The Inaccurate Tourist

20. Quiche

In fact, I've been in Paris for two weeks since my vacation in the south, but I stole a week of vacation to use in my last travel log. Since my return, I've mainly been getting back into normal France life, which is surprisingly similar to my Canadian life -- laundry, work, walking, reading, eating. Except it goes without saying that the food is better, even when I make it myself.

One of the things I make myself these days is quiche. It's incredibly simple, looks impressive and is quite tasty. You start with a round pan, and drop in your pastry. The vocabulary for pastry is impressive, starting with pâte brisée (short pastry), pâte feuilletée (puff pastry), and pâte sucrée (sweet short pastry), and heading towards choux pâte, which is used for intricate cream puffs and eclairs. For salé dishes (literally salty, but means "savoury" regardless of salt content) such as the quiche, you use pâte brisée. It comes pre-made at the market, conveniently cut and rolled in oven-safe paper. As with mayonnaise, there are probably purists who insist it must be home-made.

The next quiche step is to mix up some eggs. Are the eggs in Canada the same as eggs in France? Completely comparable, as long as you're comparing free range eggs (brown shell with farm debris clinging to it, and bright yellow yolks). Even the cafeteria hard-boiled eggs have a brilliant orange/yellow yolk. Unlike Canada, the eggs aren't refrigerated in the supermarkets, which seems to suggest that they make it to the market quickly, and don't expect to hang around there very long.

I usually drop in some slices of torn-up ham. Slices of cooked ham are unusually expensive in France, and you purchase them in individually wrapped packages of two or four slices in the supermarket. The recipe is finished with some cheese (mozzarella works well, as does edam, emmental, or even gruyere), and typically some fresh thyme from my potted plant.

The egg is poured into the pastry, which is carefully folded over top of it, and stuck in the toaster oven at 150 degrees Celsius for about forty-five minutes. The result is easier to make than mac and cheese, but you can take pride in it, which only goes to show that real men DO eat scrambled-egg-pie.

But it's not like I didn't do anything cultural this last week. I had the good fortune to meet with Aaron (Canadian) and Jim and Chris (other). They were visiting Paris for a week to celebrate getting their MBAs from MIT, and they had impressively covered all of the major landmarks. Aaron spoke a bit of French from his days on the Quebecois farm, and we compared our pronunciation.

After visiting the Musée de l'Erotisme (seven stories of smut for seven euro, sometimes historical, sometimes disturbing, and sometimes even clever), we stopped for supper at Quick, a French fast food restaurant. This is the first time that I've eaten fast food in France, at least from a chain, but I was easily convinced to break my fast food fast to experience the French equivalent.

The menu was pretty typical, with frites, the typical burgers, chicken burgers, fish burgers, the upcharge for the large fries. I had the Mozza Club Menu, which was fries, a coca (cola of any brand), and a sandwich that was equal parts tomato, mozzarella and mayonnaise between two perfectly round pieces of toast. We marvelled at the attractive girls who were just hanging around the area as tourists (Pigalle is known for the sex shops and cabarets) and at the elderly ladies going to see the racy show at the Moulin Rouge.

In the bar afterwards, we discussed coca (sometimes we call it "pop" in Canada) and food vocabulary (everybody knows how to say "free prize inside" in Canada), John Candy and Dan Ackroyd, CanCon and Brian Adams, how popular football was in Europe and how Zedine compared to Gretzky. Finally, Jim asked why the topic always seemed to turn to Canada. I replied "insecurity". We discovered a better answer later -- in fact, the world turns around Canada, because "we own the North Pole". (If you're fussy about details, or don't want to get into territorial law, you can amend that to "we own the magnetic North Pole." And if you're truly anal retentive, you can add "... for now.")

It was either Oscar Wilde or Bleu LaPeluche who said "Being an expatriate is like being a person who has moved from their country of citizenship to a different country, altogether." You know, in his way, I think he was right.

Make your own quiche and leave mine alone.

19. Popes

It was still raining hard when we woke up in Provence, so we decided to continue on to Avignon. We didn't have breakfast at the hotel, so we stopped at the next village to visit a café. By this time, I had switched from the morning café court to café au lait. The former is tiny and strong like espresso, and the latter is the same thing diluted threefold in hot milk. I really enjoy the strong coffee, but it's more peaceful to take a larger and slower coffee in the morning. From what I've observed, this is a common sentiment.

The drive to Avignon was uneventful except for a little detour within Aix-en-Provence. We were trying to find the freeway route, but all the directions pointed towards the non-toll roads. Many of the larger roads in France are péage, or toll roads. All of the entrances have booths where you pick up a ticket, and you pay (either cash or VISA) on exit. Since we had already explored some of the back country, we tried to take the freeways where possible. The average toll for our short hops on the freeway (at 130km per hour) was 4€.

The center of Avignon is the walled medieval city, once again with twisty streets that aren't well suited to automobiles and parking. During the fourteenth century, the Papacy was moved from Italy to France for political reasons, and the city was well-fortified with the wealth of the Catholic church. This has left an incredible historical legacy, including a curious exception in the French language -- you generally use à to refer to a city as a location and en to refer to a country. Thus, you would say J'habite à Paris or J'habite à Orléans or J'habite en France. The only exception is Avignon, which enjoys a special status -- J'habite en Avignon.

The office de tourisme in Avignon doesn't handle hotel reservations as in Nice, but it had a bulletin board listing all the hotels and their vacancies. In general, the hotels don't advertise their vacancies with neon signs; you have to go in to ask. Since it was a long weekend, many of the hotels were fully booked. The next two hotels were listed at the tourist office as having vacancies at noon -- once we arrived to check at one o'clock, they were full. It actually wasn't difficult to find a hotel, but it takes some time. We eventually found a place at the (Hôtel Mignon, a one star establishment (at 58€ a night). You can see our room (six) on the web site.

Our first destination was the Palais de Papes, which is a colossal structure in the middle of the city, and where the Popes lived during their stay in Avignon. The entry price was pretty steep (11€ including a pass to the bridge), and the tour was conducted by those little electronic audio devices. You enter the room number and it burbles into your ear in a cheerful English accent.

I discovered an interesting fact about these devices -- there isn't a tape, so if you fast forward or rewind, it electronically cues the dialog to the appropriate position. The designers play a fake sound clip during fast forward and rewind to mimic the squeaking and popping of the human voice at high speed.

The Palais de Papes (as my little hitchhiker's guide informed me) was constructed in two parts -- the old palace and the new palace. Over a hundred years, seven popes and two anti-popes lived in the palace. What's an anti-Pope? Having the Pope in France brought a lot of political power to the region and strongly favoured the French in the Papal court. A schism developed when the decision was made to relocate back to Italy, and a Pope was elected on each side. The two Popes took turns excommunicating each other and their followers for a generation until the schism was resolved in favour of the Papacy in Italy. If things had turned out differently, today Rome would be in the south of France.

I was very impressed by the sense of history and immensity in the palace, especially in the grand chapel and some of the other large rooms. When the palace was occupied by the popes, it would have been full of people, and sumptuously appointed with tapestries lining the walls and dividing the rooms Unfortunately, the legacy of the French Revolution scattered most of the furnishings and destroyed much of the statues and frescoes. One of the smaller chapels with frescoes is closed entirely, and the other is badly defaced. Much of the stonework on the door to the grand chapel was lost when the room was re-engineered as a barracks. The bedchambers of the Pope survived surprisingly well. Some of the ceiling and floor has been restored, but the swirling red vine pattern on the navy blue wall is mostly original. You can find pictures of the damaged chapels here.

The next stop was the famous Pont de St. Bénezet. As a young shepherd, an angel appeared to the saint, and indicated the spot where he should build a bridge across the Rhône. Nobody believed him, as he tried to explain where and why the bridge should be built, until he miraculously lifted a huge paving stone and carried it on his shoulder. He obtained permission and funds to build the bridge and worked on it from the years of 1177 to his death in 1184. He was buried in a chapel that was built into the bridge, until the seventeenth century when his remains were removed to prevent damage from the river.

There's a famous song that describes dancing sur le pont d'Avignon. In fact, the bridge is quite narrow for foot and horse traffic, and it would be impossible to perform the dance to the song on the bridge. The original song described dancing sous (under) the bridge on one of the islands it crosses. Today, you can walk across the bridge as far as it goes, and visit the chapels that have been built into it. Our admission was included with our ticket to the Palais de Papes.

The city was bustling that day. There was a wine festival (you could see tasters walking around with special wine glasses attached to a string around their neck), and a gospel music show. We heard a sample when we were on the roof of the Palais des Papes, but we missed the show because we decided to head to the sister city of Villeneuve-Lez-Avignon. It was too late to go inside the main sites: the Fort St. André and the Chartreuse (charterhouse, or monastary). We walked around the outside, because we didn't think we'd have time to come back to them... (a little bit of foreshadowing there).

We ate dinner at a couscousserie in the main square of the old city. We each ordered the menu (18€ per person) and swapped half the entrée and the main plates, so we pretty much had a bit of everything. I had coffee at the end of the meal, because I forgot one of the main pleasures of eating couscous -- the thé à la menthe at the end.

The next day we were going to travel to Nîmes, the city with an accent, because we were tired of this new-fangled 14th century architecture and we wanted to look at some really old buildings. Our time in Nîmes was cut a little short because we made two stops beforehand.

The Musée du Petit Palais is immediately beside the Palais des Papes, and has been extensively restored to house 13th and 14th century italian religious artwork. It was a sunny morning, so I was a bit suspicious that it would be a bit tedious to stay indoors. However, the admission price was right (2€) so we could glance around and head on our way.

Instead, the museum captivated us for a couple of hours. The museum was largely based on a famous collection from a fellow named Giampietro Campana, who was an avid collector. He had such a passion for the art he collected that he committed several types of fraud and misuse of public funds in order to acquire over fifteen thousand pieces. It was only an appeal by Napoléon III, who negociated the purchase of his collection for France, that saved him from a twenty year prison sentence.

Overall, the eighteen rooms had pretty much the same things over and over -- the saints, the Madonna and child, the Annunciation, the crowning of the Virgin, the history of Christ. You learn fairly quickly to recognize the saints -- Saint Jean has the fur-lined shirt under his robes, Saint Pierre has the keys to heaven, Saint Jerome has the red hat and heals the lion, Saint Catherine is near the wheel, Saint Francois has stigmata, and so forth. The detail and effort that went into these works, and the changes in the styles and even body shapes over the centuries was fascinating. The big name was a single Botticelli Madonna of Humility, which I had to go back to find.

You'll notice that I have frame captures of nearly all the museums I went to see during the trip. In general, you aren't permitted to use flash photography, but taking photos is permitted. The only exception I encountered was the Musée Matisse in Nice.

The other stop before Nîmes was the Pont de Gard aqueduct. This was build over 2000 years ago by the Romans, and was used for nearly 500 years to supply fresh and pure spring water to Nîmes and the towns in between. It's 40 metres high, and 275 metres long. It was partially restored in the mid-1800's by order of Napoléon III.

There is a small controversy surrounding this aqueduct and the 5 euro note. The countries can put whatever they please on the euro coins, but all of the euro bills are the same. Instead of putting any national monuments on the bills, the designers use the symbols of fictional windows and fictional bridges. Unfortunately for the rest of Europe, the "bridge" on the 5 euro note resembles the Pont de Gare aqueduct, which gives France nearly three extra bonus points.

There is no admission fee to the aqueduct, but there is a museum, which we didn't visit. You used to be able to walk over the aqueduct, either in the channel itself or on the flagstones. Apparently this is now "understandingly" forbidden, since there are no handrails to prevent you from falling off.

Nîmes itself is dominated by a Roman amphitheatre of the same period. An amphitheatre (or arène) is the oval-shaped stadium built to offer fighting sports to the public -- animal against animal, animal against man or man against man. Apparently there was a famous movie a couple of years ago that featured these games. The tour guide was careful to point out several inaccuracies: the combats were seldom to the death (except on special occasions), the gladiators were always volunteers and carefully trained, and exotic animals (notably lions) were only used in Rome.

The amphitheatre was divided into several sections and citizens sat according to their social status. The boxes along the broad edge of the oval were reserved for the upper classes and politians, who sponsored the spectacle for the amusement of the masses. The games were free, so access to the amphitheatre was unrestricted, and a full audience of 24,000 could vacate in five minutes through the vomitoria. Contrary to popular belief, the Roman vomitorium had nothing to do with the biological function -- it was used in the sense of expulsion or emptying.

In the hundreds of years when the amphitheatre wasn't used, a village of 750 inhabitants established itself inside. Napoléon III once again showed his historical foresight in clearing out these buildings and restoring the amphitheatre as a site. The 64 arches around the amphitheatre are now closed in by a chain link fence, because the inside has been renovated so it can be used for open air concerts. In the winter, a giant lens-shaped balloon is attached as a roof to the structure so it can be used year round. They had just removed the boule, so we were only permitted to take the guided tour.

The next stop in Nîmes was the maison carrée, which is a 2000 year old temple to the Imperial Cult -- the religious belief that the emperors of Rome would become deities in the afterlife. The amphitheatre and the temple are two of the best preserved Roman ruins in France. The upper galleries of the amphitheatre are intact, as is most of the stonework and the roof of the temple. Other than a few other ruins, the entire Roman city has disappeared.

We visited the garden of fountains, and noticed a remarkable number of brides and photographers (and presumably grooms as well). The garden is quite beautiful, with some Roman ruins of unknown origins (called The Temple of Diana, which has a multilingual sign warning us that "escalation is forbidden"), some canals and gardens, and quite a bit of statuary. Climbing the broad staircases to the top of the only hill in Nîmes, we found the Tour Magnes, which used to be part of the city walls.

We ended the day by returning to Avignon, and eating at a Vietnamese restaurant in the old city (ordering à la carte, 45€ for two people).

The next day, I left my bag at the hotel, and John drove me to the gare so I could find my way back to Paris. I was going to find a train that suited me, buy a ticket and poke around Avignon for a bit, getting back to Paris in plenty of time for supper. I waved John on ahead to return the car to Nice -- by this time, I was a seasoned voyager, and I wouldn't have any trouble...

It was ten o'clock in the morning, and there were several trains going to Paris. Unfortunately, they were all full. In fact, most of the trains the next day were also full. Seeing as it was the end of a long weekend, I probably should have made a reservation. So for the next two hours, I applied my problem-solving abilities to find a bus (none available), a flight (all booked) or even another rental car for a six hour drive (none available). I was supposed to be at work the next morning, but it wasn't looking very likely. So I bought my ticket home (70€), emailed my manager (4&euro per hour), booked another night at the Hôtel Mignon (41€ including breakfast) and went to some other museums.

The Musée Lapidaire was full of statues and statue fragments. It wasn't too impressive, but it was nice and cool inside, and the admission couldn't be beat (1€). There were some interesting biblical scenes carved from the 14th century, and quite a few tombs. As well, there were many well-preserved egyptian artifacts.

The Musée Calvert (2€), on the other hand, was excellent. The museum collection is largely made of donations of private collections, so there were a lot of work done by families and painters from the city in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. There was also a significant amount of statuary, a room deidicated to eighteenth century silver, and another gallery of thoroughly enjoyable, more modern paintings. The Big Names weren't there in force, except for an unimpressive Gericault and a single disinteresting Manet. However, even with nearly complete ignorance of the artists beforehand (and they might have been Big Names for all I know), I felt as if I had the opportunity to get to know them. There were many portraits of the artists, which was an interesting touch. I particularly enjoyed a large canvas of a Vernet (I forget which one) strapped to the mast of a boat during a fierce storm, so he could study the light while the rest of the passengers cowered. I also found the paintings of Avignon done in the eighteenth century to be very interesting.

I had supper by myself at Les Artistes, where I ordered the 14€ menu, which included a hot goat cheese on toast with salad as an entrée, a ham in mushroom sauce for the main plate, and a little chocolate cake in custard for dessert. With the aperitif (kir), a quarter bottle of red table wine (no need to be fancy by myself) and a coffee to follow, the bill came to 22€.

I got up early the next day and took the city bus to Villeneuve-Lez-Avignon This is where all of the cardinals built their livrées (mansions). My first stop was the Chatreuse du Val de Bénédiction This used to be the mansion of a Cardinal who became Pope Innocent IV after the General of the Carthusian Order refused the papacy out of humility. To honor this act, the new Pope had his own mansion converted into one of the largest charterhouses in France.

I would highly recommend seeing the charterhouse. The site is more interesting than grandiose, although the tour starts with the largest building, the chapel. One end has fallen and there's an excellent view of the towers of the Fort (a poet's dream -- the apse has collapsed). The self-guided tour has information sheets in multiple languages, with plenty of interesting and historically satisfying information.

One of the things I learned was that many of the large buildings in the fourteenth century were built by "jobbing workers". That is, the stonemasons were payed by the work they performed -- specifically the number of stones they placed. In the chapel, in several places in the Palais des Papes and in the towers of the Fort, there is an identifying mark in the middle of each stone.

The Fort St. André unfortunately closed for lunch as I arrived, so I walked around the village of Villeneuve-Lez-Avignon and had a sandwich and beer for lunch (6€). I visited one of the old churches in the region, and rescued it from certain destruction in flames when I pointed out that one of the prayer candles had fallen over. There were also plenty of relics -- which specifically means extremely old body parts of saints displayed in ornate golden cases.

The fort, unfortunately, was pretty dull. The tour was through the two towers, and then kind of rambling through the village inside, on trails that didn't seem to go anywhere or to unmarked buildings. The best part of the Fort was supposed to be the gardens of the Abbey, which were unfortunately closed on Monday.

I went back to Avignon to visit the last museum that I wanted to see, the Fondation Angladon, which had a modern collection with paintings by Van Gogh, Cezanne, Picasso, Modigliani. It was closed, so I went to visit another church -- again very impressive. I thought the church in Villeneuve had a lot of saints (there was a wall of twenty relic containers) until I saw that this church had some samplers -- fifty tiny saint bits neatly labeled in a single cabinet.

Speaking of samplers, I visited a chocolaterie and tasted one of the traditional bonbons from Provence -- the calisson. It is lozenge-shaped (diamond) with rounded edges, and is made from almonds and preserved fruit, finely ground and mixed, with white frosting. You should always have a calisson with you while travelling in the south -- if a museum or monument turns out to be disappointing, you can eat it and feel a bit better.

I took the TGV home that night from the Avignon train terminal, which is about a 10 minute navette (shuttle bus) ride from the old city. The ticket agent had told me that there was only one seat left on the train, and it was in the smoking car. However, I encountered another couple who had been told the same thing -- I think it's a plot by the tobacco companies. Never, never, never take the smoking car. If you smoke, go to the smoking car for a visit, but DO NOT stay there for the whole trip. It was significantly worse than the worst bingo hall or pub.

18. Simply Gorges

I had overstayed my welcome at the hotel with the other divers by two nights, so I packed my gear (leaving some heavy stuff to go back with the club) and took the bus back through Hyères to the gare for my first TGV voyage. The train de grande vitesse travels between most of the cities in France, and it is extremely easy and convenient to use.

There are automatic ticket machines that you can specify your destination and pay using your bank card. I believe only the European bank cards (with the embedded microchip) will work in these machines. I'm not sure about the North American cards (with the magnetic strip). Since this was my first time, I took a number and went to the human at the counter. I asked for a non-smoking second-class ticket to Nice, which cost 20€.

The first leg of the journey left in five minutes on a smaller, slower train to Toulon, which was about ten minutes. To get to the proper voie (platform), I had to walk across the rails in front of the train. The conductor took my ticket, stamped and marked it and I picked a seat in the nearly empty train. This smaller train was called a TER, and the inside was like a North American bus.

I had about half an hour at Toulon, so I sat at a brasserie and had a coffee in the sunshine. The gare at Toulon was much larger, and the voie for my train was indicated on a billboard. This time there was a tunnel to pass under the rails. The train to Nice was a TGV, but doesn't run at full speed along the east-west route along the Côte d'Azur (aka the French Riviera).

In this case, I purchased my TGV ticket minutes before the train left. However, you can purchase your ticket well in advance. On some trains (such as the TER) it is optional and costs extra to reserve your exact seat, but on the TGV it is mandatory. Before you board the train, you must composter your ticket, which just means you insert an end in a little orange box that punches a half circle in it. I believe I read that if you forget, you can advise the conductor in the train and pay a fine of 6€. Otherwise, if they catch you with an unpunched ticket, the fine is 100€.

The office de tourisme of Nice is right beside the train station. I went in, got a map of the city and asked for advice on finding a room for the night. She offered to make a reservation for me, but I thought I would look at the hotel first. It was a very inexpensive "zero-star" student hotel called the Hôtel du Petit Louvre, and had plenty of character. Most of the hotels are rated by the government office of tourism on a scale of one to four stars. You can be sure that a one star hotel is clean, inexpensive and offers standard services. Approximately 60% of the hotels in France are unrated or one star.

The Hôtel du Petit Louvre was crammed fully of cheesy paintings, from still lifes to abstracts (often of a jazz theme) to caricatures. The rooms were very tiny, and kind of dingy with age, but clean. I had a shower in my room, but the toilet was down the hall (labeled WC). The single room was 31€, or 34€ with a toilet.

I spent the day wandering through the streets, which have a similar look to Paris. The buildings have ornate stone facades with iron balconies and detail, but with much more colour. Where Paris is mainly browns and greys, Nice is red, antique yellow, pink and blue. Quite a bit of Paris was torn down and reconstructed by Baron Haussman to straighten and widen the streets; the old part of Nice has the same small, twisty streets that it has had for hundreds of years.

All along the beach at Nice runs the palm-lined Promenade des Anglais, which is a broad and level sidewalk originally constructed by an englishman. (Likewise, a Scot began the tradition of firing a cannon every day at noon to assist the French in regulating their meal times.) The beach at Nice is made of well-worn, egg-sized grey rocks. I managed to be on the beach with my jacket and shirt under my neck for the entire fifteen minutes the sun shone that day.

I had supper that night at a restaurant near my hotel at L'Authentic (note the english spelling). The menu was 16€ for jambon cru with parmesan for an entrée, a salmon lasagna and salad for the main course and tiramisu for dessert. I ate, had a coffee and went to my hotel to sleep.

I had breakfast at the hotel the next morning -- hotels generally offer breakfast, usually for a fee. In the case of the Hôtel du Petit Louvre, it was 5€ for coffee, cereal and a croissant. You can probably find cheaper by buying a pain chocolat at a café, but the hotel breakfasts are more convenient and more social. I cleared my stuff out of my room and left my bags with the clerk (the hotels generally have a place to leave your stuff for the day, even if it's an unsecured closet) and went to the airport to meet John and pick up our rental car. John is another Canadian that I was already acquainted with, and it was his idea to meet in Nice to travel around the south together, because he had a conference to attend in Nice the next Monday.

We decided to stay at the Hôtel du Petit Louvre again (42€ for a double room with a bathroom included) and head out right away towards Monaco. We took the grande corniche, which is the winding high road through the mountains, offering an amazing view of Nice. The medieval village of Eze had been highly recommended, so we stopped to take a look. This little stone village is perched on the edge of the mountain, looking over the water. It's entirely stone arches, little winding streets and steps, and little cave-like apartments that have been converted into artisan boutiques.

The top of the village is a tropical cactus garden, with many species from all over the world. The cactuses thrive in the climate, which was exceptionally rainy that day, but is supposed to be quite tropical despite its altitude. The garden cost 2.5&euro to enter, and is well worth it just to get to the panorama from the top.

There is a trail from Eze named after Friedrich Nietzsche leading to the edge of the sea 400 meters below. This is where he allegedly finished Thus Spake Zarathustra.

We continued along the grande corniche towards Monaco, about 10 kilometers away. I believe this is the stretch that claimed the life of Princess Grace in 1982 -- born Grace Kelly, she was a beautiful American actress that starred in the Hitchcock films "To Catch a Thief" (set in Monaco) and "Rear Window". We saw where she was entombed alongside the other royalty of the Principality of Monaco in the old cathedral.

We didn't arrive in the old city in time to visit the famous aquarium (a fabulous old stone building with ocean motifs carved into the side), nor did we have enough time and energy to thoroughly explore Monte Carlo (the casino side of Monaco). We weren't in time to see the changing of the guard (at 11:55am sharp) or to watch the Grand Prix (a week too early). Instead, we walked through the old city, looking at the buildings, the glossy wooden doors, the yachts and helipads, and the impression of lots of money.

Almost by accident, we stumbled into a four diamond restaurant (apparently they don't use stars in Monaco) for an dazzling supper overlooking the port and the setting of the next Grand Prix. I believe the restaurant was the Café Grand Prix (at least all of the flatware was monogrammed CGP). I've generally been writing down the prices of everything for your information, but I can't bring myself to confess what we spent at the restaurant. It's sufficient to say that the meal was twice as expensive as the most expensive meal I had ever had.

But, a couple of tips: if you have never eaten at a four diamond restaurant before, you don't need to be anxious. The staff chooses your silverware so you can start from the outside and work your way in (as they say) without any excess forks or spoons to bother you. The glasses are filled for you (constantly). All the plates are presented and whisked away gracefully and efficiently. I had an Americano as an aperitif, white asparagus as the entrée, a square of lamb as the main plate (easily the best lamb I've ever eaten) and lemon ravioli for dessert. There was another pre-appetizer offered, three types of bread to accompany and a second dessert included with the meal. We shared a small bottle of red, but skipped coffee afterwards.

I know I made at least one gaffe (other than wearing my disheveled sweater to a fancy restaurant). I was so accustomed to restaurants being service compris in France, where the tip is included (in fact, if you feel like leaving something extra, you round the bill up to the nearest euro). This is true in most restaurants, except for fine dining where a 5-10% tip is the custom. I feel pretty embarassed about this now, but the waiter was gracious and friendly regardless.

We drove back to Nice along the basse corniche, which is as windy and probably as picturesque as the grande corniche, but along the sea.

We had found such a great parking spot for the night, that we decided to stay in Nice for the morning. We walked through the old city again, and along the Promenade until after the traditional cannon shot -- when the cannon goes, the entire city starts screaming and waving their arms and running to and fro until they are all safely in a café having lunch. We bought a pan bagnat instead, and took the car to the Musée Matisse (4€).

The museum was only mildly interesting, containing several of Henri Matisse's personal collection, as well as some of his furnishings that were featured in his paintings. Unfortunately, neither of us were really in the mood to appreciate the work. Maybe it was the sunshine outside, or a sense of urgency to move to the next city, maybe it was because the artist's personal collection contains his quick sketches and the works that didn't sell, but I found the museum unstimulating.

Or maybe it was because Matisse was a fraud who discovered he could crank out the works faster by hiring kindergarten classes to cut flowers from construction paper with their dulled eye-safe scissors. Just a thought from an untrained eye, but his works seemed to get "simpler" and "more expressive" as his reputation grew. At some point, "elegance and simplicity of form" turns into "unexpressive cartoon".

We drove out of Nice with the intention of visiting the Gorges of Verdon, a natural wonder in the Alps. Fortunately, we took a wrong turn, so we ended up driving out of our way through the residential part between Nice and the smaller villages north. The road kept on climbing and climbing, and yet we never reached the top of anything, or a good place to turn around, but we eventually found somewhere we could stop to eat our aforementioned pan bagnat (which is a round loaf cut in two, flavoured with olives, olive oil and garlic, egg, tomato, lettuce and anchovy fillets or tuna).

We saw quite a bit of the countryside on the way to the gorges, and generally chatted. We were way off the main road, but it didn't take long to recover and find the correct route -- the roads are incredibly well-marked in France, and driving in the mountains is pretty easy, although slow. We passed a car that had flipped (John conjectured that it was a combination of hitting the brakes and turning sharply around a corner that caused the flip). The car was upside-down in the middle of the road, but the driver looked alright on the side with her head between her hands. The police were managing the traffic.

If I may pause to offer some travel advice in France -- don't do that.

The gorges were very beautiful, even though it was getting later in the day and the light wasn't that good. It was raining a bit, but the air was still clear enough to see. The first lookout was called Point Sublime, and we could see the hikers 150 metres below (the trail through the gorges takes about two days and is very popular). While I was driving, I missed the turnoff through Route des Crêtes, which is one of the most beautiful parts of the route, but we stopped at all of the rest of the lookout points (or belvédères if you remember the terminology).

The picturesque route finished about twenty minutes drive later, and we decided to backtrack to see the Route des Crêtes. Unfortunately, it started raining very hard, and the visibility was much worse, so we ran out at most of the stops, glanced quickly and jumped back into the car. Even in these bad conditions, it was an impressive sight -- I would love to go back and see it again. In fact, we took the north road through the gorges, so if I ever return I can do the south road (or better yet, both roads again).

The gorges of Verdon are no longer in the area called the Côte d'Azur, but in Provence. We stayed in the tiny village of La Palud sur Verdon at Le Provence for 64€ plus 19€ each for the dinner. It was probably the most comfortable hotel I stayed in during this vacation.

What do you think about Nice, Eze, Monaco and the Gorges of Verdon?

17. Diving

The trip to the south started on the last day of April. Counting the rest stop, it's a twelve hour drive between Paris and Presqu'ile de Giens, but fortunately we had a car-couchette -- a bus where all of the seats convert into bunkbeds. I slept most of the trip, which was fortunate because I was getting over a bit of a cold. You shouldn't dive while congested for fear of small stoppages in the lungs or sinuses that can over-inflate while surfacing.

When we arrived in the morning, we threw all of our non-diving equipment into a meeting room and dropped all of our equipment off at the dive club house. We ate breakfast at the VVF (a chain hotel for families) while our tanks were being filled, and within the hour we were on a boat heading to the first dive site.

I had a BCD (inflatable dive vest) and regulator (mouthpiece) borrowed from the Hippocampe Club of Massy, and I was wearing a two piece 5mm wetsuit that I borrowed from Antonio. The first and second dives on this first day were about 15m deep for about forty minutes each. I have to admit that I don't really remember much about these dives, except that the water was more blue than at home in Vancouver and not as warm as I expected (16 degrees Celsius). I didn't have enough time to get my contact lenses in, so everything was pretty fuzzy as well. We might (or might not) have seen a couple of octopodes.

This was my first sea dive in two years (although I had been practising in the pool for the last few months with the dive club) and my first boat dive. It was pretty stressful, but a lso extremely interesting. It takes a lot of coordination to get everything prepared and verified on a crowded boat of divers.

I should probably mention that I have completed my Level 1 FFESSM dive certification in France, which qualifies me to dive up to 20m accompanied by a monitor. The second day was a bit less anxious, so our monitor took us through a wreck. Wreck diving is one of the more advanced subjects (there's a PADI course dedicate to it), but this particular wreck had a large entry and exit, no current and was in shallower waters. She considered it an excellent introduction to diving through a wreck. Many of the Level 2 divers went to a more advanced wreck on this day -- the Donator. This wreck is 35m to 40m deep in stronger current, so they could only spend about 12 minutes at the site.

At the end of my third dive, my right eye started to swell. It wasn't bothering me a bit, and I hadn't noticed, but everybody was asking me if I was alright. I went to go see the captain of the other boat (who is a nurse), who told me that it looked like an allergy and asked if I had been bitten under the water (I hadn't). In a half hour, you couldn't tell that anything had happened.

On the third day of diving (the fifth and sixth dives of the week), I was in a group of three divers. At this point, I was getting the hang of diving with tranquility -- the point is to move as little as possible while maintaining your position. I was able to appreciate the wildlife under the water a bit more -- the gorgons, the sieche (squid) sitting on a rock, the brightly colored fish. The fish and vegetation are much more colourful in the Mediterranean than in the Pacific. Although many of them would look at home in a collector's aquarium, the effect is much more powerful when there is a school of hundreds.

We also saw huge groupers, and on the fourth day I was extremely proud to find a langouste for the group. I was looking at the vegetation on the cliff and trying to find the fishes hiding in there when I noticed two long red and white banded blades of grass coming from a hole -- of course further investigation revealed the hiding crustacean. Cool.

By the last day of diving, pretty much everybody was broken from fatigue. Despite the fact that each successive dive was getting more enjoyable, many of the divers decided to skip the tenth and last dive of the week. The last dive featured La Piscine de la Medes, which is a sheltered and shallow area with plenty of sea life. Unfortunately, there were too many divers in the pool while we were there, so there was too much thrashing about and bumping into one another and kicking up sand. It was difficult to see very much and there isn't a dive signal that says "sorry for kicking you in the face". You just have to kind of look back apologetically.

So I saw dozens of big fish, thousands of little fish, electric blue fish with transparent fins, cardinal red fish, fancy anemones of several colors, red corals, purple corals, octopodes, squids, crabs and my langouste. Yet, thankfully, I didn't see a single detestable jellyfish. (Gah. I hate those things.) But at this point, I'd spent five days on the French Riviera, the famous Côte d'Azur, and I couldn't tell you anything about the terrain, the scenery or even the beaches.

Every day was waking up, grabbing breakfast, running to the dive clubhouse (albeit along a very attractive littoral along the shore), getting the equipment prepared and verified, getting suited up, carrying everything to the boat and travelling to the first dive site. The next dive would be hours later, but the time in between the two was taken by return travel and de-suiting, cleaning the equipment, running back to the hotel to grab lunch in order to head back to the dive clubhouse, etc. After the last dive of the day, we'd clean and put our stuff away and stumble back to the hotel for a shower, an apero, followed by dinner, some card games and early to bed.

By the way, the first night at the hotel was a special Casino night. It was all for free tokens, but I couldn't figure it all out. The dealers were dressed in black and white, with the ladies in huge bob wigs and the gentlemen in top hats, and the music was thirties lounge music. Everybody needed to have the rules to blackjack explained to them, which was just as well because the dealer had made up some new ones -- none of the dealers cards were hidden, and she paid three to one if you beat or matched her score. I finally got the point -- it was supposed to be a combination of film noir and theatre of the absurd.

Anyway, when the rest of the group returned to Paris (almost immediately after the last dive), I decided to stay at the hotel for a couple of days. Fortunately, there was another group of divers from the same club in Paris (including the aforementioned Antonio), so I just snuck in with their group.

La Londe Les Maures

I wanted to see some more of the Cote d'Azur before heading west to Nice, so I decided to go to another village close to the Presqu'ile de Giens. I picked a completely random French tourist village -- La Londe Les Maures. It turned out to be an adventurous day despite having a bit of bad luck along the way.

The receptionist at the hotel wanted to be helpful when I said I wanted to go to La Londe. She got a map from her store room and proceeded to circle all sorts of interesting attractions to visit. The village was only about an hour bus ride away, although I had to make a transfer through Hyeres, the major town about ten kilometres from the hotel. She also helped me with the various bus schedules. However, when I arrived in La Londe, I discovered that she had been confidently circling children's playgrounds, paved squares and bus stops -- anything with an interesting name in bold.

In fact, there really wasn't much to do in La Londe. It may have been a very interesting city for all I know, but since I arrived on Monday at one o'clock, everything was closed. Every shop and patisserie was closed and barred, including the office of tourism. A couple of brasseries were open, so I went into one that had a menu posted outside and asked what the plate of the day was. They told me they weren't serving food any more that day.

So I walked around, looking at the playgrounds and squares for an hour until the tourism office opened. I then headed towards the beach, which was a forty minute walk from the village centre, and I managed to find something to eat on the way. I wanted to take the hiking path back to a different small town, but I discovered I didn't have enought time to get there so I could catch the last bus from Hyeres to the hotel -- a definite priority. So I hung out on the beach for a bit, walked back to the city centre to wait for the bus. I got there twenty minutes early to ensure that I would catch the appropriate bus, and make that crucial transfer. The bus never came.

When the next bus came through, I asked why the previous one hadn't come by. The driver told me that he wasn't sure, that it should have and it usually does. I made it to Hyeres with no way to get back to my hotel at the tip of the peninsula. And my feet and knees hurt because I had been making all these hikes and walks with an abnormally full pack.

But of course, all that complaining is just to illustrate that even a bit of bad luck can't wreck a trip to a charming seaside village on the French riveria...

I learned quite a bit about practical travel in France. For example, most cities have a Gare Routiere where all the interurban buses transfer, and is often separate from the train station. Buses go to all of the small towns in a region and are quite inexpensive (between 2 and 4 euros for the journeys on this trip), and are generally exactly on time (when they show) and are quite comfortable. Even the smaller villages will have a centrally located office de tourisme, which is very well-equipped, well-informed and eager to help.

I realized during my lunch in La Londe that it was my first time in France that I had sat down by myself and ordered a full menu. In Canada, the list of foods and prices from which you choose is called the menu. In French, this list is called la carte, and dining à la carte means that you want to construct your own meal from the items on the list. "Le menu" on the other hand is a complete meal that has been preselected by the chef and is offered at a set price. You generally have some flexibility within the menu, such as choosing between entrées, and some restaurants offer several menus at different prices (depending on the food and the number of courses). I will always recommend ordering the menu. Another language lesson -- keep in mind that entrée means appetizer and not main course.

I had an extremely positive experience at a vineyard at La Londe. They were (of course) closed during the Monday, but on noticing me walking about, they invited me in for a tasting and for a bit of warm southern banter. I forgot the proper order of a degustation -- look, smell, sip, swirl, sip? But they succeeded in selling me four bottles of red wines from 1999, two of which were mislabeled as 2000. This accounts for my heavy backpack and my poor knees.

Because I was stuck in Hyeres after the truck, I dropped into a creperie. I asked why there was a dried Maple leaf on the wall -- the chef of La Marjorlaine is Canadian, which must have accounted for his hearty goodbye at the end of the evening. If you're interested in particulars, I ordered a Rouergate crepe, which is roquefort, ham and nuts in a folded crepe for 6.5 euros, with a pinchet of cidre for 5.8 euros to drown my problems in.

How did I get back into Presqu'ile de Giens? A 30 euro taxi ride. Bleah.

What do you think about diving in the Mediterranean, or the completely random French village of La Londe?