Posts (page 4)

OK, we JUST got here, but we are finally in Paris. More soon, with pics and such.

David

Hey y'all... some pics out of order from my regular reports. Enjoy?
These are Villefranche-sur-mer, where we are staying.

And here's Nice as well; we've determined that Nice is nice. What did you expect from me...

We thought it'd be funny to indicate the sort of stupid things that have happened to us, so far.

Date           Type of Injury                             Comments                                                                    
Sept. 1        Eye Infection (conjunctivitis)          Lindi suffered for a day or so then went to doctor in London
Sept. 3        Slipped and cut shin                     Lindi fell during luggage packing - busted and cut shin
Sept. 10      Toenail 'damage'                           Lindi toenail torn back, then replaced - now looking better
Sept. 20      Fingernail broken                          David (poor baby) busted his fingernail a bit
Sept. 22      Sore Throat                                  David took on a week-long sore-throat he refused to let get worse
Sept. 23      Allergy attack                               Lindi sneezed so continuously in Cortona that we had to leave
Sept. 30      Skinned Knees                             Lindi slipped on a rock hiking between the cities at Cinque Terre

We start today by going to the [link] Accademia, and were told that bus 23 would take us directly into the middle of Firenza. We had our breakfast in the excellent breakfast room, then got bus tickets from the front desk – we were ready to go. It was a mess (like so many other things in a new land and a new language) to figure out exactly where the bus 23 picks up, but we did. We fought to get into the bus, because it was so busy at around 08.45, that we didn’t get a chance to validate our ticket. Oh, well. So, fine me. You may remember that this is how most things European work: you are called upon to be honest about tickets, but if you are caught not validating your ticket (essentially invalidating it for any other day) or riding without a ticket, then you get a big fine. We got off at the correct stop, in front of the Duomo [link]. We walked over to the Accademia and checked in with our reservations and got our tickets. Outside we noticed the giant line forming for folks with no reservation – if they only would have done what my lovely travel agent (Lindi) did and made a reservation, they would go in the second door – the one with the short line that they let in first. Ah, well.

The museum holds many interesting things, but the big draw is Michelangelo’s David. This huge statue is amazing and is even more realistic a depiction of human form than you would think from only seeing pictures. Every muscle, every bone shape and every proportion is absolutely perfect. We must have walked around it and stared for 15 minutes, before moving on. All in all, Lindi thinks that the entrance fee wasn’t really worth it, and I tend to agree.

We went next to the San Lorenzo markets. Here ostensibly are Italian goods, but we found much of it looks like it was made in China. David bought a nice hat (I’m sure it shows in later pictures), some nice gifts which were clearly of Italian origin which I don’t want to mention online at this point (shhhh). It kept us busy for some time. Note, that since streets in just about all Italian (and most all European) towns and small cities are ancient and thus not square-array ‘blocks’, sometimes it hard to find addresses and track your movement – I mention this because we almost got lost inside the markets for this very reason. It really went on and on. Lindi and I noticed that the prices in the markets weren’t very soft – most folks only negotiated down a small amount and a couple of times David tried to talk someone down, they just passed on the deal. Interesting.

[pic] Attached to the main markets is a food market, nested inside a quite large building. We wandered that building for a while, looking at the fresh fish, meat, cheese, sausage, bread, olives, oil, and fruits. Most of the products were fresh things for cooking, but some were already prepared dishes, sandwiches and such. We grabbed a few sandwiches and a salad, and had a reasonably nice lunch. The roast beef wasn’t quite as lean as we hoped, but it was good. We left the markets with our stuff, and made our way back toward our hotel, passing the Duomo [link], Baptistry, and other buildings and monuments – there are really too many to count. We stopped for some gelato (like ice cream) at Carrozza’s. [pic] We crossed the Ponte Veccio, which is a bridge with shops on it, so that you could walk from inside the city, over the river, and to the other side and perhaps never realize you had crossed it. We enjoyed the crazy shops and took lots of pictures, then continued along the riverbank back to our hotel. Lindi mentions again how much she likes the hotel room – great location, big rooms, decorated well and nice people.

Lindi notes how the traffic is different: lots of vespas and mini-motorcycles, mixed with buses and cars and bikes. You have to be brave to drive here, as we found out when we later picked up a car in Florence and drove to (and from) Toscana (Tuscany). Lindi says: “Use the force, Luke”. When walking on the street, we learned to ‘follow the locals’.

By about 19.00 we traipsed to the lavateria we found before. It took us until about 20.30 to finish up, but it was nice to get all the clothes clean again. It actually cost more to do it ourselves than it did at the laundry in St. Remy (Provence); 18 euros instead of the 13 at the professional laundry. We packed it all in, and started back… we didn’t want another expensive trattoria dinner, so we stopped for a few pieces of pizza to go, and some dessert from a deli, then back to the hotel. We ate out on the patio area – nice and quiet and outdoors… you can hear the sounds of Firenza. It was nice. Wrap-up? Too many tourists, especially for this time of year, but magnificent weather. We were really lucky.

Upstairs with our clean clothes, and off to packing again! We still weren’t feeling tired of the packing and unpacking, with so much interesting stuff coming up in our trip, and the strategy of spreading the smaller stays between the larger ones. Even putting Paris last, was on purpose, so as to really hit the best (?) last. David worked on more blog catching up, and we went to bed knowing we were heading into Toscana in the morning

Our plans for our last day were to get up early and hit the Borghese Gallery. Lindi woke up so sore she almost couldn’t move, so we decided together to skip it. Instead we slept a little bit more, and then when we got up I worked on the blog entries and pictures. Lindi still felt really bad.

This was our last day in Rome, so we packed everything up and checked out. We both felt at this point that we had really messed up not reserving at least four or five days in Rome, and we vowed to come back. We checked out, and wheeled our belongings back down to the station from which we came.

Once we arrived at the Rome station, we stood in a long line for a train ticket reservation – turns out that some trains need a seat reservation, but you can’t make that reservation at the time you order your RailPass. The trip itself is paid for by the RailPass, but the ‘reservation’ is 15 Euros each. Ouch. We were going to take a particular train, but the counter guy who took our reservation found a similar train about to leave at 12.30, at least an hour earlier than our planned train. We hopped on it (a Eurostar Trantalia, similar to the French TGV bullet train) and found that our seats were in a shared area with another pair of seats, and the folks in those seats were from New Zealand. They were OK to talk to, but the woman at least once said stuff like: “I love that the Hugo Boss bags in Italy are only 1000 Euros instead of 2500 dollars at home”. Yikes. The Italian version of the bullet train was a little nicer we thought, with more seat room, and better storage above the seats.

Arrived in Florence (Firenza Stazzione), and found tourists everywhere, of course. Outside, we found another queue for taxis, but it went pretty quick.

[pic] We took a cab to the Hotel David, our new abode. It’s an old villa, converted to a 25 room hotel. The place is perfectly located as far as we are concerned; it’s away from the bustle of the very center of Florence, but still very close. It’s only a 15-minute walk back to the center, along the river, and a special river-walk bus runs back and forth along that route every few minutes. This was only one of several good bus routes in and around Firenza. We liked where it is located almost immediately, and then it grew on us even more. Nestled into a corner of a street almost invisibly, it’s really quite lovely; Lindi says it’s decorated in renaissance style. The room is nice – ours was on the 2^nd floor (3^rd floor in American parlance) – it was big and well-appointed. Great bathroom! And, for me, the all-important WiFi! Actually, any internet access would work, but this was easy for us. On top of all that, the people at the front desk were very nice and terribly helpful. It really is organized as, and feels much more like, a traditional bed and breakfast. More on the hotel, later – but, we really liked it right away.

We stayed in the room a bit in the afternoon, catching up on email and blog entries, and just getting settled in – had a power nap as well (teehee). We asked at the desk about a local restaurant, and the manager gave us the name of Trattoria Gigi, but we found out later it was closed on Thursday, so we went back down and as the front desk girl. She gave us Trattoria Beppino – we would live to regret this advice. We were also told of the nightly happy hour, where wine is served with snacks such as nuts, corn nuts, cheeses, and crackers as well as water, orange juice and other nice things. We quite enjoyed sitting in their quiet garden area and having a nice glass of white wine.

Note here: I might have mentioned this before, but Italians eat late! We have found that most restaurants open at 20.00 (8pm) and I suppose we are getting used to it, but I have to say that as much as I like a more leisurely pace at dinner, I would not want to live my whole life in a place where dinner starts at 9pm and lasts 2 – 3 hours, but that’s what Italians do. A short weekday dinner can be 1.5 – 2 hours, with weekend dinners going to midnight and beyond. Dios mio.

So, off we went toward the Beppino, around 19.45. We were able to locate a bank machine (more Euros) and a Lavateria (self-serve laundry) on the walk, and saw the closed Gigi as well. The first thing we noticed in the Beppino was the way that Americans tended to get seated in the front room and the Italians kept getting sent to the back. Not sure why that bothered me, but it did. We ordered a nice wine – Castellano di Pomino – it was good. This was setting a standard that nothing else in the restaurant could meet – our dinner was really quite tasteless and for the money (65 Euros) was lousy. The topper was the Tiramisu, which was watery and tasted like cardboard. Definitely not recommended – when we get back Lindi intends to alert the folks at the travel sites she found.  so useful about the good and bad things, and this awful place will be on the list.

Back to the Hotel David we went, unsatisfied. So ends day 20!

We started Day 19 off slowly, as the trip travel and the pace took its toll. We had a nice (included) breakfast, and stayed around the hotel until around 11.00. Lindi worked on her written diary updates and David typed in quite a few entries on the computer in a vain attempt to get back up to date. Glad I did, as later in the day I did find a WiFi connection to upload a few days updates. As mentioned before: since the Aberdeen didn’t have ‘real’ internet connection for me, it would have been exceptionally hard to update the blog from their slow, protected computers - they wouldn’t even accept a USB connection, so I couldn’t get the text in to them. Oh well.

Lindi mentions a fact I agree with: we love and hate Rome. The traffic, wild driving, honking, rudeness, and continuous ambulance sirens all suck – the amazing architecture and history rocks. It’s interesting for sure. We both agree, after the fact, that we should have dedicated a lot more time to Rome, as it has so much to see and do – so we will certainly come back.

So, around 11.00 we started a walking tour that Lindi assembled from a wide variety of sources, such as tour reviews, blog entries on various travel sites, etc. The tour started from our hotel and went down Via 20 Settembre, leading to Piazza Quirinale. Every piazza seems to have some fountain, statue, or famous building in it, and they are all wonderful to see with some being quite stunning, either in sheer size, artistic content or historic significance – or all of the above! This one is has an interesting obelisk and a palace.

We then went to Trevi Fountain. This is an amazing show of luxury and opulence, and it’s quite overwhelming with the large building attached to it. This was the terminus point for the Aqua Virgo aqueduct created in 19 BC. There was a wall-to-wall crowd of tourists at this sight, like so many of the others. We found the crowding to be disappointing, and so moved on.

Now, for those of you who’ve noticed the irony alarm going off quietly in the distance, I give you this: Yes, we know we hate tourists ruining everything, even though we are tourists. Yes, we get it. I suppose that somehow I’ve convinced myself I’m more earnest, more respectful and that I’m trying harder to fit in… and, I really might be. But mostly it’s just arrogance; mark that little aspect down for me to work on later. Until then, get the sandal-, cargo shorts-, football-t-shirt- and baseball-hat-wearing idiots out of my way. Arrgh.

Now here’s where it gets really interesting: The Pantheon. Wow. This structure, by its history, architecture and sheer size is simply staggering. Once you realize the way ancient Roman structures were preserved and modified and updated for various political and religiopolitical reasons, you can better understand the amalgam of Roman and Christian art that is a part of nearly all these amazing sites. This one is simply enormous (main dome is 142 feet in diameter) and contains some amazing features, some added in the last 1000 years, and the original from 2000+ years ago. We love seeing the Latin for things like: “M. Agrippa built this” in giant letters (like on the outside of the Pantheon). It actually says: M·AGRIPPA·L·F·COS·TERTIVM·FECIT, which means Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, built this during his third consulate. Wild.

Click on any of these photos to get a better look at it.

We scanned for a lunch location and found a set of restaurants in Piazza St. Pantaleon. We had heard one called Cul De Sac, but it was full – right next door was a place called L’Insalate. The lunch was once again fairly cheap and fairly good (pizza, I believe it was) and included some wine, of course.
Here’s a place where I expected to find some sweet Wifi, but could not.

These places put their tables together closely, so we were next to another couple as we had our lunch; I happened to notice the sounds of their conversation as sounding very Portuguese.

I commented to Lindi in a low voice
that they sounded Brazilian, and in a few minutes one of us had asked the other something, and I had a chance to ask them. They were indeed from Brasil, and were very nice (as all people from Brasil are). We talked for at least 30 minutes about each others trips, how we liked Rome, etc. They were wonderful, and we promised to email them and perhaps we can even get a comment from them on the blog about how crazy David and Lindi were.

After lunch, we walked to the Vittorio Emmanuel Monument, a monument to honor Victor Emmanuel, the first king of unified Italy. Check out the pictures – this monstrosity is solid marble and is 135 meters (490 ft) wide and 70 meters (230 ft) high; if the large statues on each side and on top are included, the height is to 81 meters (265 ft) - the size of a 25-story office building. It contains a number of monuments, including a museum to the Italian Reunification, and Tomb of the Unknown (Italian) Soldier, with an eternal flame dedicated to all Italian soldiers. Very impressive – they do monuments impressively and have done so for more than 2000 years (due mille anos). The pictures will have to do, as it’s really hard to describe this monstrous building and the grounds surrounding it.

Nearby, we saw Trajan’s Column and then continued toward the ancient Rome inner city excavations. This area contains some of the most amazing and oldest untouched Roman ruins. We went into this area and reviewed each of the sections, including some ruins of a senate building, tombs to wives of important Romans, and even to Caesar Agustus. From this area, you can see up on a hill the remains of a set of huge columns made entirely of alabaster, a translucent marble. The setting sun shone through these columns, and I hope you can see that in the pictures. Absolutely amazing.

As we left this area, and moved down the street, Lindi was heard to gasp: “Oh my god” – she was thunderstruck seeing the Colosseum, for real. I think perhaps some or all of the amazing sights in England, France and Italy had been interesting, but it finally sunk home to her where she was and the enormity of her surroundings at that moment. It happened to me when we walked into St. Peter’s. We are both so lucky to be able to experience some of the more interesting things on this lonely planet. We approached the Colosseum and walked all the way around it. Lindi was truly gawking at it.

We continued walking toward our restaurant reservation, past Circus Maximus, down the Tiber River. We were quite early to the area, and found the Moonlite Café. It was a nice place for a glass of wine, but it also held an interesting secret, as least for me. As I scanned the airwaves for some sweet Wifi, I found that the Moonlite actually had an access point with the same name. I pulled together my courage and went to the counter and asked obliquely if they knew of anyplace to get internet access. He said “Qui”… here. And then he said a very sweet thing: the wifi password. Yessss. I went back out to my chair and I was ON! That was a great opportunity to upload blog entries, answer emails, check status at home, and a lot of other stuff, before our 20.30 (8:30pm) reservation at Ristorante Consolini. This turned out to be a really nice dinner – and expensive. Lindi says it was not quite as good as I think, and she counts the excellence-to-Euro-ratio in her grade. The place is perched several stories over the street in this quiet neighborhood, and we were outside on the balcony. When we arrived we were the only people in the place. It didn’t really start hopping until at least 9:30pm. Didn’t hear very many English voices, but the waiters themselves spoke it fluently, and they were very nice. They called a cab for us, and it arrived in exactly 1 minute and 30 seconds. No kidding. We rode back to the Aberdeen, and hit the bed immediately – we were SO sore from all the walking, but we really loved our day. It was tremendous.

Once we awoke in our bunks on the Riviera Night Train (we double check all our time zones and our clock now, after the Normandy incident), we began to ‘wash’ and get dressed, each basically staying in our bunk as the other got out. Lindi used the ladder; it hangs on a rod, and nests near the wall, and then angles out to climb up or down. We got as cleaned up as we could and got ready to leave. The attendants are pretty insistent that you get ready before it arrives and as soon as it stops you are to get off. We found this very similar to the ferry – time is money, go get out of our way!

You may recall from the last entry that we didn't sleep well - frankly, we didn't sleep much at all. The constant stopping and starting made us crazy. Consequently, we were fairly zombied by the whole thing as we left the train.

We rolled ourselves and our luggage into Rome station – wow, that’s a big place. We were both nervous inside and just outside the station as we pictured pickpockets everywhere, and it’s such a crowded place (in my opinion a not-well-secured place, either.) We rolled our stuff out and down the street, and then recovered our maps and instructions about how to get to the Hotel Aberdeen. This is one of the only real hotels on our trip, as most of the others are either a flat (like in London and Paris), a bed-and-breakfast, or a farm-stay. We rolled our bags for three or four blocks and then into the hotel. We had been told that check in was in the afternoon, but even though it was only 10.00 (10am) we went over there anyway, even if we only would check our bags and go elsewhere (which was our initial plan). We were so pleased to hear that our room was ready, and we could go right up. Hallelujah! We could now clean up and get ready for our 13.00 tour of the Vatican in our own room, and that’s just what we did. We went right up, and here's what we saw:

Our room at the Hotel Aberdeen was nice. Well appointed and with a cool view of Rome city streets. Nice bathroom as well; quite big and with its own window to the street. Our TV turned out later to be broken but we didn’t really care much – it’s of interest to note that we have started by this time to be somewhat interested in what’s going on out in the world, so TV a few minutes a day or full-time internet would be nice. Because we stayed in more country environments, we’ve missed that access to the internet… but it’s worth it for where we get to stay. The big disappointment for our hotel is that they did NOT have internet access directly in the room, but instead only make a few computers available downstairs, and this is what is commonly referred to here as an ‘internet point’(similar to an internet café). The room features a breakfast, like most hotels of this type, and the breakfast was good each morning.

With such good luck in checking in early, we cleaned up and got ready to go back out. "Yes" is the answer to those of you thinking that we should be mighty tired at this point, after a night of train ride with very little sleep, but interestingly we were energized by the shower and were dedicated to the idea of getting as much out of Rome as we could – "we can sleep the next night". We used this philosophy at all our wonderful sites, through injury and weather and fatigue. Since it was still pretty early, we headed out for a lunch (at what would be considered a slightly early hour here) because our tour runs from 13.00 to 17.00 or so, and no time for anything else. We went looking for a recommended smaller café called ‘Target’, but couldn’t locate it. Instead we found a little café in the Piazza Repubblica, but the name we can’t remember now. The food was OK, but we obviously were now in ‘tourist land’ – they all speak fair English and the attitude wasn’t good. The food was fairly cheap for a tourist location, and was fairly good. Surprising.

Because we needed to get ourselves to the Vatican tour, we finished up and made our way toward what we hoped would be a taxi stand. It’s interesting that taxis are everywhere, but it’s many times hard to find one on the street. Bcause of that, taxi stands concentrate folks together for the benefit of the taxis, and the more this happens, the less the taxis just troll for riders on normal streets. So, once we realized we couldn’t easily locate a taxi stand near us, and that we didn’t have the time to go back to the hotel for a special phone reservation, we continued our walk back to the train station – you may recall that the hotel is only a few blocks from the train/bus station and this turned out to be greatly convenient without being painful in any other way. Imagine now the main taxi stand in one of Europe’s biggest stations – yes, there was a huge line. We began to be concerned about the time and our tour reservation, but we saw that the taxis were streaming in, and the line was moving pretty good. Unlike so much of Italy, there was a real and proper queue (line) and everyone pretty much respected it. It took us only about 10 or 12 minutes to get to the front, and we were on our way!

Is traffic crazy in Rome? Uh… yea. Not only are there no street lane markings, and drivers go way faster than they need to, but they also tailgate horrendously. Further, locals step off curbs anywhere expecting cars and busses to stop for them. As you might think, this is a wild ride for the uninitiated passenger in a taxi.

Our ride was strange, as it was hard to tell if the driver was going the exact direction needed, and we recommend having a map available in the taxi so the driver known that YOU know where you are going. On the other hand, the drivers generally know the ins and outs better than you do, so expect some slight variation of route. In our case, the traffic around lunch was horrendous, and we really never figured out why. Our driver didn’t speak English, and like all the others was on the cell phone 101% of the time, but my questions toward the end made it clear we were almost late for our tour.

Those of you who know us, and especially me, know that a tour doesn’t sound right. We have assiduously avoided tours of any kind for a lot of reasons, but this one that Lindi found was perfect. An expert on Italy, Rome and the Vatican takes a maximum of six folks on a 4-5 hour tour of the entire facility, knowing the places to stop and the places to skip over for priority, and all the stories in between. It absolutely tripled our enjoyment of the Vatican. The place is called Context Tours, and the person we had was Timothy Allen – he knew so much about the religious, political, historical and art aspects of everything we saw and was very outgoing with the data, and answered all our questions, that the experience was phenomenal. We later reviewed the terminology the guide used about himself, and realized that tours of this type are always couched in religious terms and not in commercial terms – interesting.

Back to the cab ride; the cabbie figured out how late we were, and got us to within a (long) block of our location, and stopped. He pointed, we paid, and we started jogging up the hill to the meet point, just outside the Vatican City wall. Even though we were 10-12 minutes late, it turns out we were the first customers of 2 full tours! Ridiculous! We stood aside and waited for all the other knuckleheads who either weren’t as careful as we were, or were stuck in the same awful traffic we were, and they finally started streaming in. At some point (perhaps 30-40 minutes late) our tour finally assembled with Tim – one of our three couples never made it, so we had an even more intimate four-to-one ratio with the guide. Nice.

We started in the line. It stretched to infinity, it seemed. But, it went in pretty quickly. Again, because we were late getting started and the fixed closing time of the Sistine Chapel, it would turn out to be more crowded and the tour would be shorter. It didn’t matter so much, and we heard later that the day we were there was slightly less crowded than other ones – partly this is coincidence and partly a result of some careful Lindi planning. The line was only about 30 minutes, so we actually got in by 14.00 (2pm).

I don’t know where to start in my description of the interior of the Vatican City. Each view and exposure to art, history and architecture (as well as the interesting politics behind all of it) builds to a higher and higher crescendo. The courtyards, the various ancient Roman artifacts rescued and protected by the church over the hundreds and hundreds of years, the sculptures and paintings either collected or *commissioned* by the various Pontiffs over that time, and the exquisite environment within which they are placed… well that simply can’t be captured easily in text or pictures, but I invite you to read about the interior of the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica. The latter is an awe-inspiring space, festooned with art pieces (paintings, reliefs and full sculptures, each of which could start a museum on its own) surrounded by scary amounts of gold and marble. As you walk around this building (size) you see that the entire floor and nearly all of the first three stories in height is solid marble, of various colors. Seriously, I’m usually a talkative guy, and I was stunned and speechless. A lot of the trip was that way, but the architecture, both ancient and more recent (but still very old), was the most awe-inspiring to me.

I took a few pictures inside the Chapel and the Basilica, but I wasn’t supposed to. The tour was informative and we enjoyed it very much. We ended up in front of St. Peters in the square. Wow.

We left the square and went over to a taxi stand to make our way home. Where the previous one we stood in was well organized, this one was not. There were a number of people who had come over to the area together and were attempting to be civil, but a number of locals were trying to push their way into a taxi before everyone else, and Lindi and I didn’t care for that at all… so, once the others got their taxis, we went into a more aggressive mode ourselves and got the next taxi more forcefully, or else we would be standing there still. Luckily Lindi didn’t have to hurt anyone.

We arrived back at our hotel fairly exhausted, as you might imagine, after the overnight with little sleep and the immediate 5 hour tour. It really took the wind out of our sails… we wandered just around the corner from the Hotel Aberdeen for a quick meal, of pizza of course! The Punta e Vigolaro, a small pizzaria just down the street, had some great pizzas, and it was quick. We also had some Italian beers, but sorry we have started missing the exact names of the alcohol for the report; many apologies. We finally headed back to the hotel to turn in for the night – we tried for a few minutes to get a turn on the ‘internet point’ computers but no luck, as others were using them. Also, I couldn’t find a single open internet access point, and this surprised me in that area.

Back upstairs to the room, and… crash. So ends day 18.

We finished our packing and had some breakfast with our hosts and our friends. Many of them were leaving at the same time and we have them our heartfelt thanks and bid them farewell. Paid our bill and said goodbye to the Mas and the owners. Nice place.

We then went in search of the post office. The reason? As you may remember from the saga, we’d bought Calvados in Normandy and we’d been to the markets in Provence, so we were overloaded with stuff we couldn’t easily carry. Also, keep in mind that hotels hallways, train doorways and storage areas, and car trunks are very small here, so we didn’t want to create even more bags. So, the only option was to send back some of what we’d purchased, directly to the USA. So, we went looking. The task was larger than we thought it would be, as we found out.

First, we went to the very small Post Office in Maillane – in France it is called Le Poste. The postman there was very nice, and indicated that several box sizes are available and they are already postpaid. The larger size was 38 Euros, which at the time was about 55 dollars. We went out to the car and realized we had no packing material at all, so we struck out toward the grocery store to see if we could find bubble wrap or newspapers or something! I realized while I was in the store that I needed packing tape, and found they had the tiny roll connected to a plastic handle with cutter, so I lucked out there. But, they had no wrap or other packing stuff, so I went next door to the ‘publication’ or press shop. They had newspapers, but not the giant stacks of paper like we are used to in the USA, but very tiny papers – I got one anyway and returned to the car. We strategized, and then gave up and just started driving. Within 100 meters of the store was a wine shop, so I stopped in and started trying to charm the owner out of some packing stuff. She was disappointed that I wasn’t interested in her wines, but she finally (and sweetly) showed us the pressed-pulp packing separators that suppliers pack wine in. This wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough, and with about eight of these, we were able to really pack the box tight for shipment. Now we went back to the little post office in Maillane, and gave the guy our box and the paperwork. He nicely helped us get it right, and then we were done! Yea!

So, off to Avignon for our train to Nice, and then to Rome. Our trip back to Avignon was much better and easier than the one out, but of course a lot of driving experience was now under our belt. As we got quite close, we realized we had plenty of time and that we were better off eating somewhere before we got on the train, because some of the train food can be less than appetizing and certainly is expensive – plus we were hungry. Once we got into the area near the station we topped off the fuel tank and looked around for a place to eat. The only one close was a crazy ‘Quick’ burger place – that’s what it’s called! It was like a Burger King of sorts, and it featured free WiFi! Yessss. Trust me, between all the country bed-and-breakfasts, we need all the free internet connection we can find.

We popped in and ordered some burgers and fries (pommes frittes) and they were quite good, for fast food. We enjoyed the food, got online and checked mail, then went on to the station. We waited for an inordinate amount of time at the stupid Europcar desk – again, stupidly run and inefficient. We finally grabbed our bags and went into the TGV station. Once our train to Nice was ready, we got on board. Again, a nice quiet and well run train.

So, here’s the picture so far. We are in Avignon, France, and we are headed to Rome, Italy. This trip is fairly long and features an overnight Riviera Night Train. So, we first need to get to Nice, France, from where the night train leaves. This train is fantastic as it runs to the Mediterranean coast of France and then runs along the coast with views of Antibes, Cannes and Nice. Even the view before we got to the coast was amazing, with towns built on bluffs and plateaus, and ancient bridges and aqueducts.

Once we got into Nice, we had quite a layover: 3+ hours. So, we started walking around the station to see what was available for dinner. We found Café du Gare. Not the best place in the world, but they had Croque sandwiches, frittes, and beers, so we were just fine. Hilarious story: we both wanted to use the toilettes, and once we got back to the station (gare) we found that the toilets were broken – all of them. Whaaa? So, we trucked back to the Café, and used theirs. Wasn’t too clean or pretty, I can tell you.

Once we got back to the train station and found our train, we boarded. Oh. My. Word. The smallest space you have ever seen is dedicated to a double-berth on a train. Check the pictures to see the situation, but there is only enough room for either two people standing and bags on the beds, or two people’s bags on the floor – but not both! We luckily found a suspended rack for bags at the level of the upper bunk and Lindi’s bags went up there ASAP. We noticed later a third bunk way on the ceiling, but I just can’t imagine that. You would literally have to load the inhabitants one at a time and they would then ‘live’ in the room in their beds, with each coming down and doing something (leaving the room to pee, or going to eat) one-at-a-time.

The upper bunk is reached by a ladder and each bunk has a light switch for the entire rooms main light and also a main ‘night light’ – also, each bunk has an individual reading light. The bunks are situated transversely, so that your legs point perpendicularly to the traveling direction, and becase of this fact both bunk inhabitants can see out the window. The window has fantastic light-blocking shades, and the very top part can open if you care to. Finally, the entire room has a pretty good thermostatic control for temperature of the air, and we were never really hot or cold, except at the very beginning when the train was sitting ready for boarding.

Check out the picture of the multifunction sink area. This is a tiny micro-closet type area, only perhaps 14” square in the width and depth direction, and perhaps 3 feet tall. It’s all behind two doors that swing open to make access relatively easier. It contains a sink, racks for two micro-towels, area for soap and toothbrush, very small vertical mirror, cup holders, and two tiny plastic cups. This is the entirety of the room’s sanitary fittings, with no real consideration for a shower – you wash (if you choose to) with a cloth. Bathroom requirements are filled by a single toilette down the hall, shared by all. This is not something horrible, or unexpected, but it’s more jarring when you first see it. You picture larger rooms from some movie in your head rather than the stark reality, but it’s really ok. It was clean and the beds were OK – too hard for even my tastes with fairly thin foam, but honestly not bad.

The train car’s ‘conductor’ does everything, apparently. He was the one who originally showed us our closet, oh sorry room, and then took our passports and filled out all the intercountry paperwork (we assume some of this is security related), and then brought us coffees and cappuccinos in the morning. He did little else that we could tell, and had an attitude about most everything. He (like much Italian train personnel) did not speak very much English at all. Oh, well.

So, know that train travel over country borders in Europe requires you to surrender your passport to someone at some time,... for the overnight, it’s fairly convenient that they take them before the train leaves the station for very long, allowing you to (ostensibly) sleep all night, or at least be private for that time. 

Once we reviewed our room, we stepped out into the hall a bit to take some pictures of it (see those here) and noticed everyone else on the car doing exactly the same thing, or nearly. One interesting note was that at least half of the car was taken up by non-Italians (Australians, New Zealanders, and Americans), and we thought that was interesting. All the non-Italians noticed each other and started talking between ourselves; we all ordered some mini-bottles of wine from the ‘conductor’ and drank that. We all stood around and talked for perhaps 90 minutes before taking our leave into our mini-rooms for the night.

What happened with our sleeping had little to do with the beds or the room, and everything to do with the operation of the train itself. What you don’t realize when you sign up to do an overnight train is that the train will stop perhaps 10-20 times over a 12 hour period. Some stops are longer than others, and on at least one stop the power was shut off and we sat for a while quietly for over 30 minutes – we believe this was the point at which they transferred some passengers and one of the train cars, but we can’t be sure. So, the stops really kept us awake and we never really got much long sleep, although Lindi swears I snored at some point. So, maybe a few hours was had. Here’s the wrap-up: Consider not taking this Riviera Night Train, unless you can sleep through anything.

We started the day off early so we could get to the Saturday markets in L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue early. Lindi’s voluminous research on the area and this market (as a part of all her great research) was that it is the best one to attend in the region, and that most of the tourists schlep in after 10.30, so we should try to arrive when it opens at 09.00. We did exactly that, leaving the Mas at 7.15, and stopping along the way at a St. Remy boulangerie for coffee and pastry. The trip took about 40 minutes, and parking was fairly easy and close due to our early arrival. We spent 30 minutes in a café on the square in Isle-sur-la-Sorgue before the market really opened completely.

The market was huge, covering five or six streets for several blocks on the longest sections. Hundreds of stalls with some of the best looking food items we’ve seen, including meats (cooked and uncooked), fruits and vegetables, and tons of herbs. Lots of art, pottery, jewelry, clothing and a lot less tourist crap than we thought would be there. By 11.00 we were spent, and had seen the entire thing, and bought a few things too. To finish up, Lindi suggested we make ourselves a picnic-style lunch of chicken thigh, potatoes (pomme de terre) seasoned with oil and provincial herbs, grapes, olives seasoned in oil and garlic, and an amazing croissant-like onion bread. Because we left the market before lunchtime, we just took the makings with us.

Onward we went in our car, to Gordes (pronounced “Gohrd-oo”, with the oo short and almost silent) over about 30 minutes. This city is the first stop in our Luberon tour. The Luberon is a region of mountains and valleys, with plateaus peaked by small towns. Gordes is one of these towns and the view of this town is stunning; how it was placed upon the rocks of the plateau there is a story of strength and history. We took my entire camera setup and tripod onto the road to capture this sight, and it was mighty dangerous for us. Between the tiny French roads and the fast French drivers, we skirted the edges of sanity for some images. I will upload more Gordes pictures soon, as I really liked this place and there are over 100 images I captured in various angles and for various purposes.

From there we went to Roussillon where rocks are mined for ochre paint pigment. This is another old city on a plateau, and also had a small market. We took a few pictures of the countryside from the edge, and then had some mineral water, Orangina and Coke Light (Europe name for Diet Coke). We have truly spent more on simple snacks than we thought we would, with water costing 3+ Euros for a ½ liter of water and 2 Euros for a Coke. Wow, 2 Euros is almost $2.60. Cokes are (of course) cheaper at the marche (market), but even then we are penalized with the weak dollar. We moved on to a more quick-paced drive through of Bonnieux, La Coste, and Menerbes, before returning back to the Mas. We didn’t have any dinner and we didn’t want to leave again, so we simply drank our dinner (some Instant Pression Kronenbourg beers). We sat outside and enjoyed the fantastic temperatures – typically 80 max during the day and 55 or so at night late… it was probably 70 or so, and we sat outside to enjoy it.

It’s worth mentioning a French family who was staying at the Mas at the same time we did; It was led by Daniel, and included his lovely wife, his wife’s dad and Dad’s wife. Daniel is a doctor in the Lyon area. He and his family were so very nice to us, with a lot of good conversation, they talked some English and we talked some French (Lindi did!) and we just really felt the good hospitality and it made our trip to Provence and Mas de la Christine really special. The Dad is named Jean, and he was so funny that even when we didn’t understand the French we laughed knowing he has said something witty, and only maybe half of it ever even got translated over the laughter. All in all, it was a great time with them, and we appreciate their friendship and hospitality very much.

We got a reasonable start on our Saturday, with thoughts of visiting Nîmes for a look at an ancient Roman arena. Little did we know but that this was the day of the big French bullfights there – more on this later. We first had a nice breakfast with our new friends at the Mas.

Once we got going toward Nîmes, we once again noticed the crazy level of precision in French maps and the fact that we always seem to arrive sooner at any one place or junction that we expect - and the counterpoint is that the entire journey of interpreting all the road signs makes it take longer. Lindi is particularly affected by this as she is (as has been pointed out before) my navigator.

As we got closer to Nîmes, we were surprised to find the traffic situation much much worse than we expected. At one junction we noticed a sign for the Corrida Bullfights, being run that day – Argh. We pressed on and attempted to find a parking spot within a few miles of the arena with little luck. After 45 minutes we grudgingly gave up and moved on to a nearby location with another fine specimen of arena; Arles.

Arles was crowded and touristy, and we didn’t realize how big the city is until we got there. Even thought the traffic was still quite bad, we did find a place. As we walked from our parking place toward the arena, we ran across a small marketplace on the street… we wandered it without finding anything particularly nice or interesting, plus we knew we were going to a much better market on Sunday, so we moved on to the Arena itself.

The arena was amazing. Dated to the 1^st century BC, the construction by the Romans was very interesting and the sheer size was noteworthy.

We climbed to the top of the tower attached to the Arena and took some pictures of Arles. I've also included a wide-angle picture of the whole width of the arena, below.

 

Once we left the arena, we headed to the Plaza De La Republic and started scanning for a restaurant for lunch. Not only did La Piraterie have a great galettes (crepe with egg, mushroom, ham) but I also snagged a free internet connection! Yessss! That’s when I uploaded the two days worth of reports without pictures. At some point all these entries will get prettied up with pics and links.

After our lunch, with beers we moved to the Calendal Café (connected to a hotel of the same name) for an ice cream (yes, we know we are breaking our diets, but we are doing a lot of walking and lifting, so we hope they cancel) We moved there because I realized that my ‘free Wi-fi’ setup was hosted out of that café, so I continued some online work there over our coffee and ice-cream, until my battery finally died.

When we left the area of the city center and our café, the market had ended. The mess they left was enormous, and the City of Arles maintenance crew was out with street-sweeper machines and twenty men with water hoses and brooms to clean it all up. We almost got squirted with water as we went back to our car. We paid our parking fine (like so many we paid on this trip) and made ready to leave. This is a good opportunity to mention how parking works in Europe (and perhaps other places as well, I suppose): Cars drive through an entry gate and the driver gets a ticket with magnetic strip. If one attempts to leave the lot by driving out through the automated gates at the exit, most systems allow the use of the ubiquitous ‘smart-card’, but not our American magnetic strip cards, and not cash (caisse). In all cases, there is a separate station that can be used to pay the value on the card down to zero. Then as you leave through the exit station, the card shows no value required just as if it were paid at that station – the gate opens and you are on your way.

The cash payment machine in the parking areas can be a little confusing at first, as I’ve mentioned in previous entries. You start by inserting the ticket with the entry time on it into the machine and it indicates to you the value. You then add money or a credit card to pay it down to zero, then it gives you the card back. Funny story: as I paid my ticket down with cash, there was an older French couple confused over how to use the machine. I waited patiently (stop thinking that – I really did) and once they started to give up, the lady said “Pardon, please go ahead” (in French of course) and I proceeded to show them how to do it. They thanked me, and we left.

Now, at 2pm, we strategized how to finish our day, as we drove back toward St. Remy de Provence.. We knew we wanted to see a number of other sites in the area, but we also needed to pick up our clothes from the laundry lady (see yesterday's entry). She had originally told us to come at 4:30pm (16.30) but we dropped by early and luckily it was ready. 12 Euros for most of our clothes (more of mine than Lindi’s) was one of the only good deals we ran into on the trip so far. Now, we could move on to the additional sites we wanted to see that day.

We started with Les Baux-de-Provence. This amazing place is a hilltop castle and village that was used to protect this part of Provence from invaders. The medieval city was fun to wander through, including seeing a real very large trebuchet fire – it launched a really large rock!

The view from this place, like several others we saw later on Sunday (the Luberon area) was astounding, and the history of the place and how well the stone held up to the centuries of wear is interesting. This is a place not to miss.

Here's a view from the top of Le Baux:

We headed back to Maillane past Glanum roman ruins, but didn’t stop. We washed up, and Lindi made 8pm (20.00) reservations for dinner, in French! Wonderful. The dinner was back in St. Remy, at a place called La Cassolet, and we were frankly disappointed. This Michelin-recommended restaurant was too expensive for the food we received, or not good enough for what we paid – you decide. We had a pair of four-course meals which were good but not amazing, and a small bottle of wine (a half-bottle at 375 mL); we spent 70 Euros (over $100) for the experience and we just felt gypped. Perhaps our sights were set too high.

We ended the night back at the Mas before 10pm, and went quickly to bed so we could get out early to the market Sunday morning. Nice day.