The best way to see Provence is undoubtedly by car. Most of the beautiful villages perched on the hilltops and among the valleys in the region are either inaccessible by public transportation or offer totally inconvenient timetables. Forget trying to get anywhere round-trip on a Sunday. And so it came to pass that we found a service called TripnDrive (think AirBnB for cars), and rented a car for two days of unrestrained Provençal village exploration. Day One was a Tuesday, and our main goal was to visit Vaison-la-Romaine. Days of the week matter in Provence, as village life often revolves around market day. And as far as market days go, even in the winter Vaison still had a pretty awesome spread. We couldn't help ourselves from buying (and immediately eating) fresh olive bread and an herbed sausage. To be fair though, we did hike up a pretty good hill to enjoy our spoils. Next on the itinerary was a very small village called Crestet. I imagine it is more lively in the summer months, but part of the charm for us was the absolute peace and serenity of the quiet stone village perched on a hill that felt abandoned from lack of human contact. We only saw one group of people unloading groceries into what we thought was a chateau in ruin at the top of the hill - only to discover that behind the facade was a furnished home the group was clearly stocking up with boxes of wine for a party later in the day. Too bad we weren't invited. After two villages (and a hearty snack), we sat down for the best lunch of our vacation at a small roadside B&B that serves lunch a few days a week. If you're in the area, it is absolutely worth planning your day around lunch at La Fleur Bleue. Other than a decent wine menu, the only choice to be made is whether or not you want to add dessert to whatever starter+main the chef happens to be serving for the day. After lunch, we drove to Le Barroux, hoping to visit the chateau. It's a good thing that the village itself is beautiful, because it turns out that the chateau is closed to the public during the winter months. We nevertheless enjoyed the views. Onwards to Beaumes-de-Venise. This particular village is known for it's sweet white Muscat wine, as well as its unfiltered olive oil, which you can really only find there. Our final stop of the first day was to Gigondas, which is a major wine-producing town with excellent red wines that I buy for special occasions. Out of all of the villages we traipsed through, Gigondas was the one that most felt like wealthy people visit on a fairly regular basis and leave happily toting a few cases of expensive wine. In that respect, it's a lot like Chateauneuf-du-Pape. On Day 2, we only had time to visit the one town I had wanted to visit for years: Les Baux-de-Provence. Compared to the quiet and peaceful village experience we had the day before, Les Baux was a complete shock to the senses. I knew that the town itself was going to be beautiful, and the chateau is indeed an impressive fortress on top of a hill with gorgeous views; but we had no idea when we planned the visit that Les Baux is one of the most highly-touristed sites in France. Hello swarms of children (and adults) all up in our business!! We managed to find a bit of peace and quiet among the chaos, and I even got to pet some baby sheep in the live nativity scene. I don't mean to discourage anyone reading this from checking out Les Baux - just go into it forewarned that the word is out and the people are coming.
Right next to the village of Les Baux, there is an attraction that is absolutely worth going out of your way to visit. Les Carrières de Lumières is a multi-media show where masterpieces by famous artists are projected on the limestone walls of an old quarry in the side of a mountain. Works of art that you have maybe seen a hundred times are projected onto massive stone walls, and dance to the rhythm of music that is perfectly chosen, and which you can almost feel the moment you step in side. These pictures will never do the experience justice, but it shows at least a flavor of the size of the place. If you're interested and have a bit more time, here's a nice video that shows many more photos from the same show we saw.
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French churches across the country don't mess around when it comes to setting up the nativity scene (or, crèche) starting around early December; the baby Jesus of course does not make an entrance until Christmas itself. In Provence, which is in the South of France where we're spending the week, the nativity scenes are all made from hand-painted terracotta figurines called Santons, which roughly translates 'little saints'. In a traditional Provençal crèche, there are 55 individual figures representing various characters from Provençal village life such as (according to Wikipedia) the scissors grinder, the fishwife, the blind man, and the chestnut seller. You cannot make this stuff up. During the French Revolution in the late 1700s, churches were closed and their ubiquitous nativity scenes were prohibited. A smart fella in Marseille named Lagnel (of no consequence, but there you go) crafted the first clay santons to get around the strictly religious theme, and they've been part of Provençal Christmas tradition ever since. Michael is making a funny face in this pic, but you can still get a sense of how big some of these figurines can get. Want to buy your own set of 55 French village thematic figurines, you are now empowered.
Our first day trip from Avignon was to the Fontaine-de-Vaucluse, a small medieval village built around the source of the Sorgue river. It's apparently the largest spring in France and the fifth biggest in the world. This time of year, the water is quite low and moving slowly, and the trees are barren of leaves; but the whole village is still incredibly beautiful. Our original destination for the day was a well-known antiques market town called L'Isle sur la Sorgue, which is where we celebrated my birthday with my Mom last year. Taking a look at the bus route, we decided to ride a few more stops to explore Fontaine-de-Vaucluse. So glad we did.
Michael and I are spending the holidays this year in the South of France, which will be the first time we've been to this part of the country in winter. The idea was to find a quiet place to escape for a week, where we could easily get out and about if we wanted to be tourists for a day; or stay put with a good book if we didn't feel like doing a thing. Our destination of choice is Avignon, which is a medieval walled city that is mostly known these days for it's epic theater festival every July, but was previously known as the seat of power for the French Popes during the Great Schism. The city was important long before the Popes arrived in 1309, but the major tourist attractions that still survive today are from that era - the Palais des Papes and the Pont d'Avignon. We have passed through here a few times before, but this is the longest time we've spent in the city. We also recently discovered that you can walk to a town across the river, Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, which was fortified in the 1300s by French King Philip le Bel when the Popes moved into Avignon to make sure they knew who was boss in the region. Some things never change. The highlight of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon is most definitely the Fort Saint-André, which though technically in ruins, still maintains enough of its bones to allow visitors to imagine what it was like in the glory days. To see more pics from around Avignon and the fortress, check out our album.
Merry Christmas and happy holidays from our small family to yours! This year, we're spending Christmas day with my good friend and colleague Carmel, who has a beautiful house in the South of France. She was kind enough to take in a few American orphans to celebrate the holiday with her family.
A few months ago, I found out that my close friend Casey was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer; especially for a woman in her early thirties. Those of us who are lucky enough to know Casey could have probably predicted with a high degree of certainty that she would face a challenge like this head on; but it has nevertheless been remarkable to watch her handle the past few months with such grace and courage. Just before her diagnosis, Casey had booked a solo trip to Honolulu in December. And just after her diagnosis, I decided to spend some time at the end of the year with her. So when we talked about the possibility of putting the two ideas together, we came up with an epic week-long ladies trip to Hawaii. And so it happened that at the end of an insanely busy (but memorable!) 2015, Casey and I traveled to Oahu to spend a week in paradise. Some highlights from our trip include... Lounging in the sunshine: Snorkling Hanauma Bay: Everything about Lanikai Beach... but especially the rainbows: Paying respect at Pearl Harbor: Catching a surfing competition... with some of the best surfers in the world: Swimming with waterfalls: Hiking Diamond Head volcano... this was a goal of Casey's, and she hiked it like a boss: Floating into the sunset: There were so many moments during this trip that will stay with me forever. Each day, I was keenly aware of how lucky I was to be there spending time with Casey in such a beautiful corner of the world.
We took a ton of pictures, which you can find here in the album. It was almost thirteen years ago that I last traveled to South America, when I had the incredible fortune to visit the Amazon rainforest in Suriname during college. The trip was life-changing, as it was only my second time outside of the United States, and I learned that if I could survive the piranha, mosquitos, bats, lizards, spiders and numerous other jungle creatures, I could pretty much travel anywhere. Over a decade later, I finally had the chance to return to the continent for a work trip. This was my first time traveling to Peru, and even though it was an insane whirlwind few days of work, I managed to experience some of the local flavor. And by local flavor, I mean I ate ceviche and drank pisco sours like they were going out of style. Lima is a costal city, and is known these days for being a top destination in the world for foodies. In fact, you can currently find 3 of the top 50 restaurants in the world in Lima, including one way up in the top 5 (by comparison, 6 on the list are in the US, and 5 in France).
While I didn't visit any of the fancy restos, I did have some pretty spectacular food throughout the three days I was in LIma, including a few awesome meals at Huaca Pucllana and El Mercado. And yes, I did try cuy, but I think that may have been a one and done experience. |
AuthorBecause why not get married and move to Paris to really kick off your thirties? Archives
December 2016
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