Belle France again

Its wonderful to be back in the French countryside. We arrived in France nearly two weeks ago, but our internet access has been almost non-existent – divided between MacDonalds or sitting outside the Uzes Tourism office using their free wifi! Strange that in Greece there are internet cafes everywhere you turn, but a little few and far between here in France. We have just arrived in Paris – had to push our plans forward a day to beat the train strike. The French are particularly grumpy right now about Sarkozi’s pension reforms!We have a week in an apartment here with Rita, and then it will back to the Languedoc to tie up more loose ends, and then time to start heading back to Greece. Its been an amazing trip and we’ve certainly covered a lot of ground, with my hundreds of photos to prove it.

So back to early days in France. 

 We spent 3 days in Menton, just inside the French/Italian border, and the subject of a few of my earlier paintings. In my mind its a more laid back town than the other large places on the Cote D'Azure and a perfect base for visiting Nice or Cannes. Unfortunately though after spending a very busy day in Monte Carlo I was struck down by a 24 hour bug and didn’t get to do much visiting of anything!

Monte Carlo was great though and I was, as usual, totally awestruck by the size and number of opulent boats in the harbour there. A very large Boat Show was just finishing up, so that probably attracted even more boats than usual, and just to really rub it in, when we left the Menton area and headed into St Tropez for lunch a couple of days later, lo and behold there was a regatta underway and with even more boats. I must say, I am beginning to wonder just how many more of the damned things can fit into these small harbours around the Med – as you can see in the St Tropez pic here, you can barely see the buildings.

 

Next stop was a week in an apartment in Uzes which worked well as a base for visiting the westernmost parts of Provence. One little highlight of that stay was the visit to the Haribo lolly factory (makers of jelly bears etc) where Rita and I left armed with various bags of goodies – at least I don’t have to take mine in a suitcase to Australia! We also spent time in Arles, Nimes, L’Isle sur la Sorgue, St Remy de Provence, Aigues Morte and visited Pont du Gard.

Our apartment in Uzes was in the Place aux Herbes – 3 floors up overlooking the square where there was a huge market on the Saturday. Our evening entertainment was the masses of starling-like birds which congregated each evening on the roof of the church outside the kitchen window – they arrived in small groups and assembled all along the roof as the numbers grew, and then when everyone had arrived ..... whoosh they'd all start squawking and take off en masse to the plain trees just outside our bedroom windows in the square where they faffed about and squawked until they’d settled in for the night (unless of course One was a little noisy when One was closing One's shutters..... and then boom.... the sky would darken as they flapped around and squawked before settling in again!

Needless to say I have masses of photos of these all wonderful places, so check out my online photo site http://picasaweb.google.com.au/jackiesinfrance
More soon about the Languedoc and Paris