Last days in Provence

So, for our last two days in Avignon, we booked a daytrip around Roman Provence (the baths, arena, and monument to Austus in Nimes, the Pont du Gard, and Uzes thrown in for good measure) and tickets to Arles for a day trip.

The tour was a lot of fun. The company was called Provence Panorama and had several tours based on the things provence is famous for (wine, truffles, flowers, roman ruins, etc). They picked us up in a van outside our hotel and drove us to all the sites.

Nimes has some amazin roman architecture (it's hard to call them 'ruins' when they're still standing and in pretty good shape), and their arena is excellent. The commentary was very un-provencal in that it was actually fun to listen to. They did a great job of explaining what life and the games were like back then, and even walked through a day of particularly interesting games.

Nimes itself was pretty interesting, too, or at least the description our guide gave us was. The city was a huge textile and industrial center for decades, so he city was (and to some extent, still is) swimming in money. As a result, they didn't really want or need tourism, so the city flat out refused to allow a hotel to be built there until the middle of the 20th century. It's still not exactly a tourist-friendly town, apparently.

Next, we headed to Uzes, the definition of a sleepy little French town. The guide walked us through the city, showing us all the little alleys and the gorgeous main square that make the city a lot of fun to walk around. She pointed out a mulberry tree which had some ripe berries on it (tasted like a very sweet, seedless blackberry), and explained how the Protestant nature of the city shaped its architecture.

The guide also told us how a descendant of a ducal family still lives in the palace at Uzes. He's apparently a crafty little bugger, as he has found a way to sneak around the tax laws in France. Apparently, anyone livin in a historic palace or castle in France has to pay a tax to live there, unless they allow public access. So, this guy basically roped off 3 or 4 rooms of his castle, sells 12 euro tickets to whoever's stupid enough to pay for them, and basically thumbs his nose at the government.

We then headed up to Pont du Gard, the roman bridge that supported the aqueduct from the spring at Uzes to the baths at Nimes. The bridge is a marvel of engineering, and it's amazing that it's still standing. What's even cooler is that the river it spans is still used as a beach area for people in Provence. How is that fair? When I go to the beach, I have to look at condos and high-rises. They get to look at 2000-year-old aqueducts. Not. Fair. At all.

After that, we crammed in the van (after chewing on some local rosemary bushes) and headed back to town.

The next day, I woke up and just had no desire at ALL to do anything, let alone go to Arles. No idea why, but I just decided to take a lazy day in Avignon. Sean still wanted to go, but came back really quick, thanks to alternating rain and bug storms. I wandered around Avignon for the day, where is was just slightly misting, and pretty much just people-watched. That turned out to be a little interesting, as the kebab shop I was eating in was visited by some Ren-faire folk, which was a little...unexpected. But, after that, I headed home to blog and upload photos.

Food in Avignon

Day 1 in Avignon was short, so we only had dinner there. Our first night we did NOT go to the place our hotel recommended (30+ a plate), and instead went to a little creperie. I was still a little veggie-starved from Spain, so I got the Legumes a la Provencal, which was basically grilled veggies served with oil and garlic, a stuffed tomato, and potatoes au gratin. Also got a ginormous sundae, but I have no idea what was on it (asked the waiter what he liked, and he knew enouh english to answer but not say what it was). 'Twas delicious, though!

The next day, we were in a hurry, so I grabbed a basic sandwich made with ham, provolone cheese, and some French butter. Sounds kind of "meh," but the butter made it taste great. For dinner, we went to a Provencal restaurant, where I got the honey roasted duck (which actually tasted like honey, and not just generally sweet, like most honey roasted things in the States), which came with fried gnocchi and sautéed mushrooms. That was excellent, but dessert (a biscuit topped with slices of grapefruit and thyme) was so-so.

Lunch the next day was another ham sandwich and coffee near the market in Avignon. Went to a little pub that had one poor waitress running the entire place (waiting tables, making food, and taking deliveries). To save some money, for dinner that night, we just grabbed some bread, sausage, jam, and cheese at the grocery, and ate that. French bread and cheese continued to be delicious, particularly with jam made from melons from provence. We also split a bottle of wine from Chateuneuf-du-Papes, a wine-making region that used to serve the pope. We had grabbed that earlier at the papal palace.

The next day, we grabbed a weird burger-type thing with a fried egg on top on the way to catch the bus to St. Remy. Not exactly gourmet, but it was cheap and filling. Dinner that night was bread, super super runny cheese, and tapenade (Wasn't really hungry. It's amazing how filling a slab of meat topped with a fried egg can be).

Lunch on day 5 was actually swankier than dinner. We went to a place called Newground while we waited for our tour to start, where we got the daily special, which was salad, saffron rice, prociutto and melon with a few drops of really sweet wine, baked chicken in mushroom and pear sauce, and mango tart. Dinner was way more low-brow, but just as tasty. We went to a place called Tartine, which served everything on toast. So, we got some with pate, some with goat cheese and honey, and some with gorgonzola and prune compote, which was actually our favorite. I also got a glass of pastis, which is an anise flavored liquer you drink mixed with water and ice. Tasted like a glass of licorice flavored lemonade, but in a good way.

 

Our last day, I just grabbed a kebab and a coke for lunch, but we splurged for dinner and went to a really high brow French place, where the husband cooked and the wife waited tables. I got a salad topped with balsamic vinegar and goat cheese in pastry for the first course, and a tuna steak and sautéed veggies after that. I actually like the veggies better than the tuna (though that was still quite tasty); they were basically a ratatouille without the tomato sauce. Anyway, the next day we headed to Nice, and I didn't eat a bite until dinner, where I may or may not have pigged out a bit. But that's another post.

Folks in Nice and Avignon

Combining these two into one, as Avignon's would be too short on its own, but we met a ton of cool people in Nice.

So, Avignon first. Since we stayed in a hotel, not a hostel, we didn't meet anybody new like we have been through sharing rooms or hanging out in common areas. But, we could only get WiFi in the lobby, and we met an older Japanese couple there when we were uploading photos. The wife was...entertaining. She kept very subtly bragging about how successful she was, and was very careful to note that she was only staying at our budget hotel for a night, because the Hotel Grand Avignon was booked that night. She also said she didn't consider herself a success, but that she owned a few businesses. Sean asked how many, and she said 11 or 12, she couldn't remember -_- Oh, and she flew into Avignon just to see an opera.

Also met a couple on the tour we took of Nimes and Uzes that were funny. Nice folks, but they were just a touch of your typically clueless Americans. When we were in Uzes, they asked if it was supported by tourism, and the guide said no. They were shocked that it could support itself then. 

Wife: "But what does it do! How does it get money?"
Guide: "Umm...normal town things?"

Now: Nice. Our hostel was a small place near Place Massena that was awesome for meeting people. The common area was the manager's office, and every night folks would pile in to talk, swap stories, drink wine, and occasionally head out to a nearby bar (We stayed in. Not my type of place). It was a lot of fun to hear where everyone was going and what brought them to Europe, and we met a bunch of cool folks.

First, Valerio (or Val). His dad owns the hostel, and Val pretty much runs it. Funny guy, knew Nice pretty well, and could play the guitar. I got a kick out of one of the girls attempting to teach him "Sexual Healing." That just became even funnier when I found out the girl was studying vocal performance at Berklee School of Music. Favorite story with Val was when he asked me to check someone in when he got to the hostel, so he could get everyone to the bar. Left me the keys and told me how to buzz him in. So, I think I can officially add "hostelier" to my resume.  Even if the guy didn't show up.

Next, roommates. The first two nights, we roomed with Joanna and Michelle from Alberta in Canada. They were studying in Italy, and decided to pay France and Spain a visit while over here. They also gave Val a bottle of homemade limoncello as a gift, which he then doled out to the rest of us. Again, Val's a cool dude (and probably reading this. Hi Val!). They left after two days to be replaced by a pair of Australians who we didn't get to know well, thanks to one of them getting food poisoning from what sounded like a sketchy kebab. 

Robin was the source of that quote I posted earlier about Scottish rednecks. Nice guy, and smart too. He's going into his last year of Mechanical engineering in Aberdeen, Scotland, and is going to work at BP soon. He came with us to Monaco and put me to shame in terms of shutterbugness. He and Sean also nerded out momentarily at the tourist office in Monte Carlo, where they spent a few minutes trying to read a cool voltmeter. I, of course, didn't tease them at all.

Next up, Adam, from Australia. HYSTERICAL guy, who hopped from hostel to hostel to the floor of a hostel while he was in Nice, based on who was where and where the cheap beer was. Fell asleep on the beach, and woke up with a sunburn in the shape of his necklace (you could actually see the individual links on the chain). He also apparently woke up half the hostel one night (I slept through it) when he was...umm..."fraternizing" with someone else. I'll let you be the judge of what that means.

Next up, some people from the States, finally! (So. Many. Canadians.) Alex and Steven both just finished off med school, and are starting residencies the week they get back. Nice guys, who had a few entertaining stories to share, including a few ways to NOT set an A-line IV, how they remove drugs from drug smugglers' bowels (I'll give you a hint: it involves laxatives and a bucket), and some stories from the ER. And a few medically-backed hangover cures that really got some of the girls' attention. Apparently a Compozene or a Finargin when taken with an IV bag of normal saline clears it right up. And there's apparently a guy in Las Vegas who goes around doling this cure out to tourists. Pay him extra, and he'll actually come to your hotel room. I don't know whether to be disusted or impressed by his entrepreneurism.

Next, Eva and Julia, two girls from Berklee School of Music, studying Vocal performance and music business, respectively. Julia was the girl who tried to teach Val "Sexual Healing," which apparently wants played at her wedding. Eva also played the Piano, even though she's not majoring in it, and has been playing since she was 5.

Isabel showed up on our third night, and came to dinner with Sean, Robin, and me. She's originally from Vancouver (hey, my neck of the woods!) though she's been studying business in Pamplona in Spain for a while. She also spoke way better French than pretty much anyone there, and shared my enthusiasm for photographing dinner.

Finally, there's Stacy and her sister Jennifer (I think. Only talked to her briefly). They only stayed at the hostel for a few hours, as they accidentally booked a bus for 4 am instead of 4 pm. Val called them a taxi and they headed out after a short nap.

Oh! And I'm not sure if you can count them as "people" per se, but we met some guys from UGA there, too. Nice guys, but they apparently got in an argument with some Canadians over whether basketball was better than hockey, and woke up most of the hostel. They did give us instructions on how to play at the Casino Royale, though, so I owe them that!

Anyway, long story short: if you want to meet new people, small hostels >> small hotels.

Avignon

Day 1 in Avignon was pretty straightforward: catch train, check in, grab food, sleep. Had a rather amusing moment where we pulled out cash to pay and the hotelier looked at us like we were nuts and said, “Non, monsier. You pay at checkout.” We thought this was sketchy as all hell (budget travellers always have to be on the lookout for places that try and squeeze extra fees onto checks), til we realized that’s how it works in the real world (i.e. the non-hostel part of the world). We ended up paying the next day, anyway, though. After that, we grabbed dinner at a creperie (and not the 30-euro-a-plate restaurant the front desk sent us to), which was plenty tasty. After that, Facebook, blogpost, and bed.

Day 2 was a planning day. Since we were spending 6 days in Provence, a general schedule was necessary, so we spent about an hour checking train schedules, calling tour companies (…okay, our hotelier did that for us), and asking the front desk about the bus schedule. After that, we got tickets sorted out (which actually took less time than the planning did, walks to and from the station included) and set off to actually see the city we were staying in.

First stop, something horribly, horribly touristy: the tourist train. Most European cities have them: a train on wheels that tourists are shoved into and then driven around the city in. Conductor in full-on engineer attire and decorative front car optional. We’d been snickering at them pretty much everywhere we went, but this train was only 7 euro, so we figured it would be a good way to get oriented to the city. While we weren’t wrong, it wasn’t a mind-boggling experience, either. The train went in front of the palace, up to and through the botanical gardens, down to the River, and past the bridge before coming back to its starting point. Not a waste of 7 euro, but we didn’t really see anything amazing or learn anything new aside from a general orientation.

Anyway, we headed up to the botanical gardens, where we got a great view of the city and saw a few rather adorable families of ducklings in the pond. We grabbed a snack and watched the ducks for a while, then headed down to the Rhone and up to the bridge.

I’d actually never heard of the Bridge of St. Benezet until Anna told me about it right before my trip, but it’s apparently pretty well known, thanks to a nursery rhyme I’d never heard. Basically, it’s a bridge that used to cross all the way over the Rhone, but over years, the current in the river kept knocking down arches, until the town stopped trying to maintain it. Now, just 3 of the original arches remain. Afterwards, we wandered a bit, then came back to the river to see it at night.

Day 3, we got an earlier start than usual (out the door around 10:30, I think) so we could go to the market, which is only open before 1pm. Was pretty cool to see, though we didn’t buy anything (wasn’t there as a sight for tourists, so we didn’t think they’d speak much English). Afterwards, we grabbed coffee and sammiches in Plaza Pie (pronounced pee-yay, though there was a ‘café 3.14’ to make fun of the double pronunciation).

Afterwards, we went to the papal palace. The story behind this is that in the 14^th century, Italy was undergoing a series of civil wars, which made the country a dangerous place to be for foreigners. So, when a French cardinal was named Pope, the king of France persuaded him to move the papacy to Avignon until things settled. The Italians, obviously, were outraged by this, but the papal seat stayed in Avignon until 1377.

The palace was enormous and obviously very grand, but it was hard to picture what it was like when the pope lived there. Avignon and Provencal cities in general have a bare-bones attitude towards preserving historic sites, in that they tend to only maintain the materials that are there, and nothing more. That’s fine, but it meant that the palace is BARE. Most of the frescoes were incredibly faded, there aren’t any tapestries or reproductions on the walls or ceiling, and there wasn’t any furniture. So, while it was cool and obviously amazing, we never really got a sense that it was a palace fit for the pope.

Oh, and Provencal tours are…amusingly literal and factual. They don’t really give you any juicy rumors or stories or tidbits, like most tourist sites; more just straight facts, like, “The ceiling is supported by 6 stone arches,” and “The hall has three windows, which you can see to the left.” I can see and count the arches and windows quite clearly, thank you. The tourist train had been the same way, telling us how long streets were or how tall buildings were, without really saying why they were important or interesting.

After dinner that night, Sean and I split up to wander on our own. Avignon is an incredibly safe city (there are very few foreign tourists around, so pickpockets and the like aren’t a problem), so it was cool to see what the city was like after dark. I wandered down to the river around sunset to grab some shots of the river, then pretty much just wandered the city trying to get lost. I ended up wandering through a residential area, which was fun, as I could hear French families finishing up dinner through open windows. There’s also apparently a lot of cats in these parts, all of whom are crazy skittish. I’d be twenty feet away, and they’d tear off down an alley.

That was our “last” day in Avignon, even though we stayed there for four more nights, as we did day trips every other day. I’ll post those as separate posts later.

Barcelona's done, Avignon photos are up

Read the title, yo!

Directions

Being mistaken for a local in a country where you don't even speak the language twice in one day is rather amusing.

As is giving people directions in a city you've only been in for 5 days.

Piece du l'Rennaisance

So apparently they have Renaissance fairs in France.

Was eating at a kebab shop, and a dude in full-on period medieval garb walk in and says, "Monsieur! Directions, s'il vous plait?" The kebab shop owner just kind of stared for a second, then said, "Uhh, oh, oui, monsieur," and helped him find where he was going.

I took the chance to look outside, and saw a guy dressed in a beggar costume and a woman in an aristocrat's gown.

It would appear the French are just as capable of geekery as Americans.

War of the French Artists

So apparently artists in Provence and Paris dislike each other. Walked past a woman selling some very nice, surprisingly cheap watercolors today and asked if they were originals or prints.

She got a little huffy and said, "Monsieur, these are ALL originals. We are NOT like those "artists" in Montmartre."

(Imagine it in a thick French accent to get the full effect)

Provence Schedule

So, schedule of Provence:

Yesterday (5/29): Train to Avignon

Today (5/30): Planned and booked tours, trains, and buses, went on a cheesy tour, saw the Bridge, walked along the river, got dinner

Tomorrow (5/31): More of Avignon; papal palace and wandering

Friday (6/1): Buses to and from St. Remy in Provence

Saturday (6/2): Taking a guided tour of Nimes, Uzes, and Pont du Gard all day

Sunday (6/3): Train to and from Arles 

Monday (6/4): Leaving Avignon for Nice/Monaco

Trip to Avignon

So, the trip to Avignon was…interesting.

Not bad interesting. Actually quite dull. But a little different.

Basically, there’s no direct line to Avignon from Barcelona. This is mostly due to the fact that Spanish rail lines use a different gauge (distance between rails) on their track than just about everybody else. So, anyone going into or out of Spain by rail has to change to a different line near the border. Most people going from Barcelona to Avignon change at either Montpellier (on the French side) or Figueres (on the Spanish side). These are the ‘official’ Eurail routes.

Not so with Sean and I. When we went to the train station in Barcelona, we realized two things. 1) Eurail’s official routes are not at all comprehensive and 2) People in Barcelona reaaaallly don’t like speaking English. We talked with 4 different train officials, two of whom knew a bit of English, but didn’t speak it to us, one of whom actually spoke to us in English, and one who didn’t speak English, but was a master of Spanglish. 

Anyway, long story short, after about 2 hours at the train station, we figured out what we were doing.

Interestingly enough, though, the officials had pointed us to an unofficial route. Instead of one of the other two towns, this route took us through Cerbere, France. We were happy, ‘cause it took only local train routes, which meant that we didn’t have to pay a reservation fee (which eurailers have to do when riding long distance or high speed trains).

The wait at the station the day of was fun. We got there plenty early, and were drinking coffee in the waiting area when an Asian woman runs up to us, drops two suitcases and a backpack, asks us to watch it, then scurries off with two other bags.

Enter Ellen, another of those characters you only meet once in a long while.

Ellen came back a few minutes later, and we realized the two other bags were (occupied) cat carriers. She plopped down, thanked us, and struck up a conversation. Turns out, she had just finished a year-long stint at Google, and was moving back to France. She was…vague, at best, with what she did. She did tell us that, before her initial move to France, she worked on “UI design in Silicon Valley for 1

When we got to Cerbere, though, it was a ghost town. Our train was there, but there were maybe a dozen people at the train station, of which maybe a half-dozen were actually on our train. The rest were ticket salespeople, janitors, and border agents (Who were a little befuddled by my passport. The border agent in Lisbon was running low on ink, so the visa stamp is kinda faint. The poor agent here looked at my passport which seemed to say I magically materialized on a train in his country. He was fine when I pointed the stamp out to him, though).

Anyway, aside from that, the trip was fairly vanilla. I read a book on Provence, Sean read a book on his iPad, and we arrived. Got a nice view of the countryside, too, but it was mostly on or near the border, not before. The Spanish like to build their trains a bit below ground level, so aside from a bit of Figeueres, we didn’t see much. Once we got to Portbou, though, it was gorgeous. We drove through a few marshes, across a river, and spent a hefty amount of time on the coast, which was nice.

Anyway, we arrived in one piece, got checked in, and got dinner. Check another country off my list!