A day in the heart of Provence

A word of warning: if you want to see your childhood dream of walking through fields of lavender come true, you need to a) have the lavender season on your side b) book your tour well ahead of time. Luckily for us, we had a). Unfortunately for us, we didn’t do b).

Through a thorough scan of the internet, I was able to find us some of the last places on a half day tour leaving from Avignon. So we bought the tour and some train tickets, and the next day we set off to see the lavender.

Avignon was worth a visit in its own right. The Palais des Papes is an old and majestic building and I would’ve liked to have had the time to explore it. Instead, we headed over to the famous bridge that once spanned the river, connecting several medieval townships.

We ended up singing ‘Sur le pont, d’Avignon‘ for the rest of the day. It also happened to be the start of the Avignon Festival, and in the space of a few small hours we witnessed several thousand signs for plays, musicals and shows get posted up on every available vertical surface. If we hadn’t had such a strict itinerary, I would’ve loved to stay to watch several of them, and test my capacity for understanding the nuances of French drama onstage.

It was soon time to head off on the tour. Interestingly it was given in English, but we managed to have several in depth conversations in French with our guide. Driving through the countryside, we stopped at several age-old villages to admire their provincial beauty. We stopped to visit la fontaine de Vaucluse, with its beautiful turquoise waters and its ancient paper mill. We also stopped by Gordes, a stone walled village set into a hillside that looks out across the fields and countryside.

The town of Gordes looks out over the plains

The main attraction was L’abbaye de Sénanque, an Abbey which for hundreds of years, has sustained itself by growing and harvesting lavender, which is then sold locally. The grey stone of the Abbey and the vibrant purple of the flowers made for a beautiful contrast. Although the place was buzzing with tourists, I felt a sense of quiet and peace as I walked between the purple rows, the lavender scent shimmering around me like a mirage. When it was time to leave, I dawdled reluctantly back to the bus, trying to soak in the feeling.

We stopped in several larger commercial lavender fields as we drove along to our next destination: Roussillon. Roussillon is a town with houses built from the ochre cliffs it sits upon. The contrasts of the reds, greens and pale blue shutters lend a real beauty to the place. Wild lavender was growing from the clifftops where we sat to eat lavender ice-cream from the local gélaterie and soak in the evening sun.

 

Living my childhood dream of visiting the lavender fields

L’Abbaye Notre-Dame de Sénanque

The red-ochre town of Roussillon

 

We arrived back in Avignon just in time for our train (after an alarming roadside inspection by the gendarmarie). As we sped back to Marseille, we watched a big full moon rise over l’estaque, each lost in thoughts about all the beautiful places we had been.

Palais Longchamp

LE MUSÉE DES BEAUX-ARTS, the Fine Art Museum, is the oldest museum in Marseille and is housed in the Palais Longchamp. Established in the 1800s, it houses a rich collection of paintings dating from the 16th to 19th centuries.

Whilst the paintings and masterpieces are exquisite, the building in which they sit is also worth a visit in its own right. The Palais Longchamp was constructed in 1869, as un château d’eau or a ‘water castle’, to celebrate the new canal that brought the waters of the Durance river to Marseille. Until this point, Marseille had been having problems with a constant water supply.

Behind the large and extravagant fountain, is a large park, once home to the botanical garden and a zoo. Whilst there are no longer any animals kept there, you can see many marseillais walking their dogs and taking a stroll among the ancient trees- some as old as 150 years!

In the heat of summer, this is a lovely place to relax and enjoy the peace of the garden. In some places, you can even look out across the city to the surrounding mountain ranges.

 

Marseille

After the visiting the Rhône-Alps region, we took the train from the mountains to the sea to stay in Marseille. An ancient Phoenician port, Marseille has been around for a long time. We were fortunate enough to stay for five days, but we could understand the enticing lure of the blue Mediterranean which for a long time made this city a gateway from France to the  rest of the world.

Having learnt a lot about Marseille in the classroom, it was great to be able to experience it for ourselves. We had to visit the vieux port and try the Bouillabaisse soup, as encouraged by our teacher. Marseille was a beautiful town, but boy it was hot while we were there! We were glad for the electric fans in many restaurants, and for the excuse to buy a few icecreams…

Les Grottes de Savonnières

The gloom and dark of the Petrifrying Caves at Savonnières made a stark constrast to the beautiful spring day outside. I went on a bike trip with a group of other exchange students to visit the caves. These caves were known and used in the roman times up to the middle ages, and then forgotten over the years. In the 19th Century, a group of spelunkers followed a fox down a narrow ravine and found themselves in a large cavern, in which mineral rich water dripped from the ceiling, creating thin stalactites and coral like formations. The caves were rediscovered.

Today, the caves are open for sightseeing, and the owner takes advantage of the petrifying process (in which the water slowly coats things in stone) in order to make delicate souvenirs. The texture of the stone is smooth when dry, but when wet it has a horrible flesh like feeling. The concept of turning things to stone is quite eerie, almost petrifying! That said, I had a great time visiting the caves, although I was glad to come back to the surface, sit under a leafy tree and enjoy my picnic lunch in the sunshine.

Strasbourg: Musée Alsacien

Having arrived in Strasbourg in the afternoon, we decided to spend some time visiting a museum. There were many to choose from, but in the end, we opted for the Alsatian Museum, in the hope of completing our crash course in the history and traditions of the region. Of course, we  still remain very naïve- but now at least we are conscious of the richness of the culture embedded in this place, even if so much of it still escapes us.

The museum is very comprehensive, covering many aspects of everyday life, such as clothing, furniture, housing, cooking and religious practices, as well as exploring the traditions associated with birth, childhood, marriage and death. Below are some examples of the detailed craftsmanship particular to this region.

Different varnishing techniques used to decorate Alsatian wardrobes

Une armoire- A wardrobe

Workman’s clogs

A jewellery box, complete with artfully painted, silk lined drawers

Sculpted chair backs, often paired with a three legged stool as a base

I was also amazed at the number of tools for use in the kitchen. The musuem houses a great collection of elaborate molds, many used as cake tins or to make dishes for special occasions, especially the famous Christmas treats for which Alsace is well known.

The impact of the change in power between German and French governements,  can be seen in the change in language. Many of the many documents of the museum were written in Alsatian or old German, with explanations in French and Alsatian to accompanythem.

Le Musée Alsacien is made up of a number of small houses that have been modified so that you can walk between them, each room filled with a different display. It gave the museum a great atmosphere- it was almost as if you could imagine yourself transported back in time.

This detailed dollhouse would have belonged to a child with very wealthy parents

Baby and stork

View of the cathedral from a window of the museum

The sun sets behind a bridge crossing the canal

In fact, one room even left us with dress ups for that very purpose. Despite the appropriate clothing, I think I’m a long way from passing for an Alsatian. I think I’ll stick to Australian instead- that’s what I am, after all.

Riquewihr

The town of Riquewihr, an official listing amongst Les Plus Beaux Villages de France ‘ The most beautiful villages of France’,  was a delight to visit and like Kayserberg, one of the few villages of the area not to be badly damaged during WWII. We were delighted with more houses en colombage (with wooden supports) and even an iconic clock tower decorating a gateway through the old ramparts. Riquewihr has a double set of fortifications: not because it needed the extra defense, but primarily to allow the village to expand without compromising security, by building housing between the two sets of walls.  Another highlight of the visit was Féerie de Noël ‘ A Christmas Fairyland’, a store specialising in Christmas decorations. The store truly was magical- each section was laid out with a different style, and you passed through the store following a path through each section, just as you do at Ikea. My favourite toys on display were the multi-tiered merry-go-rounds which had many parts which moved as the tower turned. The decorations are very fragile though: I learnt my lesson when I tried to pick up a snow globe by the base. Unfortunately the base was not attached to the globe. Result: shattered glass and shattered pride. I was ready to fork out the hefty sum I owed (artisinal decorations aren’t cheap), but the salesperson kindly overlooked my clumsiness and let me walk free with nothing but my painful guilt to carry and the age old adage ‘Look but don’t touch’, ringing in my ears.

Clock tower in a typical Alsatian style

A map of the town, created by Mattheus Merian for the Topographia Alsatiae (Atlas of Alsatia) in 1644

It’s Christmas all year long

View of the town from the outer wall

The outer wall, which was later modified to include housing.

Beautiful window shutters painted in the Alsatian tradition

The pink stone iconic of the region, along with a matching house in straw, mud and wood

Click on the images to read the accompanying captions. 

Château du Clos Lucé

This museum is dedicated to Leonardo da Vinci, the Italian mastermind whose ideas have contributed greatly to the world as we know it today. He is considered to have spent the last few years of his life in this stately mansion, working on his ideas free from the prying eyes of the Church in Rome who didn’t like the fact that he did dissections on corpses to learn more about human anatomy. As a kid, I remember reading a non-fiction book on his life, his art, his inventions and designs. I was greatly impressed by the fact that he would often write back to front, as though his writing was reflected in a mirror, to disguise his ideas from others who would have liked to claim them as their own. I spent a total of about 3 days of my holidays practicing this strange way of writing before I grew bored of and decided to return to the more practical standard form.

The museum has a great selection of models created from the original drawings of Leonardo da Vinci, and you can see how these forms and ideas have been incorporated into many of the machines we use today. There was such a wide array of designs: flying machines, bridges, bicycles, pumps and pistons, automatic canons, even a prototype for an early tank. I loved his staircase designs: often spiral in form, they were constructed so that you could pass each other going up and down without ever meeting.

The garden surrounding the museum was also impressive, despite the winter cold. There was lots to see- old buildings, life size bridges designed by Leonardo, larger scale models and, my favourite, a sideways swing!

Le Château d’Amboise

Less than an hour’s drive from Tours, the Château d’Amboise is magnificent. The day trip was part of the Cultural Program that’s available for exchange students. We explored the castle and its grounds and were treated to a guided tour (in French, not English- which made me very happy) that revealed a lot about the history of the castle and its various inhabitants over the years. I was fascinated to learn that today only 25% remains of the previous castle structure. The majority of the castle was destroyed soon after the French revolution by anti-monarchists and revolutionaries who wanted to erase all vestiges of the previous regime, including the castle of Amboise, once a favoured residence of the king.

More Angoulême

All the shops in Angoulême were celebrating the BD theme: windows painted with well know figures, comics lining the window of the Post Office, cartoon strips stuck outside the bakery… I wanted to stop every few metres to take it all in, but due to the time limit, I made myself press on.

Festival International de la Bande Dessinée

When planning my trip to France, one thing I did was check out festivals and events that were on during my stay that might interest me. One festival in particular caught my eye: the annual international comic, cartoon and graphic novel festival at Angoulême.

It was looking pretty costly to get myself there and back again: 14 euro for a day ticket, plus around 60 euro for a train to Poitiers plus the cost of a coach to Angoulême. It was going to take around 5 hours each way, and I wasn’t sure if I had the motivation.

A few weeks into the semester, I was checking my uni inbox when I discovered an email from the arts student association: An excursion to Angoulême! What’s more, entry and transport was only 10 euro. I was one happy chappy.

The only trouble was, we were leaving early: meeting at the town library at 5:45 for a 6am departure. This meant that I’d have to walk about half an hour to get myself there since it was too early to catch a bus. Luckily though, the coach that drove us there was very comfortable and I was able to get another 3 hours of rest before heading out to visit the festival.

Another bonus of travelling with the uni group was that I found someone else who’d come by themselves, and the two of us were able to explore the festival together. Not only was it nice to be able to discuss the things we’d seen, it was also great French practice! The festival itself was wonderful and I wish I’d been able to spend a little more time viewing the exhibitions and a little less time in the queue. It was so nice to have my itinerary prearranged for me- and at such an affordable price. There are definitely major advantages to being a student when it comes to travelling and taking part in cultural activities.