South of France, Round 497

I have been so fortunate to have chosen a family with a house in the South of France.  I don't know how they do it, but many families just take vacations once a year, and on weekends are galavanting to different parts of France.  My family has a house they call their "home," and don't use that term lightly. They keep some clothes there, the kitchen is fully stocked and the bathroom looks like a Khiel's stockroom.  The yard is looked after with a careful hand and the pool is always crystal clear.  

Our home.

We arrived late afternoon on Saturday and I remember being very tired.  I had been up late with my friends that last week and up early trying to fit everything in.  I couldn't sleep on the train because Marie-Césare was constantly needing something, even though she was just as tired as I was.  The end of the French school year marks one thing:  not one child is well-rested.  Which is good, because they are all going to their Mami and Papi's house to breathe fresh air, eat well-balanced meals, and sleep.  

Didou was so excited about a spectacle we were going to that night, tickets were 20 euros, and she had won 2 tickets on a radio competition.  Bad thing was, it didn't start until 9:30pm and I was practically a zombie as we walked to the small arena.  We had taken a picnic of paté sandwiches, cherry tomatoes, and carrot sticks and found a good spot in what was a bull fighting arena in the small town of Mollégès, France.  Because it was a bull fighting arena, the crowd sat way up and the barriers must have been 11 feet high.  There were only two doors to get to the floor, and no one was allowed anywhere near.   9:30pm came and went, so did 10pm, and 10:30pm.  I picked up what I could from funny-accented announcements and figured out that because it wasn't quite dark enough the show would start at 11pm. It was a show that played with lights and computer projections which is why they required complete darkness.  (So-why they didn't tell everyone to come at 11 is beyond me...)

The show was actually really cool....but Marie-Césare was asleep after the second song, and she's the whole reason we came anyway.  It was a horse show, including dancing horses, horses with lights and torches and all kinds of fancy lighting contraptions.  There was a story behind each horse and dance, which was projected onto the floor using a camera.  From classical, to indian, to modern....we danced our way through the history of the world.  Marie-Césare slept soundly across our laps and didn't make a peep until the next morning.....I only wished at that point in all my exhausted agony that I could crawl across their laps too and sleep through the spectacle.  

That first week while in Provence, we slept, ate, slept some more, played in the pool and relaxed.  Seriously...that was our schedule.  It was a welcomed plan in my book because I was so tired.  I knew I had a million things to do in Paris, but for some reason being there I could tune everything out and not worry about it!  It was wonderful!  The fresh tomatoes were flowing, the lavender smelled like heaven, and the sky was as bright as turquoise blue waters in the Caribbean.  

Practicing her ballet.

Provençal sunsets are my favorite.

Marie-Césare had a slight problem with her skin in the sun, we can thank her eczema for that....so she went to the doctor on a random Thursday afternoon.  During that time, Padi took me to the Asylum where Vincent Van Gogh stayed during his time in Saint-Remy.  He arrived from Arles via Tarascon on a local train and took a horse-drawn carriage to Saint-Paul's asylum.  When he arrived, thirty of the rooms were empty which is why Van Gogh was given an extra room to use as his workshop.  He stay a little over a year, fifty-three weeks, (May 8, 1889-May 16, 1890) and during that time he painted approximately one hundred and fifty canvases and drew a little more than a hundred pictures.  He also wrote some six hundred letters while at Saint-Paul's...the majority of those going to his brother, Theo. Considering his major periods of depression and recovery, it was pretty fascinating that his periods of profitable creativity were so fast-moving.  He wrote about the captivating and beautiful landscape in Saint-Remy and the surrounding countryside.  They have preserved the landscape around the asylum to look exactly as it did during his time there.  Saint-Paul's is still in operation today, and patients wander the grounds as Van Gogh once did some hundred and twenty years ago.  

The cloister at Saint-Paul's Asylum

Looking out from Van Gogh's window in the asylum. 

So similar!!

Looking onto the asylum from the edge of the lavender fields.

Olive trees in the field next to the asylum. 

Okay...look at this picture...

Now this one....looks exactly the same? No?   

Some of my favorite shots from Saint-Rémy-de-Provence...

That next Saturday, we went to lunch for Padi's birthday.  It also happened to be Bastille day, so a one hour lunch turned into a three hour lunch very quickly.  We all ordered the prix-fixe menu, but the portions were so huge I could barely walk afterwards.  I started with a tomato and mozzarella salad topped with fresh olive oil from the trees next door and basil cut right in their garden.  My second course was a filet with sauce aux cèpes and grilled vegetables.  Last, but certainly not least, dessert was an apple and berry crumble which I just couldn't finish.  We got back home and I seriously just laid in the bed...I couldn't bring myself to move.  

Because we were so full, that evening we just had apéro in honor of Padi's birthday as well as his cake. We picked up a delicious tarte aux fruits from a local pâtisserie which was topped and glazed with local apricots, melon de Cavaillon, strawberries from Maillane, grapes, blackberries, kiwis and bananas.  It was delightfully perfect.  The vanilla cream between the homemade pastry and fruit was like heaven....it was the creamiest custard and the flecks of vanilla bean glistened between the fruit.  We went later on that evening to see the fireworks show in Saint-Remy, but Marie-Césare got too scared without doudou Babel so we had to come home before it even started.  

Padi's cake.

We played school, I read Pinkalicious five hundred times, saw Monsieur Victor and his carrousel eighty-six times, saw Monsieur Abricot thirty-four times, and took dips in the piscine every afternoon.  We had yogurt ice cream from a local shop that was to die for, I found my favorite confiture de figues that pairs perfectly with goat's cheese, and ate a hundred melons from Cavaillon.  We stumbled upon a toro competition in Saint-Remy one evening.  The sidewalks were barred up so the public could not get through, but still see the roads...and they let a hundred toros loose and self-proclaimed Provençal cowboys chased after them.  It was quite the sight.  We buried about twenty cicadas that had died in the swimming pool filters and we had one giant splinter that took twenty-four hours to get out.  

Sunday afternoon BBQ.

Burying the cicada's.  Her family isn't religious...but she learned this method of praying from "Little House on the Prairie" which she watches religiously every evening.  

The headstone for the cigales.  

Her hairdo we made...

Trying her hand at knitting...

Taking baths outside..

Having fun in the pool!

We also spent a day in Aix-en-Provence shopping, walking around, talking to a man in a café for more than two hours....it was wonderful.  To get to Aix, as the locals call it, you take my favorite tree lined route on the A7, which instantly provokes thought and inspiration as the sun glistens through the leaves on the tall trees.  About an hour away, Aix isn't too far from away from anything.  It is a pretty sizable city, with 143,000 inhabitants who are called aixois or if you are female-aixoise.  Aix averages 300 days of sunshine a year and a low temperature hovering around 40 degrees Fahrenheit.  The Cours Mirabeau is the star of the show, with tiny restaurants and some of the world's best shopping dotting the sidelines.  Double rows of plane trees line the hefty street as well as fountains that have been around  since the city was built.  Aix is also known as the city of a thousand fountains and after visiting, I completely believe that's true.  Every place, corner, street is dotted with stunning moss-lined fountains with crystal clear water.  There's not much for kids to do, which made for a long day with Marie-Césare, but she quickly found where the kids were hanging out-near the carrousel and bouncy contraption.  

Cours Mirabeau

La rotonde.

Look at that beautiful sky. 

Being la fusée, or rocketship.  

The fountain at Place d'Albertas.  The buildings surrounding the fountain date back to 1724.  

Cours Mirabeau without the market.

Founded in 123 BC, with many of the remaining buildings dating back to the 15th century, the cobblestone lined streets give way to a memory of a life long, long ago.  The old, painted, wooden shutters were a window into a past life.  The huge wooden doors dating back to the 17th century opened my mind to a time when things were simple, and the golden sun was truly enjoyed.  I'm so glad that Padi and Didou took time to show me Aix-en-Provence....for I don't think anyone should leave Provence without visiting!  

My time in Provence came to a close all too quickly, and before I knew it, Marie-Césare and I were saying our (sad, on my end) goodbyes to Padi and Didou at the TGV station in Avignon.  Huge hugs and tears were passed around as they assured me I could visit whenever my heart desired.  She told me she would always be my French grandmother and that if I ever needed anything at all to let her know.  Our train ride to Valence to meet Chloé, Franck, and Gaspard was only 30 minutes (hardly enough time for the TGV to pick up any speed) but it felt like a lifetime.  I was leaving two of the sweetest, most thoughtful, selfless people I had ever met....not knowing when I would see them again.  I couldn't thank them enough for the love and friendship they had shown me over the past two years, all the while couldn't stop thinking about the "goodbye" that was ahead of me the next day:  saying goodbye to the most wonderful family in all of France.