Sunday January 02, 2005

Vacation in France

As I mentioned in my last entry I spent Christmas with my daughters in France. It was a wonderful trip. We arrived on Monday morning, December 20. We took the TGV from Paris to Aix en Provence. The TGV is France's high speed train system. It was awesome. The TGV goes as fast as 300 km/h (186 mph). It was a smooth ride and we had very comfortable assigned seats. We all slept for most of the 3 hour ride although I felt like I should stay awake for the experience.

Monday night we met Allison's host parents for dinner. Allison lived with them for her Junior year abroad in 2000-2001. We ate at Antoine Cote Cours (in a courtyard off of Cours Mirabeau). It was full of locals, the food was very tasty, and the conversation was wonderful. Apparently a very well know French politician was a the next table too.

Our Hotel in Aix, Hotel des Augustins, was built on the site of an old convent. It was great place to stay because we were right off the Cours Mirabeau and could walk all over the winding little streets of the old town. I liked being able to walk everywhere. The Cours Mirabeau was decorated for Christmas and lined with wooden booths selling everything from jewelry to hot cider to olives and pottery. Just off the square were several booths selling Santons. Satons are figures made from the Provencal red clay. Their were hundreds of choices ranged in size from less than an inch to about 18 inches tall. There were Christmas creches and Provencal figures. I spent a lot of time browsing and bought some for each daughter for Christmas. It was also fun to browse all the stores and markets in the town. It is a good thing I ran out of time or I probably would have kept buying. Allison took us to the best chocolate shop and all her favorite food stands. We had crepes, and omlette sandwiches, and paninis.

On Wednesday we took a tour to Lex Baux de Provence It is the remains of a 12th century town on the top of a hill. The wind was blowing like it does in North Dakota and the puddles were frozen. We took the audio tour of the ruins and spent a little bit of time exploring the reconstructed town. The great thing about traveling in December is that you have the tourist sites almost to yourself and the cold just makes it an adventure.

On Thursday we went to the Mediteranean, the little town of Cassis. The weather was the exact opposite of the weather on the mountain top at Les Baux. We sat on a park bench overlooking the harbor and had ice cream cones. Then we went for a hike out to the Calanques, the deep inlets cut into the limestone cliffs. We started a bit late in the day so we didn't see as much of the coast as we would have liked but the mediteranian was beautiful and it was a lovely hike.

On Friday, Christmas eve, we had lunch with Allison's host family and their three girls at their home. Then her host Dad drove us and our luggage to the TGV station and we headed back to Paris.

In Paris we stayed at Hotel des Gandes Ecoles It surrounded a garden and felt like a bed and breakfast. The neighborhood was nice too. It was fun to browse on the rue Mouffetard which was about a block away.

One of the highlights of the trip was the Midnight Mass at Notre Dame. We walked from our hotel along the Seine. It was windy and cold but Notre Dame was all lit up and was absolutely breathtaking. Inside it was packed and we stood for at least an hour before we got seats. The music including Handel's Hallelujah Chorus and Angels we have Heard on High almost brought tears to my eyes. Afterwards we walked back to the hotel arm in arm singing Christmas Carols.

On Christmas day we walked from the Eiffel Tower down the Seine to the Place de la Concorde. We rode in the Ferris Wheel and then walked down to the Louvre and caught a bus over to Montparnasse to see where Shannon has classes. Then we walked to the Luxembourg Gardens, the Pantheon, and back to the hotel. In the In the evening we met one of Shannon's friends at the Eiffel tower to go ice skating on the first level. We had to wait in line quite a while. The rink is small but but it was great fun.

Shannon was a great tour guide. She had tickets for us to the Turner, Whistler, and Monet exhibit at the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais. I don't know very much art history and knew almost nothing about Whistler or Turner. It was fascinating to see how impressionism evolved.

Even though this was my third time in Paris I had never been to the Louvre. On Monday that's where we went. We saw all the things the Louvre is famous for like the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. But I just love that as I walked around the museum I incidentally saw several works of Art that I had only seen in pictures. On the way to seeing the Code of Hammurabi, there off in an alcove was one of the Easter Island statues that I learned about when I read Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki as a kid.

The was pretty cool too. It is a code of laws, carved in stone. It was created almost as long before Christ as we are after Christ now, almost 4000 years ago. It was found about 50 miles south of where Baghdad is today.