Oct 8 -- Lourmarin

Lourmarin Oct 8
Yesterday Sven and Balika went to Marseille to meet with the original curator of the Pinard collection of Aleutic masks. I guess there is still a mystery of some missing masks.
Fabienne and I took the kids up the hill behind our house and we ate ham and cheese crescents, almond crescents, and cold pizza under some pine trees.




Fabienne made German pancakes for dinner. We wrapped steamed green and wax beans, spinach, and Corsican goat cheese. For dessert we spread nutella and fresh raspberries on the crepes-like pancakes. Ymm!
Today is our last full day in Provence so we drove to Lourmarin for their Friday market and soaked in the colors--yellows, reds, blues, and greens of the baskets and table linens; the smells--lavender, curries, cheese, olives,




roasted chicken, and semi-fresh fish;

how could cherry tomatoes be so perfect?

lots of olives!

sausage

lavender sachets

and the sound of the obliquitous accordion player. Balika bought soaps for gifts, Fabienne bought pottery, Sven bought an expresso maker, and I spent 6 E on a couple of olive wood spoons.

curries

Next, we drove to Bonnieux, the setting for Peter




Mayle's "a Year in Provence." we walked up another winding cobblestone road to a hilltop mid- evil church and gazed at the vineyards and tile roofs below.




Balika had gone to a roof-tile factory in Corsica where she learned that the tiles used to be formed by laying the wet clay on women's thighs.
Bella demanded to find ducks to feed her lunch leftovers. Near Apt, we stopped at a lake where dozens of school kids were getting sailing lessons in tiny sailboats. Mallards preened under a weeping willow on one end of the lake. Soon Bella had disseminated her bread scraps and the new crises became the lack of food for the whole flock. We promised her more ducks to feed tomorrow.

Oct 5 -- Roussillon & Gordes

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Roussillion and Gourds , Oct 4
Inspired by the tour of the ochre factory, we returned to Roussillon to walk the Canyon Colorado. The path winds through pine and chestnut forest. Purple heather and orchids line the brick-red trail. Around each curve, formations of ochre-saturated rock in sunset hues of red, orange, and gold, loom over the trail.

Coming out of the park, we eat goat-cheese pizza at a cafe then wander the orange cobblestone streets, taking pictures of limestone buildings, with rainbow hued mortar.

Cobalt berries dangled from Green ivy in the process of turning orange clung to the walls of the buildings and Terra-cotta pots displayed geraniums, impatiens, cyclamen, and violets. Each shop displayed either the bright-color Provence fabrics, decorated with olive branches, lavender, and sunflowers; pottery colored with the local ochre; or abstract art inspired by the surrounding cliff-faces.

We had kids pose for photos under arches and against walls that mirrored Bella's pink skirt or Balika's red hair.

Our next stop was Gordes, another hilltop village favored by cinematographers. It seems to organically grow out of the limestone rocks that form the mountain. Rock walls and cypress tree line the road to the top. The restored castle, the caves under the town, and many of the restaurants are closed for the winter in spite of the summer-like weather. Us Alaskans would not have liked it here in the August heat!

Next we drove 2.5 k to The final must-see village in the area--Bories, a restored prehistoric village of beehive-shaped unmortered limestone dwellings. The restoration was extensive and included hand-tools for pressing olive oil, a tool shed, an cooking room with a pizza oven, and sheep and pig barns.
We returned to our home with all four cameras beeping the low-battery signal.

Oct 4 -- Nimes

Nimes and Fabienne's arrival Oct 4

Our first stop in Nimes was the colosseum. It had been built shortly after the one in Rome. Although not as elaborate and grandiose, it is better preserved and was not cannibalized of all marble and travertine to build catholic churches like that of rome. The arena is still utilized for bullfights and events. The kids received their mouse guides with things to check off after they are found.
 I was impressed with the free audio guide that went into almost too much detail about the colosseum, especially the different kinds of gladiators. I'd wished that the Rome guides had more information and better delineated markers.
The kids were unimpressed with the two thousand-year-old colosseum. Imagine being 4 or 7 and thinking that your 61year-old grandmother is ancient.
Next we went to the square-house, or Maison Carree, the best-preserved pre-Christian Roman temple in the world. The interior of the temple is under reconstruction so we watched the 22 minute 3-d video of the temple's function as an oracle and then Eilidh was frightened by some graphic gladiator and sword fights(also in 3-d).
Nimes is on the ancient road from Italy to Spain, first used by the Greeks in the time of Hercules.
A short car ride brought us to the Jardin de la Fontaine, a peaceful park surrounding a limestone plaza and grotto-like spring. We climbed up cobblestone ramps and ascended 246 steps to the base of the octagonal Tour Magne (the oldest Roman monument in Gaul). Bella and I took turns blowing bubbles and chasing them while Sven, Balika, and Eilidh climbed the additional 228 steps to the top of the tower.
We picked up Fabienne (exchange student, 2007, from Munich) at the Avignon train station.

Oct 3 -- Provence,ocher factory, and Aix en Provence

We drove winding roads to a town that had a Sunday market that specializes in antiques. Balika and Sven found their cast-iron, hand-shaped door-knocker. We ate lunch in a cafe next to a clear, fast-flowing canal. Balika and I shared a salad with warm goat cheese on crackers. Our carnivore, Sven had raw hamburger with a raw egg on top. The waiter confirmed that he was knowingly ordering, "beuf tartare."

Sven's Beuf Tartare

We returned to St. Saturnin by way of Roussilon. Until the 1960's it housed a substantial factory that mined and produced various colors of ochre dyes.


Walking by a system of decanting pools throughout pine woods, we checked out the monstrous gears and belts of the grinding, pressing, and filtering machines in rooms covered with red, yellow and orange dust.
At the end of the tour the kids, including Sven and me, mixed water- colors and painted on paper provided for us.





The following morning we went to Aix en Provence to meet Philipe, friend of Sven's. Philipe's boat is wintering in Kodiak after completing transiting Arctic Russia. We followed Philipe in the rain through the streets of Aix looking for an open restaurant.

Our two, bright-colored rainy day, girls

Its too bad it is Monday--everything is closed.

Oct 2 -- Provence--st. Saturnin

Balika, Sven, and the kids picked me up at the Nice airport and we stayed in Antibe for the night. Sven had little problem resesitating my ipad by restarting and eliminating cookies.
In the morning we walked through the market. The fresh figs were the size of tangerines. Balika was looking for a classic door knocker but the only ones at the market weighed as much as most American doors. We bought bread, cheese, and strawberries.
At the Picasso museum--a sixteenth century castle built at the site of the ancient Greek acropolis of Antipolis overlooking the harbor of Antibe, where picasso had lived and worked at the end of WWII, four-year-old Bella and Sven sat in the ceramic room and sketched impressions from Picasso's collection of hand- formed and painted plates. Seven-year-old Eilidh showed me her favorite paintings.

Three hours later we reached St Saturnin and settled into our rental for the week. Arched hallways and a confusing winding staircases separated kitchen, living room, four bathrooms and bedrooms. The kids and I went walking around the tiny town looking for a bottle of wine and some fruit and milk for breakfast.

Our house was next to the ruins of a 12th century castle. It could be considered to be on three levels however there are some bathroom and laundry alcoves partway up each of the tiled spiral stairwells that wind up either side of the 16 foot wide house. The first floor consists of cave-like arched kitchen, living room and dining room. Bella and Eilidh share a room next to mine on the second floor. A tv and computer room is a few steps above that and one set of stairs goes to Balika and Sven's suite and another winds up to Fabienne's room.There's not much of a view other than the neighbor's ivy-covered walls as the homes are kind of built amongst tunnels and rock paths through the town's protective walls.

In the evening we followed the passageway through the old city walls and climbed up the hill amidst the ruins of the Thirteenth century hilltop castle.

Oct 1 -- St. Peter;s

St. Peter's Basilica Oct 1

La Pietra by Michelangelo 

For my last half day in Rome I decide to return to St Peter's mostly because I had purchased a three- hour long audio guide before leaving the states. It was a relief to arrive at a nearly-empty Basilica and to be able to follow my guide through her descriptions and significance of architectural, artistic, and religious elements.
I'd learned to appreciate Bernini's sculptures at the Borghese so it was wonderful to admire more of them, including his last.





The 100 foot, one-piece granite obelisk pointing skyward in the center of St. Peter's square had been removed from in front of the sun temple in egypt by the conquering romans. a ship had to be built to carry it and the Roman's victoriously delivered it to Rome as a spoil of war.




Except for missing my new VBT friends who departed this morning, I had a lovely, peaceful, and relaxing morning. I caught a cab to the airport, way too early, anxious to be with family again.

Sept 30 -- Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome Sept 30

Dawn, Suzy, and me

I met Dawn, John, Miles, and Suzy in the lobby at 8:00 AM and we cabbed to the colosseum. Once there, we climbed to it's top and gazed into the excavated walkways and storage areas below the floor.




Much of the marble and metal had been stripped from the colosseum and other Roman monuments to use to build St Peter's and other catholic edifices during the 16th century. Remains of elaborate marble statuary sit next to brick walls where one has to imagine how they appeared two thousand years ago.





The colosseum was built about 80 AD. It was shortly after the Roman's had defeated the province of Judaea and because the Jews refused to worship the Roman Emperor as a god, 50,000 Jews were were forced into labor to build the colosseum and later, the arch of Constantine.




We spent the next couple of hours hiking through the rest of ancient Rome, Dawn reading from Rick Steve's guide. We ate lunch in the catacombs, in a place where the wine cellar was a sequence of catacomb rooms filled with dusty bottles and candelabras.

The afternoon was spent visiting the oldest church in Rome. Dating to 200AD, it is in the working section of town and it's occupants were the catholic faithful rather than tourists.

I spent the evening on my own walking around Rome visiting some of the places I had missed--the Spanish Steps and the Treve fountain.




Not having anyone to experience the romantic setting, I tossed two coins over my shoulder into the marble pool, bought a gelato, and people-watched. Four hours after leaving the hotel, I found it again and collapsed in satisfied exhaustion.