French Riviera

Another long email.

 I have started worrying about two things the last while.

 1^st)  I know that I keep sending emails as I see things through these lovely rose coloured glasses that I bought second hand from Dorothy after she finished visiting Oz. Am I getting too soft? How can I go back to work at Sunnybrook with this perpetual smile? I have to toughen up and show that France is not all ice cream and rainbows! I’m going to tell you some of the harsher details of this trip.

 2^nd) Joani and I, in the last couple of years have seen so many ancient ruins, old buildings, exotic cultures, that the last while I seem to be walking by 500 year old buildings with a complete blasé attitude as if to say. “Didn’t I see something like that last year in Spain“, or, “wow that’s almost as nice as that building I saw in Sienna a few years back.” Today we were walking through this beautiful little town/city, Aix En Provence, and I had to give myself a shake. I was seeing the most marvelous fountains,

500 and 600 year old buildings, and beautiful statues, and just sort of wondering what there is to see here. We have none of these types of things in Ajax or Toronto!  I resolved to open my eyes and see things as I saw them the first time I came to Europe and things looked amazing again.

 So this will be a Jeckyll and Hyde email. On the one hand I’m going to tell you the things about France that aren’t the great and on the other hand I’m going to tell you about the things I saw today that took me back to my first day in Europe walking through Rome.

Dislikes

 #1: Driving in France is a never ending adventure. Now I’m not talking about the small lanes in towns and cities, the one lane roads in the country or on mountains that are being used as two lane highways. These problems have been in place for ever and I know that there are room and financial issues to account for. What I’m talking about is other things. The average French driver seems to favour one of two possible extremes. He either drives 20 kms under the speed limit or 40 over and whichever one you come across, they have no respect for anyone else. So if you catch up to the slow driver they will back up traffic for 3 or 4 kms, without ever thinking of pulling over to let people driving the normal speed limit pass. The drivers speeding will catch up to you and if they can’t pass immediately, they will pull up so close to your bumper that you will think they are attached to your car with a trailer hitch and honk at you until they get a chance to pass.

 French Pedestrians seem to feel that auto drivers need to always be aware and so they will walk out anywhere, between parked cars, into the middle of an intersection regardless of the colour of the light, or even stand in the middle of the street with their head in the window of a parked car talking to that driver completely oblivious to the fact that their “fanny perpendicular” is hanging out into traffic and you need to maneuver around them.

  French car drivers have the complete opposite idea. Pedestrians are fair game. You can be crossing a street at a green light, completely in the right and drivers here will speed up seemingly threatening to run you over if you don’t hurry through the crosswalk. Heaven forbid if you actually are jaywalking and one of these drivers turns a corner and sees you! Guaranteed they will hit the accelerator because now you really are fair game and I believe there is some sort of point system if you get to scare a walking tourist over here.

 Lastly, if you ever do drive over here, remember that truck and bike/moped drivers have a completely different set of rules than we are used to in North America. Basically for them, there are no rules. A truck driver in the city can stop where ever he wants and stay however long he wants regardless of what it does to traffic. They also get to change lanes on the highway without any warning and if you are in the lane they want, move or they will run you over. Bikes and mopeds on the other hand, don’t need lanes. They create them as they go. They will come up on your right or left with no warning and you will go to make a turn and lo and behold you’re about to run over a biker. On the highway they are impervious to traffic jams because they will go between lanes or into the parking lane to get to where they want to go. You have to always be aware. These are my problems driving in France.

 #2: We went to Monaco

and Nice

yesterday and although I know that for a lot of people in France as well as other countries these are the ultimate vacation destinations, Joani and I both found them very commercial and crowded. Monaco seemed a place that catered mostly to millionaires which is probably true and Nice, while less so than Monaco, stilled seemed pretentious. We considered stopping for a drink in Monaco and looked at an outdoor café as a possibility. When we looked at the menu we saw Champagne cocktails for 22 euro each. To put that into perspective, it would have cost us approx. 50 euro (80 dollars) with tip to sit down and have a cold drink. Joani pointed out that we could have had a normal cocktail for 18 euro so that would have only cost approx. 40 euro (60 dollars) for a couple of vodka and orange juice. (On the other hand we did go into the casino and spend 10 euro on the slot machines.

I busted out, Joani won 18 euro back!!)

 #3: There is a shortage of public washrooms as you walk around the towns and cities and when you’re a tourist you can be walking around for hours and need one.

 #4: I don’t have anymore…..we seem to be having a pretty good time! (I’m still not going to be wearing a perpetual smile when I get back to Sunnybrook.)

So as I have said. This is an email about likes and dislikes. Most of my emails have been likes and thhe rest of this one will be back in that category.

  First I’d like to say that although I said some harsh things about Monaco and Nice, there was some incredible scenery and I will include some photos as proof. Basically nice place to visit, wouldn’t want to live there.

 Next topic… Aix-en-Province. When we first decided to stay in Aix during our stay in the south of France it was because Aix-en-Provence/Marseille, (twin cities) seemed to be central to the things we wanted to see down here. Arles, Nimes were west, Monaco, Nice were East and Chateauneuf-du-Pape and Verdon Gorge was north.  We set aside one day to visit in one of these 2 cities. I was fairly certain that it would be Marseilles as it is bigger and beside the Mediterranean. But the more we read the more Aix turned out to be the better choice. It apparently is the artistic capital of this region. If you put art in the word that is the town for me.

 So today we spent the day in Aix-en-Provence and it was terr..,marv..,fant…, I can’t figure out what word to use to describe it that I haven’t already used, but I definitely had those special glasses on again today. Paul Cezanne, another of those Impressionists that I love so much was a native son to this region and spent his entire career down here painting except for a few years he spent in Paris. They worship him here.

They name areas of the city, and streets after him, and have turned his private studio into a shrine/museum which we visited early this morning. Early on in the visit we met the curator of this small museum and the woman spent the next hour educating us on Cezanne’s techniques and what made him unique. We were amazed and amused as she seemed to completely forget about the other visitors and focus her sole attention on us. I earlier on italicized the word Impressionist because according to this woman, Cezanne as it turns out wasn’t ever considered an impressionist but only got lumped in with them because he painted during that period. When I confessed I wasn’t really a Cezanne fan she said, “neither am I”! Go figure! The curator of his personal museum. Anyway, art trivia for anyone interested.

 After that we went to another art gallery. Surprise, surprise….well why did you think I wanted to go to France so much? We got to see a whole bunch more Cezanne works but also some other stuff including a couple of Toulouse Lautrec works and another Van Gogh. (can’t get enough)

 Then we spent the rest of the day walking around this beautiful town. I love art! I love old towns. I love old buildings. I love Europe. If I could figure out how to spend my life bopping around over here from country to country, Museum to Museum, Art Gallery to Art Gallery, I’d be ever so happy. But Joani would miss her boys and grandchildren, and I wouldn’t function too well without her

so I guess I’ll see you all in another 10 or 11 days.

Garry