Saturday April 19
We are on a TGV train from Paris to Aix-en-Provence, which will take only three hours. We arrived in Paris on Wednesday morning after a comfortable flight by Thai Air. Our original flight on MAS was cancelled due to the SARS epidemic and consequent absence of passengers. The first flight from Singapore to Bangkok was almost deserted, giving us a chance to spread out. Several passengers, and the staff, were wearing masks. At Bangkok airport we were given masks and all passengers remaining in Thailand were directed to nurses for a medical check. Even on the flight from Bangkok to Paris several passengers wore masks and we had to fill in a card with our contact details in the event that any passenger on the flight was found to have SARS and we had to be traced. It is all very thorough, as is the security check. We had to surrender a nail-clipper in Singapore and retrieve it when we got to Paris.
Before we left Singapore we had a last meal of chicken rice with A-Yin and Lung Seng. We had forgotten how airlines keep plying you with food, and not only had another dinner on the flight to Bangkok, but yet another on the next flight. By the time we were served breakfast a couple of hours before arriving in Paris we didn¡¦t think we¡¦d need to eat until the evening.
One of the first things we noticed about Paris, apart from the beautiful spring weather, was that everything was about 25% more expensive since the Euro came in. Most things cost about double what they cost in Australia and at least ten times what we paid in Indonesia.
We managed to get most of our banking and tax organised on Wednesday and, on Thursday, we saw Etude Mel, the estate agent. As our tenant is moving out on July Ist we will live in our apartment for a few months. We thought we would take the opportunity to put it on the market, but after further consideration, decided that it would be better to get another tenant after we leave as it is very useful to have funds building up for us for our next trip to Europe. The other property, the studio (i.e. one room) is not performing so well, but we can¡¦t sell it until at least 2006, when the lease expires.
We have ordered a new cheque-book as our old one is in Francs and now useless. It will be sent to a branch of BNP in Aix-en-Provence in a week¡¦s time. We will be restricted on the amount of money we can draw out per week and we will need to stick to a budget of 65 Euros average per day, rather tight, but we should be able to do it.
In Paris, we stayed in a very old hotel in the Marais district. The room is small and the toilet and shower are in the hall, down a flight of stairs. We were on the second floor, which is better than a lot of cheap hotels where you walk up five or six flights. At 33 euros it is very cheap for Paris, but more than the luxury hotel we had in Surabaya ¡V with air-con, cable TV, swimming pool and international buffet breakfast. However it has a lot of character and friendly management. There was a little bar below where we could eat, so each night we bought up hot bread, cheeses of various kinds, salmon or ham, desserts and wine and prepared our own meal, sometimes with coffee from the bar. Wine is one thing that is not expensive in France ¡V a bottle of Bordeaux Superieur is only a few dollars. For lunch we ate out at simple restaurants ¡V on Thursday we had delicious crepes with ham and cheese, on Friday we met Wan Hua at UNESCO and ate at the cafeteria and today we went to Passage Brady where all the Indian restaurants offer a delicious curry and rice meal for five euros. We will eventually have some real French restaurant meals, but perhaps not in Paris.
Most of the time we have spent walking. Apart from the trip on RER from the airport we have not yet used the wonderful public transport system. It is so pleasant to walk the streets of Paris, and it has been perfect Spring weather, apart from today when it was a bit chilly in the shade. We are not seeking out museums on this visit, though we did see an interesting exhibition of paintings at the Hotel de Ville ¡V somebody¡¦s private collection ¡V ¡§From Cezanne to Dubuffet.¡¨ We managed to find Internet more easily than on our last trip to Paris. Prices vary from one to four euros and hour, with the latter being much more common. However the operation is invariably fast.
We have spoken to my French relatives on the phone, and agreed to get together when we return to Paris. We have also had e-mail from some of our friends. George and Monique will be in the South of France for a while and we may see them there. We are going to Aix first because Joanne, a friend from Brunei, is there at present. We will be sharing accommodation, which seems to be an apartment of some sort. We have offered to share the cost, but have no idea what she is paying.
Monday April 21
The train arrived, not, as expected, at the station shown on the town map, but at a TGV station a long way out of town. Fortunately, Joanne was there to meet us and showed us the way to town by bus. This was not the cheapest way to get to Aix from Paris but it was the most direct route. We could have got non-TGV trains, changing at Marseille, but it would have taken eight hours rather than three. It was raining when we arrived and most of yesterday. We seemed to have left behind the lovely spring weather we had experience in Paris, but today we were back to the sunshine. We were concerned about the Easter holidays and expected the shops to be closed on Sunday and Monday. We walked to the supermarket and found it was just closing at 9 pm and, sure enough, would not be open again until Tuesday. We found a little pizza stall and bought a couple of pizzas for dinner. Next morning I went with Joanne to find some food. We needn¡¦t have worried. The boulangerie, charcuterie and pattisserie were all open. We bought some steak for the next day and a duck for Monday (tonight) and lots of bread, olives, fruits, etc.
It is interesting shopping with Joanne. She seems to buy whatever takes her fancy without any consideration for price (a bit like Dylan!). We would never consider staying in a hotel like this one. As we are here to share the cost it is quite reasonable, but if we hadn¡¦t turned up at short notice she would be staying alone in a two-room apartment meant for four people and paying more than she can afford. She seems to only become aware of money when it starts to run out.
Joanne ran away from Hong Kong. She found the teaching situation had become intolerable and the SARS epidemic was the last straw. Her husband, Reg, has just started work in a small town in Sarawak, Malaysia and suggested she come to Aix while he sorts out accommodation, etc., because his daughter, Emily, is studying here. What she did not know was that Emily¡¦s mother was also coming for a while and they do not get on. Emily came over yesterday morning while Joanne and I were shopping and Yoong had a good talk with her. She was much quieter when we last saw her in Brunei. She is fluent in French and seems to be enjoying her stay here. Her mother is leaving in a few days, so Joanne will probably see more of her then.
We spent today walking to to Cezanne¡¦s studio and an area where he painted a mountain several times under many different lighting conditions. There was a semi-circle of prints of some of these variations (the originals are in various museums all over the world). When you turn around you see the actual scene he painted, the mountain with the red roofs of houses in the foreground. We had a picnic lunch there and enjoyed the view as we ate. Yoong and I also spent a lot of time exploring the old town and other historical areas of the city. It is certainly a beautiful town.
The big advantage of this three-storey hotel, which has the strange name ¡§Pierre et Vacances¡¨ is that it has cooking facilities (and a fridge). Last night Joanne cooked a delicious pepper steak dish and tonight will attempt duck a l¡¦orange. We also have cable TV, with CNN, so we know what is happening in the world.
Wednesday April 23
Monday night¡¦s duck a l¡¦orange was superb. Joanne is quite an amazing cook. After squeezing the oranges for the sauce she stuffed the duck with them and used marmalade and calvados in the sauce. Yoong cooked turkey and a pork dish on Tuesday evening which was also very nice. We drink a lot of good French wine with our evening meals. It is as good as any restaurant. Yesterday Yoong and I went to little restaurant called Le Carillon. It was packed with locals and, by French standards, was very cheap ¡V 9.50 euros for a four-course meal. The only problem was that the locals obviously got a better deal than the tourists. Two dishes (out of eight) were not satisfactory. Yoong had an asparagus vinaigrette which was too old and tough. Only the tips were edible. Yet we saw another diner with asparagus that was almost all edible. The other disappointment was a cheese course. I was given the end piece of cheese. We saw other diners with much bigger and nicer serves. However, the other dishes ¡V crudities, turkey breast, veal casserole and ratatouille, a zucchine dish with bacon and a fromage blanc dessert were all excellent. After lunch we walked out of town along the Cezanne Route and to a big park. Everywhere you walk here is picturesque and the weather has been sunny since the rainy weekend. This morning we went to a local park with a colourful display of tulips. When we came back we found we could not get into the hotel. Reception was closed until 2 pm, so we had to wait for people to come out. Joanne has now given us the code to press so we shouldn¡¦t have the problem again. She just cooked us a delicious lunch of ravioli with a very Provencal sauce ¡V full of olives, tomatoes and mushrooms. It¡¦s very easy to just relax and do nothing but eat and drink here. We had lunch out on the balcony overlooking the hotel¡¦s courtyard. I¡¦m still here writing, while Yoong has a rest before we go out to walk around the old town again.
Friday April 25
Every time we walk around the old town we see something different. We managed to see the ¡§trompe l¡¦oeuil¡¨ staircase. Someone let a group of French tourists in after hours and they invited us to come in too. Very interesting 3D effects. Yesterday we completed the tourist sites on the outskirts ¡V a big library and a modern art museum. Last night Yoong and I went to Aixquis Restaurant for a gourmet meal. Mine was accompanied by ¡§Banyule¡¨ wines which were all very sweet. Something different, but we prefer the much cheaper wines available from the supermarket. A Bordeaux red or and Alsace riesling costs less than A$10 a bottle ¡V we don¡¦t bother with the $2 vins de table. Today Joanne has made a trip to Nice to see some art museums. She will be back very late or maybe tomorrow. We spent most of today enjoying this place on our own. Although the weather is still good we only went out for a bit of shopping, checking train tickets and our never-ending trips to the bank. There are many problems: our cheque book arrived yesterday but we found we could not use it because it is not connected to our Savings account, where all our money is. We sent an urgent fax to the Paris Opera branch to transfer some money into the cheque account. We probably should have realised we had to do this but it would be nice if the lady we had waited for an hour to see had given us the full picture. Today the Aix branch made several attempts to contact the Opera branch but could not get through to anyone. In theory our money should be available on Monday, before we leave for Le Croix Valmer, but we have doubts about their efficiency. So many things have gone wrong so far. Yesterday a trainee teller managed to withdraw money from our cheque account, which we then found was empty. We quickly gave it back and asked him to cancel the transaction. Otherwise who knows what the consequences might be? At least the girl today told us we could not withdraw and did her best to help us.
We have booked a meal for tomorrow night at Clos de Violetta, the only restaurant in town with two Michelin stars. We have booked for either two or three as Joanne could easily back out at the last minute. The cost of course is horrendous ¡V but how often do we get the chance to experience the very best of French cuisine? Fortunately we don¡¦t have to pay for it, because we have Mastercard! We have offered to pay Joanne for our share of the accommodation so hopefully we can pay for her meal as part-payment and thus use less of our cash.
Our plan at present: stay with Georges and Monique in Croix Valmer ¡V also at a Pierre et Vacances hotel. Then go to Italy to the Cinque Terre area. Then visit Marie in Moutier, near Chamonix. Not sure yet of the best way to get there. Then to Spain and Morocco and finally back to Paris to stay in our apartment which becomes vacant on July 1st.
Sunday April 27
Joanne stayed the night in Nice and was not up to the meal so just Yoong and I went. I had the Ballade Gourmande, which was a six-course degustation menu, eight if you include the amuse-bouche and petits fours which came even if you ordered only one course, as Yoong did. Yoong¡¦s meal was lamb with three types of garlic, including lamb kidneys. It was beautifully cooked and presented. My courses were small but each one a work of art. The best was squab (pigeon). Others were coquilles (three scallops with a crust made from pigs¡¦ trotters flavoured with cauliflower,, an artichoke appetiser, monk-fish tail, goat cheese with salad, which was rather bland, and a dessert which was a kind of cream-cake with caramel pop-corn, unusual but very nice. Every dish showed great attention to detail and one of the waiters would come over and explain each dish to us in English. For the wine, we chose two half bottles of Provencal wine, a white and a red, which complemented the meal very well ¡V rather better than the sweet ¡§Banyule¡¦ wines at Aixquis. This meal cost about twice as much as Aixquis, but was about ten times as good. It was all very theatrical, with several waiters performing different tasks.
We were the first to arrive, just before our reservation at 7.30. There was a choice of this time or 8.30, and possibly 9.30 because we noticed the last table was filled at that time. The restaurant was full, with almost half being English-speakers, but all were softly spoken, unlike at Aixquis, where the diners at one table ¡V two couples, one American and one English ¡V made their presence felt by speaking far too loudly.
It was raining the whole time and we walked there and back. There were so many umbrellas in the rack that they had difficulty locating ours at the end. Despite the rain it was a memorable experience, to be treasured as we do the few other times we have been to Michelin-starred restaurants.
Today we did a long walk to see more Cezanne sights and along a river where lots of people were walking their dogs or relaxing in the sunshine. It was nearly 6 pm when we got back, after further exploration of the Mazarin Quarter and Cours Mirabeau, and found Joanne had cooked a delicious quiche-like dish using up the remains of our food ¡V well, except for the rest of our cheese which she seems to have thrown out in her obsessive cleaning up.
Tuesday April 29
Yesterday morning we made another attempt to sort out our banking. We managed to phone someone at the Paris branch who asked us to send another fax and assured us that our money would be available by the afternoon. At first the local bank girl said we had send the fax from the post office! She seemed to think we were faxing Hong Kong, rather than Paris. We spent so long sorting things out that we missed the first train to Marseilles which we had planned to get in case the later one missed the connection ¡V unlikely but it could happen. We missed Joanne so had to write a note to her rather than say personal goodbyes. The train journey ran smoothly as is normal in France (when they¡¦re not on strike) and Georges and Monique were waiting for us at St Raphael. The first thing we did was go to the bank to see if our money was available. We found we could not withdraw because we had already withdrawn less than a week ago, even though we had attempted to cancel the transaction by putting the money back immediately. Fortunately we can use our Singapore Mastercard a lot of the time.
Georges and Monique have a very nice studio apartment overlooking the sea in Croix Valmer. They use it for six weeks of the year and the rest of the time it is rented out by Pierre et Vacances, which seems to be a huge chain of holiday apartments. They are looking after us very well. This morning they took us to St Tropez for breakfast at a popular tearoom ¡V Senequier ¡V a bit touristy and expensive. We didn¡¦t fight too hard for the bill as they did not accept credit cards. However we have managed to pay for a few things, such as a good bottle of wine and a huge quiche at the St Tropez market, which we had for dinner tonight and will have another meal of tomorrow.
In the afternoon we had a picnic at the beach of a roast chicken, also from the market, and a kind of salami that is a specialty of somewhere they passed on the way here. We then went for a long walk along a cliff-side path to a cape. Their grand-daughter is staying with us as well and was full of energy for most of the walk, though she needed George to give her a piggy-back toward the end. George and Monique are great company despite the language difficulties. Monique¡¦s English is about as good as Yoong¡¦s French so we manage to communicate quite well.
Wednesday April 30
The day was overcast, unlike yesterday¡¦s bright sunny weather. We walked around the small town of le Croix Valmer and did some shopping. Monique cooked a delicious meal of pork chops, courgettes and crepes. We supplied the Bordeaux wine. In the afternoon we did some walks in the bush and then more walking along spectacular cliff paths. Very dramatic views of waves pounding on rocks. Then back for another home-cooked gourmet meal. Lunch and dinner are always preceded by aperitifs of pastis or good sweet wine or brown beer and followed by a cheese platter. We are very spoilt here, being driven around and eating great food, and enjoying the company of this lovely couple and their dear six-year-old grand-daughter, Oriane.
Friday May 2
Yesterday there was a big festival for May Day at a little village called Pierrefou. We bought tickets for the lunch on the main square, and had a very interesting meal of rabbit and polenta, complete with wine, cheese and dessert. Most of the participants were inhabitants of the village, though there were probably French tourists as well. We saw Provencal dancing and heard singing in the Provencal dialect. The biggest surprise was a little boy who sang with amazing professionalism, in true Parisian style. There were lots of local products for sale (and tasting) and various farm animals to admire. The village itself had a lot of charm. We were joined by George¡¦s cousin Marie-France and her boyfriend, who invited us to their holiday house in the Presque-Isle de Giens, ¡§presque-isle¡¨ being literally an ¡§almost island¡¨, joined to the mainland by two roads, between which are salt-lakes. We did a long walk around the cliffs, even wilder than the previous days¡¦ walks and had a meal of pizzas outside in the fresh air.
It was a long drive back late at night and Oriane had a rare crying session due to over-tiredness. Overall another wonderful day.
At the presque-isle we heard frogs croaking which apparently is a sign of rain. Sure enough today was overcast and there were showers in the morning. We managed to do a walk around Cavaliere, where we found the port even nicer than at St Tropez. The yachts were not quite as big but they were still very impressive. We took our hosts out for lunch in a restaurant they said had a good reputation. It lived up to expectations. The meal began with an amuse-bouche of fish terrine. I had a salmon tartar entr?e which was wonderful and Georges had snails, which were in separate pots with a special sauce which is the specialty of the restaurant. For main courrse Yoong had duck, I had chicken and the others all had fish. My chicken was stuffed with herbs and cepes in a lovely mushroom sauce. We finished with exquisitely presented desserts ¡V mine was a delicious nougat ice-cream. With a good bottle of rose the meal came to the same amount as our Aixquis meal, for five people instead of two, and we really enjoyed it more.
For the first time, we managed to withdraw money from the bank, but they could not tell us whether we actually had money in the account. With all the phone-calls and faxes there shouldn¡¦t be any doubt. We posted a copy of the fax in the mail anyway.
Saturday May 3
Spent the day travelling. Our friends drove us to Avignon (about three hours), where we got the train to Portbou, about four hours. So now we are in Spain. Portbou is a small border town, but very attractive. Only one hotel had rooms. Most are closed until tourist season. We are short of cash so we won¡¦t waste any time getting to Morocco. Depending on our finances, we will take it slower going back through Spain. It¡¦s nice to be on our own again, though it was great to spend time with Georges and Monique and an interesting experience with Joanne.