We met Sue and Bob as they arrived in Paris. They had come to visit us, to celebrate
their anniversary and to do some genealogy research in the eastern part of France. (Bob
DuVernois’ family is from Franche-Comte
– at least that is where most of the villages named Vernois are located.)
Paris
is always a wonderful city to visit. The city has so much to offer and is
filled with so many interesting people. We ate well, walked a lot and enjoyed
three days of warm, sunny weather. We went to see: “How to Become Parisian in
One Hour” and now know: wear black, never smile, never make eye contact… - a
fun-filled one-man show that mocks the French as well as every other
nationality in the theater. We went to “A
la Biche au Bois” restaurant – as we do on every visit to Paris and again were pleased to share this
restaurant with my sister and her husband. We also did the ‘tourist thing’ and
took the ‘Bateau Mouche’ (river tour
boat) tour of the Seine. The day was clear and
warm and we enjoyed seeing several of the major sites of Paris from the river.
We left Paris
and drove southeast towards Besançon where we got to see an old friend. She
invited us to stay with her and asked us to go to her classes and speak to her
students (in English). After our “English classes”, we started visiting the
Vernois villages. Google maps had identified four of them; the Garmin GPS had
found a fifth… All of the villages were small – I would guess about 400-500
people. After we arrived in each one of the villages, we took pictures of the
town sign and then went to visit the cemetery to see if there were any
‘Vernois’ buried there. Two days of visits (and about five hundred kilometers
on the car) but no luck.
Franche-Comte is very
different from Provence.
The architecture is different. The houses use a lot more wood in the
construction. The outside of houses look like what I call Tudor style with
exposed beams and stucco. Add to that long, steep-sloping roofs and a different
tile used for the roofs and you start to get an idea of the architecture of Franche-Comte. In Provence – at least our corner of Provence – there are a plethora of vineyards
and wine tasting rooms. In Franche-Comte,
the wine tasting rooms are few but the cheese tasting rooms are ubiquitous.
(Franch-Comte cheeses are renowned: Comte, Morbier and Mont d’Or, to name a few. – though I have
never seen Mont
d’Or for sale in the States…)
We stayed in Ornans while we did our genealogy research. A
lovely village. A lovely hotel (La Table
de Gustave). Before leaving, we went through the museum dedicated to
Gustave Courbet, an artist born in Ornans and a major influence (my
perspective) on the development of the impressionist style.
 |
| Ornans |
…And then to Vaison la Romaine!
