Pétanque & Pastis

Urban Hikers in Paris

Today we finally decided to pull out cards # 41 & 42 (Montmartre 1 & Montmartre 2) from our box of “City Walks:  Paris” by Christina Henry de Tessan.  We wanted to visit Montmartre anyway to see the Dali Museum, so we thought it was a good opportunity see what we thought of these self-guided walks.

After emerging from the metro at the “Blanche” metro stop, we ran into the Moulin de la Galette, which is a “windmill-turned-dancing club that inspired Renoir’s Le Bal du Moulin de la Galette”.

Across avenue Junot, we saw “a sculpture of a man coming through a wall, named after Marcel Ayme’s short story Le Passe Muraille (the Walker Through Walls).”

On rue des Saules we saw the last remaining vineyard in Paris.  “The locals harvest the grapes every year and sell the small yield for more than it’s worth, but all proceeds go to charity.”

“Local artists (among them Picasso and Renoir) once gathered at The Lapin Agile, an old cabaret, just below the vineyard on the corner.”

Along our walk, we ran into something we hadn’t seen before – a funicular to take you up the hill to Sacré Cœur.

Heading down rue des Abbesses, at 56 rue des Trois Fréres, we passed Au Marché de la Butte, which was featured in the film Amélie.

It seemed like card #41 (Montmartre 1) was pretty clear and easy to follow, while card #42 (Montmartre 2) was a bit more confusing.  However, all in all, we enjoyed these two (out of 50) “Adventures on Foot”, and we look forward to more walking adventures during our winter trip to Paris. 

Le Grand Palais – Paris

After a closure of 12 years, and major structural repairs and renovations, Le Grand Palais in Paris has reopened its doors in time for les Journées du Patrimoine.  The current exposition is entitled “Ondes Visibles”, and features the two globes of Vincenzo Coronelli which were commissioned by Louis XIV in 1681 and 1683, one representing the celestial world and the other representing the terrestrial world.  The celestial globe represents the state of the sky at Louis XIV’s birth, with paintings on a blue monochrome background.  Both two-ton globes will eventually be moved and installed permanently at the François Mitterrand National Library.

Of course, the crown jewel of Le Grand Palais is the stunning glass dome which provides such a visible and recognizable landmark against the Paris skyline.  Originally built for the 1900 World’s Fair (along with the Eiffel Tower), Le Grand Palais will continue to house special art expositions, and is already scheduled for October fall fashion shows by the couture houses of Christian Dior, Chanel, Yves Saint-Laurent, and Hermès.

Antibes Departure

This is the view from our terrace this morning as we closed up the apartment to head to Paris for a couple of days before making our way back home to California, where we will spend the next three months.

Jazz and Hank Nobra

After checking out the DVD of Hank Nobra’s performance as a featured jazz pianist at a beautiful villa in the hills of the Côte d’Azur, he and his always-chic wife, Jutta, and Dave and I walked across the street from our apartment to have a beachside lunch at Plage Royal.

Bormes-les-Mimosas

After wine tasting in Bandol, we headed over to Bormes-les-Mimosas, where we spent the night in a lovely small hotel called Hostellerie du Cigalou right in the middle of the medieval village.  Bormes-les-Mimosas was named the most flowered village of Europe one year, and the whole village is classified as a protected site by the French government.  It is also known by many in France because President Chirac has his summer home nearby in Bregançon.

We got up early and hiked on one of several randonnées that lead directly out from the village.  We headed up one of the rocky sentiers toward the Chapelle Notre Dame de Constance after stopping by to check out the Château des Seigneurs de Fos.

On the way back home, we stopped into Le Lavandou where we checked out the old town, took a stroll along the boardwalk, and had lunch at a small restaurant on the beach.

La Capte in the Commune of Hyères

La Capte is a hameau (hamlet) on the Presqu’île de Giens between Hyères and the village of Giens, and is on the way to la Tour Fondue where you can catch a ferry for the 15-minute trip to the beautiful Île de Porquerolles.  La Capte has a natural, unspoiled beauty and sits between the clear, turquoise waters of the Golfe de Giens and the Rade d’Hyères.   It also happens to be home to one of the best windsurfing beaches in Europe.  These are some of the reasons that our friends, Julia and Pascal, have decided to make this area their home.

After lunch on the beach, and a tour of the famous windsurfing beach, and the picturesque village of Giens with its colorful church, inviting café, and beautiful views, we can see why they fell in love with the area.  It’s also less than a 90-minute drive from Antibes, which is nice for us, and a chance to use our Télépéage on the autoroute once again.

Wine Tasting in Bandol

After leaving La Capte, we headed to the seaside village of Bandol to get a map of the vineyards.  The majority of the Bandol vineyards seems to be in Le Castelet, so that’s where we headed in search of Domaine Tempier.  In our search for the vineyard, which we had a great deal of difficulty finding, we happened across Domaine Ott, which we had heard of from some of our friends in Antibes.  So we stopped and checked out the beautiful grounds, and went in for a dégustation (tasting).  It turns out that at least three of our Antibois friends had a story about Domaine Ott, which, until recently, had an office located here in Antibes, just down the street from our apartment. 

We finally found our way to Domaine Tempier, where we had been talking about visiting for a couple of years.  The winery was established by Lucien and Lucie (a.k.a. Lulu) Peyraud who were given some vineyards next to the family home by Lulu’s father in 1936.  Their first vintage appeared in 1943 amidst the destruction of World War II.  It was Lucien who brought appellation status to the wines of Bandol and who created the requirement for AOC Bandol wines to consist of 50% mourvèdre grapes, which have been growing in Bandol for hundreds of years.

  Lulu Peyraud has also been an inspiration to Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, and her recipes are featured in Richard Olney’s 1994 cookbook, Lulu’s Provençal Table.

5e Show Mode – Hiver 2005/2006

Nice-Matin 18 Septembre 2005 - <<La place de Gaulle était noire de monde … Les Spectateurs ont découvert la mode de saison made in Antibes.>>

This afternoon, after our museum visits, Dave decided that we should go to the 5^th annual Fashion Show called “Show Mode”, at the newly-refurbished Place de Gaulle.  The fashions included day-time wear, sports attire, evening wear, children’s fashions, lingerie, and wedding attire; and they could all be purchased locally in the shops of Antibes.  The name of the shop where each ensemble came from was announced as the manneqin (model) strutted down the runway.

XXIIe Journées Européennes du Patrimoine

Patrimoine

Définition donnée par l’UNESCO:

<<Le patrimoine est l’héritage du passé dont nous profitons aujourd’hui et que nous transmettons aux générations futures.  Nos patrimoines culturels et naturels sont deux sources irremplaçables de vie et d’inspiration>>.

Définition donnée par la Documentation francaise:

<<Ensemble des éléments matériels ou immatériels d’ordre culturel, chargés de significations multiples, à dimension collective et transmis de génération en génération>>.

This weekend all the cities in Europe are celebrating their cultural heritage by opening all their museums, churches, and monuments to the public, free of charge.  I don’t know how other European cities are celebrating their days of artistic and cultural heritage, but here on the Côte d’Azur many of the cities provided an itinerary of activities scheduled by each of their places of heritage.  In Antibes, the museums and monuments are providing guided tours; special presentations on history or on art techniques; historical discussions; special commentaries on specific collections; etc., etc.  So far, it seems to be very successful, as there were long lines of people at each event today.  We ran into several of our friends as they were scurrying around, with schedules in hand, to their next events.  And all the comments we heard afterwards from our friends were very positive, stating that the conferences and discussions were extremely interesting and informative.  We only had time to make it to three museums:

  When we first saw the line at the Musée Picasso, we almost turned around and left.  But then we ran into two sets of friends also waiting in line, and once we started talking, we were surprised at how fast the line moved.  The painting in the photograph above is painted directly onto the wall of the 1st floor of our apartment building, and is a copy of the last 1/3 of the Picasso painting called “Satyr, Faun, and Centaur with Trident”, which hangs in the Musée Picasso.

  After the Musée Picasso, we dashed over to the Musée Peynet, which is a museum of cartoons and caricatures – lots of political and satirical humor from the early part of the 20^th-century.  Normally, we wouldn’t have gone to this museum for fear that we wouldn’t understand the French humor.  However, because it was free, we thought we would just take a quick look around.  Although, I’m sure we didn’t get a lot of the nuances, we did understand enough of the humor to really enjoy it, and we will definitely go back to the Musée Peynet again as paying patrons.

  Our last visit was to the Musée d’Archéologie in the Bastion St-André, which is another of the many fortifications built by Maréchal Vauban under Louis XIV.  The museum houses many Greek and Roman artifacts, such as pottery, amphorae, salvaged shipwreck objects, a lead sarcophagus, a bread oven, etc.  We were fascinated with the model of Antibes back in the days when it was totally surrounded by the old ramparts.  A portion of the ramparts were torn down in the 19^th-century to give the city room to expand.

Lago di Como to Nice Ville by Train

We spent our last day in Como taking a tour through the Duomo, and then shopping for our lunch items to take aboard the train (without dining car) for the six-hour trip home to Nice.  We also found some Limoncello, Limoncino, Baci chocolates, pancetta, and some parmigiano reggiano to take home with us.  By the way, what’s the difference between Limoncello and Limoncino?  They are both made with lemons, and they both are 32% alcohol.

Varenna on Lago di Como

Navigating around Lago di Como is a bit trickier on Sundays.  We couldn’t take the fast boat directly to Varenna, so we took it to Tremezzo (~40 minutes) first, where we wandered in and around Villa Carlotta and its tropical gardens.  Then we took the slow boat (~30 minutes) over to the colorful village of Varenna tucked into the hillside with its tiny harbor facing the lake.

From the Pontile di Arrivo (arrival port), we walked along a romantic passerella (promenade) to get to the center of the village, where our first item on the agenda was to get some lunch.  We found a restaurant where we could eat inside to escape the intermittent rain showers, and we started with a first course of bresaola & rucola and then went on to risotto with filets of lake fish, a local specialty.  After a couple of espressos, we headed out to explore the village, with umbrellas in hand.

We spent a good amount of time dodging the rain in the 16^th-century Villa Monastero and its beautiful arbored gardens and meditative outdoor temple.  This ancient monastery is now used as an International Conference Center.

The return trip back to Como took the form of a slow-boat voyage all around the southwestern-most appendage of Lago di Como, which took about 2 hours and 35 minutes.  Fortunately, we were able to order wine and snacks while we took in the rainy views of all the small villages which populate this part of the lake.

Comune di Brunate by Funicular / Villa d’Este in Cernobbio by Boat

The day started out on a dry note, and continued to remain that way throughout the day.  So, it was a good day for hiking around the nearby villages.  We started by taking a funicular ride up to the Comune di Brunate, just a steep 7-minute ascent above the city of Como.  We were not prepared for any serious hiking, but there were trails available for those so inclined.  We settled on wandering around looking for views of the lake.  We stopped at a small auberge for a very colorful lunch, which included green salads, red gnocchi with yellow saffron sauce, and white ravioli with lake perch and butter and sage.  It was quite good, and enhanced by a beautiful view of Lago di Como way down below us.

After our descent by funicular back to Como, we hopped onto a slow boat (~15 minutes) and headed for the village of Cernobbio.  Our goal was to get over to the well-known Villa d’Este for a drink, and to check out the menu to see if we might want to make a dinner reservation for the next day.  We walked onto the grounds of the famous hotel as if we belonged there, but we didn’t fool the guard at the gate.  Only guests of the hotel were allowed on the premises, and he kicked us out !  I guess we’ll have to make a dinner reservation before we arrive next time.  I think there may even be a special Villa d’Este water taxi that we can take next time if we plan it right.  We’ll see…