Week V - Hills

[(Full photo album is here: "Pics") For now, without commentary. I'll try to fix that.]

Well. Damn glad I got THAT out my system. I'm pretty sure I saw Peter Mayle in three different cafes this last week, which was dedicated to "cute towns of France, mainly in Provence." (With the exception of Lyon. Since it was August, and Lyon -- which has things to do other than cater to tourists -- was closed, the jury is still out there.)

My first stop after leaving Germany was Besancon, where my classmates and I had stayed for a week with French families during my semester abroad in college. Just popped in to check on it. It was much sunnier this time, and didn't really ring any bells, except, oddly, that it only took a few minutes before I remembered that Besancon has an inordinately high number of shoe stores and lingerie shops.

Then to Tournus, a small town with a church. Three weddings took place that night. The town itself is mostly unremarkable, save for a very nice, cheap hotel and a great restaurant. I got lucky and snagged one of the two outside tables. Showing up unfashionably early has become a skill...one disadvantage of travelling alone, I have discovered, is that nobody wants to give up a table for four to you. A traditional salad with warm goat cheese and bacon, and a steak with a scrumptious pepper sauce made for a nice reentre.

The next day I took back roads through vineyards to Lyon, passing through Chardonnay and other well-known regions. One my favorite "you'll never capture that on film" moments was a snow white cat hunting phantom beasts in the middle of a huge grass field.

Lyon continues to elude me. It's France's second biggest city, and from the air, or a crest of the auto-route leading in, you can see that. The historical center has blocks and blocks of seven-story buildings uniformly lining each side of the street, producing an aura akin to downtown Chicago, without the skyscrapers. You know...delis, shoeshine boys, alleys filled with trash. It's reputed to be the upstart city, full of vim and vigor, but I didn't see it this time.

I remember being ambivalent about Lyon when I was 16, and guess I still am.

Perhaps as a subconscious antidote, I next force-fed myself on Provence, heading deep into the interior, the Vaucluse. This is where they grow the food and grapes and animals that feed the chateaux owners. They also specialise in medieval hilltop towns.

I chose my base by looking for the best-reviewed, available and affordable hotel within 100 km of Avignon, and heading there. Sometimes fate smiles on you (even more so when you don't actually have to be anywhere in particular), and the hotel was incredibly nice. After dinner, the older couple seated next to me struck up conversation. They were French, but we decided to stick with English. Without being terribly obnoxious about it, they made it clear that they could stay at any hotel in the world (and have) and were also very happy with where we were all staying (even if they were "just passing through" on their way back to Paris). So to the Clos de La Glycine, in Roussilon, here's my plug :)

Roussilon is one of the few places in the world where they mine ochre. Residents have taken advantage of this resource, and the town is very colorful. The ochre quarry itself is fascinating. And my black sandals are now permanently red, I fear.

I stayed there two nights, spending the full day inbetween exploring the other charming hilltop towns nearby. Fun, but, honestly, I think I've had enough for a while. A town should have an independent reason to exist...something other than tourists and 500-year old charm. (Unless it's a beach, lake or ski resort. They have their own rules.)

Heading out of the hills, I landed in Aigues-Mortes, chosen primarily because it was close to, but not actually in, Montpellier.

Its raison d'etre is the perfectly preserved wall surrounding the town. And salt. And flamingos. And huge mosquitos. Points for breadth -- if not depth -- of specialty.

It's a small town, so on the second day, having seen literally every shop there, I rented a little 6 hp fiberglass boat and went out to cruise the canals. Anytime someone lets me drive anything without performing some sort of qualifying test, I get nervous. Maybe because it means at least half the other people are in the same boat (pun unavoidable).

So, at 5, maybe 7 max, knots per hour, I cruised the mighty canals. White-knuckled and hoping nobody on shore noticed that my idea of "holding a straight course" involved turning right, then left, then right. Repeatedly. Like a drunken sailor (simile unavoidable). But, for an hour, a small part of me had fun pretending to be a salty old dog on the way back to his riverside shack. Like blackjack, I considered it money well spent. (Blackjack is for James Bond fantasies, by the way, not salty old dog ones. Although...there's always someone with a pipe and an eyepatch in the Bond movies, too, so maybe I'm just missing the connection.)

A plus tard!