Gardens: From Paris to Provence

Des Jardin Tuileries goat mowers.

Looks like a tree, but it's a bronze sculpture.

Rear view of Notre Dame Cathedral

Poppies in Glanum ruins

St. Remy container garden

St. Paul de Mausole Abbey

Shaded road to the abbey

Iris's everywhere, thoughts of Van Gogh.

Fountain de Vaucluse

From Here to There

We flew from Toronto to Paris.  The French airline was friendly and the food was delicious, fresh,  & healthy.  It's was an eight hour flight and we were ready for a good stretch by the time we disembarked.  In Paris we mostly walked, having chosen an apartment that was close to sites we were interested in.  We did take the metro (subway) once to get across town to visit Sacre Coure.  It was inexpensive, clean, and quick.  We took a high speed train (about 250 miles per hour) to Avignon.  Again, widely used, punctual, clean, and fast.  We rented a car for our two weeks in St. Remy, enabling us to visit surrounding villages, but mostly walked locally, parking being as issue.  For us, bicycles were out; it was too hilly and the roads too narrow. The car was a stick shift and diesel with unlimited milage.  We only needed to fuel up once.

Hoofing home from Eiffel  Tower in Paris

Our trusty transportation in St. Remy

Tres chic metro in Paris

Gare de Lyon, Paris to Avignon

Our 'Mas' in Provence

     Now that you've seen our apartment in Paris, I'd like to show you our 'Mas' in St. Remy in Provence.  First of all, Provence is a region in southern France.  It is famous for its lavender, wine, fabric, olives, and soaps.  A mas is a house on a farm or in the country.  Our mas was on the edge of the village of St. Remy.  We rented it for two weeks with Martin's five sisters and brother and sister-in-law.  It had five bedrooms, a large living room-dining room, big French kitchen with a table to seat 10, a covered patio with another long table (eating with friends & family is a big deal in France), and a beautiful garden and pool.  Our mas was a ten minute walk to the center of St. Remy, and a five minute walk to some ancient Roman ruins.  We were also a short walk to the cloister of St. Paul de Mausole where Vincent Van Gogh spent his last year and painted over 150 of his works.  

Front of mas, patio

pool, view from our room upstairs

five sister & me, happy hour

Bread

     Good question about the bread in France, Jen!  I looked over all my pics and could barely find a crumb of bread in any of them.  Why?  Because it was so-o-o-o delicious we gobbled it up very quickly!  The bakers in France rise very early to have fresh baguettes and croissants ready for people each morning.  People usually buy their bread fresh each morning.  I never saw "day old" on any store shelves, just empty shelves late in the day.
     I do have a picture of the bread making process.  A huge white tent, filled with ovens and bakers from all over France, was set up near Notre Dame Cathedral as part of its 850 year anniversary.  We walked through the tent  watching a series of video screens that showed the bread making process and saw in person bakers doing various tasks.  It smelled heavenly!
     While in France we bought fresh bread each morning.  You could smell the lovely fragrance of bread baking throughout each city or village.

Bread bakers in Paris - notice the cloths  used to cover the rising bread.

Up We Go

The living room.

A tight squeeze!

Poppa climbs the stairs.

Picture living here.

We found a picture in a book that showed how the inside of our Paris residence may have looked when it was first built in the 1700's as a single family home.  Note the staircase.  I loved climbing the curving stairs up to the fourth floor.  A small "lift" or elevator was available as well.  Ag and Wil demonstrate how tiny it was.

Paris Apartment

Our view of the street.

While in Paris for four days, we stayed in a cute little apartment in the 7th arrondissement (district) on the rive gauche (left bank of the Seine river).  We were only  two blocks from the Seine, right across from the Louvre.  In another direction, we were two blocks from the Orsay Museum, and about a ten minute walk from the Eiffel Tower.  We were walking distance from the Paris Opera House, Notre Dame Cathedral, and many other famous sites.

Street entrance.

"Bonjour down there."