Tuesday, August 31, 2010
More painted caves!
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Allo! Allo!
Oh, what a great day! Up around 7 a.m. (WHY can’t we sleep this late at home??) , showered and dressed and down to breakfast. The usual croissant and juice and coffee, and R says the coffee is weak, even though you can’t see the bottom of it!
As our first event of the day is the 1 p.m. tour of Grotte de Niaux, we had most of the morning to spend at leisure. Decided to take a drive into Ax-les-Bains, the local “spa” town about 25 km away from Tarascon, also on the Ariege river. (Didn’t want to go further than that, as we’ve read signage saying they were closing the main road after Ax from 9 a.m. – 2 p.m.) Got to Ax with no problems, and then headed off into the town center. Really a lovely small city, and a major player in sports year-round. Besides the lovely spa facilities they have, there is a really large ski area, which in summer can be used for hiking trails and picnics and mountain biking. We decided to take the gondola lift half-way up – good thing, as that was WAY high enough for me! – and rather than walk back, we decided if we wanted to be in time at Niaux, we should also take the gondola back down. The Tour-de-France passed through Ax this past year, and it was interesting to see all the names painted on the roadways! We managed to get out of town fairly easily, leaving behind a HUGE traffic jam! (Not sure if they are stopping all traffic for those 5 hours, or if they are letting people through gradually, but the back up was incredible!)
From Ax we headed directly to Grotte de Niaux, which is located high up a mountain side just outside of Tarascon. As we still had some time before our tour, we decided to find sandwiches, and went to the “sandwicherie” outside of Grotte de Lombrives. There they made us great sandwiches of ham and cheese on baguette – the bread in this country is really amazing! Then we headed back to Grotte de Niaux.
The tour included about 12 people and the guide, and was truly amazing. We saw some of the most amazing cave art we’ve ever seen; lots of bison with the odd horse and aurochs thrown in. The detail in the animals was amazing – they drew in fur as well as hooves and faces. We were very impressed. And, as the tour was actually in English, that helped a great deal! Niaux is kept with very strict rules on the numbers of people allowed in during any one day; reminiscent of the state-owned caves of the Lot.
Tour ended about 3 and we headed next to Grotte de Vaches – but couldn’t FIND it! Parked in the right parking lot, and followed the signs – but couldn’t find it! Finally, after schlepping up hill and down dale for 20 minutes or so, we decided to head back…not happy, but very confused! From there we decided to try to get to Grotte de Lombrives (which we were going to do tomorrow morning). Arrived a few minutes before 3:30, which was when their next tour was beginning. Not a very good experience. The cave has no cave paintings – it is thought that they were dissolved by underground rivers. It is physically the largest cave in Europe, but is not being maintained well. The guide didn’t bother to tell people not to touch things, so believe me, they did; very disappointing. The main grotto itself stretches up hundreds of feet, and there are some good examples of some of the cave architecture that we’ve come to know. But they use the cave for concerts and all sorts of things, and while there is electricity in the cave, seeing was very difficult – and they did not pass out flashlights. We were both really surprised that they didn’t have more injuries, as it’s difficult to see in the darkness inside!
From Lombrives we headed back into town and our hotel…definitely in need of a lie-down! R caught up with some Caltech business, while I took a nap!
About 7 p.m. we decided to head out in search of dinner. We went along the main street to the Hostellerie de la Poste, which was actually serving dinner on Tuesday night! Had a lovely table next to the windows, which overlook the Ariege River. Started with Kir Royals; just delicious! We’ve decided that the next time we’re in these parts, we will try the Hostellerie, as it looks really nice! We both ordered one of their set dinners, each of us having separate pieces. My dinner started out with a salad of potatoes, croutons and lardons (pieces of bacon). It was served warm like German potato salad, and it was absolutely incredible! R’s starter was a salad with chevre chaud (warm goat cheese) – it looked really good, but my salad was amazing! R’s main course was duck breast with potatoes. My main was a slice of steak with a shallot sauce – again, fantastic! We were let down by desserts, though – mine was a white cheese with red fruits – but looked actually like liquid cream cheese with apricot preserves on top! R had a baked apple with honey, which he said was fine…would have preferred it to be maple syrup! Things were really dragging by this time, so I walked back to the hotel myself to get started on the blog, and R followed up when the bill (finally) arrived. Once again, a 2 hour+ meal. Don’t usually mind, but tonight I’m exhausted, so will close now and try and get this posted!
Much love,
m
x
Monday, August 30, 2010
A bit of Tarascon-sur-Ariege
Just a few pictures to try and capture the beauty of this place! Definitely a place we'd like to return to!
Dinner -- on a Monday night OUT of season, was problematic -- most places were closed! Finally found a small restaurant in town. I had a salad nicoise (lettuce, tuna, boiled potatoes, tomatoes -- hold the anchovies!) and R had an interesting cod dish cooked as the chef's special. Looked like lots of flakes of cod, with olives! R said it was good, but a bit strange...for starters, we shared the mussels provencal, which were excellent!!
Much love,
m
x
Into the Pyrenees and on to cave art!
Monday, 30 August, 2010
Bonjour!
Well! We have certainly had quite a day, and as we haven’t eaten dinner yet, I’m sure it will get even better!
Up around 7 a.m. and spent some time getting organized. Lots of “stuff” scattered around, and I didn’t want to leave anything behind! Out the door about 9 a.m. and in search of a Laundromat…today is “the” day – Monday, right?! Found our way to the Carrefour nearest the hotel; about 5 minutes away but very complicated to get to. Couldn’t see anything inside the mall, so asked an employee who told me: And I kid you not! – there was a place to wash BOTH cars AND clothes, just outside the Carrefour itself. Wound around the back entrances, and there it was! Have never seen anything like it! Killing two birds at the same time! However, the Laundromat was small, and there were only 4 machines, two of which were broken. So…on to Montpellier where I had not one but TWO addresses of Laundromats!
We stopped at a rest area between Montpellier and Nimes for diesel and some breakfast. R got a Panini which he didn’t really care for, but I had a wonderful baguette with jambon et fromage and was very happy! However, all was not without chaos, because the minute we got off the peage (toll way) at Montpellier, of course we ran in to MAJOR road construction! Poor Emmy (our GPS)! We are really testing her capabilities! However, being the wonderful Garmin that she is, she wound us around traffic and into the center of town! And the Laundromat! The only problem was that there were NO parking spaces in the area, but there was a “loading” zone…so, being the bad kids that we are, we parked in the loading zone, each minute expecting to have to move the car – but we actually did two loads of wash AND dried them without incident! The Laundromat also had wifi, and there was one young man who was working away – and, silly me! – I thought he was doing his laundry! Turns out, when all the laundry but ours was gone, he finally packed up his laptop, said “au revoir” to us, and out the door! Not a bad idea at all! We managed to get all laundry done and back into the car, and then we were on our way to Tarascon-sur-Ariege in the Pyrenees.
It was an absolutely stunningly beautiful drive! The Pyrenees are really lovely; a bit more rounded than the Alps perhaps, but I think even more beautiful! (I know there are multiple “beautiful” ‘s here, but sometimes it is necessary to repeat oneself…which can also get you into trouble by referring to yourself in the third person…just ask Dr. Sheldon Cooper!) We passed many, many fields of sunflowers that were way past their prime and waiting to be harvested, but finally came to one town, Vals, and the flowers were still blooming! Wow! Sunflowers make me smile! The roads were great, and we made terrific time, arriving in Tarascon around 2 p.m. We found our hotel, only to see on the door that it was “closed” until 5:30 p.m.! Whoa!
At this point we decided to see if we could do a cave tour, so picked Grotte de Bedeilhac at random. It was a few miles out of town, but we pulled up just in time for their 2:30 p.m. tour!! There were 6 of us plus the guide; a dad and his three incredibly well-behaved kids, probably 6, 8 and 11 years old. The guide was terrific, and explained a lot about the cave’s history. Turns out the cave has a HUGE entrance to it, and was actually used by the Germans in WWII as an airplane factory and air-strip! Imagine taxiing down the runway INSIDE a cave, and then popping out and taking off – quickly! Landings must have been really something!
We did a lot of walking, each one of us with our own flashlight. The cave is still living, and holds some of the largest formations we’ve ever seen! Also pretty drippy…we saw several different types of cave artwork, from bison painted on the walls to bison and aurochs literally carved out of the floor! Just amazing! At one point, we were asked to turn off all of our lights, and the guide (after ascertaining that everyone was “ok” with the dark) turned her lantern off – talk about pitch BLACK! Absolutely NOTHING was visible at all in any direction. She then lit a cigarette lighter, and talked about how the flickering light from the lighter was supposed to be roughly equivalent to what a cave artist had to draw by – and how he/she ever managed, I have no idea! It was a wonderful experience, that’s for sure! The tour was almost 2 hours long, and after that, we headed to another cave, Grotte de la Vache. Unfortunately, their tours were at 2 and 4, and we missed 4 p.m. However, our plan is to return to La Vache tomorrow after our 1 p.m. Grotte de Niaux tour.
Finally, we headed for the last big cave in the area, Grotte de Lombrieves. They have multiple tours during the day, so we’ve decided to try and get that one in on Wednesday morning before we head to Pau.
Back to the hotel, about 5 p.m. and still nobody at the hotel…we went across the street and had a glass of wine and looked at the map book to plan our route for Wednesday. (Apparently road construction happening outside of Ax-les-Thermes…) Finally, guy at hotel desk! Yea!! R says: What a difference a day makes! Yesterday we were luxuriating in 4 **** ‘s, tonight it’s 2**! [But the internet connection is much, much better! – R] Place interesting…haven’t seen Pepto Bismol walls in a long time! -- but very clean, and we have a room that overlooks the Ariege river. Besides, we’re not here to stay in the room! Walked around Tarascon – saw most of it I think, and now are relaxing before we head out to dinner!
Take care!
Much love and more later!
m
x
The other pictures from last night ...
...for some reason, our wonderful Vatel couldn't post pictures! So...here are the others from yesterday...once we have some wine and dinner, I'll get around to today and the PYRENEES!!
Much love,
m
x
Sunday, August 29, 2010
On to Nimes!
Sunday, 29 August 2010
Bonjour!
We woke up in sunny and warm Aigues-Mortes and prepared to say goodbye to our wonderful hotel, Villa Mazarin. Headed out about 9 and pointed the car back towards Nimes, knowing that we were WAY early, but wanting to leave our luggage at the hotel while we explored the city. We got there about 9:30 or so, and voila! – they had a room we could have!! Terrific! Everything just as I remembered it – les enfants – literally, meaning infants, but that’s how the manager referred to the hotel school students who were assigned to help us! Dropped everything in the room, and then headed into the city center to the Arena.
The nice thing about it being Sunday is that there were lots of parking spaces around, and traffic wasn’t bad at all! (One day last year when I was trying to get through town, I got caught in gridlock with a city bus, because of all the people in town for their annual fete!) This time we ambled over to the arena and headed inside for the audio tour. To be honest, the audio tour says that of the 400 amphitheatres built by the Romans, this one in Nimes is in the second best repair after the Coliseum. I hate to disillusion them, but honestly, the Arena di Verona in Italy is in MUCH better shape, and they use it for operas and concerts every year too! Nimes hosts a summer music festival, which is just now drawing to a close, and then in a couple of weeks, they will host their annual Spanish-type of bullfighting…NOT something to our taste at all! The audio tour was interesting, but they went WAY too far in describing the gladiatorial battles and slaughtering of animals – I didn’t need to hear any of that – so the good thing with an audio tour is that you can just turn it off when you don’t want to listen any more! Which we did!!
We crossed the street from the arena and picked up a light lunch at a small café. R had a very interesting combination of what appeared to be roasted onions and anchovies on a pastry base. He said it reminded him of something his grandmother used to make! I said: You can keep the anchovies! I had a salad of mozzarella, tomato and pesto. However, rather than how it is usually served, this time it was done as a stack – diced tomatoes on the bottom, diced mozzarella in the middle, and then a couple layers of fresh basil on top! Very unusual, and very good!
From there we walked down Ave. Victor Hugo toward the Maison Caree, an old Roman building that is in the process of being renovated and restored. The last time we were both through this way – maybe 10 years or so ago – it was in desperate need of cleaning. Now it is lovely and white again, at least the half that has already been restored. We will look forward to seeing the completed job when it is finished, sometime next year.
From Maison Caree we headed to the Jardins des fontaines. This garden was built around a natural spring that bubbles up in the middle of a small pond. Very unusual! The stream is then diverted out of the park and down one of the central boulevards, into a lovely canal; really beautiful, and we were very impressed! At the very TOP of the park is the Tour Magne, another old Roman fortification that had served in ancient times as part of the wall around Nimes. We climbed up --- and up – and up … like climbing a lighthouse inside! – until we got to the top. We were again very lucky, as we had the observation platform to ourselves, and the view was amazing!
From there we walked d-o-w-n a long way and back past the arena and picked up the car. I had wanted to show Robert the place where I’d booked in last year, but then moved, because it was SO far out of town! (Not sure if or what I was thinking!) Beautiful drive, across the Gard and into Uzes. From there Robert navigated us back to our hotel, circling west around Nimes to come in from the side. (That had been my original idea last year, but obviously I was lacking a good navigator to help make it happen!)
It was by now 4 p.m. so we decided to take naps and catch up on some paperwork at the hotel. Very restful place; very enjoyable!
Up around 7 and headed out to look for dinner. We ran into two things: 1) Sunday night is traditionally a night when restaurants are closed – most French families have their large Sunday meal at lunchtime, not needing restaurants in the evening! And 2) As this is the last weekend in August, it seems that most folks have headed back north and probably have to go in to work tomorrow morning! Therefore, some of the places locally are either holding family parties (ran into that!) or are closed altogether! Did finally end up at a small place fairly close by. R had chicken with vegetables and chips, and I had steak with an excellent Roquefort sauce.
Back to the hotel about 9:30 p.m. and will post blog for today. Tomorrow we have two objectives: 1) LAUNDRY! (Yes, that, again…) If the Carrefour near here isn’t open or doesn’t have a laundry, we have two addresses in Montpellier that we plan on trying! And 2) head to Tarascon-sur-Ariege in the Pyrenees! I was able to book a reservation for us for the Grottes de Naiux on Tuesday at 1 p.m. Can’t wait! There are three other, smaller caves that we also want to see…hopefully the timing will work out – or we’ll just have to come back!!
Lots of love for now!
m
x
Bonjour!
We woke up in sunny and warm Aigues-Mortes and prepared to say goodbye to our wonderful hotel, Villa Mazarin. Headed out about 9 and pointed the car back towards Nimes, knowing that we were WAY early, but wanting to leave our luggage at the hotel while we explored the city. We got there about 9:30 or so, and voila! – they had a room we could have!! Terrific! Everything just as I remembered it – les enfants – literally, meaning infants, but that’s how the manager referred to the hotel school students who were assigned to help us! Dropped everything in the room, and then headed into the city center to the Arena.
The nice thing about it being Sunday is that there were lots of parking spaces around, and traffic wasn’t bad at all! (One day last year when I was trying to get through town, I got caught in gridlock with a city bus, because of all the people in town for their annual fete!) This time we ambled over to the arena and headed inside for the audio tour. To be honest, the audio tour says that of the 400 amphitheatres built by the Romans, this one in Nimes is in the second best repair after the Coliseum. I hate to disillusion them, but honestly, the Arena di Verona in Italy is in MUCH better shape, and they use it for operas and concerts every year too! Nimes hosts a summer music festival, which is just now drawing to a close, and then in a couple of weeks, they will host their annual Spanish-type of bullfighting…NOT something to our taste at all! The audio tour was interesting, but they went WAY too far in describing the gladiatorial battles and slaughtering of animals – I didn’t need to hear any of that – so the good thing with an audio tour is that you can just turn it off when you don’t want to listen any more! Which we did!!
We crossed the street from the arena and picked up a light lunch at a small café. R had a very interesting combination of what appeared to be roasted onions and anchovies on a pastry base. He said it reminded him of something his grandmother used to make! I said: You can keep the anchovies! I had a salad of mozzarella, tomato and pesto. However, rather than how it is usually served, this time it was done as a stack – diced tomatoes on the bottom, diced mozzarella in the middle, and then a couple layers of fresh basil on top! Very unusual, and very good!
From there we walked down Ave. Victor Hugo toward the Maison Caree, an old Roman building that is in the process of being renovated and restored. The last time we were both through this way – maybe 10 years or so ago – it was in desperate need of cleaning. Now it is lovely and white again, at least the half that has already been restored. We will look forward to seeing the completed job when it is finished, sometime next year.
From Maison Caree we headed to the Jardins des fontaines. This garden was built around a natural spring that bubbles up in the middle of a small pond. Very unusual! The stream is then diverted out of the park and down one of the central boulevards, into a lovely canal; really beautiful, and we were very impressed! At the very TOP of the park is the Tour Magne, another old Roman fortification that had served in ancient times as part of the wall around Nimes. We climbed up --- and up – and up … like climbing a lighthouse inside! – until we got to the top. We were again very lucky, as we had the observation platform to ourselves, and the view was amazing!
From there we walked d-o-w-n a long way and back past the arena and picked up the car. I had wanted to show Robert the place where I’d booked in last year, but then moved, because it was SO far out of town! (Not sure if or what I was thinking!) Beautiful drive, across the Gard and into Uzes. From there Robert navigated us back to our hotel, circling west around Nimes to come in from the side. (That had been my original idea last year, but obviously I was lacking a good navigator to help make it happen!)
It was by now 4 p.m. so we decided to take naps and catch up on some paperwork at the hotel. Very restful place; very enjoyable!
Up around 7 and headed out to look for dinner. We ran into two things: 1) Sunday night is traditionally a night when restaurants are closed – most French families have their large Sunday meal at lunchtime, not needing restaurants in the evening! And 2) As this is the last weekend in August, it seems that most folks have headed back north and probably have to go in to work tomorrow morning! Therefore, some of the places locally are either holding family parties (ran into that!) or are closed altogether! Did finally end up at a small place fairly close by. R had chicken with vegetables and chips, and I had steak with an excellent Roquefort sauce.
Back to the hotel about 9:30 p.m. and will post blog for today. Tomorrow we have two objectives: 1) LAUNDRY! (Yes, that, again…) If the Carrefour near here isn’t open or doesn’t have a laundry, we have two addresses in Montpellier that we plan on trying! And 2) head to Tarascon-sur-Ariege in the Pyrenees! I was able to book a reservation for us for the Grottes de Naiux on Tuesday at 1 p.m. Can’t wait! There are three other, smaller caves that we also want to see…hopefully the timing will work out – or we’ll just have to come back!!
Lots of love for now!
m
x
Saturday, August 28, 2010
We did it! We circled the wall!!
Saturday, 28 August 2010
My birthday! No. 59! Wow, who knew?!
Went to bed around 11 p.m. last night, and didn’t set the clock…figured that we would be up around our usual 5:30-6:00-ish, and I was wondering how we would pass the time before the walls opened at 10 a.m.! Silly girl! Woke up at 9:15 a.m. – an all-time late time for me!! We only had 45 minutes to clean up and get going! Managed to make it to the walls by 10:05 a.m. or so. Got up to the ticket desk and handed in our free passes and showed the gal the picture of R sitting on the wall with the fireman standing by. She immediately got what we were trying to say, and called for her colleague up the stairs – and very quickly, le voila! There were the two wonderful ladies who helped us so much last year! It was quite a reunion! They were very happy to see us, and to know that everything turned out well! SO nice to be able to thank them properly this time! After many admonitions to “take care” we headed out onto the walls once again. Had the walls all to ourselves, which was nice (like last year, wherein there was only one other person who went for help after R’s accident!) It was quite an interesting walk! I hadn’t realized how scary R’s descent down that staircase really was, seen from above! How those nine firemen managed to get R down safely, and themselves down safely as well, is still a mystery to me! I took a picture of R at “the” spot, then we continued on around the city. Very beautiful views in all directions, and unlike last year, a stunningly beautiful day to be on the wall! Took us about an hour + to get around and back down, but I can say that now we have successfully made the complete transit of the walls of Aigues-Mortes, and fear them no more!!
By the time we got down it was after 11:30, and we had had no food at all! So, we found a “sandwicherie” (sandwich shop) and R had a cheese and ham panini and I had a baguette with beurre et fromage. Very good! We then decided to go back to the hotel and take the car out and explore the Camargue. We had a lovely drive all around – saw flamingos and the traditional white horses as well as the bulls they breed here for bull-fighting. (Note: Bull-fighting here in France is mainly bloodless, as opposed to Spain…)
Stopped at the Parc Ornithologique and had a wonderful walk. Saw flocks of flamingos as well as herons, egrets and many other birds. Also saw something called a nutria which is a rodent imported during the last century into France from South America. Fortunately, did not run into the native viper…YEA! From there drove along the west bank of the Rhone, then attempted to get across the Rhone…only to find that R misread the “B” symbol on the Michelin map … he thought it meant “bridge” ….turns out it means “ferry boat!” [I did not think that a B on the map meant “bridge”; I was just following the route Margaret picked. R] So, had to wait 15 or 20 minutes for the boat to arrive, the drove on; across in something like 5 minutes; 5 Euros, please! From there, we drove up the east side of the river into Arles, and then out the other side and back to Aigues-Mortes. Got here around 5 p.m. Such a truly beautiful day here – VERY breezy; just lovely! Decided to have a couple of glasses of white wine on the terrace overlooking the garden and the pool…a great way to spend the afternoon!
We’re now in our room – windows open to get the breeze! – and getting ready for dinner! Tonight will NOT be like last night, as that is a once in a while kind of treat! But hopefully we’ll find something good in the way of pizza or Spanish food!
Take care; lots of love!
m
x
PS – Found Indian food instead! Very good, small restaurant. No pictures, but we had vegetable samosas, eggplant pakoras, curry shrimp (the best I’ve ever had!), chicken tikka, basmati rice and garlic naan…ALMOST no room for desert! Did manage to find a Magnum Classic, which rounds out a terrific birthday very well! Back to the room about 8:45 p.m. and definitely in for the night!
m
x
Friday, August 27, 2010
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