Distracted1

Back in one of my previous lifetimes, way back in the 1980s, I was trained as a violin maker. I never made a living at it but I worked in a couple of shops in the early years. Ever since then it has been a basement workshop hobby therapy thing. I don’t claim to be any kind of Stradivarius but my instruments aren’t bad. When I finish one, I contact friends in local orchestras to see if they know anyone who might have a student that is ready to move into a decent handmade instrument but who might not be able to afford one and I gift it to them. There’s just one stipulation and that’s that they can’t sell it. They can pass it along to another person who needs it.

My father played violin when he was young. He was given an instrument by his uncle. It was made by a guy in Denver Named A. J. Vance. He had a shop above a bar in a hotel in Denver. I’m thinking as a maker this would be a really cool place to have a shop.

My father’s violin was made in the early 1920s. Over the years the poor instrument suffered some unfortunate damage and some even more unfortunate ‘repairs’. Some years ago I took the violin (at this point it was pretty much completely coming apart) from my father to see if it could be put back together.

I disassembled it and it was worse than I thought.

I had to reconstruct the heel of the neck, adding 4 pieces of wood to make it the proper size and shape… 3 patches on the inside of the top to fix cracks, a new neck block, replaced some of the willow lining pieces, rebuilt one of the ribs that had broken, replaced some edges that had broken off… I blended the new wood in as best I could to the old varnish. It was quite a challenge.

I returned it to my father a couple of weeks before his 80^th birthday. It may not be a Strad, but I think it’s priceless.

Critters in the yard.

One of my favorite things, one of the things that distracts me most often, is the critters in my yard. There is something about living among wildlife that is good for the spirit I think. Maybe not so much the spiders and giant biting water bugs… or the carpenter ants… or mosquitoes… OK so I am somewhat prejudiced to the wildlife with fur and feathers. I’m adult, I can admit that. We do make an effort to make our property critter friendly though. We leave the fallen and hollow trees for critter housing and the underbrush and the tall weeds for cover…

Habitat for wildlife is continually shrinking – I can at least provide a way station. -Peter Coyote

We have squirrels. Lots of squirrels. Red squirrels, black, grey, fox… we’ve got em all. We have chipmunks too of course which are actually a squirrel. I’m a pretty nice guy I think. When I feed the birds I always throw a few handfuls of seeds around on the ground for the birds that like to eat off the ground and for the squirrels. And how do they repay me? They dig up the flower pots. Aw, cute little buggers.

“The smaller the creature, the bolder its spirit.” 
― Suzy Kassem

There’s Mr. Woodchuck who lives in a big hole under a big stump. He’s more than happy to eat the pretty much anything we put in the planters. He does it with amazing symmetry though. Gotta give him props for having something of an aesthetic sense.

The raccoons are fond of the birdfeeder too. I have seen one youngster that has figured out that if he climbs up the pole a short way then jumps off with a mighty push, it will rain sunflower seeds like mana from heaven. He will do it over and over and it works every time.

The opossums and skunks thankfully just seem to be passing through when I see them. Don’t know where they’re coming from and I don’t know where they’re going and I don’t much care, as long as they keep going. I have had the up close pleasure of both of these lovelies when I found them in my live trap in the garage … intended for the relocation of chipmunks. I think opossum pee is just about as bad as what the skunk can do. Ergh.

There are Fox in the neighborhood as well. This is one of our favorite critters in the yard. These guys seem to have little fear and when they make an appearance they wander around like they own the place. Hey, Mr. Fox, can I introduce you to some of our local chipmunks, all you can eat special today!

Coyote… yup, they took the neighbor’s emus… (yes, we had neighbors who had two emus, chickens and great big tortoise…) keep your cats and little dogs close. ‘Nuf said.

Our task must be to free ourselves… by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty. ~Albert Einstein

Rabbits. We don’t see the rabbits very often, but it’s easy to know they’re around. They are especially fond of the daylilies in the spring. I know it’s Peter and his McGregor Garden gang because they munch all the way down to the ground.

The deer seem to have a fondness for the lilies too and the irises and the weeping cherry and the hostas and the holly (!) and… but they are kind enough to leave about 8 inches. They do bring by their babies in the spring to brighten our days and probably to try to soften our hearts a little so we won’t think so much about how we really like venison chili.

From a human point of view, the difference between the mind of a human and that of a mountain goat is wonderful; from the point of view of the infinite ignorance that surrounds us, the difference is not impressive. Indeed, from that point of view, the goat may have the better mind, for he is more congenially adapted to his place, and he would not endanger his species or his planet for the sake of an idea. Wendell Berry, “A Question a Day: A Written Conversation with Wendell Berry”

The birds though are our most frequent visitors. (3-5 pounds of black oil sunflower seeds per day frequent!) From the tiny ruby throated hummers to the mighty wild turkey and all the flying flowers in between, we do enjoy our feathered visitors. The heated bird bath in winter is always popular and I think we’re the most popular house in the neighborhood.

“Wildlife is and should be useless in the same way art, music, poetry and even sports are useless. They are useless in the sense that they do nothing more than raise our spirits, make us laugh or cry, frighten, disturb and delight us. They connect us not just to what’s weird, different, other, but to a world where we humans do not matter nearly as much as we like to think.
And that should be enough.” 
― Richard Conniff

So, what’s next?

True to the name of this blog… here we go.

So for those of you who don’t know, we’re kind of into our birds around this house. We do the heated bird bath for the Michigan winters and at least 5 pounds of black oil sunflower seeds every 3 or 4 days in the feeders year round.

In the spring the big concern is when do we put out the hummingbird feeders for the wee ones who have made the maybe 900 mile journey from maybe Central America or the West Indies back up to our back yard in Michigan and who are probably ready for a snack… and, will we see the Baltimore Orioles this year? Birds for whom we put out the grape jelly and mealworms, or jelly worms as they are known around here. I have even seen orioles bring wild caught bugs and dip them in the jelly! Gotta get the fussy babies to eat their protein somehow I guess.

The Pileated Woodpecker is a favorite and an old friend in the woods. (Now that they aren’t pounding holes in the side of our house anyway.) When we first moved to the woods it was “Hey! there’s monkeys in these woods!” Listen … it really does kinda sound like a monkey. Then when we saw the things it was “Holy Moly! Look at the size of that thing!”  Then it was … “get the (bleep) off of my house!”

This year it was, “what the heck is that?” “What?” “I think it’s an armadillo rooting around…” Turned out it was a pileated woodpecker looking for Easter eggs. At least that’s what it looked like he was doing.

Can’t wait to see what shows up in the yard next.

A few days (Ok… almost a week) late but you know how it is, when you leave work for 2 weeks you come back a month behind. Ugh.

The road home…

For some reason I never remember how long the road home is after the easy slow mornings, the sunsets, the donkeys and doggies and the winding roads of bucolic Europe. My state of mind quickly acclimates to that environment, the appreciation of simple fresh foods, the art everywhere, the vistas and the history.

5am comes mighty early.

On the road at 6am for the airport in Marseilles.  It’s always such a relaxing drive to a foreign airport for the first time to return a rental car and make an international flight. Sean the GPS in a last bit of “trust me or don’t..” takes us on a route that has everyone in the car wondering if we programmed the right destination.  Sean has never gone south to go north, never gone east to go west, but today, he does. We stop to check our program, we confirm with Jack’s Waze app, genuflect and carry on. Yup, Sean the GPS takes us on those windy country roads one last time before getting on the A7 Autostrada to Marseilles and the airport. As expected (read hoped and prayed) there is good signage to the rental return and though they are more relaxed and “whatever” than we would like, the car return is uneventful.

Marseilles airport is a relatively small airport and at 7am on a Friday there are no crowds and the lines are blessedly short. There are automated everything. Even passport checks. We get through security with remarkably little fuss.  Even though the machine checked all our passports, we are inspected 2 more times and asked 3 more times if we packed our own bags (yes we did, the maid service was on strike) and if anyone gave us anything to take with us. Uh, has anyone ever answered “yes” to that? Then we wait.

Do you remember when people dressed to fly? Do you remember when flying was something of an event? I understand the economics… the fuel futures game, the labor costs and the supply and demand issues but what I don’t understand is how these factors can possibly justify the economy class seat.  I have said more than once that flying now is like taking the Greyhound was in the past. Crowded, smelly, cramped and generally not a very pleasant way to get from one place to another. Problem is, there isn’t an option to flying like flying was to the bus… I suppose we could have taken a boat, a freighter passage is about $120 per day per person. It does take about 11 days to make the crossing which is a bit of a logistical problem in a two week vacation. Seems we have to resign ourselves to the ignominy of “modern” air travel.

Marseilles to Amsterdam. Last 2 seats in the last row of the plane. You know, those great seats that don’t recline because they’re up against the back wall of the plane. Amsterdam to Minneapolis. 8 and a half hours. For some reason they fed us 4 times. Of course ½ the bathrooms on the plane were out of order, but our seats reclined. I suppose it’s good they fed us so much as airport food makes me nervous and you have to take out a second mortgage to pay for it. Waiting in Minneapolis is hard… So close we can feel it. Minneapolis to Grand Rapids. We board pretty much on time and push away… then we wait. There’s weather in the way. Captain tells us they are plotting a new course south through Iowa and Illinois then back up to Michigan. We wait. Captain tells us that the weather went that way so they are plotting a new course… north then back down into Michigan. We wait.Eventually we get off the ground and a couple of slightly bumpy hours later… Grand Rapids.

We left the house in Marseilles at midnight Grand Rapids time and arrived in Grand Rapids at about 9:30pm. 21-1/2 hours of travel. Then there’s that weird kinetic energy that doesn’t allow me to sit still for another couple of hours. But we’re home and the cat isn’t mad at me for going away.

And now that I’ve recovered from the jet lag… I think I’m ready to go back.

Day 12… Last full day.

Over night the Mistral came down the Rhone valley and today the wind is blowing stiff and strong. It is cool and dry and actually feels pretty good considering it was nearly 90 degrees yesterday. The mistral can blow steady for a week and reach speeds of nearly 60 miles per hour at times. Regardless of the danger to sun hats and hair styles we have planned on a fair amount today. Somehow that doesn’t get us out of the house before 10:30 or so. Eh… that’s the point of a vacation. We’ll get there when we get there if we get there..

We ask Sean the GPS to guide us to Rousillon.

Off we go, things are going fine… and then we decide we should get gas. And then the little thing that tells us how many kilometers worth of gas we have left goes from 70 to —. I don’t know what — means but I have a feeling that we should probably get gas soon. The darned thing will go 600 miles on a tank and so sometimes a person might just forget that it takes gas. Change of plan. We head for Isle Sur la Sorgue. This was going to be our last stop of the day on the way home but since it’s the closest town to where we are at the moment, we point our nose that way. Sean the GPS is not pleased. We turn him down a bit and follow a route that Jack pulls up on his phone via Waze. On what feels like must be the last possible drop of gas we have (the gauge is reading teaspoon) we pull in and fill up. Time to explore Isle Sur la Sorgue.

Lots of water wheels here. At one time there were some 70 wheels generating power for … all kinds of things I don’t remember. (We’ve seen a lot of things, my brain is getting full.) We saw a dog who was so over the tourist season… even though it has barely started yet and the eggplants! They were delicious just to look at. The old center of town is like a movie set. Signs are painted on the buildings,  We popped in to a convenient spot just off the market square for lunch. Turned out to be an Italian place. Not bad, but not really Italian.

Off again to Rousillon much to Sean’s relief.

This is a place known for its ochre. It’s the iron oxide pigment used to color paint and stuff and varies from a yellowish to dark terracotta red. A dude named Jean-Étienne Astier from Rousillan in the 1780s figured out how to extract the pigment from the clay and the sand and refine it into an ingredient that could be added to paints and plasters and lipstick. (not really). But he did figure out how to make it seriously profitable and ochre from Rousillon was shipped all over the world. Anyway it’s a lovely red town with amazing views and good coffee.

Destination number next… Gordes. What’s in Gordes you ask? I don’t know. We didn’t actually stop. It was very pretty from the car. Tiny winding cobble stone streets, (Sean the GPS’ favorite kind), pretty stone houses and walls, fountains in the square… It seems to be a perfect example of one of those pretty little towns that has been bought up and gentrified by people from other places with money who have houses in Provence.

On to the Abbaye Notre Dame de Senanque.

Beautiful winding country roads, again. My favorites are the one lane/two way roads with the giant tour buses and bicyclists. Kind of like a video game at 90 kilometers an hour.

The abbey itself is set among large lavender fields and wooded hills. Founded in 1148 by Cistercian monks who lived in huts. They finally got enough support to build a church that was consecrated in 1178. As well as the church there was a cloister, a dormitory, a chapter house and a small calefactory which was the one heated space where they could write.

It is a stark and simple space. Minimalist. There are no frescoes, no gilded anything, no colorful stained glass windows. It is a remarkably beautiful place. Over the last 9 centuries the abbey grew to a point where they were operating 4 mills, seven granges and possessed large estates in Provence. The founding principles of the Cistercians were fundamentally a revolt against the excesses of religious orders of the time… well, the French Wars of Religion 1562-98 came along to remind the Cistercians of that. The abbey was sacked by the Huguenots, the lands were nationalized and the property was sold to a private party. The abbey was repurchased in 1854 for a new community of Cistercians… they were in turn expelled again in 1903 and then finally a small group returned in 1988 as a priory of Lerins. The few monks that live at the abbey now make a living growing lavender and tending honey bees… You can arrange to stay at the abbey for a spiritual retreat… tempting.

Home again to pack up, say goodbye to the donkey and his sheep, the lizard in the bathroom, Earnestine… We got take out from the only place in France that actually does take out on purpose. Lamb roasted in flaky pastry with vegetables… farewell Provence.

Day 11… say it ain’t so!

Tiny little cantaloupes for breakfast. And coffee… of course.  There is a Nespresso machine in the kitchen that has become our second best machine friend after Sean the GPS. The little Nespresso pods are way cheaper over here. Everyone can have whatever kind of espresso they want and as many as they want…

What is it that we haven’t figured out yet in the US? Why is the good wine, the good coffee and the good tomatoes so much less expensive and so much more abundant here? I have not seen a single American fast food restaurant… hmmm… could it be a question of priorities and values? Local economies? Do we put more value on fast vs good? I don’t know really… there is something fundamentally different though and whatever it is, it always speaks to me when we are here. Hello?

Anyway… off to Vaison La Romain. I think Sean the GPS may be getting a little too comfortable with us or else he’s getting tired of us. He normally tells me which way to go AS WE APPROACH a fork in the road. “Bear left” he says, “Frog right” I respond. We go left and all is good. This time he didn’t say anything and off I go … the wrong way on the A7. Argh. “Turn around” he says. Sure. Thankfully without much fuss he plots a way for us to get turned around and we get into Vaison La Romain about 10 minutes later than we thought we would. And then there’s parking. Parking is never a simple thing in these ancient places. Once we figure out where we actually are in the town, then we can drive around in random directions looking for the blue ‘P’ signs that indicate where there were parking spots until we got there. Eventually though, because the Roman gods take pity on us, there is success.

First stop, lunch. A cafe in a long line of cafes on the perimeter of a square with a fountain. Donna and Jack ordered Croque Monsieur. (Basically a big grilled cheese sandwich with ham in it. Lynn and I had the Plat du Jour… a LARGE ham steak with potatoes gratin and peas and other vegies. Lynn also had the starter salad and the desert. Jack helped. What is in Vaison La Romain you might ask… Old stuff. There is a bridge built by the Romans in the first century that has been in continuous use ever since. It is 29 feet wide and 56 feet long. Wide enough for two way car traffic. It has withstood floods that have washed away much newer and even modern bridges. It even took a WWII German bomb hit and remained standing. It was the only bridge across the Ouveze river in the area until a footbridge was built in 1858 ! and we walked across it… twice.

There are all kinds of Galo Roman ruins and archaeological sites around the city. At the top of the hill there is the Haute-Ville. Very fancy house ruins with mosaics and stuff. Or so we are told. The hill was very high and the temperature was very hot (88 degrees) so we thought… nah.

Off to Orange. What’s there you might ask… not much. It’s kind of a scruffy industrial town, basically flat but it has the Theatre Antique d’Orange. Holy moly. Being kind of a theatre person, I was expecting yet another tumbledown pile of rocks with some stone benches that looked like the other 50 Roman theatres I have seen in the last 17 years. But no, this is one of the best preserved Roman theatres in the world. It is the only one with its acoustic wall intact. The stage is 198 feet across and the back wall is 120 feet high. With seating for about 10,000 people, this is an impressive space. The theatre is used regularly and while we were there they were starting a rehearsal for a performance in the evening. 300 musicians of all ages. They were playing some pretty old stuff… Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Heart… We stayed for a bit and enjoyed the spectacle.

Then we kinda got lost trying to find our car.

Home with one last stop at the grocery store. We are out of coffee!!! and we need to pick up something LIGHT for dinner.

Day 10. Already!?

You all know the program by now… leisurely breakfast coffee blah blah… Out the door at the crack of about 10:30.

The Saint Paul Asylum is about 10 minutes from our house. Originally an Augustine Abbey, the Monestere Saint-Paul Mausole in the 12^th century, it was converted to an asylum in the 19^th century. Van Gogh checked in on May 8, 1889 after a nasty shaving accident and stayed for a little over a year. He had 2 little rooms with bars on the windows. One for sleeping etc. and one as a studio. Initially he wasn’t allowed to leave the grounds of the facility and so did many paintings from his room looking out the window or from the garden. While he was there he painted some 150 canvases including ‘Irises’ and ‘The Starry Night’. The facility is now called Clinique Van Gogh and is still a functioning mental hospital. They have a major art therapy program and works by the patients are available for sale in the gift shop. There were some pieces that I thought were very interesting and would have been seriously interested in… if they weren’t in the 150-200 euro range.

The whole place was really beautiful and peaceful. There weren’t too many tourists and the ones that were there were more respectful than most places you go. There were a number of people sitting on the large stones lining the main drive sketching and water coloring in their little books. It was a nice change from the usual crush of check it off the list, nose in the guidebook crowds you find in so many places.

We left the car parked at the asylum to walk about ¾ of a kilometer to see the ruins at Glanum. An ancient town dating back to about 700bc. Celts, Gauls, Romans… everyone who was anyone lived in Glanum at some point. It impresses me every time I visit ancient ruins… pretty amazing they were able to do all that massive stone work without diamond saws or backhoes or steel toe work boots.

There were the usual suspects… the temple… the market… the fanciest house on the street, the well. It was a clear blue sky and you could imagine how comfortable a nice airy toga would have felt on a day like this. Then about 1287 school kids showed up. We bounced.

We headed into the center of Saint Remy for lunch at Creperie Lou Planet. A tiny place on the perimeter of the central square with about a dozen tables out front on the sloping cobblestones. It was kind of like eating on a boat as everything on the table wanted to slide to starboard. Jack and I had the “Gallette, Super Complete”. Mushrooms, ham, goat cheese and an egg (sunny side up) wrapped inside a kind of thick crepe thing… it was really quite tasty and made for a good lunch. We wandered around Saint Remy for a while shopping, not shopping, just looking at stuff. Don’t know why but nobody wanted to try the fish nibble pedi place. First encounter with urinals out in the open. Hmmm…

Home for a little rest time before heading back into town for dinner.

Dinner was at La Gousse d’ Ail. It was actually not the place we planned to go to. The place we planned to go to was next door… we walked in the wrong door. Oop. We’ll go to the other place tomorrow.

The waiter was helpful and funny. He had that deadpan with a wink kind of demeanor. The menu had English translations which were helpful and amusing. I wonder if the waiter did the translating…

Dinner started with an Amuse Bouche (amusement for the mouth). A tiny bowl of cold asparagus soup with a bit of buttery cream floating in it. YUM!It was a tough choice between the “Scared smail squids” or the duck.  I had the roast duck breast with a little rectangular tower of potato gratin. The menu just said that the dishes come with vegetables of the season and some “starchy food”. The duck was delicious, the beans and asparagus were really good. The house wine, served in a stopper bottle with a lemonade syrup label on it, went down well with the duck and was actually pretty decent. HOW DO THEY DO IT? You can get a damn decent bottle of wine in the grocery here for under 10 euro.

No desert this time… a coffee and a couple of little cookies that came with the bill was perfect. Then, as a parting gift I guess, an espresso cup filled with a surprise. We came to the conclusion that it was basically a cinnamon snow cone! What a nice little palate cleanser. We all left happy and full and that may just be the theme of the trip.

Day 9 – settling in to Provence…

Again, I am not the last one ready to leave the house. In fact, I am the first one ready to leave the house. I may not have been the first one up, but I was dressed and had my face on first. I don’t know what it is about being here but I fear I might turn into a … ghads…morning person. Is there a doctor in the house?

So anyway… coffee, yogurt etc… and off we go. Today we start near the town of Baux. Only about 20 min away by Sean the GPS’ directions. It is a tiny town perched amongst the rocky outcroppings in the area. The rock that contains aluminum was discovered here in 1821 thus the word Bauxite for aluminum ore.

There is a large bauxite mine just outside of town that has been turned into an amazing art venue. Carrieres de Lumieres. Right now they have an exhibit of Marc Chagall. An artist near and dear to our hearts and sensibilities. It is not a walk around and look at paintings kind of experience, it is a down the rabbit hole you are in the paintings kind of experience. Inside the old bauxite mine are perhaps 100 high power projectors and a sound system to match. Animated versions of the art are projected on the 50 foot high walls and pillars as well as the floor and the ceiling while music comes from all around. It is mesmerizing. We were looking forward to this for months and it did not disappoint.

There was also a short presentation of an homage to Alice in Wonderland. Talk about ‘down the rabbit hole’… I came away with some interesting ideas for our next season production at GRB…

We grabbed a venue cafe quiche and some coffee . Very palatable … better than most venue food. Nuf said. Fortified, we head back to the car. When we arrived, we somehow came around the back of the place. Sean the GPS seems to have an aversion to the main roads, main entrances and main parking areas. Today it worked out perfectly. A small, nearly deserted “overflow lot” just a few stairs (maybe 30 or so?) up to the main entrance… and the spot we found was in a space cut out of the rock that afforded us a nice cool car on our return. This is Van Gogh country so we ask Sean the GPS to take us to Arles.

Arles is an ancient town., the Ligurians were there as far back as 800bc and the Romans took it in 123bc and built it into a major trade and political center and held it for hundreds of years. Arles has a very dense and complicated history… you should read about it.

Thanks to those Romans, there is an amphitheater that seats about 10,000 and is still being used, an arena, kind of a mini-coliseum that is also still being used as well as a triumphal arch and other bits of Roman whizbang. Not sure what I think about the modern use of the ancient facilities. It probably generates a fair amount of revenue for the city and the upkeep of the facilities… but the modern bleachers that have been built over the stone seats of the arena are truly ugly. The wear and tear on the structures is painfully obvious… the graffiti etched into the stone is particularly discouraging… the question is would they be able to maintain and restore the structures without the revenue of modern events? I don’t know… but they sure had nice bathrooms.

We went looking for the old Arles Hospital, now known as the Espace Van Gogh as that’s where he went after he lopped of his ear… but they must have moved it because it was not where our map said it should have been. Nuts. I think we caught just a glimpse of Arles, there is an awful lot there to see and learn about … maybe next time.

Back to the house for some down time and a dip in the pool. Ernestine returned as we sipped a little rose and had cheese and crackers poolside. Nope… no pictures, don’t even ask.

Stopped at the grocery on the way home… yogurt, wine, strawberries, wine, bread and cheese, wine, toilet paper… wine and something for dinner. Tonight, grilled marinated chicken and lamb with grilled asparagus. I think I may be getting to like this grill… sure cooks fast.

Oh… and more ice cream.

Next we rest.

Saturday was a rest and recover day. We hung out at the house, we had coffee and made some plans. We went to the grocery to stock up on a few essentials… cheese and salami, tomatoes and eggs, wine… fizzy water… wine… bread, wine… ice cream, wine….

The grocery store is a different experience here. There are of course the individual fruit and vegetable shops, the meat shops, the bakery and the cheese shop… or you can go to the newer more convenient all in one grocery store. The one we find is kind of like a mini-Meijer store. They have mostly groceries but also your paper products, some pots and pans, slippers, miscellaneous necessities like tape and batteries and such. You can also get prepackaged oats and hay for your pony. There is more of a focus on fresh and seasonal here. Fruits and vegetables are fewer but fresher. Meat and fish has not been frozen and shipped half way across the continent… some of the meat is, shall we say… still identifiable by it’s face. Chickens, rabbits, that sort of thing. There are all kinds of cheeses and cuts of meat that I have never heard of and couldn’t pronounce if I had to. We get some beans and zucchini, and some lovely salmon fillets for the grill.

We have only brought carry on luggage so it is also time to get a little laundry done.

There is a lot of laying about on the outdoor sofa and snacking… lunch and champagne. This is how it’s supposed to be. Now I just need to figure out how to make this my day to day lifestyle.

Dinner… When we arrived at Le Petit Mas, and Christine was showing us around the place she pointed out the grill and mentioned that it was gas. We were like “great! No problem, can’t wait!” I lay out the salmon and give it a dash olive oil, a little salt and pepper and a sprinkle of herbs de Provence… I cut the zucchini into spears… a little olive oil, a little this a little that and we’re good to go. Time to start the grill. Now the grill was covered when Christine pointed it out. When I pulled the cover off I thought, hmmm, this should be interesting. It was not a grill like you might think of a grill. It did not have a grate. It was a large solid cast iron surface with sides and a back and a grease channel at the front with two large burners underneath it. More like a griddle. Well, how different could it be? Two major differences between this grill and real grilling. 1, it cooked the salmon considerably faster than expected. Second, you don’t get the “grilled” effect of the drippings falling on to the burners and “vaporizer bars” and adding that smokey hint to the flavor… but for a first time, I think it all turned out pretty good.

And then we had ice cream.

Day… 8 I think…

Leisurely breakfast and then off to Pont Du Gard. Sean the GPS now has our full trust. Problem is, sometimes he asks questions we can’t answer… like nearest cross street. (really? We gave you the address…) so sometimes we make stuff up. Anyway, Pont du Gard is in his memory as a ‘point of interest’ so… no problem. 328 roundabouts later we arrive at one of the tallest Roman aqueduct bridges ever built. 160 feet tall and 1180 feet long. It slopes only 1 inch (!!) from one end to the other. But that’s still down hill… enough to keep the water moving. Part of the 50 kilometer aqueduct that moved water from Uzes to what would become Nimes. The entire thing descends all of 56 feet in 30 miles. It was built somewhere around 55AD, moved 44 million gallons of water per DAY (!) and functioned for 500 years. I think those Roman engineers could teach a thing or two to the guys building roads in Michigan these days…

We ate lunch at a restaurant on the grounds of the park around Pont du Gard called Les Terrasses. I will confess, I can barely read Italian but I’m not bad at working it out… French menus may as well be written in Sanskrit. Nothin’ no idea… no clue… ugh. So guess where we run into our first surly French waiter? Ding! You guessed it. “No English” he blurts, then points to himself and says “You, no English” and walks away muttering something about so and so and her “much English”. He talks to the young lady who seated us and points at our table without looking at us.

She was very helpful and nice but her English was … well… kinda weird, like she learned it holding a drinking glass to her ear pressed against a wall listening to a TV in the next room.

Chicken and potatoes, zucchini and fois gras… Delicious.

I always lose a little weight when we visit just Italy. I’m thinking that might not be the case this trip.

We then headed up to Uzes which, another 32 roundabouts up the road, is a quaint little town with amazing architecture and a central square full of vendors and cafes that the Romans stole a whole bunch of water from. We wandered around, did a little shopping (nobody bought anything) and sat outside at a tiny cafe for a coffee… served to us by a young lady named Lulu who seemed to think everything was rather funny.

360 roundabouts later we return to the little house in the countryside to enjoy a light dinner, a visit from a donkey and his many sheep friends and a little white dog that I will call Ernestine, a game of Petanque (boules (French bocce)) in which I am soundly beaten by Donna 13-3 and a sunset.

Sigh… wonder what would happen if I missed my plane back…

Nope

We get up fairly early to get on the road. We are headed for Saint Remy de Provence for the french segment of the trip.

I take a quick walk while the others are eating breakfast to bid farewell to Tony and get one last dose of violin making inspiration.

We decide it is probably best if I don’t try to bring the car up to the hotel this time and drag our bags down to the parking ramp. Yes … this is the street of cafes that welcomed us on our arrival. “It’s possible.”

In order to get out of the parking ramp you have to take the ticket you got when you entered, stick it in a machine in the stairwell, pay your fee to the machine which then gives you back your ticket marked paid. You then have 10 minutes to get to your car, load your crap in the back, convince Sean the GPS that you really do want to go to France and get to the exit gate. The problem is that this takes precisely 11.5 minutes more or less. So, when you stick your ticket in the exit gate, it tells you that you owe another 1.70 euros. Since there is no place to put money or credit cards in the exit gate, ones only option is to back down the exit ramp, park crooked in the nearest handicap spot, send a delegate of your party to negotiate with the attendant in the parking ramp Office of Issues Related to Ignorant Tourists. 1.70 Euros later we’re paroled. We’ve been visiting Italy for 17 years… there always seems to be something we haven’t encountered before.

Getting to the Autostrada is more or less uneventful. Driving on the Autostrada is more or less uneventful. It still is a national holiday weekend though so there is a fair amount of traffic. Not really a problem until we get to the first congestion charge station. (toll booth). Cars are backed up 20 deep trying to figure out which lanes are cash, ‘Telepass’, ViaCard or Go directly to jail, do not pass go…

We get in a cash lane and take a nap.

As we get to the booth it seems simple enough. The toll is 5.20 euros. It takes the 5 euro note like it’s starving… but the .20 euro cent coin is a nope… two 10 cent coins? Nope… a 50 cent coin? Nope… the 20 cent coin again? again? again? Nope nope nope. Horns honking behind us? Yep. Throw in a 1 euro coin… wait for it… wait for it… gods be praised it took it! The hell with the change go go go!

Lunch at an Italian institution… the AutoGrill. I know, AutoGrill is all over the world and has even made it to the US, but it is an Italian company and a quintessential part of traveling the highways of Italy. Panini and coffee and fill the tank… oh, and some cookies for the car… and some fizzy water. We confused the barista by taking the cups of frothed milk before she was able to put the espresso in them, (sure is weak coffee says Lynn…) then we get a serious malocchio from the gas station attendant when Jack starts pumping his own gas at the gas station… but hey, nobody got hurt so we call it a win (and, we’re all too old to be embarrassed so … whatever).

About $50 in tolls and 7 hours after we depart Cremona we arrive at Le Petit Mas, outside of Saint Remy, Provence, France. Our house for the week. We have put exactly 1000 miles on the car since we left the garage in Rome.

Dinner is in town as we have nothing in the house and we are too tired to go to the grocery tonight. We wander aimlessly and pick L’Aile ou La Cuisse Bistro. (the wing or the thigh) It had the best looking pastries in the front window.

In a stark contrast to the Italian restaurant experience, where they expect you to spend the entire evening at your table, we note the hustley bustley -ness of the wait staff. It is obvious that they expect to seat more than one party at each table over the course of the evening. Our waitress is a charming and funny young lady who puts up with our nonsense and answers our dopey questions with a smile.

Fois gras, beef cheeks in wine sauce, chocolate and raspberries… and ‘physalis’ (a strange little cross between a tomato and a Japanese lantern plant).

Bonjour!