the south of france and beyond, part III

Inland

The final installment: On our last full day in France, we went inland for an unintentionally adventurous trip to Biot (Bee-ott). But first, let me tell you about the night before, when we had dinner at a serious French restaurant. Our hosts had recommended to us a little place called Bistro Antoine, which is in the Old Town of Nice. They described it as typical Provence fare (Nice is in the Provence-Alpes Maritimes part of France), with fresh ingredients and excellent preparation. We were very excited to be there, especially since we'd gone the budget route on most of our meals on the trip. The place certainly didn't disappoint. Unlike the one other restaurant we'd had dinner at a few nights before, which was crowded with tourists like us who don't know one French dish from another, this one had a mostly native crowd. The waiters were the picture of patience and indulgence, which was good because our pocket phrasebook's food section didn't cover half of the foods they listed on their menu. We definitely tried to order something as a starter that was meant to be a dessert. But they were nice and explained the difference to us. And we ended up with:

Fresh calamari and sausages on a bed of greens (starter #1)

Smoked salmon tartare (starter #2)

Unknown cut of lamb with vegetables and potatoes (main dish #1)

Unknown cut of duck with potatoes (main dish #2)

And finally mango tartare (indescribably delicious, sublime even) and fresh figs baked with sweet cheeses (unconventional and fantastic, both unpictured) for dessert. So that you fully appreciate these photos, I have to disclose that the French folks enjoying their dinner at tables near us were more than a little nonplussed/amused that we were taking pictures of our food. Nevertheless, it was everything you think your first real meal at a French restaurant should be, and then some.

And now, Biot. At this point in the voyage, we felt quite comfortable navigating the various arms of the french public transit system. The italian one was a mess, but France, we thought, we had figured. So when we settled on Biot as our last day trip because of its historic glassworks, it never ocurred to us to second guess our chosen means of transport. You see where this is going. 'Oh!' our hosts said, 'I didn't know the train went to Biot.' But, since they rarely took the train and didn't confess to be experts on it in any way, and because our little train schedule clearly listed the stop 'Biot', we merrily hopped on this shining example of the success of European rail (picture below, with logo proclaiming its sponsorship by HRH the Prince of Monaco, I think because he'd had enough of the less shining examples of European rail that roll through his country on a daily basis - see the upcoming post on Turin), and were on our way.



After arriving at the Biot station, taking a couple pictures of the beach beyond and getting our bearings, we figured out why Christiane and Georges hadn't heard of the Biot train stop. The station is on the coast, about 3km from the village itself, which is inland. Critical error. So we started walking. And we walked and we walked and we walked. And eventually we figured out that there was a bus we could take. And eventually, after stopping at a patisserie to replenish ourselves and get change for the bus, missing one bus because we failed to flag down the driver, and more walking than is really necessary for any one holiday, we arrived in Biot. Here is a picture of one of the squares in town, which kind of reminded me of the square in front of Café René in 'Allo 'Allo.


And here is a picture of the beach, which is kind of far from the square.


Having arrived in Biot, though, we did get to see lots of fantastic things. The famous glassworks is called 'La Verrerie de Biot', and it's about 20 minutes walk outside of the village, of course. We were scandalised by the sandals and shorts that seemed to be the clothing of choice around the furnace. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. This gentleman reminded us of some of the seasoned lifelong surfers you see around the beaches of southern california.

Our favorite glassworks though, was a much smaller family-run place we found along the way, not least because the guy working the molten glass in the picture is the spitting image of our friend Aaron. Seriously, it was uncanny.

And finally, some of Biot's finest:

Biot, as another medieval-era village, is on a hill, which we enjoyed climbing...


The old part of the village was also beautiful. Where Eze had prolific greenery and lots of maintenance to keep it looking stunning, Biot is still lived in by regular people. It was great to see how the village is still being used, and to think of how things have changed there over the centuries. We liked this particular image of how transportation is updated for people who live on really, really narrow streets.

After seeing lots of glassblowing, looking at wares from Provence (soaps, textiles, pottery, and lots of glass), and walking over lots of cobbled stone, we took the bus back down to the train station. Naturally, the bus was late, so we ran onto the platform just as the train we were hoping to catch pulled out. So, determined to make lemonade out of our big transportation lemon, we crossed the street to the beach to watch the sunset in the forty-five minute wait until the next train. Here's Joey, really excited about the stone-skipping possibilities presented by a pebble beach.


And here we are, tired, happy, and ready to head home.

the south of france and beyond, part II

The Coast

Our first morning back in Nice, we didn't do much. After walking our little feet off in Turin and getting lost and unlost in-between, we figured we needed to recuperate. So we spent it on the terrasse on top of the house. Here's Joey, making up to his laptop for having left it alone for so much longer than usual.



And here is the lovely view out to the Port Infernet.


That afternoon, once again feeling the need to take advantage of our time in new and beautiful surroundings, we headed down Mt. Boron (the hill/neighborhood where we stayed) to the seaside. On that part of the coast there aren't long beaches so much as long areas of low cliffs, but nonetheless there is a path that winds along and little bathing areas from time to time. We walked for quite some distance, until we came close to the 'plage nudiste' (nude beach). At least we think we were close. There was a sign with an arrow scrawled onto a bench with marker, and we laughed and kept on our way. At the second sign though, we decided things were getting kind of serious, so we took a funny picture and returned hastily whence we had come.



The walk, however, was beautiful.



The next day we ventured further afield, to the beautiful and glitzy area east of Nice. There are a number of towns along bays there, made popular and frequented by the billionaires and movie stars we read about and see on tv. The plebeians are allowed a walking path along the coast, and so, plebeians that we are, we walked along that path from town to town all day. We started at the appropriately named Beaulieu-sur-Mer (which loosely translates to 'little bit of gorgeous on the sea'), and made our way down one side of one bay to St. Jean-Cap Ferrat, where we had lunch at a restaurant called 'Le Pirate' next to the most obnoxious English tourists in the whole wide world ever. If you want to know that story, ask. Then we walked over the hill to the bay on the other side, walked along that one until our feet hurt, caught the bus and went back home. Here are highlights.

Salade Niçoise (of course), part of our lunch at Le Pirate

Your regular Mediterranean villa, with private yacht slip

The view from above the town of Passable. Great name.

Us in silhouette, villa with mooring space in background

That night, Christiane and Georges invited us to eat with them and Noëlle, Georges' sister, at dinner. We were all too pleased to oblige, because they were wonderfully warm hosts, and because we had bought a whole bottle of wine and felt it wise not to shoulder the entire burden ourselves. We needn't have worried. We spent a splendid evening with them, discussing all the world's problems over four hours and delicious French vintages. It was definitely one of the highlights of our stay.

Now I have to take a moment to talk about Mezzomonte, which is the name of Christiane and Georges' home. The house itself is one of the old buildings typical of the area, which they have renovated perfectly. They let out the guest room as a bed-and-breakfast, and I don't think I've stayed in a room finished with such care and attention to detail in my life. The location is a bit far from the centre of Nice, but we were okay with that, because it's quiet, has fantastic views and is close to the bus lines that went to the places we wanted to see. They have 3 cats, including independently-minded Mephisto who is such a special guy he isn't allowed outdoors unless he's on a leash. He's usually the one in front. Christiane and Georges were warm, accommodating (Georges picked us up from the city in the evenings when we went out!) and served a killer breakfast. I will never look at the 'continental' breakfast at Days Inn in the same way ever again.

Breakfast was delightfully presented in the dining room, which had views of the Port

It usually involved fresh croissants and brioches, fruit, yogurt, cheeses and homemade jam and marmalade. Yuuuuuummmmyyyyy.

Here's Joey, trying his hand at walking the headstrong kitty. Georges is getting photographic evidence of the fact that the cat leads people other than himself.

The view out our window

This post is already quite long. But I'm going to squeeze in one more story before I head on to Part III. That is Eze. (Say 'ezz').

In our very full guidebook, Joey found the write-up on Eze, which is a medieval village (well, back in the day they might have called it a city) built on an unlikely rock outcrop just above the coast in the hope of discouraging invaders. Sadly, even that didn't manage to keep out all the invaders, and it was captured by the Moors, recaptured by (who we would now call) the French, captured by the Italian Savoys, recaptured by the French, and so on. Nowadays it's been recreated as an artists' colony, which means the stone streets are clean and adorned with plants, flowers, artists' studios and reaaaaalllllyyyy sheeshy hotels. Georges, bless his heart, drove us there, and from the minute we stepped out of the car we were in love. There isn't much to say about the place other than it's gorgeous. That sounds anti-climactic, but I'm going to have to let the photos speak for themselves in the hopes that the full weight of that 'it's gorgeous' can be conveyed over the internets.


Eze, as seen from the hill a little further inland. The bridge that leads to it across the adjacent ravine is on the bottom right.

The old buildings and the (relatively) new plants

A religious frieze in the one of the walls, with jasmine to adorn it


One of the artist studios

Joey, in front of an entrance to one of the hotels

Me in a little medieval street

Joey, climbing the stairs to the Jardin d'Eze (the Garden of Eze), a garden built on the site of the former castle, which was destroyed in an invasion.

The garden, the village, and the sea beyond



Here we are, loving the village, the sunshine, and everything else

the south of france and beyond, part I

The Arrivals

It was brought to my attention that the last 5 or so posts on the blog were not made by me, and so I'm setting out to correct that omission by relying on quality, rather than quantity. Kind of. :) Here are the chronicles of our time in France, starting from when I got there.

After a ridiculously long flight experience (who knew Europe was so far away? I sure didn't) I landed in Nice to find Joey very comfortably navigating French streets, shops and transportation systems, for someone who doesn't actually speak French. I was surprised at first by the city, at least in part because I didn't know anything about it before I landed. Interesting facts: Nice is France's fifth largest city and has its second largest (remarkably smoothly-run) airport. There is a large Italian/latin influence along that cost, the Côte d’Azur, because, well it's close to Italy. The climate is similar to Santa Barbara's (they're both 'mediterranean'), but Nice gets more rain so things are greener and there's more moisture. Lots of famous impressionist and other painters/artists spent time in the Côte d’Azur because they found such 'inspiration' there. Apparently artists are more inspired by pretty places. Smart artists. Nice itself reminded me a little bit of a city like Miami, in that it's a large metropolitan area that's grown in tandem with a lively tourist trade, and that is reflected in the city itself. Along the shore, for instance, you can visit the Promenade des Anglais - the English Promenade, or the Quai des Etats-Unis - the U.S. Quai. There's even a Miami Beach. Funny. Here's a photo of a typical Niçois street. Lots of bright colors on the buildings, with shuttered windows and little balconies that people would spend time on, just watching others go by on the street below. Also, as in the U.K., tiny streets with tiny cars. A new twist for us was that cars would doublepark often in Nice, sometimes overnight (!) and it appeared to be part of the normal order of things.

The main areas of Nice are along a wide bay that ends at a little promontory on the Eastern side. On the other side of that promontory is the Port Infernet. We loved the name. Here's a photo Joey took of some smaller boats in the port. There were all kinds of vessels there ranging from these to ridiculously large luxury yachts and cruise ships.

A day after I arrived and got adjusted to the new timezone, we left Nice for Turin, Italy. There's a story here. Joey works with a number of people in his lab at UCSB, including several visitors from Italy. One of his colleagues, Paolo, is from Turin and suggested we visit when we were in Europe. It's fairly close to Nice - just a few hours on a train which goes over the Alps past gorgeous scenery - and we'd never been to Italy before. Also, for the visa-reliant among us travel documents are such a hassle to get it makes more sense to use them to full advantage. I'd tell you about the Schengen visa experience (that's the visa I have to get to visit the EU), but it would require a whole 'nother post, and, well, I'm still working on this one. Anyway, we went off to Turin for a weekend. It was great. And it will be blogged about eventually. For the purposes of this post, however, the real adventure came when we tried to get back to Nice.

Train travel is never uneventful. You'd think we'd have learned that by now, especially after the Yorkshire experience. Our itinerary had us leaving Turin in the early afternoon, connecting in a beautifully sited town on the France-Italy border called Cuneo, and arriving in Nice in the evening. Life being what it is, our Trenitalia train from Turin to Cuneo arrived at the station 10 minutes after our connecting train left, so we resigned ourselves to the next best option for getting back to Nice: an additional connection in Ventimiglia (also on the border between France and Italy - the train route crosses it several times) and a later arrival. We got to Ventimiglia excited to be just a few stops away from a warm bed, and ran to the platform listed for our train. Straightforward, yes? We checked the signs: 'Nice, 7.20', and jumped on the waiting train about 5 minutes before it was scheduled to leave. And then it took off. Immediately. In the wrong direction. Mass panic broke out, at least between the two of us. With my limited Italian, I asked a train employee if the train was headed to Nice. I was holding out hope - sometimes they turn around, or take unlikely routes. 'No', he said, 'this train is going to Milano'. Oh God. So here we are, at the next stop the train made, the stunning Italian riviera town of Bordighieri.

Sadly, we had a hard time appreciating the beauty of the coast just there, mostly because I was ranting about Trenitalia's general incompetence for allowing signs on a train platform to read something other than the information of the train in the platform, and because we were so sad to have to re-tool our route yet again. Nonetheless, we finally made it back to Nice, where we were met by Georges, one of the owners of the adorable bed-and-breakfast we stayed in for the rest of the trip. We liked Georges and his wife Christiane from the very beginning, in part because the first stop we made after the train station, while not the bed-and-breakfast itself, was their local grocery store where there was a wine tasting underway. Not exactly a warm bed, but if there's one thing that could entice us away from a warm bed after a day of being lost on European train routes, it's a wine tasting in France. Here I am, tired but placated. Georges and Christiane are behind me. And yes, the wine was fantastic.

First week in Nice

The first week in Nice was mainly filled with robot conferencing. I gave my 20-min talk on a new reactive obstacle avoidance method early in the conference and it went pretty well. I met a lot of fun people doing cool research and learned a lot!

About half these pictures are from right after I arrived, I gave myself a day before the conference started to get acclimated. I took two long walks around to keep myself awake. One lesson I'd hard but had to learn for myself is that shops in France are closed most of the time. I figured the supermarket would be open, but nothing was open Sunday afternoon when I tried to get some bread ... and then many of the smaller specialized shops don't open on Mondays, close for 3 hours for lunch, etc. I figured it out eventually and managed to enjoy several picnic lunch/dinners of fresh bread, cheese, meat and olives!

The ~10 words of French I started with got me surprisingly far before Danielle arrived ... I managed to order things in most shops without resorting to English, though I was usually stuck if they asked me questions. I definitely had to add up what I was buying in my head the first week though as it took a while to understand numbers, though fortunately all prices in France include tax (and service at restaurants too) which is such a sensible system. By the end of the two weeks I could mostly follow conversations between Danielle and our lovely French hosts which was neat.

Nice 1

Mid-summer garden

These pictures are pretty obsolete, but I thought they'd be worth putting up for a comparison to what the garden's like now. This was from the middle of August before the second caterpillar infestation ... after I found 15 buggers in one day we went and got some Bacillus thuringiensis to fight back. It's kind of like Ebola for caterpillars ... and it was very effective! We also picked up ladybugs to deal with some aphids, we still have a few but they weren't nearly as effective as the BT.

08.23.08 garden