Return Aix-Marseille-Brussels-Dulles-Reagan-Louisville

The alarm went off at 03:30 and we brewed some instant coffee and got our bags ready for departure. We were down in the lobby breakfast nook at 04:00 where we knew the hotel night manager had prepared a small breakfast for us. Sure enough, we had some nice chopped fruit, pastries and coffee as strong as a mule’s kick. The taxi was supposed to pick us up at 04:30, but that did not happen.

At 04:35 the night manager called the number of the taxi company and was in turn told to call the number of the taxi driver at home. He woke him up. When the driver appeared about fifteen minutes later, we both noticed that he either had a very bad cold or he was using cocaine. He started out by going the exact wrong way. We had a rather erratic ride to Marseille airport, but arrived in time and in one piece.

Entering the airport we searched in vain for the United Airlines check in. We finally asked another airline rep and were told that United did not exist. So then we had to figure out that it was Brussels Air, acting as a code-share, that was actually taking us to Brussels. Forgive us, it was very early and we had just had a really rough start.

The 07:00 flight on an Avro RJ100 from Marseille to Brussels went off without a hitch, and we did have a fantastic sunrise en route. We encountered the most bizarre cabin crew logic when they served complementary beverages. Louise asked for coffee and was in turn asked if she was taking an international flight, which she was. In that case, Louise was allowed to also have a free bottle of water. When this same attendant asked if David was travelling with Louise, the affirmative response revoked the free water. If travelling together, we could only have the free coffee. What team of idiots thinks up these rules?

En route Louise started twisting our two plastic coffee stirrers together and came up with a beautiful variation on the Mobius Loop that we may well be able to fashion into a clay creation at Arrowmont this summer. We took macro photos for the maquette.

In Brussels we looked at the board and saw that our next gate was at the furthest distance from where we had disembarked. It seems to be a Flat A*** Rule that we always have to go on a boot camp forced march in airport terminals. Fortunately, we had landed at 09:00 and the next flight was booked for 10:15 hrs.

But, to get there we had to go through two separate passport checks and faced an arbitrary second security check. So, we missed an opportunity to grab a snack. Outside it was a cloudy bright 7 Celsius with spotty showers.

When we did not board from gate T-72 at 10:15 we started to get the inkling that something was wrong. In fact, boarding for our flight from Brussels to Dulles, Washington DC, was delayed by about half an hour on the pretext that the aircraft cleaning was taking longer than expected. When we boarded, nothing happened. Looking out the cabin window, streaked with rain, we could see that the baggage bays were wide open. There was no activity on the apron.

Finally, after about an hour the Captain of the Airbus A330-300 came on to admit that there was a wildcat baggage handling strike and that the baggage had not been loaded. The bags were loaded in the pouring rain at 12:15 hrs – remember to line your suitcase with plastic for such an eventuality. To pass the time, we filled out the mandatory US Customs and Immigration form – they were never collected when we landed in the United States.

We did not take off until 12:45 and by then we had sensed that we had a connecting flight problem. As mollification, we were served a very nice hot sauce chicken and beer for lunch.

It was a very long 9.5 hour flight. Between us we watched five movies – “The Fault in Our Stars”,
“The Judge”, “Person of Interest”, “The Exotic Marigold Hotel” and an episode of “The Middle”.

In the afternoon the crew gave out a frozen chocolate ice cream with a chocolate coating on a wooden stick. Somebody in the dry cleaning industry designed it so that the chocolate chipped off and stained your shirt!

At 20:45 Brussels time the crew gave us a pizza-type wrap and we begged another beer. At 20:55 we saw Manhattan Island pass on the starboard wing.

We landed at Dulles at 21:45 and we thought we were OK. It turned out that the cabin crew announced the wrong Washington time as 15:45, when it was in fact 16:45 local. We had a flight to Louisville at 17:20 hrs.

We had to get into one of those lumbering elevated people movers that took us halfway around Dulles to get to the United Airlines gates. But, once disembarked from the Trojan Horse, we had to go through US Customs and Immigration and then another security check. It was a very slow process and our blood pressure was up.

Then we found out that we actually had to cover a huge distance, taking a train en route, to get to the gate for Louisville. We ran and missed the plane by about five minutes. We were directed to Customer Service, where we had to wait about fifteen minutes to even speak to an agent. The first thing we found out was that it was not United’s problem as the Brussels baggage strike was the cause. There was no other flight from Dulles to Louisville until the next day.

But, the Customer Service rep said that we could take a chance and book a flight out of Reagan National in Northern Virginia. We would have to pay thirty-nine dollars to take the shuttle. We grabbed it.

Of course we had to run back half the distance we had already traced in order to even get to the shuttle booking desk. When got there the clerk looked a bit skeptical that we could make it on time, but his buddy said it was OK. We paid and ran outside to find the shuttle. There were only two seats left and it was about to depart. David’s bad leg collapsed when he tried to board, but Louise pushed from behind.

It was a nerve-wracking trip because the shuttle soon ran into the late afternoon traffic jams of the Beltway. En route Louise tried to use the cell phone to check in for the next flight using the code given us. It refused to work.

Thinking ahead, Louise used the cell phone to call the limo company in Louisville to explain that we would not be arriving in Louisville as booked. She rebooked for our new arrival time. We passed Arlington National Cemetery and then the Pentagon. It was a bit of a relief when we saw the bronze statue of Ronald Reagan welcoming us to his airport.

We got to the United check in but the code would not work on the automated system. There was only one human on duty and he could not make it work either, so we had no boarding passes. Then he noticed it was a US Airways flight, even though all the paperwork was on United stationery. So then we asked where the US Airways gate was – you guessed it – at the far end of the terminal. We were able to get boarding passes using the code!

Then we had to go through another security check before we finally got to the gate. We had about fifteen minutes in hand so we celebrated with a seven dollar beer.

Right on time, we were taken by people mover from the terminal to our tiny Canadair CL-65 Air Wisconsin plane. Shortly after takeoff, we were looking down on the Lincoln Memorial, The Mall and the Washington Monument. David last saw them in June,1974 on a US Staff College trip.

It was a short flight on a clear night with millions of light bulbs winking at us. A lawyer behind us and his new lady friend talked non-stop to make sure we did not fall asleep. At 21:30 we landed in Louisville. We walked to the baggage claim area and were absolutely astounded to see our two bags outside the baggage office. Once we showed ID, our bags were released and we walked out to the limo.

Vinnie the driver was waiting for us and drove us to Louise’s home. As soon we got into the house we celebrated our twenty-three hour ordeal with a bourbon (David is a convert) and a scotch (Louise has Scottish roots).

We slept like logs.

Aix. 29 March 2015 – Sunday – Excursion to Marseille

The alarm went off at 06:30 and we had toast and marmalade for breakfast. David left the apartment to dump the garbage. He was going on to the Boulangerie to buy a jambon-beurre for lunch in Marseille. As the elevator paused at the lobby, he heard the voices of our group. We had been scheduled to leave at 08:30 so this was a mystery. Unknown to us, there had been a one hour time change overnight. So we really scrambled and got out the door eight minutes late, missing the chance to buy our lunch but grabbing a cold beer.

Well, we were really off balance and that seemed to affect the whole day. The good thing was that there were pretty cherry blossoms in the median of the autoroute.

We were soon in Marseille, founded by the Greeks in 600 BC. Marseille is the biggest harbour in France but a combination of high port fees and strikes tend to drag it down commercially.

Our first stop was the Palais Longchamp that is home to a fine arts museum. The main fountain in the front of the palace may have been built to celebrate the arrival of the water from the St Christophe water reservoir coming from the Durance.

We were told of the famous Soap of Marseille, which is 72% olive oil and is touted as good for the skin.

Marseille was liberated in 1944 at the cost of 3,000 lives.

The second stop was the Cathedral of Notre Dame de la Garde. The road up was torturous for the coach driver. We arrived at 10:00 and Le Mistral was really blowing on top of the hill. There were a bit too many steps leading up to the church. We had to wait a while to take an elevator that eliminated six flights of stairs.

The church was crammed as a mass was being said. Many worshippers were well-dressed French wearing their Sunday best and carrying olive branches purchased on the way in. They were attending Palm Sunday Mass. Among the ship models hanging from the ceiling, there was a model of a Canadair CL 215 water bomber. The bombers are used to douse wild fires. We stayed long enough to take a couple of photos.

The coach left at 10:40 and we inched our way down, passing a Sherman tank. The tank had been part of the 16 Aug 1944 allied invasion. Then we drove along the Corniche Kennedy fronting the Mediterranean. We noted the Chateau d’If that had featured in ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’. We saw a lot of high-priced real estate with beautiful views. At least three cruise ships were in port.

Back into the city, we skirted the harbour gawking at a billion dollars worth of boats. Then we climbed to the harbour entrance that was guarded by two forts – namely St Jean and St Nicolas. Trying to gain access to the fort complex, the guard confiscated the beer we had brought for lunch. It was just one of those days. The forts had been commissioned by Louis XIV and constructed under Louis-Nicolas de Cherville from 1662. The guns were sited such that they could fire out to sea or back into Marseille. Louis did not trust the locals. Remember that the French National Anthem is called “La Marseillaise”.

We walked through the very modern museum complex and then towards the second Cathedral. By 12:10 we were at La Vieille Charite that had been built in the mid 1600s – it took about 80 years to build. It fell into disrepair but was saved by Le Corbusier. It is now a museum complex. Here we paused for a coffee.

We walked uphill through a unique neighbourhood that had once featured wind mills. We could see the remains of two old mills that had been turned into houses. When we finally got back to the harbour area we were released for an hour lunch break.

We walked along the quayside restaurants and quickly realized we were in a tourist trap. We found a place on a back street that featured four Euro sandwiches, but the owner in the door told us he was closing. Crestfallen, we finally found a place that offered a big slice of quiche and two salad choices for 11 Euros. So, we shared one plate and bought two excellent dark beers. We can recommend Bal Brune Brasserie Artisanale du Luberon.

We met back at the Hotel de Ville under the watchful gaze of Louis Quartorze at 14:00 hrs. Waiting for us was Claude, the historian who had given us the overview of the area’s history on our arrival in Aix.

He explained that the Germans had razed the northern side of the harbour. When the Allies invaded Morocco the Germans got nervous and invaded Vichy France in November, 1942. The Germans saw the rabbit warren of the Marseille area as a Resistance nest that they could not control. So, they simply ordered 25,000 people out of the area and dynamited 1,924 buildings.

The Germans did leave one small area that archeologists could excavate. The site had lots of examples of huge storage containers where olive oil could be stored until sold. Claude explained that the amphora used to transport oil and olives were the coke bottles of the ancient world. Archeologists have become very adept at using amphora to date a site. We also heard that the pointed plug at the bottom of an amphora made them simpler to store on a ship and also easier to pour out the contents.

Walking in the area we saw the sixteenth century Maison Diamante that had escaped German destruction. A bit later we saw a fifteenth century Hotel Echevin that had also been spared.

As we climbed up the hill we came to a very modern space that had recently been redeveloped. At the top was the five star hotel that had replaced a hospice run by the church.

Claude took us to the excavated head of the ancient harbour. There was even the remains of a Roman fresh water storage tank, fed by a spring, that was used to provide fresh water for ships. From 2 BC to AD Marseille was the most significant port. The Romans had found the Rhone too prone to flooding to establish a port in its estuary.

At 15:14 we left the old Greek-Roman harbour to return to Aix. There were banks of gorse-like yellow blooms. We had been able to see a good bit of the Mediterranean shoreline on a windy, warm day. The Mistral had been formidable in the earlier part of the day, but as we departed Marseille and headed back to Aix, the weather was balmy and beau.

Soon we were back at our hotel in Aix.

We decided that a soup, salad and a bottle of red would be all we needed for our last supper.

On March 30th, we were to depart the hotel for Marseille airport at 04:30 and fly home to Louisville via Brussels and Washinton, DC.

Aix. 24 to 30 March 2015 – Week

Tuesday, 24 March 2015. It was a tough slug dragging ourselves to school after such a long day in Avignon. Since the sun was shining, we decided to walk to wake ourselves up. The vendors were setting up their stalls on the Cours Mirabeau. It seemed to be a tough way to make a living.

We got to school in plenty of time and decided to go down into the park that runs along the banks of the Torse River. In a way, it reminded us of Highland Creek Park in Scarborough. We took some “selfies”.

We had two ninety minute language sessions. During the second, the female student from Switzerland was looking up a word on her iPhone when she got a “breaking news flash”. She exclaimed in German that an aircraft had crashed. We walked home in the sun.

After picking up a baguette sandwich, tomato and mozarella, we went to the supermarket to buy some groceries. We have found a very nice, crisp Savignon Pays d’Oc by Roche Mazet. It costs just under three Euros. Try that in North America!

In the afternoon, on the BBC and SkyNews, we followed the unfolding story of the Germanwings Airbus 320 that crashed in the French Alps.

We also wrote the blog on our visit to Avignon. That took a bit of time as there was a lot of detail to capture. And of course we had written homework assignments to complete. We cheated a bit by using a web-based translation program. But, even that had to be corrected!

Wednesday, March 25th. The noise of the hotel garbage cans being rolled to the curb woke us up. A quick glance out side, and consultation with our weather forecasting programs confirmed that we would be having rain all day. So, that meant we had more time as we would take the bus.

It poured rain all the way to school. At school we found out that some students thought they had heard the stricken A320 passing overhead yesterday morning. Given the data, that was a possibility.

At 12:30 we decided to take a chance and walk home. It was quite cool at 48 Fahrenheit – the kind of damp cold that goes right through. We stopped at the MonoPrix supermarket to buy an onion, two tomatoes and a beer. Then we kept going until pausing again to buy a sliced roast pork baguette for lunch. Little did we know that Madame had laced the pork with a very potent horse radish.

We spent the afternoon drinking English breakfast tea and doing homework.

For dinner, Louise decided that we should make use of the Basmati Rice that we had received in our welcome package. We got creative and chopped up half an onion and added a vegetable bouillon cube to the rice. Shepherd’s Pie would be the featured dish, unfortunately without HP sauce. The wine was a red 2013 Coteaux d’Aix-en-Provence, which cost about four Euros.

Thursday, March 26th. We were awakened about five o’clock by the noise of chairs being dragged by our upstairs neighbours. A whole gaggle of young people had moved in over the weekend and the noise level had gone up significantly.

At breakfast it was only 45 Fahrenheit, with a forecast high of a sunny 60 degrees. We had a light breakfast and left the hotel quite early to enjoy a leisurely walk to school in the sun. The vendors were setting up their stalls in the Cours Mirabeau.

We got to school with twenty-five minutes to spare so we walked down into the park beside the Rivière de la Torse, hoping to surprise Cezanne’s nude bathers. Instead, a park worker with a leaf blower was destroying the morning solitude. Nevertheless, we liked the sunny scenery and took some photos.

We went through the typical double ninety minutes of French lessons. That was really tough as it has all been in French – you either get it or you flail in confusion.

After school, we walked into the old part of Aix to the L’Alcove Restaurant. Inside we gingerly descended a narrow spiral metal staircase to the vaulted cave below street level. Our AHI group had a lunch that featured boeuf bourguignon on noodles, that was not any better than which we had microwaved in our apartment. A small glass of red wine and small Heineken cost us nine Euros. Dessert was fruits emerged in a zabaglione sauce followed by 100 octane coffee.

On the way home we dropped into the MonoPrix supermarket to pick up some groceries.

The afternoon was taken up doing homework. Then we watched the horrible denouement of the Germanwings disaster on BBC.

We decided that dinner would be our magnificent spaghetti and ragout sauce, with a green salad.

We went to bed quite early after a tough school day 😉

Friday, March 27th. We were woken up at 06:00 by our roisterous neighbours.  It was a sunny 49 Fahrenheit at breakfast and it would climb to 59 as a high. But, we were going to experience ‘Le Mistral’ – winds of 25 to 35 miles per hour. Le Mistral sweeps down the Rhone valley and can cause a lot of damage.

About 07:45 we heard a racket in the street below. About thirty to thirty-five teenagers were departing our hotel dragging their carry-ons down the street. So, that was why it was so noisy in the hotel the last couple of days!

We left the hotel about 08:00 and enjoyed walking in the sunny, but cool fresh air. David had two oral presentations to make, so he was a bit tense. Fortunately, the way things worked out he had delivered both by the morning break.

Chez Louise, the class was the usual attempt to reply to the questions posed by the teacher, Monia, and to keep everything moving along in French.

Then, after the second session it was all over. We had attended French lessons for three weeks – a French poodle could have done as much and might even have spoken better French at the end.

We had an aperitif with our classmates and teachers on the patio and said our farewells. Louise and her class said farewell to the other Louise, the lady from Taiwan, who went off to Paris for a few days to visit with her son and then on to Taiwan. Then we walked down into La Torse park and followed a slightly different route back into town taking photos along the way.

BTW, we learned that the locals like the gentle version of Le Mistral because it chases all the bad weather away.

We dropped by the ‘Book in Bar’ store that sold English language material. Louise bought a book that had attracted her on her first visit. Then, tempting fate, we went back to the Desigual clothing store. After flirting with a black dress, for the second time, Louise walked away.

We dropped into the Boulangerie and bought a ‘jambon cru and feta’ baguette for lunch. Then it was off to the grocery store to pick up groceries and a little something for the soiree that the AHI group was having at 18:00 hrs to celebrate the first Friday in the week. At the grocery store, a kindly old Frenchman tried to explain to Louise which wines were deemed the best. He did not understand that our only criterion was a low price.

We gathered in the breakfast nook at 18:00 and regaled each other with our war stories from the past few days. We all brought a little something as the food component, while the Tour Manager enticed us with local wines. The party broke up about 21:00 and we were soon asleep.

Saturday, Match 28th. We slept very well and got up at 08:05 and soon realized we had a super day on our hands. The computer told us it was 52 Fahrenheit and that it would climb to a record sixty eight. The sun was blinding. We immediately identified with Van Gogh who was entranced with the brilliant sun of the south in contrast to Paris.

Unfortunately, we simply dilly-dallied until about 11:00 by which time Louise had decided that the dress at Desigual was ideal for the Kentucky Derby. So, we kitted up and walked downtown. The weather was superb.

The warm weather had hatched the fashion bug in Louise. So we trekked to the H&M, then Zara and finally Desigual. The first was a strikeout, the second an almost ran and the third an error and a hit. The dress we had gone to see at Desigual did not have enough mint julep in it. So, Louise madly back pedalled and bought the other frock that she had been eyeing. It will probably make its debut at an Easter lunch in Lexington – if we can get through the snow drifts.

Le Mistral is deceptive. It looks as though the weather is warm, but that cold wind really had an edge.

We had a wonderful croque-monsieur for lunch. Contrary to popular belief, the French are quite good at fast food. More Jambon-Beurre is sold as a casse-croute, than hamburgers or pizzas.

We would be remiss if we did mention the infernal French emergency vehicle sirens. They “Pan Pah” all over the city, day and night. We asked our teachers if there had been some horrible accidents on the autoroute and all we got was a Gallic shrug. We just think they turn them on to get through traffic, whether there is an emergency or not.

Supper was a wonderful soup out of a package, proving again how adept the French are at fast food, the last thing they would like to be a accused of. Note: we ended with a preposition as we are sick and tired of being grammatically correct all the time. Also we made a wonderful salad and used the last of our goat cheese. The dry sauvignon blanc that we have come to enjoy was the perfect pairing for our evening.

Tomorrow, Sunday March 29th, we go for a group excursion to Marseille, so this was our last full day in Aix. The weather today was enough to make us wish for a longer stay, but then we remembered the rigours of the daily French sessions. We also thought of the wonders of Kentucky in Spring and the pleasures of a real kitchen.

Aix. 23 March 2015 – Monday – Excursion to Avignon

We had been looking forward to this trip. So when we looked at the weather forecast during breakfast, we were overjoyed to see a sunny day promised. Fortunately, we were now wise enough to dress for cooler weather, “just in case”.

By the time we boarded the coach at 09:15 it was starting to cloud over and the thermometer over the driver’s head said 11 Celsius. We rolled through the western suburbs of Aix and were soon on the autoroute barrelling a toute vitesse towards Avignon. We saw lots of trees sporting white and pink blossoms.

At 09:25 we went under the impressive track of the TGV. We were getting a history lesson on ancient Provence and it was rather confusing. However, Provencal emerged as a separate language, deriving its roots from the Roman occupation.

We got into a fairly fanciful rendition of the role of troubadours in thirteenth and fourteenth medieval courts. They basically travelled from castle to castle, singing songs they had composed and recounting stories to amuse the court. However, there was possibly a more strange angle in that marriage between nobles was not a love affair, but rather a matter of property consummation. Troubadours courted fair ladies of noble marriages in the tradition of courtly love, a tradition which required that such love affairs were never consummated. The songs and poetry of the troubadours heightened this kind of love by creating a sense of the beauty of unrequited love. Our guide described a bit of how Dante and Petrarch became poets of this tradition.

In the nineteenth century Frederick Mistral wrote a dictionary of the Provencal language. When he won a Nobel prize, he created a museum for Provencal artifacts.

Then we were into fruit orchards. We could see hundreds of acres of trellises. They grow peach, pear, cherry and apple trees. There were also hundreds of plastic covered greenhouses.

We passed through a defile with the church of Saint Marie de Beauregard looking down on the Durance River.

At 10:00 it was 10 Celsius with a bank of clouds to the north.

Avignon is the capital of Vaucluse. In Roman times it was not as important as Arles. Arles was closer to the Mediterranean and Arles was the favoured transshipment river port.

At Avignon there was a prominent rock formation on the top of a hill. There is evidence of human habitation dating from 3000 BC. When the Rhone River flooded, the locals fled to the high ground to wait out the flooding.

The Avignon Papacy was the period from 1309 to 1377, during which seven successive popes resided in Avignon, in France, rather than in Rome. This situation arose from the conflict between the Papacy and the French crown.

Following the strife between Philip IV of France and Pope Boniface VIII, and the death of his successor Benedict XI after only eight months in office, a deadlocked conclave finally elected Clement V, a Frenchman, as Pope in 1305. Clement declined to move to Rome, remaining in France, and in 1309 moved his court to the papal enclave at Avignon, where it remained for the next 67 years. This absence from Rome is sometimes referred to as the “Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy”. A total of seven popes reigned at Avignon; all were French, and they increasingly fell under the influence of the French Crown. Finally, on September 13, 1376, Gregory XI abandoned Avignon and moved his court to Rome (arriving on January 17, 1377), officially ending the Avignon Papacy.

The Papal Legates tried to keep the buildings intact, but they lacked the resources. They crumbled. Restoration work started in 1910 and still continues. Restoration was sorely needed because the erstwhile palace fell into disuse over time, serving as a prison at one time and and a barracks for soldiers at another time.

Avignon has a population of 200,000 being slightly bigger than Aix at 150,000. The Festival of theatres has been featured since 1947. Avignon is an important centre of agriculture.

The outskirts of Avignon were not impressive, featuring the same big box stores one can see all over the world. Then we got a dose of industrial park.

Finally we came alongside the Rhone River and caught our first glimpse of three miles of walls surrounding the old city that had been reconstructed in the nineteenth century. In ancient times the city gates were closed to stop the Rhone from flooding the city. They also tried to keep out the Black Death by closing the gates.

By 10:25 we had arrived and the coach parked. We walked up the twisting cobblestone streets to the Pope’s Palace. The group entered the palace and had an extensive tour. Our guide, Stella, once again revealed her formidable depth of knowledge of history and the art, architecture and life of the medieval period in Provencal France. This imposing palace was described to us along with lively descriptions of the people who inhabited it.

Above the Palace is a quiet park with children’s playgrounds. Most importantly, it has a very good view over the Pont d’Avignon. In the square a man was trying hard to make soap bubbles, but he was not very capable.

At 12:15 we entered Le Lutrin Restaurant of the Hotel du Palais des Papes. We had a very good lunch, medallions of pork tenderloin, pommes de terre au gratin, three choices of wine, and isles flottantes followed by coffee. The restaurant was warmed by a welcome roaring fire. The group of us who had toured the palace were frozen to the bone.

By 14:00 we were strolling the sunny streets, licking the shop windows and being stunned by the outrageous prices.

At 15:30 we were back on the coach, the temperature showing as 19 Celsius. We took a short ride over the modern bridge to the opposite side so that we could take photos of the old Pont d’Avignon. And of course, we did a group photo and we sang the famous song.

The Pont Saint-Bénézet, also known as the Pont d’Avignon, used to be a bridge spanning the Rhone between Villeneuve-lès-Avignon and Avignon which was built between 1177 and 1185. This early bridge was destroyed forty years later during the Albigensian Crusade when Louis VIII of France laid siege to Avignon. The bridge was rebuilt with 22 stone arches. It was very costly to maintain as the arches tended to collapse when the Rhone flooded. Eventually in the middle of the 17th century the bridge was abandoned. The four surviving arches on the bank of the Rhone are believed to have been built in around 1345 by Pope Clement VI during the Avignon Papacy.

Then we drove off to Chateauneuf-du-Pape country. Châteauneuf-du-Pape is a commune in the Vaucluse department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region in southeastern France. The village lies about 3 kilometres to the east of the Rhône and 12 kilometres north of the town of Avignon.

A ruined mediaeval castle sits at the top of the village and dominates the landscape to the south. It was built in the 14th century for Pope John XXII, the second of the popes who resided in Avignon. The commune is famous for the production of red wine and almost all the cultivable land is planted with grapevines.

We were visiting Le Chateau des Fines Roches, with 7,000 acres of vines.

The ground is strewn with pebbles and smooth rocks. They are thought to have been Ice Age stones washed down from the Alps. These rocks cover as much a seventy percent of the ground. They are very important in regulating the temperature around the grapevines. On a hot day, they soak up the heat from the sun and in the cool night they release that heat. Under the surface, there is a bed of red clay that plays an important role in conserving water. The major vine roots go down only about three metres, but the skinny small ones go very deep, perhaps to thirty or forty metres.

Wind is also a major asset. It dries the fields out when there is too much moisture, thereby preventing fungus buildup. The wind also blows the bugs away.

We walked to the wine making facility. It is operated by ten different growers under very strict controls. It is a gravity feed system; it seemed very important not to upset the grapes too much.

They make ninety to ninety-five percent red wines. Red wines need sun and Provence has lots of sunshine, which could not be proven in our experience! The first operation removes the stems and then bursts the grapes so that the natural yeasts can get working.

We saw the huge French oak barrels used to age the wines by imparting tannins from the wood. They had 15,000 litres that would age anywhere from six to eighteen months. Most of us had never seen wine being aged in concrete containers.

Then we walked back to experience a wine tasting in the main building. It was explained to us that in the Chateauneuf-du-Pape appellation they are allowed to blend thirteen grapes for red wine. There is a white Grenache grape as well. The actual acreage is quite small and anything outside is classed as Cotes du Rhone, and commands a much lower price. There seems to be a touch of snobbery in all this.

Then Pierre led us through a tasting of the white Chateauneuf du Pape. It was a very crisp pale yellow vintage 2014 with notes of green apple, pear pineapple, apricots and vanilla. They do not export this wine.

When we emptied our wine glasses we were told to smell the inside. That is what the wine would smell and taste like in five years. We were told that washing the glass out was a bad practice as that messed up the ph.

We then tasted two different reds and were experiencing tastes of cherries, blackcurrant, raspberries and even licorice.

The first red was a Domaine de Tout-Vent, Cotes du Rhone.

The second red was a 2012 vintage made with Grenache red grapes. It had been aged six months.

We were told to store white wines at 10-12 Celsius and reds at 16-18 Celsius.

In very polite terms, Pierre described that the usual practice of letting a wine breath for an hour, was totally useless. He said we needed to totally decant the bottle into a wide shallow vessel.

After the wine tasting, we had a cold buffet. We had to drink up all the wine left over from the degustation.

We finally rolled away at about 19:40 for a drive back to Aix that seemed to take forever.

Aix. Week of 16 to 22 March 2015

As we entered the second week of our stay in Aix en Provence, we decided to shorten the daily blog. From Tuesday to Friday, we would spend all morning in French language lessons. So we will update and repost as the week develops.

Monday March 16th. There was an optional French class from 11:00 to 12:30 hrs. David played hookey deciding to rest his aching right calf after the strenuous work out the previous day. In the evening we walked into town to attend an art lecture and a dinner at the La Mado restaurant in La Place des Precheurs.

Pamela Martin covered the work of Paul Cezanne (1839-1906) and Vincent Van Gogh (1857-1890) in Provence. Cezannne painted very slowly while Van Gogh was surprisingly fast. Ms. Martin gave an excellent presentation, using slides to elucidate her understandings of the works of the two painters who took their inspiration from the light and color of Provence.

The dinner featured a salad with smoked salmon and duck.

Tuesday, March 17th. We both went to the morning French language studies. There was a 100% forecast of rain, so we took the bus. It did not rain. David had his brain turned inside out by the subjontif.

Louise found an English language book store and started reading “Lives in Writing” by David Lodge. It is a study of the interface between life and literature, and an examination of the forms taken by writing about real lives. It highlights the splendours and miseries of authorship.

Wednesday, March 18th. There is a Kiwi couple in the school. They are from Auckland. The man was with Louise and then he got “promoted”. The woman joined David’s class on Tuesday. There is a lot of movement within the school. Louise has a woman from Taiwan while David has two Swiss, a German, a Pole, a Russian, a Hawaiian, a New Zealander, and an English architect.

In the afternoon we walked downtown in the sunlight. David made the mistake of finding the Desigual store that had bewitched Louise in Strasbourg. Same problem. Louise now owns a colourful outfit.

We cooked the second half of yesterday’s pizza using the pot on the stove trick. The first half produced a bit too much smoke and that set off the smoke detector. However, the smoke detector did not emit a sonic alarm. It just flashed a red light. Instead, we got a concerned telephone call from the concierge.

We have been eating some lovely salads. The supermarket near us is one in a chain of such stores, Casino. Their store brands are good, as well as their fresh produce. And the boulangerie just across the boulevard nearest the hotel has sandwiches and, of course, banguettes that one cannot resist . . nor would we want to.

Thursday, March 19th. For the second day in a row, the weather forecast was good. But, it started out at a very crisp 48 Fahrenheit. We chose to take the bus. Two stops before the school, two burly men got on via the back door – a real “no – no”. It turned out they were controlleurs, the ones who check to make sure you have validated your bus pass. Fortunately, we had been good.

David continued to explore the subjonctif, an exercise that he finds totally useless. Louise experienced a lively class in which she learned many vocabulary words describing garments, colours, styles. Then we moved into leisure activites, learning how to speak about our hobbies, sports, all the while using aspects of the partitive. We hoped.

At 12:30 we walked in bright sunshine from the school to La Brocherie restaurant. There the AHI group we had a good lunch starting with a buffet salad bar, progressing to a roasted chicken thigh and finishing with a very rich ice cream dessert covered in ground nuts.

We drifted home revelling in the sun. We stopped briefly at the Monoprix store to buy a frozen shepherd’s pie, making sure that it could be cooked in the microwave. It worked well, we even managed to brown the top by using the grilling option after the microwave.

Friday, March 20th. After a beautiful day on Thursday, it was back to doom and gloom. The weather in Provence at this time of year is not great. The locals tell us that it does not settle into nice weather until Easter. That happens to be the exact day we leave!

The subjontif continued to beat David about the head and shoulders. It seems to be a French preoccupation as it is rarely used in English and never in German. David is now going backwards and losing confidence. Louise continues to muddle through these long, intense mornings with an attitude of comme ci, comme ca or que sera, sera or whatever.

At the mid-morning break we gathered on the second floor balcony of the school to take turns looking at the partial eclipse of the sun.  A German student at the school had been taken to an eye glass store by his landlady to buy a pair of cheap cardboard glasses with lenses suitable for eclipse viewing.  Being so far south, it was about one eighth of the sun that was blocked.

We took the bus both ways to and from school to help David’s leg muscle recover. Coming home, we stopped off at the boulangerie to buy a tomato and mozzarella baguette for lunch. For dessert, we also bought a sweet apple pastry.

In the afternoon we strolled into town to find the GAP store. Louise had noted that one of the French instructors was wearing a GAP chemise. The instructor showed us on the map where the GAP was located, just behind the Court House in Place des Precheurs. Louise is addicted to GAP so we simply had to go to satisfy her cravings. Using the GPS, we found the GAP without difficulty. But, it was her third disappointing visit to a GAP store. Peut-etre she has finally . . . at last! out grown the GAP. In desperation, we trolled the boutiques in the Old Town without success. As a last resort we went back to Zara, where a lovely bargain LBD was a bit too decollete. Finally, to appease the Buying Gods, Louise bought a black shirt for ten Euros.

On the way home we dropped into the Casino grocery store to buy a microwavable Boeuf Bourguignon and red wine to match.

At 18:00 we walked back downtown to the Grillon restaurant on the Cours Mirabeau. We met with our confreres and Tour Director to have a drink and discuss the week. Then we came home to a dinner of leftovers, although “Komm Morgen Wieder” sounds better.

Saturday, March 21st. Our original plan had been to take the interurban bus to Arles. But, the weather forecast was rain so we gave that up. Laughably, the iPad app told us it was sunny in Aix when it was painfully obvious that it was liquid sunshine. So, we had a leisurely breakfast, did some laundry and generally procrastinated.

Despite the dampness, we walked into town to two pharmacies to find a better elastic bandage for David’s calf. Then we picked up a baguette-based sandwich at le boulangerie and did some grocery shopping at Le Casino.

When it bucketed rain in the afternoon, we simply read the books we had brought for such eventuality. David started “On Writing Well” by William Zinsser.

Our biggest decision was what the microwave could cook for our dinner – we chose boeuf bourgignon. Our small kitchen is very well equipped for very simple, ready-to-microwave meals. So we have become adept at shopping for items with which to make our dinners appropriately. We have not made an attempt at the local eateries except when in company of our group.

Sunday, March 22nd. When we woke up one look out the window told us that the gods continued to foul up the weather. Even the two apps on the iPad told the same gloomy story. We tried to think of something to do that would get us out of the hotel. We eventually hit on the idea of riding the bus to the eastern end of the line. From Le Tholonet there was a chance that we could see Cezanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire. Once it started to rain in earnest, we ditched that idea. Instead, we waited for a break and then did a slow stroll downtown.

We had to line up outside the Boulangerie just before lunch. People seemed to be buying serious delectable pastries for Sunday afternoon tea and coffee. Louise has a weakness for these French delicacies, so she indulged us in a croissant amandes and a zero calorie French twisted chocolate croissante. The Vignes Patisserie Boulangerie would be closed on Monday. French businesses must be closed one day of the week, and we had learned that Monday would be the Vignes dark day.

Having demolished half of yesterday’s baguette sandwich, we knew we had to leave the room for an hour so the maid could clean. We walked slowly in the spitting rain just killing time and having a fairly serious conversation about what we wanted to accomplish in life. Not driven by careers, family and any other serious responsibilities, we needed to define an aim. We had already tested the usual escapes and had found each format somewhat lacking. We never did come to a firm conclusion, but we did confirm that perhaps doing nothing might not be so bad. Well, not exactly doing nothing, but rather adapting to our time together in some new ways.

We decided to figure out exactly what we had spent on living expenses. So, after the maid let us back into our room, we sat down with the receipts and concluded we had each spent 250 Euros on groceries and other necessary incidentals during our two week French escapade thus far.

We spent a lot of time reading while it rained outside.

We exceeded expectations for dinner. We boiled up some spaghetti, warmed up the ragout sauce and microwaved a melange of pre-cooked chicken and potatoes. With a bottle of Entre Deux Mers white wine, it was not half bad.

Aix. 15 March 2015 – Sunday – Excursion to Le Luberon

We had a slow start, getting up two minutes before the alarm went off at 07:15 hrs. Pulling the curtains aside, we saw that the weather forecast had been corrrect. The iPad application gave the gloomy news that it was 45 Fahrenheit and that the high would be a miserable 50 Fahrenheit with wind and rain. Given our wardrobes, that was a bit of challenge as we had packed for warm spring weather.

Breakfast was a simple repast of cereal and coffee.

Today the maid was expected to come in to change the bedding and do a general tidy up. So, we of course, tidied up.

The AHI group met in the lobby at 09:15 to board our coach. In desultory rain, we set off for the famous Isle sur la Sorgue. Bruno, the driver, told us it would be sunny by noon. It was a brand new coach so of course the microphone did not work. The sound system produced a squeal in direct proportion to the engine revolutions. The console above Bruno indicated 9 Celsius. Using the C + C + 32 formula, that made it 50 Farenheit. We had about a one hour drive to our first stop.

As we meandered on the secondary road, we could see lots of almond trees in blossom. Soon we were on a six lane toll highway, the A7 autoroute. We started to see large estates. The nobility of Aix used to have large country houses (bastides) on large estates where peasants toiled. Les bastides were surrounded by olive groves, wheat fields and vinyards. The Greeks had introduced all this BC.

Sheep played a major role in this area. In the winter the flocks grazed in the lower areas. In May and June they passed through the Aix area on their way to higher pastures in the Alps to the east.

Suddenly the track of the Train a Grande Vitesse (TGV) went over our heads and on it was a bullet train. Launched in 2001, you can get to Paris from Aix in about two hours fifty minutes. It is easier than flying as the TGV goes from city centre to city centre. The downside is that Parisiens can get to Aix. They are driving up house prices.

Back to the sheep. During the seasonal migration from Arles (to the west) to the Alps (in the east) the sheep had to drink water. There are fifty fountains in Aix, all with low rims that allow the sheep to dip their snouts in the water. They still have local festivals to celebrate the sheep migration. However, nowadays, the sheep are usually transported by truck.

As we gained altitude, the temperature dipped to 8 Celsius and the rain intensified.

And then we were into vineyard, a situation that would continue off and on all day. The Luberon area is a significant wine-producing terroire. From time to time the bus would slow to roll through a toll plaza. Using its transponder, telepeage, the bus never had to stop before the barrier rose.

The Luberon is a rather large bump about 40 miles wide east to west with the highest elevation being 3,500 feet. Coming up from the south, we encountered the drier side with low scrub and limestone outcroppings.

Soon we were seeing large groupings of plastic covered greenhouses mixed in between olive groves. By 09:55 the hills had become more prominent and were covered with trees. The rain was pelting down so there was no chance for photography from the coach. The vineyards were
significant with some having netting coiled on top of the wire trellisses.

We passed a sign showing Lyon to be 250 kms and Avignon 23 kms. There did not appear to be any commercial truck traffic on Sunday.

We passed a ruined Knights Templar castle from the twelfth century. It had been rebuilt in the reign of Henry the Second, then destroyed and then rebuilt. Now it is a real fixer-upper.

Then we crossed the Durance River. It is a tributary of the Rhone, bringing melting snow water from the Alps to the Rhone at Avignon. The Durance has a wide and shallow bed. In summer it can reduce to a trickle. The area is very hot in summer so water is an issue. In the nineteenth century steps were taken to conserve the water of the Durance. Canals and tunnels were built to divert water to holding reservoirs.

We passed through the outskirts of Cavaillon. Stella, the local guide, told us that the town was famous for melons. Originally the very wealthy imported melons from South Africa beginning in the fourteenth century. In the nineteenth century the locals started growing melons. Their most famous customer was Alexander Dumas, he of the ‘Count of Monte Cristo’ and ‘The Three Musketeers’. Although he lived in Paris, Dumas struck a deal with the locals to send him one melon per week in the season. In return, Dumas provided his books to the public library.

We left the Departement of ‘La Bouche du Rhone’ and entered that of ‘Vaucluse’, which means “Enclosed Valley”.

We were close to the town of ‘Ile sur La Sorge’. The Sorgue is a river and five arms cut off bits of land. The area is called the Venice of Provence. There used to be seventy paddle wheels that transferred the energy of running water to provide power to milling, tanning and dying operations. There are still ten paddle wheels. The local fishermen specialized in crayfish, the Popes of Avignon getting the best.

When pulled into town it was still raining but it was up to 11 Celsius. Umbrellas deployed, we crossed the bridge onto the island and strolled into the town to the baroque Basilique Notre Dame des Anges, where they were celebrating Mass at 10:30 hrs. Right next door was the old Grenier Public (Grain Exchange), which is now the Tourist Bureau. We tried to visit the flea market, the fruit and vegetable market, the antique market and the antique shops, but the rain was making even photography difficult. We had one hour to “enjoy” the town. By 10:50 we had decided that walking in the rain was dumb.

We ducked into the first place that we could find with tables inside. Believe it or not, some were sitting at tables outside in the rain. We ordered a small Heinecken beer and a hot chocolate and exchanged sips. According to Le Diplome des Cafes historiques europeen, Le Cafe de France was established in 1903. It is twinned with two other ancient cafes. They being, Le Procope cree en 1686 a Paris et Le Cafe de la Table Ronde cree en 1739 a Grenoble. Rather out of place, Tom Jones was singing on the jukebox extolling the virtues of “The Green, Green Hills of Home”.
A very European Coca-Cola fridge, sixteen inches wide and six feet tall was wedged into the only space available.

At 11:00 we left the cafe. Knowing that we had to find lunch on our own, we decided that a boulangerie (baker) would be a good bet to find a sandwich. We had a misfire when we detoured into a biscuit shop and just about passed out from the price of gourmet cookies. A bit later we found a general grocery store and picked up some “crisps” and a litre of orange drink. We finally struck pay dirt when we found La Boulangerie de Sophie. Two bakers were laying out strips of baguette dough on a cloth belt that was cranked into the oven.

We spotted an excellent baguette sliced on the long slide with a generous amount of Emmentaler cheese twinned with jambon. We asked Sophie to cut it into two portions. We added a couple of sweet biscuits. Voila, we had lunch for about five Euros. Not having anywhere to go, we sat on a couple of chairs under an awning and waited for the coach to pick us up at 11:30 hrs.

Bowing to the inevitable, our guides had cut short our “walking in the rain and getting soaking wet” and we headed off for La Musee de Lavande in nearby Cousellet.

http://www.museedelalavande.com

Issued portable listening devices, we soon learned that the Lincele family had been producers and distillers of fine lavender for many generations. We all admitted surprise, not knowing that lavender is distilled. In fact, a big copper alambic is used to heat the compressed lavender to 100 Celsius for an hour. Coincidentally, we picked up on the Provençal word “estanh” meaning tin, which we had just learned as “etain” in French, as in, “J’ai une oreille d’etain” – I have a tin ear.

Next we learned that there are two distinctly different lavenders. Fine lavender has only a single flower and grows on the arid mountains above an altitude of 800 metres. 130 kg of flowers are needed to produce one litre of scented oil by the distilling process. A much stronger smelling variety is Lavandine, a hybrid with two branches that is used to produce industrial cleaning products and detergents. The flowers are used in “little lavender sachets”. Only 40 kg of flowers are needed to obtain one litre of lavandine oil. After all that, we failed to make use of our 25% discount card in the gift shop. We broke all the normal rules and had a picnic on the coach, being careful not to drop crumbs.

Leaving the lavender behind, we retraced our steps to Ile de la Sorge to pick up two of our members who stayed behind to get well and truly soaked. En route we noticed signs indicating “Un Mas”. It turns out that the term is Provencal for a large farm. In the mix was an orchard full of flowering cherry trees. In the village once again, we got off the coach to take a photo of a very wet water wheel that is known as “Une Roue a Aube”.

By 13:13, la double hora, we were headed for Gordes on the northern slope of Le Luberon. This mountain is home to 55 to 60 villages. The massif is cut by a gorge called La Combe. The major feature gets up to 3,500 feet while the lower side is at 2,300 feet. The north side is greener while the south side gets much less moisture.

We saw a couple of examples of primitive dwellings that shepherds first created as shelter. Called ‘Bories’, they are almost conical in shape and are made by overlapping flat pieces of limestone such that water flows down from the higher level to the lower without entering the structure. They are very similar to the stone huts near Alberobello in southeast Italy that are called Trullies. Ventilation is provided on the southeast side away from the northwesterly Mistral wind.

At an altitude of 1,100 feet the coach stopped for a photo opportunity. Unfortunately, the target, the hilltop town of Gordes was wreathed in mist, or “un peu de brouillard” as the driver described it. The town was crowned by a tenth and eleventh century castle that had been rebuilt in the 14th, 15th and 17th centuries. Castle renovation seems to have been big business in Provence over the centuries. We drove on up into the town, barely squeaking the big coach through the narrow confines. The Nazis had bombed the town as the Resistance fighters, les Maquis, used the town as a base. In 1948 the town got a Military Cross for its resistance to Nazi occupation.

Then we struck out for Roussillon, some ten kilometres away. The name has some obscure root that means Red Village. As we got closer, the origin became clearer. The wet mud banks were a deep reddy-orange colour. Over the centuries, red ochre ore has been mined for use as pigment in paint, for cosmetics, in terra cotta and even to colour tangerines. The ore gets darker if it is cooked in an oven.

This story took a bit of a twist when Louise remembered an art class where the representative of a paint company explained how paint pigment was extracted from sand where camels, that had been only fed mango leaves, urinated. It later turned out that this was cadmium or indian yellow rather than ochre. All this is in question.

The coach dropped us off at the edge of the village so we could walk in the rain, being very careful not to let red mud get onto our clothes. We went far enough to take a few photos of the cliffs of ochre ore and to catch the ambience of soaking wet cafes with no patrons. We did note that like all churches in the area, the bell tower was an open metal cage so that Le Mistral could pass right through without taking down the belfry.

Waiting for the coach to return, we saw one very unusual sign in the parking lot. It noted in English that “Parking Was Forbidden All Over the Place.” Nuff said.

We departed at 14:55 in rain at 11 Celsius. The highlight of the day was the Roman bridge called Le Pont Julien. It had been built in the reign of Augustus, the adopted son of Julius Caesar. The bridge dated between 27 BC to 4 AD. It was a marvel of Roman engineering. For two thousand years it was in use until local authorities deemed it unsafe and in 2005 a modern parallel bridge was taken into service. By some great fortune, we got some good photos through the rain drops on the coach window.

Then we heard the story of the calisson cookies. King Rene, the last one in his line, was married to his second wife, a woman at least twenty-five years his junior. She was sad. So Rene asked his chef to come up with a confection to cheer her up. Thus was born the almond-based calisson.

By 15:25 we were near La Foret des Cedres. Cedar trees had been brought from North Africa and they loved Le Luberon. It was also the area where the Hugenots, French Protestants, had made a start during the Reformation. They were persecuted and many fled to Switzerland in the sixteenth century. Then we were deep into La Combe de Lourmarin, with steep slopes on both sides. It was easy to see why the Resistance liked the area so much.

We were invited to walk into the town of Lourmarin at 15:45 in the pouring rain at 9 Celsius. Three of us decided that sitting on a warm coach was a better idea. When the wet walkers returned, we joined them for a four Euro visit to the Chateau. In the usual manner, it had been constructed in the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries by the Agout family. Inside the foyer there was an obscure photo of Winston Churchill painting after he had been relieved as First Lord of the Admiralty after the disaster of the Dardenelles and the Gallipoli landings. It was not clear if he had visited the chateau to paint.

In 1920 Robert Vibert, an industrialist from Lyon, bought the ruined chateau. He set about a restoration project. He was killed in an accident in 1925 and the property passed to the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Aix en Provence. It is set up as a Foundation for young art students of various disciplines for the summer months.

We left the chateau at 16:40 and were soon back alongside the Durance. We learned that the area used to be famous for basket weaving and wicker furniture using the reeds that grew on the river banks. That trade was wiped out by cheaper imported rattan from the Far East.

At 17:00 we skirted the very large Christophe reservoir, the water being trapped by a large dam. There had been a cholera epidemic in Marseille in 1813. The lack of water resulted in the massive project of canals and tunnels to collect water and to send it to Marseille.

As we got closer to Aix, we heard that a massive fire in 1989 had wiped out a local forest. It was replanted with oak trees, which have a tight canopy and therefore leave the ground damper. Truffles like that environment and now specially-trained dogs are used as truffle hunters. Pigs were used but they like the truffles too much and ate too many. We also heard about Peter Mayle, the Brighton-born man who had worked in advertising but gave it all up to move to Provence. He moved to France and his 1989 book, “A Year in Provence” became an international best seller. He made a fortune selling books recounting his transformation.

Louise also remembered “La Gloire de mon pere”, an autobiographical film by Yves Robert recounting his summer vacation as a child in Provence.

The road was very twisty and narrow. At 17:10 we saw an overturned car down in the gully and a few hundred yards further on we had to slow down to get around a tow truck that was recovery a badly dented car that had spun out, without going over the edge.

We passed the extensive vineyards of Le Chateau de Beaupré on Route National 7, which started with the chateau built in 1739. Baron Double and his family have owned Château de Beaupré for four generations.

Just before we entered Aix en Provence, Mont Sainte-Victoire, with a height of 3,317 feet came into view. The mountain is celebrated for its many appearances in a series of paintings by Paul Cézanne (1839–1906), who could see it from near his house in nearby Aix-en-Provence.

When the coach dropped us off near the hotel, we had travelled 193 kms.

Aix. 13 March 2015. End of First Week of Classes

We were woken up at about 05:15 on Friday the Thirteenth by the ominous rolling sound of Les Tumbrils. After a while, we figured out that it was the hotel staff rolling out the garbage bins.

Unable to get back to sleep, we blogged and worked on a speech that David thought he had to has to give at school on Friday. He had chosen “Fresh Water – Are We Going to Run Out?”

When the alarm went off at 06:30 we kicked into normal drive and brewed up a strong batch of coffee. Once again we just had cereal for breakfast and convinced ourselves that we were losing weight.

We were out the door by 08:10 and did a leisurely walk to school, a little more confident that we knew exactly where we were and how long it would take us. It took us 45 minutes, which would indicate we were at ease.

We found out that the military types we had been seeing are attending a very strict military high school, paid for by the state. Sort of a state VMI.

David was a bit tense in class in that he thought he had to give a fifteen minute speech. It turned out that he was scheduled for the following Friday and that another victim had been chosen for today. David’s lessons were on some rather unpleasant grammar, the pluperfect, that one would never use in everyday conversation. In the second period, the “victim” gave a talk on “La Carmargue” (a unique region in the Mouths of the Rhone). Louise’s class involved each one of the four telling each other in French what we did yesterday afternoon and evening. Then there was a short film about shopping for groceries. After the break, we got into the French grammatical partitive. Tres complicated.

We were very glad when lessons ended at 12:30 and we were invited to have a glass of wine with all the students and instructors on the patio in glorious sunshine. It seemed to be a small graduation celebration for several who had completed their course.

We walked home the normal route until David decided to take a short cut in the medieval town. It did not take long before the winding streets totally disoriented us. David was ashamed to admit that he had to turn on the GPS to get us sorted out. We were going 180 degrees in the wrong direction. Unfortunately, this detour also aggravated the earlier muscle strain in David’s right calf.

When we got back to the apartment hotel we decided that some white wine, salad and quiche would be most appropriate. We had a lovely lunch and took a very French nap afterwards, being careful to set an alarm.

We brewed some coffee and were wide awake by 16:45 as we had a 17:45 rendez-vous with our AHI group for a Happy Hour at La Bastide du Cours on the Cours Mirabeau. It was a bit too cool to sit out on the sidewalk and too many people were smoking. So we elected to drag several table together in the covered patio section. After a while it became so cool that the waiter turned on the infrared heating. Unfortunately, the section started to fill up with too many smokers. The French seem to smoke a lot more than North Americans. Of course, it could be that the smokers were young students who thought themselves invincible.

Since the Tour Manager was buying, we elected to try the Belgian Leffe draught beer. It has a nice round taste and hit the spot. One of our group tried the Pastis straight. We noticed that two full glasses of water went down shortly thereafter. We had a great chat with our colleagues, who all agreed that the first week had been a pretty tough slog.

We walked back home and decided that a nine vegetable soup would be just about right for supper. Of course all the instructions were in French, but we got it right and le potage was just delectable.

Not surprisingly, we went to bed early.

Aix. 12 March 2015 – Third Day of Language School

The alarm went off at 06:30 and we got up without as much difficulty as the previous mornings.

Again we went for a simple breakfast of cereal and coffee. Although we were still tired, it was not as crushing as the first few days.

Not trusting the bus to get us to school on time, we started walking at 08:10 hrs. It was a clear day, a bit brisk at about 50 Fahrenheit. When we turned into the main street, named Cours Mirabeau, we saw that open air market stalls were being set up and that the street was closed to non-essential traffic. We took only a few photos as the stalls were still in shadows. After the main street the GPS told us to take Marechal Jofre. After that it was Boulevard des Poilus. Sure enough we were soon passing La Caserne Miollis, constructed between 1893 and 1903. We walked past the swimming pool and military types were leaving the pool and walking back to the caserne. We were at the school in thirty-three minutes and were spared the wrath of the teachers.

We both got new teachers today as the school rotates the instructors. While David’s teacher enunciated more clearly, she also spoke with the speed of a machine gun. Louise had her teacher from the day before yesterday, as the system of pedagogy goes at IS Aix en Provence.
Her teacher also spoke very rapidly with good animation; however, one can understand only incompletely. Nevertheless, class went well. Both of us are finding ourselves more relaxed and are beginning to be involved almost to the point of enjoyment 😉

After ninety minutes of spin-dry French, we met during the thirty minute coffee break.

Then it was back to work for another ninety minutes. We found ninety minutes a bit curious as we had never gone longer than an hour at university. Time passes quickly in this system, nevertheless fatigue comes as an undeniable consequence.

At 12:30 the AHI group met after their various classes and walked over to the Cours Mirabeau. Halfway down on the north side we met the Tour Manager at the entrance of La Bastide du Cours (The Country House on the Cours).

We had a delicious slice of poached salmon served with rice. Halfway through, we finally got our order for two glasses of Serena beer. For dessert it was a criminal portion of lemon meringue pie with real whipped cream. We finished off with a tiny thimble of coffee that was so strong you went into overdrive after two sips.

We noticed groups of students in weird outfits. It looked like a FROSH initiation or a scavenger hunt. Or, it may have been a psychology class group experiment.

After lunch we wandered away to do some bargain hunting. The street market had closed at 14:00. We will catch up with that another day. Louise had her heart set on a chemise she had passed on the day before. After all, the sale was still in full swing. In fact, Louise and another woman had a collision striving for the same bargain. Louise won.

Then we went back to the hotel and almost got run over while taking a photo of the Paul Cezanne carousel. The carousel is in the middle of Aix and sees active patronage. When we pass it, grandparents and young parents are enjoying its pretty horses, rakish old autos, and even a Bleriot airplane model of sorts.

Speaking of Cezanne, Mont Ste. Victoire is within sight of the city of Aix. Paul Cezanne and Emile Zola were close friends. Their friendship is mentioned here and there by our guides. Some streets of Aix are embedded with brass markers , thus commemorating where Cezanne is known to have walked .

We then dropped in to the Casino grocery store to find a school cahier and some pencils. Parenthetically, we bought some bananas, biscuits and fromage.

Then it was back to the hotel to blog and do our homework. We noticed the weather report for Louisville. The Ohio is at flood stage as high as the 2011 flooding. A bit alarming, even though we have no low-lying property. This was to be expected after the very high levels of snow all over the region this past winter

At 18:00 the AHI group gathered in the hotel breakfast nook for a lecture on wine and a concomitant wine tasting.

Thirty-four year old Julien told us he owns two wine shops in Aix. He said that wine production in France is very controlled. There are 1,500 different wines being grown under 450 appellations. An appellation is designated according to the “terroir” – the unique characteristics of the soil, sun exposure and general climate. He said the appellation is the most important information presented on the label. Even the shape of the bottle is controlled. To add to the complexity, there are French regulations and European Union rules.

Julien told us that it is almost never permitted to blend wines. It seemed that the Chateau Neuf du Pape appellation is the exception being allowed to blend fourteen wines.

The French now drink less wine, but better quality wine. Specifically, they now drink 70% organic wine. Organic wine contains less sulphites. Julien also pointed out that white and rose wines have no tannins.

We then did the classic wine tasting routine with two whites, two roses and two reds. In order, they were Chateau Bas (organic), Viognier (fruity), Cent Canailles (100 rascals), Tour Campanets (13% alcohol), Domaine Des Masques Essen Helle 2013 and a 2011 Chateau Bas L’Alvanegue . Remarkable, all six bottles cost less than eight Euros. Thus our philosophy of wine choosing is affirmed.

He joked that some roses are only good for the swimming pool,

Then the Tour Manager brought in a variety of sheep, goat and cow milk cheeses with crackers and two types of multigrain brown bread.

We should add that our enjoyment was assisted by the fact that one of our group is a professional vintner from Oklahoma. Bet you never connected wine and Oklahoma! Our Oklahoma vinter is, in fact, a force with which to be reckoned. His knowledge of French wine-making and the arguably onerous controls thereof added to our understanding.

We left the wine tasting about 20:30 feeling quite relaxed.

Having consumed so many calories, there was no need for any formal dinner so we went straight to bed.

Aix. Second Day at Language School – March 11th, 2015

We had set the alarm for 06:30 and it went off far too soon. We forced ourselves to get up and had a simple breakfast of coffee and cereal.

We met our Tour Manager and our group in the lobby at 08:30 and walked over to the bus stop. Bus #13 was late and by extension all our group members were late. It is embarrassing to have to apologize for being late on your second day at school.

We proceeded in total French immersion for ninety minutes, then had a thirty minute coffee break, followed by another ninety of brain busting. David was with a new group that included two Swiss Germans, an American working in Germany and a Scot from Edinburgh. The instructor admonished David when he used German. Notwithstanding, we snuck in the odd German phrase when the mood struck. Louise was with a Chinese woman who comes to France each year to visit her son who lives in Paris. Now she is spending a month in Aix en Provence on her own to study French each morning and cuisine each aftrnoon. In her lunch hour she swims in the public pool. She is called Louise because her name is too difficult for the French (so she is Louise une, and the other is Louise deux.) Two class members are from AHI American group and a young man who is living here with his family to study French.

At 12:30 we all gathered with Christoph, the Senior Pedagogical type. He wanted some feedback on how we found things and we mainly told him it was hard to teach old dogs new tricks. Most of us had gone through the traditional language teaching where things were reduced to mathematical equations, rules and plain old memorization of the text book. We were having a problem adapting to the new method that basically turned the old mantra on its head. There was no textbook. In a nutshell, it was all oral, straight from mother’s knee. It was total immersion, sink or swim.

By the time we walked back we were very tired and just needed some quiet time. It took us 34 minutes to walk the 2.05 kms (1.27 miles) back to the Adagio hotel.

In our room we had a slice of quiche lorraine that we had bought at Le Casino. It was a challenge in that we did not realize that the cooking machine in our apartment was a combination oven/microwave. Notwithstanding, we had a warm lunch.

It was a lovely sunny day so we walked downtown to check out the clothing sales. Louise snagged a couple of real bargains, learning two important things. First, the second price on the label was Bulgarian and second the French word for stockings is collants. David struck out.

Then it was into the Monoprix, a combination clothing store and food shopping – think Marks and Spencer in Great Britain. We decided on oven-browned chicken slices, sliced grain bread, mustard and some Sauvignon white wine.

We walked back and went to the hotel front desk to ask for instructions on how to operate the combination oven/microwave. Dead end. Finally, one of the hotel employees came back to our room to demonstrate the operation. Did not have a clue.

Then it was homework time. It had to be done before the brain faded for the day.

But then there was laundry to be done. After that we decided that spaghetti, hot tomato sauce and a cold salad was about all we could manage for dinner. Of course we had a bottle of wine to knock us out.

Lights out was quite early.

Aix. 10 March 2015 – First Day at Language School

We had an early start so we set the alarm for 06:15 hrs. When it went off it took an Act of Parliament to get us moving. We were in full jet lag and having a great deal of difficulty doing the simplest things.

We were at breakfast by 07:00 and once again there was a herd of young people ahead of us. We ate lightly and concentrated more on wakey-wakey juice to get our hearts started.

We were out the front door at 07:50 headed for the bus stop. The tour Manager had a ten pack bus pass. We walked about 500 metres to the Rotonde Bonaparte bus stop. When the number 13 bus with the end station of Le Thononet on the marquee arrived at 08:05, we piled on and the TM swiped the ten pack card ten times. That printed out a time/date stamp on the pass. You can take a transfer onto another bus up to one hour from the original swipe.

The bus took the southern circular route that basically followed the old city wall – the city father’s at one point demolished the walls to provide space for expansion. We got to our destination of Pont La Torse at 08:15 hrs. As you might guess, there is a bridge over the River Torse.

We learned that this was the river where Cezanne observed women bathing in the nude. Cezanne was a very shy man so he memorized the scene and painted it from memory in his studio. The painting is one of his most famous, “The Bathers.”

Steps away was the International School that had rented space at Le Vieux Lavoir. In older times, the women of the village came to this spot to use a pool to do their laundry.

Then we had a briefing on general administration. As teachers arrived they popped their heads in and were introduced. At 08:40 the tough part started as we were dragged off, one by one, to the dungeons to be grilled to find out how much French we spoke or understood. Then we had to compose written answers to six rather arcane questions that were really aimed at young college students rather than senior citizens. This was made doubly difficult when our confreres were speaking English discussing how to operate a cell phone.

The Inquisition went into the Star Chamber to decide our fate.

At 10:00 Anna the Directrice, a Swede from Stockholm, gathered us all together to outline the various tortures we would have to endure. I immediately learned something new – un calisson is an almond cookie. The International School teaches only French and has students from all over the world. We were to have two teachers per group, on alternating days.

At 11:00 classes started. Well it was tough. We were not over our jet lag and it had been several decades since we had been in a classroom studying French. We both had a severe case of brain freeze. Fortunately, we were out of class by 12:30, but headaches were setting in.

We all took the bus back to the Adagio hotel. We immediately walked over to the baker’s shop to buy a small baguette.

Back in our room, for lunch we had a lovely Thai soup, baguette and blue cheese washed down with white table wine. After the wine we started to feel better.

Then fatigue caught up with us and we had a nap. After about an hour we decided to walk down town to check out the clothing stores. Having satisfied ourselves that there were no bargains in the apparel shops, we repaired to the Casino grocery store.

We learned a very hard lesson when the Casino check out clerk overcharged for a lettuce. However, we now had enough vittles to last a couple of days.

We had enough time for a cocktail hour, using Duty Free booze, before primping for our 18:30 group dinner at Cafe Jeanne. BTW, the same scotch brand was cheaper in the Casino than in the Frankfurt Duty Free.

By the end of the afternoon we had decided that our number one objective was to get over the jet lag and get a good night’s sleep.

We would be going to class by bus the next day and starting “brain pounding Day 2” at 09:00 hrs.

At 18:45 we gathered in the lobby and then walked to the Cafe Jeanne. En route we paused under a flock of birds roosting in a tree. David received a package of good luck on tne back of his rain jacket. Fortunately, Louise was able to take it off with some tissue.

The cafe was decorated with relics rather than antiques. We had the place to ourselves – the locals seem to eat a bit later. The starter was a cold pie with sheep cheese. Then we had lamb shoulder that had been slowly roasted with white beans. The dessert was a pair of creme brûlée a la vanille Bourbon that had been baked in ceramic pots.

We walked back through the twisting streets of the old quarter, never quite sure where we were.

We had no difficulty getting to sleep.