Le chateau des Beaux-de-Provence

           

 

The chateau is about 1.5k from our house on the wings of a dove, more like double that by car and foot (we parked about 500m from the entrance to the village due to crush of tourism). The fortress dates from the 10th century, ending its utilitarian days in the 17th century, when it was destroyed by order of Louis XIII. Now has a new life as un des plus beaux villages de France, attracting it claims 1,000,000 visitors a year.

 

Part of the Valley of Hell seen from the fortress       There are several impressive siege engines, including a catapult and a trebuchet.                 

 

 

        There is cross bow range- everyone allowed to shoot one bolt.       Other items can be little people interactive-  

Xcessive?

The forge was popular   

 

 

               

Hail, friend

 

Roman Glanum

Triumphal Arch, BC 10-25

 

Mausoleum Julii from BC 40

We visited Glanum at St Remy. The full archeological site would have been a large cost for small return for the 6 of us, so we looked in from the outside of the fence but this magnificent mausoleum can be approached close-up for free. Likewise the remains of the Triumphal Arch. According to Wikipedia, these Julii took that name when they became citizens, and I think it's not a co-incidence that they thought aligning themselves with J.Caesar's folk would be socially helpful. 

Snails

At the micro end of archaeology I found the snail infestations an excellent foil.            

North face

West face

 

Sunday in Maussane les Alpilles

On Sunday afternoon the family went to the nearest village, and were surprised to find it almost impossible to park. But on getting out we found all the fun of the once a year fair celebrating the beginning of the 20th century. Merveilleux!

Folk singing

Nougat stall

Xanthe scores in Pin the tail on the donkey

Jonas rides bicycle powered merry go round

Jonas turns out to have excellent throwing aim

Public bath inaugurated by Napoleon III 1865

M  

Une Maison en Provence

On Friday we took the train to Avignon (a mere 40 minutes from Marseille), and hired our people mover- which we were delighted to find was, contrary to French hire car custom, automatic transmission. The French do have somewhat diminutive ideas about how much space rear passengers need, especially if they come bearing luggage.  Our drive into the Parc d'Alpilles went smoothly to lunch at a peaceful restaurant we had pre-booked. (Recommended- La Cabro d'Or at hotel Beaumanière.) But après-midi left us with much time to spare, and we found that we couldn't find the house- it is named in Google maps but in the wrong spot by a few hundred metres and a different fork in the road! Our hosts rescued us after a phone call.
The district has also been the location for the films  Jean de Florette : our landscape is easily identifiable in this poster-

                 
J downloaded and showed this film to 8 year old Xanthe on his laptop. She says she thinks it is sad.

Tourist promotion quote: "But as you approach the village of Le Beaux, the landscape gives way to huge rock shapes carved out by erosion and wind. Legend has it that sorcerers and evil spirits inhabit the caves and crevices.  Known as the Valley of Hell, this dramatic, bleak and jagged mineral world is said to have inspired the poet Dante's vision of the same in his Divine Comedy.
The composer Charles Gounod wrote and set part of his 1863 opera Mireille there. The writer/film-maker Jean Cocteau shot Le Testament d'Orphée in the Valley of Hell in 1959 and described the eerie landscape as "a zone between life and death"."

Lunch à la maison

 The house has lovely views into the rugged limestone of Les Alpilles, especially at sunset, and plenty of room for the six of us. The grandchildren are beside themselves with the pool, trampoline and swing. Since the neighbouring village, St Remy was a place where Van Gogh painted for a while, I am trying a photographic still life that might have impressed the artist, or perhaps not.

Marseille Old Port and Le Panier Shops

Here is a parting photo miscellany from our short stopover. There is heaps more to discover from a hotel that proved our research was good on that score, perhaps even a strong recommendation on Trip Advisor. Hotel L'Escale Oceana (www.oceanahotels.com).

       

   

Puzzle of two Byzantine monuments

Descending from our stroll through Le Panier we encountered this basilica near the seashore. Inside and out it is awesome, so we were surprised to find it dates from the second half of the nineteenth century, and , so some Wikipedia research shows , does the grand basilica on the highest point of the city with its huge golden statue. Such costly constructions are at odds with what we currently understand of the constitutional turmoil of that half century of the French nation, including the humiliating defeat at the hands of Prussia. Was the south in some way immune from a lot of this and was this town particularly publicly pious? These gaps in knowledge must await opportunity to research at home. What is striking is that the wiki source above is just not particularly interested- the entries on both basilicas are almost thumbnails. We however were struck by the three magnificent sets of horizontal organ pipes-what a blast they might deliver!  

Flight to Nice, then Marseille in the morning

The train from Nice to Marseille takes about 2.5 hours, much of it with picturesque coast in view, and well worth looking out the window rather than reading a book. We had been contemplating taking the "blue train" excursion from and back to Marseille featured in Michael Portillo's multi series BBC TV show "Great European railway journeys in 1913" repeated several times on SBS. However since we are only in Marseille for one full day, we have omitted this half day excursion from our itinerary while nevertheless commending the round trip to any with slightly more time to spend in the neighbourhood.  

Bon Voyage greeting from Amber          

We were treated particularly well by Emirates in our journey to France, and are minded to give them the "most comfortable for us on the Europe run" award.          


On disembarking at At Nice a steward presented us with a "bon voyage cake", a surprise arranged by our travel agent Amber from Travel Associates. Though on holidays herself  had she heard of the soft shoe shuffle needed for us to get lift off from home? We hope to share it with the grandchildren if it lasts the distance.           We alighted last night to a vista that few railway stations could rival  

View from Marseille Gare St Charles (1)

View from Marseille Gare St Charles  (2)

This morning we explored Old Marseille (Le Panier District) near the Vieux Port where our hotel is situated. There are romantic narrow streets  

Le Panier streets(1)

And leafy streetscapes,

Le Panier streets(2)   And Ancient buildings that escaped depredation by Haussmann and the Nazis, and ultimately swivelled to meet street realignment:        

Oldest building of its kind still standing in Marseille

 Here's the swivel explained in old street photos

Swivelling a building        

Door        

Charity accommodation old style        

Street art new style        

Le Parking Français  style

Trip up on trip plan

Our well laid plans called for an evening departure on Tuesday, connecting non-stop in Dubai for Nice, thence train to Marseille for a 36 hour stopover before proceeding into the French hinterland. So on Tuesday morning W headed off for some volunteer activity, and I went to my Club for a committee meeting followed by lunch and group photo and a bottle of wine for those born in August sufficiently long ago.

 On arriving I received a text from Qantas advising a flight change- please ring. So I did that but the recorded message said Q was too busy to take the call and would call back. A quick web check showed nothing. After a pre-lunch glass of mulled wine promoting Club Christmas opportunities, I went into the dining room only to be intercepted by one of the staff saying a lady wished to see me in the lobby. The lady was W, who had been contacted by Q to advise a 2 hour flight delay. That meant a missed Dubai connection, and since there is only one daily flight, numerous dominoes would fall over after that. That rather blunted the cutting edge of the trip plan, to mix a metaphor. W had then arranged with Q to change us to an Emirates flight departing 5 hours earlier for Dubai via Singapore, so she rushed to the Club and we proceeded home with dispatch.

History will not record my August occasion, and my wine will probably revert to the Club cellar, but here we are in Dubai awaiting our connection, and noting our original Q flight is now not expected until 1215, which would have been a 4 hours connection miss. We didn't get our eTicket until after we checked in at Tullamarine. 

Actually we have found 2x 7 hour flights are less tiring than a non-stop, so there is a learning benefit in that too.

Eat week August

  The second week of August is marked to notice the annual passing of time. Horses aren't the only ones to have birthdays around this time! My food was complimentary and Athenaeum was offering a Game week so we had dinner on Monday. I enjoyed my venison soup and wild boar main, while W found her rabbit ravioli and quail also good. We enjoyed a glass of French wine with each course, Provence rosé with the entree, a Rhone red with main. I continued the theme with a Sauternes accompanying dessert. 

 On Tuesday the French theme continued with coq au vin at home- and S brought a bottle of Bordeaux for the occasion. M was also present and was surprised to learn it was my birthday but quickly swapped her gift for the hostess to me.

Seats at the Estelle bar

Saturday was the big night out for W and me. We went to Estelle in Northcote. It had gained a place in Australia's best 50 published that day. The fare is table d'hôte and every aspect pleases. The dishes are imaginative, the service professional and friendly, and since we had seats at the bar overlooking the kitchen the theatre of cooking and plating with occasional chat to the workers was a valued extra. Of course we had a bottle of French red, this time from the south west not far from Cahors.

Plating up