(My apologies for the lack of formatting; some sort of server problem
has erased the individual day files and index.)

France is a country we had been to several times over the years,
before the children and with them once they were born. But apart from
a trip where we picked up a car in Nice and immediately drove as fast
as we could into Italy, we had not seen anything south of Bourges. So,
for our 2002 summer vacation, we looked into touring the south of
France. It was going to be hot, we knew, but with the kids in school
and taking music lessons, we were pretty well restricted to July and
August, and weather is not terrific just about anywhere in those
months. Arju was nine, Zuki was six, and they were both in a school in
which half the subjects were taught in French; we thought the exposure
would do them good.

We didn't have a particularly romanticized view of the south. Our
brief glimpse of the Riviera was enough for us, and Provence seemed
overhyped; the appeal of books like Peter Mayle's, with their view of
the "locals" as quaint eccentrics out to cheat you, mystified
us. Besides, it would be too crowded in July, as would the
Dordogne. Languedoc-Roussillon seemed to have much of what these
regions offered, without the tourist hordes. We could put together a
trip out of familiar elements: a leased straight-from-the-factory car
from Renault, rental properties from the Italian company Cuendet via
their US agents Rentvillas, and focus on Roman ruins (as in 2001),
cathedrals (as in 1993), and art (as always). 

Then N had the idea of inviting some of her family members to join
us. We had tried this with Kei, her father, who after a couple of
decades of not travelling was making up for lost time; he knew how to
travel light and was quite flexible. We also invited her siblings and
their families, and one sister, Julie, with her husband Eric, and
children Alex (nearly 4) and Tim (1) agreed to come along.

We couldn't find properties large enough in Languedoc-Roussillon that
were close to good roads; they seemed to be way off in the middle of
areas renowned for their scenery and access to nature, whereas we were
looking for a slightly more encompassing experience. Our best best
seemed to be a house just outside the village of Fontvielle, itself a
short drive from Arles in the southwest corner of Provence.

After looking over the possibilities for the other two weeks, I
decided to bring in another element from past trips, the apartment
hotel located in a city centre, and booked apartments at locations of
the Citadines chain in both Montpellier and Toulouse. We secured our
plane tickets, bought our usual stack of guidebooks, and started
preparing for our three-week holiday.

Saturday, June 29, 2002

We arrived at Charles de Gaulle (Paris) airport at about 8:10 am, on a
direct flight from Toronto. We were early; the plane was scheduled to
arrive at 8:45. This was the last leg we were sure of; due to a mixup
with the consolidator that our travel agent used, we had been
scheduled for a ten-hour layover at CDG, followed by a 6:40 flight to
Montpellier. Since we were supposed to pick up our apartment between
6:30 and 7:30, this would not work, and we had spent the previous week
frantically moving from option to option, with every player being
recalcitrant. Finally we had booked a 11:05 train, a TGV (Tres Grande
Vitesse) to Marseille -- though this was not the fastest train
possible; there were options that took a little more than three hours,
but by the time we went to book over the Internet, they were
apparently not available. Our train was somewhat slower, using
conventional lines rather than the new TGV Mediterranee line, taking
five hours in total.

We collected our baggage, exited the restricted zone, and found the
TGV station at CDG without incident; there was an open area with a few
benches (all occupied) and large pixelboards showing the next few
trains to leave. Ours was not listed yet. N went off with the kids
towards the arrivals section of the airport terminal to see what food
they could find; I watched the  board, and the SNCF employees roaming
around helping people. When a train after ours showed up without ours
being listed, I collared one of them, and was told that not every
train was listed in the "upcoming" section, that full information
would be made available a half-hour before the train left.

N and the kids came back with little to report; there was a Pizza Hut,
and a small grocery store that had some stale-looking baguettes. (They
hadn't headed towards 2F, the international terminal; on the way back,
we would discover that there were a few more options there, but not
many.) We bought some pastries at a cafe in the waiting area, and
basically stood around killing time. I gave Z her digital camera and
she went around taking pictures of the station. Some of the trains
going north were delayed, and they took up space on the board; at five
minutes to eleven, our train had appeared on the general list, but
there was still no indication of what end of the station we were
supposed to board at. I guessed from the other trains that we should
go down the south escalators, and as we headed for us, the monitors
confirmed our guess.

The train arrived, we found our car and got on, and booted an older
woman and her teenaged son out of our seats. We had four seats, two
and two facing each other, with foldout tables between us. At the next
stop, Marnee-la-Vallee (the site of EuroDisney) a young family got on
and occupied the opposite berth. The father stood on the platform and
waved; the mother, with three kids under the age of six, booted some
other squatters out of her seats, and settled in. Sort of. Her
youngest was quite fussy, and she seemed to want to read her novel
rather than pay any attention to any of them. When the younger one
howled, she put him in the stroller out in the area past the doors,
where the bathroom was, and let him scream. It was more bad parenting
than we had seen in one spot for some time, and it didn't mesh well
with our dozing off; we kept getting woken up by the little one
screaming.

Z managed to sleep through it all; A, sitting next to me facing
backwards, dozed off against my shoulder, jerking awake periodically
at the latest howl. We went through the Ile-de-France and most of
Burgundy without my recognizing anything; I saw a sign for Macon at
some point, and then there were a number of stops I understood;
Lyon-Part-Dieu, Valence, Avignon (we could glimpse the top of the
Palais des Papes, and the southeast corner of the old city
walls). Then through the outskirts of Tarascon, Arles, and down
towards Marseille. The flat, windblasted plains of Le Grand Crau gave
way to the etangs of the coastal region and the hinterlands of
Marseille, looking very much like Naples to us. We pulled into
Marseille station early, at about 4:00 pm.

We hauled the bags (one large pack for each of N and I, and one
daypack each, plus little packs the kids wore) off the train and down
the steps to the underground platform where the taxis waited. We put
our bags into the first one in line and asked for the airport. The
driver made small talk with us, which N and I, with our fractured
French, managed to respond to. He dropped us at the main terminal and
asked for 77 euros; I had figured about 50, but didn't want to
quibble.

We went into the terminal, which seemed laid back in the style of Nice
or Barcelona, and found the phone to call the car leasing people. We
had arranged to lease a Laguna from Renault-Eurodrive, and this was
handled at Marseille by a company called Transcausse. They had an
office slightly to the northwest of the terminal building. I helped an
elderly Canadian couple to negotiate a pickup on the courtesy phone,
and then made sure of my own pickup.

The van arrived and took us all off to the small Transcausse shack. We
had specified an arrival time of 5:30 pm, but it appeared that the
place was more or less continuously manned by this one guy. He gave us
our car, a dark blue Laguna, with a smart card key. We were about to
leave when he asked us to interpret for the elderly couple, who turned
out to be in the wrong spot entirely. We got that straightened out,
and it was 5:30 when we got onto the autoroute, after stopping briefly
to fill the tank, which had only a whisper of gas in it. Gas cost
about a euro a litre at this point, making this a seventy-dollar
fillup.

I couldn't work the climate controls, or the radio, but I could boot
the car up to 130 kph, which I did most of the way to Arles. It cost
us something like 3.50 euros for the autoroute, which ended a few km
short of Arles; we quickly found the exit just before Arles and headed
up the road towards Fontvielle, where our property was. I hadn't
anticipated the roundabouts on the road; we went through four of them,
and though I knew how they worked in theory (and had driven them both
in France and in England in the past decade), it was another thing to
negotiate them in real time without incident. I don't think I cut
anyone off or did anything completely amateur.

But once we got into Fontvielle, it was another matter. The directions
we had were from the opposite direction, and suggested turning right
at the roundabout, and reaching the corner of Av. Grand Draille and
Rue de St. Jean. I turned left at the roundabout, only to find roads
that were nothing like the description. "Maybe there is another
roundabout," N said, and we retraced our steps; sure enough, after
traversing the narrow lanes of the somewhat touristed village of
Fontvielle, we found the other roundabout. The left turn off this was
Route de Saint Jean, and we reached the corner of Chemin de Grand
Draille, with no obvious driveway in sight. We went back and forth a
bit, then tried the nearest property to the corner; the man there was
not the keyholder specified on our voucher, and professed no knowledge
of the name we had.

We went back into town, and ascertained on a posted map that this was
the only possibility. I bought a telephone card at a gas station, and
N braved a public phone booth to call the keyholder. We had to go
"toute droit", she said, and she would stand at the end of the
driveway and watch for us. We went back down Route de Saint Jean, and
at the corner with Grand Draille, we saw her off to the right waving,
where unknown to us, Route de Saint Jean continued north. Sure enough,
there was a gravel driveway leading up to our property.

The woman was quite casual and pleasant with us; she showed us around,
didn't ask for the E.610 deposit we had been told was mandatory, and 
even offered to bring us breakfast goods from her house just up the
hill (we declined politely, though all stores were closed by this
point; some would open again Sunday morning for a few hours.) She did
mention that Air France had called regarding a missing stroller. This
was a sign that Julie (N's sister) and Eric had arrived in the country
with their two kids Alex and Tim. They, too, had bought tickets
through a consolidator, but without using a travel agent; the result
was a series of unfulfilled promises to have the tickets delivered which
culminated in a FedEx delivery the day before departure. As a result,
we had no information on their flight, except that it was supposed to
get into Marseille around noon. So we had expected them to be at the
property, and were surprised that they weren't.

The property looked better than I had expected, and better than in the
pictures. The front door opened onto a dining room (though there was
also a table out on the patio). The kitchen, with a decent-sized
fridge, stove with oven, dishwasher, and washing machine, was in a
hallway leading to three bedrooms and a bathroom. From the dining room
there were stairs leading up to a living room, two more bedrooms, and
another bathroom.

The small swimming pool had looked seedy in the photos on the Web, but
the grass around it was neatly trimmed and attractive. There were rows
of lavender bushes, fig and olive trees, and a large field out back
with a windbreak of high trees, beyond which was the house of the
keyholder. It was all quite nice.

We left a Post-It note on the door, locked it, and headed off to Nimes
to pick up Kei (N's father). He had booked a flight into Paris and had
been intending to make his way to Fontvielle by train; we convinced
him to book a specific TGV from the airport so that we could pick him
up. But because of our delay in finding the property, we left at about
7:30, which was when his train was due to arrive in Nimes. I booted
the car along the N113 (not the autoroute, because I knew the N113
took me almost directly to the train station). Nimes was about 30 km
from Arles. It took a bit of circling in front of the train station to
find parking, and I dropped N off to find her father. When I found a
spot and brought the kids down to the station, they were waiting in
front.

We drove a little west, parked again, and tried to get into a
restaurant called Le P'tit Bec, which was listed in a couple of books,
but they were "complet". At nine on a Saturday night, our options were
going to be limited, so we just walked up the street and found a place
neither empty nor full. It was a couscouserie; most of us had couscous
a l'agneau (the kids wanted the seafood options on the menu, but they
explained that since they were closed the next day, they were out of
fish -- a nicer option than hauling stuff out of the freezer). I
ordered a half-bottle of rose, not the cheapest on the menu, and as a
bonus it was Vacqueyras, a small appellation I had enjoyed through the
Vintages program at home.

It was getting dark when we left the restaurant and headed back;
fortunately, it was not difficult to figure out the headlight
controls. When we arrived back at the property, there was a Peugeot in
the driveway; it was Julie and Eric's. We had locked the front door,
but the patio doors remained open, and they had taken their belongings
inside and upstairs. They had spent a little time in Aix-en-Provence,
though without a stroller it was difficult. Alex, aged
three-and-a-half, came out to greet his cousins, and the kids took
off, squealing. (Cousin Tim, only one, was asleep.) It was with
difficulty that we convinced them to calm down and go to sleep.

Sunday, June 30, 2002

We slept in, and got up slowly. Apart from a baguette I had picked up
while buying the phone card, and some rapidly rotting fruits and
vegetables packed for the plane ride, we had no food; the woman told
us that the supermarkets were closed, even the ones in Arles, but that
small shops would be open until noon. We decided to try to walk into
the village, but as there were a lot of us (and some quite small), it
took a while to get going, and to get anywhere.

Fontvielle, on the D17 departmental road curving northeast from Arles
before plunging southeast towards the etangs near Marseille, was
basically strung along a split of the highway into two one-way roads,
with assorted side streets. We were perhaps a kilometer out of town,
maybe less. The lower one, the one heading east which we had gone
through the day before, had more shops on it. Our first stop was at
the small boulangerie where I had bought some emergency bread the day
before, near the gas station. They had some pastries, and N managed to
poll everyone and get a few croissants and pains au chocolat, but they
were unremarkable. 

We continued slowly down the street, peeking in at a boucherie
(butcher), and a store that appeared to sell a bit of everything,
basically a souvenir shop for those coming to view the old windmill to
the south which was the inspiration for Alphonse Daudet's "Letters
from my Mill". I didn't buy any meat, because I wasn't sure when I'd
have enough supplies to make a meal, but we did find a small produce
store, where we bought some figs, cherries, and nectarines, and some
artisanal cheeses. Further west, another small bakery offered a better
selection of pastries, and we had a second round, sitting down at
plastic tables. The chaussons de pomme were still hot, and the kids
managed to get covered in the filling. We tend to travel hard, and
were it just us, we probably would have been deep in Haut-Provence by
now, but we had pledged this week to help Julie and Eric on their
first trip to France, and first trip abroad with children.

The plan for the rest of the day was to go into Arles, where
restaurants were more likely to be open, for lunch, and then walk
around a bit. I had a Michelin folding map of the region, and the city
maps in the guidebooks we had brought (Cadogan's "South of France",
and the English translations of the Guide Routard's "Hotels et Restos
de France"); Eric had only a Rough Guide to Provence, and photocopies
I had made him so he could get from the airport to the property. He
followed me pretty closely into Arles.

We parked north of Place Lamartine -- I couldn't figure out how to get
the spots in the shade, near the park, and had to settle for full-sun
overflow parking in a gravel lot further north. We walked along the
river embankment, which wasn't as picturesque as it could have been,
and then down and into the old city, making way straight for
les Arenes, the more or less intact Roman arena. I walked a bit ahead,
as I had a particular restaurant in mind, but it was after twelve, and
if it was closed, I had to scout for another one. My worries
dissipated as I found the restaurant, on the road circling the arena:
the tables across the street on the sidewalk right by the arena were
full, but there was space on the terrace in front of the restaurant
itself, provided we sat four and four.

Alex, Julie, Arju and I sat at one table, with the other four plus Tim
at the other table. Arju and Alex each had crepes with ham and cheese;
I ordered a menu giving me a salade de gesiers (green salad with
sliced preserved duck gizzards -- much tastier than they sound), a
confit de canard, and profiteroles for dessert. Not bad for a first
meal, and the setting, with the ancient arches of the arena in my
field of vision, was quite atmospheric. We shared a pichet (small
pitcher) of vin rose; Arju played with Alex so he wouldn't get bored
while Julie nursed Tim. People dressed in folkloric costumes kept
walking by, looking more like tourists than tourist traps; we later
discovered posters for a festival to be held in the arena at five that
afternoon. 

After the meal, we walked around the old city, getting our
bearings. The attractions could be seen on a money-saving combined
ticket, so we decided to return another day to do the full tour, and
just walked through what we could without paying. We saw the
striking Romanesque sculpture around and above the door of the small
Cathedral St-Trophisme, the interior and courtyard of the church, and
regrouped in the shade of the obelisk in the place (plaza) outside. On
the way back to the cars, we peered in at the remains of the Roman
baths (built under Constantine). 

It was a quick drive back to the house, and the kids took advantage of
the pool on the property (they had been agitating to be allowed to
swim since they woke up) while we relaxed in the shade. Just after
seven, we went back into Fontvielle, driving this time, and parked on
the northern (westbound) road shortly before its merger at the west
end of town with its twin. We were looking for a restaurant called La
Cuisine aux Planet, on the place of the same name, which turned out to
be on a street running between the two one-way streets but in a sort
of natural ravine (now completely overbuilt with houses), so we had to
descend to reach it. The distances involved were not large at all, and
it was surprising to find such a topographical feature. 

We secured a table on the terrace (we were not the first diners,
thankfully) and proceeded to have quite a nice meal. They brought an
amuse-gueule while we ordered; I had as a starter brandade (the local
dish of salt cod beaten with olive oil) with eggplant puree and
chopped olives, then monkfish with coulis of piquillos, and for
dessert roasted figs with almond cream. Arju had the monkfish a la
carte, and Zuki was served little bits of what was on our plates
(though she mostly ate through the marinated olives that came with the
amuse-gueule). I ordered two bottles of local rose which we polished
off. Tim slept in his stroller through part of the meal, but when he
woke up and was fussy, I took him off on a stroll to quieten him down.
A "menu enfant" of simply grilled fish and frites was ordered for Alex
-- quite a nice-looking plate of food -- but, having earlier requested
chicken fingers, he refused to eat it until I had the bright idea of
offering some of Arju's piquillo puree to him. He dutifully dotted
each morsel of fish with the red sauce, and ate most of it.

After dinner, we returned to the house, put the kids to bed, and
relaxed, chatting.


Monday, July 1, 2002

Suffering from jet lag, I was up fairly early, and made preparations
to go get pastries, but Arju heard me and was up in a flash, wanting
to go along. We stopped at a boulangerie on the north road (not as
good as the second place the day before, which became our standard
morning supplier) and then drove out to the small supermarket just to
the west of the town to see what its hours were. It was open, and I
quickly went through scoping it out: nothing special, but I did get
some milk, juice, and yogurt. 

We went back, where the others were rising slowly, and ate breakfast
in stages. Air France called about the stroller: they said it would be
delivered after four. We left the house about 10:45, heading east and
out of town. Our destination was St-Remy de Provence, roughly 20 km to
the northeast, but we were taking a scenic route (roads marked in
yellow on the map, not the lowest category of white but not the red of
major roads) up into the small chain of mountains (really big hills)
known as les Alpilles. 

Along the way, we passed under Les Baux, a hilltop citadel that had
been destroyed by Cardinal Richelieu to end its potential as a center
of revolt. This is set in weird eroded country, with stone quarries
and bauxite mines (aluminum ore, named after the town). For some
reason, this has become the second most visited provincial attraction
in France, after Mont St-Michel, with 1.2 million visitors annually. I
was determined that if we should see it, we would do so by getting up
at dawn. The car parks already appeared to be full, and there was a
steady stream of cars behind us. We drove a little further on and
looked at it from a scenic point.

From there, we took a winding road through what is known as the Val
d'Enfer (Valley of Hell). The road straightened out after a few
kilometres, and a right turn took us on a back road into St-Remy.

We got onto a ring road surrounding the old city, with parking along
both sides, but it was difficult to find any. After going nearly all
the way around, we discovered two spots near each other, and grabbed
them. The old town is no more than 250 metres across, and we wandered
through it without much sense of direction. Since it was Monday, the
restaurant I would have liked to eat at was closed, but I found
another one listed in our guidebooks, Le Gousse d'Ail. Since it was
still not quite twelve, we killed time in one of the main squares,
paved and nicely shaded by leafy trees.

The restaurant was quite small, and we were seated along one wall,
with a banquette on one side and chairs on the other. I had the menu
offering a farandole d'entrees (literally "rustic dance of starters":
flan aux basilic, foie gras de canard, aubergines, all quite nice),
rouget a la Provence (fish in a tomato-based sauce), and for dessert
soupe aux abricots avec sorbet citron. It was good but not
terrific. The wine, a local rose, was nice. (Most of the family has a
preference for white wine, and I was ordering roses as an alternative,
because it is harder to get good roses where I live.) 

After lunch we went back to the cars and drove south a few kilometres
to two archeological sites. Les Antiques consisted of most of a
triumphal arch (originally marking the end of the road from ancient
Arles to Glanum, the nearby settlement) and a monument to Caesar and
Augustus, looking something like an ancient rocket ship. Tim had
fallen asleep in the car, and when I went to tell Eric, waiting with
him, that we were crossing the road, I found him asleep as well.

He and Tim woke up eventually and joined us inside Glanum, the remains
of the Roman settlement. These would have been spectacular had we not
been jaded by seeing Pompeii and Herculaneum just the year before;
those visits helped us to imagine what the settlement must have been
like, for mostly foundations and a few reconstructed columns were
left.  We spent an hour or so wandering about, the kids snapping
photos of the ruins and their cousins. Julie and Eric decided to leave
so as to be back by four when the stroller was due to arrive. We
stayed on for another twenty minutes or so, then drove back to
Fontvielle.

The five of us (family plus Kei) stopped in town to do some
shopping. They went to a boulangerie while I went to check out a small
place called Saveurs et Traditions, basically selling artisanal food
products and some wines. When the owner saw me perusing the wines, he
came over and started explaining them to me in French; it turned out
he had opened the store basically to sell wine and food that goes with
them. I bought a slice of pate de campagne, a saucisson d'Arles (dry
salami-style sausage, originally supposed to contain donkey meat), and
a few more cheeses, plus a couple of recommended bottles of wine, and
promised to return for more. N was not amused that she and the others
were locked out of the car while I was being lectured on wine. We also
went to the Ecomarche and loaded up on more supplies.

The stroller had not arrived when we returned, and in fact it would
not arrive until about 10:30 that evening. Before that, the kids went
in to swim, and I opened the bottle of Ricard I had bought at the
Ecomarche. There was an ice-cube tray in the freezer, and I filled a
glass with cubes, poured the Ricard over it, and added water, watching
it turn milky. Drink in hand, I headed out to the pool. "What is
that," said Kei. "It's a pastis," I said, sipping at the
anise-flavoured drink. "Would you like one?" He nodded, and I went in
to make him one. He sipped it and smiled. "In every Maigret novel," he
said, "he goes to a cafe and orders pastis, but I had no idea until
now what it tastes like." He had been reading Simenon for a quarter of
a century at least, but had never tasted pastis before.

We had our first communal dinner at the long dining table, with
cheeses from the small grocery, chevre from the afternoon deli, and
brebis fermier (artisanal sheep's milk cheese); the pate, the
saucisson d'Arles, and a bottle of Domaine le Pian Cotes de Provence
rose.



Tuesday, July 2, 2002

I was up about six, and made myself a coffee. There was a plug-in
coffeemaker in the house, but I boiled water on the stove, and used a
small one-cup paper filter holder I had brought from home, together
with the unremarkable French coffee (bought preground in vacuum-packed
500-gram bags, but at least 100% Arabica) to make myself a single
concentrated cup. I ate some yogurt (pruneaux flavour, or dried
prunes, quite nice) and bran cereal (brought from home as an antidote
to too few vegetables and too much wine), and then went off to buy
pastries at the place most favoured on our first day. Judging from how
quickly pastries vanished, it seemed that more was better, so I bought
four each of croissant, pain au chocolat, pain aux raisins, plus a
baguette. 

Everyone was still asleep when I came back, so I sat and read
guidebooks. My general strategy is to avoid consulting them onsite
whenever possible, and to keep all the possibilities in my head so
that I can make quick decisions when one option proves unworkable or
takes a different amount of time than expected. The others started
getting up around eight-thirty, and had their breakfasts in turn. 

We left the house about ten. This time our destination was Nimes. 
We took the N113 (a familiar road now, from the drive to pick up Kei,
and Eric kept right behind me), but this time we followed the signs to
the Les Arenas underground parking. We were separated in the search
for spots, and the five of us walked up to the arena, and all the way
around it to the entrance at the north side. There we waited
for the others; they arrived about ten minutes later. 

The arena at Nimes is slightly smaller than the one in Arles, but
makes up for it by having an intact third story (most others have had
this part stolen for building stone). We paid admission (rather, Kei
did -- he has this generous habit of picking up expenses when he
travels with us) and went into arena. Walking through the arcades in a
circular fashion, we could hear music coming from the floor of the
arena, but we were disappointed to learn that it was from huge
loudspeakers on a modern stage. The arena was set up as for a concert,
with tiers of modern seats built over the ancient ones, making it
difficult to see the original structure.

We wanted to get up to the third story and see the views, both
internal and external, but all the signs were aimed at concertgoers,
not those interested in the underlying structure, and it took quite a
while to figure out a way up. We could see people up there, so we knew
it was possible. Z took a lot of pictures (almost as many of cousin
Tim as of the arena). Having won the top, we hung out for a while up
there, in direct sun, then climbed back down.

It was almost noon, and time to head for lunch. We left the arena
(annoyingly, the exit passed through a narrow souvenir shop), and went
up the Boulevard Victor Hugo. About a block up, they noticed that Tim,
in the stroller, was without his hat; he was last seen with it in the
arena. Eric ran back while we waited under an awning on the sidewalk,
but he returned hatless. Then, a half-block later, Tim was found to be
without the plastic ring he had been playing with while waiting for
the hat to reappear, and another fruitless search ensured. Tim was
then relieved of all potential losses, and we proceeded.

We came into Place de la Maison Carree and caught a 
glimpse of the Maison Carree, the world's most perfectly preserved
Roman temple, but kept going, as we weren't sure that the restaurant
was still there, or seating people, or even full: it was just past the
Carre d'Art, the modern art museum, in what would be one of the most
touristed parts of the city. But, as it turned out, it was open, and
no one else was there, so we had the full attention of the staff.

The place was called L'Ancien Theatre (a recommendation of the Guide
Routard). The jovial proprietor/chef greeted us, and explained the
menu, which was all fish. I had the relatively expensive 21-euro menu,
which got me loup de mer marine (I had never had raw sea bass before)
with tapenade, lotte (monkfish) with foie gras de canard and coulis de
crustaces (shellfish sauce); others, on 13-euro and 16-euro menus, had
saumon roti, saumonette, and a terrific cassoulle de moules aux
amandes et courgettes (mussels cooked in a small clay casseroles with
almonds, zucchini, and a garlic/white-wine sauce). A ordered this a la
carte and was quite happy with it. The wine was a quite nice Cotes de
Provence rose. Dessert was clafouti aux fruits rouge for most of us,
though Z and Eric ordered gateau de calisson d'Aix. This was a larger
version of the regional specialty from Aix-en-Provence, almond paste
between two thin layers of pastry, in this case surrounded with a pool
of creme Anglaise. It was the only time any of us ate it, and my bite
of it was quite sweet and rich. Alex wasn't about to go for any of
those, and the young server recited the ice cream flavours; we
translated, Alex frowned, and the server hastened to add that vanilla
was also available, which met with his approval (he calls it
"white"). It was a great meal; the price paid would barely have
covered the main course had I been served it in Berkeley.

It was time to visit the Maison Carree (literally "Square House") and
to marvel how it remained intact. It wasn't large, though bigger than
the small Republican temples we had visited in Rome, and the interior
was given over to an exhibition of a bit of history plus a few ancient
statues excavated in the region. The kids hung out on the steps,
taking pictures, and getting too close to the sides with their abrupt
dropoffs (the Romans were not into public safety). 

After a while, Tim got fussy, so we all moved over to Place d'Assas, a
nearby plaza with some odd modern sculptures supposed to represent the
Cathar mystery and the ancient god Nemausus, and made odder by
skateboarders (not very good) practicing neck-risking stunts.  I
stopped at bookstore and bought a Michelin road atlas covering all of
France -- after looking at the spiralbound version we had bought in
1992, which was better in the car, I opted for a smaller paperback
version that would be easier to take back and consult at home. I also
bought the Michelin Guide Rouge, which has recommendations for hotels
and restaurants (we would only use the latter) together with small
city maps of many places.

When I rejoined everyone, Tim was asleep, and it was time to visit the
Carre d'Art, the modern art gallery built across from the Maison
Carree. The elevators inside were broken, and we trudged up glass
stairs to first floor, which had selections from the permanent
collection, and then to the second floor, with an exhibition on the
theme of animals. One room-filling piece consisted of taxidermied (is
that a word?) birds with stuffed animal heads (the kind of goofy
stuffed animals given to kids). There was a sculpture of two stuffed
deer in missionary position, and a rather bizarre video (which
occupied all of the kids for some time) of a Japanese artist taking an
octopus on a guided tour of Tokyo.

We walked back to the cars through the touristy zone pedonale
(pedestrian zone). Both of us, independently, got lost on the way to
autoroute, and found it finally (I knew we had to only keep going
south, but once we found it, we had to figure out how to get onto it);
it cost 1.20 euros to go as far as Arles, in a relatively short time
at 130 kph (the speed limit, and we were constantly being passed). We
took our regular exit towards Fontvielle, but went into Arles at the
first roundabout, or rather into a bizarre commercial zone culminating
with Geant, a huge department store with a food store attached (we
could see the sign from the autoroute, and just had to head roughly in
the right direction). The five of us spent time buying dinner and
other supplies.

These hypermarches are like a one-story combination of a department
store and extensive supermarket, with fifty or so checkouts. There was
quite a decent wine and spirits section, and the cheese selection was
amazing: not only were there the expected selection of more commercial
Camemberts and Bries, but there were a number of more obscure cheeses
on shelves (for instance, Epoisses Berthaut from Burgundy), and then
there was a deli counter with more artisanal local cheeses. The
fromage blanc (fresh smooth white cheese, often with sweet flavouring)
section alone was larger than the whole dairy section in our
supermarket at home. The whole thing, as with any box store, could be
soul-sapping, but we tried to keep making progress instead of
wandering vacantly through the aisles on sensory overload.

Back at home, the kids swam with Kei supervising, and N and I prepared
dinner while I sipped on a kir made with leftover wine and creme de
cassis bought at the Ecomarche. Dinner was mixed salad with frisee,
mache, and roquette, dressed with olive oil and wine vinegar left by
previous renters; Mascare cheese (from Banon), Picodon, Crottin de
Chauvignol, and Epoisses; leftover sausage and pate, and a jar of
local tapenade which Z grabbed to spread on slices of bread, all
washed down with a bottle of Bandol rose (alas, not Domaine Templierm,
which I never found).


Wednesday, July 3, 2002

I slept until eight, my first good night since arriving, and was one
of the last people up. Eric had gone out with our kids plus Alex and
Kei to get pastries, and being a diabetic, had only come back with a
bag full of croissants, pains aux chocolat, pains aux raisins, and
chaussons aux pommes. Breakfast, needless to say, was quite a
feast. Once it was done, we headed out towards Arles for our full tour
of the sights. As I drove around a roundabout to the north of town, A
told a story from breakfast: I'd pan-roasted some figs, since I am
often allergic to them, and she had asked Alex, "Do you like figs?"
and he had replied, "I only like dumplings." His love of dumplings had
been sort of a running family joke at our last gathering in Berkeley;
while he is usually quite good at restaurants, he sometimes retreats
to the safety of dumplings, and in Berkeley one can usually find
something on the menu that's a close approximation. But I knew this
wasn't the case in France, and hoped that we would not put him through
too trying a time during our meals out.

We parked as before near Place Lamartine; I had planned on getting one
of the shaded spots, but was disconcerted to find that the Wednesday
market was going on (mostly on boulevard Emile Combes which went
southeast from Place Lamartine, but went right to medieval gates to
old city). We still both managed to park in reasonably shaded spots
closer than we had on the previous visit. We wandered through the
market -- fruits and vegetables, of course, but also mobile
charcutiers in buses whose sides lifted up to form an awning and
reveal the display cases inside, mobile poissoniers, huge skillets of
paella (two metres in diameter) to take away, breads, cheeses, sachets
of aromatic flowers and spices, dried fruits, spices, and handicrafts.
We bought the kids miniature straw market bags for 3 euros each from a
vendor who was selling only those and some heads of garlic, then Alex,
upon seeing them, wanted a basket, and his parents bought a sturdy
round one from anothe vendor. I wondered how they were going to pack
it. After reaching the point where the food market turned into a flea
market, we walked into the centre of the old city and to les
Arenes. 

There were many tourists (we had seen the large boats that cruise the
Rhone docked on the river, and in fact Arles was one of the most
touristy places we encountered that week). The arena was set up for
modern audience, like Nimes, but unlike Nimes it was set up for a
bullfight (both Spanish-style and Camarguaise-style events were
offered; in the latter the bull is not killed, and the object is to
cut a cord stretched between the bull's horns). Again, the ancient
structure was nearly covered, even more than in Nimes. We climbed a
medieval tower that had been added to the Roman structure, and gained
a great view of the north part of town, across the plain to the Abbaye
de Montmajour (an abandoned abbey on the road from Fontvielle to
Arles, which we never did visit), and the Alpilles beyond.

Lunchtime. The restaurant I had chosen was Le Gueule du Loup, on the
road leading west across the old town from the arena. We arrived just
at noon, and waited outside for a few minutes on the narrow sidewalk
watching the preparations in the open kitchen on the lower (ground)
level. Finally a patronne appeared, I asked her if they were open, and
we were admitted. The dining room was up a narrow flight of stone
steps. We were seated at one end just below a huge mirror, which
served to amuse Alex. 

The house aperitif was made with sparkling wine and almond flavouring;
for a change, I ordered two for the table, and we all had a sip. (This
was, I think, the only time we had an aperitif the entire trip, though
we were asked if we wanted one at virtually every meal). Most of us
had the 26-euro menu: my entree was filet de sardines marinade
(marinated fresh sardines; I had only one before losing it to Z, who
was sharing a menu with A, but didn't care for the terrine de pintade
fermier avec Armagnac et raisins au Port). Others at table had quiche
aux moules (one was ordered for Alex, who was most taken with the
carrots on top). My main course was caillette d'agneau herbes de
Provence (usually a sausage patty wrapped in caul fat, but this was
not ground meat, but larger chunks of lamb about a centimeter across,
and included epinards [spinach], I think) in a tomato-cumin
coulis. Most others at the table had this or cuisse de lapin (huge
portion of rabbit, they must have been feeding them steroids, it was
more like a turkey thigh) with aubergines. Nearly everyone had nougat
glace avec noisettes et pistaches, coulis de fruits rouges for dessert
(Alex plowed through a chocolate mousse, sculpted on a plate into
waves with a tuile boat; Eric had a dacquoise feuillete, layered with
sponge cake). Wine was a Vin de Pays d'Arles rose from Mas de Rey. It
was a very nice meal, taking almost three hours; Tim mostly slept, and
the other kids were quite good, reading or drawing on paper. We
cleared out in a hurry at the end when the only other diners remaining
upstairs started to light up cigars.

We had bought the combined ticket to several city attractions at les
Arenes; after lunch, we saw the Cloitre de Saint-Trophisme (the
cloister of the church, with quite nice medieval carvings), Theatre
Antique (a Roman theatre, with the ancient seats covered by modern
ones; what remained of the stage was mostly two intact columns and few
fragments, with a modern stage between this and the modern seats), and
Cryptoporticus (a big Roman basement, originally constructed to level
the ancient Forum, and accessed through disused Jesuit
church). Somewhere in there we passed through the place du Forum, but
the only trace of the ancient forum was a column and triangular
fragment of the corner of a pediment, set into the side of a modern
hotel. Despite the fact that van Gogh did some of his best work in
Arles, there are none of his works in the town, only reproductions set
up at places matching the viewpoints in the paintings. We continued on
to the Thermes de Constantine (consisting of remains of one exhedrum,
plus traces of hypocaust heating system, and outlines of the three
baths), and then back to our cars and home. 

Eric and I went out to look more closely at the Fontvielle
charcuteries/traiteurs; none were particularly exciting. We bought
some rillettes de canard (slow-cooked duck meat spread), a slice of
terrine a la Provencale, and a few small quiches Lorraines. The kids
went swimming, though it was overcast and eventually started to rain
lightly. About seven we had a dinner with the items we'd bought, plus
cheese, bread, tapenade, cornichons, salad, peppers, and various
leftovers from the fridge, together with a bottle of Tavel from the
Geant. I downloaded the pictures the kids had taken (289 in the past
two days!) and did a bit of triage on them.

Thursday, July 4, 2002

I woke at six-thirty, made coffee and had first part of my breakfast;
I went out shortly before eight, with Zuki, to get pastries. The others
woke up gradually and had breakfast; we headed out about
nine-thirty. The goal for this day was to see the Pont du Gard and
then head into Avignon.

We drove towards Tarascon, went around it on a ring road, and swung up
towards Remoulins. In Remoulins we encountered a minor traffic jam in
town (which I mistook for a lineup for Pont du Gard, and panicked that
we had not come early enough) and then drove a little west and took
the turnoff leading to the right bank of the Pont du Gard. There were
no more than twenty cars there when we parked; we walked through a
very modern complex, two low long buildings with a sunroof between
them (the buildings housed explanatory exhibits, plus food
concessions), and onto a paved road winding down to the Pont du
Gard. 

This is a three-tier aqueduct bridge spanning the river Gard, not only
a great feat of engineering (the total vertical drop from the source
of the water all along the 50km original stretch of the aqueduct to
Nimes is only 17 metres!) but a beautiful work of
architecture. Although the new euro bills are supposed to be bland and
devoid of any identifiable symbols, somehow the Pont du Gard snuck
onto one of them. We could walk across it on the lower level
(presumably the former car bridge, before it was closed to traffic);
the other side had better views, and we climbed up to the top (the
channel where the water originally ran was fenced off; at one point
tourists could walk in it and on the top) and a little past to get
views from slightly above. Then we walked down and to the left
riverbank, where I attempted to take a panoramic photo. Alex was quite
glum (he had been up in the middle of the night with a fever) and had
to be carried a lot, or put in the stroller while more cheerful Tim
stumped along. Several tour groups (mostly adolescents) went by, and
it was clear that the hordes were arriving. We walked back through the
complex and to the cars at about noon.

We headed a little west to La Begude de Saint-Pierre, a country hotel
that was reputed to have a good kitchen. We were seated at three
square plastic tables put together outside near the pool; one umbrella
provided shade, and we tried to squeeze in under it, though Julie and
Zuki were in the sun much of the time. Kei said, "This is like a movie
set!". He has visited France many times but had not had a car since
travelling with his young family in the mid-sixties, when they
certainly could not afford to eat at a place like this.

Alex asked about chicken fingers for a few minutes, then decided he
didn't want lunch, and his parents asked for an extra plate for
him. The server was quite surly (N remarked that he must have been
exiled from Paris, since the Parisian waiters weren't that way
anymore; we didn't have service that hostile for the remainder of the
trip). The kids split a 29-euro menu: feuillette de brandade with
bulots a l'aioli (brandade layered inside crisp pastry with whelks in
garlic mayonnaise), petite gigot d'agneau with courgettes farcis (a
small cut of leg of lamb with stuffed zucchini), and a tulipe of
sorbets (balls of sorbet in a tulip-shaped cookie) which they donated
to Alex in exchange for two a-la-carte desserts (A chose a tarte fine
aux pommes, Z a mousse legere de miel de lavande, a light mousse
flavoured with lavender honey). Eric also had a 29-euro menu, but most
of the rest of us had the 37-euro menu, with fantasie de saumone (raw
chopped salmon, marinated salmon, and smoked salmon arranged in
various creative ways), pissaladiere de daurade (pissaladiere is sort
of a Nicoise pizza, but this was morsels of grilled fish on
caramelized onions and anchovy on a small circle of puff pastry on a
bed of spinach), a cheese course (I was called upon to interpret for
the table, and managed to identify a Boulette d'Avesnes, a Pont
l'Eveque, Roquefort, some chevre, and asked about an Epoisses-looking
cheese that turned out to be Langres, a cheese I had packed for Kei to
take home when we visited Paris together in 1999, and which he was
happy to have again ), and dessert (soupe aux cerises fraise [fresh
cherry soup], sorbet de citron avec herbes folles [lemon sorbet with
chopped mixed herbs]). We had a bottle of Mas de Bressades rose (a
rouge from the same producer was a highlight of a Vintages release
back home, earlier in the year). Alex went to sleep on Eric's lap, and
woke up at the very end of the meal only to throw up; we mopped it up
quickly, and Julie and Eric decided to head back.

The four of us and Kei headed back towards Fontvielle as well, but
stopped at the castle at Tarascon, which was the most stereotypical
castle we had ever seen (this being meant in a positive sense: it had
all the castle-like stuff, with the possible exception of a
drawbridge, that one could want). The kids were quite taken with it
all, especially the original wood ceilings in the royal apartments,
and the eighteenth-century graffiti etched into the stone by English
prisoners. 

It was a short hop back to our house from there, but we went a little
south of Fontvielle in search of the ruins of the Roman aqueduct.
These were just off the side of a minor highway heading for the next
village over; we took a brief look at what seemed like a brick wall
with vague arch-like shapes, and then drove a little further south to
look for the Roman flour mill (which had been powered by the water
from the aqueduct), which our Oxford Archaeological Guide to Southern
France raved about as a rare example of Roman engineering. This was
signposted down a dirt road that was basically two ruts through long
grass; fortunately no one else was around. I parked a little off the
"road", by the side of the hill with walls and ruined buildings
descending the slope. We went up a staircase that looked more like a
ruined wall, to the cut at the top of the steep hill where the water
came through, and then through to a much better section of
aqueduct. The kids climbed up the cut and collected snail shells (some
later discovered to have live snails in them, after they crawled all
over the bathroom where they had been taken to be "cleaned"). Finally,
N, Kei, and the kids chose to hike back along that path; I picked my
way down (which was a lot harder than getting up), drove out to the
main road and back to our first stop, finding them waiting.

We went into the centre of town and parked a little east of it, in a
small parking lot which housed the twice-weekly market (which we never
did attend). N bought the kids popsicles while she bought bread and I
went into Saveurs et Traditions. I bought the white wine that the
owner had recommended earlier (Domaine de Mauvan, Cotes de Provence,
made from the malvasie grape, though the owner said it was called la
rolle in Provence), more pate de campagne for Julie, who had been
particularly taken by the earlier sample, and a couple of small goat
cheeses; he had me read out of the Guide Hachette de Vins 1989 about a
couple of his wines. I found the kids dripping popsicle all over
themselves; on the way back to the car we cleaned the traiteur out of
rillettes de canard. With those, sliced red peppers, the last of the
salad, Epoisses, and leftovers from the fridge, we had a terrific
dinner. But first, the kids swam, while Kei and I relaxed over pastis
in the poolside lounge chairs.

Friday, July 5, 2002

Eric took all the kids again in the morning for his last pastry run
(they were heading back to North America at the end of the
week). After breakfast, we all left for Avignon, about 9:30. I had
been reluctant to go there, figuring it to be hot, touristy, and
without much of interest to us, but the others wanted to see it,
especially Kei, for nostalgic reasons. Eric, driving, stuck to my tail
all the way there. We came into the city, took a turn at a roundabout
too soon and got stuck on the ring road going the wrong way. I turned
around on a jughandle, once I passed a few of them and figured out how
they worked (Eric still valiantly just behind me, thinking God knows
what).

We came to the city walls, N navigating madly with the red Michelin,
which had three different maps for a city this side. Incredibly
enough, we found the entrance for the underground parking l'Orologie
which we had been aiming for, without any backtracking. We went down
to niveau -6 (the floor six levels below the surface), where there
were several spaces in a row, so we could park next to each
other. Having unloaded all the kids, we headed up the elevator, and
abruptly found ourselves on rue Joseph Vernet, inside the city
walls. I had expected we'd have to cross the highway on foot somehow
and walk through a gate.

We walked down to the Musee Calvet, only a few blocks south on the
same street. While the others went in to buy tickets, I walked a
little further down to make lunch reservations at a restaurant I knew
of. Then I retraced my steps, and we all went into the museum. There
was a sculpture gallery on the main floor, followed by a room with
various bits and pieces (some paintings from various periods, an
ancient head of Buddha from Cambodia, some porcelain). Alex was not
interested and could not be made interested, despite everyone trying;
he pouted and lay on the bench in that room.  Tim, too young for the
art even by our standards, liked the acoustics of the place, and was
making lots of noise; Z and I took him off in stroller so Julie could
concentrate. We wheeled him around the sculpture room and Z tried to
explain works to him, to the amusement of the security guards.

N and I together carried Tim in his stroller up to the second
floor. In the main room there, we discovered a very nice trompe l'oeil
of an artist's workspace, with an irregular perimeter, surprisingly
from 1609 (it resembled a 20th century work). Unfortunately, there
were also many canvases of minor French artists from the dreary 18th
century period. There were some colossal Joseph Vernet landscape
canvases which were nice, and a homoerotic David work, "Death of Bara"
(an idealized version of the death of a young man who shouted "Vive la
Revolution!" when ordered to shout "Vive le roi!"). But was that it?
Why did the guidebooks rave about this place, calling it one of the
best museums in Avignon? We retrieved my backpack from the locker,
read about the place in the Cadogan (it sounded quite different), then
asked about the 20th century paintings mentioned (I didn't have the
vocabulary to ask about the other things, the wrought iron and the
prehistoric pieces). "Closed," was the simple reply. 

But as we were waiting for Tim to finish nursing, another guard opened
a side door, and suddenly we could see the later works. Utrillo, lots
of Soutine (including a terrific "La Raie", a skatefish sitting in a
chair), and some minor French Impressionists and
post-Impressionists. But antiquities section was still closed, and on
the map posted by the entrance, we could see that half the museum was
denied to us due to renovation.

This was a bit of a disappointment. Because of this, it was still too
early for lunch, so we all walked slowly down rue Joseph Vernet and up
rue de la Republique. This was a busy city street, leading north to
the Place de l'Horloge, the centre of the ancient city. There were
lots of posters for Avignon Festival plays -- it was starting that
weekend -- and advertisements were thrust into our hands by
leafletters.  Alex kept stopping and complaining, so we moved very
slowly in the hot sun; it took 15 minutes to circle the block, and
then, finally, it was time for lunch at Le Petit Bedon. 

This was in several of our books as a temple of local cuisine. We were
shown into a very small room (seating perhaps 20), where a blackboard
was propped up before us and we discovere that it also had a very
limited menu at lunch. I had the assiette d'ete (summer plate -- plate
with salad, terrine, tapenade, marinated sardines, roast chicken, some
cheese, caviar d'aubergines) for 12 euros. Others had a full menu,
with millefeuille de brandade aux aubergines or melon with jambon de
montagne to start, gigot d'agneau (leg of lamb) as a main course, and
creme renversee (a sort of custard) aux abricots for dessert. The wine
was a simple rose, Vin de Pays de la Principaute d'Orange. The best
part of meal was the patronne, a garrulous woman who stomped up and
down talking constantly. She offered one set of diners a choice of
tables on either side of the narrow room, one with "a view of the
mountains", the other with "a view of the sea". Alex had a bit of
melon and ham but nothing else; Tim refused to sleep, even when I took
him out for a walk to try to dance him down.

After lunch, we walked north and into the Place du Palais, opposite
the grim Papal Palace (which looked like a fortress). There were many
tourists around, in groups and in single families, and many touts
advertising plays by handing out leaflets, dressing up, or enacting
mini-skits in front of cafes. There was even a performance by a fringe
group in front of a crescent of plastic lawn chairs right on the
place. We walked down a winding, descending street to the north (on
which we stopped for ice cream for the kids, and Julie bought a
tablecloth with an olive motif), coming to the walls by the river and
to the entrance to the Pont St-Benezet, the "Pont d'Avignon" of the
song.

We had to pay to get in to walk in full sun on the fragment of bridge
that remained -- they tried to soften the blow by giving us an
audioguide (I detest these) and including a tiny museum with nothing
of interest. We could also walk on part of the ramparts, and climb up
to the terrace of the Petit Palais for a view of the bridge; I did
this while the others finished their audioguide, and then waited with
the sleeping Tim while the others climbed up.

Having done the Pont, we went back up the winding street and to the
Petit Palais, now an art museum. Julie and Eric had to leave their
stroller, requiring them to carry the sleeping Tim, and Alex was
really not interested in the museum, flinging himself onto the nearest
bench as we went into each room. There was some nice early Venetian work,
Byzantine-influenced, and then a lot of minor Sienese artists. The
first time we had seen Sienese art, in the Pinacoteca in Siena on a
day visit in 1995, we had thought it dry and unrewarding; when we
stayed in the city in 1996, we had done a lot more study, and
understood the value of the Pinacoteca. Without that study, Julie and
Eric were not getting much out of the work; even N and I found it a
bit tough. Our kids seemed fine, though.

About halfway through, Eric had to take Alex down; Julie left shortly
afterwards. We continued through the rest of the museum, finding a few
interesting pieces in each room, and then met them outside. We all
headed south into the main square, Place de l'Horloge -- lots of
leafletters, and some buskers for the kids to watch. We watched some
flamenco dancers doing a short routine to advertise a Festival
performance, and someone doing puppetry with clay figures. When that
was done, we made our way towards the garage, but stopped for ice
cream again at a place that had Italian-style gelato (it was really
hot, and we had used up most of our water).

We rose out of the parking garage on the exit ramp, were plunged into
traffic, and had to do some frantic driving to avoid going across
river on bridge (Eric behind me was terrific). But we didn't go far,
only a bit around the exterior ring road to a huge grocery store,
Carrefour, marked with a shopping-cart symbol on the map in the
Michelin Guide Rouge. We needed supplies for dinner, I needed gas in
the car (it was about 10% cheaper at the gas station inevitably
attached to these huge complexes), and Julie and Eric were curious to
experience the hypermarche phenomenon. They bought some alcohol for
friends and for themselves, and we picked up items for dinner. We
headed back to Fontvielle by a direct route. Dinner consisted of
little quiches, cheese, pate, bread, salad, and just about everything
left in the fridge, with another Bandol rose.

Saturday, July 6, 2002

The property owner had said she'd be there at nine to finalize our
departure. We got up early, I made coffee, N finished the last of our
packing, and we started loading the car. But it was overcast and
raining, the first bad weather we'd had (there had been a few drops,
quickly vanishing, here and there), dashing our plans to sit all
together outside the patisserie in town and eat breakfast. We got the
cars loaded in plenty of time, and sat around waiting -- she showed up
at nine-fifteen, charged us 60 euros for sheets and towels (an
expected expense), looked around briefly and found nothing wrong, and
headed off on her bicycle. We got each of the kids into the proper
car, said our goodbyes, and left the property. Julie and Eric were off
to Tarascon, and then to Aix-en-Provence; they would spend the night
in a hotel near Marseille airport before flying back the next morning.

We (the four of us and Kei, who was still with us for a few days more)
headed into town, parked, popped open umbrellas, and went to get
pastries. We ate them in the car (it was still raining) before
starting down the road to Arles. In a now-familiar fashion, we got
onto autoroute heading west, then off at the exit just over the
river. But this time, we turned left, and went south into the
Camargue, the marshy area at the mouth of the Rhone. (The property
owner had advised us of this, though it was what we were planning on
anyway, because Saturday vacation traffic was heavy on the
autoroute). 

We skirted the Etang de Vaccares, a large salt pond, and the marshy
ground nearby; we only spotted a single white flamingo, but saw many
other smaller birds. It was a straightforward route down into
Aigues-Mortes, a walled city built as a seaport for one of the
Crusades but rendered useless (and hence preserved) by silt shortly
afterwards. Passing through a series of roundabouts, we came upon its
entrance, with a car park right in front, and a lineup to get in; we
drove around walls and parked to the south for free. The bad weather
had retreated; it was sunny and warm. 

We entered Aigues-Mortes through a gate in the walls right opposite
the car park, coming into a quiet residential street. Moving down it,
we soon found ourselves in a touristy area with boutiques and
restaurants. Those were our only choices, one dull and the other
offputting. We could climb on the ramparts, but again, it was in full
sun, and expensive; so we opted to walk the streets, trying to keep to
the shadows, until it was time for lunch.

Lunch was at Le Galion, a nice-looking (if somewhat touristy) place
with a shaded interior roofed with dark wood beams. The kids menu was
a choice of fish cooked on a hot stone (pierrade) or mussels; Z had
the latter, A the former. I had to put the fish on the stone for A,
and scrape it off when it was done; it was the most unsafe kid's meal
I have ever seen. I had soupe aux poissons (pureed and strained fish
soup), thick and dark, with toasts and rouille (aioli flavoured with
roasted pepper), then boeuf a la gardian (basically boeuf bourguignon
with olives added, a local specialty). Others had the pierrade with
loup de mer or rouget. Dessert was a huge slice of tarte aux pommes,
with not only apple slices on top but an applesaucy section below. I
wanted to have a Vin de Pays de Sables, the local "sand wine" which my
friend Karen and I had chosen to serve at the cooking class where we
met (as instructors!) for the first time, but there were only full
bottles available, and I had to drive right after lunch without Julie
and Eric to help drink it up. So instead we had a 50cl bottle of
Costieres de Nimes rose (Kei had a glass and a half, and N a half
glass). During the rest of the trip, I was to find, to my surprise and
satisfaction, that most places had enough half-bottles available to
make a good selection at lunch or dinner; this had not been the case
on previous visits to France. The food at Le Galion was decent but not
exceptional; still, it was a good break, and relaxing.

After lunch, we quickly regained our car (baking in the sun with all
our luggage baking in the trunk) and headed out to the west. The road
turned into a dual carriageway and zipped into Montpellier. Our hotel,
an apartment hotel which was part of the Citadines chain we had used
before, was in Antigone, a modern development to the east of the
historic centre of the city, designed by the Catalan architect Ricardo
Bofill (whose work we had seen in both Paris and Barcelona). The
streets surrounding it were a complicated tangle of one-way
streets. We had to turn left off one of them, cross the tram tracks,
and dive into a subterranean garage for the hotel, only to find it
closed, with no apparent way to get in. I ran up to the reception,
only to find it closed as well, until five.

We pulled the car out, drove back onto the one-way street, and managed
to find pay street parking a little to the south. Taking our daypacks,
we walked back up to Antigone, which is laid out as a series of
circular places surrounded by concave buildings, connected by more
linear buildings lining a wide central promenade. We sat by an
animated fountain in one of them for a while, then headed towards the
historic centre. This required crossing the tram track again (it
curved south at that point), entering the Polygone shopping centre,
walking through a central corridor of the Galeries Lafayette
department store with bins full of clothing shouting "Soldes!" (sale)
at us, out past anothe shopping mall called Triangle, and finally into
Place de la Comedie, a large oblique triangular plaza marking the
centre of the city. This was packed with people; we moved through them
and up city streets in the large pedestrian centre. There were lots of
locals walking everywhere, and all the shops were open. 

We wandered through side streets aimlessly, then got out of the heat
and rested a bit by going back to Triangle and to a bookstore with six
or seven floors (sort of a warren, very confusing). Kei and I stood in
the tourism section and browsed in guidebooks (I noted a Guide Routard
for the Midi-Pyrenees that I thought about buying, as we had almost no
books covering the last week of the trip). N and the kids went down to
"jeunesse" and found a lot of French books for the kids to read, all
of which we bought on the way out.

We went back to hotel when it opened, only to discover that we didn't
have an apartment reserved for five, only four! I didn't have the fax
I had said, only the reply which did not quote all the details, but
there was nothing we could do (later, at home, I found my fax, and
discovered I had copied the one for the following week, but without
changing the number of people, only the date, so it was my fault).  We
did arrange to have an extra bed placed in the apartment, for an
additional cost. The apartment was small, about the size of our
Barcelona apartment (also a four-person Citadines), but more poorly
equipped, and with annoying things like broken switches and
plugs. Still, it was not as awkward as the Paris Place d'Italie
location. There was a small balcony, but as it overlooked the tram
line and the busy street, it was quite useless; the windows were good,
though, and there was little noise from below.

We went out in the evening to Le Cesar, a restaurant quite close by
(in the place with the animated fountain). We sat on the outdoor
terrace; I could look up and see the great curve of the building above
us. Z and I shared a menu: assiette de degustation (a tasting plate
with fish terrine, tapenade, marinated sardines, salmon tartare) then
bourride de lotte (morsels of monkfish in rich sauce with potatoes and
toasts) and tarte aux framboises for dessert (raspberry tart). Wine
was Chateau Benel-Laliau rose from Pic St-Loup (Coteaux de Languedoc),
a region from which I had had wines imported by Kermit Lynch in
Berkeley, and through which I hoped we would travel in the following week.

After dinner, we walked down to the end of the Antigone development,
through a huge semicircular housing complex called the Esplanade
d'Europe to the impressive glass Hotel d'Region overlooking the river
Lez, and then went back home and crashed. Kei slept in the spare bed
in the living room, beside the kids, who were on the couch (it folded
out, in quite a spectacular manner, into a decent double bed); N and I
slept in the small back bedroom, with two single beds pushed together,
and barely enough room to move around them.


Sunday, July 7, 2002

On the morning of our first day in Montpellier, we walked down to the
boulevard just south of Antigone, in the area we had circled through
when looking for parking the day before, because in that search we
noticed a small sign indicating there was a farmer's market there on
Sunday morning. First we went to a corner patisserie for pastries,
which were so-so -- the almond croissants were really over the top in
terms of richness and sweetness, and we were never to find a place as
good as our standard in Fontvielle, which itself was not
exceptional. I suppose we had been spoiled by memories of Paris.

The market itself was small but quite nice, a good mix of produce,
prepared foods, dried goods, and various specialty vendors (olive oil,
soap, wine). N bought some things for our dinner in -- some small
meat-filled pastries, a slice of a larger duck preparation en croute,
a baguette, apricots, cherries. We took our purchases back to the
hotel and stashed them, then headed for the old city. To try to avoid
the soulless shopping mall walk, we took a roundabout route south of
Polygone, but ended up walking on uninteresting streets (which would
have been quite spooky at night) and finally through a smelly
underpass under the tramline into a seedy section typical of the
neighbourhoods you find near a train station (which, in fact, this
was). 

A short walk uphill to the northwest brought us up onto Place de la
Comedie, much quieter than the day before, with only a few people at
cafes. We strolled north along the leafy Esplanade Charles de Gaulle
to the Corum performing arts complex, which looked small from the
esplanade but extended down the hill. A sharp left turn took us into
the pedestrian zone of the old city. Everything was shut up, and we
wandered along this street and that, finally going westward past the
impressive Palais de Justice and through an Arc du Triomphe (shrouded
as part of some restoration effort) to the parklike Promenade de
Peyrou. This was marked by an over-the-top equestrian statue of Louis
XIV in the barren centre, but the tree-shaded sides of the Promenade
were pleasant, and we walked slowly up them towards a monument at the
end which reminded me a little of the Palace of Fine Arts in San
Francisco. This was the Chateau d'Eau, whose sole purpose was to hide
an 18th-century aqueduct extending back from the top of the hill to a
source a kilometre or so away.  

Continuing the leisurely pace, we wandered back into town. I directed
our steps past the few restaurants about which I had recommendations
but no knowledge of opening hours, but all were closed. Looking in the
Rough Guide, every listed restaurant was closed. In main squares,
people were having drinks or coffee on small tables, but no one was
eating, no menus were posted. We could, of course, have had fast food,
but we weren't about to settle for that. Finally, we decided to head
back to the farmer's market and buy more food for lunch as well. Some
of the stalls had shut up and others were clearly winding down, but N
found some tartes salees and some feuilletes de chevre, and I bought a
whole roast chicken and watched the vendor cut it up for me.

We went back to the hotel for a late lunch -- I opened a bottle of red
wine, a Vacqueyras 1998, that I had bought in the supermarket in
Arles. The food we had bought had to last for both lunch and dinner,
so we ate sparingly (the heat had reduced our appetites, though the
apartment was air-conditioned). After lunch, we took the car out of
the hotel garage and set off to visit the Chateau de
Flaugergues, one of the 18th-century "follies" of the local
aristocracy. We had no idea where it was apart from being just a few
km to the east, at a point somewhere past our small-scale maps, but
too close in for our large-scale maps to offer much help.

As we headed east from the hotel, we went over the river on a city
street, with a view of the Hotel d'Region, and then the road turned
into a limited access one that would take us down to the autoroute. N
watched the signs for the exits closely, spotted the one for
Flaugergues, and told me just in time. This combination of eagle-eye
scrutiny and manic driving eventually got us there with only a couple
of false turns. 

We went into the chateau, paid our entrance fee in a gift shop
stocking wines made from the grapes we could see surrounding the
house, and then sat through a pretentious video on the place, with an
actor pretending to be -- well, I'm not sure what. It had little
information and a lot of zoom shots. After that, we were given half an
hour to explore the "French garden" (highly manicured with geometric
layout) and the "English garden" (more natural, with a diverse
collection of flora, including a bamboo grove). We were met by a tour
guide, who took the five of us through the chateau. From the outside,
it looked like a large but unremarkable building; inside, the ground
floor was a curious mix of period furnishings and odds and ends (such
as several telescopes). It looked as if someone had taken the contents
of a provincial museum and spread them about the house.

We voted this a fairly relaxing way to spend a Sunday afternoon,
considering the alternatives. Returning to the hotel, we had an early
dinner, including the roast chicken (which was quite good) and the
rest of the wine, and went to bed early as well.


Monday, July 8, 2002

Kei and the kids went out first thing in the morning and bought
pastries from one of the bakeries among the ground-floor shops of the
Antigone buildings, which turned out to be "okay" as far as they were
concerned (I didn't have any, having given up on them unless a place
looked really promising). We had a quick breakfast and hopped in the
car for a long day of driving. Our goal was to drive west to Narbonne,
almost halfway to Toulouse, and then work our way back, stopping at
various sights. The hardest part of all this was getting the car out
of the garage: I had to get out of my narrow spot (pillars every
second car), head towards the exit, punch a code into a unit on the
wall, then swing right and into a very narrow exit, gunning the engine
to get it up the steep incline before the door closed again. I think
it was on this day that I misjudged the position of the right front
corner of the car and ran smack into an iron bar on the far side of
the door, startling everyone and putting a small dent in the bumper --
the only accident we were to have on the whole trip.

As explained above, the situation of our hotel made reaching the
autoroute a breeze, and once on it, I pushed the car up to 130, a
speed it easily held without complaint. It wasn't entirely relaxing
driving, however; I had to maneuver around trucks and slow cars, and
watch for speeders in my rearview mirror. Several times I was passed
by cars or motorcycles doing at least 160.

We got to Narbonne about ten, and N attempted to navigate us into town
with the imperfect combination of the 1:200000 Michelin road atlas and
the smaller city map in the Guide Rouge. We were most amused by the
series of roundabouts on the way in to town, which touted local
attractions: a huge amphora pouring wine, then a fake Roman ruin, then
a "crossroads". We gained the center of town and found free parking
just to the west of the old city without problems.

From where we had parked, we approached the cathedral from the back,
and could clearly see the remnants of the attempts to finish it (it
had been an ambitious project, walled off with only about a third of
the nave completed). It was an odd feeling to be inside such a
truncated cathedral (it basically felt as if we were confined to the
choir) but it was still the first real cathedral we'd been inside on
this trip. We particularly enjoyed the medieval polychrome reliefs
that had been uncovered during recent de-Baroquification. The kids
scampered about taking loads of digital photos (all of which turned
out blurry; they failed to heed my warnings about bracing the camera
for low-light photography). 

We went into the cloister (we were seeing things in reverse order, due
to our approach) and then into the courtyard of the adjacent
Archbishop's Palace. There were two museums in the palace which we
skipped due to timing reasons, opting instead to walk into the
pleasant city centre and along the canal. A bridge across it had been
filled up with shops, in the style of the Ponte Vecchio in Florence,
but walking across it gave us only the sense that we were walking on a
particularly narrow but fashionable shopping street; the shops didn't
seem to use their back windows much. 

We regained the car and headed out of town, west and south along a
series of increasingly smaller roads, twenty-two kilometres to the
Abbaye de Fontfroide. We were here mainly for lunch at Les Cuisiniers
Vignerons, the highly-recommended restaurant, but as we were about
fifteen minutes early, we walked around the exterior of the abbey and
contemplated paying to take the tour.

The restaurant had a pleasant shaded interior (though the flies were a
bit persistent). After some jockeying as to who would order what
entree and who would share with whom, I had the fois gras mi-cuit
(fait maison), which was particularly nice. Others had the rillettes
de lapereau. My entree was belle seiche a la plancha (large cuttlefish
cooked on a hot skillet), risotto de pecheur, aioli; Z had her own
calamares, riz cuit a l'encre, which was quite good as well; A had
epaule d'agneau cuit sept heures, fork-tender. Desserts turned out to
be a bit of a disappointment, after the terrific first two courses;
most of us had a dry amandine aux griottes, and Arju had a "pizza
falsa", made with coulis de fruits rouges, mascarpone, and something
else for the topping, better-looking than tasting. Only Z's choice of
glace reglisse (licorice ice-cream) was worthwhile. I had ordered a
half-bottle of Chateau Notre-Dame de Quatourze, Coteaux de Languedoc
2001 rose, but they brought a full bottle, and I finished most of
it. This ensured that we would take the tour after lunch, as it wasn't
safe for me to drive us out of there.

The tour, alas, was led by a woman who spoke very rapid and
mushy-mouthed French, and who on top of it looked from side to side as
she spoke, meaning half her words were lost no matter where you
stood. We can usually follow guided tours in French, but none of us
could manage it this time. Even the French tourists (out of the crowd
of fifty or so, a handful were British or German) wandered off after a
while. The interiors were impressive enough, especially the church;
apparently this had been quite a powerful abbey.

I could have used a nap after the tour, but we were off to Beziers,
fifteen minutes at top speed up the autoroute. We put the car into
underground parking at Place Jean-Jaures and walked in a large
counterclockwise circle around the old city, trying to stay in the
shade: past the market hall and through a tangle of streets to emerge
onto a terrace in front of the cathedral. This offered us a great view
of the river Orb bordering the town and the plain to the west. The
quiet cool and shade of the cathedral was welcome, but even more
thrilling to the kids was the chance to climb up the spiral staircase
inside the bell tower. The balcony at the top went around the tower,
with a low stone balustrade with large trefoil holes cut in it, big
enough to swallow up a kneeling child. We kept a tight hold on the
kids and enjoyed the amazing view in all directions. 

Beziers was the place where one of the most chilling phrases ever
uttered was delivered. During the Crusade against the Cathars, the
Abbot of Citeaux ordered the town besieged. When the town was taken,
he ordered the massacre of those subscribing to the Albigensian
heresy, but was told that most of the population was Catholic and they
refused to identify the heretics. He replied: "Kill them all. God will
recognize his own," and all twenty thousand inhabitants were put to
the sword. I first learned of this story while a graduate student;
nearly twenty years later, I was finally visiting the place.

We moved on to Pezenas, a small village about 25 km to the east which,
for a time under Louis XVI, was the administrative capital of the
region. This town was supposed to be famous for its fancy houses or
"hotel particuliers", but we couldn't find any of them; that is, we
had their addresses, but the street facades weren't particularly
distinctive, and it seemed you had to be on a tour to get inside to
see the courtyards, staircases, and other distinctive
features. Furthermore, just about every storefront was an overly
touristy boutique, ice-cream shop, or "artisanal workshop". I tired of
it quickly, but wandered around with the others until they, too, ran
out of steam.

It was about six-thirty by this point, and we headed onto the
autoroute to drive the fifty-odd kilometres back to Montpellier. Once
there, we would have to find a restaurant open on Monday. It struck N
that we could eat anywhere between the city and where we were, and she
started looking through the Michelin guide for country places. Sete,
on the coast, was the obvious choice, but the recommended places were
expensive. Finally she found a place in Hotels and Restos called Jas
d'Or, in Frontignan, a small town up the coast from Sete, just in time
for me to take the exit.

Unfortunately, we couldn't find it in Frontignan; we had hoped to
drive in and spot signs, but Frontignan seemed to consist of a main
traffic circle with five radiating avenues, and all five, when taken,
led out of town in a hurry. Finally, I parked the car at the post
office, and went to a small bar called Le National just off the circle
to see if I could get directions. I steeled myself for a possible
hostile reception, but everyone there was quite friendly, and one of
the drinkers gave me detailed instructions. It seemed that there was a
larger part of the city three km to the east. Sure enough, we found
it, took a right at the second light as instructed, and drove down a
narrow street right to a canal maintained through the etangs. I parked
here and we walked back a few paces to find the restaurant.

The interior of Jas d'Or turned out to be typical provincial decor;
a collection of this and that veering just the proper side of
kitsch. The patronne, a woman with skin tanned darker than her
bleached hair, came out to deliver our entrees and smile at the
kids. We ordered three menus: saumon confit to start, raw salmon cured
in balsamic vinegar with dill; then bolognaise des moules, coq, et
poisson, basically a seafood sauce served over fresh pasta reminiscent
of some of the pastas we had had in Rome the previous year; and
finally a terrific souffle glace a la Muscat (this being the local
wine that the town was particularly proud of). With the meal we had a
half-bottle of Chateau des Jougla rose. Once again, we had managed to
have a meal that exceeded our initial expectations.

The drive home was straightforward.

Tuesday, July 9, 2002

The goal for this day, Kei's last full day with us, was to drive
northwest into the garrigue, the scruffy hill country, and see a few
small villages along with some scenery. This time, I was very careful
getting out of the garage, and managed it without any
casualties. Getting started on the rest of the trip was not that easy,
however, as we were on the eastern edge of the city: we had to
circumnavigate the city along city roads and reach the western edge,
at which point we could pick up a dual-carriageway road heading west,
and then smaller roads going north.

The route within the city was beyond the Guide Rouge city map and
crammed into a few square centimeters on the atlas; N had to spot
signs to destinations, look them up in the atlas (sometimes they were
on the same page, more often they were some distance away) and make
some hasty decisions. I had to keep to the proper lanes to keep my
options open, and do some rapid merging. Incredibly, we got to the
edge of the city, at which point N said, "There's just spaghetti on
the map, keep following signs for Gignac or Clermont l'Herault". I
did, we twisted around, and found ourselves, after what seemed like
hours of tough city driving, on a wide, clear road.

We turned off at Gignac and took a smaller road with a view of a great
plain, heading for a cleft in the hills ahead. This was the gorge
carved out by the Herault river. At its mouth was an old stone bridge,
called the Pont du Diable (this turns out to be a generic name for any
such bridge); we stopped for the view, then proceeded up a narrow road
hugging the west side of the gorge. Coming into the tiny town of
St-Guilhem-le-Desert, we were given a choice of two car parks; I chose
the one 500 metres on, and we drove up a hill and into a gravel lot
shaded by trees, with signs warning us we needed three euros in change
to get out.

St-Guilhem turned out to be a high point of our trip. This little
village was settled in the eighth century, after a pilgrim returned
with purported fragments of the True Cross; a monastery was founded,
but the remoteness of the region meant it never grew very large. From
the car park, it was a short walk to a picturesque village square,
with a view of a high hill topped by a ruined castle. To the left was
a church, the Abbaye de Gellone, and to the right a single street
(with some short side streets, essentially paths between two houses)
led down parallel to the river to the lower of the two car
parks. Along this street, closed to cars and little more than a wide
paved pathway, were various medieval houses. The amazing thing is that
it was quite untouristed. This is not to say that there weren't any
tourists, or facilities catering to them; but even in a place that
small, neither of them overwhelmed the natural beauty and sense of
history of the place.

We toured the church, with a nice cloister (it was interesting to
stand there and contemplate the structure, knowing that it was over a
thousand years old), and then strolled down the main street to the
bottom of the hill and back. I stopped at one of the few shops to buy
some honey, jam, and wine "confit" for my food correspondent
Karen, as it was the least touristy shop I was likely to encounter. 

Getting back into the car, we retraced our route down the gorge,
turned left at the Pont du Diable, and struck out across country
towards St-Martin-de-Londres. This is a slightly larger town about 25
km north-northwest of Montpellier. It has a compact medieval centre,
which we zipped past while looking for parking among the modern town
surrounding it. When I pulled over to try to turn around, N spotted a
sign for the restaurant we were heading for, and we continued down the
street I had used, shortly pulling into the gravel parking lot of Les
Pastourelles.

This was in a modest country home; we could see a small above-ground
swimming pool, and laundry hanging on a line.  We were given a choice
of the terrace or the airy interior, and chose to sit out on the
terrace. The edge of our table was in the sun, but the friendly
patronne assured us that it would move away, as it did. Arju decided
to try the menu enfant, which was perhaps a little too enfant for her:
an "assiette de charcuterie", which turned out to be a thick slice of
ham over a plateful of salad, and "filet de cabillaud", which was a
breaded and panfried fillet of cod served with new potatoes that had
been sliced and deep-fried. I had the "salade gourmandise aux queues
d'ecrevisses", which came with one token whole crayfish and a number
of cleaned tails arranged around a plate of salad with a slice of foie
gras on top. Kei had a very light terrine de poireaux, layered with
fresh goat cheese, and N had terrine de morue. As a main course, we
all had the filet de morue with red peppers and what appeared to be
local saffron. Dessert was a terrific gratinee aux poires, the poached
pear being sliced on the core and spiralled down into a bowl before
being finished off under the broiler with a cream topping. Wine was a
Chateau des Estanilles Faugeres rose. It was a very relaxing and
pleasant meal. "Another film set," said Kei; I was pleased to be able
to offer him such a different vacation.

After lunch, we drove back into St-Martin, a little slower this time,
and found parking close to the round tower that marked the entrance to
the medieval city. It turned out to be really tiny; we walked less
than a hundred metres up a street and emerged into a square which was
dominated by a church, in the sense that it took up most of the
space. It was basically the church surrounded by a street with arcades
on the opposite side, the arcades belonging to what looked like
two-story residential stone houses.

The church was locked, and a sign on the door said this was necessary
due to vandalism by local youth, but as we puzzled this out, an old
woman appeared from nowhere and unlocked it, asking us to shut it when
we were done. The interior was a simple Romanesque style, with a floor
plan like a Greek cross and a cupola. We spent a few minutes cooling
down, then went out again and back to the car.

Instead of blasting back towards Montpellier on the D986, we took a
little "white" road further to the east, climbing up between the Pic
St-Loup (a local high point at a little over two thousand metres) and
the adjacent Montagne d'Hortus, both remnants of an ancient volcanic
crater. Once we climbed between them, vineyards lined the roads (the
source of the Pic St-Loup wine I had had in Berkeley and at
Aigues-Mortes), and in a brief gap in the trees we caught sight of the
ruined Chateau de Montferrand high up on the Hortus. The road
descended again and met the D17, one of those roads with two lines of
tall shade trees lining it, and we made good time getting back to
Montpellier, even recognizing enough of the morning's madness to make
all the right turns heading back.

I took a brief nap while the others rested and the kids played, and
then we went out to dinner. The choice was L'Olivier, down in the
region near the train station (we walked through Polygone and along
Comedie to reach it, rather than take the spooky and stinky direct
route), but when we reached it, it had a sign on it that it was closed
until September due to the chef requiring surgery. We had to scramble
for an alternative. We walked up and looked at the Maison de la
Lozere, but the cheapest menu we felt like eating cost 42 euros, and
the a la carte prices were astronomical. Still, Kei insisted that he
could afford it, and we stuck our heads in, only to be told that it
was completely booked (complet). It was beginning to look like another
one of those nightmares when I remembered a place just around the
corner mentioned in the Guide Routard. I looked, it was open and the
menus seemed reasonable, and we finally ended up at La Diligence.

The restaurant turned out to be set in a vaulted stone room, though
the slightly kitschy decor and the 1970's music playing on the
soundtrack (Santana, Elton John) kept it from being overly
elegant. This was the place that was most friendly to the kids on the
whole trip; at one point just before dessert, a server brought a
sparkler to the table, placed it before Zuki, and lit it just to see
the delighted look on her face. The kids split choices from the a la
carte menu, with a souffle au Roquefort, and a chausson de veau, which
turned out to be a thin piece of meat folded over a creamy filling. I
had the salade Diligence (with gesiers, lardons, jambon, and pine nuts
over dressed greens and julienned crudites), a magret de canard
(grilled duck breast) with gratin dauphinoise, and for dessert a very
nice soupe aux fruits rouges et du vin (which the kids also shared,
despite the server urging them to have the fondant du chocolat). The
23-euro menu also included a trou Normand, a very nice apple sorbet
with Calvados; a slice of Brie with tapenade; and a homemade pear
liqueur with almond flavouring. It was much better than I had
expected, and we had an easy walk home.

Wednesday, July 10, 2002

We slept late, because this was the day Kei had decided to take the
train to Paris (his plane was the next morning). The kids had
convinced him to stay for lunch, though it meant he would have no time
in Paris except to find a place to sleep. We walked into the old city,
and up to the cathedral in the northwest. This was a rather odd
building: the front porch was better suited to a castle, with two high
conical turrets. The actual entrance was along the side, and the
interior unremarkable. We continued along the sidewalk overlooking the
Jardin des Plantes (which opened at noon, so we couldn't get in,
though we could see the grounds crew working to get it ready), and
finally into the square at Place de la Canourgue. The others sat on a
bench (the dogs being walked rather inhibited the kids from exploring much)
while I scoped out nearby possibilities for our last lunch. One was
closed, one looked unremarkable, but the third was a winner, and I
made a reservation before returning to fetch the family.

Lunch at Isadora, under red umbrellas shielding us from the
sun, in the Place Ste-Anne (though the eponymous church was mostly
hidden from us by a mossy fountain dripping gently about half a metre
from Zuki's back) took over two hours, during which we had a relaxed
conversation. The kids disdained the menu enfant this time and each
made their own choices from the 13-euro lunch menu: a salade aux
crevettes, salmon with pates fraiches, and feuillete de pommes
caramelisees. From the 21-euro menu, I had huitres chaudes (six
oysters, each on a bed of braised endive, cooked in the oven) followed
by an emince de canard, and nougat glace, this time in large thin
slices looking like a deracinated fruitcake (but much lighter)
surrounded by a coulis de fruits rouges. Wine was a half-bottle of
Chateau les Palais Corbieres blanc. Kei looked like he had enjoyed his
vacation. 

We walked him back to hotel, he collected his carryon bag, slung it
over his shoulder, and hugged us all. We went to the balcony (the one
time we used it) and waved to him as he came out of the hotel entrance
and passed beneath us on the sidewalk. It would have been a sad
parting, except that we were going to see him in Berkeley in a little
less than a month's time. Returning inside, we rested for a while, and
then we all went out to the Halles Jacques Coeur, a low-slung modern
market complex just across the street housing a number of small
stalls, to look for dinner items. After looking around, we settled on
three cheeses: Ossau-Iraty brebis, a round brebis fermier from the
Lozere called Le Valdo, and, for Z, Comte, one of her favourites. All
were raw milk and turned out to be particularly fine, the Comte being
perhaps the best. These were the best cheeses of the trip. We bought
some bread at Paul (a chain bakery in the Polygone complex) and endive
at the supermarket for a salad. I opened a bottle of Cairanne, the
last of the Arles purchases.

After dinner, we walked into the old city; N wanted to give the kids
freshly-made crepes for dessert, and had spotted a place right on the
central Rue de la Loge which didn't have a stack of premade ones. The
person tending the griddle wasn't the most reassuring in the way he
scraped at the crepes, but the kids enjoyed them. We walked down into
Place Ste-Anne, and noticed seats set up near where we had had lunch,
where there was an open-air stage with a grand piano on it; a free
concert was to be held. We waited for a few minutes, and a young woman
singer walked out with an accompanist. The setting was not the best --
conversation and the clink of glasses from the people sitting at the
terrace tables for the Irish pub, just in front of the Isadora tables
tended to interfere -- and the nineteenth-century French art songs
were a bit light. We listened to a few and then slipped away, heading
for the hotel. Back in the apartment, we convinced the kids to switch
bedrooms now that their grandfather was gone. They would take the two
single beds with their own sets of covers, and we would sleep on the
foldout double bed. This also offered us more of a chance to get
things done after they went to sleep.


Thursday, July 11, 2002

We all slept late again. I offered to get pastries for the kids, but
didn't get much enthusiasm for the idea out of them; the had bread,
jam and honey for breakfast. We got into the car and headed for
Carnon-Plage, one of the beachfront towns just south of
Montpellier. We had packed a few of the smaller hand towels offered by
the hotel (changed on Wednesday), but the road took us right by
Carrefour, another hypermarche, and we stopped to buy beach towels and
beach toys for the kids. The weather was cool and cloudy when we went
into the store, but warm and sunny when we came out, somehow.

We took the Carnon-Plage-est exit, drove towards the beach, and found
ourselves on a narrow street paralleling the beach, with low
(two-story) condos on both sides, and parking spots on both sides, all
taken up with cars. But there was no reason to prefer one point on
this road to another, and about a kilometre on, we found parking, from
which we just walked a little back to the last access point. The beach was
surprisingly nice, sculpted into shallow bays separated by breakwater;
we spread out the towel to sit on, and the kids ran for the water. 

There were a few people around, but it was by no means crowded. A can
swim a bit and Z can't really swim at all, but it appeared as if they
would have had to go out a hundred metres or so to have water above
their heads; they shrieked and splashed in the shallows. N and I
watched French families act out typical beach day: kids paddled off in
inflatable boats without any supervision, parents played paddleball
(an idiotic pastime). Our kids came in for their sand toys, built a
sand castle and wrecked it, then went about collecting shells (getting
a surprisingly good collection, with no junk or excessive
repetition). At one point a young Asian photographer came by to take
pictures of our kids and offer to sell them to us; we took her card,
politely. At quarter to twelve, I suggested to the kids that they pack
up, if they wanted to have lunch. We took them to the outdoor shower
near the access point, washed them off, and they changed into their clothes
under their towels. 

We decided on lunch in Lattes, a town between the beach and the city,
with a few restaurants mentioned in the Michelin Guide Rouge. We had
no real idea where they were, but N suggested particular route through
the town. I took one wrong turn getting to the route and had to
backtrack, but as we drove down it, N suddenly spotted a sign and
said, "Right here! Left!". Left it was, and we drove up a small side
road through vineyards, past a winery, to Le Mazamand (three spoons in
the Guide Rouge, but not the most luxurious option in Lattes). The
menu posted looked okay, so we went in.

The terrace had multiple levels overlooking foliage, the interior was
discreetly hidden, the waiters were in black suits. We were seated all
alone on a section of terrace, and the maitre d' opened the awning to
shade us. The menu was floral in its descriptions; we opted for the
26-euro "menu estival" with entree, plat, fromage et dessert; the kids
each had the 19-euro menu without entree. They brought us an
amuse-bouche (note the genteel terminology: not amuse-gueule) of
house-smoked salmon; I had "salade ensoleilee", with marinated
artichokes (with long edible stems), brousse de brebis aux fines
herbes (dollops of soft fresh sheep's milk cheese with minced herbes),
tomatoes stuffed with the cheese mixture, and a "tomate a la fleur de
sel de Camargue" (which is nice sea salt, but just salt) "et pesto"
(this being the chopped basil leaves in oil decorating the
plate). Quite nice. N had what turned out to be a shrimp cocktail with
a dipping sauce that resembled gazpacho, with separate tomato and
zucchini sauces.

My main was "rable de lapin fourre aux petits legumes roti au miel et
sa cuisse longuement confits dans l'huile d'olives aux aromates de nos
garrigues". This was a sort of sliced roulade of rabbit with mirepoix
(finely diced vegetables), plus the thigh coated with a terrific
reduction in which small mushrooms (I recognized girolles, but there
were other kinds) had been cooked, accompanied by a tomato slice
topped with thin zucchini slices and a sauce and broiled. It was an
excellent dish, worth the price of the whole meal. A had this as her
sole plat; N had a "moelleux de cabillaud", a chunk of cod, with
brandade, and Z had this as well. The wine I had ordered was Chateau
de Lascaux 1999 rouge, a wine I had missed when it was the highlight
of a Vintages release a few months back. The wine was kept on a
separate table and served by a black-suited waiter who couldn't have
been nineteen years old; he kept peeking around the edge of the
doorway to see if we needed anything, and permitted himself only the
briefest of smiles at the kids' chirpiness.

The cheese plate was big on local cheeses; we had an aged tomme of
some sort, some St-Nectaire, and some Roquefort for Z. For dessert,
three of us had ordered "dans la meme assiette, moelleux d'une peche
pochee et le croustillant d'eclats d'amandes torrifies recouvert d'un
lait d'amande", which turned out to be an almond milk with chunks of
freshly-roasted local almonds and diced peaches, with a scoop of ice
cream and topped with a thin crisp translucent object. Whatever it all
was, it was amazingly good. Z ordered the "assiette de patisserie",
which was ideal for her: two triangles of chocolate fondant (she could
only finish one), a small cylinder of orange mousse, and a scoop of
mint chocolate chip ice cream. They also brought little dishes of
petits-fours, including chunks of almond brittle.

The total bill was exactly 100 euros; we paid in short order, and
aired the car out while I walked down to the posted menu to copy out
some of the florid passages I have reproduced here. Then we headed
north into the city. Our goal for the afternoon was the Parc
Zoologique de Lunaret, of whose location we had only the vaguest idea:
somewhere to the north and slightly west. We had had good luck in
finding things before, and this started out particularly well. We
needed to get to the northwest of the city, and there seemed to be no
good route. But, peering at the medium-scale map in the Guide Rouge,
it appeared that, coming in from the south, we could swing just south
of Place de la Comedie and actually go under it, coming out near Corum
and allowing us to turn left and to the northwest. It took us a couple
of tries in the vicinity of the train station to get the right
approach, but it worked, and we shot through and out the other side,
overshooting, taking some odd back streets and somehow miraculously
finding ourselves on Rue Proudhon heading the right way.

At that point, our luck deserted us (perhaps because of the heat, the
temperature being well over 30). We drove into the region where we
thought the zoo would be, near the university, and looked for signs.
But we could find none, and we kept getting stuck going down
residential streets getting smaller and smaller. Finally we curved
around to the south, and spotted a sign leading us to a parking lot.

The zoo was free, and turned out to be set in a park with long walks
between large enclosures in which it was very hard to spot the
animals. After the first two or three, we began to wonder if the only
animals we would see would be the carved ones near the entrance, but
then we saw a rhinoceros, a panther, some sort of ibex, and some
monkeys. Z, who was too young to remember our last family visit to a
zoo, was quite excited by it all, but for N and I it was just too
hot. As had been her habit through the trip, N was carrying a couple
of 500-ml bottles of water, but these were warm by now; they staved
off dehydration, but were not really satisfying. Finally, when we were
almost done, we came across a small refreshment stand, and the kids
had popsicles while we had bottles of cold water. I craved the beer
they were selling, but figured that would probably finish me off.

We returned home by a calmer route, hot and tired. We were just going
to have leftovers for dinner, but N complained that she didn't feel
like heavy cheeses, so I pulled myself together and made as quick a
trip as I could into the Polygone shopping mall, where I picked up
some smoked salmon for her at the Inno supermarket.

After our dinner, we walked down to the Esplanade d'Europe again; it
had cooled off, and we crossed the river and let the kids climb the
slanted concrete hill to the base of the Hotel d'Region.

Friday, July 12, 2002

This was our last full day in Montpellier. We slept late, had bread
for breakfast, and walked just north of Polygone (the least soulless
way to get to the old city) to Place de la Comedie. Turning up the
esplanade and then into the pedestrian zone, we found the Musee Fabre.

This is Montpellier's finest museum, and a decidedly odd collection. 
Like Montpellier itself, it was pleasant, if not overwhelmingly
exciting. Both the building and the collection had sort of accreted
over time, and the recommended route involved going up and down, from
one point going from the third floor to the third basement level. We
ignored this advice and started on the ground floor. This had 17th
century Flemish and Dutch painting, nothing very spectacular, but some
nice still lives, and a Rubens portrait I actually liked. We moved to
European paintings from all over, from the 16th and 17th centuries,
including some names we recognized from seeing Baroque art in
Rome. Finally, there was the dreaded 18th century, which we moved
through at a brisk pace. 

The next floor up was a small one, with some small sculptures; and
from there we went up to see paintings of Fabre, the first large
donor, after whom the museum was named, and his neo-Classical
peers. The next floor up fast-forwarded into the end of the 19th
century with Bazille, a son of Montpellier and pre-Impressionist,
setting the stage for some nice minor works by Sisley, Degas, Morisot,
and others. The last big gallery on the third floor took us into the
20th century with Matisse, Delauney, Aristide Maillol (paintings,
interestingly enough, not sculpture), and some modern expressionist
works. 

We headed for the basement after that, but due to a mispushed button
in the elevator got off at -2, which was a series of little,
low-ceilinged rooms showing ceramics of various regions, plus a small
collection of antiquities. The stairs took us down to -3, to the
period we had missed, with an interesting collection amassed by Alfred
Bruyas. The odd thing was that he had all these famous artists paint
pictures of him, and apart from a distinguishe red beard, he wasn't
very striking, or apparently very inspiring to the artists. Apart from
these "Here's Waldo" paintings, it was a great survey of how the Salon
went down the dead-end of romanticism and classicism, and how
Delacroix, Courbet, Corot and others started mounting challenges which
set the stage for the revolution of the Impressionists.

Overall, a midweight museum, with enough to keep us interested, but
we might have been disappointed if we had driven a long way to see
it. Still, the kids found work in each room to study, and N remarked
afterwards that the gallery guards, who appeared to be young art
students, were smiling at them, in contrast to the totally blase
aspect of most museum staff.

For lunch, we decided to walk a bit north, to the Place de la Chapelle
Neuve, filled with tables from a half-dozen different restaurants, and
decided to try the one appearing most often in our books, Chez
Marceau. We had the 11-euro menu of the day, while the kids each
ordered moules frites. I had salade de tomates, followed by a grilled
andouillette; N had the same salade, followed by saumon a
l'oseille. It was all okay, but not particularly exciting, and the
single waiter was dashing around serving many tables, resulting in
long waits. We decided to skip dessert, paid our bill, and got out of
there. It was a bit like our cheap meals in Paris before the kids, but
probably the least satisfying restaurant meal of our trip, and that in
itself is a testament to how well we ate.

We went into the six-story bookstore again, and I bought the Guide
Routard for the Midi-Pyrenees, in preparation for our next week. Then
we went into the Inno to get some groceries: rillettes, a bottle of
St-Chinian wine, a couple of pints of ice cream, a bag of mixed salad,
and some small salad shrimp for the kids. While I was paying for the
groceries, N took the kids over to the Paul outlet, and found a box of
miniature macarons for them.

Back at the hotel, we ate some "Bahia Rhythm" ice cream (it was
coffee-cinnamon, so we couldn't have it at night). I napped briefly,
then studied guidebooks. In the late afternoon, the kids changed into
swimsuits and I took them over to play in the animated fountain, as we
had seen so many kids doing. We had an early dinner, finishing off
everything we could from the fridge (during which a surprise rain
shower killed any hope of a final evening walk, and signalled us that
it was time to leave), finished packing for the move the next day to
Toulouse, and went to bed.


Saturday, July 13, 2002

We packed up and left Montpellier by about 8:30am. I took the easy
road onto the autoroute, headed west, took the second exit, drove
northwest following signs, and got onto the N109 headed for
Gignac. Originally we had planned to just blast along the autoroute,
stop at Carcassonne, then drive further to have lunch in Castelnaudary
and continue on to Toulouse. But on reflection, the autoroute made
those destinations day trips from Toulouse, and it would make sense to
take a slower, more rural route.

With Kei gone, the kids had the back seat to themselves, and they
piled a stack of books in the middle. They also had use of the iPod,
an MP3 player that I had loaded with about fifty compact discs --
mostly my selection of great pop records, but also a smattering of
jazz, classical, and world music. They could set the player to
randomize the entire collection, and find out what they were listening
to by looking at the display window. It was amusing to hear one say to
the other, "This is Thelonious Monk," or "Want to hear 'Buffalo
Soldiers' again?"

It was a familiar road we were travelling, thanks to our trip to
St-Guilhem, and we made good time. We got slightly lost just north of
Clermont l'Herault (there were signs also to Clermont-Ferrand, both
destinations abbreviated, so we kept referring to "Cluh le Huh"). We
found the right road, went through Cluh le Huh, and then drove out to
the west. We briefly turned off at Villeneurvette, a small planned
company town, and saw the "honour through work" sign at the front
gate, but were required had to park and walk to go any further, so we
didn't.

Our first real detour off the main highway was the small road north
looping through Moureze, which we took for the sake of the weird rock
formations surrounding the town. Parking in Moureze was 2 euros, and
we didn't stop, as we had no real reason to. We regained the D908,
went through Bedarieux, then stopped at Herepian. This was N's
discovery, one of the few bell foundries still operating in
France. Since she played carillon in college, she had a special
interest in the place. We found signs to the bell museum, parked in
their lot, and went in; it was just opening, at ten.  

The museum had some nice interactive displays (the kids liked ringing
various sorts of bells) but also a dreary section where one had to
listen to a story of a bellmaker in French at several stations in a
row -- fortunately, we had the English translation printed so we could
skip it. It turned out that the foundry was not directly connected
with the museum and was separate charge. This was more worthwhile. A
young woman gave us a tour in clear French of the working foundry (it
was closed that Saturday, however) which was quite interesting: the
place made no concessions to the tourist trade, and we were basically
walking among the dirt and scattered tools of a workplace. We let the
kids buy small bells at the store, which was basically a set of dusty
shelves in one corner of the place; we hadn't purchased many
souvenirs, but these were tiny and untouristy enough. There was much
tinkling in the back seat as we continued down the highway.

We drove through Lamalou-les-Bains, noted the large spas, but could find
scant evidence of the nice Belle-Epoque buildings which were supposed
to be the attraction to people not interested in taking the waters. We
noted many people in wheelchairs also, some rolling down the streets
we were driving on, so presumably the waters were still an attraction. 

Just before Olargues, we were pulled over by gendarmes, one of whom
came up to our window and shouted at us in rapid-fire French. I
stammered a bit, but tried to be cooperative, and when he realized
that we were tourists, he calmed down a bit and explained that our
front licence plate (plate de matriculation) was missing (presumably
stolen at some point in Montpellier). He asked us to stop at the
gendarmerie just before the pont du diable to the medieval town of
Olargues, which we did; we swore out a complaint, got the paperwork to
carry with us, and headed on. I had no idea of how to get a new one,
and didn't want to go through the hassle; we still had the back plate,
and we decided to not contact Renault, but instead go through the next
week in fear of being stopped again. The gendarmerie was just about to
close for lunch when we arrived, and we had chosen a country
restaurant further on, so we took a very brief look at Olargues from
the road instead and continued on.

The road went through St-Pons-de-Thomieres; we turned south on Route
Narbonne, and went 1 km out of our way, to Les Bergeries de
Ponderach. This is a small country hotel, clearly run by a dominant
patron, who was the one to spot us as we went into the courtyard; we
were seated inside (weather was cool and somewhat cloudy), and served
by what appeared to be a teenaged waiter in training. (We had a number
of these in our last week.) 

The kids disdained the offered menu enfant and went for the 19-euro
plat+dessert combination. N and I had the 26-euro three-course meal,
starting with assiette de charcuterie de hautes cantons (thick slabs
of jambon cru, dried sausage, headcheese-like concoction cut into
triangles, boudin noir with thick chunks of white fat; all this was
not particularly to N's taste, and I could have done with about half
the quantity). For mains Z and N had pave du saumon ecosse au beurre
blanc (salmon filet in a butter-and-white-wine sauce), A had entrecote
poelee, sauce du vin de St-Chinian (pan-seared steak with wine sauce;
this is something we almost never order, but I convinced her that it
would be more special, at least for her, than the salmon), and I had
tripes "facon Ponderach", which turned out to be cooked with potatoes
and carrots in a wine sauce, quasi-Bourguignon, and quite nice. For
dessert we all had pruneaux de vin, glace vanille, very good, the ice
cream rich yellow and flecked with vanilla seeds. Wine was Domaine
Ollier Taillefer Faugeres rouge. It was a decent meal, but not
spectacular; it was probably the best we could do in the area, which
is dominated by the regional Parc du Haut-Languedoc, a nature preserve.

We continued west on the N112 through Mazamet (where we were stopped
again by gendarmes, to whom we gladly showed them the paperwork), then
through smaller roads through Puylaurens towards Toulouse. This last
part of the journey seemed to take a long time. As we got into the
city limits, N started looking for signs to big grocery stores, as it
was Saturday afternoon and the next day was Bastille Day, a national
holiday. What we found was a fairly small Champion supermarket; we
bought water, wine, milk, juice, yogurt, salad, and some cheese. The
bread at the supermarket looked too dismal even for exigencies.

We continued on into the centre of Toulouse. It looked straightforward
to get to our hotel, but the way was interrupted by major construction
in the area (including at the intersection right by the hotel); N got
us there, eventually, but there was no street parking to be had
nearby, and the hotel garage (as in Montpellier) required something
special we didn't have. We finally put the car into a large
underground city park, walked over and checked into the hotel. We were
given a fourth-floor apartment with loft bedroom in the back building,
accessible by walking through a large barren courtyard (visible from
our small window) with an awning over the central sidewalk. We dropped
what we were carrying in the room, then everyone went with me back to
the car (so N could navigate, as I didn't yet have a sense of the
city) and got us into the hotel garage, which was (as before) rather
narrow and confusing.

We brought the luggage up and rested for a bit, then went out to look
for a few more supplies. By rushing the kids along, we made it to the
tourist office just before it closed at seven, and got a brochure on
the Bastille Day celebrations. N found a rather dubious-looking chain
bakery open, but it had some bread, which we bought; we didn't see
another one after that. We took the bread back to the hotel, changed
into long pants, and went to look for dinner. The first place we
tried, Le Colombier, to the northeast of the hotel, was shuttered; we
continued to the south through deserted and ominous streets, and
eventually found Chez Laurent Orsi "Bouchon Lyonnais" open; this was
in the Michelin Guide Rouge and Routard, so we went in and were
seated. The patron and patronne, most friendly, appeared to be working
the place themselves with a minimal staff; we were alone except for a
large party slowly gathering, but other couples arrived as we ate.

The kids opted to share a menu, salade d'anchois frais to start. I had
saumon cru marine and N had assiette de moules gratinee, all quite
nice. (A, not crazy about fresh anchovies, got them to please Z, and
ate large portions of our starters.) For mains all of us had confit de
canard grillee with confit d'oignons (very good, though the kids were
given an English menu which translated the last ingredient as "onion
marmelade", and they had to be convinced it was not something really
gross). Z chose tarte au citron meringuee for dessert, an enormous
portion topped with sliced almond and browned under the broiler; A had
peche pochee, and N and I had abricots rotis. Wine was a 50cl bottle
of Gaillac rouge, Domaine de Gineste. All in all, it was much better
than we had expected.

We walked back to the hotel and crashed.


Sunday, July 14, 2002

For breakfast I cut slices of the large round bread we had bought late
the day before ("squeesh bread," said A, using our derisive family
pronunciation, "BAD squeesh bread") and toasted them in the grill-oven
(not a microwave like in Montpellier, though the grill part worked
only on the top burner, so I had to flip the slices over). We slept
until nearly ten, however, so we ate light.

We went out walking, and discovered a fruit and vegetable market in
progress on boulevard Strasbourg. It was quite an extensive one, and
we walked up several blocks to assess what was available. Having
ascertained that there was no bread, roast chicken, or anything
besides fresh fruits and vegetables (and occasionally preserved olives
of various flavours), we bought apricots, "groseilles roses" (pink
currants), cherries, and green beans. We took these back to the hotel,
and then walked northeast towards Basilica St-Sernin. N found an
artisanal bakery open, bought three baguettes, and put them in the mesh
outer pocket of her backpack.

St-Sernin was a simple Romanesque church, impressive in the way all
large enclosed spaces are, but without much to hold our interest
beyond that; its chief claim to fame is apparently its collection of
relinquaries, which we can do without. We wandered down towards les
Jacobins (another church, which we didn't enter) and then the
waterfront (of the river Garonne). We needed lunch, and argued about
whether to go back to the large touristy bistros/cafes around Place
Wilson, but we found a couple of places open at Place de la
Daurade. One, a chain fondue place, had nothing the kids could eat
(though we only discovered this after asking about their posted menu
and finding out it was for weekdays only), but the other, Bistro de la
Daurade, offered large salads and a plat du jour of lapin farci de
champignons. N and I ordered this, the kids each ordered salade de
pacifique (with smoked salmon and tiny shrimp). The wine was a 1/2
litre pichet of Chateau Moujan "La Clape" rouge, quite nice for house
wine. We ate at a small table in the interior, though they had a
couple of sidewalk tables. Again, we fared much better than we
expected, and service was tres sympathetique. The music they had
playing, Massive Attack, went surprisingly well with the
atmosphere. We headed back to the hotel and rested for a short while.

In the late afternoon, we went out again. The kids and N had ice cream
at Octave, just across the street, the only ice-cream place mentioned
in the Guide Routard. It seemed good but very pricy (1.90 for one
ball, basically proportional for more). We continued our wandering in
the southern part of the old city, eventually winding up at the
Cathedrale St-Etienne. Someone was practicing on the organ, playing
quite a modern-sounding piece. This cathedral was an odd
mishmash: it was oddly shaped, with a truncated nave to one side, and
a long choir not on the same axis, the result of an abandoned
renovation.

We meandered back through the city and up the main shopping street,
rue d'Alsace-Lorraine, before returning to hotel through place Wilson
(I noticed it was Place President Thomas Wilson -- Woodrow's
little-known middle name, apparently). Dinner was Cabecou de Perigord
(very ripe small artisanal goat cheeses) and La Rustique leger (a
commercial Camembert-style cheese we could periodically find at home,
but this one was surprisingly well aged for a supermarket purchase),
green beans from the market boiled briefly in salted water, bread,
tapenade, cornichons, and salad, with a light Cahors (Les Hauts de
Grezette 1998, bottled by Perrin). For dessert we had canneles bought
by N at the artisanal bakery, fruit, and bits of Lindt chocolate.

In the evening we went to place Capitole, which had been set up with a
stage for free entertainment. Along the way we were distracted by a
group of percussionists proceeding slowly down one of the pedestrian
shopping streets, but we tired of them after a few minutes, and went
to look for one of the main concerts. What we got instead was a warmup
comedian with really bad jokes and music-hall songs. After a couple of
them, we abandoned the place, remembering that even in Paris on place
de la Bastille, the free concert was really cheesy.

Monday, July 15, 2002 

In the morning, we had a breakfast of leftover bread with jam and
lavender honey, coffee, juice, and yogurt. Getting in the car, we
headed in the direction of Albi, out to the northeast along a narrow
city street which took us to the outer peripherique (ring road), from
which the autoroute started. The first section required a flat payment
of 1.20 euros (change tossed into automatic machines with baskets),
but the pay section quickly petered out, leaving us on a free (but
still limited access) highway. It was cool and overcast, good driving
weather.

We left the autoroute at Gaillac, passing through its outskirts (even
at that distance, the influence of and pride in local wine was evident
from the advertisements and official signs) and onto a winding
departmental road. Here we could see the usual fields of sunflowers
and neat rows of grapevines, but somehow the whole effect was much
more picturesque, and we kept exclaiming over this view and that as we
leaned into the next corner.

Our destination was the town of Cordes-sur-Ciel, some twenty-five
kilometers northwest of Albi; it emerged after one twist of the
highway, looking like a normal town whose centre had been pulled
skyward by divine fingers. There was a certain amount of marketing
inherent in the place -- the "sur-Ciel" was an addition of the past
decade, and our guidebooks told us of some forty artisanal shops in
the medieval town, some thinly disguised as museums -- but we were
there early enough in the day that we hoped it would not be too
off-putting. We obtained parking just past the entrance to the old
town, and the machine issuing tickets was broken, so we parked for
free.

We climbed up the steep main street, noting the signs for a "navette",
a bus to the top, as well as more earthy signs that horse-drawn carts
could also be hired. Fortunately, it was fairly deserted, and most
shops not open; halfway up we got to walk along the ramparts a bit,
and see the views over the surrounding countryside (complete with
herds of cattle and fields dotted with cylindrical haybales). Along
the way there were old stone houses to examine, and at the top there
was the touristy stuff I had expected all along, in the process of
getting set up for the day's onslaught.  

Our calculations were correct, however, and the place was charming
without many people in it. I noticed one stall in a small parklike
area filled with hay (for the horses, presumably) with a single man in
medieval costume setting up, cigarette dangling out of his mouth. N,
cleverly, went off to the post office, reasoning it would be less
crowded here than in Toulouse, and came back with a bunch of
envelopes; the person behind the counter, amazingly enough, told her
that putting postcards in the prepaid envelopes would be cheaper and
faster. We continued down the other side of the hill, swung around on
the ramparts, and regained our car, with no parking ticket.

The fairly straight road to Albi took us through more sunflowers and
grapevines. We came into the city and N switched to the Guide Rouge
map, guiding us to an underground parking garage. Unlike others we had
used, it appeared to have lots of spaces, and I even found a
"drive-through" to avoid backing out.

It was close to lunchtime, and we headed towards our chosen
restaurant, which was not in the old town but across the river in a
less-touristed part. We walked through the old town, around the edge
of the cathedral and attached palace, down to the river which they
overlooked, and across Pont Vieux (the old bridge, still used for
traffic, though superceded by the higher and wider new bridge to the
west over which we had driven towards our parking space). Alas, our
restaurant was closed, with a "Changement de Proprietaire" sign
posted. There were several choices in the old town listed in our
books, though none were really compelling. We cut through the parking
lot which formed the "place" behind the cathedral and down a nearby
alley which looked fairly touristy. One place in it was recommended by
the Guide Routard (and had a Gault-Millau sign from a couple of years
past) but had a fairly limited choice; the other was quite obviously
catering to all tastes, meaning it had more menu choices, and this was
what the family preferred. 

So we asked for a table at La Caleche, intending to eat from their
23-euro menu. Since it was cold outside, we looked at their interior
room, but it was cellar-like, small, and smoky, so we sat outside on
the empty terrace (really in the street, thankfully closed to all but
pedestrian traffic) under an awning. We felt a bit foolish out there,
but the place filled up and people were turned away by the time we
were finished. It also started raining, and those on the edge of the
seating area had to scrape their tables in to avoid getting wet.

Our starters were salade a l'hareng, pommes de terres tiedes; salade
de chevre chaud et du miel; salade de tomates et mozzarella; melon et
jambon. All bore a considerable resemblance, especially the first
three, which were just slight variations on the same basic green
salad. For mains, all of us had confit de canard, which was decently
done, though the skin was not quite crisp enough. For dessert, most of
us had tarte tatin (served, oddly enough, swimming in creme anglaise),
and Z had a tarte amandine de poires (similarly presented). Wine: a
half-bottle of Chateau les Vignals Gaillac rouge. It was a decent
meal, not thrilling, but it did the trick.

Following lunch, we went into the cathedral, which was quite crowded,
and very odd. Instead of plastering on ornaments during the Baroque
period which could be discreetly scraped off later, they frescoed the
entire place in trompe d'oeil, and then left it on. Even the rood
screen, which supposedly dated from the fifteenth century, seemed in
its intricacies to be from a later period. The choir was in back, and
you had to pay to get into it, which we didn't. The kids went off with
N to buy postcards of the excess, and I sat in a chair trying to brace
my camera to take long exposures, which elicited the interest of a
party of British tourists to whom I had to give a small lecture on
current digital technology.

Then we went next door to the bishop's palace, now housing the Musee
de Toulouse-Lautrec. This was a disappointment. The first floor housed
every daub they could scrape up; the good stuff (mostly later) was
diluted with really unremarkable early work, and all of it was
presented with bad lighting and labelling. But worse was to come, on
the second floor which consisted entirely of dull works of completely
forgettable contemporaries of T-L. We couldn't even revel in the
building, the interior being largely unremarkable.

We returned to the car (the garage had filled up, but there were still
spaces), and had a quick drive home on the autoroute. That is, it was
quick until we left the outer peripherique, at which point we got lost
in a "deviation" that was inadequately signposted. N finally found a
major street listed on the Guide Rouge map, and guided us into the
centre along narrow streets. We got to the hotel about six.

I went out to find the Monoprix to get dinner supplies, and noticed a
Galeries Lafayette with "alimentation" in its basement. Since this
chain of stores is somewhat more upscale than Monoprix, I figured it
was a better bet. I bought a slice of terrine de pates de canard, a
small quiche lorraine for A, some smoked salmon for N who wanted a
change from bread and cheese. On impulse I picked up a litre of soupe
de poissons, stored in a plastic bottle in the refrigerated
section. At the cheese counter I asked for a perail fermier "Le
Lacandou", and some comte for Z. Finally, at a bread counter past the
checkout, I picked up a flute of bread.

All this made for quite a nice dinner in: I warmed up the quiche in
oven, and heated the soup on the stove, which allowed enough time for
the rest of the Cahors to come to room temperature.


Tuesday, July 16, 2002

We set an alarm on my watch to get us up at seven; it had the effect
of stopping the watch, presumably because it exhausted the
battery. Fortunately, N brought her watch along (she almost never
wears one). The alarm was necessary because N had noticed, in the
Guide Routard, a description of a cave with prehistoric paintings that
was open to the public, unlike the more famous caves at Lascaux and
Altamira. But reservations were obligatory, and she had called, only
to discover that the English tours were at 9:15 and 1, and the 1pm tour
was already fully booked on Tuesday. She opted for 9:15, which would
deprive us of breakfast but not lunch.

We had a bit of panic over whether we could make it there in time (we
had to be there by nine or they would give our reservations away)
since you never knew about the roads and how long it would take to
traverse them. The cave was in the foothills of the Pyrenees, to the
south, close to the border; a new autoroute was listed on our maps as
heading there, but it was not scheduled to open until May 2002, and we
could not be sure it had done so. A chat with the hotel staff seemed
to indicate it was open. Nonetheless, we got up and left the hotel as
quickly as we could.

The new autoroute was indeed open, and it made for a nice drive south,
taking us almost to Foix before turning into a regular road. It was
overcast and cool again, and it rained periodically as we drove. The
green hills rose up around us in a striking fashion; gone were the
rolling pastures and manicured vineyards. 

We drove into Tarascon-sur-Liege hoping to find some pastries for a
quick continental breakfast. Though the town was quite small, it was
still a confusing mess of one-way roads and roundabouts, and we had to
drive through most of it before spotting a few
boulangerie-patisseries. We chose one, and bought some basic
croissants and pains au chocolat; these were eaten on the walk back to
the car, which had been parked in a lot by the side of a rushing river
which looked as if it was about to sweep the whole town away. Z opted
for an almond croissant, which was so stuffed with almond paste that
even she could only eat less than half of it.

We drove a bit further south over progressively smaller roads into the
town of Lieux, in a narrow valley with a small ruined castle halfway
up it on a crag. Turning left took us up the hill in a series of
switchbacks until we arrived at the mouth of the Grotte de
Lieux. There was a small parking lot inside the enlarged mouth of the
cave with space for perhaps fifteen cars. There were two cars in it,
and a few people stood by the small ticket hut, which (it being only
quarter to nine) was not open yet.

More people drove up, among them the tour personnel, who opened the
hut and sold us our tickets. There were two of them, and at about ten
after nine, one of them started handing out lamps with large
rectangular rechargeable batteries attached. He led us into the mouth
of the cave, then counted us, and discovered two extra people (there
were supposed to be only twenty). But everyone had a ticket; his
partner had somehow counted wrong. They were quite strict about
measuring the impact of visitors like us; the guide logged us in and
out of the cave, and explained that a maximum of 220 visitors a day of
any sort were permitted.

The entrance had been enlarged to permit easy access, but as we went
further into the cave, there were some quite narrow passages, and some
wet, slippery sections. We walked in total about 900 metres into the
cave before the guide called a halt. Then he collected our lamps --
the paintings needed to be protected, and he would use only two lamps,
one for background illumination and one to show detail.

With that, he led us into a large circular room, with fencing keeping
us from the walls. We squeezed together at a spot he indicated, and he
swept his light upward, revealing the first of the paintings. It was a
breathtaking moment. In previous looks at prehistoric art, I had seen
a few stick figures, or some incomprehensible scratches that I
wouldn't have noticed if someone hadn't pointed them out to me. But
here were eight to ten animals, some overlapping, in a slightly
stylized but definitely naturalistic form: bison, ibex, horses. 

We stood and gazed at them reverently while the guide explained what
little we knew about them and how they related to other cave paintings
found in Europe. He was careful to qualify most of his statements, and
to the few rather inane questions from the audience, he would usually
answer, "We don't know," before going on to list a few theories. We
were led along to two other groups of paintings of about the same size
and numbers. Some of the groups included dots and lines that looked as
if they were primitive writing, though no one has any idea what they
signify. 

Finally, we turned and began the climb out of the cave, emerging at
close to eleven. The guide was alone, so he had to stay back most of
the time to watch stragglers; periodically he would call a halt, then
stride to the front and show the leaders that they had taken a wrong
turn. 

We got back into the car and drove carefully down the switchbacks,
which had no guardrails most of the time. Our plan was to visit the
town of Foix, which had a chateau we'd glimpsed from the autoroute,
and have lunch there; but it was pouring rain when we passed it, and
we quickly formulated an alternate plan to head back the way we had
come, striking out across country to the northeast at some point to
reach Castelnaudary, the town between Toulouse and Carcassonne that
was reputed to be the birthplace of cassoulet. After lunch, if the
weather improved, we would be close to Carcassonne and could manage a
visit. 

Apart from the rain, the drive went quickly even though we soon left
the autoroute and took a departmental road. Reaching Castelnaudary, we
drove through the town quickly (catching a quick glimpse of the Grand
Bassin, the lake on the Canal du Midi which was the town's other claim
to fame) and to the restaurant which was west of the town on the road
to Carcasonne.

The restaurant was Le Tirou, mentioned in the Routard and the Michelin
for its 20-euro menu which included cassoulet. The rain kept coming
and going, and the terrace was empty; everyone was in the dining room,
and they seemed to mostly be having the cassoulet. We did as well,
starting with salade Tirou for me (a mixed salad with gesiers and
magret seche or thin slices of dried duck breast), rillettes d'oie
(goose) for A and N, and tartare de saumon for Z. The cassoulet
followed the traditional recipe with confit de canard (also pork
sausage, small squares of goose fat which we all picked out, and
slow-cooked pork rib). It was quite tasty, and of course quite
filling. (Cassoulet is supposed to be a winter dish, and not
recommended in summer; but it was cold enough for us to be wearing
sweatshirts and long pants, all the warm clothing we had with us.)
Desserts were more of an afterthought: various glaces and sorbets, one
arrangement of which I had, called coupe de l'Artagnan (with pruneaux
ice cream and Armagnac). Wine: Domaine Lerys, Cuvee Prestige, Fitou
1998 (I tried to order Cahors, but the waiter said it was not right
for cassoulet; they never objected at Thomieux in Paris, but in any
event the Fitou was fine).

It was a rich and satisfying meal, and we were all feeling happy and a
little sleepy as we headed to Carcassonne. The Rough Guide writes that
"Your first view of Carcassonne is likely to be a memorable one," and
indeed it was: as we whizzed by on the autoroute, heading for the
eastern exit as the signs recommended, the cite (the old town)
suddenly appeared in a gap between the trees, across fields, looking
like some fairytale domain.

What the Rough Guide didn't say is that the first view is likely to be
the best one, and we would have retained more respect for the place
had we just kept going. Carcassonne, like many monuments in France,
was reconstructed in historically inaccurate fashion by Viollet-le-Duc
in the second half of the nineteenth century. It looks spectacular,
but it's basically Disneyland as it would have been created in
1850. We entered a stream of vehicles heading for the place, including
cars pulling trailers and RVs, and passed signs warning us that it was
obligatory to park outside the cite; eventually we snaked down the
side of a hill to a parking lot filled with cars searching for spaces,
and paid 3.50 euros for a hunting licence. Going further down the hill
got us to a place with fewer hunters, and I spotted someone leaving
and waited until they had inched their way out of the narrow space,
then inched my way in.

Bursts of drizzle were coming and going, so we took the umbrellas and
headed up the hill. "Why are we going to see something that's fake?" A
asked, and I didn't have a good answer for her. At the sight of a
carousel going full-tilt just outside the Porte Narbonnaise, I almost
turned around and went back. But we had gotten this far, the rain
wasn't too bad, and we might as well see the beast, I reasoned. We
moved into the road passing through the gate, only to be driven out
again by a horse-driven carriage. The main street inside was lined
with souvenir shops and swarming with people. We tried going around
the walls to the right. 

Every angle, every nice composition of walls, towers, and galleries
had a half-dozen people aiming still and video cameras at it. We could
see people snaking along the ramparts, for which privilege they had
paid extra. N took the kids outside at the next tower and showed them
the defensive mechanisms, and the alternating courses of brick and
stone lower down that indicated a Roman origin to the base of the
walls, but then it was back into the crush. We thought it might get
better on the side away from the car parks, or that the crowd would be
confined to a couple of big streets, but there were people everywhere,
and services offered to them.

We passed a stone bridge leading to a chateau, but this, too, you had
to pay extra to enter. Near the cathedral (which we didn't have the
heart to enter -- souvenir shops had sidled right up to it) I spotted
a map, and verified that we had walked on most of the larger streets;
we took a direct route back, and I started snapping pictures of the
people shopping for T-shirts and plastic doodads made in Asia, which
was a fairer picture of the place than my previous focus on
castle-like features. At the main street going down to the way we had
entered, traffic slowed to a crawl, and I was separated from N and the
kids by a slow-moving family pushing two strollers. I wedged myself
behind a bin holding plastic swords, took the digital camera out,
twisted the LCD to face down, held the camera over my head, and took a
couple of shots of the horde. Then I let myself be swept out past the
carousel, where my family was waiting.

We went straight back to the car, skipping the medieval lower town (we
felt it would be less picturesque and just as touristed) and headed
directly for the autoroute to Toulouse. For the rest of the trip, when
we would describe a village we wished to visit, the kids would ask
gingerly, "Is it going to be like Carcassonne?" and would only
acquiesce after being reassured that it probably was not. It seemed
they had also lost their enthusiasm for taking snapshots.

One of our books stated that Carcassonne got 200,000 visitors a year;
if that was what it was like, I was glad we had sipped Les Baux with
its 1.2 million annual toll. Perhaps things were worse because it was
the week just after the Bastille Day celebration (Carcassonne has the
second-largest fireworks display in the nation). But the place would
have had to be nearly empty, with shops shut, before I could have
treated it seriously.

When we got back I felt myself on the verge of passing out. I lay down
on Z's bed upstairs. N volunteered to go out and get bread for dinner,
with A. Z would come periodically and see if I was all right, which
was sweet, but had the effect of preventing me from getting much
rest. N came back in a panic; she and A had failed to get any bread
after walking the streets for three-quarters of an hour, and she
didn't know where the Galeries Lafayette (the place that had worked
the day before) was. I roused myself and headed directly for the
place, buying a couple of large baguettes.

Dinner consisted of various leftovers from the fridge, but not a
bad lot: four kinds of cheese, cold quiche, pate, smoked salmon,
pickles, tapenade, and bread, with a bottle of Iroleguy rose from the
Basque region, a vintage I had always wanted to try.

Wednesday, July 17, 2002

We all slept in, overcome by the cassoulet and the stress of touring
Carcassonne. I went out to search for pastries, but there was not much
around in the way of boulangeries or patisseries. I went into the
covered market, which was nearby; we had been excited about staying so
close to it, but it was nothing special; there seemed some decent
purveyors of fish, meats, and a couple of cheese shops, but the
produce stands around the outside were inferior to the Sunday market,
and the whole market was dominated by several stories of car park. Finally
I bought some croissants, pains au chocolat, and a baguette at one of the
market stalls; they proved to be nothing special as well. 

We dressed and showered, and went out. As we walked past past place
Capitole, there seemed to be a flea market filling it; we never did
get to see it as an open urban space. We went up Rue Deville to the
Banque de France, our first morning destination. We had to buzz to get
in past the large metal gate at the entrance, then undergo a sort of
airlock for further security. Inside, I exchanged a 200-franc note for
Euros, and also changed my 200-euro notes (given to me by a foreign
exchange place back home, when I bought 1000 euros in order to pay a
deposit on the Fontvielle property that was never asked for) into
fifties. 

We walked around the back of les Jacobins, and noticed we were in a
"music street", whose shops seemed to have to do with music. We went
into one shop, and asked if they had any of Astor Piazzolla's sheet
music (our greatest successes in this area having been in Paris). They
didn't, but they recommended another shope called Casse-Notes, a
little further north on rue des Gestes. This was a wonderfully
disorganized shop presided over by an animated patronne -- she stole
her husband's glasses at one point to read some fine print. She
produced three albums of pieces by Piazzolla for piano, one for
violin, and one set of orchestration from his first 1955 recordings in
Paris (there were others, but for inappropriate combinations like
flute and guitar). We bought the lot for a little over 100 euros.

We continued down Rue St-Ursule to the large Rue de Metz and the Hotel
d'Assezat. This is a mansion originally the home of the richest
woad-merchant (who lost it all because he would not abjure his
Protestant faith). It had quite a spectacular courtyard -- elegant,
but not over the top. It now housed the Foundation Bemberg, an art
gallery. The first floor contained paintings set among Renaissance
furniture and statuary; Z said, "There are so many cool things here I
can't stand it." Clocks, cabinets, a harpsichord, and nestled in
between, works by Guardi, several Canalettos, more works by Lucas
Cranach the Elder than I have ever seen in one place, Tiepolo,
Tintoretto (including some uncharacteristically restrained and dark
portraits), Veronese, and Titian. We were surprised at how rewarding
the place was.

Up to the second floor, via a long balcony that afforded us a bird's
eye view of the courtyard: "Pointillism!" exclaimed Z. "Pointillism
and Impressionism!" A Signac work (of a bell-tower in St-Tropez) much
more tasteful than the ones in the Louvre; works by Odilon Redon,
Derain, Dufy, some minor Gauguin and Matisse works, a Monet portrait
of his child, and a whole roomful of Pierre Bonnard; also a single
Caillebotte, and an odd self-portrait by Sarah Bernhardt (not great
art, but interesting nonetheless). The kids were animated and engaged,
the guards left us alone, the place was empty, and overall it was
probably the best gallery visit of our trip.

One almost as good was to follow, but first it was time for lunch. We
walked east on rue de Metz, past the large Musee des Augustins, and
turned down the narrow Rue Tolosane to find Chez Fazoul, a modest
place listed in our Guide Routard. We were seated in a large interior
room, just by a large (inactive) fireplace. The 11-euro lunchtime
formula offered a buffet of hors d'oeuvres (just the thing for the
kids: herring, boiled eggs, salads, charcuterie, pate, grilled
eggplant and peppers, spiced chickpeas, tomatoes, cucumbers, and,
especially for A, grated carrots), followed by a choice of some basic
meats or two plates of the day (I had filet de lieu noir, a fish I
didn't recognize, but done just right in a tarragon sauce; the others
had merguez, two kinds of spicy sausage served with gratin
dauphinoise), and a short carte of desserts (I had mousse de chocolat,
N had a savarin which was quite rummy and made the kids' noses wrinkle
up; they had sorbets and glaces). A half-litre of wine was included in
the price, unfortunately served quite cold (thereby becoming the only
wine disappointment of the trip). It was a reminder of our
inexpensive Paris bistro meals and a nice change.

We regained rue de Metz and walked across the Garonne on the Pont Neuf
into the St-Cyprien district. The main street, rue de la Republique,
was lined with kebab stalls and Tunisian restaurants. We turned north
at the Place St-Cyprien (alas, given over to traffic) and soon found
the refurbished brick buildings of Les Abattoirs. These were working
slaughterhouses a little over a decade ago, but were closed and
converted into a modern art gallery, which benefitted from a
decentralization plan that dispersed some works from the Pompidou in
Paris out to the provinces. Several room-filling works were set up in
the main-floor galleries, including a ghastly collection of pink
kitsch with a recording of "La Vie en Rose" playing that one could
hear, distantly, everywhere in the building. There were some "name"
works by Mapplethorpe, Warhol, and Picasso, but more interesting were
the works by people we hadn't heard of. The silliest was something
called "Jurassic Pork", where one took a flashlight into a darkened
room to find thick self-deprecating graffiti coating the walls and a
sculpture of a black pig flapping wings and shining lights out of its
eyes suspended in the centre of the room. Z, who had recently been
working on a pig opera, was particularly taken with this one.

We had a hot walk back to the apartment (the sun had finally emerged)
and spent a few hours resting in the air conditioning. I made a kir
with the leftover Irouleguy and some disused creme de cassis, and put
splashes of it into N and A's water and Z's apple juice. At seven we
headed out, walking a little north and east to Le Colombier, a
restaurant noted in two of our books for cassoulet.

It had somewhat of an air of desperate elegance, with a tray of large
bottles of vieux Armagnac displayed just near the entrance. The a la
carte menu was pricy, but there were several cheaper menus, and we
chose the one at 27 euros that had the choice of cassoulet. The
starters were rather thin, however; I had flan de foie de canard,
which turned out to have only the faintest flavour of duck liver; the
others (A and Z sharing one menu) passed up the salade with gesiers
confit and opted instead for jambon a l'os. This caused a cart to be
wheeled to our table with a whole ham on it, and a waiter cut thin
slices off it. 

It was that kind of place; lots of show, mostly (it appeared,
listening to the clientele) for the benefit of English tourists and
French businessmen. There was only one other woman in the place, part
of an elderly English couple, and from the sounds of conversation,
several parties were repeat customers. 

The cassoulet, when it arrived, was plentiful; I cut the kids' portion
of confit d'oie (not telling Z it was not canard, as she had developed
an irrational antipathy to eating goose), split portions of the two
types of sausage, and ladled out beans. It was quite good, but rich
and salty. I was drinking a Chateau Laffitte-Ceston Madiran 1998, and
the others were drinking lots of water.

I finished my portion and parts of the kids, though they did a decent
job. We had to wait a bit for dessert, as two large parties of men
were ordering wines that seemed to require large balloon glasses and
lots of swirling, and dishes like magret of canard en croute, or loup
de mer flambeed over dry fennel stalks, all requiring much
intervention by servers. Z had three balls of intense caramel ice
cream, and the rest of us had croustade de pommes a l'Armagnac,
basically an upscale apple pie. The menu listed several types of
Armagnac with a lengthy paragraph of description of each, but we left
before the other diners got into those. I was reminded of the dinner
near the end of Brideshead Revisited, and was expecting one of them to
order a glass bigger than their head to be warmed over a spirit lamp.

It was all we could do to stagger back to the room and collapse.


Thursday, July 18, 2002

Breakfast was nothing much, leftover bread with jam and honey, and
apricots; no one felt like eating much. We had decided to drive west,
into Gascony (now called Gers), a region not covered by any of our
English-language guidebooks. But we had picked up a Guide Routard
covering the Midi-Pyrenees, and it spoke highly of this region, just
to the east of where Armagnac was made. In truth, the name was part of
the attraction; we have friends who say "Och!" as an exclamation (like
the Scottish word, though they are Greek and Spanish) and we kept
pronouncing it that way, even though it is really pronounced "awsh".

The national road, N124, going to Auch was marked in red on the map,
and we made good time, getting into Auch (the capital of the
department) a little after ten. We climbed up a series of curves,
following signs, to the old city. The parking lot directly in front of
the cathedral was full, as was the one to the side, but as I came
around again, N spotted someone leaving from the spot right across
from the entrance to the cathedral, and we nabbed it.

The cathedral at Auch seemed closer to the Gothic cathedrals we had
seen in northern France, and we welcomed it after the series of odd
(though interesting) buildings we had seen recently. The choir was
completely enclosed, sort of a church within a church; we paid a small
fee to get in, as it had quite good carvings. We were handed a guide
to each of the 133 separate works above the stalls; the kids were
quite interested, though we failed to answer their questions about the
significance of the sibyls, or what was going on in the more obscure
Old Testament stories.

We walked down a nearby street, which rather disconcertingly was lined
with touristy boutiques and cafes, though the people in them seemed
not to be tourists, but locals hanging out with their families,
greeting each other. A recommended gastronomic shop turned out to have
nothing particularly interesting; I considered getting some vieux
Armagnac, but the selection seemed geared mostly to fancy bottles
rather than interesting contents. One store that appeared to have a
promising selection turned out to have many different bottles created
by the same producer. I abandoned the idea, and we went back to the car.

The lunch spot we had chosen was 7 km out of town to the north, on the
N21. That was the only directions we had, and when we had gone 15 or
more km, it was clear we had missed it. We turned around in a gas
station (the owner came out to shout at us, and I thought he was going
to complain about our use of his property, but he only wanted to warn
us that our front licence plate was missing) and headed south
again. There were more signs for the restaurant, but we couldn't find
it. Finally we noticed a person walking, asked them, and got precise
directions. It was, indeed, just off the N21, but you had to take the
proper branch of a roundabout.

We were seated outside under an awning which blocked most of the
direct sun but gave a pinkish tint to everything. A and Z, still full
of cassoulet, agreed to share a 23.80-euro menu, which the kitchen
kindly split for us without our asking (they each got a full dessert
at no extra charge). They had tagliatelles au moules et saumon fume
(smoked), surrounded by sections of citrus fruit to start. N asked
about a terrine de morue, but they had none that day; she took the
substitute, which was saumon fume aux huile d'olive (smoked salmon
marinated in olive oil and spices). I took instead the salade de
pintardeau, which was a green salad (augmented with poached green
beans) with grilled and sliced breast of guinea fowl. As a main
course, we all had millefeuille de lieu jaune, duxelles de
champignons, coulis de poivron doux. We had learned by now that
"millefeuille" was sort of a variable concept. In this case it was two
thin crisp sesame toasts, in between which were large flakes of fish
with a gray sauce (the duxelles) and the red pepper sauce
underneath. For dessert, we all had savarin aux fruits; this was less
rummy than the one that had put the kids off earlier, and topped off
an excellent meal quite nicely. The wine was a Fleury-Laplace Bearn
2000 rose. I had a coffee to perk me up (my only purchased coffee of
the trip, it was as disappointing as all the French coffees that
caused me to stop ordering coffee in that country) and we were on our way.

The road back towards Toulouse we chose went through small towns, on
little roads marked yellow or even white on our maps. The road had
many curves, with frequent decisions to make when coming to signposted
intersections, and N, feeling a bit under the weather and unable to
read in a car at the best of times, was finding it hard to
navigate. We were travelling along ridge lines, it appeared, which
gave us very nice views to left and right of placid farm country, with
large white cattle grazing. We passed by the small town of
Castelnau-Barbarens, which our guidebook recommended; it looked like a
miniature version of Cordes-sur-Ciel, and we weren't sure hiking up
its hill in the heat would have been worthwhile.

Continuing on in search of Boulaur, we managed to take a wrong turn
and find ourselves going past on the next ridge over. From there we
had a pretty good view of the town and church, and when we drove
closer, it didn't seem as interesting, so we kept going. At Lombez we
rejoined a red departmental road, the D 632, and turned north; we
opted not to go into Samatan, whose main feature was a foie gras
market (we had been seeing signs for artisanal foie gras since leaving
Auch, much like the maple syrup signs that dot the country roads near
where we live). But about halfway up the road towards rejoining the
national highway towards Toulouse, we saw signs for the Chateau de
Caumont, and turned off.

This was a small country chateau like Flaugergues, though there was no
wine money to prop it up; it was at once prettier and more run
down. We parked the car outside and walked through what looked like a
gatehouse (though with nice turrets) to the chateau, which had three
wings overlooking a courtyard. An elderly woman shouted from a door
that she was in the middle of a tour and would we wait? We poked
around -- the gatehouse had a banquetting hall like the one at
Flaugergues, which offered us nice bathrooms to use -- until she was
done. She spoke English to us, and as we paid her 5 euros each for the
tour (2.50 for A, nothing for Z), another French couple came up. They
both spoke English, so the tour was conducted in English, with some
French thrown in here and there.

We went down a hazardous set of stone steps to a basement kitchen,
where we watched a short video, as at Flaugergues. But this one had no
pretentions, and unlike the other video was packed with historical
information about the place and the families that had owned it. Then
we were led into the main part of the place, though some nice rooms
with period furniture. Much of what we would have liked about the
original decor of the place had been destroyed by a hideous
eighteenth-century makeover in the fashions of the time -- neo-Gothic
windows, dark ceilings. As we went through, looking at pictures of the
family and listening to narration, it became clear to me that the
woman giving the tour was the owner herself, the Marquise de
Castelbajac. There was one photo of her with the Queen Mother, who had
visited a few years before. The woman explained how they were slowly
restoring the place, removing the courtyard floor that had been raised
two feet so that women in voluminous dresses would not have to climb
stairs when they visited. It was apparent from the state of the place
that a lot more work was in order, and it was not clear if it was
going to get done; the woman's son lived in Philadelphia now.

The tour lasted more than an hour, and was quite interesting; it was
six o'clock as we said goodbye and drove off towards Toulouse. The
drive back was fairly easy. I showed N where the Galeries Lafayette
were on the map, and she went off to forage for dinner, returning with 
a tarte de fromage, a bag of salad, and two flutes of bread. There was
still plenty of cheese, terrine, and condiments left in the fridge,
and I made kir out of the leftover Irouleguy with the help of the
bottle of creme de cassis we had toted from Fontvielle.

Friday, July 19, 2002

Another breakfast of leftover bread, fruit, and yogurt. For our last
full day in France, we had decided to explore the country to the east
of Toulouse. 

We drove north on the autoroute towards Albi, paying the 1.20 toll,
and exited near St-Sulpice, picking up the D630 going east. I had to
play a game with the car -- I didn't want to leave too much expensive
gas in the tank when we returned it, but I didn't want to run out, or
even worry about running out. In Lavaur, I spotted a gas station, and
stopped for our last gas-up. This time I didn't fill the tank, but
bought 15 euros worth. I figured that 10 would be sufficient, but the
extra 5 was for peace of mind; there was no way we would use that much
up. The road after Lavaur was winding and narrow, even through it was
red on map, being a route nationale. We weren't in a hurry, so I took
it slowly, letting people pass me, for the sake of the stomachs of my
passengers.

We drove right into the center of Castres, and found ourselves on the
main place (place Jean-Jaures), an open rectangular space in which a
market was taking place. I found a parking spot right on the place and
got the car into it with some difficulty, but after all that, N
discovered a sign that said it wasn't legal to park there on market
days. I protested that the whole place was parked up, but she pointed
out that those people could be making quick trips within view of their
car, whereas we intended to stay for a while and walk away from this
general area. So we all piled into the car again, and drove a little
towards the river, where we found an underground parking structure
that was free (because of a dance festival that evening).

We walked around Castres, including the market (which was nice, but
nothing special). The river Agout runs right through the centre, and
there are some pretty houses by the canal -- brightly painted, because
they originally belonged to textile dyers. We peeked into church, the
Cathedrale St-Benoit, but it was styled in a
rather dull Baroque, reminiscent of lesser churches in Rome. Across
the street, the courtyard of the Hotel de Ville was completely filled with
bleachers for the dance programme to be put on later that day; the
building housed a Goya Museum, but since we are not connoisseurs of
Spanish painting, we opted to skip it. 

There wasn't much to hold us in Castres, which was pleasant but not
really compelling, and after we walked around for a bit, we had the
option of dashing off in a hurry to Lautrec (15 km to the north) and
having lunch at a country place, or eating in town. Since it was about
quarter to twelve, and we had visions of the mad hunt for Le Papillon
north of Auch, we decided to kill a bit of time and eat in town.
N wished to buy A a copy of Dumas' Three Musketeers in French, so we
went into a bookstore (the patronne viewed us somewhat suspiciously)
and a copy. A found some Bescherelle books on grammar (she has one at
home) and asked for them. How can you turn down a nine-year-old asking
for books on French grammar?

Lunch was at Le Mandragore, an airy and elegant place to the north of
Place Jean-Jaures. They had a terrific bargain lunch at 11.50
including wine, but we were more taken with the 14.50 euro "menu
d'ete". Z, in fact, was taken with the
24-euro menu, mostly because of the saumon tartare that was the
starter, but that menu included a cheese course, and she eats like a
bird. She was with difficulty dissuaded, and convinced to order the
24-euro menu, although she deliberately chose different things from
the rest of us. There was a 30-euro menu five-course tasting menu
entirely of the chef's choice, and we considered it briefly, but it
seemed over the top for a hot afternoon.

For an entree, Z had salade de chevre chaud, though N and I ended up
eating most of the salad proper while she had large helpings of our
croustade de moules, basically a square of puff pastry over mussels in
a nice sauce made from pureed roasted red peppers. As a main course, 
Z had escalope de saumon (sauce de basilic), while the rest of us had
confit de canard (properly grilled with quite crisp skin, which for
once I ate). For dessert, Z had crema catalana, while the rest of us
had croustillant de fruits fraiches (basically fruit salad with a scoop of
vanilla ice cream, and a large thin crunchy tuile on top). Wine was a
Domaine de Labarthe 2000 Gaillac rose. The meal was quite a bargain
considering the pleasant atmosphere and the quality of the food.

We drove the short distance to Lautrec. It was very hot (the high was
31 in Toulouse that day, but the temperature gauge in the car read 36
when we parked). The whole town was basically shut up for siesta, but
it was fascinating. We walked through curving streets beside crumbling
medieval buildings. There was a reconstructed windmill at the highest
point of town, not quite as picturesque as the one we glimpsed to the
south of Fontvielle, but with a great view. The Rough Guide said that
it was quite nice to go inside when the mechanism was working, but the
windmill wouldn't open for another hour, and there was at most a
whisper of breeze. We walked back to car along a route that took us
into the arcaded market (deserted) and through a fortified gate; work
was being done on it, and on a walk along what remained of the city
walls. It would be interesting to visit this place on a fall weekend.

The car had been parked in the sun, and the air conditioning took
quite a while to get it back to a reasonable temperature. The road
back towards Toulouse through Graulhet was quite nice and relatively
straight. We took a detour into Giroussens, listed on all signposts as
having a "vue panoramique" -- but it was no better than the ones we
had been seeing for two days, and the pottery shops (the main feature
of the town) were all shut. Coming back into Toulouse, we encountered
yet another deviation, which sent us off down a small street into a
residential subdivision. It seemed that someone had removed one or
more of the signs telling us which way to go. I turned back,
recognizing the way we had come that morning, and without help found
our way into town and onto Boulevard Strasbourg going south. At the
point just past our hotel where the construction started to get
serious, I turned left and into the parking strip in front of the
hotel, then out again and right to get to the hotel garage.

N started packing. A had expressed a desire to eat savoury crepes, so
she and I walked across town to Rue de la Bourse to check out the one
creperie mentioned in the Rough Guide (the Guide Routard did not deign
to list any) but it was barred, with a "changement de proprietaire"
sign on it. Fortunately A had spotted another one on the walk over (in
her typical fashion of assuming every restaurant on the way was ours),
and it actually looked reasonable. On the way back, we finally visited
the Monoprix alimentation; I found the can of gesiers I had wanted to
take back, plus some chocolate cookies for the trip back, but the
store itself was a mess due to renovation, with narrow aisles abruptly
blocked by large tarpaulins, and wires hanging from the ceiling. We
had been right to keep going to the Galeries Lafayette. Back in the
hotel, I poured myself my last pastis. The bottle was only half empty;
I hoped that perhaps the hotel maids would enjoy it, though they
probably poured all open bottles down the sink as a matter of
policy. I couldn't bring myself to do it. N finished her packing, made
a last-minute list, and the bags were piled neatly under the stairs. I
went down, settled our telephone bill, and returned the electronic
wand which got us into the garage.

Shortly before seven, we went out together, and walked to the Creperie
de Bigoudene (in the odd little pedestrian zone just south of
Capitole), but the two women sitting out front smoking told us they
weren't open until seven-thirty. We walked through the pedestrian
zone, onto rue de Metz, out to the river (at which point the setting
sun was full in our faces) and along it, around Place de la Daurade
and along a restauranted street (rue de Blancheurs?) and then back.

A couple of other parties were already seated when we returned to the
creperie. We were seated at an outside table, basically on the
sidewalk (street was a restricted traffic zone but cars did come by
from time to time, coming very close to a table on the other side of
the storefront). We had savoury "sarrazin de ble biologique" (organic
buckwheat) crepes to start (A and Z split ham, cheese, mushrooms,
bechamel; N had bacon, potato, raclette, which was A's second choice;
I had andouille bretagne, in shreds rather than stuffed into a sausage
casing, sauce moutarde) and then sweet "crepes de froment" (belle
Helene, with pears, chocolate, almonds, and chantilly for A; black and
white chocolate for Z; cherries "griottes" and vanilla ice cream for
N; caramelized apples, creme fraiche, and flambeed Calvados for
me). Instead of wine, we had cider (a bottle of doux, at 2% weak
enough for N and the kids, and a cup of brut for me) from Val de
Rance. It wouldn't have been my choice for a last meal in France, but
it was well done, and A was pleased at her choice.

Our last day in France was ending quietly, rather than with a
bang. The way home the next day was straightforward: we would load the
luggage into the car, brave the narrow garage exit one last time,
drive around the inner ring road and onto the peripherique, and exit
in the direction of Auch, but almost immediately turn left for the
airport at Blagnac. The car would be left in the slot reserved for the
Sixt car-rental agency, which handles Renault-Eurodrive at Toulouse;
we would drop the papers and the keys in their mailslot inside the
terminal and catch our plane to Charles de Gaulle airport, where we
would change planes for our flight to Toronto.

We returned home to one last treat for the kids: some pastries A and I
had picked up on our way back from our last shopping trip, at a place
which looked decent. The kids had been looking for pastries the entire
trip, and never really got to indulge in fancy ones. A had a tarte de
groseilles (rouge et noir); Z had a macaron fraise (strawberry
macaroon), and they professed themselves quite happy with them. They
left the tarte de peche for breakfast. We tucked them in, and went to
bed ourselves.