June 9th - the late night travels continue

Back to the Campo dei Fiore, where we sat down to a 10:30 supper of gnocchi and white wine.  Very nice waitstaff. 

Can we eat here?  Please?

Many young people wandering all over the place, and a few old people like Joe and me.  Once I had something to eat, I felt finally like a normal person again.  I'd been so patient with Joe after my meltdown in the hotel, while he ran all over the place looking at places he'd last seen in 1964.  But I really really was glad to have been fed at last.

Then we moved on to the Piazza Navona.   The famous fountains were encased in scaffolding, for over the years the stone was stained that odd sulfur-yellow in my pictures, and the stone is being carefully cleaned.  So we could not see much of the beautiful Fountain of the Rivers (Fontana dei Fiumi).

Finally on the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, Joe found the building where Eugene Walter had lived.  Eugene Walter was from Mobile, Alabama, and a "friend of a friend" from Joe's years in that city.  He was a writer, actor, editor.  He had lived in Rome for many many years, was friend and neighbor of Leontine Price there, and was very kind to Joe in 1964.  The building appears now to be all offices, no residences. 

18, Corso Vittorio Emanuele

And that was that.  We made our way pack to the Hotel Pomezia and to sleep in an airconditioned room.


All told, my favorite place from the week in France was Nice.  The hotel was so fine, with doors that opened to the sky and overlooked the park.  The beach of stones sloping down to the multi-hued sea.  The old part of the city, with its flower market by day and cafes by night, the uniformity of its old buildings, pastel, yellow, ochre,  with shutters and balconies, four or five stories tall.  Very narrow streets and lanes.  The wide Marche aux Fleurs that becamse the busy dining area with umbrellas, tables, chairs down the center.  And with the next day we would begin our tour of Italy with some two or three dozen other people

June 9th from Nice to Rome

The trains in Europe are well organized.  The cars and the seats are numbered both inside and outside.  On the platform a display shows where each care is aligned on the platform:  We went to area W for car numbered 17.  The train was on time.  It had little compartments on the land side, not on the sea side.  This train to Italy runs along the Riviera and is a good ride because of the scenery:  the sea on the right, hills and mountains on the left.

Steep Riviera hillside

Occasionally tunnels cut the route through peninsulas. The area is densely populated along most of the way. Two Russians chatted with us on the way from Nice to their daytrip destination, San Remo.

The approach to the Genoa station where we were to change trains goes through a very extensive port area - not very pretty but certainly different from the earlier scenery.  We had a two-hour layover in Genova . . . after I fell when I left the first train.  A station attendant and two woman rushed to make sure I was okay.  And I was, other than having dirt on my trousers and embarrassment on my face.  The waiting room was air-conditioned, a good thing because Genoa was very hot.  The station entry has Roman temple features:  columns, pediment, white stone.

Facade of Genoa's train station.

Inside we talked with an information agent (with difficulty because of our language deficiencies) about Nice-Genoa-Rome vs. Nice-Milan-Rome.  He explained that Milan is farther to the northeast than Genoa, but it does have a TGV to Rome.  But that entire trip is longer than the one we chose.

The Genoa-to-Rome train passes through a very large stone-cutting area.  We passed many stoneyards with huge rectangular blocks, and some that were cut into thin slices (perhaps for the facing of buildings, or stairsteps, or piazzas and patios?)  There was white stone, red-pink stone, black-dark grey stone.
We also passed many hayfields that were recently cut and full of hay rolls, like the ones we see in Virginia but smaller.  I didn't see pastureland with cows or sheep or horses  . . . well, one or two farms with horses.  But they looked to be riding horses.  Neither did I see mules or donkeys.  And no sign of a hog-pen.

Two Candians joined our cabin from Pisa to Rome and told us scary tales of how dirty Rome is, full of graffiti, and gave us warnings about thieves, pickpockets, and gypsies, especially near the train station, called, appropriately, Termini.

So we were apprehensive on exiting the train, and being after 8:00 pm, night was coming on soon.  Joe insisted that he knew what he was doing from his 1964 visit.  It was very odd:  all of the exits from this enormous station were closed except for one.  The huge crowd had to slowly funnel through it.  I was nervous the whole time, and wanted to stop and get my bearings.  Joe wanted to plow forward to avoid the rumored pickpockets and gypsies.  He prevailed.  We shuffled toward and then through the one exit.  There were cops everywhere (polizia and carabinieri).  The reason:  President Bush had been in Rome for the day and there had been a huge anti-Bush demonstration (what French and Italians both call a "manifestation").  But why did the cops want to scan the people who were leaving the Termini?  We'd all been somewhere else. 

Note the police buses on the left side of the plaza.

Outside the station is a huge area for buses and taxis, but it was completely empty.  Not allowed.  Joe set off walking straight away from the station.  We soon flagged a taxi and learned that the Corso Vittorio Emanuele was closed, blocked off because of the demonstrations.  We rode as far as the large monument to Victor Emmanuel, thanked and paid the driver, took some photos of the cops standing around, and hauled my rolling suitcase over the very bumpy cobblestone streets, got lost, went here and there and, it seemed, everywhere.  Finally between my figuring out the map and Joe getting direction from a passerby, we arrived at the Hotel Pomezia.  And I had a large meltdown, crying that I hate Rome, I hate the dark streets and the crowds and the hotel without air conditioning.  But Joe saved the night - - he asked the desk clerk and learned how to se the air condition.  My hero!

Hotel Campo Dei Fiore

So it's a little late to be wandering out in the scary city full of thieves, pickpockets, and gypsies, maybe 9 pm --  But there were plenty of police, and so we went out to find the Campo dei Fiore.  Joe was so happy to find the Hotel of that name where he'd stayed 43 years before.  However, it had been sold and the new owner had renovated it, and so it looked a little different. 

Still, we went up to the roof terrace for a great view over the evening sky of Rome and all of its domes and church towers.  It was a great view, but soon my old nasty fear of heights came on, so I had leave. 

On to the Piazza Farnese, and we found Camponeschi Ristorante.  That was for Joe Camponeschi who works in my office - - some far distant cousins own it.  It's a very nice looking, classy place, not a cafe or bistro or tavola calda. I talked with an elderly, well-dressed, well-groomed man, the maitre-d' or owner, I don't know.  When he found out I had no reservation, he wordlessly turned and slowly walked away.  Still I took a photo of the entrance for my colleague. 

This large piazza is very lovely.  Two large basins that catch the waters of the fountains were taken from the Caracalla Baths.  They do resemble giant bathtubs.  The Palazzo Farnese is now the French embassy.  It's a graceful three-story Renaissance building along one of the long sides of the piazza, painted yellow, with a heavy cornice.  And in the corner between the Palazzo and the Camponeschi were parked three buses marked "Polizia", being loaded up with cops who were obviously happy to go off duty.

Palazzo Farnese, now the French Embassy

June 8, Avignon and Nice

I was awake so early - 6 am or so - and went out to see both the bridge and the Palais des Papes without crowds. The great square before the palais was empty except for pigeons.  Many residents were out cleaning and sweeping up, and I picked a bit of lavender down by the bridge.  It was good to be out early, in the quiet.  Some birds were singing.  Swifts or swallows darted down by the river.  The river was quiet, a man walked his dog and the dog ran into the water, biting at something.  Little dog, old man.  Pinkish glow in the sky beyond the shadowed bridge with its shallow arches.

Le Pont d'Avignon at dawn.

I think I surprised the night clerk when I returned to the hotel around quarter past seven.   Breakfast was less extensive than at the hotel in Paris:  no yogurt or cheese or cereal.  We packed up and checked out very early thanks to Joe's obsession with being extra early for every kind of transportation event.  So we arrived at the Avignon TGV station [which is not to be confused with the station for non-TGVs] with about an hour to spare.   Thank you, Kathie, for the Sedoku book.

not-shy dragonfly

Avignon TGV station is very new, as is the train and its technology.  Nevertheless it attracted a large dragonfly who kept trying to fly through the station window but bumped against the pane.  I caught it and took it toward the track so it could find fresh windowless air.  And away it went.

In about 2 hours we were in Nice, a city on the Mediterranean I was determined to visit.  The station at Nice is not so big, and it dumps one out without much signage.  Fortunately next door was a tourist information office.  We got directions and a map.  The most direct route to our hotel was straight down a wide boulevard for about 10 to 12 blocks.  Unfortunately Nice was constructing a tramway down the middle of the boulevard and the sidewalks were very narrow, crowded, and bumpy.  So after a walk that took longer than it should have, we arrived at a large park, beyond which Joe spied out our hotel, Hotel Albert 1st.

Our room in Nice - just below the cornice.

The hotel was wonderful.  It sits on a corner facing the park named after King  Albert I of Belgium who visited Nice often and who was a heroic figure during the first world war.  Our room was on the 5th floor and on the corner, with french doors that opened  to the park and to the city and hills beyond.  And well- cooled naturally, as well.  So it was not only beautiful but comfortable as well.

Not surprisingly, Joe did not want to go anywhere.  But I put on a bathing suit and went down the block and across the highway to the famous Promenade des Anglais, and down the stairs to the plage (beach).  Not like any beach I'd ever seen.  No sand.  Just millions of small round stones.  But because of that, the water was not murky but wonderfully clear and transparent,  the beautiful aqua color darkening to blue as the sea floor deepened.  I fell in love with it here.  But cold - - that beautiful water was very cold.  And the stones are hard to walk on.  I wished I'd brought my Sanibel sea slippers.  Still, we came here so I could swim in the Mediterranean Sea, and I did.  Happily.

Here it is, the sea and its white pebble beach.

I walked around this part of the city.  I'd chosen the hotel particularly for its proximity to the plage and the Vielle Nice (the old city).  After walking up and down the plage, I changed clothes and went in search of the Marche aux Fleurs (flower market) in Vielle Nice.  It was a short walk away, down a street full of shops for tourists and a hat store - have to bring Joe here.  I loved the old buildings.   Few buildings exceed 6 stories, most are painted shades of yellow and ochre with occasionally white or pale blue.  And on the street and the square in front of them, all manner of flowers in the market.  I was really enchanted, though, by the buildings.  There's a human scale and a graceful uniformity to them despite the color variations.  On the south-facing buildings, every window has shutters that were mostly closed against the June sun.  But many of the shutters were hinged halfway, with the lower half propped open, for air circulation, I imagine. That made for interesting shadows in the late afternoon.

In the evening, I led Joe back to that Marche aux Fleurs, which had transformed into open restaurants and cafes.  Each establishment had its own color scheme for umbrellas, table cloths, napkins, chairs.  We walked up one side and down the other, checking out each establishment and menu.  Finally, because there was a sudden sprinkle of rain, we settled on Spaghetissimo.  So guess what we dined on.  Afterward we walked to the plage and along the Promenade des Anglais, into the park, past the carousel, and back to the hotel.  As we settled in for the night, the sky beyond across the park was changing from sunset to dusk and the subtle color change was very pretty. 

Dusk beyond Nice, France

I think I slept well . . . must have, if I don't remember.

June 6 and 7, Paris and Avignon

By the time we left the Orangerie, Joe was very tired so we started to walk back to the Asian soup place on Rue Buci.  It's a pretty long walk, but we did it and had noodle soup with ravioli crevette - very very good.  Finally started walking back to the hotel but detoured to visit Saint-Sulpice Church, which still has part of the exterior covered with scaffolding for more cleaning.  Since 2000, I have not seen this building uncovered - it must be very dirty.  Saint-Sulpice was built over the course of about 100 years beginning in the 1630s.  The interior is huge; of Paris' churches, it is second in size only to Notre-Dame, very dark and sooty from centuries of candlelight.  Joe looked for the brass line on the floor, so-called "the rose line", and discovered from a plaque that it is not called that; it was installed with the Parisian Observatory to mark noon on the Spring Equinox.

Crowded Luxembourg Gardens

Joe stayed at the hotel after we took a brief nap, but I went out wandering and window shopping.   The darned camera has a problem and will not work. So I took the Olympus.  Got sort of lost, found the Luxembourg Gardens again.  It was very very crowded at 5:00 pm.   The playground was full of loud happy kids except one who left sobbing, hugged her mom/nanny, and then re-entered.  Saw tiny tots with their noir nannies at a big circular sandlot.  Sat in the Lalique Cafe with a decaf expresso (3.5 euro).  In Orangerie du Senat, an art exhibit of women by women, and as I waited to buy a t-shirt for Lorelei, we were all suddenly shooed out so I didn't pay for it.

The Olympus battery needed recharging but I could not make the converter work.  Binetta at the hotel desk gave me an adapter plug and it worked!  Made me most happy because I thought I'd be stuck with not one but two non-working cameras.  It was 9:10 pm and the sky was still bright and many people were out and about.  Joe had been sleeping - his legs were hurting from walking all over Paris.  We talked about his friendship with Per Thomas and how only through the internet was it possible, especially thanks to Per's videos posted on YouTube.

June 7  Leaving Paris for Avignon.  Hotel bill was 254 euro, charged on my MasterCard.  We have a reservation to return June 27.  Being very frugal about some things, we took the no. 91 bus (2.8 euro total) to Gare de Lyon, a big elegant 19th century iron and glass train station with the very fast modern TGV train to the South and East.   Armed soldiers patrolled the Gare in trios - I've seen that also at Heathrow and at CDG airports.

Gare de Lyon

TGV (stands for "tres grand vitesse") is smoothriding, quiet, and fast, took only 2 hours 37 minutes.   Then a navette (shuttle bus) to Avignon Ville, and then walk uphill.  And go the wrong way  until Joe straightened us out.  A very commercial town between the city wall and the center - Joe compared it to Gatlinburg, TN.  Our Hotel de Garlande is on a car-free street, second floor above a popular walkway, in a very nice, very spacious room with a HUGE bathroom.

no room for cars

I set out for the Palais de Papes.  I bought a ticket at the hotel for 11.5 euro that's good for both the Palais and the famous bridge.

The Palais is huge, absolutely huge - and ancient.  Thirteenth century?  A good acoustiguide comes with the admission price.  Eighteen or so different rooms are open and described,  with papal history in the 1300s and 1400s, ending in the Great Schism, with a pope in Avignon and a pope in Rome.  Some great enormous rooms, like the "Grande Tinel," a dining room, with a place next door for the concave that elects a new pope, and a very large "chapel" (which is about half the size of Saint-Sulpice).  There were several large tour groups, both French and German, with very loud guides, and a polite Japanese group who wore headsets and thus were very quiet.  I saw mason's marks on stones in the chapel, climbed up many stairs to a terrace cafe on the ramparts, with a huge view.  

Palais des Papes

 

Avignon is on a high place above the Rhone River, where a large island sits mid-river.  From the terrace I could barely see the famous Pont d'Avignon.

The roofs of Avignon and its famous bridge

When I was ready to leave, I could not find my ticket.  I asked a guide what to do, and he kindly phoned ahead to the bridge with my description. I was to ask for Nicole.  It was difficult finding my way down the the river, and I asked some construction workers.  After many narrow lanes and alleyways, some with flights of steps, I arrived at the river and a very heavily trafficked road.  But there at the entry to the famous Pont d'Avignon was Nicole - with another acoustiguide.  I was a bit nervous on the elevated walk to the bridge (don't like open heights), but I walked out to where it ends mid-stream.  The bridge was constructed in the 12th century and abandoned in 1633 because a flood washed away most of the bridge.  It originally had perhaps 22 semicircular arches.  Now it has only four.  There's something about these very ancient medieval structures that I find really appealing.  Perhaps only because everything else from 800 years ago has deteriorated and disintegrated, but stone and brick and mortar have not.

Avignon has way too many stores selling postcards and nougat and "cigales" (crickets) and Provencal ceramics and closing.  A little depressing.  But the center of town is full of restaurants and cafes, even in the town square, and it's famous for a theatre festival in July/August.  Some of the buildings have tromp-l'oeil paintings of well-known French actors and actresses leaning out of tromp-l'oeil windows.

These are not real people!

After all that, I went back to the hotel.  While I was out, Joe did a bit of exploring - for food.  He found a McDonalds! and ate there.  Not for me.  I went in search of dinner.  Not hard.  Salade nicoise and vin du pays blanc at an open-air cafe in the Place d'Horloge (that's the Clock Square, a/k/a the town square).  The Hotel de Ville (city hall) has the clock tower with two figures that did not do anything while I was watching.  There was some sort of meeting in the city hall because I heard cheering and applause, followed by singing of the French national anthem.  The legislative elections were soon, and the new president, Sarkozy, hoped for a large majority so his programs would pass.  Also, in the nearby Theatre was a concert by the local orchestra with a violin soloist.  I was tempted, but had not enough time to race back to hotel, tell Joe, and race back to theatre.  So I skipped it. 

We slept better than the last night in Paris - Joe closed the windows against the noise and the curtains against the light.

France and Italy in June 2007

My husband (Joe Stewart) and I  spent nearly a month away from home in 2007.  I'll continue this travelogue day by day - - more or less.

We left the US on June 4, 2007 from BWI airport on Icelandair, which meant changing planes at Rekjavik airport, but that was no problem.  It appears that no other airlines went there.  No problems either at DCG airport, or finding the Roissybus - other than trying to foind a toilet before getting on the bus.  The  Roissybus is a non-stop half hour ride from the airport to a place just at the back of the Opera Garnier, and cost about 9 euro each. 


June 5 - Paris.  From the Roissybus, we took a taxi at 2:30 to Hotel Atelier Montparnasse in much traffic.  The hotel looks the same - this is the 3d or 4th visit in 6 years.  Joe checked each available room, finally chose "Matisse" on the 4th floor, street side; newly decorated plus airconditioning - it was nice.  While I happed, he went off to Luxenbourg Gardens to explore and then to meet Per Thomas, his Danish internet friend, at 5 pm.  Around 5 pm, Joe came back to get me because Per was already there and they changed the venue to La Rotonde, just around the corner.

Per and I outside La Rotonde

We sat outside in the late afternoon sun, chatting and drinking Kronenbourg beer and snacking on green and black olives.  Per is very nice, very sweet - almost naive - and handsome with light brown hair (receding a bit), lovely smile, blue-green eyes.  His wife, Elodie  Telemaque, is darkhaired, a bit plump, smart and very articulate, and funny, too; she laughs just like my niece Natasha.

La Rotonde, ready for dinner

As the afternoon moved into evening, we moved to the white tablecloths, inside - - doors were all open to the outside.  Joe and I split very good salmon and salty spinach, for dessert Rhum Baba and cherries - - quite tasty.  We were at La Rotonde from 5 pm until 11 pm; walked them down the street to their motorscooter; and said goodby.  There were so very nice - it's amazing that Joe and Per met via the internet 1 year ago.  I think they could be friends for life. 

We set the airconditioning and closed the window against the street noise and slept well.


June 6 - Paris.  Slept until about 8 am!  The hotel has a nice bathtub and handheld shower, good for washing hair.  Breakfast is included in the room cost, so we had as much as we could stuff ourselves with:  bread, croissant, granola, yogurt, OJ, coffee.  We set out down Rue Vavin to Luxembourg Gardens - LG for short - which was empty but for walkers through and some folks practicing tai chi.  I set my chair to face the sun and waited for Joe to finish visiting his favorite spots - - again.  We went down the Rue de Seine and Rue  Buci to revisit them, looked at Hotel LaLousiane where he stayed in 1964 - very little changes.   The sock store has sox for 11 euro - rather much more than last time!

And on we walked, me walking very slowly and looking in shop windows at linen clothes, old prints, fancy flat shoes, antique statues.  We visited the  Citadines Hotel by the river for its restroom and crossed over the beautiful Pont Neuf.  We strolled along under the great trees by the Louvre and considered visting, but the line at the Pyramid was too long.  So on to the pond in the Tuileries Garden - alas, they've added white plastic chair that we see everywhere in the States.  Quel horreur!. Some German teens sat nearby - they were pretty quiet for teenaged girls, and sunned themselves with bared feet and pants pulled above knees.  Six or seven baby ducks, with mommy quacking them along, were very cute, very fuzzy, very very tiny.

At Cafe Diane in that park, where I'd had tuna and salad in Dec. 2002, Joe talked and talked with a waiter about rats in the park - we'd seen a dead one on that December visit.  Finally we arrived at the Orangerie Museum a half-hour before opening time to find nearly three dozen others already in line.  I found one of the traditional green metal chairs and brought it over beneath a tree and sat while Joe stood in line.  A street vendor sold me bottled water for 2 euro.


The Orangerie has Money's large waterlily paintings in two large oval rooms.  I understand that he designed the way they are displayed.  They were a gift from him to the French Nation in the name of everlasting peace after the Great War.  Such forlorn hope brought tears to my eyes.  The only way to appreciate these paintings completely is in person - - no photo or video can appreciate the impact of their size, and the curving way they are displayed approximates reality.

"Waterlilies"

I'll finish this day in another post.