Finally, Provence

My initial strategy when we first began this blog was to post every 3 days or so.  This way the memories would be fresh and the posts would hopefully not be overlong.

We’ve only been on the road for two months now (wow, that seems a little crazy when I say it out loud) and that strategy has already been blown to pieces like Tawny Kitaen running full speed through a wall of wet toilet paper.  (If you’re over 40, you’re welcome for that image.  If you’re not, just move on.  Nothing to see here.)

It’s been about 7 days since our last post, and I figured this time around I would try to cover all of our two weeks in Aix, thereby getting my ass caught up.  But once I started uploading pictures I realized there was no way I was going to be able to cover everything we did in Aix in one post.

So here we go…

Week One in Aix-en-Provence

We left Annecy a bit regretfully because it was such a beautiful place, but we were also looking forward to Provence.  Provence was supposed to be divine, we didn’t know why specifically, but, you know, lavender and rosé and shit, we were excited.

Our TGV ride was quick and painless, our cab ride into the city relaxing (our driver didn’t speak a bit of English but he had a great sense of humor) and we found our next digs pretty easily.

Our apartment was in an unremarkable building right on the edge of Old Town, with a car gate we had to reach through to press a button to retract.  Our host, Romain, greeted us in the apartment, showed us around, and took his leave.

By now we’d become a well-oiled machine on arrival.  We rapidly get unpacked just enough to head out for groceries, then we unpack the rest later in the day.

However, I still hadn’t by this time figured out that France just doesn’t function on a Sunday, and this was the third arrival in a row that I’d scheduled on a Sunday.  Which meant that markets and shops were for the most part closed.  Worst of all, it meant that Monoprix was closed, which is now our Stop-n-Shop away from home.

So we had to settle for the very sketchy, very small, and very pricey Proxi 20 feet from our front door.  We picked out a few essentials to get us through the following morning, dropped them off at the apartment, got unpacked, then headed out into Old Town right across the street to do a little exploring and hunt down some dinner.

We wandered around Old Town for awhile, taking in the beautiful little streets  and alleyways that were to be our home for the next two weeks.  Before long we were hungry and got serious about dinner.

Another problem:  we’re accustomed to eating dinner at around 6pm.  But most French restaurants close after lunch and then reopen for dinner later, usually around 7.

One would think we’d have adjusted by now but we haven’t.  It’s been the source of some pain, because if we don’t plan well enough we end up sending yours truly into every restaurant we pass and asking if they’re serving food now, and occasionally we get stuck with a menu that is a little chancy for a 4-year-old.

It was no different this particular Sunday evening, and with Monoprix closed and the dinner options at Proxi limited to canned ravioli and frozen Croque Monsieur (a few times I’ve checked myself in the process of asking, “Who eats this crap?” and answered, “Oh, the same people who eat microwaved pancakes in the States”), we had no choice but to go door-to-door, looking at menus and asking sympathetic servers if they were open yet, and all the while the boy is whining louder and louder that he’s really, REALLY hungry.

[He’s doing that a lot lately, using “really, REALLY” to describe things.  We haven’t figured out yet who he got that one from, but it’s adorable when he’s saying something like “that TGV was really, REALLY fast”.  Not so adorable when he’s whining it at the top of his lungs and Mom and Dad are exhausted and hungry.  “Braeden, Mommy and Daddy haven’t had wine all day and we’re really, REALLY thirsty.”]

We landed at a very serviceable Turkish place that was serving kabobs and burgers, and the food ended up being pretty damned good.  As a bonus we sat right next to a fountain that had a large (and curiously anatomically accurate) wild board on it, which entertained the boy while we waited for dinner.

As we were finishing up dinner we watched a large number of street performers start gathering in the square right where we were sitting, but with their backs to us.  We paid our bill and moved to Happy Days, a cafe right across the square, so we could watch the action.

They started with a single drummer, a fellow on the tuba, and a woman with wild hair and makeup.  They played a song and then were joined by a woman on a squeeze box for another.  Then some dancers jumped in.  Soon there were more than a dozen performers and a huge crowd playing songs ranging from African folk music to French cabaret to takes on contemporary music.  We joined the crowd, signing and dancing, with Braeden bouncing happily on my shoulders.

The next few days were pretty quiet and routine.  We explored Old Town and the surrounding streets, did routine errands (haircuts, trips to the salon, lots of grocery shopping, etc), and just spent time together.

One of the first things we do now when getting to a new location is scout the area for playgrounds.  We’ve been lucky so far because we’ve been in a developed country and in urban areas, but we know that luck isn’t going to last forever.

Thankfully it held up in Aix.  The first playground we found was in Parc Jourdan on the other side of Old Town.  It was a bit of a hike, about 20 minutes, which is about the upper limit of how far B is able to walk before he starts nagging me to pick him up.  So by the time we got there Juliann and I both knew that this playground was too far away to be very useful.

So the next day Juliann got on her Macbook and took to Google Earth, scanning satellite images for anything that might look like a playground.  After awhile she found something that might be interesting just a 5 minute walk away, and the next day we checked it out.  Parc Rambot indeed had a playground – a small one, but a playground nevertheless – and even better, it had a splash pool where the boy could run around like a wild child and cool off.

Major score.

We ended up visiting Parc Rambot several times during our stay in Aix, and I even used it as a makeshift gym, as there was no CrossFit gym convenient to where we were staying.  It turns out burpees do indeed suck no matter where you are.

In the cities we’ve visited so far the markets have been an obvious integral part of French life, but up to this point we hadn’t spent much time at them.  In Aix we changed that.  Perhaps it was because they are just everywhere, every day in Aix.  Or perhaps it was because I finally made good on my promise to make Coq au Vin (which I did, and it was fantastic, so good that I tried making Boeuf Bourguignon a few days later, also delightfully tasty…thanks Ina Garten!) and it was much easier (and more fun!) to find all the ingredients at the markets.

Mostly, though, I think it was just the fact that we were drawn in by the vibrant atmosphere, the delicious scents, the brilliant colors, and all of the beautiful little moments between locals you get to experience when you walk slowly through the markets.

In Aix we would go to the market every other day.  We had our produce guy, who threw in some free parsley to go with the fresh thyme we bought.  We bought fresh made sausages and cheese (man, I can still taste that sausage…I’m craving it right now.)  We had our olive guy, who had a crush on Juliann and a wonderful salt-and-pepper mustache to go with his cheery demeanor.  Oh, and his olives were incredible.

New Friends

Being the studious folk we are, as soon as we decided to go on this trip we did a ton of research on homeschooling/worldschooling.  This brought us to the Worldschoolers group on FB, which I’ve been reading just about every day since we arrived in France.

One day I happened to notice a fellow asking if anyone was going to be in Aix around the dates we were planning on being in town.  They had two children around B’s age, and we were very much aware that we had to seize opportunities to have him play with other kids, so I reached out.  This was in early July, I think, and we made plans to touch base when we landed in Aix.

Several weeks and a few exchanges later we had the Kramers, Charlie and Brenna, their au pair/documentarian Enrica, and their two children Kerala and Julian, over to our apartment.  The adults sat out in the dining room while Braeden showed Julian and Kerala his room, his Legos, and his books.

I’m not normally one to make a date to hang out with people I’ve never met, but it turned out to be a great decision that we’ll have to try again.  Brenna and Charlie were lovely people, who were both a lot of fun and with great senses of humor, and our kids all had a blast together.

We spent the afternoon with the Kramers, hanging out at Parc Rambot while the kids played in the splash pool, and then we grabbed a late lunch in Old Town.

The Kramers were  also shooting footage for a documentary on worldschooling, which should  be both educational and fun.  You can check out their blog here.

At the end of the afternoon they generously invited us over the next day to their house just outside of Old Town for a swim and some lunch.  We gratefully accepted and Ubered it over to their house the next day.

The Kramers were in the process of packing because they were departing the following day for Italy via Marseilles and Nice, and they were kind enough to take time from all their work to hang out with us for most of the day.

The kids chased each other around and played, picking blackberries and swimming in the pool while the adults hung out and talked about everything from Charlie’s life in show business to politics to raising kids to travel.  We enjoyed a few bottles of wine by the pool, then retired to the outdoor dining area for an amazing Italian meal courtesy of the amazing Enrica.  You rock, Enrica, thank you!

At the end of the day we exchanged hugs, the kids said sad goodbyes, and Charlie graciously drove us back to our apartment.

We missed the Kramers immediately and Braeden still talks fondly of Kerala and Julian.  Hopefully we’ll see them out on the road again.

Another Winning Pick

A few weeks back when we were planning for our visit to Aix Juliann was thumbing through our now dog-eared copy of Fodor’s France.  She came upon a page dedicated to Cassis, read it, and immediately announced that we were doing a day trip.

My wife is never wrong.  It was so good we ended up doing two day trips.

Real-time note:  The boy has several go-to excuses to get out of bed after we put him down, one of which is “Can I have a drink of water?”  Our solution was to put a bottle of water next to his bed, where he keeps his Legos and a big stack of Berenstain Bears books.  It’s like staying at the Four Seasons but far less luxurious.

Just now he peeked his head out of his room and asked, “Daddy, can I have more water?  I’m finished washing my books.”

Only half paying attention I mumbled something like, “Hold on a second, buddy, Daddy’s working.”

Then my brain caught up to my ears.

“Did you say you were washing your books?”

“Yes,” came the assertive reply.

I put set my laptop aside and headed for his room.

“What do you mean, washing your books?”

I turned the corner to his room and there he stood, next to his bed with a proud look on his face, an empty water bottle in his hand and a stack of very wet books by his side.  Which were lovingly arranged on the now soaked bed.

He’s now in bed and understands, hopefully, both our pride in his initiative and the fact that books don’t wash well.  And we’ve sheepishly taken the water bottle out of his room.  Lesson learned.

I normally do a ton of research for places we’re going to visit so things go as smoothly as possible, we see all the stuff we care about, and have an opportunity to stumble into some things we might never have seen or done.

On a trip of this length, however, it’s getting a little tough to keep up.  I still work on my business every day, I (try to) work on the blog frequently, I work out 5 days a week, and of course playing, doing errands, and sightseeing take up a lot of time.  So lately I’ve been loosening up a bit on the research, and for Cassis I more or less said, “We want to have lunch on the waterfront and see the Calanques.  Let’s fly by the seat of our pants.”

It didn’t quite work out that way.

Note:  The Calanques are the wonderfully picturesque “creeks” of the area, and are found in the Calanques National Park.  They are narrow natural harbors cut in the shoreline that wind their way inland, usually ending in a beach.  What makes them so beautiful is the contrast between the vertical cliffs that surround them and the stunning clear blue water.  We saw a few pictures and agreed that they were a “must see”.

We arrived around 9am and found parking easily enough, then walked from the lot to the waterfront.  Cassis is an incredibly cute little town huddled around an adorable harbor.  It’s a place seemingly custom designed for postcards.

The plan was to rent a boat, much like we did in Annecy, and explore the Calanques on our own.  There were larger boats laden with tourists leaving the docks every few minutes to tour the Calanques, but we wanted to have a look ourselves.

The first rental place I visited I was told by a birdlike woman in her eighties with paper-mache skin and a gravelly voice that there was zero goddamned chance I was getting a boat today without a reservation.  All this grunted in French, mind you.

I thanked her, grabbed my phone, walked to the end of the dock, and squinted across the harbor to read the phone number of another rental company across the way.  I dialed.  I waited.  I heard a voicemail message in French that I only understood enough of to comprehend that all the rental places were busy today and my chances of getting a boat were slim.

I walked back to the bench overlooking the harbor were I left Juliann and the boy, munching on croissants for their breakfast, and shared the news with them

We tossed around a few ideas and finally decided to walk around the harbor to try one more rental company in person, and if that failed we would get on one of the packed tour boats.

It was getting hot even at 10:00 am and by the time we had walked around the sparkling harbor we were all sweating and just on the edge of grouchy.  I was regretting not doing even a bit more research on Cassis, but it was too late for that now.

The young man at the desk of the rental company was very friendly and said no, there were no boats available for the morning, but if we were interested in an afternoon rental we could leave our number and he would call us if anything opened up.

We did, and immediately went over to the tour boat kiosk to book a spot on a 11:00 boat.  It was easy, the folks at the kiosk were friendly, and we were soon sitting comfortably in the bow of a 40-foot powerboat with a few dozen other tourists.

Despite our insistence on avoiding the tour boats the trip was great.  The boat was comfortable, the commentary was informative, and the Calanques themselves were some of the most beautiful places we’ve ever seen.

Unfortunately there were so many people on the boat that the tour boats aren’t allowed to anchor and let the passengers swim, which was a significant disadvantage.  We cruised into these beautiful coves with rocky walls hundreds of feet high filled with gin-clear blue water, and there were smaller boats anchored everywhere with people jumping in and swimming about.  We were jealous but we felt very fortunate to have seen the Calanques at all.

As soon as the boat hit the dock we made our way over to a row of restaurants fronting the harbor, found one with a suitable menu, and grabbed a table.  By this time the day was as hot as it was going to get, above ninety, and we were happy to be sitting in the shade with a beautiful view and cold glasses of milk, Perrier, and rosé.

We had a very good lunch, though the beginning was a bit stressful because the boy was hot and hungry, and we relaxed for awhile by the water.  The beach was right on the other side of the square from us, so we sidled over and after looking around decided to unpack and take a swim.  The crystal clear turquoise water was too inviting to pass up, and Braeden and I will never skip the opportunity to “take a dip”, as his Papa is fond of saying.

We swam for a bit, rinsed off and changed, then decided that it was long past time to have some ice cream.  So we wandered around town a bit, looking for a good ice cream shop while Mom checked out some of the cute clothing stores, and when we found one we ordered a cup for Braeden and a cone for me.

He and I then sat by the harbor, watching the boats come and go and enjoying our ice cream while Juliann did a little shopping.

We polished off our ice cream while the fishing boats lazily returned to their slips and the tourists ambled by, and soon we were up and tracking down Mommy.  We found her a short time later, and the three of us finished up our visit to Cassis by taking the long route back to our car, discovering some beautiful side streets along the way.

Less than 90 minutes later we were back in Aix, and by then we had already planned our second trip to Cassis.  The Calanques had hooked us, and we would settle for nothing less than going for a swim in their gin-clear waters.

Next time:  Swimming the Calanques, a Blue Cave Bonus, and touring the Provencal countryside and the gorgeous hill towns.

A bientot!