Je parle d’Arles

I once had a jigsaw puzzle depicting a picturesque French city. The puzzle showed a cafe with a menu board and sidewalk tables, a woman peddling her bicycle down a narrow cobbled street, a man walking a dog, and potted flowers hanging from the balconies. Arles made me feel as if I stepped into that scene.

Prior to our arrival, the primary thing I knew about Arles is that Van Gogh cut off his ear here. The motivation for that act must have been internal; this city could not have inspired it. Arles seems about as perfect as a place can be.

Before I get too poetic about it, I’m compelled to inject a small dose of reality into this travelogue.

La belle France has its share of ugly, just like everywhere else.

For sure, France is an exceptionally beautiful country, and the places that tourists are most likely to go can make it hard to put the camera down. But on the slow train from Marseille to Arles, we passed some areas that reminded us that France is an industrial country which comes with industrial blight.

Granted, not far past the industrial area, the scenery shifted to olive groves, farm fields and hilltop stone villages. Plus, the slow train in France is faster than what passes for high speed in the U.S. (not that I would know, since it only runs between D.C. and Boston), so I spent the ride envying the French of their transportation system regardless of what I saw out the window.

Now on to Arles.

On the banks of the Rhone River in Provence, Arles is an ancient city that was a major commercial hub during Roman times, as we learned at the Musée departemental Arles antique. Today it is popular with tourists, who come to get lost in the winding, picturesque streets while enjoying the delicious sun-kissed cuisine of Provence and walking the footsteps of Van Gogh legacy (hopefully with their ears intact).

Arles is possibly the most pedestrian-friendly city I’ve ever visited, although I may update that opinion when we return to Montpellier, which previously held the title.

We are staying in a chambre d’hote (French version of a bed and breakfast) that feels like a fairytale manor. If you ever come to Arles, I highly recommend La Vagabonde, which has a warm and welcoming hostess and is ideally situated for exploring the city.

A suite fit for Sleeping Beauty, a.k.a Leah.

The Arles vibe is so relaxed. Each narrow street seems to end in a small plaza encircled by restaurants and shops. Central tables are occupied all day and into the evening with people enjoying their coffee, lunch, aperitif, or diner, simply sitting with their friends or family as they share conversation and the pleasure of each other’s company.

Wine in the pleasant plaza near our inn.

This evening, as we enjoyed the aperitif hour (I ordered a pastis, which may be a cliché of Provence, but I had to do it), we were amused by a group of children running around the square with ice cream cones and trying to keep their dog from following two other dogs who were leaving the square. People at nearby tables were leisurely sipping their drinks. One glass of wine to be savored for an hour. We saw no one reorder or get refills. One drink is enough and takes as long as you wish it to take. No one will rush you or push you to order more.

Pastis.

Some random observations ahead.

The Roman amphitheater, or arena, is one of Arles’ top attractions, and Roman sites are thick on the ground here. Not well-preserved is the cirque, which was a chariot racing course. We saw a diorama of it in the museum and it occurred to me that humans haven’t changed that much in 2,000 years; we now just equip it with motors and call it Nascar.

Chariot racing, a.k.a. ancient Nascar.

France is a quiet country. My husband has a small hearing problem and loud noises bother him. In recent years, eating out in U.S. restaurants has become generally unpleasant for him due to the volume of music and other diners. Here in France, whether we are at a table inside or out, we can have a conversation in our soft voices. We don’t hear the conversations of nearby diners, who also speak quietly. And music, when it is present, is low enough to be barely detectable. However, motorcycles, which are among the loudest forms of transportation, are more common here, particularly in Marseille, but at least they pass quickly.

The highlight of the day was meeting up with our northern Michigan friend Madeleine, who lived in France for nearly 20 years and hosts small private tour groups in her beloved Provence. We joined her at the Arles market and had a delightful few hours browsing the stalls, sharing a delicious lunch and visiting with her ex-husband, a chef and cooking instructor. Madeleine knows a lot of people in Arles, as she lived here for 12 years. I haven’t had the pleasure of taking one of her tours yet, but another friend who enjoyed one last winter said it was the best trip of her life and an outstanding value. You can find out more at Cuisine Provencale if you’re interested.

Your future tour guide? And those olives, wow.

Another favorite moment was getting close to a large olive tree in the garden outside the ancient Arles museum. Just the smell of the olives in the market this morning (Madeleine was buying lots of them for her tour guests) made me want to toss my U.S. passport in the bin and stay in France for the rest of my days.

Can you see the olives? Unfortunately, a sign said not to pick. Of course, I know they only taste good after they’re brined.

A flat-bottomed boat raised from the bottom of the Rhone near Arles and painstakingly restored; now in the Arles antiquities museum.

I’ll leave you now with a few more photos of the beautiful city of Arles.

Rosé in Marseille

Nous sommes en France ! (We are in France).

Warning: a few tourist photos below. Otherwise, I’ll share with you my initial cultural observations–mostly ecological–of our first 24 hours in France after 5 years away.

The most arduous part of the travel is behind us. We flew direct from Raleigh to Paris, then took a connecting flight to Marseille. From the Marseille airport, we caught a bus to the central city and walked about half an hour to our hotel, where we gratefully unloaded our bags and set out to explore France’s oldest city before a very early bedtime.

And of course, we got wine.

Un pichet of rosé, or about 2/3 of a bottle, was 9.50 euros.

We are in Marseille for less than 48 hours, and nearly half of that may be spent sleeping (jet lag). I had hoped to visit the Chateau d’If, which fans of Alexandre Dumas’ masterpiece novel “The Count of Monte Cristo” will recognize as the fortress in which hero Edmond Dantes was wrongfully imprisoned. Unfortunately, the Chateau is closed due to a problem with its electricity, so I had to admire it from the old port of Marseille.

This is probably as close as I will get to Edmond Dantes, aside from walking the streets where he fictionally lived.

The moored “Edmond Dantes” ferry.

Maybe next time.

And we need to make sure we have a next time. Marseille is a gorgeous city full of history and fabulous Mediterranean breezes. Two days is not enough time to explore, especially for jet-lagged travelers.

It’s a tourist cliché to eat bouillabaisse in Marseille, but we are tourists.

Eco France

For me, the primary cultural amenity of France is the pleasure of being a pedestrian here. France has cars, of course. But the cars don’t dominate urban spaces the way they do in the United States.

Marseille’s main street — La Canebière — is a wide pedestrian boulevard. Many other streets in central Marseille also are pedestrian-only, perhaps because most cars would not fit, at least not with two-way traffic. Even where the cars are allowed, pedestrian safety is assisted with clear signage and motorists who seem to understand to yield. Bikes and scooters also are popular.

La Canebière.

We’ll be spending a month in Montpellier, a city we first visited five years ago. We loved its public transit and pedestrian city center. At the end of this year, Montpellier will make its excellent transit system free for all residents in an effort to reduce carbon emissions.

They turn the lights off more here. Lighting hallways “as needed’ rather than continuously is not a new thing in Europe. I remember on our first trip, in 1987, having to learn the locations of the hallway lights in our hotel in Germany. The corridors were kept in darkness except when in use, when we could turn on a timed light just long enough to reach our door. The corridor of our Marseille apartment hotel has a motion-detector light. Such a simple thing to save energy and it doesn’t result in any inconvenience.

Appliances don’t have to take up so much space. I’m enchanted with the stovetop-oven-dishwasher combo in our apartment. I won’t be here long enough to use it; perhaps the apartment in Montpellier where we’ll spend the next four weeks will have a similar arrangement. This all-in-one appliance has me rethinking my desire to enlarge my kitchen in Traverse City. Maybe I need less kitchen, not more.

Induction cooktop, big-enough oven and dishwasher.

The refrigerator, which we could call “dorm sized” in the States, is built into a cabinet. In a city where fresh food is just steps away, it’s also big enough.

Health warnings on television food advertisements. This is not what you may be thinking! We’re used to health warnings on U.S. commercials — mostly about all the ways the drug being advertised might kill or maim the user. Here, snack food ads have disclaimers at the bottom of the screen, warning people not to eat between meals and reminding them to eat at least five servings of fruit and veg each day. Curious, I looked up this practice, which has been a law in France since 2007. I don’t think I turned on the TV last time I was here so I didn’t notice.

Cell phone service is cheaper here. This isn’t an eco thing, just a perplexing thing. In the U.S., my Verizon plan is $150/month for three lines and 2G of shared data (the shared data plan is no longer offered; if I have to switch to unlimited, it will be at least $30/month more). Here, I bought an eSim card with 3G of data for a month for $10. Leah purchased a Sim card with 15G of data and a French phone number for $20. Is Verizon ripping me off? It sure feels like it.

That’s all for now. Tomorrow we go to Arles, the Van Gogh city, where we’ll meet up with our Michigan friend, Madeleine.

I Climbed a Mountain

In a few days, we fly to France. We’ll be in Europe for six weeks, mostly without an agenda. However, one particular activity looms large in my mind: on October 12, we’re going on a group hike up the Pic St. Loup north of Montpellier. It’s a challenging climb and requires participants to be “hike fit.”

Am I hike fit? I walk every day, but nearly all of my treks in recent years have been on Traverse City’s flat, paved sidewalks. I haven’t hiked a mountain in ages. My last sustained period of mountain trekking was 20 years ago when we lived in Colorado for a year. Even the hilliest parts of northern Michigan, such as Sleeping Bear Dunes, are not real elevation climbs.

So yesterday I laced up my new hiking boots and drove two hours to Hanging Rock State Park at the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains, accompanied by my daughter and sister-in-law.

Wanting to replicate as closely as possible the 1100-foot elevation increase of the Pic St. Loup climb, I chose the toughest trail at Hanging Rock–Moore’s Wall Loop. It’s a 4.7 mile hike with a gain of nearly 1,000 feet of elevation. And had it been a sunny day, the reward at the top would have been a dazzling view of the Blue Ridge. But alas.

From the fire tower at the top of Moore’s Wall, in the clouds.

Below the clouds, peaking through the trees, we had some mountain views.

Cloudy day, glimpsing the Blue Ridge through the trees.

And it was a lovely walk through lush mountain forests of rhododendron and spruce, up rocky paths and over bubbling creeks.

Fording the creek on some slippery, mostly flat stones.

Fortunately, in my opinion, we didn’t see any timber rattlers or bears, and the bug population wasn’t noticeable. Sometimes we walked through a light mist, making it feel like a forest primeval.

Leah makes a friend at the end of the trail. If you look closely, you can see the doe at the upper left.

As for the purpose of the hike — training for the mountain climb in France — I’m not sure it gave me confidence that I’m “hike fit.” My new hiking boots performed admirably, but I was slow, especially on the downhill. I was so afraid of losing my footing. If I were to break a leg there, how would anyone get me out? So I descended timidly.

Maybe the trail in France will not be as rugged.

Carolina in the Pines

When I’m away from it, I often go to North Carolina in my mind. And now I’m in my childhood bedroom in Cary, which will be my home base for most of the next year.

This year of charting our post-retirement future will not always be glamorous. Sure, we’ll take some trips and have some adventures, but mostly we’ll be taking care of our elderly parents. John is with his 96-year-old dad in southern Virginia, and I’m here with my 83-year-old mama.

We arrived after the upper 90s summer heat situation passed. Yay for that! It’s pleasant here now, mostly in the low 80s and sunny. A heavy overnight rain made the greenway where I take my morning walks almost jungle-like.

The lush greenway.

When we arrived a few days ago, I was excited to see that my brother had left me a welcome gift: two perfectly ripe cantaloupes from Ridgeway, N.C. These melons are world-famous, or so I’ve believed since I was a little girl. They grow near my grandma’s old house in Warren County at the N.C.-Virginia border. I’ve never had better cantaloupes, and I was so grateful to get to enjoy them before the end of the season.

If you look closely on the upper left of the plate, you can see a little of the very thin rind. This thing was so lucious; I had cantaloupe juice running down my arms after cutting it.

Most of the past few days has been spent hanging out with family, unpacking, rearranging my bedroom, and doing my mama’s errands.

The primary excitement so far was going to the Cary REI store to purchase new hiking boots. REI is a co-op, and if you know me, you know I love co-ops. So I was all set to become a member again, then I discovered at check-out that I was still a member from 20 years ago in Colorado. It’s a lifetime membership. What a deal! The REI staffer found me in the system with my Michigan address, Colorado phone number, and old university e-mail.

The boots are not for that greenway trail above; they are for France. Sure, most Americans go to France to traipse through museums and eat escargot, right? And we’ll be doing some of that, bien sûr. But we’ll also be adventuring in French nature. On our first week in le sud de France, we’ll be climbing the Pic St. Loup, a mountain near Montpellier that offers views of both the Alps and the Pyrenees from its peak.

We leave for France in two weeks. In the meantime, when I’m not helping my mama, I’ll be out on the deck with a book. I’ve already been to the local public library and checked out a couple of mysteries.

The pine straw is everywhere.

Away We Go! (Without the RV)

My husband, John, has just retired from his job of 42 years at The Associated Press, and we are taking some time away from our home in northern Michigan to explore the world together. I’ll be using this space, since I have it, to chronicle our adventures for anyone interested.

Goodbye, Michigan.

If anyone had told me how much work would be involved in one of us retiring, I might have urged John to keep his job. Our summer was filled with an agenda of chores large and small. It included administrative tasks such as getting John signed up for Medicare, and countless hours of physical labor involved in preparing our house for potential renters.

We drove away yesterday afternoon exhausted. Plus, our house looked so terrific (as long as we avoided the basement) that we wondered why we were leaving it. We’re already missing our friends and neighbors, and we’re grateful we didn’t sign a long-term rental agreement.

Saying goodbye to this old house, for now.

First stop: Chicago.

We’re visiting our son, daughter-in-law, and nephew in the Windy City for a couple of days. Chicago is a leading contender for a home base for us, if we decide to leave northern Michigan. It has the same downside as our current home — winter– albeit with much less lake effect snow. Having a year-round climate that enables us to get around safely as we age is a primary consideration.

Chicago scores big in transportation, with a decent transit system, walkable neighborhoods, and easy access to the rest of the world from O’Hare. It’s also reasonably affordable for a city offering so many amenities, including excellent healthcare facilities. Most importantly, we have children here, and possibly future grandchildren. And our daughter, Leah (the other femme of this blog), could easily live here without a car. She doesn’t drive.

Lunch with the nephew at a neighborhood place, the Little Goat Diner. I’ll pay more attention to photo background next time.

Next stop: North Carolina.

When in French

I recently finished a book that surprised and delighted me so much that I need to share.

For a couple of years, I’ve received New Yorker writer Lauren Collins’ e-mail newsletter and followed her on Twitter, but I never intended to read her book, When in French: Love in Second Language. I assumed (falsely) it would be a personal memoir about her love life, maybe a more realistic version of “Emily in Paris.” (I knew from Collins’ Twitter feed of her scorn for Emily.) A couple of weeks ago, stopping by the public library near my winter home, I saw a stack of these books on a table and picked it up on a whim. (One great thing about the library: if you don’t like a book, simply return it with no remorse.)

No one resembling the fictional Emily is in this tale and neither is Paris. The setting is primarily Geneva, where Collins relocates with her new husband and begins to learn his language. The couple met in London and fell in love in English. Although the relationship provides the raison d’être for the book, the story is primarily a deep dive into the role of language in our lives and culture.

Collins explores the mysteries of language and how it has fascinated philosophers, academics and some oddball characters through the centuries. She is particularly attuned to considering how language influences individual thought and behavior as well as the culture in which it is spoken. Although her direct experience is in English and French, she draws from a broad range of encounters, contemporary and historic, highlighting consequences from amusing to tragic that have occurred when languages collide.

Collins relates her personal experiences of French acquisition reshaping her relationships and interactions. Centrally, learning her husband’s language reduced their misunderstandings and provided a crucial window into his psyche. As she progresses in her French classes, she begins to pick out fragments of his conversation with others. One evening she is listening to him speak to his brother on the phone and notices his use of the word quoi to punctuate sentences. “Even as it dawns on me that I may have pledged lifelong devotion to a man who ends every sentence with the equivalent of ‘dude,’ I’m taken by an eerie joy. Four years after having met Olivier, I’m hearing his voice for the first time.”

Out in the wider world, Collins’ perceptions also change. For example, her American egalitarian background initially caused her to recoil at the French distinction between the familiar and the formal: “The necessity of classifying each person one came across as vous or tu, outsider or insider, potential foe or friend, seemed at best a pomposity and at worst an act of paranoia.” Eventually this dissonance reverses: “The correctness that French requires revealed itself as not vanity but courtesy, guaranteeing that every person, however weak or humble, commanded a measure of respect.” She relates hearing a Homeland Security officer address an older man ahead of her in line at arrivals in New York and that his “undifferentiated English ‘you’ hit me like a bludgeon.”

Cultural differences not related to language are also observed. One in particular will strike at the heart of American moms. Towards the end of the book, Collins gives birth to her first child. Her description of the standard services provided by the Swiss hospital are almost too much to bear for those accustomed to U.S. healthcare. The coup de grace: on the day after her daughter’s birth, an aesthetician arrives in her hospital room to offer her a pedicure, manicure, foot massage or hair style, a soin postnatal to which every new mother is entitled “to help her feel more like herself.”

Finally, one of my favorite tales in this book doesn’t involve language at all. Lauren and Olivier rent a house in Corsica for a week and bring their families together for a vacation. The American contingent doesn’t speak any French, and some of the French contingent doesn’t speak English. But they are all in, ready to embrace each other in their differences and commonalities. Olivier has informed his family that the Americans typically eat breakfast by grabbing leftovers from the fridge while standing in the kitchen. His French parents proceed to the kitchen, gamely prepared to try the American custom. Meanwhile, Lauren’s parents are on the patio, seated at the table and ready for petit dejeuner in the French manner. The French custom prevails as it has attracted converts and really, who wouldn’t prefer baguettes, coffee and conversation at table?

I’m reluctant to return this book to the library. (I will! I will! I can never be even one day late). But perhaps I’ll buy a copy so I can read it again, and again.

Provence

Provence has not been off the beaten path for decades, if ever. This sun-soaked land of artists, dreamers and rosé is France’s most popular destination for foreign tourists outside of Paris. Renderings of its idyllic landscapes hang in galleries all over the world. Its food is iconic. The life-in-Provence memoir is so prolific as to almost be its own genre. It seems that every famous person who went to France in the last 100 years decamped to Provence for at least part of the time and wrote about it. The last 100 years? Let’s try the last 1,000. Provence has been a travel subject at least since the time of Julius Caesar.

We also went there.

Our Provençal itinerary begin in the charming town of Uzés, which may not technically be in Provence but is the source of the water used in the Roman aqueduct that includes what is arguably the region’s most celebrated masterpiece of antiquity, the Pont du Gard.

Uzés is a lively market town. On Wednesdays and Saturdays, several streets in the center of town evict motorized traffic for glorious vendor stalls to take over. Food, clothing, crafts, hunting knives — you can buy it all.

Uzés is also a nice base for day trips to natural wonders, wine-growing areas and the best-preserved Roman sites in the world.

If prehistory is your thing, the Chauvet Cave, or rather its replica for tourists, is a short drive from Uzés. From there, you can journey through time to your heart’s content. Orange, Nîmes and Arles have Roman temples and amphitheaters, some of which are still in use.

We drove from Uzés to Nîmes to meet our son, who had traveled from Paris on the high-speed TGV train. A short walk from the station is the Arena of Nîmes, which was built during an era of chariots.

On the way back to Uzés, we stopped at the Pont du Gard, a marvel of engineering in any time.

Our time in Provence was unfortunately limited. We managed a drive through the Camargue on our way to Montpellier, but we didn’t get to visit Marseille, Avignon or any of the hill villages. We will go again.

I can recommend some books for the armchair traveler. Much of Julia Child’s memoir, My Life in France, takes place in Provence. The second course could easily be Provence 1970, which provides another perspective of that time and the Childs’ inner circle. A somewhat bizarre memoir is Lawrence Durrell’s Provence, which may be hard to find but gives a deep, personal dive into Roman and medieval history.

My friend, Madeleine, offers small group tours of Provence during the winter months, pandemic restrictions permitting. I haven’t had the opportunity to go yet, but if her tours are as good as her chocolates, you will not be disappointed.

In wine, Provence is perhaps most associated with rosé. I haven’t tried them all, although if I live long enough, I may make that a goal. My favorite everyday rosé for the past few years has been the Galets Rosé from Chateau Mourgues du Grés. I usually buy a case of it when it arrives each summer at my local wine shop. I had the Chateau marked on my Google Maps for a stop while we were in Provence but unfortunately we ran out of time. Next trip!

What to eat with that rosé? Well, almost anything. Rosé is one of the most food-friendly of wines. It’s a nice accompaniment to the famous dishes of Provence such as bouillabaise (from Marseille, the oldest city in France) and ratatouille (a classic dish that predates the animated rat film). Make those if you have the time, but I’ll suggest an easy, weeknight dish from Provence that is perfect for all those late-summer veggies we’re about to lose: tian. Dorie Greenspan’s recipe will be just perfect with a bottle of rosé.

Next: Rhone-Alpes. I think there will be tartiflette.

Corsica

We’re changing things up a bit. Maybe it’s because restrictions are being lifted and some people — those who don’t own old houses in need of expensive repairs — are now able to book their own flights to France and my frustration at still not being able to go makes writing about pretend travel too unbearable.

So this is what I’m going to do. For regions of France that I have not personally visited, I’ll share my research and curation skills to provide what I think are the most interesting resources about the place.

And I will continue to make food because that is what I do.

Corsica, pointing at northern Italy. By Greece_in_its_region.svg: TUBSderivative work

Corsica, or Corse as the French call it, is a large, distinctively-shaped island in the Mediterranean closer to Italy than to France, but it has been part of France since 1768. The following year, Napolean Bonaparte was born there, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The rest, for me, is the promised resources for learning more about L’île de beauté.

You can rarely go wrong by starting with The New York Times. This 2016 travel piece is a semi-insider’s introduction to Corsica’s history, culture, food, and scenic attractions.

One reason I’m scaling back my travel coverage here is because it seems pointless when I can just refer you all to the excellent episodes of Échappées belles. This French travel show has been to Corsica at least three times: an overview, a focus on Haut-Corse, and a gourmand special. Even if you can’t understand French, you’ll enjoy the scenery.

Not suprisingly, Saveur focuses on the food of the “pleasure island” and it made me hungry.

So after reading that, I googled for some herby Corsican recipes and decided on the simplest: a mint omelette. I can’t get the Corsican cheese, of course, so I opted for fresh goat cheese as a substitute and plucked the mint from my garden. That and 3 eggs gave me all the ingredients I needed:

ingredients

If you’ve never made an omelette, it’s easy. Crack the eggs into a dish, then beat them until well-blended. Heat an omelette pan or skillet (preferably non-stick) and add a little oil or butter if you’d like. Pour the egg mixture in the pan and cook over medium-low heat. You can stir the eggs gently with a fork to help it along, and once the bottom starts to set, if you don’t want your omelette very runny, left the edges up slightly and tilt the pan so the uncooked eggs move to the edges. When the omelette is done almost to your liking, add the filling. In this case, it was chopped milk and crumbled cheese. Then fold it in half and serve. Salt and pepper and any other seasonings can be added to the interior before you fold or sprinkled on the finished omelette.

A mint omelette, served with bacon.

I also made a Corsican soup recipe from Let’s Eat France, but I forgot to photograph. It was delicious! Basically a vegetable soup with red beans and lots of herbs, including more mint, and I finished it with a leftover mint sauce to bring out the herbaceous flavors. There are lots of variations of this soup recipe on the internet, and maybe it would be fun to try them all, or just riff on one with what you have on hand.

Coming next: Provence, with my own travel stories and photos

Languedoc-Roussillon

When I conceived the idea for a virtual tour de France, the Languedoc-Roussillon area was the halfway point but also my ultimate destination. All the roads in my mind lead to it. Our last visit to France was our first to this region, and it captured my heart. My goal is that in retirement, the Languedoc will be our home base for travel and other adventures.

Languedoc-Roussillon

This region, along with the Midi-Pyrénées, is now called Occitanie in the current administrative divisions of France. Culturally and historically, it was part of the region of Occitania that included most of southern France, parts of Spain and some of northern Italy. Occitan was its dominant language and still has some native speakers. For centuries, the hexagon we now call France was largely divided by language: the langue d’oïl of the north and the langue d’oc of the south. It is beyond my expertise to attempt a blog-concise summary of this relationship and history, but for those who enjoy historical fiction, some of Kate Mosse’s novels will get you acquainted.

For our visit in May of 2018, we drove from Carcassonne to La Tour la Pagèze, a winery that includes B&B guest accommodations. We found it through the Gites de France booking service, which we also used for our winery stay in Gascony. Five of five stars for both!

I can’t attribute any single experience for my continuing love affair with the Languedoc, but I can decisively say it started with Claudine, who owns La Tour la Pagèze with her family. Claudine welcomed us as if we were dear, long-missed friends. Her warmth and hospitality now define the south of France for me. We arrived weary after a week of traveling and a drive from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, and Claudine’s remedy for that was a complementary bottle of chilled chardonnay on her balcony overlooking the vineyards. All of this, a large private room with a balcony, and an outstanding breakfast the next morning, for about 40 euros.

Claudine’s story is as beautiful as her hospitality. (I learned this in Franglish, so hopefully I understood correctly.) Her grandparents migrated from the Catalan region of Spain as laborers in the vineyards of the Languedoc, and her parents also worked in the vineyards. It was their family dream to one day have their own. About 20 years ago, Claudine, her husband Miguel, and her brother Jean-Marie, saved enough to make that dream come true and purchased the Domaine la Tour la Pagèze. My understanding is that the parents have passed, but the winery honors their memory with its Cuvée Joseph, one of the few bottles I packed in my luggage to enjoy at home.

Claudine’s generosity was not an aberration for the region. For dinner, we drove to the nearby town of Fleury d’Aude and wandered into a small café. The sign at D’ici et d’ailleurs referenced an intriguing globally-inspired tapas menu. The owner welcomed us, and our bad French gave us away as tourists, so where from? he inquired. Nous venons aux Etats-Unis. He was ecstatic: we were only the second Americans to dine in his restaurant! He explained that his menu was influenced by his wife, who hailed from Madagascar, and he kept bringing us delicious tidbits he wanted us to try. My only regret is that I was too busy chowing down to snap photos.

After a restful night’s sleep and a sunrise over the distant sea from our balcony, we ate our fill of Claudine’s generous breakfast of breads, cheeses, yogurt, fruit, and an egg or two. Worried that we might get hungry again (how could that be possible!), she packed us off with a loaf of cake for our day trip to Narbonne. “You must go to Les Halles!” she insisted. More food!

I have been obsessed with Narbonne ever since. A small city not previously on my radar, Narbonne basically ticks every box for me. A river, or rather a canal, runs through the heart of the city, connecting to the Mediterranean and the Canal du Midi. The central zone is pedestrian-friendly, with a plethora of restaurants and services. Its mild Mediterranean climate, wine-growing environs, and easy access to other destinations via the high-speed rail station could make it an ideal retirement base.

The city is steeped in history, serving as a provincial capital for the Romans. In the pedestrian center by the canal, a remnant of the Roman road reminds passers-by of this history.

Unfortunately, while visiting the magnificent year-round indoor food market, Les Halles, I was too overwhelmed to bother with my camera. The cheeses, the spices, the olives, the fruits, the fish! To think that could be my grocery every morning if I lived in Narbonne… ah.

I insist it was Les Halles that won me over to Narbonne, but my husband credits the gentleman at lunch. Although we weren’t in the slightest bit hungry, everything in Narbonne closes between 12 à 14 heures (noon to 2 p.m.) for the midday meal, so we joined in. We chose a canal-side restaurant, and while I do not remember what we ate, I remember what we drank, courtesy of a fellow diner. The couple at the next table heard us speaking English and ventured to inquire as to our origins. In a mix of Franglish, we understood them to have a son who lived in Chicago (as did we!), or perhaps he had just visited there. Anyways, the proud papa was a huge fan of Chicago as well as having great civic pride in his native city. He wanted us to try the local wine and gifted us with the remainder of his bottle. (I do love a country where people routinely order a bottle of wine for lunch).

Back to Claudine’s for the evening with our stash of bread, cheese, olives and fruit from Les Halles, and another complementary bottle from the winery, this time the excellent rosé.

John, on the balcony of La Tour la Pagèze

Leaving the next morning was the saddest departure of our trip, and we vowed to return, a promise we still intend to keep as soon as we can cross the Atlantic again. (I know, France has reopened to visitors, but unfortunately we own an old house that will be zapping our travel funds with repairs this year.)

We drove from Fleury to Uzès, a delightful town technically in Occitanie but on the border with Provence, so I’ll include it with that chapter in our tour. We returned to the Languedoc after Uzès for a few days in Montpellier, a city that may give Narbonne a competition for our future home base.

The best thing about Montpellier for me is its approach to transportation. The city center is a car-free zone except for a few permitted delivery vehicles, whose access is controlled by retractable barriers in the pavement. A system of colorful trams circles the perimeter of the district to provide access to points beyond.

Montpellier is a lively university city surrounded by beaches, vineyards and landscapes of outstanding beauty. It also has a TGV station where a high-speed train can put you in Paris in about 3 hours.

To remember our time in the Languedoc, I prepared a Bourride à la Sètoise, a fish stew from the fishing village of Sète near Montpellier, as well as a Crema Catalan in honor of Claudine’s heritage.

Both dishes tasted better than my photos would indicate (I must get better at food photography!), and I hacked them from a compilation of recipes. Here’s a starting point for the crema catalan, and for the bourride.

As for wine, the Languedoc has much to offer. In recent decades, artisan makers have been working hard to overcome the region’s reputation for mass-produced table wine. Some very interesting and delicious wines are now made in Languedoc-Roussillon, and because they can’t command the prices of more famous regions, such as Bordeaux and Burgundy, exceptional values can be found. (See Jancis Robinson’s summary here and here for more info).

My go-to wine for the past year has been Michel Chapoutier’s Bila-Haut from the Cotes du Roussillon Villages appellation. It is $13.99 at my neighborhood wine shop and seems to pair well with every food.

A Seattle wine shop (whose owners have a home in the Languedoc) imports wines from some of the best small producers there. I’m looking forward to my first shipment from The Princess and the Bear and will try to update this blog with a review.

Stay tuned for Provence. À bientôt !

Midi-Pyrénées and Carcassonne

Back on our virtual Tour de France (the only way most U.S. citizens can currently visit), we will make a brief stop in the south-central region formerly known as the Midi-Pyrénées.

Midi-Pyrénées

The geographical, cultural and historical composition of this region is odd, and we have better things to do than to sort it out here. For fans of medieval history, the dominant political entity was the county of Toulouse, whose powerful rulers extended their influence beyond this region. The counts were part of the family of our favorite queen, Aliénor d’Aquitaine, and were major players in the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars.

The principal city of the counts and of the region is Toulouse, the fourth largest city in France and a hub for tech, culture, medicine and education. One of my regrets from our last trip is that we bypassed the pink city on our drive from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. No vacation is ever long enough to do everything one might want. A stopover in Toulouse would have necessitated removing another destination, and Toulouse was among many possibilities that did not make the cut. Since adding #toulouse to my Instagram feed, I’m sure not to bypass it again.

Rue Peyrolières in Toulouse. My kind of place. (Didier Descouens, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Technically, our only stop in the Midi-Pyrénées two years ago was a short walk-around the center of Condom. We refrained from snapping selfies with the town sign, and we didn’t linger as it was a drizzly day and we were eager to get to the sunshine of the Mediterranean. Our only photos of Condom are the cathedral exterior and mail delivery via bike.

Although not technically in the Midi-Pyrénées, the medieval walled city of Carcassonne seems to me most aligned with this region. Its claim to fame is its role as a Cathar center, and its rulers generally allied with the counts of Toulouse. The well-preserved castle and fortifications are one of France’s top tourist attractions and definitely worth a stopover. We had a great view of and access to the city from our AirBnB. While some of it is a bit kitschy, overall a visit to the cité is almost a magical time-travel adventure.

Views of Carcassonne.

Now for the food. The most iconic dish of the region is the cassoulet, a hearty slow-baked casserole of beans and meat. Toulouse and Carcassonne are both famous for it, and of course we ordered it for dinner in Carcassonne.

When the time came for me to try it at home, I had difficulties. I followed, to the best of my ability, Paula Wolfert’s recipe for Cassoulet de Toulouse. The most essential ingredient — the large, white Tarbais beans — are one of those protected French agricultural products that normally you would need to import at great expense, but checking that box on my cassoulet ingredients list was surprisingly easy. I hesitate to tell you people about this source, because wait times for shipments have already stretched to weeks this year, with many products being sold out, but I’m good to my readers and my friends. The amazing heirloom bean purveyor, Rancho Gordo, grows the bean in California from French seed stock as “cassoulet bean.”

Getting all the meat ingredients during a pandemic proved too much for my patience. I gave up on the plethora of pork products and settled for a pork shoulder and some bacon. I wanted to be lazy and purchase duck legs confit, but I couldn’t find that and made my own with the sous-vide as recommended by Paula Wolfert. I also failed to procure the toulouse sausages which made me furious at myself because I have a deli right in my neighborhood (Raduno) that makes these rare beauties, but I remembered I hadn’t picked them up about 30 minutes after Raduno had closed for two days and the beans were already cooking, so I couldn’t delay. And finally, I burned some of the beans on the bottom. I’ll need to try this again. I can’t even add my photo because it was so ugly. Well, here’s the duck legs:

I’ll leave you with a book recommendation. Historical fiction and fantasy fans may enjoy Kate Mosse’s Languedoc trilogy set in and around Carcassonne. I’ve only read the first one, but it helped me imagine what life was like in the medieval cité and I was grateful I had read it before visiting.

Also, I discovered there’s a strategy board game called Carcassonne. Comment below if you’ve played it and can recommend.

Next: the Languedoc with sunshine, the sea, and wine wine wine.