Cote d'Azur

The last couple of weeks have been busy - work has taken me to Sheffield and down to Swansea and leisure has taken us to the Cote d'Azur.  We couldn't find a book anywhere in the library on the French Riveria but I found one at the bookshop in Bristol Temple Meads Railway Station sitting alongside with a few other travel books.  So, during my train trips and dinner at the hotel I began to discover lots about the places we could visit.  On the way back I overheard (no don't call me Big Ears because it was a loud conversation in a 'Quiet Carriage' where no cell phones or radios are allowed and conversation is meant to be kept to a minimum) an elderly Englishman talking to a young French girl.  He asked where she was from and then he mentioned he had recently been to Nice to visit some friends. They took him to visit a Gorge and his only comment was "The toilets were terrible".  With that recommendation and the pictures in the book of a Gorge which might or might not have been the one this gentleman had visited Harry and I sat down with a map and pen one evening to plan our weekend away. But before the tale of our travel begins to take shape there are some general little snippets I would like to remember for a while...

• Harry says drivers park their cars anywhere in France - on roundabouts, one way streets, corners, foot paths and double parking on narrow roads.  Picture a road on our way to the mountains one day - not dissimilar to the Manawatu Gorge, two narrow lanes one with a cliff rising above it and the other with a steep drop to the river below.  Around one of the many tight corners and in one of these lanes is parked a little red car, behind it an elderly gentleman with long grey hair covered partially by a black beret and a long grey beard - his hand is poised in the air and holds a paint brush - yes he is about to add some colourful strokes to his canvas. We rest our case about the parking rules in France!!
• Then there is the love of little pooches - epitomised by the lady in the restaurant.  One night we ate in a little restaurant down a side street in a coastal village where the locals go and most of the customers and staff spoke French with a smattering of English such as 'Good', 'Vino'. We enjoyed looking at the menu and working out what we should eat.  But while we were eating I couldn't help noticing the woman across from me, who sat with her little dog on her knee while she ate her dinner and chatted to her dinner companion.  The dog was eyeing the food very carefully from plate to mouth, plate to mouth etc etc - you can imagine the big eyes and perky little ears.  I was rather disappointed to see he didn't try and snatch something but perhaps he had learnt!!
• Our attempts at conversing in English.  We were getting good we thought.  Harry said 'Duo Latte' and the woman making the coffees looked quite concerned - I don't know what she thought he said.  But after a second attempt she replied "Do you mean coffee with milk?".  Harry nodded and she finished off with "It is better in English".  This was the cafe that seemed to feed a very hungry wedding party.  During the photo shoot the guests and some of the bridal party wandered across the road to the patisserie to buy a pastry and then returned chomping away on their goodies to the park across the road.  It was on one of these well dressed men that we saw the most interesting shoes, the toe was turned up like a clog - perhaps there is a new fashion starting that I have not yet seen.
• We did have some fun driving around and we got terribly lost on one occasion while trying to find the Rothschild Garden.  It took hours to travel what we thought was a short distance.  We realised we were heading inland when I noticed a river flowing the wrong way.  Lots of road signs were quite difficult to interpret, but one caught our fancy.  At the airport there was a sign in French which we didn't understand but underneath was an arrow with the words "Kiss and fly" another way of saying "dropping off zone" we thought but far more affectionate.
• And the colour yellow.  It is spring time and the daffodils are out both in the UK and France. Cannes has the most enormous daffies - twice the size of any I have seen before.  There is a huge display on the Cannes waterfront.  In the country and the towns there are also large trees with yellow blossom.  I had no idea what they were but have since learnt that one is mimosa but the name of the other is still a mystery.

So onto our itinerary.  Day One started in Biot. This little town sits on top of a hill surrounded by pines.  It is well known for its glassware and china.  We parked down below and wandered up the hill past the little cemetery.  Here was marked an area called Le Catastrophe and I initially thought that it was quite an apt name for a cemetery.  However there is a bit of a sadder story to the name and it wasn't the name of the cemetery after all. In 1898, in the middle of a fete and first communion celebrations, three houses collapsed killing 26 people - a significant number in such a small town - a little baby and an 18 year old were rescued from the debris.  We wandered along the village streets and up and down little narrow stairways and browsed into many of the little boutique shops and glass blowers.  I was about to buy some presents but our tummies said lunch time (we had after all got up at 5.00 and it was now 2.00 in the afternoon and all we had had was our little picnic breakfast on the plane) and so we thought food and then we would go back.  Well it was pleasant in the sun, and with some good food, dogs playing on the road, friendly elderly waiters etc we took our time - and when we wandered back all the shops were closed for the siesta - shows that tummies shouldn't rule our minds!!  Anyway, we did have a lovely lunch and for the first time tried stuffed zucchini flowers.   I am not sure where you can buy zucchini flowers but just to amuse myself I looked up a recipe and some facts about these long green edibles. Anyway, there is a girl flower (golden and grows at the end of the young zucchini) and a boy flower (grows directly on the stem of the zucchini on a long stalk just where the leaf meets the stem). I think I will need to grow one to picture that arrangement. Anyway, you can eat both - and I am pretty sure we ate the female flower though Haz might disagree.You can apparently do lots of things with these culinary delights such as making deep fried flower fritters, or stuffing them, sauteeing them, baking them or putting them in soup.  Here is a recipe for stuffed ones - if you can find them in the shops. Take some onions, cloves, garlic, olive oil, capsicum, eggplant, zucchini, tomato paste, goats cheese, capers - cook for a while and then stuff them in the flowers and bake. Definitely worth trying.

On the Friday night after finding the long way to our hotel we wandered down to the Cannes seashore and enjoyed working our way along the promenade, around the beaches to the marina.  We had a little meal down a side street, admired some of the lovely buildings and castle on the hill and enjoyed looking inside lots of the boats (one from Samoa and another from the Cook Islands) - there had been some sort of festival on and so they were cleaning up and all the boats were lit up and people were finishing the evening off with a glass of wine.  The boats were all quite large and looked like 'home away from home' with leather couches, dining suites with candelabra etc.  We did see a statue of a woman called Virginie Heriot - not knowing much about French history and finding a statue of a woman that wasn't the Virgin Mary quite rare, I decided to look her up when we got back to Bristol. She was a sailor who competed in the 1928 Olympics as a crew member of the French boat l'Aile VI which won the gold medal in the 8 metre class.

http://stephenlirakis.blogspot.com/2009/07/virginie-heriot.html

The next day it was off to find the Gorge with the terrible toilets. Out first stop was Castelanne in a valley and the entrance way to the Grand Canyon du Verdon. Its the place where the tourists hang out after a day of white water rafting, canoeing, hiking, biking, rock climbing, abseiling etc and the population grows from somewhere around 1500 to 20000 during the summer months. But we didn't do any of that as it isn't quite summer yet. The town is also well known for its hats. Now I am not a real hat person but I seem to make a habit of losing my little black one - it is becoming annoyingly regular. After spying a church at the top of a hill overlooking the Gorge I decided I should buy a hat before climbing the few 100 metres. So, into the hat shop I went. I am pretty sure that this isn't the hat shop where two owners aged 90 plus are known to design and make everything they sell.  There were a wide range of different hats but only one black woollen hat - with an American flag on it - well now quite it had only 15 stars but the right amount of stripes. So, setting off displaying a new nationality we followed the story of Jesus once again up a hill, up the windy cobbled stone paths to the Chapel Nôtre-Dame-du-Rock built in 1703 on a tall rock. Originally the little chapel was an abbey but later it became a parish church. We do know that monks made a religion of removing themselves from society and perhaps this rock 1000 feet above the river was just the perfect spot chapel. Not sure if they thought they were closer to God up there, or they just enjoyed the view - but whatever the reason it felt like a good choice.  But not to everyone around the 14th century someone decided to relocate the village down at the foot of the rock near the river. We enjoyed the walk up, the peacefulness at the top - all you could hear was the occasional car and bird, the river flowed past and Harry chomping on the cheese sticks Mum had sent from NZ.

Then it was a drive through the Verdon Gorge to the dam. It really was quite spectacular scenery with the cliffs jutting out at all angles, looking as though they had had been moved around by some fairly significant earthquakes many millions of years ago. The gorge is 25 kilometres long and we took our time winding our way along the narrow road. Lots of places to take photos before we got to the lake formed by the dam that was built a few decades ago to provide most of Provence's power supply. 

From then on it was downhill, through some more little country side villages like Villecroze.  This fairly typical french town is well known for its rock caves.  We didn't see them all, and couldn't go in any as they were closed but from the outside we admired the 4 storey noblemans 'rock' cottage built in the 16th century - wonderfully cool in summer I thought and a pretty view across the garden and countryside.  Then back to the coast where the route along the sea front took us through some more interesting coastline and little villages back to Cannes.

Our last stop on this whirlwind tour was to the Garden of the Rothschild Family. Although I didn't know much about the family the name is familiar. So here is a bit of family history before the photos of the house and garden. They are a German Jewish family with well known European banking and finance houses from the late 1700s.Originally there were five brothers from the Austrian side and each of them became barons under the Emperor Francis II in 1816. During the 19th century, the family were considered the richest family in the world. The family rise in stature began with Mayer Amschel Rothschild who was born in Frankfurt in 1744. He was born in a ghetto and developed a finance house (his Dad had been a money changer) and when his sons became adults they were sent to Frankfurt, Vienna, London, Naples and Paris to conduct their banking business. The fathers strategy for success was to keep control of their businesses and family fortune in family hands.  So he carefully arranged marriages - often between cousins - although by the late 19th century some of the family members kicked up a fuss and decided to marry outside the family but still into the aristocracy or other financial dynasties. The house was rather a serene place in the middle of the hustle and bustle of the Nice district. Sitting on a point it had views of two bays with cruise liners anchorring for the night and smaller boats going in and out. People wandered the promenades below and cars weaved their way around the narrow windy streets below. The gardens - and there were eight of them - needed a full day to see them all - and each season would be quite different. Having had our trip curtailed through the circuitous route we took to get there we didn't spend as much time there as we would have liked. But we managed to see enough to know that it was worth making the effort.

Bath Skyline and Crufts

It has been a sunny but cold week. We are grateful for the sunshine and the longer evenings which means we leave work in the daylight and if lucky arrive at our doorstep before the sun goes down. On Monday evening we went to see Alice in Wonderland - a film I had high hopes for - there is something to be said about not looking too forward to things. We went to a little cinema about 5 minutes drive away - it is close but we just hadn't tried it before. It is quite small and old, but comfy and a good Monday special so we will probably go back. The rest of the week passed in a blur as it normally does - get up - go to work - get back - cook dinner - relax or supermarket shopping - sleep and then it was another weekend - they come around so fast which is all good. Saturday dawned a lovely day and we decided to walk the Bath Skyline. So up to the hills we went (picture a little rolling one rather than the Tararuas). It was a 6 mile round trip and it was nice to see Bath (canal, abbey, town centre and terraced houses that wind themselves up, down and around the hills) from up high. We enjoyed the meander through green sports fields (with not a soul on them), some bush, across a horse jumping paddock and up and down hills and through some mud (a walk just isn't the same without some mud). We lunched at the top of the hill and had some more treats from back home. 

Sunday was dog day. We'd booked to go to Crufts in Birmingham. It was an early start but worth it because we were up there, parked and having a cup of tea in 90 minutes. We found the arena (early starters get front row seats), and spent most of the day sitting watching agility exercises and competitions (dogs jumping over fences, running through tunnels and tyres and weaving themselves through sticks). I went to bed with the picture of a little grey dog jumping and barking fast and furiously over the course. The faster he went the louder his barking became. We also saw an exhibition on dog safety for children - very well done - and I learnt a couple of things to do if more dogs bark and jump at me up at the park. There was a display on pets for the disabled (did you know that they are not only trained as hearing and seeing dogs, but also can detect changes in body odour that warn a person of health attacks even before the person knows they are going to have one - hence they can take their medication and prevent an attack - impressive I thought).  We also saw a display of RAF sniffer dogs that work overseas with the forces and some others walking around with the their owners to music.  The photos came out quite blurred but that is what happens when you attempt to photo little dogs speeding over jumps and through tunnels. We enjoyed it. We finished the day off by stopping at Droitwich for dinner.

It is Mothering Sunday over here - and there were lots of families out with their Mums. I didn't realise until I read a Letter to the Editor where some one was complaining about not being able to find a Mothering Sunday card that there was actually a difference between it and Mothers Day. What's in a name I thought. Well a lot. Mothering Sunday now involves chocolates, flowers, cards and breakfast in bed etc but was actually a Christian festival and during the sixteenth century, people returned to their mother church for a service - usually either a large local church, or often near a Cathedral. This is where they often met their family as everyone gathered to attend the mother church. When someone did this they were said to have gone "a-mothering". Later on it was a day when domestic staff were given a day off to visits mothers and family - sometimes the only time the family could get together. By the 1930's Mothering Sunday was one of those things that only few people observed but when World War II was on it became a bit more in vogue. Mothers Day is a bit of late addition and in 1914 it became a US holiday. I always got the feeling that Mothers Day was simply a marketing technique of a clever salesperson which is what it has become but maybe, just maybe, there is a bit more of a hidden depth to it than I realised.