Travels from France

First of all, it has been a really long time since I have posted my observations. When I finished my text, I couldn’t remember the procedure for creating a post. It took me a few minutes of reflection before I remembered that Google has a variety of apps and “Blogger” is one of them.  Posting a new article should be straight forward: I have written and posted more than 150 of them. I guess when readers of my blogs have said that it has been a long time since they have seen any now posts, they are right! Let’s see if I can still do this…

We had two trips out of France this year. We went to Barcelona to meet Lansing friends and the four of us went on to Bordeaux via Carcassonne. The second trip was to Florence as our next-door neighbors (Lansing) invited us to join them at the apartment that they had rented there.

Ellen and I had not been to Barcelona in fifty years. I guess it has changed. The Gaudi cathedral (Sagrada Familia) is closer to being finished. As we did on our last visit, we ambled along Las Ramblas but so much has changed. Barcelona hosted the Olympics (1992) and appears to have used the opportunity to clean up the whole city, especially the waterfront area. We had tips on places to see and good restaurants in which to eat from our friends at Thé Chez Toi who had lived in Barcelona before they moved to Vaison.

Carcassonne is one of the most famous walled cities from the middle ages and we wanted our friends to see it. We also wanted them to try Cassoulet – the white bean, sausage and duck confit stew - in the region where the recipe was created. We stayed at an old (Renaissance era) hotel in Caunes-Minervois; a hotel at which Ellen and I had stayed 12 years ago. The owner, Frederic Guiraud, is a charming man who is continually working at updating Hôtel d’Alibert. Our only disappointment was that the owner had closed the restaurant but he made reservations for us at another place. The rooms were large but just the idea of sleeping in a room that is older than the United States gives me pause.

We left Caunes-Minervois and headed off to Bordeaux. Travel has changed dramatically since the arrival of smart phones. Twelve years ago, when Ellen and I were travelling across the south of France, I found the Hôtel d’Alibert in Rick Steves guide and called from the car. (Ten years before that, we didn’t have cell phones.) This trip, Ellen not only let the owner of the hotel know when we were arriving but used her phone to find restaurants along the route.

Bordeaux was as good as friends said it would be. It is a vibrant city. On the first day there, our trolley trip was interrupted by a huge demonstration about climate change. We didn’t let it rain on our parade. We made it to the Cité du Vin – the new wine museum. It is a museum with a lot of interactive displays so we all had fun trying to improve our wine knowledge. We took a side trip to St. Emillion to taste wine.

We had been to Florence before but for only a day. The apartment that our neighbors rented was in the center of the city only a kilometer from the city market and the Duomo – the spectacular white and green marble cathedral in the center of the city. Even in early April, the lines of tourists waiting to enter a museum or historic site were foreboding. The apartment was close to Piazza San Marco and a tourist group staging area so we were sharing the narrow sidewalks with tour groups of seniors or school-age children. I can’t imagine what maneuvering the city would be like in July.

We ate well and drank well. Our neighbor loves Chianti classico and he found a number of great ones for us to try.

One day, on our walk to the city market, we noticed that there was a photo exhibition of David Bowie being shown at the Medici Palace. The exhibition, called “Heroes – Bowie by Sukita” was a collection of photos taken by Japanese photographer Masayoshi Sukita that spanned the public life of David Bowie from 1972 until his death in 2016. The juxtaposition of photos of a pop icon in the city palace of the Medici family (construction started in 1445) made the exhibit all the more interesting.

I love our village in France but must admit that I thoroughly enjoyed Barcelona and Florence. I can get pretty chauvinistic about French wines and French cuisine but I also appreciate the quality of the foods and wines in Spain and Italy. The things that made the trip special were friends. Experiences are so much richer when they are shared.