Wednesday, May 16, 2007

But Where’s the Crème Brûlée?

With our trip now completed, here are a few random observations on our experience in Provence and the French Riviera.

--There seem to be many more chiens (dogs) in France than chats (cats). People bring their dogs with them everywhere, including to restaurants. We did have a “shop cat” in our hotel at Avignon; it often slept on one of the sofas across from the registration desk. It was jet-black and so was the sofa, so it was always a good idea to look before you sat down.

--People wondered if we’d get to see Provence’s famous lavender fields in bloom. As it turns out, that doesn’t happen until late June. We did see some pretty impressive fields of poppies, though.

--Our trip director from Alumni Holidays, Fred Burke, was endlessly helpful to the travelers, and a fascinating guy to boot. Born in the U.S., he has worked all over the world, and now lives in Normandy with his French-born wife. He taught himself French and is now fluent in it. He also worked on the production of the movie Winged Migration, helping to raise and train some of the birds used in the film.

--A good expression to know in France is a simple one: “C’est bon,” meaning “It’s good.” Whenever we’d re-board the bus after a photo stop, for example, Fred would count heads and then call up to the driver, “C’est bon!” -- and off we’d go.

--For those of us who remember almost none of their high school French, another useful expression is “Où est…” -- pronounced “oo-ay” -- which means “Where is…?” We also quickly caught onto the fact that a “boulangerie” is a bakery, of which there are many in France. And if you need a beer, that’s “bière.”

--The phrase I said more than any other on the trip was, “Un verre de Coca Light avec des glaçons, s’il vous plait”: A glass of Coke Light with ice cubes, please.

--Fred would post the meal menus for the day on an easel near the hotel’s front desk, and a hobby for many of us was trying to decipher the French so we could figure out what’s for dinner. The main course one night, for example, was “joue de loup et son tajine de legumes au miel.” Anybody? Anybody?

--We ate many of the foods you might expect on a trip to France: Croissants were omnipresent at the breakfast buffet, and French bread was served at every single meal. Main courses featured fish, poultry, or occasionally lamb or veal. Wine was served not only at dinner, but at lunch too.

--We had French fries once.

--Several of the travelers had a hankering for bouillabaisse, which apparently has its origins in Marseille. As for me, I kept waiting for the crème brûlée. Alas, no bouillabaisse or crème brûlée ever materialized. Next trip!

--The French presidential election was a common topic of conversation on the tour bus. Fred told us that if you ask his daughter, who is 3, who won the election, she will declare, “Nicolas Sarkozy is the President of the Republic!”

--A piece of trivia: Pablo Picasso often gambled at the casino at Monte Carlo.

--Everyone got home safe and sound, albeit a little tired from our 12 days of adventures. We all have pictures to show off, stories to tell, and dreams of going back there someday. C’est bon.


Photos

In France, lots of people bring their dog to lunch or dinner with them.


With the French presidential election taking place on May 6, political signs for the two candidates could be found everywhere.


Fred Burke, our travel director from Alumni Holidays, handled all of the trip logistics and was on top of every detail.


Our meals and desserts were always artfully presented.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

The Word for Today is “Opulence”

A highlight for many on the Penn State trip was the visit to Monaco, home of the House of Grimaldi royal family, lots of extremely wealthy people, and the legendary casino at Monte Carlo.

From our hotel in Nice, Monaco is about an hour’s bus ride along a mountainous coastal road that offers an impressive view of the Mediterranean below -- though not one that’s recommended for those with a fear of heights. The road was known as the Via Julia Augusta in ancient Roman times, and today it goes through such villages as Eze (pronounced “ess”) and La Turbie; the latter has a Roman monument called the Trophée des Alpes, or Trophy of the Alps, which was built in 6 or 7 A.D. to commemorate Augustus Caesar’s conquest of the Alps.

Monaco is its own country, or, more correctly, a principality -- a sovereign state ruled by a prince. Those who follow current events (and the tabloids) know all about Prince Albert and his often-in-the-news sisters, Caroline and Stephanie. On the bus ride we learned more about the history of the monarchy in Monaco: how in 1297, armed men disguised as monks (led by Francesco Grimaldi) conquered the country; how the Grimaldi family has ruled ever since; how Albert I (1848-1922) built an oceanographic museum and brought the Grand Prix race to Monaco; how Rainier became prince in 1949 at the age of 26; how Rainier married Philadelphia-born actress Grace Kelly in 1956; how Princess Grace was killed in a car accident in 1982 on one of the coastal roads above Monaco; and how their son, Albert I, doesn’t have a legitimate heir to the throne, because his only son was born out of wedlock to an Air France flight attendant.

We learned that the residents of Monaco -- called Monegasque -- are plenty wealthy, and on top of that they don’t pay income tax. The famous casino, which was built in 1863, doesn’t bring in much money for the principality, either -- casino revenues account for only 5 percent of Monaco’s income. What does generate revenue is the Value-Added Tax, which you pay on everything from postcards to real estate -- a whopping 19.6 percent.

We Penn Staters did our part to help the local economy, paying 10 Euros each (about $17 U.S.) to get into the casino and then, once inside, pouring some more Euros into the slot machines. The most successful of our group was Janice Meyer, who won a whopping six Euros. Nobody else won a thing. I bought 10 Euros’ worth of slot-machine tokens and lost them all -- and it didn’t take long.

Incidentally, for you blackjack fans, the cheapest blackjack table at Monte Carlo is 25 Euros per game. The most expensive is 10,000 Euros!

Our stop in Monaco also included a visit to the Jardin Exotique (exotic garden), a stop at the Prince’s Palace, which was built in the 12th century as a fortress, and -- because we were only about five miles from the Italian border -- a pasta lunch.

Next it was off to another ostentatious site, the Rothschild villa and gardens along the coast. This would be our last official excursion of the trip, and Ingrid, our guide, said, “We saved the best for last.” The official name of the place is a mouthful: Jardin de la Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild. The mansion and gardens belonged to the heiress Beatrice Ephrussi de Rothschild (1864-1934); the house has dozens of rooms, all lavishly decorated, and the grounds feature nine different gardens, ranging from a Spanish garden to a rose garden to a Japanese garden. Sculptures, fountains, and a waterfall also provide plenty of photo ops.

The town in which the Rothschild villa is located is called St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. “Cap” means “cape,” and Cap-Ferrat is a peninsula in the Mediterranean. The real estate here is quite desirable: Ingrid said that Bill Gates has a home here, as do several members of the Rolling Stones. None of them invited us over for drinks.

Our next day is devoted to exploring Nice on our own, and then we head home. I’ll send one more posting to wrap things up.

Photos


The Principality of Monaco is squeezed onto a hillside where the Alps meet the Mediterranean. It’s surrounded by France on all sides.


Monaco takes up an area no bigger than New York's Central Park, yet has 32,000 residents. Most are extremely wealthy -- and, by law, pay no income tax.


Penn Staters Donna and Bob Nicely enjoy a lovely view of Monaco from an overlook near the Prince’s Palace.


A luxury villa once belonging to the heiress Beatrice Ephrussi de Rothschild is now a prime tourist attraction along the Mediterranean, between Nice, France, and the Principality of Monaco.


Penn Staters Bill and Dot Kracht in the Rose Garden, one of nine different gardens at the Ephrussi de Rothschild villa and gardens in France.


Jackie and Jerry Grossman from the Penn State contingent at the Ephrussi de Rothschild villa and gardens.

Monday, May 14, 2007

Photo Ops Abound in Nice

On our first full day in Nice, we took in some postcard-perfect views of the Mediterranean, explored a museum devoted to the painter Chagall, and visited a gorgeous Russian Orthodox cathedral.

Our guide, Ingrid, arrived for work as usual on her motor scooter -- a Piaggio Granturismo -- and parked it next to our hotel for the day. She, along with our Alumni Holidays trip director (Fred Burke), and our bus driver (Rene), first took us on the bus to a fancy neighborhood overlooking the city. There Ingrid showed us lots of examples of belle époque architecture, a style that was popular from around 1860 until start of World War I in 1914 -- “a time of wealth and splendor,” Ingrid said. The architecture is a mix of styles: pointed arches, Romanesque cupolas, stucco, even some towers on a building that look like Turkish minarets. Most of the houses are either red or yellow, with orange-tiled roofs, and when set against the Mediterranean -- which is several shades of blue -- it’s just a treat for the eyes.

Up in that neighborhood, we stopped at an overlook for a fine view of the port and beach. A huge cruise ship, the Astoria, was docked in port, along with a ferry offering trips to the island of Corsica; the side of the ferry read, “Corse-Nice en 2h 55.”

After the overlook stop, our bus worked its way back down the hill and through the narrow streets of Nice. At one point we turned a corner and suddenly saw our next stop: an unbelievably beautiful Russian Orthodox cathedral with green and gold onion domes against a pure blue sky. It looked like someone had airlifted the thing in from Moscow or St. Petersburg and plunked it into this old French city. Officially called the Cathédrale Orthodoxe Russe St-Nicolas, it was built by Tsar Nicolas II in 1912 and is still used for Sunday services today. It’s extremely picturesque inside and out -- colorful tile work on the outside and ornate woodwork and gold leaf inside. (No photos are allowed inside, alas.) It features more than 250 religious icons, including the Virgin Mary, Alexander the Martyr, the Archangel Michael, and others. Plus, of course, a gift shop.

Next it was off to the Chagall Museum, or in French, Musée Chagall. Ingrid, our guide, told us that Marc Chagall was a Russian Jew who fled his home country and lived in France for a number of years in the 1920s, then came to the French coast in 1948. He eventually settled in St-Paul-de-Vence -- the town we visited the previous day -- where he was neighbors with Henri Matisse. (Not that they were best buddies, however; Chagall reportedly was intensely jealous of the attention that both Matisse and Picasso were getting for their work.) The museum is full of works that Chagall donated in 1966 -- huge paintings, mostly, but other media as well. When Chagall was in his 60s he started to do mosaics, and when he was 70 he took up stained glass windows. We saw a wall-sized mosaic of the prophet Elijah, and stained-glass windows depicting the seven days of Creation.

To no one’s surprise, the Chagall Museum also features a gift shop. Many of the Penn State travelers bought books, postcards, or other items there.

After a lunch of salad Niçoise assiette (sort of like a salad Niçoise with accessories), we set off to explore Nice on our own for the afternoon. Before we left, Ingrid gave us some advice about getting into the good graces of the French shopkeepers. Always say “Bonjour, monsieur” or “Bonjour, madame,” and then ask, “Parlez-vous anglais?” People in France, she said, really appreciate it if you make an attempt to speak their language.

And a good number of French people don’t speak much English. On the one hand, we’re all a little surprised at this, but on the other, we’re very mindful -- and a little embarrassed -- that most of us Americans speak only English. (Two passengers in our group, Margaret Smith and Monica Shumann, do speak French, and we often go to them for help. Fred Burke, our AHI trip director, was born in the U.S. but is fluent in French, and having him around helps enormously.)

I had a frustrating but comical conversation a day earlier with the clerk at the Internet café, where I had gone to retrieve an adaptor I had accidentally left there the night before. The clerk had no idea whatsoever what I was trying to say, as I held the adaptor and pointed to myself to try to convey that it belonged to me -- and I had no idea what she was trying to explain to me in response. Finally, when she was distracted by another customer, I put the adaptor in my pocket. When she saw me leaving, she said something in French in an apologetic tone of voice, and I shrugged graciously, as if to say, “It’s OK -- don’t be too sorry. I have my adaptor back.”

Tomorrow we have a road trip to Monaco, including a visit to the fabled casino at Monte Carlo. Will any of the Penn Staters actually win some money at the slot machines? Stay tuned.


Photos

Our guide in Nice, Ingrid, showed up at the hotel each morning on her scooter -- a Piaggio Granturismo.


Penn State travelers, including Bob Nicely (shown here), were treated to a fine view of Nice from an overlook above the city.


A view of Nice’s waterfront from one of the city’s hillside neighborhoods. The arched structure on the right is a memorial to the French who died in the World Wars.


A cruise ship docked in the port of Nice.


The city of Nice has a gorgeous Russian Orthodox cathedral, built in 1912.


Penn State travelers Alvin and Pat Levin admire the Cathedrale St-Nicholas, the Russian Orthodox cathedral in Nice.


Ingrid, our guide in Nice, explains Chagall's “La creation de l’Homme” (The Creation of Man) at the Chagall Museum.


Surprisingly, the Chagall museum allows picture-taking. This is Monica Shumann snapping a shot of “Adam et Eve chasses du Paradis” (Adam and Eve driven out of Paradise).

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Perfume Lessons in Grasse

The abundance of flowers in Provence -- especially in the area around Grasse -- led to its development as a perfume center several centuries ago. In the Middle Ages the town of Grasse was centered on leather-tanning, but that process made the town pretty stinky. Catherine de Medici gets credit for coming up with the solution -- de Medici, who came to France from Italy in the 1500s to marry Henry II, got the idea to perfume leather gloves to cover up the smell. A perfume industry eventually developed, and it remained long after the leather industry faded away.


Our group visited one of the three major perfumeries in Grasse: Fragonard, which has been around since 1926. We learned that although the flowers for the Grasse perfume factories once came from the surrounding countryside (lavender, for example, is especially big in Provence), nowadays development has eaten up that countryside, and today it’s cheaper to import the flowers from Egypt, India, and other countries. The job of the perfumeries in Grasse is to process the blossoms here and extract the essence, or what they call the “absolut.” It takes on ton of flowers to get a about a quart of absolut. Each perfumery has a head honcho who creates the perfumes and has an especially well-cultivated sense of smell; he or she is called “the nose.”


At Fragonard we attended a class where we sniffed little sticks scented with perfumes, trying to name the components. We learned that perfumes are classified into categories like woody, oriental, spicy, flowery, and so on. We also learned (or tried to learn) to distinguish a perfume’s “top,” “middle,” and “base” notes. Top notes are scents like citrus and fresh-cut grass; middle notes evoke flowers and spices; and bass notes include amber and wood. It felt a little like the wine tasting of a week earlier: The instructor described Shalimar, for example, as “vanilla with a powdery note.”


One of the Penn Staters, Marilynne Stout, proved to be especially good at picking up on all of these nuances, so we took to calling her “the nose.”


After our tour of the factory -- and some time in the gift shop -- the Penn Staters in the group had a very special treat. A bus took us to the town of Valbonne, where a Penn State alumna and her husband hosted a reception for us at their home. Aimee Rusinko Kakos ’69 H&HD and husband Michael Kakos live in the U.S. most of the year but have a summer home in the south of France, and when they heard that a Penn State tour group would be in the area, they offered to have the travelers over for wine and snacks. It was a lovely late-afternoon gathering, and the alumni from Cornell (the other school represented on this trip) were a little envious of our bonus excursion. Later, many of the Penn State travelers said that the Kakos’ generosity and the chance to meet Penn Staters living in France was one of the highlights of the trip.


Tomorrow we’ll spend a day in Nice, visiting the Chagall Museum and a picturesque Russian Orthodox church, and taking in the beauty of the Mediterranean. I’ll write about Nice next.


Photos

Members of our group took in a class on perfume-making at the Fragonard perfumery in Grasse.


The Penn Staters learned how to distinguish the various components of perfumes during their visit to the Fragonard perfumery.


A tile painting at the Parfumerie Fragonard in Grasse captures the long tradition of perfume-making.


A special treat on the trip was a reception at the home of Penn State alumna Aimee Kakos and her husband, Michael (at right), who own a summer home in Valbonne, not far from Nice.


The Penn State travelers posed for a group shot at the Kakos home. Standing in the front row, from left: Jerry and Joady Gorelick, Pat Levin, Dot Kracht, Marilynne Stout, Jackie and Jerry Grossman. Second row: Jan Meyer, Alvin Levin, Aimee Kakos, Bob and Donna Nicely. Back row: Michael Kakos, Bill Kracht, Ned and Relda Newlin. Seated in front: Tina Hay.

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Our First Day on the French Riviera

We’ve now traded the quaintness of Provence for the glitziness and
beauty of the French Riviera -- which is charming and photogenic in a whole different way. The day before, after our lunch at the base of Mont St-Victoire, we left Provence and driven east towards Nice. Along the way we learned a bit about the history of the French Riviera, known locally as the Côte d’Azur, or the Azure Coast. It started off as a string of sleepy coastal villages, and its evolution into a major tourist destination can be attributed to one thing: tuberculosis. Someone discovered that the climate here is conducive to health, and suddenly lots of people started coming here. From there it didn’t take much for the area to morph into a resort destination. Queen Victoria (who, as far as I know, never had TB) would spend her winters here, bringing an entourage of 400 aides and servants. The area became extremely popular with the English, who found the idea of winter vacations in the sunny Mediterranean to be a heck of a lot more appealing than the dreary cold of their home country.


As our bus continued toward Nice, we got our first glimpse of the Alps, and learned that this region of France is called the Alpes Maritimes, because it’s where the mountains meet the sea. A few days from now, when we visit the principality of Monaco, we’ll see just how dramatic the transition is: Monaco, like other towns along the coast, is stuffed up against a mountainside, and the upper coastal road provides a spectacular -- if scary -- view of the ocean below. Anyway, it was pretty cool to see snow-covered mountains and palm trees all on the same day.


Just before we reached Nice, we passed through the city of Cannes, where we saw fancy tents being erected in preparation for the famous annual film festival. As we drove along the beach in Cannes, our trip director pointed out that all beaches in France are “top optional” for women. We also saw the town’s Hotel de Ville, which prompted the rest of the travelers on the bus to tease me: Earlier in the trip, I had noticed that every town seems to have a Hôtel de Ville, and I had assumed it was either a hotel chain or just a very commonly used name for a hotel. (Sort of like how every beach town in New Jersey has a motel called “The Dunes.”) Well, it turns out that “Hôtel de Ville” is the French name for the city hall.


Upon arriving in Nice, we noticed once again that motor scooters were everywhere. That had been the case in all the previous towns and villages we visited as well. It’s not unusual to see eight or 10 of them parked in a row outside a cafe, and there even are a few areas in Nice that you might call “scooter parks,” where dozens of scooters (and a few motorcycles) are all crammed in. Businessmen and businesswomen, moms with kids riding on the passenger seat, even a guy driving his scooter while smoking a cigarette -- we saw it all. As far as I can tell, helmets are mandatory in France, because we never saw anyone on a scooter without one.


Our first excursion from our base of operations in Nice was St-Paul-de-Vence, where we visited the Fondation Maeght, a museum of very modern art. We saw paintings and sculptures by Joan Miró, paintings by Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, and Marc Chagall, and an entire courtyard devoted to bronze sculptures by Alberto Giacometti. Of all those artists, I had heard of only Matisse and Chagall, but several of the Penn State travelers were art buffs and were pretty excited to see works by Miró, Giacometti, the cubists, and others. In the sculpture garden outside we looked at some colorful, larger-than-life sculptures ranging from a giant hot-dog-like thing to a guy who looked like Reddy Kilowatt to a figure that one of the Penn Staters pointed out was an E.T. look-alike.


For a dramatic contrast, we went from the museum of ultra-modern art to the center of the village of St-Paul, which is another of those “perched villages,” built on a hilltop for protection in the Middle Ages. Much as we did in Les-Baux-de-St-Rémy a few days earlier, we strolled around on the narrow cobblestone streets (really more like alleys), poked around in the boutiques, cafes, and postcard shops, and took turns taking each other’s picture with the rocky hillside as our backdrop. Some of us also walked over to the cemetery that contains the grave of Marc Chagall, who was associated with St-Paul-de-Vence for 19 years of his life. Others went down to the village square to watch the men play some very serious games of boules or pétanque, which is similar to bocce.


By the way, St-Paul-de-Vence is where we saw our first and only Pepsi products on the trip. It seems that Coca-Cola has a lock on southern France -- it’s everywhere. There’s Coke, Coke Light (the European equivalent of Diet Coke), Coke Light with Lemon, and a product you don’t see in the U.S.: Coke Light Sango, which has blood-orange flavoring. In St-Paul, however, we found a café that served only Pepsi products, and I had a “Pepsi Max” -- which contained no sucre (sugar) but presumably large amounts of caffeine.


After lunch at a restaurant in the Loup (pronounced “loo”) Valley, we headed up the mountain to Grasse, a town that’s famous for its perfume-making. I’ll write about that in my next post.


Photos

Penn State traveler Bob Nicely checks out the Chagall painting “La Vie” at the Fondation Maeght, a museum of modern art outside the village of St-Paul-de-Vence, France.


The sculpture “Walking Man” is one of a number of bronze figures sculpted by Giacometti that are on display at the Maeght museum.


St-Paul-de-Vence is one of a number of picturesque “perched villages” in southern France. Dating at least to the Middle Ages, they were situated on hilltops for protection against attacks.


Men play pétanque, or boules, in the village square in St-Paul-de-Vence, France. The game is similar to bocce.

Friday, May 11, 2007

Culture, Cafes, and Cezanne in Aix-en-Provence

A favorite spot for many visitors to Provence is the lovely city of Aix-en-Provence, the center of which is its beautiful tree-lined street, the Cours Mirabeau. The town’s name is often shortened to just “Aix,” which is pronounced just like the letter “X.” When someone does say the full name, it sounds like they’re saying “Exxon Provence.”


Like many cities and towns around Provence, Aix started as an ancient Roman colony, although it doesn’t have as many Roman ruins as some other towns. An interesting thing we learned was that there would be more Roman ruins in existence today if people over the centuries hadn’t used the Roman structures as quarries -- in other words, people in, say, the Middle Ages would cannibalize the ancient Roman structures for their limestone and use it to build newer buildings.


Our walking tour started on the famed Cours Mirabeau. “Cours” means a wide avenue, and this one is named for Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, marquis of Mirabeau, who was a key figure in the French Revolution. Lining the Cours Mirabeau are large plane trees -- what we in the U.S. call sycamores -- which, when they touch, make the avenue look almost like a tunnel. When we were there the trees had recently been trimmed, so we didn’t get the tunnel effect, but the avenue was beautiful nonetheless. On either side of the street are handsome townhouses from the 17th and 18th century, as well as cafes and shops. Some of the townhouses have a face sculpted in stone -- a person or a lion, perhaps -- over the doorway. Our guide mentioned that sometimes these conveyed a particular meaning: For example, if the owner didn’t like their neighbors, the stone face over the door might have its tongue sticking out.


One of Aix’s claims to fame is that the painter Paul Cezanne was born and spent much of his life here. Our walking tour took us past the junior high school where Cezanne spent four years, the College Auguste Mignet. While there, Cezanne made friends with a classmate named Emile Zola, who would later become a respected French novelist. The two would stay friends for years -- until Zola made the mistake of writing a novel in which the central character was a failed artist. Cezanne suspected that Zola was referring to him, and he broke off the friendship.


Among the other sights we saw on our stroll through town:


--The Museum d’Histoire Naturelle, or Museum of Natural History, which sports a few dinosaur eggs.


--A monument commemorating the liberation of France on Aug. 15, 1944. Most of us know about the U.S. forces that landed in Normandy on June 6 of that year, but there also were U.S. forces who landed later on the beaches at St-Tropez, in the south of France, and moved north to Aix and the rest of Provence. Several of the people over here have told us how grateful the French are to the Americans for our country's role in World War II. One of our lecturers told us, “Without you, I would not be free.”


--The Cathedrale St-Sauveur, which has a baptistry dating to 400 A.D. as well as some very old stained-glass windows. Original stained-glass windows are rare in Provence because of the powerful Mistral wind and the damage it can cause.


--The 600-year-old University of Aix-Marseille III. Today it is almost as big as Penn State’s University Park campus -- 40,000 students -- and is a popular spot for students in Study Abroad programs.


--Shops selling sweet treats called calissons, or calissons d’Aix. A confectionery that has been made for more than 400 years, a calisson contains almonds, candied fruits, and marzipan, among other ingredients.


Some of the travelers opted to explore Aix on their own. Joady Gorelick, a Penn Stater from California who runs a business supplying needleworkers and costumers, headed over to the Musee des Tapisseries to see the 17th and 18th century tapestries and the opera and stage costumes from the 20th century.


After re-boarding the bus and leaving Aix, we headed off to lunch at a restaurant at the base of Mont St-Victoire, a mountain made famous by Cezanne, who loved it and painted it from many angles. He painted at least 60 paintings of Mont St-Victoire. We ate at a lovely restaurant and winery in the village of Relais-St-Ser, where we supplemented our country lunch with local red, white, and rose wines. (There is never a shortage of wine at meals in France.) Then we got back on the bus and headed for the Cote d’Azur, or the French Riviera. For the next five days we’ll be based in Nice. Stay tuned for dispatches from our adventures there.


Photos

The Penn State travelers visited Aix-en-Provence's Cathedrale St-Sauveur, which has a fifth-century baptistry, visible on the right-hand side of this photo.


Elegant townhouses line the main street in the town of Aix-en-Provence.


The university in Aix-en-Provence is one of France's largest, enrolling 40,000 students.


You often can find a small statue of a saint on the corner of a building in Aix-en-Provence.


Many of the old townhouses in Aix-en-Provence have a fancy -- and often humorous -- stone face over the doorway.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Wandering the Outdoor Markets in Isle-Sur-La-Sorgue

Among the charms of Provence are the local products -- from fabrics to foods -- and a good place to see them all on display is the town of Isle-Sur-La-Sorgue. As its name might suggest, it’s on the Sorgue River, and the town center is surrounded by canals, leading to its reputation as “The Venice of Provence.” On Sundays the town is dominated by an open-air market, where we had an opportunity to browse, take photos of, and in some cases purchase, the local products.


Isle-Sur-La-Sorgue is about a half-hour bus ride from our hotel in Avignon, and on the ride we learned about the town’s history. It was one of three towns in Provence that were owned by the Catholic Church in the 14th century, when the papacy was based in Avignon instead of Rome. Long ago, Isle-Sur-La-Sorgue had about 70 wooden water wheels, used for wool, silk, and paper making. Nine of the original water wheels are still there. The town also has a 17th-century church, the Notre-Dame-des-Anges, which was designed in the Baroque style and which has 222 representations of angels throughout.


On the way to Isle-Sur-La-Sorgue we passed through the village of Le Thor, where American Pierre Salinger made his home in his later years. Salinger, you may remember, was White House press secretary under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, and later was a correspondent for ABC News. His mother was French, and Salinger lived in France several times during his life; in 2000 he moved to Le Thor, and for the next several years he was a popular news analyst on French TV. He died here in 2004, and the village now has a museum in his honor.


Farther down the road is Luberon, the home of Peter Mayle, the British-born author who wrote the bestseller A Year in Provence, along with A Good Year and a number of other books. There was a time when tour buses would regularly go out of their way to go past his house, but he didn’t appreciate that, as you can imagine. So now the buses stay away.


In Isle-Sur-La-Sorgue itself, after visiting the church, the Penn State travelers wandered the outdoor markets. You could do your grocery shopping here, if only taking it back in your luggage wouldn’t be so messy: Strawberries are in season, as are radishes and white asparagus, all artfully presented in photogenic displays. There also are stands displaying olives, sausages, fish, cheeses, melons, and Clementine oranges, among other foods. Sachets of lavender are everywhere, as are antiques, pottery, colorful fabrics, and fragrant and colorful soaps. A few of the Penn State travelers bought olive oils or tapenades to take home as gifts; others bought posters, art prints, or postcards.


In the afternoon we’ll have some free time in Avignon -- our last day here -- and then after that we travel to Nice, along the French Riviera, where we’ll be based for the last five days of the trip. On the way to Nice we’ll visit the town of Aix-en-Provence, which will be the subject of my next post.


Photos

Penn State traveler Jan Meyer checks out the soaps for sale at the market in Isle-Sur-La-Sorgue. The most common soap by far in Provence is lavender, but there's also cannelle orange ("cannelle" is the French word for cinnamon), lemon, almond, verbena, rose, and many others.


In the town of Isle-Sur-La-Sorgue, in Provence, a weekly market draws people shopping for everything from antiques to textiles to food. This particular stand was one of several offering fresh olives for sale.


Colorful pottery is everywhere in Provence, as evidenced by this stand at the market in Isle-Sur-La-Sorgue.


A floral shop in the lovely town of Isle-Sur-La-Sorgue.

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

In Provence, the Romans Were Everywhere

One of the best-preserved Roman theatres anywhere in Europe is in the town of Orange, in the Provence region of France. Orange was a Roman colony in the first century B.C., around the height of the Roman empire, and a huge piece of evidence of that is the amphitheatre, called Theatre d’Orange. It’s one of several UNESCO World Heritage Sites we have visited on this Penn State Alumni Association trip. The amphitheatre is huge -- the stage and the stone wall behind it are both enormous -- and, in case you have any doubts about the origins of the place, the wall includes a bust of Augustus Caesar. The fact that the wall has lasted 2,000 years is pretty amazing. The theatre is still used today -- there’s an opera festival there every summer, among other events.

Also in Orange is an Arc de Triomphe, or triumphal arch, which the Romans built over a five-year period, from 22 to 27 A.D. (I would love to know how historians can narrow such things down to the exact year.) The arch commemorates the conquering of Gaul about 100 years earlier; the Romans had a way of erecting huge monuments to let you know exactly who was in control. The arch is ornately decorated with images reflecting war themes. Today it’s in the middle of a traffic roundabout or rotary, so as you admire it, the cars and motor scooters are whizzing by all around you.

An ancient Roman necropolis, or cemetery, has also been found near Orange.

After we visited Orange, we paid a visit to another UNESCO World Heritage site, and one of France’s top five tourist sites: Pont du Gard. By now I have figured out that “pont” means bridge, and sure enough, Pont du Gard is so named because it serves as a bridge over the river Gardon. Pont du Gard was an aqueduct, originally 30 miles long, and was designed to channel water from springs in the mountains to the town of Nimes, where it provided water to fountains, public baths, and even houses. The Romans were unbelievably advanced -- historians and engineers marvel today at the fact that some houses in ancient Rome had running water, considering that it wouldn’t be until the 19th century, almost 2,000 years later, before other societies would figure out how to do that.

Coming up in the next dispatch: Wandering the markets of the lovely town of Isle-sur-la-Sorgue.

Photos

This immense and extremely well-preserved theatre in the town of Orange is still used today, for concerts ranging from opera to rock.


This museum is across from Theatre Antique d’Orange, the ancient Roman theatre in the town of Orange. We didn’t visit the museum, but it was so beautiful we couldn’t help taking pictures of it.


One of the most visited sites in the south of France is the ancient Roman aqueduct Pont du Gard; Built 2,000 years ago, it represented extremely advanced engineering know-how and once extended 30 miles.


Penn State travelers Jerry and Jackie Grossman at the ancient Roman Arc de Triomphe in Orange, France.


Penn Staters Jerry and Joady Gorelick at Pont du Gard, an ancient Roman aqueduct over the Gardon River. Two thousand years ago it supplied water to the town of Nimes; today it's a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Wine-Tasting in the South of France

On Day 4, the Penn State travelers got to do a little wine-tasting. We visited the region known as Chateaneuf de Pape, which is named after the remains of a castle or chateau that served as the summer home for the Avignon popes back in the 14th century. (“Chateauneuf” means “new castle.”) Today the area, which is part of the Rhone River valley, is known for its wine making. Everywhere we drive, we see lots of olive groves, and field after field of grape vines. The fields don’t look like what you’d expect, as the grape vines are pruned back so far that they’re very low to the ground -- maybe two feet high at most -- and their branches have become thick and sturdy over time. That’s to protect them against the wicked Mistral wind, a cold, strong wind that whips through the area during certain times of the year. Some of the vines we saw were 60 or more years old. The fact that they’re so short means you don’t get as many grapes from each one, but over here the wine makers are happy to trade quantity for quality.

The Mistral wind isn’t the only weather challenge that wine makers face: Too much or too little rain is also a worry. The year 2002 was a bad one for wine makers in this region; there was a flood near harvest time, and many people lost not only their grapes but their houses too. One of the travelers in our group asked our host at the vineyard we visited what kind of year 2007 would be, and she said there’s no way to know. “Wine making is 99 percent nature’s affair,” she said. “We won’t know what kind of year this will be until the grapes are in the tank.”

There are 300-some wine makers in this region, producing an astounding 13 million bottles a year -- mostly red wines but also some whites and roses. The best of them qualify for the “A.O.C.” designation, which stands for Appellation d’Origine Controlee; it means that the grapes have been grown according to certain standards and have been picked by hand -- no machines allowed -- and the wine is of the highest quality. The next time you’re shopping for French wine in the U.S., look on the bottle and see if you can find “A.O.C.” listed on the label. Around here the A.O.C. gold standard can be found not only on wine, but also on olive oil and other products.

Another term we hear a lot around here is “Cotes du Rhone,” which I think just means that the wine came from this region; the term “Cotes du Rhone” translates to “the banks of the Rhone River.” One of the Penn State travelers told us that the name has spawned another type of wine: “Goats Do Roam” -- and, sure enough, if you Google that phrase, you find a wine maker by that name in South Africa. Go to http://www.goatsdoroam.com/ if you don’t believe me!

A few of the travelers bought wine to take home with them, although the new airport security restrictions mean you can no longer take the wine in your carry-on luggage. Instead you have to swaddle the bottles in dirty laundry, put them in your check-through luggage, and hope for the best. Shipping the wine home from here isn't an option either, as it would be prohibitively expensive -- for six bottles it would have been something like 200 Euros, which translates to well over $250.

On the same day that we visited the wine country, we also went to the town of Orange, home of two very impressive ancient Roman ruins. More on them in the next dispatch.


Photo

This arch is part of the ruins of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, the 14th-century summer home of the French popes. The site offers a superb view of the Provence countryside. Today Châteauneuf-du-Pape is the name of a village and region well known for its wines.


The vineyards in the Rhône River valley, like this one in the Châteauneuf-du-Pape region, feature grapevines that are pruned to be very short. That helps them survive the powerful Mistral winds that blow through southern France.

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Perched Villages, and More About Van Gogh

The south of France has a number of “perched villages”—settlements on rocky hilltops—and they are extremely picturesque. After our trip to Arles, we headed over to the perched village of Les-Baux-de-Provence, which has had human settlements since at least Roman times. Like many such sites around this area, it was built on a hilltop for a reason: protection against attackers. And at the highest point of the village you can tour the ruins of a fortress.

The village of Les Baux—the “Baux” rhymes with “mow”—is in a region of small mountains called the Alpilles, pronounced al-PEEL. It’s a very scenic region; on the way to Les Baux our bus passed lots of olive groves and vineyards. Along the way we also learned that this region is where the mineral bauxite was first discovered. (“Baux” in French apparently means a prominent cliff, and the mineral was named after that.) And we learned that the town inspired writers ranging from Dante to the French poet and Nobel Prize winner Frederic Mistral. Mistral is a big deal around here; more on him another time.

On top of the hill in Les Baux, you can wander around the old village’s narrow cobblestone streets, which are lined with cafes, museums, and shops, or visit the small 12th-century church, the Eglise St-Vincent. The church is still in use, and in fact there’s quite a demand to get in to its Christmas services. Reservations are required. The old-town Les Baux also offers a lovely view of the fancy homes in the more modern village down below, which has a population of about 450. Quite a few of us in the Penn State group saw homes we would love to own.

After Les Baux, we headed off to the town of St-Rémy, perhaps most famous as the site of St-Paul-de-Mausole, a mental home where Vincent Van Gogh spent a year. Van Gogh lived in Provence for the last two years of his life, and as far as I can tell, he was hospitalized most of that time—first in Arles, as mentioned in a previous post, and then in St-Rémy. In the case of the St-Paul hospital near St-Rémy, he was committed there at his request from May 1889 to May 1890, and during that time he painted some very famous stuff, including Starry Night. Our guide said that many scholars believe that the town pictured in Starry Night is in fact St-Rémy. We toured the grounds of the St-Paul hospital, which dates to the 12th century and which is still in operation today. The area that tourists can visit includes a replica of Van Gogh’s room from when he was a patient there, as well as a gift shop with all kinds of Van Gogh-themed materials: books, posters, postcards, refrigerator magnets, and the like.

A short walk from the St-Paul clinic is a very small village called Glanum, where even more Roman ruins can be found. There’s a triumphal arch at Glanum, but right now it’s being repaired, so it’s totally blanketed in scaffolding—not much to look at. Apparently it was built around 10 B.C., during the reign of Augustus.

Our next day will take us to Orange, site of an incredibly large and well-preserved Roman theatre, as well as Chateauneuf-de-Pape, a wine-making region, and Pont du Gard, a huge ancient Roman aqueduct over the Gardon River. I’ll report on those sites next.


Photos

With the French presidential election on Sunday, political signs for the two candidates could be found everywhere.


The gardens at Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, the mental hospital where Vincent Van Gogh spent a year (May 1889 to May 1890). Van Gogh painted a number of his most famous works—including “Starry Night”—while he was here. Saint-Paul-de-Mausole is near the town of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.


The "perched village" of Les-Baux-de-Provence is a charming little village with cobblestone streets and shops.


The church in the hilltop village of Les-Baux, the Igles St-Vincent, has modernistic stained-glass windows—a gift of the famous Grimaldi family of nearby Monaco.

Monday, May 7, 2007

Arles: Land of the Romans—and Van Gogh

The Romans established quite a few colonies in the south of France during the first century B.C., and there’s plenty of evidence still available today to prove it. Lots of well-preserved Roman ruins have been found throughout Provence: temples, theatres, amphitheatres, public baths, triumphal arches, an aqueduct, and necropolises (cemeteries). They’re constantly finding Roman ruins throughout Provence, even today.

One ancient Roman colony, originally known as Arelate, eventually became the modern-day town of Arles. Even as a Roman settlement 2,000 years ago, it was sizeable: 25,000 people lived here.

More recently, Arles (which I’ve heard pronounced as either “Arl” or “Ar-leh”) is known as the place where Vincent Van Gogh spent a year of his life and painted about 200 paintings. He spent another year of his life not far from here in St-Rémy—more about that later. Our group of Penn State travelers saw the site that inspired his painting “The Yellow House” (1888), but the yellow house itself is no longer standing; that’s because it was in an area that was bombed in World War II—specifically June 1944, during the liberation of Arles.

We also saw the very café that Van Gogh painted in “Café at Night, Place du Forum, Arles” (1888)—it’s still standing. And we saw the hospital/sanitorium where he spent some time after he cut off part of his ear. He didn’t stop painting while hospitalized; in fact, two of his paintings from this period were “The Garden of the Arles Sanitorium” and “Hospital Room at Arles.”

Also in Arles, we saw a 12th century church called Eglise St-Trophime, named for the man who was the first bishop of Arles. The church is one of several UNESCO World Heritage Sites that the Penn State travelers have visited. The church is known for its collection of religious relics, which at one time supposedly included a portion of the skull of St. Stephen.

Arles has several impressive Roman ruins, including an outdoor theatre that dates to the first century B.C. and that held 10,000 spectators in its day. Better yet is the amphitheatre, which was modeled after the Roman coliseum and which seated 25,000 spectators for gladiator fights. It’s almost entirely intact today, which is pretty amazing. Our trip director from Alumni Holidays, Fred Burke, pointed out how its design is essentially identical to our modern-day stadiums; the approach hasn’t changed much in 2,000 years.

The amphitheatre has been used off and on over those 2,000 years, including throughout medieval times and in the 17th century. Today it’s still used on occasion for bullfights—not the Spanish kind, called corridas, but a local version called Camargue games, where the bull isn’;t killed. Instead the bulls have various trinkets dangling from their horns, and the toreadors have to retrieve the trinkets without getting gored.

Day 3 of the Penn State trip also includes a visit to the “perched village” of Les Baux and a stop at a second hospital where Vincent Van Gogh spent a year, near St-Rémy. More on those excursions in future dispatches.


Photos

This archway is on a 12th century church called Eglise St-Trophime. It’s named for the man who was the first bishop of Arles. The church is one of several UNESCO World Heritage Site the Penn State travelers have visited.


A resident of Arles has decorated her windows in a rather entertaining way.


This hotel entrance in Arles is typical of the charm of Provence.


A climb to the top of the ancient Roman amphitheatre in Arles rewards visitors with this view of the city.


The group’s guide shows the Penn State travelers the cafe in Arles where Van Gogh painted “Cafe du Soir.” In the 15 months he lived in Arles, Van Gogh did 300 paintings, but interestingly, the town has none of them today—they're all in museums and private collections elsewhere around the world.


The ancient Roman arena in Arles, Les Arenes, seated 20,000 people when it was built for gladiator fights 2,000 years ago.