Festival Avignon

7-9 July

If the Official Avignon Festival, known as IN, has a large range of performances to choose from and a booking office, the unofficial festival, known as OFF, has an enormous, totally overwhelming and exciting range of theatre and shows for which you turn up 20 minutes in advance and queue for your tickets. We think we may have been lucky to have been there in the first few days, as word of mouth is the advertising medium and we were in the vanguard if spectators. We hardly queued at all, in a French sense ( do remember that I queued 30 minutes for a cooked chicken at a market in Marseilles. And let us not even envision for a second the post office visits) and our range of shows was amazing, fascinating and not a dud among them. We went to 8 shows in 2 days (and one the night we arrived). Ranging from serious theatre to Le Malade Imaginaire, sort of, done with puppets, Rossini’s L’Italienne à Alger in about an hour an a quarter, a Cabaret of chansons engagées (songs which incite revolt, I guess), and even a French resident Belgian taking off the Belgians.

Joëlle, arriving from Antwerp at Avignon TGV railway station and I from Cornillon,via Clelles, Grenoble, and Valence to Avignon Centre station, took roughly the same time to cover the distance and arrived within minutes of each other at the Ibis Hotel, which is barely 100 metres from the station (Centre). We had a lucky break to start with, as Joëlle is involved with theatre in Belgium (teaching drama among other things) and knew one of the people involved in a play, which was why she had decided to make the trip. Xavier met us both before and after his performance and gave us leads for plays (or spectacles) that sounded worthwhile already. This helps, when the programme is almost 300 pages, (800 plays, if I recall correctly), arranged in Venues by the hour.

We were also lucky to have the name of La Trappe, a play directed by Marian Waddington. Marian is Madeleine’s daughter, who was once my pupil, (1979!) and she has been involved in the Avignon festival for quite some time. We both enjoyed the performance very much. What horrified us what that the set has to be put away in about 5 minutes after the play to be ready for the next one. Quite a task.

With the photos I have tried to capture the atmosphere. There are lots of people, loads of restaurants and cafés, music, advertisements or posters everywhere, people approaching you in restaurants and on the street to give you their handout – all very professionally printed.

One play that impressed us both was called Mobylette, which was technically a conversation between a mechanic and his son, a writer for the theatre, as they reassembled a scooter. But it was a meeting of two worlds, a forming of the theatre, as all the conventions of theatre were broken one by one. We sat in a horseshoe, with the stage in the centre but the writer, his actors and even the lighting technician ( a girl) wound their way through the audience, or sat with them or interacted with them, as required. The person acting the writer explained to the father how they could change the rules of theatre (NOT like following the manual and putting piece number A87923 into piece N40698.) The real writer was also able to engage with scene or audience from time to time. It’s hard to put into words but it all worked extremely well. If I was working with adolescents I would certainly want to try this method. The audience ranged from about 5 years old to MUCH older and, I kid you not, EVERYONE was engaged with the play ALL the time. Eyes on the acting, no fidgeting, not coughing, just full attention.

Avignon is a lovely backdrop for the festival and we did a bit of wandering there. We changed hotels the last night to the Hotel Central, where Julian, Susan, Warwick and I had stayed last time. This had the benefit of being cheaper but is not why we changed. We could have stayed where we were if someone had told someone and the message had been passed on to us. Oh well, this is France. I guess it just wasn’t their job.

If you had maybe thought of going to the Avignon festival, the OFF is an amazing experience. We thought that the three nights we had were great. Long enough to really get into the swing of it. And yet it was okay the last morning to be moving on. Five stars.

Photos at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/101628277989220379025/Avignon

Terre Vivante

L’écologie pratique

For the gardeners only, really

This centre just out of Mens is open from April to October to demonstrate practical ways of living which ‘respect the planet’. Organic gardening, ecologically-interesting building materials, sound use of energy and water. They also sell organic food at their café and have a shop with books and other material to help people wanting to go down this road. They have published many books in the last 25 years and their quarterly magazine Les Quatre Saisons is very popular in France.

I took a whole lot of photos and haven’t culled them as I usually do, on the grounds that gardeners are interested in a variety of things and you don’t really know what you are interested in until you see it. Picasaweb has a little magnifying glass which allows you to zoom in if you want to read something or have a closer look. I haven’t labelled anything much.

The parsley photos are because most of the parsley here looks like celery plants. This photo proves that the curly variety grows well too. There are even parsnips growing at Terre Vivante. Parsnips are a forgotten vegetable here. People that know them like them, but these people are rare.

Photos at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/101628277989220379025/TerreVivante

Their web site (in French): http://www.terrevivante.org/

Le Trièves

2-7 July

Just a name before. Now a whole world. Massive country but with lots of interesting detail. Le Trièves. I’ve included loads of photos on the grounds that this is not a well-known part of France, even for the French and I want you to get the feel of it. It’s just across the mountains from Le Vercors, which people have heard about, and not too far from Briançon, which tends to feature in the Tour de France but it’s almost a secret world and just wonderful. I approached it by train from Grenoble, and you will see some of my photos taken from the train. Not the best quality but a fantastic first view.

I want to acknowledge the extreme kindness of my host, Claude, a friend of a friend, who by email offered me a tent at the end of his garden, which sounded like a dream, and the use of his facilities. But this summer has been really unpredictable, and instead of the usual stable fine weather, each night it looked as if it might rain, and Claude slept on a small mattress on his kitchen floor while giving me his bed. I really do hope he comes back to New Zealand so that I can return the hospitality.

Claude lives in a hamlet called Cornillon-en-Trièves, nearest station Clelles, nearest town, Mens. His apartment is in the Mairie, which is open twice a week for several hours - in this little hamlet with no shops or other facilities. He has the most wonderful dog, Nino, who accompanies him everywhere. Claude is establishing an organic nursery about 10km away. This is where I picked shallots, turnips and raspberries one afternoon for the people he shares the land with. They sell the (organic) veges at the market and make the fruit into jam, also sold at the market. The land and their house are behind what they call the Baraque des Bourgeois, the dump belonging to the rich people – an enormous house with a swimming pool, used by a Parisian family who come down for a while in the summer. Fortunately it has enormous cool, dark storage areas underneath, which are ideal for turnips over the summer, for example. They will sell some each week.

I was really keen to see La Terre Vivante, a organic gardening centre, which is not far from Mens. I’ll deal with that separately, for the gardeners amongst you, but I spent an entire afternoon there, wandering around my past (the gardening part -grandfather, father, aunts and ourselves) and the future – reticulation of water, insulation of houses, generation and use of energy.

One evening we had a real barbeque at a friend’s place – an English girl called Naomi who works at La Terre Vivante and her French husband or companion, Sam. It was great out in this massive scenery, in the setting sun (I gather the sun can set twice at their place, as it moves out from behind the hill it had set behind!). Thanks, Naomi! I even did a crumble as an offering, using organic nectarines and apricots and flakes of 5 grains, also organic. Naomi and Sam have done a fabulous job of Stage 1 restoration/refitting of an old stone house and are part way through stage 2. I hope to see it in its finished state one day.

I enjoyed walking around the hamlet of Cornillon-en-Trièves, which has its own little chateau with chapel. In the far distance there were always alps or the last line of pre-alps while the areas I walked in were extremely varied, from cereals ready to be cut (over-ready, some of them), to maize only just started, grass to cut or already sitting in rolls in the paddocks, green forested tracks like the ones near Françoise’s in Brittany and open roads, really old houses and farms in various states of repair and brand new ones, with a regional touch to them.

Claude took me to all the local places, as the hamlet is isolated if you have no transport. Mens has a small museum, with a mixture of interesting offerings. The photos I’ve included are of early tools and a model of the typical farmhouses of the region. I also walked around Mens, both in the central area, near the fountains and covered market, and on the edges where there are more modern ‘suburbs’. The unusually shaped jutting-out roof has a pulley suspended from the top, which is how they got the hay up there, and the houses also have a typical form on the wall just under the roof, which serves as insulation and to keep the birds out. There’s a photo of that too. It is made of tiles and painted.

I seem to have neglected to photograph the café that we went to on several occasions, with people from Terre Vivante, where Claude used to work. It was a lovely old café (early XVIII) which had paintings dating from the end of the 19^th century on the walls and cherubins on the ceiling. You could sit outside instead and watch the world go by, especially lots of combined-harvesters (moissonneuse-batteuse in case you’ve always wanted to know) going along the narrow road the days I was there.

Anyway, let the photos speak, I say.

Photos at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/101628277989220379025/LeTriVes

Paris II

28 June-2 July

Part 1: Paris with Hilary

The Marseilles-Paris TGV does the whole trip in about 3 hours. From Aix-en-Provence, it is non-stop. Knowing that Madeleine would be at Roissy airport when the train arrived gave me the opportunity to see Rachid for a few hours and share some of his excellent mint tea, not to mention a fantastic orange cake à la Rachid. Merci, Rachid!

Madeleine texted me when she and Hilary Capper had arrived home, after a two-hour wait at Roissy. Great to see them both again. My main mission was to be French-speaking guide to Hilary, who wanted to see some of the paintings in Paris, particularly the impressionists, or at least as much as could be seen in the two days available. I also wanted to go to the bank to do things that could only be done in person. Hilary had the dubious pleasure of waiting in an armchair in the very lovely bank building at 2, Place de l’Opéra, before we set off to explore the local streets, intending to go to the Musée d’Orsay.

Life is never always as planned, however, and thank goodness. Passing through the area of the Louvre we noticed there was virtually no queue and it would have been negligent to merely pass by. Tickets bought, bags stashed, we were ready to do our thing. Perhaps a cup of coffee? (Since we had already done quite a lot that morning.) But wait! Are those prices correct? Check. Check again. Yes! For 6€60 we could have a pretty large plate of buffet-style salads, with a huge selection of both protein and vegetables. And NO QUEUE! So we did. And we attribute to this meal not only our enjoyment of the whole day but the additional pleasures of being able to have a really nice meal in a prime tourist area for an excellent price.

The Louvre is huge, even with certain sections closed on various days, and you can only do, or take, so much. My preoccupations in the past have been more with antiquities than impressionists and I took as much delight in being shown the details of some of the techniques by Hilary, as she took in actually being there and seeing all these wonderful paintings. So win/win on that one, and thank you, Hilary.

Even on a mission one can only do so much. We were there for the closure of the Louvre at 6pm and walked alongside the Seine towards the bateaux-mouches (tourist boats). It was with some relief that we sat down and waited for the departure of our boat, which was about 7.30pm, so still light but not full afternoon sun. These boat rides are well worth the money and give you a perspective that cannot be gained from walking. The commentary is usually hard to hear, even if you follow 3 or 4 of the languages, but you can usually pick up something you didn’t know before. It’s good to be able to take in the façades of the buildings on both sides of the Seine at once.

The next part of the evening, the getting-home bit, would have been really easy. A direct line to Nation, Madeleine’s station, mostly raised above street level, so that it would be a sort of sightseeing trip too. But no. First station there’s some problem with the doors. We wait. Nothing. We wait. Nothing. We wait. We are told to get out. We wait. Then I decide to go back to the previous station and take a different line. We do this. We run like mad to actually get on the train, which stops halfway down the station. As it is an RER it will be much quicker than the metro. But no. It dawdles, it goes slowly, it messes around, it chugs along. It reaches a station, starts off again and does the same thing. There is some problem with the train system tonight. We finally reach Austerlitz and walk to the Gare de Lyon. Will we walk the 20-30 minutes home from here or risk a train? We risk a train. I think it is here that a saxophone player in the Metro Station enlivens our evening. Good on him! Luckily we have a cellphone, so Madeleine is not tearing her hair out. Luckily we ate copiously and well at midday, so our entrails are not shouting for help. Luckily we arrive at Nation without further delay. A very late dinner that night!

Madeleine’s daughter, Claire, rings the next day to tell us that Christ’s College choir are singing in Notre-Dame at 11am. We hurry up. Can we make it? And which Christ’s College, anyway? We make it. And it is ‘our’ Christ’s College, who sing a moving and beautiful hymn in Maori. Followed by a series of beautiful hymns, songs and chants for about half an hour, during which time at least three of the boys faint gracefully and exit quietly. We speculated about a tummy bug or lack of sleep.

On with our quest. This time the Musée d’Orsay is definite and this time there is a queue. And a long one. We take our places and move relatively quickly. Baggage x-rayed and we are IN. We opt for some visiting but after a couple of hours hunger and fatigue make their presence felt and we search out the food and rest department. Food not very interesting and a LONG queue. Which we join. Somewhat rested and refreshed we take up the quest again. There’s SO much to see, we fear we may have to give up before the end but we actually see all we want to see before the museum closes. Bravo, us!

We meet Madeleine at the Aussie Pub but it is a bit noisy for our state of mind and there’s a lot to see in the area. We take to the streets, partly to show Hilary the sights, partly in search of a restaurant. Eventually, (in the Marais by now), after being pretty picky about the location, the amount of noise, the menu and the size of the restaurant, we found the perfect restaurant for our needs. In the food line it exceeded our expectations and value for money was excellent. So here’s the plug for it: Etamine Café, 13, rue des Ecouffes, 75004 Paris. Metro: St Paul
www.etamine-cafe.com

Next morning was Hilary’s departure on the Eurostar train for London. We prudently left early for the Gare du Nord. Even from Nation it takes a fair while to get there. Be generous when estimating the time it will take you to travel across Paris to make a connection. You can always have an extra cup of coffee if you’re far too early!

Part 2: Paris after Hilary

Paris after Hilary was still at full speed. Rachid had managed to get tickets for a play in a real Parisian theatre. But before we went to the play we had a fabulous walk around the area, a new one for me but which very familiar to Rachid, as this was where he had spent his first years after arriving in Paris. He took us around the building, his first home here, as it were, and even managed to show us the exact area he had lived in, even though it is now altered. The building dates back to the end of the 19^th century at the latest, a YMCA, with gymnasium and even a wooden, cambered velodrome (very small but obviously workable), around a mezzanine of the gym. In 1893, the first game of basketball in Europe was played here. Imported from the USA. Of equal interest to this traveller to the Cévennes (Alzon) is the plaque showing that the first meeting of the Cevenol Club in Paris took place there in 1895. It is almost certain that this was a Protestant group, as the Cévennes and Haut-Languedoc had emerged from persecution but were obviously a minority in Paris.

Our play was called La soeur du Grec (The Greek’s Sister) and was very well acted. It was a comedy with a twist at the end and a lot of fun. We went walking again afterwards. One of the interesting things we came across was a community garden in a spot that had been wasteland. It is now a park with grass, play equipment and garden areas. The people working there chatted to us. They live in the nearby apartment blocks and have parts of the garden to tend to. The schools also take part. The whole seems to be a very successful community effort.

From there we walked beside a canal to find the Hotel du Nord, the setting of a popular novel and even more famous film of the same name of the late 1930s. To my great delight there was also a road bridge over the canal which pivots to let the barges past. However, it’s not easy to capture that in the photos. We ate at an amazingly cheap place in the area, with delicious dishes from the Ile Maurice, if I remember correctly.

The following day was Sunday, spent relatively quietly, with Jean-Marc coming to dinner after church and Madeleine, J-M and I later going to see the film Persépolis, the story of a spirited young girl in Iran from before the fall of the Shah until her final departure for France where she now lives. The story first appeared in 4 volumes of black and white bandes dessinées, (which I hesitate to call comics) and this year a screen adaptation, still under her direction, has appeared. It is brilliantly done and tells the story of a whole society from the eyes of a young girl. Not to be missed. For the non-French speakers, not to be missed if it comes out in a dubbed or subtitled version. You need the words. A very powerful film.

And that beautifully wrapped up my visit to Paris on this occasion.

Photos at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/101628277989220379025/ParisII

The Calanques

(from Marseille, 26 June)

Between Marseille and the town of Cassis to the east, along the coast, are the Calanques. The Massif des Calanques is the name given to the huge chalky hills whilst the Calanques themselves are narrow inlets with steep sides, worn away by water movement over the last 2 million years. The combination is impressive. Fishermen made these Calanques their base and had a safe harbour even in rough weather. The longest is 1.5km. Nowadays the fisherman’s cottages are mostly used as a holiday or weekend cottages. My photos are mostly of Callelongue. The coloured rubbish bins show that recycling is taken seriously at the pick-up points. And you will see that Jasper had a lovely walk!

Photos at

http://picasaweb.google.com/101628277989220379025/Calanques

Aix-en-Provence

(From Marseille)

The shuttle bus for Aix-en-Provence leaves every five minutes from a stop not far from The Gare St Charles at Marseille. Then it’s straight on up the motorway and in less than an hour you are in a quite different space. No cooling sea breeze means hotter, although in this rare summer where temperatures have been colder than normal, it was not unbearable.

It’s pleasant to meander through the old streets, and I was also on a quest – to see the natural history museum, which was reputed to have dinosaur eggs, from a site not too far distant. These I found, together with a display on Antarctica, a section on dinosaurs and an explanation on earthquakes and volcanoes, so for me a record speed for visiting a museum –tucked in just before the inevitable lunchtime closure – since all the rest of the museum was relatively familiar. If you are ever near Canberra, go to the Dinosaur museum not far away. It is a superb exhibition. However, you will find a photo of the dinosaur eggs in the photo album. And a fabulous door, 17^th century.

The ‘little train’ experience seemed attractive in the heat of the afternoon and it was good to recap where I had been earlier in the day and to hear the commentaries. I had in fact ventured much further than the old city, as on arrival I had taken a wrong turning, which led me into a shopping area, street market and blocks of flats, the modern face of Aix.

Last port of call for me was to be a quick look at the unusual (because small and has an outside door and was meant for lay people as well as clergy) cloister of the St-Sauveur. As the cloister is locked and all visits are guided, I waited the five minutes before the next tour. And waited. And waited. Once you’ve waited a certain time it seems stupid to give up, so I just waited, and eventually I did get in and the tales were interesting. If I got back later than I had thought I would, it didn’t matter, as the evenings are light and pleasant. This is the one one real advantage of travelling in the summer instead of the winter. You do have long days.

Photos at:http://picasaweb.google.com/101628277989220379025/Aix

Cows

Marseille

The summer collection of cows is rather amusing. I’m not sure what it is all about but it is fun, anyway. I only photographed a small number of them – as I came across them.

Photos at

http://picasaweb.google.com/101628277989220379025/Cows

Marseille

21 - 27 June

From Alzon, Arlette drove me to Marseille, over Marseille (the motorway we were on has viaduct across the centre) and through to the other side of Marseille, to a beautiful suburb, full of greenery, and not far from the beach. Not that we made it that far – there was too much else to see. Arlette’s apartment is on the 8^th floor, with a magnificent view in every direction. Because the trees in this area are fairly high, most of the buildings are hidden from view, even three-storey ones and the shopping centre. The forest is absolutely ideal for walking Jasper and we spent many very pleasant hours on various tracks with this wonderful, gentle animal.

This was my first visit to Marseille and there was everything to see, starting with Notre-Dame de la Garde, visible from everywhere and illuminated at night. It’s just been renovated, with lots of gold-leaf overhead, so that the interior is as stunning as the views from outside. Impossible to catch on a camera and even the postcards didn’t do it, so you’ll just have to believe me.

Actually, we probably started with the stunningly colourful markets, where we both queued for half an hour – Arlette for veges and me for chicken. The patience of the French in these situations is quite beyond my comprehension. I’m sure I would never queue for so long in NZ. Every time I queue in a Post Office it seems to take about half an hour, too – but I’m off track here. One of the first things we did was to go to an exhibition (or museum?) of Provençal dress. This was interesting in itself and all the more so because it was occupation which distinguished the dress, rather than location, as in Brittany. Thus, the fishermen and their women dressed in one way, the people of the land (I really mean paysans here) differently, sellers of snails, washerwomen…differently again.

In the old port area, which seems very tourist-orientated, while at the same time being functional for the inhabitants, we took a ferry across from one side to the other. That as fun! It just goes in a straight line, more or less. From there we were able to take Le Petit Train (the little train) on a jaunt which we left at the top of the hill so that we could see the Centre de la Vieille Charité. This is a 17^th-18^th century centre for the homeless, vast in concept and execution, with three stories around a large courtyard and a church in the centre. The church has an elliptical dome, so if you think the photos are at an odd angle, it’s not that. Arlette bought me a recipe book here, of simple Provençal recipes, so wait for it when I get home! We made our way down on foot, past places that had once had windmills, past some really old buildings, past outlets for the marvellous Marseilles soap which is now also available in tubes and other modern formats and past many wonderful viewpoints.

Another very interesting place is the Museum of Marseilles History and the Garden of Ruins (Jardin des Vestiges). The latter used to be a park but people destroyed bits of it so it is now part of the Museum. You can walk around this old Roman port and visualise the activity.
These photos are at: http://picasaweb.google.com/101628277989220379025/Vestiges.
When you get to the photos, the big patch of lawn is where the water was and the road you can see (in big paving stones) is a Roman one. The history museum takes you from Neolithic to the Middle Ages. There is even a wreck of a Greek ship from the 6th Century BC, which is being preserved as I write, although I am not sure by what method. You can sort of see it, in the semi-darkness, but it doesn’t seem to be the same process as is being used for the one in Wellington. The museum itself is housed at ground level in a modern shopping centre, which may seem a little out of place but in fact works very well.

Basilique St-Victor goes back to the 5^th century, or at least the earliest parts of it (the crypt(s) do. It is quite an amazing feeling to be in a place where people worshipped so long ago. It has been highly fortified over the centuries. Just along the road we bought some special boat-shaped biscuits, flavoured with orange-blossoms. Called navettes to commemorate the legendary arrival of some saints in Provence. Great views from this area.

It was really great to meet Laurent and Thérèse, who came to dinner just before I left. Laurent is Arlette’s grandson, about the same age as Julian, and has wanted to come to New Zealand for some time. He has a sheaf of papers to show for his research. I was able to point him n a few direstions but he has really done his homework. Both are very physically active people and had spent the weekend windsurfing, so should enjoy Wellington. Their idea is to come for maybe a year and both work and travel. So, NZers, expect to meet this lovely couple within the next couple of years.

Photos at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/101628277989220379025/Marseilles

Montpellier

19 June

I have to say that despite the picturesque nature of Montpellier and the relative heat of the day (something rare so far this ‘summer’), I spent much of my time in the Musée Fabre, which has an excellent collection of art. One of the best in Europe, they say. But they would. It has just been refurbished, together with a new wing and a new entrance hall and had a special exhibition of Impressionist paintings that had been gathered in from American art galleries. In the early days of Impressionism, when sensible people wanted nothing to do with it, visiting Americans bought up large and the country now has a fabulous collection as a whole, largely gifted by the descendants of these buyers.

I took a break for lunch in one of the many open air restaurants which manage to feed multitudes from a miniscule kitchen. It’s the green one, if you are looking for it in the photos. You can read the word SNACK. I did, however, have a proper meal. The group of 9 NZers who I met on the way out went to the one behind it, on the right of the picture. We are travellers, NZers.

Other than that I wandered the narrow but picturesque streets of the central area, went into the Tourist info place by the great big huge square where the two trams are (La Place de la Comédie – the theatre) and stopped by at a shopping mall that could be anywhere, but does have a shop called JULES. (It’s part of a chain). And resisted buying stuff that would just weigh me down.

On the way home we passed by Pic St Loup, a most extraordinary mountain peak. See photos.

Photos are at

http://picasaweb.google.com/101628277989220379025/Montpellier

Alzon

16- 21 June

It’s always something to travel to the other side of the world but to get to the exact antipodes of Waitangi, on Chatham Island, has a fairly remote air about it. However, Alzon is not as remote as the Chathams and only took an afternoon from Toulouse, via Rodez and Millau. There are some photos taken from the train and bus in the web album.

Martine and Arlette were both there to meet me, people who were last at my place not all that long ago. Arlette had just received the news that her second great-grandchild had arrived. Antoine. The trip from Millau to Alzon takes you up the hill, over the plains (causses) and around the corners through the forest and there you are, in a pretty little village with not very many inhabitants but a fountain, church and Mairie, as one would expect. With a backdrop of forest.

I stayed at Arlette’s place (though her real home is in Marseille, of which more later), with a window looking out over the stream. Nearly all the houses in Alzon are old, picturesque or both. Arlette’s is both. With Jasper the dog for company, I was well set up.

The Sunday after my arrival the elections for deputies were on – the last in the series of things that happen during elections here. The whole village plus others that have comeback to the village to vote from there all turn up to the Mairie to take their two pieces of paper from which they will choose one. No ticks or crosses here but still heaps of ways to invalidate a vote. Like writing on it who you’d really like, or in fact writing anything on it. How I know this is that at 6pm or so we all gathered in the Mairie while the votes were counted. This was a very official process, with three people (of which one was Martine) counting the votes as they were called out. One person to take the envelope out of the ballot box, another to open the envelope into which people had put their folded paper, handing the paper to the Mayor and the Mayor reading out the person chosen. Every 10 votes for one person meant a check-point but luckily all our people reached the number at the same time. Bingo!

In Alzon, as for the country at large on election night, there was a 53-47 split. Then we had to wait for the results to come in from outlying communes, and that turned the tide a bit but I don’t remember the numbers any more. I do remember that champagne was shared that night and that about half the village was NOT happy.

For the midday meal, we went to a restaurant in Le Vigan, the nearest town and where the kids go to high school. Rémi and Dédé feature in the photos but you may also be able to see in one of them the Thalassa documentary on New Zealand that was playing in the background!! By chance. Note also the photo of the nearest thing I have ever seen to a pavlova. Same taste and texture, different form, being baked in a dish.

For the rest of the time I just ‘lived’. I really enjoyed seeing the gardens. This year the winter was exceptionally warm and gardens are weeks ahead of themselves. The gardens are all more-or-less in one area and well sited for the sun and shelter. Even if people (like Arlette) don’t live there all the time, the garden is still well tended. Arlette’s daughter and son-in-law spent a day there weeding on their way back to Montpellier when I was in Marseille. We planted lettuces, picked raspberries, strawberries and currants and even did a little bit of weeding.

I took Jasper down to Bernadette’s sheep farm, where the sheep are milked for the Société of Roquefort, that very beautiful, creamy blue cheese. Bernadette has been to NZ twice and we are always pleased to see each other. There’s a picture of her picking cherries for us from a ladder but sorry – her smiling face is turned away.

Annie from Le Vigan, who had visited us in NZ when her daughter lived in Nelson paid a flying visit before she left for Paris. Françoise Galliot, whom some of you will remember, also invited me to dinner and we had a wonderful ‘light’ meal, starting with melon and local ham.

I made my pilgrimage to Le Vigan, as I love the little museum there. I love the windows that show you how a different way of life grew out of the type of rock your village was situated on (granite, schist or limestone). I also love the 13^th century bridge next door which you will find more pictures of in the photo selection.

On this visit, I realised that just at the time when we were starting to clear forests for farms, the forest at Mt Aigoual were being replanted. They had been totally cut out by various land users-peasants who wanted to grow cereals, shepherds who wanted pasture, wood for the fires of the glass factories and for general usage. But when the rains came –disaster. Flooding in the valleys and the plains. In the 1850s, 60s and 70s more and more progress was made and nowadays the forest is a vast sponge for the inevitable rains.

I hadn’t realised either that the silk factories had been working so recently. Started in the XIII century with the weaving of material, continuing in the XIVth now with the production of silk from silkworms, silk production reached its height in the XIX century and slowly declined. It was not until 1964 that the last factory closed. And only this year that the stocking factories which were its legacy will be shifted or closed.

The stationery shop at Le Vigan, run by François and Dominique Courtin, who also came to NZ , were just in the throes of a final sale, as they have sold the business and are going to manage two gites (holiday cottages) that they have set up in a hamlet above Alzon. They will probably get most of their clients in the summer but they are actually going to be open all year. They’ve converted an old farm and its outbuildings into living quarters for themselves, a 2 bedroom gite and a 4 bedroom gite. At 540 and 640 euros per week they are not cheap but do offer something pretty special in terms of getting away from it all.

Oh, and I got my hair cut (etc) at Le Vigan too. Everybody thought it looked much better. As it should.

On the way back we ventured into the hills where there are some lovely little villages, some in excellent repair.

For my day in Montpellier, see Montpellier.

and for most of the photos, see

http://picasaweb.google.com/101628277989220379025/Alzon

TER trains

There’s no doubt that the fast trains like the TGV get you there in a time that is scarcely credible and certainly they make air travel far less necessary than in NZ. But for shear enjoyment of the journey, the regional TER system works really well. Small, modern units, with different kinds of seating – and I don’t mean classes, though I think there is a First Class section. Different levels, facing forward, facing backward, facing each other, facing into the middle of the corridor. Your choice. They travel at a moderate speed, so that you have a chance to see the scenery; they make train noises (though they screech a little around tight corners), compared with the TGV; they service shorter distances, so stop more often with the result that you get more of the feel of the place; and they have quite amazing toilets, with water and stuff (soap! paper towels!) and adapted for the handicapped, so spacious.

When I said ‘small’ above, I meant only two to four units, rather than the ubiquitous 10 or 20 on the faster trains. TERs service a region, so probably a trip is a maximum of three to four hours. Perhaps Wellington to Palmerston North, or Wanganui. In Toulouse, our local train to Colombiers is a TER. It connects with the metro at the edge of the city proper and is faster than the bus, which also runs in parallel (but which stops more often). We took one from Nantes to Quimper in Brittany before changing to a bus, which really takes you into the little places. And again in the South-West, from Rodez to Millau, where I was collected for Alzon. From Grenoble to Clelles, where I am posting this from, the TER is like a scenic train, not quite Arthur’s Pass, but close. Bridges and tunnels and stunning huge scenery. I have to add here that my train was not a flash new one but we did stop and wait for one of those on a section of double track

So look forward to a TER trip on your next visit to France! It may not have the speed but it certainly gives you more of a look at the countryside.

A few more photos at
http://picasaweb.google.com/101628277989220379025/TERTrains

Toulouse Archives

Toulouse Archives Exhibition


Warning – don’t read this if you don’t like engineering stuff. But hang on, the man was a visionary. It’s okay, those with imagination can still read on.


Vauban finished it and marvelled at the work. Riquet died the year before, financially ruined. But what a visionary! Conceived down to the last detail so that it all ran smoothly for, say, 4 centuries. Yes, it’s the Canal du Midi. Rodney and I marvelled at the ladder of 7 locks at Béziers (used to be 9, too); Chris walks daily down the Canal de Brienne, which links into it, and the Archives of Toulouse had an exhibition about it and Pierre-Paul (de) Riquet (1609-1680), chief instigator and almost everything else. A man far ahead of his time – he provided excellent wages, housing for the workers, sick pay, paid days off, paid wet days –all unheard of in 17th century France.

The exhibition was a collection of letters and plans, from concept to execution. First, there is the idea. A canal to link the existing river (from Toulouse to the Atlantic coast) to the Mediterranean. Next you need water to be in constant supply, in the dry summers, so you find where the waters part (to the Atlantic and the Med), damn a river to make a huge lake in the mountains and put control gates on it. You also cut channels to ensure a constant supply of water to the damn and to the holding basin where the waters part. This is in parallel to the river systems and there will now be constant water downstream. Whew, water supply under control. Hang on, there’s quite a lot of up-and-down country here, so we need some tunnels to get through hills and some bridges to take the canal across valleys or other waterways and locks to deal with the gradual descents and the areas where there were or are waterfalls…

So far, so good. But wait! There are floods some years! The canal can’t ever overflow its banks, because it would then be a river and not a canal. So a very complex system of drains, with huge outlets and massive handles to open the drains is installed in strategic locations, out of sight and below water-level. Of course. How obvious! When you think about it. And somewhere to drain into as well. Yes, of course.

Now, if you’ve got a lock, you’ll have to have a lock-keeper. He’ll need a house. Not a big one but still a house to plan and build. And if you have horses to pull the boats, on account of engines not yet existing, you’ll need stables for the horses, near the lock-keeper’s cottage. Better plan and build those, too... Riquet seems to have thought out everything down to the last detail and worn himself out doing so, as he died not long before it was finished. Vauban didn’t really have much to do, which is probably why it looks like a canal and not a fort! What a man!
(Later: actually Vauban did do some very important additions. See later-La Montagne Noire)

Even the barges were designed to make the most use of the dimensions of this great canal. By, or in consultation with Riquet. Transport moves on, as we-who-took-boats-to-Europe know, but the Canal du Midi, after some repairs and restoration, lives again as a tourist waterway, for motorised barges or boats, its tow paths being used now by walkers and cyclists.

Sorry, no photos allowed, even without flash.
You can click on the poster to make it bigger. Or any photo for that matter.

But here’s a French site on Riquet
http://www.canalmidi.com/paulriqu.html