A Day in Paris

Our first twenty-four hours are just about over and I couldn’t wait to report on what’s gone on so far. Last fall I’d read

an interesting book written by an Australian journalist who married a Frenchman and eventually moved to le premier arrondissement in Paris. In Almost French, Sarah Turnbull lovingly describes la rue Montorgueil, a pedestrian walkway with lots of small shops and a nearly village-like feel to it. We really enjoyed taking in all of the sights and aromas of the nearly one-kilometer long street today: the wonderful cheese shops, a one-hundred-seventy-year-old restaurant named L’Escargot, the delicious-looking pastries and prepared foods at Stohrer. The latter, an institution in Paris since 1730, was the first to bring baba au rhum to the city.


From there it was a short bus ride to la place de la République and le canal Saint-Martin. The canal was originally designed, along with other similar structures, to bring fresh water into the city. Today there is still some boat traffic on the four and a half kilometer waterway, but most of it is apparently to carry tourists through the various locks and dams to the Seine. Beside the canal we came upon l’Hôtel du Nord, which was reproduced on a stage set in the 1930s by Marcel Carné for his movie of the same name...whence the line of actress Arletty: « Atmosphère ? Atmosphère ? »

After a very nice lunch with the professor whose presentation we translated in February, we took le métro back to the 14e where our hotel is located. From the subway station we walked through the beautiful alleys of le cimetière Montparnasse. A small crowd was gathered at the tomb of Sartre and Beauvoir; some ladies were filling up watering cans for the plants on their family’s graves. We spent a little time on this lovely day wandering around looking for the gravesites of famous people like singer Serge Gainsbourg and authors Maupassant and Baudelaire. Paris has so much to offer and we'll be out exploring for several days to come.

Celebrating le Vaucluse

Our stay in the Vaucluse has been great: we’ve finished all of the research that we’d planned on doing and we took all of the excursions, big and small, that we wanted. But now that our time here is quickly drawing to a close, there are lots of last minute details to take care of--packing up boxes of books to mail home, searching around our rental house to gather up all of our stuff, getting suitcases ready for the trip to Paris and the flight back, and all the rest. Our last week in Bédoin, however, hasn’t simply been filled with chores. We’ve also taken the time to enjoy some culinary treats.
On Saturday night la Cave Coopérative held another of its famous get-togethers. This one, la Fête de la vigne et du vin ("The Festival of the Vineyard and Wine"), is actually a department-wide event taking place on the same date in more than 60 caves in the Vaucluse. Bédoin’s version of the festivities included ATV buggy rides through the vines and a visit to the bottling assembly line. We were more interested in the 16-euro apiece dinner, which included une assiette provençale, consisting of saucisson (“salami”), pâté, jambon cru (“prosciutto”), salade, cornichons (“pickles”) and green and black olives. The main dish was followed by a cheese course, and finally a dessert of fresh strawberries in red wine with crème chantilly (“whipped cream”). There was a live band, playing mostly American music, and of course, being at the cave, the dinner was bien arrosé with lots of local wines. We had fun talking to the people sitting next to us: a young social worker from Zurich who had just returned from climbing Mont Ventoux on his bike and a nice vintner and his wife from Bédoin who made a special trip inside the cave to get a piece of chèvre cheese for us when they found out we liked it.
We’ve also been revisiting some of the restaurants in the vicinity that we have enjoyed over the past few months, two of them being right here on the main street in town. Both have very friendly équipes working there and offer good, relatively inexpensive meals. Le Grillon is a small place whose name, I believe, is more a play on the verb griller, rather than on the word for a cricket. The chef, who comes from a restaurant family, grills your supper in front of you on a wood fire in an elevated fireplace. We’ve had some lovely meals there including a tasty salade au chèvre chaud (“warm goat cheese salad”), a grilled dorade ("sea bream"), une marmite de poisson (a fish soup), and une brochette de canard ("duck shish kebab"). All were very good, but the best was Ray’s travers de porc, a grilled pork sparerib with spices that made it taste like barbecue. Yum! Another place we like in town is the Hôtel l’Escapade’s restaurant. We’ve had appetizers like des cuisses de grenouille (“frogs legs”) and une barigoule aux artichauts (artichoke hearts served with prosciutto). Some of our main dishes there included for Ray pieds et paquets (you don’t really want to know what it is!) and for me a very delicious cuisse de canard (“duck leg”).

My favorite eating place for French cuisine around, and possibly throughout our whole stay here (though others were close), is in Carpentras: La Petite Fontaine. Small with a limited menu, this restaurant serves up delicious meals every time. On our first visit there I had fresh asparagus with a green onion sauce as a first dish, followed by wonderful Saint-Jacques (“scallops”) with a chive sauce that were well worth the 5-euro supplement that we had to pay. Today we both had the 17-euro menu: starting with a half of a small, grilled eggplant topped with melted mozzarella slices and fresh tomato; as a main course, Ray had suprême de pintade (“guinea fowl”) and I got a great piece of grilled tuna. So there you have some meals to enjoy vicariously...more coming from Paris next week, I hope!

Roman Orange

Since we still had the car last Monday, we decided to go see another of the big towns of the Vaucluse: Orange. The area has undergone tremendous transformations and hardships over the centuries. Originally settled by the Gauls, it became a Roman colony around the year 35 BCE. The city went on to be attacked and partially destroyed by the Visigoths in the fifth century. Its population was decimated by la peste (“the plague”) in 1348 and again in 1720. In the sixteenth century the locale was settled by the Dutch whose ruling family is still named “the Royal House of Orange.” But today this city of about 30,000 people, known as having one of the warmest climates in France, is relatively quiet, yet proud of its heritage.


During Pax Romana, the time of peace and prosperity with the Gauls, the Romans created many buildings in the colony that they referred to as Arausio. There is an Arc de Triomphe on the outskirts of town, which is presently undergoing restoration. However, the crowning achievement of Roman architecture in the city is the antique theater. For a small fee, visitors can take a self-guided tour with audiophones of this 1st century structure built during the reign of Augustus. The theater has one of the best conserved murs de scène (“stage walls”) in the world; according to our audioguide only in Syria and Turkey could you also find such an impressive relic from Roman times. The sight of it in the seventeenth century prompted King Louis XIV to exclaim: « C’est la plus belle muraille de mon royaume. » ("It's the most beautiful wall in my kingdom.")

The theater, we learned, used to have statues in all of its niches (like the one of Augustus in the picture), as well as marble facing on the walls, several rows of columns, and mosaics decorating it. The sitting area, called the cavea, provided room for about 8000-10000 spectators, seated according to their status in society. The orchestra, in a semicircle on the ground, had room for movable seats for the highest-ranking dignitaries; on the uppermost tiers sat prostitutes and beggars. All of the presentations were free of charge and a kind of tarp, a velum, stretched across the top of the theater to protect spectators from the sun. After the so-called “barbarian invasions” and the 16th century wars of religion, the theater fell into disrepair; houses were even constructed inside it. But thanks to author Prosper Merimée, a restoration project was launched in 1825. Only the first three rows of seats are original and in 2006 a small glass and metal roof was added to protect the stage wall and to add lighting. The theater was placed on the list of World Heritage Sights by UNESCO. International music festivals, currently called Les Nouvelles Chorégies, have been presenting symphonies and operas every summer since 1869. Plays have been staged there as well; Sarah Bernhardt, for example, performed the role of Racine’s Phèdre at the theater in 1903. The day we were there several groups of young people were trying out the theater’s great acoustics by reading to their friends who were in the upper part of the stands.

A Beautiful Day on the Riviera

Last Saturday the "weather gods” were with us as we left Port-Fréjus heading east to see more of la Côte d’Azur and making our way to Cannes. The drive along the cliff road, la Corniche de l’Esterel, afforded stunning views of the red Esterel Mountains which served as a striking contrast to the deep blue of the Mediterranean. We passed through the coastal towns of Agay and Théoule-sur-Mer, stopping from time to time to enjoy vistas of the beaches, the rocky coast, and boats out at sea. In the car, I was putting the digital camera through its paces the entire time, while Ray negotiated the narrow thoroughfare. The biggest problem along the way was not other cars, but cyclists, including some with babies on the back of their bikes, who at times rode two or three abreast.

We were well aware that the yearly Festival de Cannes 2009 was in full swing, meaning traffic and people galore. So we grabbed the first underground parking lot we could find near la Croisette, the city’s well-known seaside boulevard. Our first sight upon exiting le parking was of hundreds of huge yachts in the marina and, looking out on them, white tents with what seemed like conferences going on. Not a bad location, but potentially distracting for those attending! The crowds were enormous, especially as we neared the Palais des festivals et des congrès, where the films are shown and judged. It wasn't the right time of day to catch sight of glamorous celebrities climbing the famous escalier, but it was fun for us to see just the same. Again there were white tents with signs indicating the area of the American delegation, etc., this time barricaded inside a fence. Security was extremely tight, though the guards were nattily dressed in beige suits instead of uniforms to fit the stylish occasion, I suppose. As far as what really goes on at the film festival in Cannes, I have barely a clue. I do know that it’s practically impossible for the average person to get a ticket and actually see a film there. The festival is mainly a meeting place for producers, sales agents, distributors, and buyers from all over the world. Apparently anyone can submit a film and a good judgment by the international jury can launch a filmmaker’s career.

A little further down the boardwalk we passed some lovely, old hotels with their private beaches and matching umbrellas across the street. The majestic, early twentieth century Hôtel Carlton, whose façade was classified as a monument historique in 1989, still draws le jet-set and people like French actress Sophie Marceau who was staying in a room named after her. Just past the Carlton, we came upon l’Hôtel Martinez where photographers and tourists were grouped, apparently waiting for stars like Eva Longoria and her French husband Tony Parker (who were staying there) to exit the building. After a lunch of Lebanese food, we continued down la Croisette where there was yet another marina with more outrageously impressive yachts and the lovely Parc de la Roseraie, full of roses in bloom.

Exploring le Var

Since our stay in France is drawing to a close, we wanted to visit la Côte d’Azur once more especially because the weather has warmed up. Last Wednesday we took off for the town of Port-Fréjus which, with Fréjus and the neighboring city of Saint-Raphaël, make up a middle-sized metropolitan area which is not as expensive as other cities bordering the Mediterranean. For a while now, we had been wanting to explore the department of le Var and some of its famous resorts and cities.

Thursday morning we took a beautiful ride west along the coast to get to Saint-Tropez. Although the town was swarming with cars and people, reminding us a little of summer in Cape Cod, the population at this time of the year is nowhere close to the 80,000 or so tourists who invade the resort in the month of August alone! A large number of visitors was grouped beside le Vieux Port waiting for an enormous, gray yacht to retract its gangplank and set out to sea. The harbor itself was filled with all kinds of water craft, including some small, traditional fishing boats called les pointus. We circled the port and then followed le sentier du littoral, a coastal footpath right on the water’s edge. It is easy to understand the attraction of Saint-Tropez; it is a very clean, pretty city in a lovely setting with many expensive shops. Lunch was enjoyable, chatting with a Parisian couple about food, wine, and what to see in town. We took their advice and walked by la place des Lices, a vast square bordered by plane trees, where the twice-weekly marché is held. Then we drove up to la chapelle Sainte-Anne, located on top of a hill in a lovely park surrounded by cypress, pine, and oak trees. The chapel, built to thank God for sparing the town from the plague in 1720, offers a fine panorama of le golfe de Saint-Tropez and the neighboring city of Sainte-Maxime.

Sainte-Maxime, by the way, was in the news on May 8th because French president Nicolas Sarkozy celebrated the anniversary of the victory in Europe there this year. Just about everywhere we went along the coast on this trip, in fact, we were reminded of le débarquement de Provence in August 1944 and the sacrifices made by the Allies in World War II. We noticed monuments to the war dead and even what appeared to be an American landing craft in Le Dramont, just outside of Saint-Raphaël.

Our final activity for the day was to drive up to the ancient, fortified village perché of Grimaud. Named after the Grimaldi family which presently rules la principauté de Monaco, the town has beautiful architecture, as well as spectacular views of the countryside and the Mediterranean. We climbed up to the ruins of the eleventh century castle, destroyed in 1655 at the end of les guerres de religion on the orders of le cardinal Mazarin because of the town’s Protestant leanings.

Time and the French Paradox

Since the early 1990s there has been a lot of talk about the so-called “French paradox," a term coined by scientist Serge Renaud in Bordeaux. What is paradoxical is that the average French person consumes much more butter, cheese, cream, and pork than an American, but that the incidence of death from coronary heart disease is much lower in France. Research for awhile pointed to the consumption of red wine and, more recently, of any type of alcoholic beverage as the main reason for this inconsistency. And while many of us would love for a nice glass of Burgundy to solve any potential problems with our arteries, people who drink more than in France— in countries like Luxembourg and Germany—don’t reap the same health benefits. But what if the answer to the riddle has little to do with food? What if something else is the basis for the cardiac fitness of the French? Obviously, what I offer here has no basis in scientific study, just musings on one possible explanation for the paradox.


A huge difference that I see between Americans and the French is that they are not as tied to the clock as we are. They have an expression l’heure, c’est l’heure (roughly, “on time is on time”), but, from what I can tell, hardly anyone abides by it! I often tell the story about a job interview I once had in the Lyon area. I needed to take a long bus ride to get to the place and showed up 45 minutes behind schedule. Naturally, I went into the office all apologetic, but the man interviewing me said that I wasn’t late! Now maybe that was unusual, especially in an employment situation, but we’ve seen the same scenario in other contexts time and time again. Merchants don’t rush to open their doors right on the dot, and the same is true at closing time.

Another time-related issue has to do with dining out. When French people go out to eat, supper is the entertainment for the evening. Leisure time is not on a hectic schedule, as it is for many Americans. Many of us rush to the restaurant, and then dash off to see a play or a movie afterwards. Here, hours are spent leisurely enjoying a meal at the dinner table. In fact, a recent study showed that the French spend more time eating and sleeping than in any other nation in the world. Se la couler douce (“taking life easy”) doesn’t mean trying to squeeze as much activity as possible into the leisure time you have.

I’ve written about greetings before on this blog, but can’t resist mentioning again that people here take the time to acknowledge others. The cashiers at Shopi, our town supermarket, greet each of their customers, speak to them, and help them if necessary, no matter how long the line is, which can be frustrating for us impatient types! On buses, too, we’ve seen the driver say bonjour and au revoir to every single person on board, even if twenty or so people are all getting off at the same stop. At any rate, whatever the answer is to the French paradox, I’m convinced that it does not just boil down to one thing. I believe it is a lifestyle, an attitude toward living, as well as the fruits, vegetables, olive oil, and wine that they so like to consume.

Quelle belle vie!

In these times of la crise financière, I thought it might be fun to dream about how to enjoy France if money was no issue. So, here is my partial “wish list” that you are welcome to pick and choose from as desired. First of all, for a place to stay, forget two- or three-stars; the rooms are so small especially in big cities. Make your reservations at a super luxury hotel like l’Hôtel Plaza Athénée in Paris. Located in the 8e arrondissement between les Champs-Élysées, Paris's "main street," and la Tour Eiffel, it’s offering a special price until May 25th of only 695 euros a night (though I doubt that means for the room pictured)! If you’re interested in la province, you could get a far better deal. The Cour des Loges in le Vieux Lyon, for example, has a whole apartment complete with a separate living room for less.

As much as I love food and eating out, it may surprise you to learn that my list doesn’t include dinner at la Tour d’argent, le Jules Verne, or other restaurants étoilés from le Guide Michelin. (Although if staying at the l’Hôtel Plaza Athénée I could just go downstairs to Alain Ducasse’s restaurant…hmmmm, let me think that one over.) What I’d really like to do is take a food tour of Paris, like the ones presented by Canadian Stephanie Curtis, translator of Paul Bocuse’s cookbooks. For about 120€, which I believe includes lunch, she takes groups on a tour of Rungis (the big food market which replaced Les Halles), or le marché biologique on boulevard Raspail, or outdoor markets at la place Monge or on la rue Mouffetard. I suppose we could visit these locations on our own, but we certainly wouldn’t learn as much as with such a tour guide. Another food-related fantasy of mine concerns deluxe cooking schools. Last summer I’d picked up a secondhand copy of On Rue Tatin, which tells of Susan Herrmann Loomis's adventures at a culinary school in Paris and buying a house in la Haute-Normandie. She now holds cooking classes in Paris or in her small town of Louviers, south of Rouen. Another ex-patriot, cookbook author Patricia Wells, offers similar lessons in Provence and Paris.


But, let’s face it…the life I’m living is pretty nice the way it is. So, I’ll be content to discover gourmet spots in Paris for thirty euros or an English-speaking walking tour of the city for twelve. And if I really want to learn how to be a better cook there are places like Comme des chefs on rue de Sèze in Lyon where a chef teaches you to prepare exotic sushi or Thaï food for 40€ and includes a meal to bring home for two.

Only Lyon

Since we had spent a year in France’s third-largest city at the beginning of the 1990s with our two sons, we always feel a special connection with Lyon and try to get back for a visit every once in awhile. Part of our itinerary necessarily includes a walk past where we used to live in le sixième arrondissement ("the sixth district"), the boys’ former school, and the little park down rue Bossuet where they liked to play in the evenings. Obviously, many things in our old neighborhood have changed: the little Prety grocery store is gone, our former local boulangerie is no longer called Au Feu du Bois, and the big supermarché ATAC has been bought out by the oddly-named chain Simply Market. (Come to think of it, ATAC wasn't your run of the mill name for a supermarket either!) But other past “favorites” remain. The two chocolatiers on Cours Franklin Roosevelt, Bernachon and Tourtiller, are still going strong although the second shop has been sold and will soon have a new name.

One thing you notice right away about Lyon is how prosperous the city looks. Well-dressed citizens, beautiful architecture, shops selling fur coats, Dior clothing, Cartier jewelry, or Louis Vuitton luggage. What we didn’t realize is that Lyon has been an affluent area for centuries. The Office du tourisme, located in the city center on Place Bellecour, offered a nine-euro visit of le vieux Lyon Renaissance that we took advantage of last Thursday. One of our first stops was to see la Cathédrale Saint Jean and its fourteenth century horloge astronomique. This famous clock tells not only the time, but shows the season, the zodiac sign, and the yearly and ecclesiastical calendar; a mechanism adding the minutes was inserted in the 1600s. At 2:59 we watched as the angel on the left began the process by turning un sablier (“an hourglass”) back and forth in his hand. L’ange Gabriel then came out on the right to announce to Mary that she was to be the mother of Jesus, while Dieu le père (“God the Father”), dressed in red, nodded his approval from up above, just before the clock chimed three times. Our tour guide, an Austrian woman named Anneliese, pointed out that not many cities could afford such a device. Wealth came early to Lyon mainly by way of des foires (“fairs”) which brought 4,000 to 6,000 vendors from all over Europe several times a year to sell everything from textiles to spices. This led to the development of banking and printing industries in the city.


Along with an increase in riches came a corresponding increase in population. Our tour then concentrated on the well-known cours intérieures (“inner courtyards”), escaliers à vis (“spiral staircases”), and loges that were built to accommodate all of the people in the old part of the city. Apparently several twentieth century mayors wanted to raze le vieux Lyon in favor of more modern housing but were stopped by resident associations and author André Malraux, who served as ministre des Affaires Culturelles in the early 1960s. We also traveled through des traboules (from the Italian transambulare, “to travel across”), long passageways which enabled inhabitants to go from one street to another and served to hide people familiar with the system during the German Occupation in World War II.

La fête du travail, held every May 1st, is a national holiday, the equivalent of Labor Day in the United States. Great for all workers, not so great for travelers since there is no public transportation and not many businesses are open. Lucky for us, however, Lyon has a spacious and beautiful park, le Parc de la Tête d’or (so named because of a legend involving the buried statue of a golden head of Christ, which has never been found). We had a lovely day walking around the zoo, the lake, and flower gardens, as well as having lunch in one of the outdoor cafés on the property. All in all, it was a wonderful visit to Lyon, whose new motto "Only Lyon" is a play on the letters of its name.

Home Sweet...France?

The United States has long been criticized for being a kind of super-culture, a dominant force which is melding societies into one around the world. I remember being stunned years ago when a young boy in a remote village in Senegal asked me about Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls! It is not surprising then, I guess, that in France we are reminded of home almost daily, largely because of the omnipresence of American music. Television and radio programs alike include a preponderance of songs from outre-Atlantique. Each week La Nouvelle Star, a copy of American Idol (which was itself copied from a British TV program), features young people competing for the title of “The New Star.” Very often, they choose to sing in English. In restaurants, on buses, even at the marché in Bédoin, we hear American music from across the decades—the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, and Mariah Carey. Other Anglophone artists figure prominently on the music scene as well, like the highly popular British singer Amy Winehouse. A few weeks ago it was kind of fitting to hear Louis Armstrong singing “April in Paris” as we walked through our town's outdoor market!

But it is not only music that makes us think of home. Many French people now dress in a way that hardly distinguishes “them” from “us.” One Saturday afternoon in a restaurant in Carpentras I am pretty sure I was the only person not wearing blue jeans! At a park in Lyon last week Bermudas and other types of shorts, baseball caps, sneakers, and flip-flops, as well as jeans, seemed to be the apparel of choice. T-shirts everywhere herald American designers and manufacturers such as Calvin Klein, Gap, and Abercrombie & Fitch—or at least have fairly random English words like “Halloween” printed on them. In fact, for years now, finding t-shirts written in French has been practically an impossible task. Too bad we weren’t interested in buying souvenirs announcing “I [heart] New York” or “I [heart] Lyon”!

Larger cities and towns also have their fair share of businesses with English-sounding names. In Avignon a few weeks ago, we saw two clothing stores directly across from each other, one called Getaway and the other The Next Door. Restaurants, too, sometimes have names like Backstage Café or perhaps Smoking Dog. On their menus you might even find des brownies or some kind of crumble--à la rhubarbe, for example. Sometimes it’s nice to have a little touch of home when you’re far away.