. I was on the road before the crowds of the afternoon. It was Easter Sunday, but there was little vestige of what I would consider normal for such an important holiday in the states. In France there is no influx of adorned attendees at the cathedrals or children in their best finery complete with white gloves and decorated eggs. It is more of a spring break than anything else.
As I left the auberge I realized to my amazement that the hotel I had happened upon was the last chance at a hotel until the actual gorges where camping was the norm along with hairpin turns and steep ravines. What luck!
The gorges take about 2-3 hours to cover including a great number of stops to view the sites. It’s a lovely area. It opens one’s eyes to the wonders of France where the prevailing sense is that the country consists of rolling farmland and vineyards. Check it out if you have the chance. This is a great place for kayaks and canoes.

Pont du Gard April 3

Today I left Cotignac.  There are two sites that I decided I had to see, the Pont du Gard and Les Gorges de l'Ardeche, before heading north.  The day started a bit off considering the wonderfully summery weather we'd been having.  Today it was cloudy and threatening.  Nonetheless, I needed to head back to Lyon to return the rental car and had my "must-sees" to do.

I took the autoroute from Brignoles to Avignon, but none of the signs directed me to either Pont du Gard or any of the possible routes or towns in that direction.  This led me to rambling through Avignon, including a drive past the former home of the popes, across the Rhone and finally to some signage with some promise.

The Romans built the Pont du Gard aquaduct to move water from the spring near Uzes to a series of canals and on to Nimes.  It's a perfectly perserved section and well worth the viewing.

Unbeknownst to me, the site was utterly free due to the Easter holiday weekend.  It was not overrun with tourists, but was doing a decent business for a holiday weekend.  As an additional special attraction there was a sort of farmer's market within the Pont du Gard site which as selling meat, cheese, jam, soap, and breads.  There were also some farm animals, presumably for the children to observe and pet.

 Do you see the people on the bridge, those litttle bumps?  That is helpful in understanding the scale of this.

There were a few rain drops daring to fall, but it held off.  I headed north from Pont du Gard to Les Gorges de l'Ardeche.  The tourist stop at the south end is Pont St-Esprit.  It was a bit of a drive along small roads to get there and the weather was holding, so I kept going.  Pont St-Espirit had little to recommend it other than its location and several chain hotels.  About 6:00 PM I could tell that the weather was getting impatient to start pouring and services were getting slim.  I decided to pull over at what happened to be the last hotel in St Martin d'Ardeche to avoid driving along the edge of cliffs in the rain and dark and have half a chance of seeing the sites that I was determined not to miss.

The auberge (inn/hotel/restaurant) turned out to be a perfect spot to stop for the night.  No internet, no TV, and a room facing the cliffs, the river, and a vineyard in between.  There was a little village at the top of one of the cliffs complete with a bell tower, just too lovely for words.  The woman at the desk was friendly and helpful although our conversation had to depend on my French.  She asked if I'd be staying for dinner which sounded good to me.  I let her know that I was a vegetarian so there would be no misunderstanding about why I wasn't having the house special.  We decided that I would have a salad with egg and cheese (and bread, of course).  She told me that dinner would be at 7:30 PM so I went back to my room for a nap; the weather thenproceeded to "let the bottom out" complete with thunder and lightning.

I knew to show up a bit after the 7:30 PM time, but I was still the first of the guests to arrive.  After a bit of discussion, she expressed her concern that I was not having anything warm to eat and suggested a ratatouille with pasta.  She didn't have to bend my arm on that one.  Everything was great including more "vin rose" than I should have tried to drink on my own.  I stopped before I would regret it.  With a full stomach, I went back to my room and slept like a stone.