The charming village of Grimaud

We had some time to before our train departed St Raphael for Paris, so we stopped to visit the charming perched village of Grimaud, with its cobble stoned streets and alleys, most of them pedestrian only, vaulted passages, carefully restored 16th - 19th century houses, flower pots on window sills, a few shops, cafés and restaurants - the setting was perfect.

The village is named after the Grimaldi family, still in power in Monaco, and was bequeathed to a Genoese nobleman, Gibelin de Grimaldi, by William the Good of Provence, in reward for his support in driving the Saracens from Provence in the 10th century.

The original intent of the "perched" village was to provide a view of the sea to watch out for possible invasions. At the very top of the village is a partially restored 11th century chateau, which originally had three enclosures and four enormous towers.  Much of it was destroyed during the 17th century wars of religion and later after the Revolution. 

The St Roch’s Wind Mill was built in the 17th Century, and was recently restored by the "Compagnons du Tour de France".

We were all charmed by this little village. It was everything I envisioned a hilltop French village to look like.

The Penitents Chapel dates from the 15th century.

Some people prefer the glitz and glamour of Monaco, but I much preferred the cobblestone streets, stone archways and flowering vines of Grimaud.

It was the perfect way to end our trip in the Cote d'Azur. You can view more pictures of our trip to Grimaud here.

Monaco - No Income Taxes; 0% Unemployment and #1 Export is Pharmaceuticals (hmmmm)

While we were in the Cote d'Azur, we thought we'd take a roadtrip to visit Monaco for an afternoon. The only thing I really knew about Monaco was that it was very small, Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier in 1956 and the current Grimaldi's (Albert and Caroline) have had numerous scandals and sordid affairs linked to them. I obviously knew about the Casino (hey, I watched Casino Royale) and that they host the annual Grand Prix race there. But that's about where my knowledge ends.

The weather wasn't too great for our adventure, although I'll take a little drizzle and grey clouds over actual "rain" so I'm not really going to complain. It just would have been nice to have had some sunshine.

It took us about 2 hours to drive from St Tropez to Monaco. I suspect if Avis had sported us in a beautiful Bentley, Aston Martin or other high-performance vehicle, we could have cut that time by at least 45 minutes. Let's just say that the Ford Fiesta doesn't understand "high-performance".

Although Monaco is tiny (just under two square kilometers), it's very hilly, so us old people decided to take a tour on one of those open-top buses that let you jump on/off at various stops around the town. It's also a good way to learn more about the city than you would have otherwise on your own since they have those handy recordings you listen to as the bus drives around.

Here's some interesting facts about Monaco:

• It's the second smallest independent State in the world (the Vatican is the smallest)
• There is no income tax
• Their number one export is pharmaceuticals (I certainly did not see any factories in the 2 square kilometers that I visited, so you have to wonder WHAT they're cooking up there) . . . just sayin'
• They have zero unemployment
• Monaco boasts the world's highest GDP nominal per capita at $151,630 and is the most densely populated country in the world (31,000+ live there)
• They have one of the world's longest life expectancy rates at just under 90 years
• They are reclaiming land from the sea to expand the city limits
• The House of Grimaldi has ruled Monaco since 1297
• Citizens of Monaco are not allowed to gamble in its Casinos

So after sightseeing for a few hours, I have to say that Monaco is one of those places that I'll tick off on my long list of "places I'd like to see before I die" and will most likely never visit again. The town held very little charm for me, which was kind of a surprise. I was even a little disappointed by the palace -- it didn't seem very "palace-like" in its appearance and it's a fairly understated building with not a lot of architectural detail, except for the medieval part of the structure.

While eating lunch at one of the local restaurants, we were quite entertained by a group of 6 young ladies that were also visiting for the day. They all were participating in a "study abroad" program for a semester in Florence, Italy (jealous!) and had come from various places in the United States (not sure what college they were attending). They all seemed to enjoy some of the finer things in life (can you say spoiled rich girls?), most particularly a substantial "allowance" for travel while they were abroad. I'm not sure how much studying will be involved as all they could talk about were all the places in Europe that they couldn't wait to visit (and boys).

These girls were absolutely clueless about anything French and it was funny watching them try to navigate a French menu. Pretty much every thing on the list of "Don't do while traveling to call attention to yourself as an American Tourist" they did/said. I wish I had recorded some of their conversations to to share with you because it was pretty hilarious. You could tell that they were afraid of the dishes on the menu and pretty much the only thing they all ordered were French fries, yet they didn't know how to ask for some in French; P-O-M-M-E   F-R-I-T-E-S was way too difficult for them to say; and I about doubled over laughing when I overhead one of them in her best Texas drawl ask her server about what "Foooey grass" was (Foie gras).

I sure hope their Daddies don't expect that their expensive education is going to yield much more than a rich husband.

C'est la vie, right?

You can view our pictures from Monaco here.

St Tropez Day 2 - Warning: The Beached Whales Have Arrived!

Although St Tropez is mostly known as a destination for the jet-setters and celebrities and more famously where Brigitte Bardot was discovered, it has some interesting history. It was a fifteenth-century military stronghold, a small fishing village at the beginning of the twentieth century, and the first town on the French Riviera to be liberated during World War II as part of Operation Dragoon. It wasn't until after the war that it became an international seaside resort.

To partake in a some local color, we visited their market that takes place on Tuesdays and Saturdays in the main town square. The market is a combination swap meet, food hall, farmers market and apparel market, selling both used and new goods.

The selection of both "gourmet" foods and fresh produce was a chef's dream, where you could find vendors selling aged meats, pickled and preserved fruits and vegetables, spices, and a very large selection of ready-to-eat foods. The smells wafting from various stalls were very inviting.

April and I both learned a good lesson at the market: you get what you pay for. Sure those 10 Euros shoes were cute and seemed comfortable, but the quality was more than questionable. This is what my shoes looked like after wearing them twice:

Notice the "white" detail where the heel section meets the bottom? That's the glue that's starting to rip away from the bottom. April's shoes were unwearable after one outing. So for 10 Euros, you can purchase disposable footwear.

In addition to my disposable shoes, I also purchased some lovely French-milled bath soaps, which are a great bargain at 5 soaps for 10 Euros. I have (and will) pay $10 for a bar of good French-milled soap. In hindsight, they would have made lovely Christmas stocking stuffers, so I probably should have purchased more than 5 bars.

My favorite purchase at the market was a beautiful 100% linen tablecloth that should be a good match for my Grandmother's china. It's not the greatest photo, but you get the idea. My Grandmother's china is the Fleur de lis pattern from Spode, which is ivory and brown. It has grown on me over the years and we use it for special occasions like Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.

After perusing the market for a couple of hours, we returned to the apartment to get ready for the beach. St Tropez (and it's surrounding towns) have both private and public beaches (some of them are clothing optional). Since our beach chairs, umbrellas and favorite cabana boy didn't fit in the overhead bin of our Boeing 767 jet, we decided to visit one of the beach clubs in Pampelonne Bay, where some of the best beaches are in the area.

Coincidentally, this is also where Ernest Hemingway and his first wife (and mistress) also vacationed each summer during the years they lived in Paris. Seems that I'm following quite a bit in his footsteps this trip!

So we packed up our beach supplies, put on our apparel acquired from Omar the Tent Maker (also known as bathing suit cover ups) and headed to the Tahiti Beach Club.

As luck would have it, no sooner had we arrived, paid an arm and a leg for our beach chairs, towels, umbrellas and bottle of rosé (it is what it is) did the sun decide to leave us and instead, very dark clouds started to roll in. This was not part of the plan!

Since we no longer had any arms and legs to use after paying for our beach goods, we decided to have another bottle of rosé and hope that the clouds were just sticking around for a quick visit. And voila! - our patience was rewarded.

It was a lovely day at the beach. The club next door was playing some pretty good music, the water was deliciously warm and refreshing, the people watching interesting (including some nice boobies for Sean's pleasure) and did I mention the rosé? And although our cabana boy was named Tim (not very French, right?), he wasn't too bad on the eyes either. Sadly, it was time to leave paradise and head back to the apartment for the evening. 

After removing sand from every crevice of my body, we headed into town for some adult beverages and dinner. When we were returning from the beach, we got caught up in some kind of parade traffic and later discovered that St Tropez was hosting the European Fife & Drum festival that weekend.

There were 14 Drum & Fife corps representing various countries at the festival, including a troupe from New York, whose costumes reminded me of the era of the American Revolution.

We had another fantastic dinner at a randomly selected restaurant after wandering around the cobblestone streets. One of my favorite quotes from Sean during the trip was his comment during dinner that he felt like he was "eating dinner in a postcard".

You can view my photos from St Tropez here.

St Tropez Day 1 - It Is What It Is

The idea to visit St Tropez while in France was actually inspired by my friend Emilie, who suggested that we meet her and her husband during their planned visit. Naturally after we had made all of the arrangements, Emilie's plans changed and she was no longer going to be in St Tropez during our visit.

C'est la vie. Although I've been to the French Riviera before, I had not yet been to St Tropez, so to quote our favorite saying of the trip, "It is what it is." Emilie is a native French speaker and has visited the French Riviera many times, so we were looking forward to her more experienced itinerary, but I think we did just fine.

We purchased our ticket online from Paris Gare du Lyon to St Raphael on the idTGV website, which saved us about 60% on our tickets vs purchasing our tickets through SNCF (the main French rail site). The idTGV site lets you purchase tickets up to 4 months in advance with fares starting at just 19 Euros. Our tickets were 46 Euros each way, which was about $126 roundtrip. The trains are high-speed, and we were able to cover about 900 KM in about 4-1/2 hours.

We left Paris Gare du Lyon at 7:45 AM on Friday and arrived in St Raphael at 12:15 PM. All of the rental car agencies have a mandatory 2-hour lunch period, so we had to waste a little time before we could pick up the car. Rosé may have been involved.

Although we thought the chances high that Avis just might "upgrade" us for free to something exotic like a Bentley given our ultimate destination, we were sadly given the keys to a Ford Fiesta. Seriously? As in "Found On Road Dead" Fiesta? "Fix Or Repair Daily" Fiesta? Not even a French car. But I digress.

So off we go through a million roundabouts on our way to St Tropez in the gutless Fiesta. But I suspect that the reason this little gem of a car is gutless is that gas will probably cost me $10 per gallon (we paid 1.55 Euros per litre). Another dream of mine that was shattered during this driving experience was that April and I may not be as compatible as I thought as partners to win "The Amazing Race".  I'm not sure April knows how to actually read a map given that she was trying to navigate us to the apartment with the map upside down! We would also most likely kill each other as I'm the first to admit that we're both a little stubborn (but I'm smarter).  In her defense, they don't seem to actually have street signs in St Tropez, which was the primary reason we had so much difficulty finding our way that afternoon. But April could improve her map reading skills. Just sayin'.

Finally, at the suggestion of the lone male in the backseat (Sean), we stopped to ask for directions and not only did we find someone who spoke English, but he used to reside in the exact same apartment building. So after driving around St Tropez for about 45 minutes horribly lost (and me driving the wrong way down a one-way street) we find the apartment. I also should apologize to the 4 wrong numbers I dailed in an attempt to reach the caretaker of the apartment. Sorry about my horrible French language skills! I'm not even sure I reached wrong numbers in France -- I can't wait to get that AT&T bill! But it is what it is.

For our accommodations, we didn't have a lot to choose from since this trip was very last minute. There are a lot of nearby coastal (and inland) towns but I'm really glad that we found something in the town of St Tropez. Parking is a nightmare with very little public parking available and our apartment was within walking distance to the town and had an underground parking space (huge bonus). We still had to drive to the beach, but that was only about 5 KM away, which was easy to do.

We found our apartment on the HomeAway site, which is similar to VRBO (vacation rental by owner). We paid 200 Euros per night, which isn't too bad considering the location. The apartment was a one-bedroom with a pull-out couch for April, however, their idea of a "pull-out" couch and ours is quite different. The pull-out part was only about 3-1/2 feet in length, so that bed would have only been comfortable for a very small child. So April spent a fairly uncomfortable 3 nights on the sofa, but hopefully the Rose she grew fond of make the experience somewhat more bearable. Although Sean and I had an official bed to sleep on, I wouldn't say that our situation was much better. The bed was basically a futon mattress on the floor (double sized) and not much more comfortable than just sleeping on the floor.

Although the apartment was clean, the apartment was in a very old building that stunk horribly of mildew and getting to the underground parking was like entering a dungeon -- not something you want to do by yourself (don't mind the dead rat on the stairwell). Thankfully the apartment inside didn't have any mildew odor, but it was really horrible once you left the apartment and had to walk through the interior hallways.

My other complaint with the apartment was the lack of screens on the patio doors. There are no windows at all, just full-length patio doors that open up from both the bedroom and living room. This is definitely a nice feature, but it was way too hot to not have both of those doors open and while we tried to sleep, the mosquitoes enjoyed a nightly feast at our expense. The apartment had an A/C unit, however, it was pretty much useless. There was only one free-standing unit to use and you had to vent a large hose out the window (which didn't exist) so basically you still had to have the patio door open to stick the A/C hose outside. Not a very clever design.

So to recap, loved the location, loved having a parking spot for the rental car, enjoyed the pool, but wouldn't rent that particular apartment (or in that building) again unless I was desperate. But it is what it is.

After taking a dip in the pool to cool off (it was pretty hot), we showered and headed into town; after all, it was rosé time! We enjoyed the evening strolling around and looking at the mega-yachts tied up in the harbor and the beautiful, scantily-clothed people (also known as Super Models). Clearly, we were like fish out of water in this town (no yacht; not fit for a bikini; not wealthy; and most importantly, old!), but to be honest, we fit in just fine -- there were plenty of similar fish out and about.

À bientôt!

La Tour Eiffel

I know it's a touristy thing to do, but one of the things I've never done while in Paris is to ascend the Eiffel Tower. The conditions for our visit were perfect - warm and sunny, with a slight breeze.

The Eiffel Tower was built as the entrance arch for the 1889 World's Fair and has become a global icon for France. Not only is it the tallest building in Paris, it's the world's most visited paid monument in the World. Luckily for us, even though it was a beautiful day, the lines to purchase tickets and access the elevators wasn't too bad. What was bad, however, were my fellow tourists who chose to make bad hygiene decisions that day. 80 degree weather and mosh-pit conditions do not make for a pleasant aroma.

Standing at almost 81 stories high, the tower was once the tallest man-made structure in the world until the Chrysler building in New York City was built in 1930. Apparently the antenna that was added to the Eiffel Tower in 1957 now makes it taller than the Chrysler building. 

As you can imagine, the views from the top are pretty amazing. The tower has three levels for visitors, so we took photos from both the 2nd and 3rd levels.

Although I know that it's a pretty cheesy thing to do, April and I both elected to partake in the "celebratory" flute of champagne at the top for a small fee of 10 Euros. In our defense, it was pretty darn hot outside and we thought "when in Rome".

Since Paris is a fairly flat city, it's easy to identify most of the monuments from the top. I also like how well you can see the circular layout of the city spiraling from the Arc de Triomphe.

You can view more photos taken from La Tour Eiffel here.

What's Your Definition of Art?

According to the dictionary, "art" is the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance. Art is also very subjective and there's a multitude of artistic styles to please just about everyone's ideal of what is beautiful and appealing.

Our visit to the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris really challenged my ideals of art. The Centre houses one of the largest collections of 20th century European modern art and features works by many familiar artists such as Matisse, Picasso, and Kandinsky.

The building itself is quite contemporary and is somewhat at odds with the surrounding structures.  Under the rules of the design competition, the architectural project had to meet the criteria of interdisciplinarity, freedom of movement and flow, and an open approach to exhibition areas. The competition was won by two young architects: the Italian Renzo Piano and British designer Richard Rogers who proposed a constraint-free architecture in the spirit of the 1960s. The supporting structure and movement and flow systems, such as the escalators, were relegated to the outside of the building, thereby freeing up interior space for museum and activity areas. Colour-coded ducts are attached to the building's west façade, as a kind of wrapping for the structure: blue for air, green for fluids, yellow for electricity cables and red for movement and flow.

Generally speaking, I'm not a huge fan of modern art. I can appreciate the beauty in some works, but I seem to be drawn more towards more classical artists like Monet, Degas, and Michelangelo. For me, paintings, sculptures, drawings, and photographs not only need to meet my ideal of "what is beautiful" or "appealing" but also speaks to me or stirs some emotion inside of me.

Some of the works we saw at the Pompidou Centre I would say didn't fit into my ideal of what art "is" but I could definitely appreciate the work for other reasons, such as technique or cleverness.

Here are some of the works that stirred me in some way:

From afar, this mosaic painting became a portrait; up close, it was hundreds of small paintings.

I loved the imagery in this painting and the surrealism of objects appearing to be visible behind a window pane.

This was a beautiful hand-embroidered tapestry that was made using 84 different colors of thread.

Detail of the tapestry.

Soot painting by Juri Georg Dokopul. Dokoupil developed the technique of Soot Paintings, painting projected images with soot of a burning candle onto a blank canvas hanging flat from the ceiling.

Painting by Henri Matisse.

My collection of pictures from Georges Pompidou Centre can be viewed here.

There were some works of "art" that really had me shaking my head though, or thinking "I could do that." As an example, there was an entire room that had nothing but red-painted boards (like 4'x8' fence boards) leaning against the walls. Or a large canvas painted entirely black. One of Sean's favorite "what the hell?" works of art was this piece:

It was literally a string of Christmas lights hung on the wall. Apparently it's "art" to someone!

À bientôt!