Moving On

Since I last wrote I have been through a whirlwind of activity. I decided to leave the comfortable womb like warmth of Dordogne, with its rich foods and eclectic history, and I have bulled my way through some incredible cities. I visited Toulouse, Carcassonne, Nimes, Avignon, Marseilles, Dijon, Venice, and Florence. Wow. 2 weeks of intense travel.

Carcassonne is basically the quintessential mediaeval castle. Eugene Viollet-le-Duc, France’s architect extraordinaire of the 19th century, rebuilt the castle. My hostel was literally placed inside of the old and sprawling city walls. Its ramparts have hundreds of hidden archer slits and holes for dropping hot pitch and large head crushing stones. There was no one else in the hostel except for a pilgrim who walked from a cathedral in Spain, and a class of young children learning Occitan, a traditional language of the south of France and north of Spain. So, of course, I ended up sharing a few beers with him in the only bar that was open before tourist season. We played soccer with a 9 year old and then snuck into the quartered off parts of the ramparts at night.

At Nimes I visited the best preserved amphitheatre in the world, it is now used for bullfights and concerts. It also has one of the best preserved Roman temples, Maison Carre. Right across the way is a new building by Norman Foster which makes for a strong juxtaposition of the ancient and the modern. That night I met two Japanese guys, who were really surprised to meet a white guy speaking Japanese to them in France. We spoke a mélange of Japanese, French, and English to understand each other; my mind has never been so schizophrenic. We decided to go to Pont du Gard, outside of Nimes, to visit that great Roman aqueduct the next day – which also happened to have many bories strewn about it.

In Avignon, home of the papacy for over a hundred years around the 1200’s, it was more history like Nimes, but there was no one to speak with which made it less fun. This combined with a really crummy hostel which took me over an hour to walk to made me kind of bummed out, but it was still fun to walk around the papal palace. The next day I went to Marseilles where I met Sandra again and visited with her parents for a few days. It was nice to relax after hectic traveling, plus it gave me an opportunity for good food, wine, champagne, and the opportunity to wash smelly clothes. Sandra’s parents were great people, very nice to me, and they had an exceptionally tasteful house. It was furnished with impressionist paintings, African sculpture, large well bound literature, and lots of good music. They were more than happy to explain everything to me, including the head of a 600lb Marlin.