Paris

Paris was brief and hot. Although, unbelievably, we had hoped for cooler weather there (during my last three visits it had been cold, wet and windy), it was nearly as hot as the south. Our accommodation was not great (budget backpackers that school kids put up with don’t necessarily suit an adult family of four) and it was crowded and definitely a bit rougher around the edges than the London that we experienced. But it was still Paris, visited by 42 million tourists each year, and there is no doubt as to why.

It was Lydia’s first time in the City of Lights and we only had two days. On Day 1 we did the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, the Champs-Elysée, the Jardin des Tuileries, Notre Dame, the Sacré-Cœur and Montmartre. On Day 2 we did very little as we were all too exhausted! Anyway, I think her favourite thing was the macaroon shop off the Rue de Rivoli where all is a work of art and you come out with the colourful gems in pretty boxes, your purse a little lighter.

In fact, everything is a work of art in this city. From the parks to the train stations, to the well-dressed women, to the patisserie shop windows and the bridges across the Seine, there is not much that isn’t beautiful. Even in the heat of summer when you hang out for a swim and can’t imagine how the locals can survive so far from a beach (oh, wait, there’s one coming to life by the river!), there can be no denying its appeal.

 

 

 

And then a forty hour trip home via Singapore. We arrived in Christchurch to four degrees. Everyone was wearing puffer jackets and the customs officer said “Welcome home”. We were back in New Zealand.

More on Provence

St Rémy is a lovely old town at the northern base of the Alpilles, the knobbly limestone range that run east/west south of Avignon. Although hilly for biking, the area has a number of walking tracks, including some of the major across-France routes. This spot has been settled since the second century BC and the Greek and Roman remains of the ancient city of Glanum area worth exploring.

The twice-a-week St Rémy market is one of the major ones in the area, but on the other days there are enough beautiful shops selling beautiful products to keep even the most shopaholic of tourists happy. You can visit the olive oil shop and see the truffle oil, pretty soaps and calissons (small almond-shaped and flavoured biscuits), the chocolate shop with its fountain of flowing chocolate in the window and sweet tasters on offer, the biscuit shop, the cheese shop, or any of the many shops selling lovely household linen: tea-towels, cushion-covers, throws, table-runners and bedspreads. What’s the weight restriction on NZ domestic flights again?

The town has long been a haven for artists, the most famous being  van Gogh who painted more than 150 paintings during the year he lived here in 1889 after moving from Arles to seek refuge in the psychiatric hospital, now a museum dedicated to him. Many of his most famous paintings were inspired by the local scenery: gnarled olive trees, fields of golden corn, hay-making, the setting sun. A pleasant way to admire some of his works is to stroll along the van Gogh trail which runs through the village from the museum to the town centre. Along the way are panels of his paintings at or near the spots where he painted them.

Just south of St Rémy is Les Baux-de-Provence, a dramatic fortified village perched high atop the ridge of the Alpilles with an eleventh century castle built into the rock-face itself. It has precipices aplenty and many beautiful old buildings. Although it has more than a million visitors a year, you only have to walk past the tourist tick-tack and climb to the top of the castle ruins and you’ll be almost alone to admire the 360 degree view in peace.

I don’t think we’ve been to one place yet on this family trip where we haven’t wished we were staying longer. We barely touched the surface of the area around St Rémy. A quick look at Avignon with its fabulous Palais des Papes, a glimpse at Gordes tumbling down the hillside into the Luberon Valley, an admiring glance towards the summit of Mont Ventoux where the Tour de France had passed only the previous day, and then we were off to my sister’s for dinner and a welcome swim in her gorgeous pool.

 And then suddenly our time in the south of France was over and we were catching a train to Paris (after a three hour delay due to someone jumping onto the track at Avignon) through more lovely countryside of burnt orange fields, small lanes, green forests and rocky escarpments in the distance. None of us wanted to leave.

And on to Provence...

People always extol the variety in New Zealand’s scenery but our trip today was pretty interesting. We left Paraza on the Canal du Midi and drove north-east to St Rémy-de-Provence, south of Avignon. Via the motorway, this trip would take about two hours, but we took back roads and most of the day.

Managing to almost miss the snarl-ups of holiday traffic heading south (it was, after all, July 13^th), we arrived in Sète just in time for lunch. France’s biggest fishing port on the Mediterranean sits at the meeting place of several canals including the Canal du Midi and the Canal du Rhone. It is a bustling, colourful town with cafés and restaurants lining its quays. Fish, once again, is the main fare, which is always appealing to our family of non-carnivores.

We tracked down a Lonely Planet recommendation and had lunch on the water on board a moored barge. Both the décor and the food were divine. When on holiday in France, it’s quite easy to slip into French habits and eat a big meal at lunchtime.  Everyone else is doing it after all. We had tomato and mozzarella millefeuilles with a basil sauce and fat, juicy scallops with risotto. Well, at least we didn’t have dessert as well like all the French diners at the nearby tables.

Sète is famous not only for its seafood but also for its sport of water-jousting which has been practised here since the 1700s. We happened upon the start of a match just as we were leaving the town. Two opposing teams of men in white suits and red or blue hats (apparently the red men are married and the blue are unmarried) sit in heavy wooden row-boats with high platforms at the back while musicians play from the bow. As the boats are rowed frantically towards each other the man standing at the back of each boat tries to push his opponent into the water with a long wooden pole. When one of them falls in, the crowd cheers loudly, a boat motors out, a replacement team member climbs on board, the others  all move one rung up the ladder and then off they go again. After six rounds we had to leave so we never did find out how it all ends although I suspect the nearby pub may be involved.

Further north, on the edge of the Camargue, the medieval town of Aigues-Mortes, baking in the afternoon sun, also warranted a visit. Built in the 13^th century by Louis IX to provide a Mediterranean port for France, its encircling ramparts rise suddenly out of the flat marshland as you drive towards it. Flamingos wade and dip in the swampy waters nearby, their legs and the tips of their wings tinged pink from the tiny crustaceans that they are searching for. The Camargue, formed over thousands of years by sediment swept down by the River Rhone, produces most of the country’s rice harvest in its shallow rice paddies. It is also and more famously home to many herds of wild white ponies, and horse-riding is a popular activity.

At the north-eastern corner of the Camargue, just inside Provence stands the old Roman town of Arles, a highlight for even the most jaded tourist with its well-preserved amphitheatre and other spectacular monuments. Originally a Celtic settlement, it later became the Roman capital of Gaul, Britain and Spain. It was also the home of Vincent van Gogh for a time and the place where he famously cut off his ear.

You could happily spend a couple of days here but we had to move through fast as we had an appointment at the Carrière de Lumières near the village of Les Baux in the Alpilles range south of St Rémy. This sound and light show must rate up there with the best such spectacles in the world. It can’t be described but must be experienced, and all who see it are moved in some way not just by the beauty of the art but also for the sad and desperate lives of many of the artists whose works are depicted.  
 
 
 
 

The South of France: Paraza, Languedoc-Roussillon

What a delight this area is. They say it’s like Provence thirty years ago and I can see why. It has a raw beauty that’s a bit rough still around the edges without the manicured prettiness of parts of Provence, and it’s still a relatively untouristed region, far more so than I had imagined when I worried that everyone would speak English and there might be a lack of authenticity.

But the small rural villages remain much as they have for centuries, baked dry by the sun, faded green shutters shut tight against the heat all day as well as at night. Swallows and house martins still make their nests of mud and straw high up under the eaves of houses and churches. Old men sit on park benches in the shade and talk about days gone by or the latest rugby match, and recommend good local wines to complete strangers.

We stayed in a converted wine-maker's house in Paraza on the Canal du Midi where these days holiday-makers from canal boats provide the main source of income for the village. Nights are warm in summer and the sun was high by 9am with temperatures soaring quickly to around 33C every day. It was a bright, hot heat and the swimming-pool was the best way to stay cool. Either that or the air-conditioned car.

 

 

We ate and drank well. A crunchy baguette from the shop down the road cost a euro ($1.60), a luscious rock melon was two, black olives from the local market were a couple of euros for a bagful and a bottle of good rosé about five ($8). We ate in mostly, cooking in the kitchen of our lovely full-of-character house. It was the coolest room.

The Canal du Midi passed by not far from our front door, its waters providing a relaxing break for dozens of holidaymakers. We preferred to hire bikes and cruise some of the towpaths and tiny lanes, mostly smooth and flat, which form part of the 500 kilometre bike route from Bordeaux on the Atlantic to Sète on the Mediterranean - a future adventure?

We cycled through the pretty village of Ventenac, bright with flowering oleander and geraniums, to the even more charming Le Somail with its little stone bridge and canal-side café, a delightful spot to sit and watch the boats go by. There is even a grocery shop on a house-boat on the canal and, nearby, what is reputed to be the most extensive second-hand bookshop in the world!

We passed fields of sun-bleached barley under huge blue skies. Fat, ripening grapes hung on vines everywhere, in fields, on river terraces and amongst limestone outcrops. The area from Carcassonne to the Mediterranean is the largest wine-producing wine region in France and there are domaines (wine-producers selling their wines) in even the tiniest of villages. The land is hot and dry. To the north it rises through gorges and gullies to a plateau where vineyards stretch for miles. To the south it climbs more sharply to the foothills of the Pyrenees studded with Cathar castles straddling impossibly steep crags.

A day trip to Carcassonne was a must, even though it’s so crowded and touristy. But it’s such an impressive structure, surrounded by an enormous moat, its vast ramparts and landmark grey conical towers rising steeply from the town at its base. Much of the old town inside remains: narrow cobbled streets, the castle, the church, shops and houses, even some hotels. We watched tourists buying key rings and candyfloss and tried to imagine something of who had gone before.

  To the east, past the elegant city of Narbonne with its lofty cathedral, bustling market and spacious canal-side promenades, are the wide sandy beaches of the Mediterranean. Here, fish-eaters can find much to enjoy. On the recommendation of our house’s owner, we found a café which serves the freshest fish and seafood. You sit on wooden benches under a canopy of shade by a salt-pan, red by day from the algae within, then turning blue in the evening as the sun sets. Your cutlery, plate and glass arrive wrapped in a tea-towel and you can sip a cold just-pink local rosé and indulge in prawns, oysters, a huge stuffed crab or a whole fish cooked in a salt bath.

London 2

After graduation we spent a week in London. This was Tony’s choice. He wanted to re-visit museums and sights that he hadn’t seen since we lived here for two years in the 80s.  I’m pleased he did. London remains one of the world’s great cities and, although busy as ever, it has tidied itself up in recent years for the Millenium and the Olympics. It is revitalised, clean and vibrant. There are walkways, cycleways and bikes for hire everywhere and no graffiti even in the Underground. We found some fabulous food and left feeling there was much we still wanted to see.

The weather was mostly kind. It warmed up sufficiently to not need a cardigan during the day. The sun shone most of the time. We stayed in Dulwich, in south London, an easy train ride into Victoria or London Bridge stations. We had a small apartment on top of a house overlooking the greenery of Dulwich Park while the girls stayed nearby with my brother and his family.

 

 

 

We did the tourist thing and saw the sights from the top of a double-decker bus, enjoyed the Harrods’ food hall, wandered through Hyde Park, loved the food at the London Borough Market, explored the newly trendy areas of Spitalfields and Shoreditch, tasted my lovely niece’s delicious

concoctions during a back-garden summery barbecue, discovered the Docklands area that didn’t exist in the London we used to know, now a mass of high-rise offices and apartments including the fascinating Museum of London Docklands, wandered the streets and shops of Soho and Covent Garden, walked the South Bank pathway from London Bridge to Waterloo, admired some of the art in the Modern Tate, and goggled at Waterstone’s bookshop with its myriad of books at prices we can only dream of in New Zealand.

Cambridge 2

And so to Cambridge again. And though it was a pleasure before, it was even more of one this time. What a very happy few days we had meeting Hannah’s Cambridge friends and celebrating her and their successes in this pretty and historic town that must have, over the centuries, entertained so many proud parents in its hallowed halls.

It was one celebration after another on Thursday: an official photography session within the Corpus Christie (Hannah’s college) grounds, a garden party in the garden and home of the Master of the College, a chapel service which proved to be more secular than religious with some lovely singing, the procession to the Senate Hall (in which Hannah managed to walk, just, without a knee brace), the graduation ceremony itself (brief, thank goodness, as it was all in Latin), and then drinks and dinner in a local pub for Hannah’s friends from the law course and their families. It was nice to meet them, mostly Kiwis and Australians, and interesting to see how well they had all done.

Then on Friday, we had a more formal dinner at a private club of which Hannah’s friend Ryan, from the Hawke’s Bay, is a member, to which Hannah’s special friends from her nine months here were invited. Congratulations to them all for looking after her during a year that was not an  easy one, and for always being there when we could not be.

The following day, the three Italian boys took us punting on the River Cam. Strawberries and bubbly were apparently compulsory. The boys sang to each other in Italian, boats crowded the waterways, spires soared to the sky and the sun shone warmly. We could almost be forgiven for thinking we were in Venice! It was hard to say goodbye the next morning to the four house-mates who have shared their loves and lives with Hannah over the year.

 

 

 

 

 

For us, the greatest success of her time here is that she managed to survive the rigours of the place -  the study and exams as well as the enormous amount of socialising - with her brain and sense of humour intact. Although her bank account is now hopelessly depleted, the experience has enriched her in many ways and we are happy that she had the opportunity to be a small part for a while of this unique and, at times bizarre, institution.

Cotswolds 2

We were supposed to be en famille for this part of our trip: just us, together again for the first time for a while, a quiet time in the countryside to catch up. But, while celebrating the end of the Cambridge year in the early morning of the day we were due to meet up, Hannah dislocated her knee and ended up in bed in Cambridge with her leg in a brace instead of being reunited with her family and discovering the beauties of the Cotswold countryside.

I picked up Lydia and Tony, along with a rental car, from Heathrow Airport on Saturday afternoon and we drove north to Broad Campden, a tiny hamlet in the northern part of the Cotswolds. Our cottage was compact and cute, adorned with roses and thatch, with pretty curtains and eiderdowns, leadlight windows and birds feeding outside the kitchen.

Despite the cool and cloudy weather, and Tony and Lydia falling asleep at nine every night, we managed, to do quite a lot: the lovely Bourton-on-the-Water with its quaint model village (much smaller than I remembered it from when I was five years old!) and pretty stream running under five bridges; brisk walks across gently rolling hills with our cousins and their dogs; long and delicious lunches in country pubs; a lovely old Norman church and now-ruined manor house; a gourmet visit to Daylesford Organic Café and Shop with its amazing walk-in cheese shop  (yes, there is good, very good, food in England!); the Rollright Stones, which are thought to be around 5,000 years old; and a look at Warwick Castle, Lydia’s first (that she can remember) proper castle, which, although very touristy, is still an interesting place to wander and wonder with its towering ramparts and authentic waxwork figures.

Finally the compulsory drive through the Sibford villages and the Bloxham areas, to see my grandfather’s house, Long Barn, that I loved so much, and the small house, Windrush, where I spent my early childhood, little changed in fifty years, the cypress trees that my parents planted and that I used to burrow under during games of hide-and-seek still standing across the front garden. Even today, the smell of cypress takes me back there.