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.