Paris Adventures

I guess you could say I've been too bogged down to blog, but having completed some research for work on the web tonight, I'm taking a vacation--a virtual one at least and heading to Paris with author Eloisa James and her family, but first I'm remembering my first trip to Paris.



I first visited Paris in 1998 on a group tour while traveling with my mother. It was one of those "If This is Tuesday, It Must Be Belgium" kind of experiences, but for my mom and me it was a Grand Adventure. As our bus entered Paris on the way to our hotel, we passed the soccer stadium where throngs of soccer fans were entering the Stade de France, France's national stadium. We were told by our guide that France was playing the highly favored Brazilian team that night in the World Soccer Final.  Flags hung from windows of high rise apartment buildings, the entire city was in a state of anticipation and high spirits.

 Crowds arriving at Stade de France, St.-Denis, Paris
1998 World Cup

Mother and I were tired, so we opted out of the tour group event that evening.  Instead we strolled around the Montmartre neighborhood where we were staying, got something to eat, then settled in to watch the soccer match on TV.  Neither of us understood French or much about soccer for that matter, but the excitement of the French commentators and the frenzy of the crowd was mesmerizing.  When France beat Brazil 3-0, winning their first ever World Soccer Cup, the city erupted.  The deserted streets of an hour before filled with throngs of people spilling out from cafes onto the streets around our hotel.  The sounds of fire crackers and blowing car horns filled the night air. 

I wanted to enjoy the festivities, so I joined the crowds roaming the streets of Montmartre that night.  A stranger grabbed me and hugged me, chattering in French and I felt bad that I didn't understand him and couldn't make even a simple reply.  Indeed everyone seemed to be hugging each other; when cars came to a stop light, occupants jumped out of the cars, ran around hugging people and shouting, then jumped back into their vehicles when the light turned green. 

Paris crowds celebrating 1998 World Cup win in Montmartre

According to news reports the next day, a million people filled the Champs-Elysees that night.  New York Times reporter, Craig Whitney, wrote: Black and white, Muslim and Christian, Arab and Asian, the people of Paris trooped down the avenue as they had during victory parades after World Wars I and II...It was, the French coach, Aime Jacquet said, a moment of ''national communion.''

The next day Mother and I ate at a sidewalk cafe.  We ordered Quiche Lorraine and when our plates came out, the tomato in the side salad had a French flag stuck in it.  The waiter smiled and said, "Quiche Lorraine France" when he brought our dishes to the table. 

Paris in Love, by Eloisa James
Random House, 2012
(Read in Kindle Download)

My goodness, my trip down memory lane took longer than anticipated, and I've left Eloisa James and her Paris memoir hanging.  Eloisa James is the pen name of a successful romance author who in her other life is Mary Bly, a Shakespeare professor at Fordham.  After losing her mother to breast cancer and having a brush with the disease herself, James and her Italian-born, university professor husband decide to apply for sabbaticals and move their family to Paris for a year.  Paris in Love is the story of that year. 

James takes the Facebook entries she posted that year from Paris, expands some into longer essays and organizes her reminiscences into the seasons of the year for this book.  This adds to the "You are there with her" feeling of the journal.  Her two children--fourteen-year-old son, Luca, and irrepressible eleven-year-old daughter, Anna--are often less than enthusiastic participants in this cross cultural experiment and provide frequent fodder for James' musings. 

James also writes a lot about ordinary days:

Parisian life is small and quiet.  I pack the children off to school and then think greedily about how many hours I have before they come home.  I have come to the conclusion that silence and time are the precious commodities.

Paris (and our apartment) is so dark and quiet this morning that I feel as if I'm entirely alone.  This sky is the color of gray flannel, the darkness broken only by the dormer window of another early riser.  The women who lives in that attic painted her walls yellow, and reflected light bounces out like a spring crocus.  If light were sound, her window would be playing a concerto.

The main character of this memoir is Paris, as the City of Light is always a scene stealer.  James describes other scenes outside her apartment window as she sits and writes, the homeless man who has pitched a tent on the heat grate near their apartment, her explorations of the city, her children's experiences in an Italian school, French food, the small, lesser known museums not to miss on one's next trip to Paris, the trials and tribulations of the family's obese chihuahua, Milo.  Her observations are concise, yet evocative.

Description of a winter scene from Paris in Love:

High up, somewhere in the milky sky, the snow clings together before it pinwheels gently down in little clumps.  Thousands of cotton bolls were trying to seed themselves on rue de Conservatoire.

But James is most eloquent when she writes of her family and her motivation for seizing this opportunity to live in Paris:

My grandmother was diagnosed with dementia, and was silent the last decade of her life; my father, my darling father of a thousand poems and more, has taken to watching leaves fall from their trees.  Rather than knit those leaves into words, he simply allows them to fall.  It's a cruel fate: to watch without recounting the fall of the leaf; to grieve without creating anew; to age without describing it.

I know how James feels.  My mother, who gamely tramped all over Europe at age 76, is now losing her words and the names of her great-grandchildren, but she and I will always have Paris.

To take a virtual trip to Paris in the footsteps of Eloisa James, visit the wonderful Paris Breakfast blog.  The blog's creator has posted quotations from Paris in Love and paired them with photos of Paris.

To see more of France, you might also be interested in my past blog posts about our 2011 trip.  To see the French home where my husband and I stayed in the French Alps town of Serres, click here.  Click here for post about our visit with another friend in Veynes in the Alps.  Click here to read and view photos of the village of Cucuron in southeastern France where part of the movie, A Good Year, with Russell Crowe was filmed and where Ricky and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary.  To read and see photos of two other villages in Provence, click here.  And to view Marseilles scenes, plus more of Serres in the French Alps, click here.  

We Shall Return Again to Veynes

I was going to take a break from France and write about my progress with my Once Upon a Time reading challenge, but when our friend Cris in France called today to wish us a Happy Easter, I had to share another of our favorite spots in the French Alps with you.

Besides spending time in Serres while we were in the Alps, we also visited Veynes, a village a few miles from Serres where another of our friends lives.  We had one of our most delightful dinners there shortly after our arrival when Joel fixed us potatoes au gratin, a popular dish of the French Alps, served with pork, a sparkling claret for our aperitif and a choice of red or rose wines with our meal.  The meal was topped off by a fruit salad with berries picked from Joel's garden.

Joel's Kitchen

Getting ready for al fresco dining

Dining in Veynes

After we ate on this evening, we headed to a near-by elaborate campground on a lake to hear a Dixieland Band!  It was unique to hear American Dixieland played to an appreciative crowd of Danish tourists.  We also spied a group of people playing the popular French game, boule, at the campground.

Boule game in progress

 One of our favorites sites near Veynes was an old convent being renovated by a couple who operated the site as a Bed and Breakfast.  The couple were friends of our hostess, Cris.  We just drove onto their grounds one afternoon, and the lady was very hospitable considering we were drop-in guests and she had paying guests to tend to.  After everyone had a drink on the patio overlooking the expansive grounds where one couple played tennis, while others sat talking with their feet dangling in a fountain, she told us we could wander around but we wouldn't be able to see any of the guest quarters since they were all occupied.

Ricky took these photos with his IPhone, using Hipstamatic effects:

Fountain at convent

View of convent grounds

The gate to the convent patio, which still had original centuries old key in it.

Having drinks on the patio

Side of main convent building

French snail on wall

One of the many outbuildings on the property

People viewed from patio as they lounged around a fountain on the convent grounds.

Convent wall with tower

Detail of door hardware at convent

Convent Kitchen

I hope you enjoyed the photographic tour of this site, with all its visual richness.  I know Ricky and I would love to return to this convent and spend more time exploring this evocative old building.

The Provencal Village of Cucuron

On our way to Cucuron, we stopped off at Saint Barthelemy Church in Vaugines, where part of the French film, Manon of the Spring (Manon des Sources) was filmed.  Ricky and I had actually seen the movie years earlier at an art theater during one of our stateside adventures. 

After exploring the exterior of the chapel, we headed down the road to the traditional, fortified Provencal village of Cucuron.  If you have seen the movie, A Good Year with Russell Crowe, then you have seen a glimpse of Cucuron.  A man-made pond in Cucuron, surrounded by 200-year-old plane trees and lined with outdoor dining tables for multiple cafes, appears to be the center of activity in this village of 2,000 inhabitants .  Russell Crowe brought Marion Cotillard here for a date in A Good Year.  We, too strolled around the pond but since we didn't have dinner reservations, we didn't stay to eat.

Cafe area around "pond" in Cucuron
(Click on photo for better view)



Cucuron is located in Provence-Alps-Cote d'Azur region of southeastern France on the south side of the Luberon Range, the mountains referenced in Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence.  Adjacent to the pond with its surrounding ring of cafes is the medieval, hilly part of the village.  We decided to walk through the winding streets of this old part of Cucuron where homes and other restaurants are now built, using the old stone fortifications as part of the current structure.  We were looking for another restaurant that one of our French hostesses knew about to see if we could get dinner reservations there, and we were going to climb up to the highest point of Cucuron where the ruins of  a 14th century castle tower stand.

Here are some of the sites along the mostly uphill, as I recall it, walk culminating with an ungraceful scramble up a dirt embankment to the 14th century castle tower.  In the end, it was worth the effort.

I'm not absolutely sure this is Cucuron, it could be Vaugines where we stopped to see the church.

I love this old green door and ancient stone.

The village of Cucuron is surrounded by grape vines and olive trees, and I later learned that the village has both an olive oil and a wine cooperative.  What's not to love about a place featuring two of my favorite things, especially when served together. 

The view across the roof tops of Cucuron

Roof tile detail above and tiny flowers set into ancient fortification wall.

Sylvain on wall at castle tower ruins

Ricky and I made it to the top of the hill, too, and here's proof!

Modern Times Restaurant in Cucuron with proprietor chef & his daughter

We had worked up quite an appetite by the time we appeared at the little restaurant, Modern Times, named in honor of Charlie Chaplin, where we had dinner reservations. A long line of tables lined the patio of the small restaurant.  Inside was another eating area with about eight tables, plus the kitchen, all crammed into the space of a small house.  The beefy proprietor and owner was also the chef.  Since our table was next to the kitchen door, he came out to talk to us and help Ricky personalize his order with extra garlic!  The owner's teen-age daughters were the waitresses, and the one assigned to us spent as much time on her cell phone as waiting tables. At the table crammed next to ours was a dog that we had to step carefully over if we left the table for any reason.  But all this just provided local color--the food was delicious, the evening was starting to cool off and the company congenial.  It was also Ricky and my 16th wedding anniversary, and we couldn't have asked for anything more memorable.

Two Villages in Provence

I reread Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence while I was home sick Wednesday, and I'm sure I got more out of it this time, having been to Provence and the Luberon region of France, albeit 20 years after Mayle purchased and renovated his old stone farmhouse there.   The villages of Provence and the Luberon have become increasingly popular over the years and are favored vacation destinations of both foreign tourists and the French on holiday, especially in August when we were there.  We stayed with a friend, Anne Marie, in the village of Cadenet, about 5 minutes from the more well-known and touristy Lourmarin.  The apartment where we headquartered was a recent construction, no thick stone walls of an old farmhouse like Mayle's.  It is hot in summer.  There is no air conditioning, just the ubiquitous blue wooden shutters thrown open, no screens on the windows with curtains blowing freely in the breezes that, thankfully, cool everything down in the evenings. 

Like all of Provence, life is lived outside in the summer.   We enjoyed seasonal, Provencal foods as we ate crispy pizzas with veggie and anchovy toppings, fresh cheeses from the local market, tiny finger potatoes and succulent heirloom tomatoes in our salads, rich olive tapenades and local sausages.  Our hostess' courtyard was the perfect setting for our meals and relaxing afterwards.

The outdoor dining area in Cadenet

Hanging out at Anne Marie's

Anne Marie rousted us out of bed one morning so we could visit one of the most popular local markets in near-by Lourmarin.  The streets were packed with cars when we arrived, but I found French drivers can always create a parking place.  Soon we were among the throngs at the market, sampling the food and buying souvenirs for friends and family.

Loumarin market crowd

The sunset was lovely from Anne Marie's garden as we came to the end of another lovely, exhausting day in France.

A Stroll Through a Walled City in the French Alps

Our trip to France last August was so full of memorable places and people that it's hard to select just a few photos to capture it.  Right now I'm focusing on the places we visited that depict different parts of the country.

First, a few more photos of Serres, this time showing the old Roman walled section of the village:

Walking through the walled part of old Serres

Apartments in the walled section of Serres

Love the blue shutters that are seen everywhere in France

Curb Appeal in old Serres

Old Catholic Church in Serres

Tattoo artist in her shop in old section of Serres

We visited Marseilles just long enough to see the Mediterrean and dine overlooking the sea:

Lone floater in the sea

Ricky and Teresa dining at 3 star restaurant overlooking the Mediterrean. 

You probably feel like you're trapped watching someone's slide show of their vacation, but at least here it's easy to excuse yourself and go back to what you were doing.  I think Paris and Provence, and to some extent Marseilles, get so much of the attention when discussing France that it's important to see some of the other parts of the country, especially the more remote French Alps where Serres is located. 

I'm home sick today, as opposed to being homesick for France yesterday.  While I'm recovering from one of those 24 hour bugs, I'm going to take a break from my Once Upon a Time reading (Philip Pullman's The Subtle Knife), the mysteries I always have going (Murder Most Frothy, a coffeehouse mystery by Cleo Coyle, that I downloaded to my Kindle) and retreat to my cottage with Peter Mayle and share his adventures in Provence.

Competing Forces

I'm one of those people who always seem to have approach-avoidance forces competing for attenton in my life.  This time of year, it's "travel forces."  I long for a vacation, but in my mind I can't decide if it's a stay-cation I want, just puttering about the yard cleaning up unkempt areas and planting flowers, with plenty of time off for good behavior to read and relax, or if I want to hit the road!

I'm sure I'll get back to the Virginia mountains sometime this summer to visit my family, and we have an Edgerton family trip to the beach planned for June.  Over the next few months, I'll have time for catching up with family, beach combing, reading and looking at the ocean views, but I also find myself homesick for Europe right now--for our family and friends there and the gorgeous vistas.

My mind is wandering back to the French High Alps and our hideaway built into the mountain under our friend Cris' house. Or, to the Czech Republic where my niece and her family live.  Today I share some of the photos of our adventures in France last summer.

Dappled path heading down to our "grotto" living quarters under Cris' house

Our hideaway under Cris' house--entrance to the  right behind the ivy

Outdoor eating area in Cris' garden

Serres from above

Buesh River below Cris' house, where everyone swims in the summer

This has offered a glimpse of Serres, the village in the High Alps, where our friend Cris and her family live.  It was our jumping off place for our trip to France last summer, although we traipsed from one end of the country to the other.  Tomorrow I'll show a few pictures from other places we visited in France.  It's relaxing to return to France, if only in photos. 

Thanks to my husband, Ricky, who is a great photographer!