La Semaine Dernière...

Les Photos:

1. Kevin and I on the terrace at Châteaux de la Chèvre d'Or in Èze Village; 2. Café de la Poste, Goult, made famous in Peter Mayle's "A Year in Provence"; 3. Gordes, a 2,000 year-old city in the Luberon, perched on a ridge of the southern slopes of the Plateau du Vaucluse; 4. A view of Mas Du Four (Chez Hugh and Susan) in the Luberon; 5. A view from the terrace of our apartment looking toward Cap Ferrat; 6. On the balcony of our room at the Welcome Hotel; 7. Sunning myself in the Meditation Garden at Èze Village; 8. Kevin, on Palm Sunday, at the beach at Beaulieu-sur-mer; 9. Avignon; 10. A view from our room at the Welcome Hotel; 11. A view of the coastal route we took from Fréjus to Cannes; 12. Kevin in front of the fountain near Place Massena in Nice; 13. Kevin enjoying moules (mussels) at a cafe in Villefranche-sur-mer, near the Hotel Welcome; 14. Kevin in Fréjus; 15. In front of the Hotel Le Flore in Fréjus; 16. The mairie (city hall) in Fréjus; 17. Kevin with a Volti woman at the Volti Museum in Villefranche-sur-mer; 18. Goult; 19. The remains of the castle of the Marquis de Sade in Lacoste (Provence).

It has been nearly three weeks since our return from France, and I regret that I am only now writing le dernier (the last) post in my blog...mais, c'est la vie! (but that's life!)

What a wonderful last week we had in France...We rented a car and had so much fun navigating the winding, hairpin, picturesque roads of the Corniches along the Côte d'Azur! Our first day with the car we drove to Vintimille in Italy for lunch. I spoke a little Fretalian there...we bought some limoncello and chianti and had some gelato before heading back to France. On our way back to Villefranche-sur-mer, we stopped in Èze. It was a beautiful, warm day. We hiked up the hill into the village and spent some lovely hours in the jardin exotique (exotic garden), and then had une bière froide (a cold beer) on the terrace of the Châteaux de la Chèvre d'Or. Oh, if I could save time in a bottle...

The next day we drove to Provence, about four hours from Villefranche-sur-mer via the A8. Wikipedia does a better job describing the driving experience than I could do:

The primary artery is the A8 Autoroute which stretches from the Italian border (there is an Italian Autostrada the other side) to Aix/Marseille. The A8 stays close to the coast from Cannes to Italy, west of Cannes it heads more inland with a spur down to Toulon. Between Cannes and Italy there are a number of "Penetrantes" - that is roads that penetrate inland from the A8 towards (and through) the mountains. Apart from the penetrantes and the A8 most roads are narrow, very curvy and hilly when inland and extremely crowded when by the coast. It can be very pleasant to drive these roads as part of a tour but if speed is required it is generally quicker to take the indirect route using the A8.
One additional feature of the roads of this region is that the builders seem to like roundabouts (traffic circles). This leads to two problems - firstly there seem to be a considerable number of people who seem unable to grasp the concept and do unexpected things such as reversing and secondly many of them are wrongly cambered which means that if you take them too fast you end up skidding off the side.
If you drive into Monaco you can in fact drive most of the Grand Prix circuit but do NOT try racing it - the Monaco police do not have a sense of humour. On the way to Monaco you can drive the roads where James Bond has exciting encounters with Russian secret agents and where Princess Grace died.

Once we arrived in Provence, we spent a delightful afternoon and evening with Hugh (my classmate at l'Institut) and his wife, Susan, at their beautiful home "Mas Du Four" (House of the Oven) in the Luberon. I felt, as I had many times in the past 6 weeks, as though we had stepped into a postcard. When we arrived (en retard - late) à la maison de Hugh et Susan, they told us they had already made reservations for lunch at Café de la Poste, and we promptly set off in their car for a delicious lunch. After lunch they gave us a tour of the surrounding villages, including Goult, Gordes, Coustellet, Ménerbes and Lacoste. Hugh and Susan were the most gracious hosts imaginable. We returned to Mas du Four and they showed us around their picture-perfect home and gardens, surrounded by lavender, olive trees, and cherry orchards. Later, after sharing a delicious supper that Susan prepared, complete with several very lovely bouteilles de vin (bottles of wine) from their wine cellar, they invited us to spend the night. In spite of the fact that we had all stayed up into the wee hours, Susan was up early the next morning preparing us a petit déjeuner (breakfast) while we slept in after a very restful night. And then we were off to explore a little more of Provence on our way back to Villefranche-sur-mer... (comment nous commençons à dire vous remercions au Hugh et Susan de ce jour merveilleux avec eux??)

We drove south and went to Avignon, and from there to Fréjus. Fréjus was the first place I ever visited in France, and I wanted to re-trace my steps. I was there in 2000 with my mother, Jennifer, Nancy and Fran, and I have such happy memories of those first days in France. We stayed at the Hotel Le Flore, and I remember dragging our heavy suitcases up several flights of stairs in that hotel! Mon Dieu! It was wonderful to go back to that beautiful town and re-live those memories...From Fréjus we took the coastal route to Cannes. What a magnificent drive! It reminded us of the California coastline, coming down from San Francisco, through Big Sur. We hopped back onto the A8 in Cannes and got off at Èze Village. I had been there several times in the daylight but had never seen it at night. What a magical view of this ancient perched village, lit from below...I will never forget it.

We spent our last two nights in Villefranche-sur-mer at the Welcome Hotel. The Welcome is located right on the waterfront. Our room had a balcony with a view of the bay, and in the morning, we looked out at the fishermen coming in with their morning catch...in the evening we looked out at the twinkling lights of Cap Ferrat...

On our last day we had our last French breakfast of pain avec du beurre et la confiture et café au lait (bread with butter and jam and coffee with milk) before the taxi came to take us to the airport in Nice. I felt such a joie de vivre (joy in life) for those six weeks in France, and so it was with grande tristesse (great sadness) that I said au revoir... I will always be grateful for that wonderful experience. I can truly say, j'ai vécu mon rêve (I lived my dream). À la prochaine...(until next time...)