PROVENCE AND THE HOLIDAYS

When we filed our previous dispatch, we were leaving chilly southwest France for sunny Provence.  That would be our final landing spot before meeting up with our three children for the French holidays.

 

Aix-en-Provence: Flower market in City Hall Square.

Before going to Provence, though, we briefly visited two cities on the Mediterranean coast.

MONTPELLIER AND MARSEILLE

Traveling by train from the old walled city of Carcassonne, we arrived in Montpellier on a bright late-November day that was a welcome harbinger of things to come.  The city was a port in the Middle Ages, but its harbor silted up in the 16th century.  Nonetheless, Montpellier’s proximity to the sea and nice climate attract many visitors.  The city has beautiful parks and monuments, a lovely old quarter of narrow, shop-lined streets, and one of southern France’s best art museums, the Musée Fabre.  A seat of learning since the 13th century, Montpellier has a large student population that also contributes to its lively feel.

We planned to find a hotel room for our two-night stay, but to our surprise every affordable room in Montpellier appeared to be booked.  (We later learned that the city was hosting a convention of vintners.)  Resourceful Becky found us a rather quirky rental apartment that was satisfactory for our short visit.  As usual, we packed a lot of walking and sightseeing into a day and a half.

Montpellier's Place de la Comédie.

A street in Montpellier's Old Quarter.

La Place Royale du Peyrou, Montpellier

We continued on to Marseille, France’s second largest city and a major Mediterranean port.  (France’s national anthem, “La Marseillaise,” is so named because revolutionary militiamen from Marseille brought the song to Paris in the early days of the French Revolution.)  We thought twice about visiting Marseille, as it has long had a reputation of being a mean-streets city of wenching sailors, drug crime, labor strife, graft, and unchecked illegal immigration from North Africa and the Middle East.  We decided to check it out, though, for two reasons: (1) The city is said to be making rapid strides in renewing its image; and (2) the European Union designated the Marseille region, including southern Provence, a “European Capital of Culture” for 2013, and throughout the year Marseille had hosted special events and exhibitions.  Many of these had closed in September with the end of the tourist season, but some were still open.  (The European Capital of Culture initiative has, since 1985, contributed to upgrading and attracting tourists to more than 50 European cities, and there is strong competition to earn the EU’s coveted designation.)

As in Montpellier, we’d allotted only a day and a half to seeing Marseille, so we tried to make the most of the limited time.  We’d booked a room in a hotel just two blocks from the Vieux Port, the heart of the tourist area, which put us within walking distance of most of the sights we wanted to see.  (The Vieux Port is the sheltered harbor where Phoenician sailors first landed about 600 B.C., and for centuries it was the city’s port.  Today, however, it is used only for pleasure craft and tourist boats, as the large berths for cargo and cruise ships are located up the coast.) 

The Vieux Port in Marseille.

Among the highlights of our time in the city were touring the fine Museum of the History of Marseille, with an adjoining garden containing ruins of the early Greek settlement, and visiting the church of Notre-Dame de la Garde, perched on a hilltop with a panoramic view of the city, the harbor and the sea.  Also special was the new Museum of Civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean, housed in a dazzling glass-and-steel structure that was completed in time for the year-long “Capital of Culture” fête.

The Church of Notre-Dame de la Garde on a hill overlooking Marseille.

View of Marseille and its modern port from Notre-Dame de la Garde.

The brand new Museum of Civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean.

Not least of our Marseille highlights was a three-way Skype call with our children on Thanksgiving Day.

AIX-EN-PROVENCE

Though it’s only a short distance north of Marseille, Aix-en-Provence (or just Aix, pronounced Ex) is as serene as the bustling port city is hectic.  The historic central part of the city is neatly divided into two sections by the Cours Mirabeau, a wide avenue lined on both sides by stately plane trees.  (The Comte de Mirabeau, 1749-1791, represented Aix in the Estates General at the outset of the French Revolution.  A writer, politician and diplomat, he was one of the intellectual leaders of the Revolution in the early years, before the guillotine began its grisly work.  Mirabeau was one of the few prominent revolutionaries who died in bed of natural causes, and whose reputation survived the Terror.)  North of the Cours Mirabeau is the old quarter, with narrow winding streets and shaded squares.  Below the Cours is the newer Mazarin district, a primarily residential area that was laid out in the 17th and 18th centuries in a tidy Enlightenment grid.

The old Clock Tower in the City Hall Square, near our apartment in Aix.

For our three-week stay in Aix, we rented a second-floor apartment on the Rue Gaspard de Saporta in the old quarter.  It had a sizable living space and a kitchen on the first level, and in a loft reached by a circular metal stairway were a bedroom and another sleeping alcove where our daughter Sarah would bunk when she joined us later.  The location was convenient for exploring the town.

After more than four months of being constantly on the go, we allowed ourselves to slow down in Aix.  We visited museums, churches, and other points of interest, but we also spent relaxing days just meandering through the pretty streets, browsing in shops, and taking in the many outdoor markets to be found in squares around the old quarter.  For most of our time in Aix, the weather was ideal, with one sunny, mild day following another.

Although the French don’t go in for Christmas decorations with the zeal of Americans, there were many reminders of approaching Noel, lending additional cheer to Aix’s natural charm.  As in many French cities, Christmas-market booths lined one side of the Cours Mirabeau, attracting large crowds, especially in the evenings.

The Cours Mirabeau decked out for the holidays (Christmas market on the left).

A street performer with her dancing marionettes.

Aix’s most famous son was the painter Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), who was born in the city and lived in or near it most of his life.  We visited his atelier (studio), which has been preserved just as the painter left it, and we also hiked up to a small hillside park that marks the spot from which Cézanne made dozens of paintings of his favorite subject, Mont Sainte-Victoire, which dominates the horizon east of Aix.

Statue of Paul Cézanne, Aix's favorite son.

Mont Ste.-Victoire from Cézanne's favorite painting site.

Without a car, we were limited in our ability to explore other parts of Provence, such as the hilltop villages made famous by the writer Peter Mayle, which are better seen in the summer anyway.  But we took two bus day trips: The first was to Arles, site of some of the best-preserved Gallo-Roman ruins in southern France.

Roman Amphitheater in Arles, built around 90 A.D. for up to 20,000 spectators.

The Roman Theater in Arles built in the first century B.C.

Our second excursion was to Avignon, where we saw, but did not dance upon, the bridge made famous by a children’s song (Sur le Pont/d’Avignon,/on y danse,/on y danse …), and we visited the vast Palais des Papes (Popes’ Palace), where breakaway Catholics in the 14th century established a rival papacy to the Holy See in Rome (Rome won).

The Pont d'Avignon, half washed away in the 17th century (after more than 300 years, wouldn't you think...?).

Throughout the 14th century, popes in Avignon's Palais des Papes defied Rome.

Other Aix highlights:

We attended an English-language Christmas sing in St.-Sauveur Cathedral, whose nave was filled with several hundred American and British carolers and, as evidenced by a show of hands, a surprisingly large number of French people as well.

The crowd assembling for an English-language Christmas sing in Aix's cathedral.

We watched a holiday défilé (parade) of musicians, dancers and other performers in traditional dress from around the region, including an Italian troupe of acrobatic flag-jugglers (don’t try that at home).

A troupe of dancers in the holiday parade.

The Italian flag jugglers before their flags went airborne.

Our daughter Sarah joined us for our last four days in Provence, including our excursion to Avignon.

OUR HOLIDAY REUNION

From the end of September, when we made the decision to stay in France through the end of the year, we’d been making plans to get our three children over to join us for the Christmas holidays.  We decided to spend Christmas in Lyon, so we could introduce the kids to the city where our adventure had started, and then go to Paris for a final fling.  As with all things that are long in the planning and filled with anticipation, it was hard to believe when the day finally arrived.  But on December 22nd Becky, Sarah and I greeted Lisa and Garner at the train station in Lyon when they arrived from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris.  Hugs all around.

Lisa, Garner and Sarah in the Luxembourg Garden, Paris. 

The biggest highlight of the next 10 days was just being together.  But a few memorable events are worth noting:

At a Lyon restaurant in a former train station, we were joined by our friends Jérôme and Laure and their son, Charles, for lunch in thanks for our delightful meal at their home in August.

We showed the kids some of our favorite Lyon sights, including a few of the large wall murals, the Gallo-Roman ruins, and Vieux Lyon.

On Christmas Day, we enjoyed Becky’s rendition of a traditional French four-course meal.

After dinner at a Paris bistro, we walked the length of the Champ de Mars, watching the brilliantly lit Eiffel Tower draw closer and closer, until we stood directly beneath its graceful immensity.

The "fam" in a Paris bistro, snapped by a friendly server.

Happy memories!

On New Year’s Eve we attended an orchestra and choir concert (Beethoven and Mozart) in the venerable St.-Sulpice Church in Paris’s Latin Quarter; if the acoustics in the vast stone edifice weren’t ideal, the music nonetheless was majestic, and we agreed it was a fitting way to end 2013.

BONNE NOUVELLE ANNÉE

On New Year’s Day at 1:20 p.m. our Icelandair flight lifted off from French soil.  Our French leave was over.  We were headed home.

To those readers who have patiently followed our trek, we extend our thanks and our best wishes for a very happy 2014.   Or, as we heard countless times over the past five months:  Merci (Thank you).  Au revoir (Goodbye).  Bonne journée (Have a good day).

To which we add: A bientôt!  We hope to see you soon! 

TOULOUSE AND SOUTHWEST FRANCE

In planning our French Leave itinerary, we decided to drift south as the seasons changed, thinking to find more moderate temperatures in southern climes.  Good idea; it just didn’t pan out.  Nearly all of France was gripped by a cold spell in November, and southwest France was no exception.  But we found plenty of other reasons to enjoy our three-week visit to the region.

From the “cliffs, caves and castles” of Dordogne we drove south to TOULOUSE, France’s fourth largest city and the capital of the southwest.

In Toulouse, the Pont Neuf (new, that is, in 1632) spans the Garonne River.

We turned in our car and took a taxi to our rented apartment, which our driver found with some difficulty after inching down streets barely wide enough to accommodate her vehicle.

The rue Darquier, where we lived in Toulouse.

Toulouse is known as “La Ville Rose” (the red city) because many of the buildings – including the most notable ones – are constructed of red brick, a building material rarely seen in other parts of France.  Under certain light conditions, the city fairly glows with a rosy hue.

Toulouse's Hôtel de Ville (Town Hall).

The St.-Sernin Basilica, the world's largest Romanesque church.

A former private 17th century mansion, in Toulouse's characteristic "rose" hue.

Toulouse is a university city, so students abound.  Also, as the home of Airbus, it’s prominent in 21st century aviation.  However, like so many French cities, Toulouse has carefully preserved the charm of its centuries-old core, and looking out over the courtyard our apartment faced, one has only to squint to think you’re back in the 17th century.

Shops, markets and restaurants were within easy walking distance of our apartment, as were most of the museums and historical buildings we wanted to see.  We reverted to our Lyon practice of walking almost everywhere, resorting only occasionally to the métro (subway).  But unlike in summery Lyon, in autumnal Toulouse we pulled on coats, hats, scarves and gloves, and sometimes had to lower our heads to buck nippy winds.

After two weeks in Toulouse we became vagabonds again, but this time by train.  Wanting to see a bit more of the southwest, we rode the rails to PAU, just a short distance from the Pyrenees Mountains and France’s border with Spain, and then to CARCASSONNE to see its medieval walled city.

From the welter of things we saw and did as we explored southwest France, two themes emerged that are worth noting .  First, the southwest was a seedbed of religious dissent.  Second, we were struck by the number of old buildings that have been creatively “recycled” as cultural venues.

A HISTORY OF RELIGIOUS DISSENT

Over a number of centuries, a defining element in the history of southwest France was protest against the religious and political hegemony of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Cathars

The first major outbreak of religious dissent was the rise of the Cathars – also called Albigensians – in southern France (as well as in other parts of Europe) in the 12th century.   The Cathars’ religious beliefs (about which only fragmentary information remains) were denounced as heretical by Rome.  Equally dangerous, the Cathars’ simple, ascetic lifestyle was a rebuke to the wealth and pomp of official Christendom.

At first a succession of Popes tried to halt the spread of Catharism in the part of southern France known as Languedoc through preaching and diplomacy, but when those efforts were unsuccessful, Rome – with the acquiescence of French kings – recruited French noblemen from northern France to launch a series of violent crusades against the Cathars, with the promise of Languedoc fiefdoms as their reward.  Over the 13th century, crusades and inquisitions, which included some indiscriminate massacres of Cathars, largely wiped out the sect.

The conflict became a regional war as well as a religious one.  Southern nobles and landowners, who had coexisted peaceably with the Cathars, recognized the persecution by northern forces as a regional invasion and resisted.  Some Cathars took refuge in the fortress at Carcassonne, which was captured by the invaders after a siege in 1209; Cathars were put to the sword, and the non-Albigensian baron died in captivity.

The medieval walled city and fortress of Carcassonne.

A courtyard inside Carcassonne's walled city.

In ALBI, northeast of Toulouse, the enormous and lavishly decorated Sainte Cécile Cathedral was erected to herald the return of the region to Catholic control.  We visited Albi on a bus day-trip from Toulouse.

Sainte Cécile Cathedral, Albi.

The lavish portico on the austere Sainte Cécile Cathedral.

Saint Cécile Cathedral's ornately decorated interior.

Politically, the Albigensian crusades ended the independence of the Languedoc nobles and is regarded as a significant milestone in the centuries-long unification of France.

The Protestant Huguenots

Two centuries later, southwest France saw another surge of religious dissent, when it became the center of the Protestant Reformed Church of France, influenced by the writings of John Calvin in the 1530s; the adherents became known as Huguenots.  The 16th century was a period of religious warfare until King Henri IV – a former Protestant who converted to Catholicism upon ascending to the throne – ended the strife in 1598 with the Edict of Nantes, which guaranteed Protestants certain religious liberties.

In Pau we visited the Château de Pau, where Henri IV was born in 1553.  Though the future king never actually resided in the château, which was his maternal grandparents’ home, it has become a museum largely dedicated to his memory, with paintings or marble busts in nearly every room.  Henri IV was one of France’s most revered kings (“bon roi [good king] Henri”), owing to his ending the wars of religion (temporarily), his hearty bonhomie, and his populist connection with French common-folk (“père du peuple [father of the people]”).

The Château de Pau, birthplace of the future King Henri IV.

What is thought to be one of the best likenesses of Henri IV (1553-1610).

A whimsical depiction of the people's affection for "Good King Henri."

HISTORICAL NOTES:  Henri IV was fatally stabbed in his carriage in 1610 by François Ravaillac, a young Catholic zealot who assumed his deed would make him a heroic martyr; in fact, Catholics denounced the assassin and raised no protest against his interrogation under torture and swift execution.  Religious strife resumed during the 17th century, however, and in 1685 King Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes with the Edict of Fountainebleau; French historians regard that as one of Louis XIV’s greatest mistakes, as it resulted in a “brain drain” flight of hundreds of thousands of French Protestants.

ARCHITECTURAL ‘RECYCLING’

Although this phenomenon is hardly unique to southwestern France, we were particularly struck by the number of wonderful old edifices that have been preserved not because of their own historical significance, but rather as superb museums and other cultural venues unconnected to the buildings’ original purposes.  The result can be a lovely juxtaposition of architecture and art that are mutually enhancing.  A few examples:

In Toulouse the Musée des Augustins, a medieval Augustinian convent, houses a marvelous collection of religious paintings, Romanesque sculpture, many pieces having been rescued from old churches that were demolished in the course of urban redevelopment, and other, nonreligious sculpture (we also attended an organ concert in the convent’s former chapel); the Hôtel d’Assézat, a private mansion built in 1555 by Nicholas Bachelier, a famous Renaissance architect, is now home to the Bemberg Foundation’s fine collection of 18th and 19th century paintings; and at the Musée Saint-Raymond, a classical 17th century mansion is filled with Roman antiquities discovered in archeological excavations in and around Toulouse.

Toulouse's Musée des Augustins, a former convent.

Staircase in the Musée des Augustins.

Musée des Augustins: Gargoyles from a demolished church.

Rare sculpture showing Virgin and Infant facing opposite directions (1450).

The Hôtel d'Assézat (1555), now houses a collection of modern-era paintings.

The Musée St-Raymond is a wonderful setting for Roman antiquities.

Musée St-Raymond: Bust from a Roman villa excavated near Toulouse.

Part of a mosaic floor from the Roman villa.

Similarly, in Albi, the birthplace of the 19th century painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, the largest collection of Toulouse-Lautrec’s paintings and lithograph posters resides in the Palais de la Berbie, built in 1265 as a residence for the city’s archbishops.

Albi's Toulouse-Lautrec museum is in a former bishop's palace.

In a delightful blog we’ve discovered, an American who lives in France listed things that the French “get” and things they “don’t get.”  Among the things the French “get,” she wrote, is historical preservation, and the ingenious and resourceful conversion of buildings in order to preserve the nation’s patrimoine (heritage) is further proof of that.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS

Walking through Toulouse on November 11, we happened upon an Armistice Day ceremony commemorating the end of World War I in 1918; with military color-guards, a band, and the singing of the “Marseillaise,” the French national anthem, it was a moving event.

Armistice Day ceremony in Toulouse, November 11, 2013.

From Pau on a clear day, there’s a marvelous view of the snow-capped Pyrenees Mountains.  Unfortunately, the city was socked in during our two-day visit.  For a glorious few minutes, though, the clouds parted, and our hearts soared, as they always do at the sight of majestic peaks.

From cloudy Pau, a momentary glimpse of the Pyrenees Mountains.

Also in Pau, we had a delightful after-church lunch with Christian Science practitioner Marie Taillefer, all in French.

At a B&B breakfast in Carcassonne, we ate with the only other guests, a retired French couple, and again acquitted ourselves admirably (or so we thought, at least) in the native tongue.

Now it’s on to Provence, where we think it really will be warmer.