Category Archives: French Towns

Monte Carlo, France

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Day 57, Tuesday, October 24, 2023

The train ride to Monte Carlo is a relaxing 70 minutes. I like trains and would be happy to do more travel by train.  I do a bit of sketching, some are more successful than others, and even more people watching.  I sketch in ballpoint pen so  it is difficult to correct errors.  A tall, slim young woman dressed in black with very long black hair sits near us and a couple stops later another young woman who could be her twin gets on the train, also all dressed in black…and they sit together.  We can’t decide if they are related or friends.

The area near the train station isn’t very fancy but look at the size of the trees growing on these balconies!

We are soon in an area wth shops. This bridal shop had a sign in the window about a royal wedding but it wasn’t clear if they made the royal wedding dress.

We head up this very long set of very wide steps to get to the Palais Princier where the ruling Grimaldi’s still live.

There are some good views of buildings on the nearby hills.  The buildings are very close to one another, there is not much open space at all.

We missed the changing of the guards at noon, even though we thought we had planned to get there early.  Only our bus was late, and then our train was late….even best laid plans go astray.  But this guard walked right towards us and then kindly stopped so I could take his picture…or so it seemed.  Turns out it was where he always stopped to turn and go back the other way!

It starts to rain so we duck into the shops nearby.  I think this fridge magnet is the closest we will get to actually holding a 500€ casino chip!

And this is the closest Bob will get to being captain of a boat!

The old town streets next to the palace are narrow and packed with shops and restaurants and offers us a bit of shelter from the rain.

We hide out in this church for a while too.  it was nice to sit for a bit out of the rain, before we make our way towards the harbour.

There is a good view of the harbour from up here.

There is a lovely garden along the sea on our way down to the harbour.  I loved this sculpture called Invitation by K. Verkade.  One of the side benefits of writing this blog is that I take the time to do a bit of research on some of the things we have seen, and I end up discovering interesting new things…like this sculptor and his work.

Bob finds us a bench that is dry under several big coniferous trees that offer shelter from the rain, so we sit for a bit and have tea and cookies and take a selfie.

This is the view from our sheltered bench… but this sculpture nearby gives a more accurate portrayal of the weather! We saw this statue “The Cloak of Conscience” elsewhere on one of our trips, but I don’t remember where.  The artist, Anna Chromy studied at the Academy de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris, my favourite life drawing studio!   She is another interesting artist I read about today.   I did not know that this sculpture was also carved in marble and stands over 15 feet tall!  This website has some amazing photos of its creation.. https://annachromy.com/cloak-of-conscience/from-escavation-to-completion/

A big frame overlooking Monaco offers the opportunity for a rather wet portrait.

But then the sun came out!

And we walk down a very long ramp to the harbour area…

where we walk along some of the roads used for the Monaco Grand Prix.  Bob poses with this statue of the winner of the1955 Grand Prix, Juan Fangio.  The F1 cars have changed a bit since then!

We visit the Prince of Monaco’s Car Collection.

This new 3,500 m2 building holds  around 70 vehicles including racing cars that have competed in the Monte-Carlo Rally and the Monaco F1 Grand Prix.

Here are a few of Bob’s favourites.  

And of course there is a red convertible!

We stroll along the harbour where the rich and famous dock their yachts.  I think this is one of the biggest ones we have seen… even bigger than the one in Antibes near the sculpture made up of letters.  It has two curved staircases!

The people standing on the dock give an idea of the size of this thing.

The boats parked alongside it look very small in comparison.

Next stop is the Monte Carlo Casino.  I wish we could have taken photos inside.  It is over the top ornate, and yes, we walked through the gaming rooms where some of the James Bond movies were filmed.  Pictures are allowed in the lobby. so we prop our phone for a selfie.

We need to show our passports and pay 18€ each just to get into the gaming rooms…but we do each get a 10€ voucher to spend.  Interestingly, it is against the law for citizens of Monaco to work or gamble in the casino!

There weren’t many people gambling…I think it was a bit too early in the day.  We spend an hour or so trying our luck on the slot machines.  We spend our two 10€ vouchers and after putting another 50€  into the machines we aren’t doing all that well…

until we go back to the first machine we played and we start to win.  In the end our time in the casino only cost us 26€ and we had a lot of fun.  The casino is starting to get busier just as we are leaving.  It would have been interesting to be there later in the evening but we need to get home.

If you would like to see photos of the inside of the gaming rooms check this link. https://www.shutterstock.com/fr/search/monte-carlo-casino-interior

It is already getting dark when we leave the casino.  

We take selfies in the reflection of this giant metallic ball, with the casino in the background.

As we head back towards the train station we walk through a garden area with great views of the casino and the very expensive hotels nearby.

The casino is very pretty all lit up at night.

We pass a tree with these beautiful huge flowers that are at least as big as my outstretched hand…. and another big flowering Brugmansia.

Getting back to our train was really difficult.  There is construction and we can not find our way into the train station!  We walk around and around and although the sign says that we are at the train station there is no way we can find to get inside.  Finally we see a young lady who seems to know where to go, so we follow her through a door that says no public entrance, walk through part of a parkade and we finally find an elevator that takes us up to the train station.  We buy our tickets and then have to run like crazy to catch the train so we don’t have to wait for an hour for the next one….and it is packed, no seats, standing room only!  Luckily after about a half an hour most people get off at Nice and we finally get to sit down.  Guess who is sitting opposite us…those two long haired young women who rode the train with us this morning.  They were carrying shopping bags from Nice.  I was so thankful to have a seat but too tired to even try to draw.  it was a really full day.

 

 

 

 

‎⁨Villefranche-sur-Mer⁩, ⁨Côte de la Riviera⁩, ⁨France⁩

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Day 56, Monday, October 23, 2023

Bob goes exploring on his own today to some small villages near Nice.  Villefranche-sur-Mer, like so many French towns, it is built on hillsides…

and rocky cliffs.  The Rolling Stones recorded Exile on Main Street here in 1971.

The  Rue Obscura is a 430-foot-long passageway under the harbour front houses that dates back to 1260.  

A view from the 16th century citadel.

Bob saw some ‘interesting’ art…an exhibit called The Flying House.  To give a sense of scale, the tennis racket against the wall is about two meters tall.  It is about what you would take if you had to leave your house in a hurry, knowing that you would never return…not sure these would be the items we would take.

Bob took a half hour bus ride from Villefranche to ‎⁨Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat⁩, a fishing village with these interesting sculptures…

and this blue torso that  is a popular frame for taking photos.He then walked for an hour along the coast from Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat⁩ to Beaulieu-sur-Mer before taking the train back to Cannes.  The waves were still quite high today.

Antibes, France

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Day 55, Sunday, October 22, 2023

Antibes and the Picasso Museum is our destination today.  We take the bus instead of the train but it is quite a bumpy ride that makes drawing a bit tricky.  I think I prefer the train.  Good thing it is only a half hour ride.

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As we walk towards old town Antibes we pass aa area that has enormous hanging planters and flowerpots.  They are really spectacular.

We head for the harbour to check out the ancient ramparts and an interesting sculpture.  There are some really enormous boats in the distance as well.

These boats are docked in an exclusive area, no walking past them… so  I take a photo from the ramparts.  Take note of the white van parked by the second boat to help give a sense of scale.  

Bob had read about this sculpture by Jaume Plensa called Nomade.  It is an eight meter high figurative sculpture which is located on the top terrace of the Bastion Sainte Jaune.  It is invites interaction by its viewers, including me.

“On the terrace, facing the sea at the corner of the ring wall, was a monumental sculpture eight metres high of a squatting figure, Nomade. All these pieces used the formal vocabulary developed by the artist over the last few years, based on letters. With this vocabulary, Plensa is suggesting that, beyond its simple mission of communicating a meaning, spoken or written language can also be seen as a kind of envelope covering the matter and energy that constitute us. “Like bricks,” he says, “letters have a potential for construction. They enable us to construct thought.” ~ Jaume Plensa

Walking along the ramparts we see more boats.  This one from Bali has its surfboards mounted on the back.  I think that most surfers do not own yachts.

There are signs with information about boats for rent, little boats…

and little bit bigger boats…makes me wonder how much it costs to operate the enormous yachts we saw earlier?  and no, I have absolutely no interest at all in renting or buying a boat…just not something I would enjoy, even if had that much money..

There is a little sand beach on the outside of the ramparts, and in the background is the huge yacht and the sculpture Nomade.

Next stop is the Picasso Museum.  Nice that photos are allowed.

I am not a huge Picasso fan but this museum has lots of information explaining Picasso’s  paintings and methods which help me appreciate his work. This huge painting was painted on three cement panels that are usually used as a building material.

There is a big display of his glazed platters which are interesting.

More people take photos of these copies of Michelangelo’s sculptures than of the Picasso paintings.I spend a bit of time drawing a couple of Picasso’s altered vase forms.

Here are couple more large paintings.  I forgot to take photos of the titles…

There is another exhibit on the main floor of the museum.  Paintings by Yves Zurstrassen, but it doesn’t interest either of us so we just do a quick walk through. Outside on the patio there are several sculptures by Germaine Richler which I quite like, and two young ladies drawing in their sketchbooks.  I love seeing other people drawing.  They were deep in conversation so I didn’t interrupt them.

Walking back to the bus station we pass these porcelain cups in a shop window.  Made me smile.

The streets are narrow and we have no idea what might be hiding behind those closed shutters.

While waiting for the bus we chat with two twelve year old boys who are absolutely bursting what energy.  One of them asks me to draw him.  It isn’t a very good drawing but he is happy with it. He has a lot of hair!

As the bus is pulling away I tap on the window and his friend looks up so that I can snap a photo.  Too bad I missed getting a photo of Emin.The bus ride home was even rougher than the one coming.  We are travelling on different streets because of all the one way streets in Cannes.  I definitely prefer train travel

Nice, France

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Day 54, Saturday, October 21, 2023

We catch the train to Nice this morning. We are both happy to be sitting on a train instead of driving and navigating.  It is a nice change and Bob can watch the scenery go by instead of concentrating on driving.

I draw on the train. I feel out of practice but it is still nice to be drawing…I haven’t done nearly as much of it as I had hoped to this trip.The Nice train station is really big, clean and airy.

It is a short walk from the train station to the main tourist area by the beach.  We stop at a park for our lunch, and I wonder if the water is from yesterday’s big rain…or if it is a fountain?

A couple minutes later I have my answer.  These two young boys had the best time playing in the water jets.

We laughed at this big dog who jumped and tried to bite every jet of water he passed.  He was having such fun.  There were such neat reflections too.

This very large sea gull was eyeing our lunch, just hoping a few crumbs would fall his way…I’m afraid a few did…who could resist that gaze?

After lunch we visit the Cathedral of Saint Reparata., which is a National Monument.  It is very ornate and in great shape…no peeling paint here.  

The flower market is beautiful and the prices are very reasonable.

We try some socca. It is a thin chickpea bread that is sprinkled with pepper.  We have to wait a few minutes for a fresh pan to arrive (it is brought hot from the ovens in a wheeled cart) and it is delicious! It is also a bargain at just 3€ for a huge slice.  I am going to have to try making this at home.

Even though we have just had lunch, and socca, I am craving a cassis (black current) sorbet from Fenocchio’s, a world famous ice cream shop. They have 94 flavors of  ice creams and 35 of sorbet, but I stick with my favourite.  

After my sorbet we walk towards the beach.  

Nice has a pebble beach, and lots of sun worshippers.  I stay at the beach to draw some of them and Bob goes for a walk and climbs to two viewpoint.  There is one on top of the cream round structure in the distance and another higher up on top of the hill.

I take a photo of someone who I think is Bob…and he takes a photo trying to find me on the beach.  Do we think alike?

This is definitely me, I am sitting right beside the two rinse towers…and I get a light spray every time someone rinses off!  I was settled in by the time this happens the first time so I decide to stay put, in spite of the occasional mist of water that floats my way.

I am happier with my beach drawings.

This fellow was sitting beside me and he was very brown.  He was also wearing black underpants, which appears to be a common thing here.  People are not shy about changing on the beach, women pull off their tops and bras to change into their bathing suits and I saw lots of men just wearing underpants as their bathing suit.  There were a few topless women as well…it is the French Riviera after all.

We do a bit of window shopping, or as they say here, leche-vitrine, which translates to lick the windows!  I have had a couple treats here, but gluten really doesn’t agree with me so I have to content myself with a bit of window licking!  Oh and did you notice the prices?  

We stroll along the boardwalk, people watching and enjoying the sunshine…

but the sun is getting glow in the sky and we head back to catch our train.

Bob notices something strange about this building… Here is a clue.

Yes, the whole side of the building is a giant mural!  We pass this interesting fountain…

and there are seven of these statues high on poles above the street.  Google tells me that they were created by Jaume Plensa, a Spanish artist who specializes in monumental art.

They represent the seven continents and the communication between the different communities of today’s society. They are titled “Conversation à Nice”and they are illuminated every night, with slowly changing colours.  Too bad we won’t see that but it is a long ride home.

We were in Nice over 40 years ago and visited the Matisse Museum.  I was hoping to visit it again today, but it closes during the noon hour, and then we just ran out of time.  I am OK with not visiting so many museums this trip, there are so many other things to do and only so much time.

Cannes, The Morning After the Storm

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Day 53, Friday, October 20, 2023

This morning everything looks pretty normal.  We were lucky as a town north of Nice was not so fortunate.  Here is a short video showing some of the flooding there.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/nice-mayor-speaks-scene-flooding-101453363.html

It looks pretty normal after breakfast, so Bob decides he should go and check out what the ocean looks like… and all I can think of is rogue waves!  They have not lifted the Red Alert at this point.

Here is another view to the west from our apartment balcony.

This is definitely a different ocean than the one we saw yesterday, when there were almost no waves at all.

This is the front view of the Cannes sign from yesterday’s post and the hill that Bob climbed…

and he found the daily local market.

This boat is so big that Bob can’t even get it all in one photo!

Here is the view from the stern end.

Bob thought this boat looked quite impressive.  He arrives home just in time for lunch.  I am just happy that he didn’t get swept out to sea by a rogue wave! 😃 😂I have an Osteopath appointment in the early afternoon.  I’m hoping it will help alleviate the headaches I have been having.  Then we both veg out for the rest of the day, reading, and watching TV.

Cannes…. Emergency Red Alert!

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Day 52, Thursday, October 19, 2023

It is cloudy, rainy day so we decide to spend the day at home.  We had a rather interesting evening though.  The Emergency Alert on our phone went off letting us know that there was a Red Alert for high winds, torrential rain, high waves and possible flooding.

This is the information about the alert.

“Météo France has upgraded its storm warning for the Alpes-Maritimes to a red alert – while the Alpes-Maritimes préfecture has ordered all schools and town halls to remain closed on Friday.

Torrential rainfall is forecast between 4am and 10am on Friday. The department is also on an orange alert for strong winds and high waves.

The forecaster has warned of “a particularly intense rain storm episode” overnight.  Locally, up to 25cm of rain could fall within a few hours – in an echo of the deadly floods that hit the Riviera in October 2015.

The City of Nice has opened a crisis centre overnight to monitor the worsening weather conditions.It has already ordered the closure of all parks, gardens, cemeteries and coastal paths until further notice.

All schools and creches in the Alpes-Maritimes will be closed on Friday. Boarding school pupils are being sent home by bus.The Alpes Maritimes préfecture is asking people to work from home on Friday wherever possible.

What’s happening tonight is a so-called Mediterranean episode – a weather phenomenon in which hot and humid air from the Mediterranean generates violent storms, most commonly in the autumn, that can see a large amount of rain fall in just a few hours.

The storm could see waves up to four metres high and winds gusting up to 110 kilometres per hour.

In the event of violent storms, the official advice is to avoid driving and stay at home, stay away from coastal paths, avoid going into cellars or underground car parks and stay informed with your local mairie.

The weather is due to calm down again on Saturday.”

Needless to say it was a bit hard to get to sleep.  We weren’t sure what to expect.  It got very windy with heavy rain when I got up about 4:00 am and the sky had a weird yellowish light but in a couple of hours it settled down.  I think we were lucky and missed the worst of it.

Cannes, France

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Day 51, Wednesday, October 18, 2023

This sweet little mourning dove joined me this morning as I sat and worked on our blog.  He visited for about twenty minutes before flying away.

I am having a stay at home day and Bob decided to go climb to the high point in Cannes.

There is a great view of the city from up here.

From the distant hills…

to a view of the harbour we walked to yesterday.  There were a few showers but Bob said he found places to hide and wait them out.

Cannes, France… Big Boats

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Day 50, Tuesday, October 17th, 2023

We are in the French Riviera!  We thought it would get warmer and sunnier the further south we went, but not so…today is cloudy and only 21°.  On our way to the beach I notice these strange cones from some type of coniferous tree, no idea what they are but they were very prickly!

Our first view of the Mediterranean Sea this trip.  No sunbathers on the beach today.

It started to rain a bit and this little sweetie wanted her own umbrella!  I asked her dad if I could ‘prends un photo’ and he smiled and said yes.  She was such an independent little girl.

soon we are at he harbour checking out the boats.  

People watching is very interesting.  This young lady posed for several photos for her friend…and me!  It was quite the outfit she was wearing, with her thong panties quite visible.

There are a lot of sailboats moored here…

and then there are the big boats…

and the really big boats…

complete with all the accessories!  It is really mind boggling to see these huge boats and we can only imagine how much they cost, not only to purchase but to maintain and operate.  Not something we will ever have to worry about!

The boats names are interesting…from the rather strange  ‘maxi beer Oliver’s bear’, to the curious No.9 (is this the ninth boat that they have owned?, to the quite pretentious Veni Vedi Vici  ( I Came, I Saw, I Conquered ) to the more modest ‘Lucky Us’.

I wonder if this is a game of “My mast is taller than your mast?”

There are so many of these huge boats, or perhaps I should be calling them ships?  I’m not sure of the correct terminology.

Boats aren’t the only expensive item in Cannes.  The little black boots are 1100 € and the tall boots are 1300 € !

I don’t think we can afford a vacation home here either!  Look a the price for a three or four room apartment, ranging from 74 to 110 square meters.

On our walk we passed several interesting murals, all movie or film related.

Carcassonne to Cannes and The Fonsernes 9 Locks

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Day 49, Monday, October 16th, 2023

Today we travel from Carcassonne to Cannes.  It is a 4 1/2 hour drive if we use the toll highway and 7 1/2 hours without so we decide to pay the tolls.  We make a side trip to Beziers to visit the Fonsernes 9 Locks.  On our way there we drive by a very strange design on Google maps… I wonder if it might be some sort of irrigation system?

A bit of research solves the puzzle.  Who knew?

‘The Étang de Montady, or Pond of Montady is a drained pond or lagoon.. It was built by monks and wealthy Béziers landowners during the second half of the 13th century. The Étang de Montady was drained to provide farmland by making radial ditches from a single center point out to the extremities.  The water flows to this center point and is then drained by sixteen vertical shafts to an underground culvert.’~ info from Wikipedia.

It was a bit of a challenge to find the locks.  First of all we drove to the town of Beziers where we thought we would find the locks, but there were no locks in sight.  We did find a spot to have our lunch though, overlooking a pretty river and the Cathedral Saint-Nazaire.

We check at the location again and this is what google maps tells us!  Really??  We need to get from the blue arrow to the red pin…and we do it!  Pretty impressive navigating and driving I think! I wanted a photo of this pretty bush covered with orange berries, and Bob hams it up by giving himself an orange moustache.

The Canal du Midi connects the Mediterranean Sea to Toulouse.  It has 360 navigable kilometers and there is a drop of more than twenty meters from this location to the town of Beziers.  The locks were built in 1676 to deal with that change in elevation.

We watched these two boats make their way through the locks.

The water level begins to lower…as the water pours into the basin below.

Soon the water levels in the two basins are equal and the lock gates open…

and the boats advance to the next basin and this process is repeated 7more times.

This boat with four couples from South Africa barely has room to squeeze through the open gates.

The 9 locks of Fonseranes have a total of 8 ovoid-shaped basins and 9 doors and in 1996, they were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as is the entire Canal du Midi.

At the bottom of the locks there is a gate that appears unused for some time.  It has grown a water garden on its backside.

Back on the highway we pass through yet another toll booth.  This one is pretty big.  The crazy thing is that on the other side there are no lanes.  Once you pay your toll the gate goes up and all the cars need to merge back onto the highway.  It is kind of crazy.

Bob says he can tell we are getting close to the French Riviera because there are expensive cars on the road.  A Lamborghini costs anywhere from $221,000 to more than three million dollars!  I can’t even imagine driving a car that is that expensive.

The turn off to Cannes is a bit convoluted…we have had a lot of strange routes on this trip.

We check into our next Airbnb…only this one has palm trees and a view of the ocean in the distance.

 

 

Montolieu, Village of Books

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Day 48, Sunday, October 15, 2023.

We are on our way to Montolieu which is known as a Book Town.  I love driving down these pretty.tree lined roads.

“The happy story about this village, with 800 residents, and books, would not have been written without the desire, charisma and enthusiasm of Michel Braibant, a Belgian bookbinder who was living in Carcassonne, who sadly died just two years after his lifetime mission was completed in 1992. Aware of the concept of ‘book towns’ in Europe, he decided to create a new Book Village in Montolieu, which would be home to bookshops and craftspeople, as well as a conservatory for Book Arts and Trades.”   ~ Carcassonne Tourism Booklet

We find a bench in this little park next to the Saint-André church for our picnic lunch.

The inside of Saint-André is well preserved…

with lots of decorative paintings in the chapels.  But take look at those pews in the photo above….they were most uncomfortable!

We are at the Museum of Book Arts and Crafts when it opens its doors at 2:00.  This display of 1,100 years of handwriting was interesting.

There were many different types of print making machines and printing presses, most of which I had never heard of.  This Linotype machine uses hot metal injected into a mold made by ‘typing’ on all those keys to make lines of text, which was much faster to use than hand setting individual lead type letters.  After they were finished printing the type would be melted down and reused.  Quite ingenious.

A little film explaining lithographic printing brought back memories of my university days and all night printing sessions!  Bob used to help me with these printing sessions, so he found it interesting too.

Now, this made me feel rather old!  This Gestetner machine is just like the one I used when I first started teaching way back in the ’70’s.  It was messy and slow and the machine was very temperamental.  This is what we used for handouts before photo copy machines were in common use.

This large paper cutter is from the late 1800’s

We spend an hour and a half in the museum and when we leave, the bookstores that were closed for lunch are now open.  There are 15 bookstores in this tiny town and they only sell second hand books.  

Most of them have bins of books out on the street to entice customers.

A peek inside one of the bigger bookstores.There are some interesting book themed signs, although we are not sure what this stake of burnt looking books is supposed to represent.

Another book sculpture….seems staked books are a bit of a theme? I do feel a bit sorry for French children.  This is a typical French school playground. Cities and towns have few areas where children can run and play on grass.  Most parks have signs to keep off the grass, if there is even any grass!  I think because the population is so dense, that if people were allowed on the grass it just wouldn’t survive the heavy use.

These old houses have very thick walls.  New windows are installed here but look at how deep set they are.

We sit for a while watching these Pétanque players. They often take this game quite seriously and they are very good players.  We have to laugh though when one of the players takes the little target ball from another team and hides it.  They were just like young boys playing keep-away, passing the little ball from one to the other all the while exclaiming loudly that they didn’t have the ball at all!  Too funny.

More tree lined streets on the drive home.  I will miss these beautiful trees when we leave.