A week in Provence

From Malta we arrived back in Paris and couldn't resist staying overnight before heading south, to Provence and back to the Mediterranean.  For this visit we decided to experience Parisian suburban life and chose to stay in lovely Vincennes.  It is in eastern Paris and comes complete with its own Chateau de Vincennes and the beautiful, sprawling Bois de Vincennes.  In Vincennes you can blend in with the locals a little more than in the centre of Paris, and we knew that our French speaking skills must have improved considerably when we could (almost) keep pace with the butcher's conversation.  In fact, senor seems to have his 'bonjour' so perfect that not only is he often asked for directions, people often launch into conversation after him uttering only one word 'bonjour'!   The Vincennes butcher wanted to engage us on his take on the recent Tour de France and, without wanting to cause offence, tell us that Cadel was not his favourite rider.  I assured him no offence taken although, bien sur... Cadel was definitely our favourite!

There was time to jump on the metro to visit just one favourite sight in the city before a walk along the Seine and dinner on Ile Saint Louis. A visit to Sainte Chapelle late in the afternoon is magnificent. There is no queue at either the security point to enter the Palais de Justice nor the ticket window. Half an hour before closing time there were very few visitors at all, and then with just 10 minutes left before massive doors were bolted for the night I looked around to see that I had become Sainte Chapelle's solitary visitor.   At precisely 6.00pm the attendant appeared at the doors and pronounced, "Madames et Monsieurs, Sainte Chapelle est fermee!"  Seeing that there were no monsieurs and just one madame he walked toward me and said quietly in English "this is my favourite time of day in Sainte Chapelle, ze light is most beautiful.  You may take a minute."

There is a celestial-ness about standing alone in an empty Sainte Chapelle and seeing the last of the afternoon light illuminating its great stained glass windows and rose window, and the darkness gently covering its intricately sculptured and painted surfaces. Heavenly.

Quite beautiful

Nobody else.......just me.

Lyon was our overnight stay on the way to Provence. 24 hours is not nearly enough time to get to know this beautiful city, but it was enough time for us to hire two bicycles for a fast ride down the very steep and winding roads from Croix-Rousse where we were staying, to Lyon's UNESCO listed old town.

This is just one of over 100 painted buildings in Lyon.
Trompe-l'oeil - trick of the eye - it's difficult to determine
what is painted, what is real!

Lyon's night time illuminations make it a beautiful city for
an after dinner walk.

Lyon claims to be France's gastonomic heart and in Vieille Ville -
 old town Lyon - we found plenty of restaurants including
 traditional bouchons - inns serving Lyonnaise food.

In Provence we rented the top floor of a home in the ancient fishing village of La Ciotat.  It was the family home of 70 year old Alain who now lives 2 hours away in the Luberon.  Alain has a permanent tenant downstairs and rents upstairs to holidaymakers.  Five rooms and a large terrace overlooking the village and the sea was perfectly located - a short walk to the calanque and directly across the street to the local boulangerie. Yes, most days it was warm croissant for breakfast and fresh baguette for lunch.  

Saturday was market day and the waterfront around the little harbour and the centuries old maze-like streets surrounding it were bursting with produce, wares, and people carrying that icon of the French market, the couffin - market basket.  Without thinking about how I might get one home, I purchased our own lovely leather-handled couffin.  As I sling it over my shoulder I love how the fresh baguette pokes out the top.  

While it is a many centuries-old town, La Ciotat is famous for it's 'recent' history - the setting of the world's very first motion picture in 1895, and in the early 1900s France's national game 'petanque' was invented there.  All around Provence we saw (mostly) men playing petanque in the afternoon sunshine.

During our week at La Ciotat we swam in the calanques  (fjiord-like coves), drove along the cote d'azure to Cannes and St Tropez; ambled through the villages of Provence and the Luberon all the time considering which one we should retire to.  We marvelled at the spectacular Routes des Cretes, 'tasted' Provence in the cafes and restaurants, and noticed the subtle changing colours of the leaves in the vineyards.

After a glorious week in Provence the mistral blew into La Ciotat flapping the shutters and sending early falling autumn leave into eddys along the waterfront; it closed the Route des Cretes and literally blew us out of town and on to Carcassonne.  Frequently along the l'autoroute du soleil were signs 'vent violent' and 'soyez prudence'. The locals say that not only does the mistral blow the tourists away it also blows the chestnuts off the trees which makes for easy gathering.  An overnight stay in Carcasonne and then across the Pyrennees back into warm and sunny Spain.  

The spectacular view along the Routes des Cretes - the high road
between La Ciotat and  the lovely little port of Cassis, where we
swam at its fine sandy beach.

Routes des Cretes - a week after this photo high
winds closed this spectacular road.

Our favourite calanque at La Ciotat - calanque de Figuerolles.

La Ciotat cinema named after the Lumiere brothers.  La Ciotat was
the setting of the very first motion picture, filmed at the local train station in 1895.

A day trip to beautiful St Tropez.

St Tropez waterfront. 

Everywhere, the autumn sights
look like a Cezanne or a Van Gough view.

St Tropez petanque

Petanque in the dappled sunlight

A thrilling day trip up Mount Ventoux

The summit in sight

Breathtaking view from the top of Ventoux

In the Haute-Pyrenees we climbed where others had climbed before -
 this time Col de Tourmalet.  Lance on his bike, us in our car!

Down the Col de Tourmalet

The road to the Col du Tourmalet is the highest road in
the Pyrenees.

The finish line at the top of the Col - 2,100m.

Malta and Gozo

The reason we chose Malta was simple.  We were chasing the sun.  The UK had been predictably autumnal (read cool/damp) and we were sure that the summer sun lingered somewhere in the Mediterranean.  We figured that Malta's rich history, about which we knew very little, together with its sunshine and warm sea temperatures would provide a perfect combination for a 10 day visit.

The date of our departure from Paris Orly to Malta coincided with the end-date of our 6 month lease of Cecile de France, our lovely and reliable Citroen DS3. And it was two somewhat sad faces that delivered her to the Citroen dealer adjacent to Orly airport just prior to our Malta Air flight.   Cecile was not quite the same vehicle that we had collected in Paris six months earlier.  She had been on a grand adventure and had developed character as the odometer dial on her round dashboard face spun around 40.000 times; she had a small chip in her broad smiling windscreen (courtesy of a particularly bad Polish road); a minor scratch on her right side external mirror (collected when an unnamed driver steered her just a little too close to a 500 year old stone wall while trying to avoid an on-coming truck in an exceedingly narrow Italian village along the shores of Lake Como); she wore European footwear from three nations - one Greek replacement tyre, one Spanish replacement tyre and two original French ones.  She had carried two of us, sometimes three of us, and sometimes even four of us and our luggage safely through 17 countries. 'She was a good little car, that one!'  Au revoir, Cecile.

We found summer again in Malta.  From the moment the plane touched down and for the next 10 days it was sunny and hot.   Malta is an island of stone and rock.  Not a pretty island by an means, however it has a raw and rustic beauty together with a somewhat dilapidated charm. Its creamy yellow stone and rock sits in stark contrast to its sparkling blue surrounds. This tiny group of islands has a fascinating history.  Its strategic position, virtually in the centre of the Mediterranean Sea, means that it has had a tough life over the centuries.  It has been home to the Greeks, Romans, French, Normans, Arabs and most recently British.  When we read the quote "nothing is more well known that the seige of Malta' we thought we'd embark on a intensive history lesson.

In the early 1500s the Knights of St John of Jerusalem were 'given' the islands of Malta by Charles V of Spain. The Knights were a group of militant Christians made up of men from many European nations and they had been living on the island of Rhodes until Suleiman the Magnificent (the great Ottoman Sultan whose marble bathroom senor and I bathed in during our visit to Istanbul in June) sent his great galleys to invade Rhodes and drive them from the island.  A few decades later Suleiman decided that the little island of Malta should be his as it would provide him a convenient stepping stone to Italy and then all of southern Europe. So again he sent his galleys to drive the Knights from Malta.  The battle that ensued - the Great Siege when the Knights defended their little island against the might of the Ottoman empire - provided us with a rollicking good read and a fascinating insight into the history of Malta and its people.

An entertaining welcome of traditional music and instruments
 in the arrivals hall of Malta's Valetta airport.  A few nights
later senor and I were relaxing after dinner when we heard
the rousing sound of bagpipes.  I headed out to investigate and
found a wedding underway in a nearby garden.  There, in full
Scottish kit a bagpipe band was welcoming the bride and groom.
Turns out it was the same group that played at the airport when
we arrived.  They're called Jackson Family, and Edmond Jackson's
story to revive the traditional Maltese bagpipe - the zaqq - is
an interesting one.  I never through that we would hear bagpipes in  Malta!

Valetta is Europe's smallest capital city. It was built after the
great seige of 1565, and as a planned city was built in a perfect
grid of straight streets, designed to confuse any future invaders.
Sun on one side, shade on the other.

These overhanging, enclosed balconies are the iconic feature
of Maltese architecture - the Maltese balcony.

....the range of colours, styles and features seems limitless.

..and we took literally dozens of photos of them.

here are just a few more....

I love them.

Atop the bastion walls of the old noble city, Mdina.  We sat
at this cafe and watched Malta's annual air show

From Mdina, this is Malta

Mosta Dome from Mdina. 

We stayed in the garden apartment of Maria and Roger's beautiful
villa.  From their extensive garden they provided us with olives,
sun dried tomatoes, peach jam, pomegranates, olive oil and herbs.
Coincidentally, their next door neighbour is...

....the Australian High Commission!  How nice to see that flag
flying every day.

We spent a day on this wonderful Turkish gullet sailing around
and swimming in the coves and inlets of Malta and the islet of
Comino. Glorious swimming.  That's Gozo in the distance.

Swiss Airforce were in town for the Malta Airshow 2011

Swimming in San Pawl il-Bahar - St Paul's Bay.  It is believed that
this is where St Paul was shipwrecked, and where the foundations
of Christianity  began in Malta.

Valletta sits on a rocky finger of headland with a harbour on
either side.  These are the city walls, dome of the Carmelite Church
and St Paul's Anglican church spire.

Sliema harbour

Just a few minutes walk from our accommodation is the
grand Palazzo Paradiso and gardens - once the palatial home of
Maltese nobility.  We visited a number of times - dinner in the garden
on a warm Saturday night was a highlight. 

Shady lunch in Gozo's Square, St George's Basilica

Senor's favourite fish salad in all the Mediterranean.

Gozo from the bastion of the Citadel, Victoria, Gozo.

Dwejra Point, west coast of Gozo. Amazing
geological formations.

The Azure Window, Gozo

Pretty in pots, however the prickly pear cactus is rampant all over
Malta.  It some places it has taken over to the extent that
farmers use it as fencing between their paddocks - great long
'walls' of it.

Piazza Regina and National Library Biblioteca, Valetta.

The beautiful chandelier and vaulted ceiling of Caffe Cordina,
established in 1837.

Malta vintage bus.  These buses have only just been retired by
Malta's bus system and replaced with new modern buses, similar
to those seen in any city.  What a shame, although considering
 the condition of Malta's roads, how ever did they last so long?

During our stay with Maria and Roger they
harvested their olives, and this is the result.
Their green/gold  olive oil is just a few hours old -
unbelievably good!

Peaking through the clouds on our flight back to Paris is
Sicily's Mount Etna.