A la recherche du pain perdu
The trip to France, which Cath and I undertook over the Xmas/New Year period, was absolutely brilliant. Cath's health held up, by and large, with only one minor episode of blindness on a Parisian afternoon, and a few losses of balance. On the other hand, we had great experiences in all three cities in which we stayed, climaxed by a week in a white Paris, where it started snowing the night we arrived back and hardly stopped for seven days. We went in with the attitude that "Anything that doesn't kill you, makes you stranger" and it served us well.
Paris on Xmas
The trip reinforced how much I hate air travel as a method of getting from Australia to elsewhere (and I acknowledge the lack of any reasonable alternative), even given the extra leg-room afforded by Emirates and the availability of such a variety of entertainment during the flights. The flight over enabled us to leave early on Xmas Eve (Sydney time) and arrive the same evening in Paris, with a brief stopover in Dubai. The movies have suggested that from every street in Paris, you get a great view of the Eiffel Tower. 
Thus, we were shocked when alighting from the cab at the hotel we'd booked for Xmas Eve and Xmas Night to see the view at left. The Xmas Eve arrival meant we could get to Notre Dame for midnight Xmas mass (as I did in 1976 and 1988, on my two previous visit to Paris). Unlike the previous visits, this time the cathedral was full, even in the standing room areas in the aisles on either side of the nave, 
signalling either a return to religion amongst the largely secular French, or a discovery of the experience by more tourists. Equally it meant a great Paris day on Xmas Day, including the Eiffel Tower, where we had prebooked tickets for a visit that took us from late afternoon into the early night, and great views of Paris (as seen on right), and thence to the 
Boulevarde Haussmann to look at the Xmas lights in the main shopping area of Paris, 
and the incredibly decorated Xmas windows of Galleries Lafayette (left) and Printemps (right), the two largest stores, with marionettes and designer-inspired fashions. And hundreds of parents showing their kids the windows.
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Nice is nice
Our week in Nice (left) was highlighted by the discovery of this delightful beach-side city and several equally beautiful villages in its vicinity, Vence, La Turbie, and Beaulieu-sur-Mer. Here, as in Avignon, and in Paris on our return in January, we stayed in an apartment, that meant we could self-cater. The availability of the old town, with its food markets, made this easy, so we could subsist on one restaurant meal a day, usually at lunch, and supply our own breakfast, if required, and dinner.
Nice also hosted a Xmas carnival in its main square, and had a profusion of street lights to mark the festive season and a Christmas in Russia themed carnival in the parkland between the main shoppinf district and the old city. 
The theme of the carnival was apposite because strangely Nice, as a result of its affiliation with expatriate Russian nobles in the nineteenth century, also features a magnificent Russian Cathedral. 
In the hills of Cimiez above the city, we discovered a monastery, a set of Roman ruins and the house in which Matisse once lived - now a museum of his works.
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We made several excursions from Nice. We really enjoyed the medieval hillside town of Vence, where we spent our silver wedding anniversary, with its delightful modern Matisse-designed chapel.
In contrast, along the seaside just east of the city, in the village of Beaulieu-sur-Mer, there was the outrageous illogicality of the Villa Kerylos, a classic Athenian house, 
with appropriate statues, furnishings and floor designs, built at the start of the last century. Nearby, in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, was the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild, 
an early twen-cen monstrosity with a tonne of acquired medieval art and a series of fountains, performing in synchronity with classical music in its extensive gardens.
New Year's Eve was spent on the Nice beach-front with the locals, who relied largely on the fireworks supplied by nearby Monaco, rather than pay for their own. Our last meal in Nice was the best - lunch on New Year's Eve in the local seafood restaurant, where Donna and I enjoyed the oysters, which were large and luscious, and I had a magnificent fish soup, in veloute style, which reduced the mixture to the pure essence of the seafood components, and Cath enjoyed a superb pasta marinara.
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A week in Provence
Avignon was the home of several medieval popes during their "Babylonian exile". 
As a result, its palaces and squares reflect the wealth that flowed into the city during that time. And it still retains much of that medieval look and feel in the old town. In Avignon, we found a local coffee shop, where we enjoyed breakfast: a half baguette and strong black coffee. It was opposite the local covered markets, where we bought our day's supplies. 
We explored the town. In effect, we explored the nolder medieval parts of the city, within the well-preserved walls. It is a lovely city, with plenty of churches and houses from the earlier era, 
and much that is more modern. This included the Pope's Palace, built by successive Popes during the Babylonian Exile and featuring some magnificent rooms and artworks. 
It even had a turret where you could take piccies of each other. We didn't actually get to any of the museums except for those within the Pope's Palace itself, but Avignon tutns out to be another vibrant city, enlivened by the presence of a university.
Just outside the walls was the legendary Pont d'Avignon, on which no women were dancing round and round, crossing the river half-way these days and visible from both the turrets and from ground level. . 
There too were opportunities for images in front of famous monuments, this time showing Cath with our friend, Donna, who accompanied us on this trip. 
At the other end of the old town was the street of the cloth dyers, through which ran an old stream powering water wheels and along which were some of the better preserved abbeys and houses, some the site of excellent restaurants and stores.
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We also ventured to nearby Orange (the original home of the house of Nassau, from whom were descended the rulers of the Netherlands and, of course, "Williamandmary, the Dutch Orange"), 
which houses the remains of the best-preserved Roman theatre in Europe and an interesting Arc de Triomphe, which is situated at the other end of town. Here we also ventured into a local workers' bar on the way back to the station as a way of experiencing the local customs.
Les-Baux-de-Provence is the remains of a medieval hill fort, 
in the midst of olive and wine country. We went there and the town of Gordes on a bus trip from Avignon. Les Baux is isolated on a hill above the 
Valley of Sin in which the local hotels are situated. You climb through the old town to get to the remains of the fort.
On the same day, we went to one of the villages perchés, Gordes (on the left is what it should look like), where the view was spoiled by a thick fog that rolled in (as it had earlier in La Turbie, another perched village, the one above Monaco). 
Much as we enjoyed the view of the Dragon's Breath spreading over the landscape, we would have preferred to have seen the sights available on a clear day, 
but one of the joys of serendipity tourism is that you can take the bad with the good, including Gordes lovely twisted streets, which we could explore despite the fog. On this trip, the serendipitous discoveries far outweighed the occasional disappointment.
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Un blanc Paris
The train trip back to Paris was equally magical: from Valence north, the landscape was a winter wonderland of surpassing beauty. 
Because the snowscape cleared before the capital, we thought that we had missed out on a white Paris this time, as we had in 1988-89, when last we travelled in winter.
But the view out the apartment window on January 7, as we awoke, was magnificent, and pure white. 
This was the day we planned to visit Chartres, and its gothic cathedral, a short train ride south of Paris. Chartres was even whiter than Paris, and we had great fun trudging through snow to the church. The downside of the heavy snowfall was that Malcolm Miller, the eccentric Pom who has made Chartres his home for fifty years, 
and the cathedral the object of his affection, was not available for the tour in English he usually offers each day. According to his phone call, (the phone was handed to me by the gift shop attendant), he was stuck at home because the snow had not been cleared from his door. 
We still had a great day, self-guiding ourselves around the cathedral. An early and classic Gothic cathedral, Chartres is blessed with some of the finest stained glass windows in Christendom. 
In particular the Chartres blue is a shade originated (and perfected) in the vitrail of this cathedral. Around the outside is arrayed a variety of statuary and some of the finest flying buttresses, 
a way of externally supporting the magnificent heights of the Gothic vaults and to enable the installation of the stained glass windows that admitted so much light, and in such a variety of awe-inspiring colors. 
Miller had taught Cath and me to "read" a cathedral on our earlier visit. This time we had the opportunity of seeing much of the statuary with snowy yamulkes and other white adornments, 
including some very strange looking gargoyles. While in Chartres, we also had an excellent meal at a nearby restaurant, where Cath finally got the Duck Cassoulet she had been seeking.
The apartment in Paris was by far the most comfortable of the trip. We also found a radio station (105.1 FM) that mixed jazz with classical music and modern pop/rock to provide an interesting background to our ruminations on the day just finishing. Again, as in Nice, we provided our own breakfasts. 
We had the market street of Rue Mouffetard nearby to supply our food needs and to provide ingredients to make our own dinners when required. It was a comfortable base from which to explore Paris.
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A day had to be spent at the Musee d'Orsay, which ranks with the Prado as the world's greatest art museum, although it wins additional points because of the setting: 
a disused railway station converted into a magnificent art space, housing painting, sculpture, art nouveau furniture, film and other creative endeavors from the period 1850-1914. The museum is undergoing renovations so many of the paintings were not on display 
(in fact a large number were in Canberra for an exhibition). But there were sufficient good Van Goghs and Monets, Lautrecs and Degas, as well as Rodin and Claudel 
sculptures to make the visit more than worthwhile. Even better are the rooms on the first floor that feature the art deco furniture of the period, not only tables, chairs and cupboards, but mirrors and vases and other decorative items.
I finally got to the north of Paris to visit the basilica of Saint Denis, Abbe Suger's cathedral, which was the progenitor of the Gothic cathedral. 
Here are the same sort of architectural features we saw at Chartres, the flying buttress and the tall vaults, although not quite as sophisticated. The kings and queens of France, from Merovingians through the Bourbons, are interred here in a series of 
tombs of various compexity that dot the eastern end of the aisles and behind the altar and choir. The church stands in the middle of what is now a northern suburb of Paris (although originally well outside the medieval Paris walls) and was the site of a huge market the day on which we visited.
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We walked through the Pantheon, where non-royal French celebrities are buried, and 
visited the Marais, the Jewish district, where haute couture boutiques are beginning to crowd out the delis and falafel sellers. The Marais is next door to much more up-market neighborhoods, including the Place de Vosges, 
the square with collonaded arcades around it, built by Catherine de Medici in imitation of her native Italian cities, and looking very white in mid-winter.
The Musee National du Moyen Age was another cultural icon through which we toured. 
Originally the site of a Roman baths over which was built an abbey for the weathy abbot of Cluny, the museum houses many medieval treasures, including the series of Lady and the Unicorn tapestries. Nearby was the Church of St Severin, 
a much smaller local place of worhsip than the large Cathedrals we'd also visited. Here the older stained glasses were supplemented by more modern windows, that admit an interesting profusion of light and colors.
While the cold was a disincentive to long walks, we dedicated one day to a walk from our digs to the river and over to the right bank. 
On the way we went through the Gardens of Luxembourg, another gift from Catherine de Medici, which were even white than the Place de Vosges, 
seeing incredible sights like a frozen water fountain. There were some interesting bookshops in the back streets, including one called (ironically) Le Dilletante, where I bought a couple of interesting books on local Parisian hisory. On the right bank, passing through a closed Louvre (it was a Tuesday), we walked further, past the 
Place de Vendome, to see the swanky shops of Rue St Honore and its environs, including the Opera and even Coco Chanel's original digs on Rue Cambon.
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... and back again
Truly a succession of enjoyable days, good food and fine company, which was spoiled somewhat by the necessity of another 22-hour transit back to Sydney and the re-adjustment over a weekend back to local time, and local temperatures, which were 20-40 degrees higher.
I'm not sure that three weeks is long enough for an overseas trip - you just find your feet when you are swept off them again - but there were so many good and serendipitous moments in those three weeks - a sort of concentrated best parts tour of France. Lots of good memories and lots of strong images - many of them white.
First written: February 2010
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