For my last weekend on the French Riviera I made a visit to an inland hill-town and then coastal Antibes. Thirty minutes by bus from Nice is the village of Vence. Not unlike the hill-towns of Provence, Vence is old and small. It’s cathedral dates from the 4th century and is mostly swallowed up by [...]
Archive for April, 2007
With my weekdays kept busy by French class, my touring slowed down quite a bit. On Sunday, I took a quick trip up the coast towards Monaco. I had no particularly significant sights in mind, I just wanted to take in some of the beauty of La Côte d’Azur. I began my journey by riding [...]
The next day I went by the Alliance Francaise because I was interested in taking a French class. My hope was that I could find something that met an hour or two per day either every day for a week, or every other day for two weeks. What I found was a class that met [...]
Departing Aix en Provence I left behind the first part of my trip; a tour of Provence. Next up was two weeks in Nice. I had an apartment booked in the city center not far from the train station. Given that the bedroom, living room & kitchen were all separate rooms, it was actually something [...]
My next stop was Aix en Provence, one of the larger cities of Provence.Aix isn’t exactly over-burdened with sights. And the biggest reason I visited was that it was Easter weekend and, after my Christmas 2005 experience in Ireland (where even most of the hotels were closed), I wanted to be in a larger city [...]
After returning the car in Avignon and dropping my bag by my new hotel, I hopped a bus out to Pont du Gard, another ancient Roman sight; in this case a bridge transporting an aqueduct over the Gardon river. I had hoped to visit here on my first day, along with Nîmes since they are [...]
The next day, my last full day with the car, began much better; all windows intact.I began by driving to nearby Orange, which is home to several Roman ruins including a relatively unique theater. Unlike most other ancient theaters, Orange’s theater has retained the original wall behind it’s stage. So it has a much different [...]
I woke up early for a busy day of driving around to visit a number of little hill towns. Unfortunately, as I closed the trunk after stowing my bag I heard a tinklingly crash. My hopes that the disturbing noise had been merely coincidental to me closing the trunk were dashed when I observed the [...]
Breaking with my traditional touring practices, I rented a car to get out into the country side more. Provence is dotted with medieval villages and castles, and a car is the only effective manner of visiting many of them. So, Monday morning I departed Arles via automobile, rather than train.My first stop was just outside [...]
Sunday was laundry day, then some exploring around my “home-base” of Arles.Did I mention how hard it is to pronounce Arles and be understood? Remember my marathon journey to get here? My last connection was from the empty & mostly dark TGV train-station (out in the middle of nowhere, rather than in town) to a [...]
