France 2010
Here you will find all posts from France 2010 in chronological order (top to bottom).
Nice, France without luggage!
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We made it to Nice on time, although it was nip and tuck getting to the Nice leg on time. Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam is huge and our Minneapolis flight landed on one end of the airport while our departure flight left from the other end of the airport.
We made it, although our bags did not. Air France gave us a “sorry your luggage is lost” gift pack with some essentials, and recommended we go out immediately and spend $100 euros each, for which we will be reimbursed. So far we have not, investing only in two cans of aerosol fixative for Liz’s hair. We think it’s hairspray.
We are staying at the Villa Aramis in Rue de Mousequetiere’s. There are three rooms for guests — the Aramis, the Athos, and the Porthos for all of you Three Musketeer’s fans.
After a short nap, we walked the town and found a spot for dinner and wine. Tomorrow we hope for luggage!
Luggage!
Our luggage was deliver about midnight. We had a good nights sleep in spite of a thunderstorm. This morning is clear, all is well and we’re off for St. Raphael.
From Nice to St. Raphael
The Villa Aramis sets a nice breakfast table, with cereal and toasts and baguettes and many choices of jam, and a bottomless cup of coffee. After checkout, we make for the coastal town of St. Raphael, little realizing the streets of Nice are steep and winding and designed to make one carsick. Liz succumbs to some kind of malaise. Patty and Mike are cut from heartier cloth.
Arrive in St. Raphael midday and check in to the Hotel Santa Lucia, which has a view of the Mediterranean Sea. We make for the harbor. So many beautiful yachts and sailboats. The wind is immense and makes an eerie whine through the rigging of the many boats, like a siren calling. We find a seaside eatery, and take time for salad and galettes. In the night, we sleep with the window open to the sea. The sailboat rigging whines and calls all night.
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Thursday in St. Raphael
The wind is down, and we arise early and head to the breakfast room for coffee, hard-boiled eggs, babybel cheese, a little Laughing Cow, croissants, and fruit compote. We drive to the old town, and traffic is fierce. We park near the harbor and tour an open air exhibit of huge photographs — ships and lighthouses. Patty takes a few moments to sketch.
We agree to split for awhile, but minutes later, Patty returns with a bloody elbow, having missed a curb and fallen in the street. We find a pharmacie, where a helpful pharmacist spritzes her with antiseptic and bandages her up. Patty is stoic.
We stop at a toy store and buy a tiny man named Oui Oui. All the stores close, so we stop for lunch at Le Duplexe while Patty sketches on the steps of the Archeology Museum. The waiter speaks a little English, but brings us two panini even though we want only one. It’s just fine with us. He tells us how to find the Hotel Des Flores and corrects our pronunciation, which we appreciate. He shows us how to dial a number in Italy from France on an American phone. We tour the archeology museum and see many amphora rescued from the deep, and other mysteries, including Roman crypts.
After a short rest back at the hotel, Mike heads down to the water and the red rocks. We’ll go there again tomorrow with everyone. Dinner on the pier at Les Arcades, where Patty and Liz get roses, and the children are rambunctious. Another good day.
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Friday in St. Raphael
An easy day in St. Raphael, where the weather is apparently always beautiful. At least it has been during our stay. With Charlie and Jane driving our way from Cassis, we decide to stay close to “home,” visiting familiar places, dining on Nutella in the breakfast room, and relaxing on the lovely Patio of Yellow Umbrellas.
We take a drive along the Esterel and see the amazing red rocks of the Cote D’Azur. Many beaches, many yachts, many villas, many deep-brown bodies.
Charlie and Jane arrive, and Charlie has been visited by a cold bug. We dose him up with various potions and elements of the healing arts. Then we stroll the waterfront in search of lunch. Composed salads all around. In search of a fuse to make the cigarette lighter in the car work so Charlie and Jane’s GPS will function, we fail.
A trip to the beach for a swim is foiled by surfeit of jellyfish and a high wind. The only recourse is a nap. Patty paints a variety of studies, accurately capturing the colors of the red rocks and blue water, which could go garish, but don’t. We take a picture of a bridge for Richard. We walk the “other way” for dinner, and stumble upon a wonderful surprise — a Moroccan Restaurant where all of the food is mysterious, and none of us speak the same language. A good day.
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Off to the villa
Checkout time is noon and we wake up late. Just enough time for breakfast — this time on the Patio of Yellow Umbrellas. Charlie and Jane want to tour the old town, so Patty, Mike and Liz drive the corniche below the Esterel. We stop at a monument to the World War II landing of the allies on the beaches of St. Raphael. A solemn place for a visit. Then along the coast. The further we drive, the more intensely red the rocks become — a beautiful rocky coast overlooking the jittery water. Villas upon villas upon villas.
We return, join up with Charlie and Jane, and head to nearby Frejus for lunch. We find a street market just as it closes, then have lunch at a curbside restaurant, and watch two weddings in quick succession at the Mairie on the square.
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Arrival at villa
We stop in Draguignan for groceries to make sure we have something to eat at the villa. Major hubbub with French people darting this way and that. They know what to do in a French supermarket, and we do not. We are at the villa by 5:20. The guardian gives us a whirlwind tour. It’s enormous and spectacular — nine bathrooms and 82 chairs.
BUT, there is no Internet (bummer) or toilet paper (it’s always something). The rest of our party arrives. There is a big to-do over bedrooms and furniture-swapping and sheet-finding. We end the day with leisurely wine-drinking on the veranda and are tucked in our beds by 11.
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The “Usual Suspects”
Flayosc, Villecroze, & Tourtour
Up at 9 for coffee and the weather is beautiful. Word has it there is a market in Flayosc, so we go — Mike, Liz, Patty M, Jim and Jane G. There is no market. But we find street-side paella and buy enough for lunch for all.
We stop at a fruit market for salad greens, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, and lavender honey. We take a crazy, rotten back road to get back to the villa and scare off a few wild boar hunters. Everybody jumps into the pool, except for Liz, who specializes in hiding from the sun.
Dinner is taglietelle carbonera and green salad with oranges and avocado. In the heat of eating, Mike stubs his pinkie on one of the bajillion wrought iron chairs and breaks his toe. Luckily, we have a nurse who diagnoses him. Yup, it’s broken.
We are in bed by midnight, our flashlights on our bedstands and the lizards watching over us in the night.
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