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Vendredi (Friday), Nice
Arrive à la gare, seven-fifteen a.m. Two and a half hours by train from Marseille to Nice. Along the route the sun bathes terracotta tiled roofs, stucco houses tinted apricot, beige, and tan, and shutters and doors, of blue,
green, and lilac. Vineyards drift past with their staked vines arrayed like soldiers at attention. Meadows, yellow with blooming curry and sunshine wave good morning. The TGV rounds a bend and I am sucked into darkness, my ears popping in the vacuum. I didn’t see the mountain coming. The sun flashes once more and now so does the sea. Red
clay and shrub-covered hills rise on my left. On my right the Mediterranean, as aquamarine as in any calendar photograph I’ve ever seen. Pee on the train for free or pay to use public facilities, but never flush when the train is stopped. Limestone mountains eventually become mansions and hotels, painted yellow and white. Palm trees line
the streets. A mix of French, English and Italian is spoken here. Italy is just around the next bend. Pebble beaches host bronzed bodies sprawled like seals against the sea wall that reflects the sun’s heat and warms the ocean’s icy wind. Brown and azure plaid Speedos, and black and white bikinis, some with the top folded down saunter,
strut or recline. Vespas, rollerblades, bicycles, and small cars compete for pavement and cobblestone. Gas is €3 a liter. Horns blare, tires squeal, hands gesticulate, ands it’s all a game. Colline du Château (Castle Hill) rises abruptly out of the ocean. A winding path leads ever skyward. Conquer the summit; submit to the views,
Nice, the port, the foothills of the Alps, and the Mediterranean.
Salade Payense at the Salon de Thé Café: mixed greens, hard cooked eggs, toast and chèvre chaud (goat cheese) warmed under the broiler. C’est bon! Drink Perrier with lemon because even bottled water tastes toxic. No wonder they drink
so much wine. Drainage ditches, darting mini-scooters, and dog shit make walking hazardous. Winding streets predate horse and cart. Ignore the shoulders that rub your own; feel a hand on your ass and secure your wallet. Red geraniums overspill window boxes onto yellow walls. Glossy leafed mimosa trees burst with lemon-colored flowers and
the scent of honey. Cacti grow where concrete and cobblestones don’t. Three flavors of glace—or gelato depending on where your train originated—café, tiramisu, and amoretto—delights my tongue as I sit on the stone-tiled wall and watch the glittering sea. The mistralet blows icy gusts from beyond the Alps. The ocean answers
back with its own salty winds. Couples stroll the promenade arm in arm: mature men with younger women, mature women with younger men, men in pairs with arms wrapped around each other’s waists, women in pairs holding hands, mixed race, mixed ages, no second looks, and no snide comments, sweet land of Liberté.
Always beckoning is la mer, the turquoise-teal sea. Its summons reaches me deep within the racks of boutiques and the tunnel-like hillside streets calling me to return and re-turn around and look. “Look at me it demands” over and over. I obey, lest it
disappear. But I have only one day to spend here. Chilled by the afternoon breeze and the slanting sun, I turn a corner in search of a warm nook and find the Cours Saleya, the town’s market of the sunny square. Carnations and jasmine in buckets, fish on barrels of ice, marzipan shaped like fruit and animals, artichokes, cabbages,
white asparagus, and potatoes. Succulent Spanish strawberries filled with as much sticky-chin juice as an overripe peach. Combien? Trois—(three euros). Merci. The final treat of the day, I finished them sleepy eyed on the train to Aix (en-Provence).
Samedi (Saturday), Arles: La Feria Paques 2006 (The Easter Festival)
The sun is as reluctant to shine as my eyes to open. A dank breeze chafes my cheeks. I shiver in my raincoat and recall the still warm bed I left minutes ago. Café, s’il vous plaît? When we get there. I mumble and stumble onto the train. Other passengers
snore, huddled under coats and shawls, and drool against the windows. The fare Nazis in blue serge uniforms shake the sleepers and demand their tickets. My ticket gets a hole and is returned to me with a grunt. It’s a dismal ride to Arles, the sky, the earth, the stone. Earth is a business along this western route, quarries, tile
factories, and cement plants. Ugly little hamlets squat low among the hills of granite and clay. Graffiti spreads like ivy and covers the walls along the tracks. And, along the tracks sprout Roma (gypsy) hovels of corrugated plastic and discarded lumber. I have memorized my instructions: drop the baby if one is thrown at you,
they’ll surround you, beat you down and take you for everything you’ve got. Rocks and scrub give way to fecundity. Tall grasses undulate in the breeze and corn is knee high. Columnar Poplar trees flank the fields with exclamation points while Judas trees turn on the charm blushing bright pink. Poppies bloom helter-skelter red along the
rails and horses nibble their way along stonewalls and wire fences. My train arrives as the pregnant sky begins to rain. The Romans, the Spaniards, and the French have all claimed this wetlands delta known as the Camargue. Van Gogh, the Rhône River, pink flamingos, mean mosquitoes, rice, salt, wild boar, horses and bulls! It is the
bulls I’ve come to see. I flip up my hood and enter town just in time to witness the running of the bulls before the first corrida (Spanish bullfight). The sight of sharpened horns wrapped in leather electrifies the crowd. Over shoulders and between crooks of elbows I catch glimpses of stomping hooves, whipping tails, flared snotty
nostrils, and horns. The animal smell of excited males mingles with cigarette smoke, the morning’s first pastis, and café-au-lait. The clashing of a brass band provides a background soundtrack for the bellowing of the bulls, the barking of German Shepherds and the thudding hearts of adolescent boys who dodge back and forth
across the street, from safety rail to safety rail, tempting the horned beasts from in front and chasing them from behind. Old folks in open apartment windows sip beer and watch the spectacle below. One man leans on his hand, bored, while his wife claps and cheers. The Roman arena, built for gladiators 2000 years ago holds 20,000
screaming fans, and marks the center of town. All the streets radiate from and lead to it. Ever watchful it is there, just in front of me, just over my shoulder, or watching me walk away.
Café American (black coffee) at last. Deep as onyx, two and a half ounces, individually brewed and served in a miniature ceramic cup. It costs one euro sixty (nearly $3), and tastes like tar. Jambon et fromage on a crusty,
chewy baguette with a thick smear of cold butter. A ham and cheese sandwich never tasted this good and softens the sting of the coffee. Costumes, cicadas, lavender sachets, bright yellow doors in walls of gray, shadowy narrow streets, black iron grates and lion’s head door knockers, could Marley’s ghost be lurking nearby?
It’s France; it’s Spain? Or is it somewhere in between? Carnival with Spanish spice, New Orleans Jazz, matadors and dead bulls—Olé—hanging by their back legs, throats slit and waiting for the boucher’s cart to carry them away. The sun, finally,
tears its way through the clouds just in time to set. Three flavors of glace: nicholetta, mint chocolate chip, and almond. The day’s personal favorite? Nicholetta, hazelnut swirled with dark chocolate. C’est bon!!
Dimanche, La Paque 2006. (Easter Sunday) Aix-en-Provence
Soleil chaud, ceils bleu, cobblestones warm with a heavenly glow. Accordion and violinists serenade pedestrians on alternating streets. Cafés open at seven. Yesterday’s bread is crumbled and thrown to the pigeons. Fresh
loaves, crusty and still warm, wave down taxis and punctuate conversation. Chocolatiers, boulongeries, patisseries and a fresh produce market are open for the morning. I wish to stop but I am caught and moved along in the stream of people, reverential and jovial, making their way along the ever narrowing cobblestone alleys toward
the twelfth-century Cathedral of the Holy Savior (Saint Sauveur), built atop the Roman forum. Cold as a skating rink inside, I shrug into my coat and wait for my eyes to adjust to the dark. Candles come into focus first, then rustic wooden pews, sans kneelers. A ceiling exists somewhere overhead for it blocks the sun, but
the candle’s illumination only reaches so high. I wonder if Jonah’s perspective was the same. After mass, beggars recline on the steps holding tin cups aloft. Old women in kerchiefs and children in dirty jeans, and one man with a scarf around his head, enfants quatre, faim his hand-made sign reads, four children, hungry. But
the Roma are everywhere and masters of disguise. Drop a two-euro coin into a child’s cup and risk being mugged, even in a crowd in front of a church. I walk away guilty and safe. Paul’s boulongerie is still open and crowded but service is speedy. Cookie bunnies hop into the middle of crème filled éclairs. Apricot tarts gleam under
glass. Pain au chocolat, crispy, flakey, and rich, eaten beside a fountain and beneath a sixteenth-century bell tower, in the sunlit place de la Marie is, as the Master Card commercial says, priceless. A three-piece band plays the Rolling Stones and sings in English.
The Cours Mirabeau begins with the La Rotonde fountain and ends with the Magical Menagerie carousel. No prancing horses on this one; sea creatures, a grasshopper, and dinosaurs give les enfants a circular view of this end of town.
An artisan fair lines the cours. Leather purses, milled soaps hacked in chunks from slabs and wrapped in paper, herbs, cheese, jewelry, linens and cheap sunglasses fill tables draped with striped fabric. Crêpe vendors compete with cafés. Smear mine with Nutella,
s’il vous plaît. Smart cars park sideways with their noses to the street. Motorbikes drive on the sidewalk. Children and dogs are well behaved, though only les chiens poop on the street. Flame roasted lamb at Bastide de Cour, rosemary potatoes and warmed fresh cherry tomatoes still clinging to a segment of vine. Vin rouge,
of course, Lacoste, a local and favorite wine. Santé! A sweet Calisson for dessert, almond paste mixed with Grand Marnier, boat shaped and covered in fondant. A second glass of wine. C’est bon!!
Lundi, (Monday) Cassis, enfin et surtout (last, but not least).
Once again I have a cold walk in the dark to the train station. This time I wait on the platform squinting behind my shades into a rising white sun. Cassis is only twenty minutes from Marseilles, but I want to make the most of this final day. The view from the
train is much the same as my previous journeys, except for the white stone mountains that interrupt the land, except for that turreted castle with the blue tiled roofs, except for the camouflaged commandos with machine guns and a camera crew in the station at Marseilles. Drugs, Roma, or National Security? They board my train, my car. A
young man changes seats often. A plain clothed policeman follows. An altercation near the toilet pods, well lit by the camera crew’s lights. I relax in my seat as the train slows into the station. La mer is nowhere in sight as I step down into Cassis. My guidebook has primed me for a thirty-minute walk down hill. More vineyards,
here they are rimmed by low, gray stonewalls and silvery leaved olive trees. My scalp tingles from the intensity of the sun and I cross to a shadier side of the road. After ten minutes the gentle path drops suddenly into palm trees, and rooftop patios. My shins feel the strain and my feet slide forward in my shoes. After twenty minutes, I
can go no further without a rest, but I can smell the ocean and know that it is near. The cafés are open but still quiet. A garçon wearing a blue apron and dark mustache serves me a basket of croissants and a deeper, shallow cup of coffee. In the intense sunlight the edges of the dark pool glow reddish brown against the white
ceramic cup; a lighter shade of tar that elevates the delicate croissants. The path that I have just descended inclines on my right, the port beckons on my left, and a cool breeze teases from behind. I am squinting behind my dark lenses and the day is ticking away.
Small yachts, of red, blue, yellow, green and white, nod on their moorings along the quai. I form a question in my head: Quelle est la longeur de votre yacht? Fathers tear hunks of bread from warm loaves and feed them to their kids who wait open-mouthed
with their sandaled feet dangling in the water. Beach stones the colors of Provence: honey, pink, and terracotta form smooth finger smiles in my pocket. Cap Canaille, Europe’s highest maritime cliff drops 1,200 feet straight down. Les Calanques, coves cut into the white stone cliffs by water and time, are accessible only by
sea and foot. I opt for sea access; Cousteau’s seductive voice rises from memory and narrates my tour. Tiny sail boats bob and slide to shore on purple and blue-green waves. Nude sunbathers stand on the rocks to greet them. My question is answered. Even when expected it’s a bit of a surprise.
Weather beaten men, white haired and dangling cigarettes from parched lips play Pétanque, tossing the heavy metal balls in the dust beneath palm trees. By late afternoon, when the sun has dipped below the palm frond’s protection, sun scorched women and adolescent men
are allowed to join in. Resting on benches in the shade, the experts point with their ash tipped smokes and scowl. A sea urchin vendor, a black and white mime, Pizza, at La Girondale, a café in a cave beneath the street, cool, dim and painted the color of glowing embers. Goat cheese, spicy Corsican sausage, and black olives, and
vin blanc, eaten under the stare of an amiable blonde pooch. A mosh pit crowd has formed outside the glace stand at the end of the street. As the English say, the French don’t know how to cue. Three more flavors of glace, Nutella, Cassis berry, and Pina Colada. Thumb up to order one scoop, first finger to order two.
Mmm, Nutella. C’est bon!!! |