Douce France

Kellen Smetana
We crossed the border from Italy into Menton, France late morning.  This was it.  This was my time to shine.  I had majored in French, studied here for seven months, and at one time could name as many French kings as US presidents.  It was time to play tour-guide for Bill; I just needed to dig down deep below the five years of rust first.

Which way to France?

Found it

Even before leaving Italy I began practicing by singing to myself all the French songs I knew.  Charles Trenet dominated the playlist, and if you visited the new stats page you saw he continued to play on in my head throughout the remainder of France (definitely worth a YouTube search if you’re up for some classic French songs).  But now that we had arrived, it was time to put these language skills to the test.  The road climbed a panoramic outcropping beyond Menton and we stopped to take a few photos.  As I approached another man to ask for a photo, I blacked out like Will Ferrell in Old School and found myself deep in a conversation about aperture, F-stop, shutter speed, and lens size (things I don’t even know about in English).  Well then, I guess the French was hiding down there somewhere…

Twins on the Cote d'Azur

Worries brushed aside, it was time to bask in the full glory of the French Riviera - or as they call it, the Cote d’Azur.  Our first major stop of the day was actually not in France at all, it was the tiny principality of Monaco.  Bill’s steadfast rule for visiting a country is that there must be at least one meal consumed there, and Monaco did not buck the trend.  We rolled in for an enjoyable crepe lunch full of discussion about whether Monaco is actually a country, but were immediately overwhelmed by the number of Ferraris, mega-yachts, and high-end designer stores.  It turns out that not only is Monaco a country, it has the highest GDP per capita in the world and it is quite the playground for the rich.  After lunch we paid a quick visit to the only landmark we knew, the world-famous Monte Carlo Casino.  We snapped a couple photos and smiled for a bunch of others (people thought we looked hilariously out of place in front of the line of supercars), and then it was back into France and on to Nice.

Monte Carlo Casino

Ferrari, Aston Martin, Porsche... where is the bike parking?

We took a rest day in Nice, which gave us time to check the box on swimming in yet another sea and to sit down for some serious work on a meal of all-you-can-eat mussels and fries.  I’m pretty sure restaurants don’t look at the economics of this offering with traveling cyclists in mind: it took eight buckets of mussels and four plates of fries to finally vanquish the unending ether of our bellies.  Many people have joked that we will be ready to take on any marathon, Ironman, or cycling race when we get home; it appears we may be even better prepared for the next Man v. Food competition.

Mr. Buckets

Nice is nice

We continued our culinary quest in Cannes the following day with delightful baguette sandwiches.  After passing by the awards palace of the famous Cannes Film Festival, we turned away from the sea and dove into the depths of Provence en route to our next destination, Aix-en-Provence.  That evening for dinner we opted for wood-fired pizza from a van parked on the side of the road.  As we sat on the gravel shoulder of the highway in the dark eating our pizza, two separate people approached to shout “Bon Appetit!”, thus ensuring we would enjoy our meal.  Bill was rather surprised by these gestures, and after I explained it was a very normal thing to do in France, I did admit it was a little humorous considering our current locale.  After a few chuckles and some creative thinking, we took the next obvious step to create a “Bon Appetit’ing” game to replace our now stale Exclamation game.  We’ll test the pilot over here and if it proves fun enough we’ll bring it back to take the US by storm later this fall.

Bon Appetit!

The next morning we woke up in a vineyard.  As we sleep in a new place every day, it sometimes feels as though these locations blur together and we can forget how unique and special each one is.  After a lengthy campsite search in the dark the previous night, we concluded that nobody would really care if we set up shop in the middle of the already harvested vineyard.  It wasn’t until the morning that I realized how cool it was to roll over and stare down infinite rows of grape vines.  Situations like these have really taught me to appreciate the incredible intimacy with nature that camping allows.  But there was no time now to get tangled in the vines of contemplation, we had to continue speeding on to Aix-en-Provence.

Goooooooood Moooorning Provence!

Woke up in a vineyard

Five years ago I spent seven months studying at Universite de Provence in Aix, and I was excited to play host for a fun weekend in the city.  We were also looking forward to entertaining our first visitor of the trip since Georgia, Emily De Yoe, a college friend currently studying in Rome.  We arrived mid-Friday and soon met up with Emily, who claimed she was as excited to see us as she was to visit France (but we knew the truth).  After passing a laughter-filled afternoon at the cafes on the Cours Mirabeau, the city’s plane tree-lined thoroughfare, Bill and Emily put up with my personal tour, passing my old home, favorite cafes, the school where I used to study, the bars where I used to – well, you get the idea.

Aix-en-Provence

Cours Mirabeau by night

Petanque players in Aix

Later that evening, after a marvelous Provencal dinner, we met up with two of my old friends, Francois and Christophe, for an aperitif and fun night out on the town.  It was great to reminisce with these two and share stories from the last five years (quite a lot has happened); it was also a wonderful reminder what a good feeling it is to have welcoming friends you can come back to in a place like this.

Menu Provencal

Francois and Christophe (right two) host the gang

The rest of the weekend we perused Aix’s open-air markets, paid a visit to Cathedrale Saint Sauveur, popped in more cafes than I can count, and even followed in the footsteps of the city’s most renowned artist, Paul Cezanne.

Saturday fruit market

Flower market of course

Cloister at Cathedrale Sainte Sauveur

Emily even convinced us to ride the carousel. Bill was pleased...

We took a tour of Cezanne’s old workshop and Bill proved to be trivia master on the current controversy with the largest collection of Cezanne works, which reside at the Barnes Foundation down the street from his childhood home.  From the workshop, we climbed to the top of one of the hills north of the city for a spectacular vista of where Cezanne used to paint many of his famous Mount Sainte-Victoire landscapes.

Mount Saint Victoire above Aix

Waiting for Cezanne to paint our picture

After a fun, whirlwind weekend in my favorite city of the trip, it was already time to bid adieu to Emily as she hopped on a bus back to Marseille.  That evening I got a chance to visit with my old host family, the Renaudieres, at their new home just north of the city.  It was exciting to hear about all the great things my old “host brothers and sisters” are off doing in Aix and elsewhere around the world and it was a perfect cap to a perfect weekend in Provence.

Chez les Renaudieres

Monday morning, it was time to get the wheels rolling again.  For the next few days we cruised across southern France and it was easy to see why the Tour de France is such a photogenic sporting event.  It seemed that around every turn we were greeted with something new: old castles, vineyards, tree-lined canals, cobblestone streets, even pink flamingos.

Tree-lined roads

And castles

Hospitality since 1093. I wonder if they've changed the menu since then...

Pink flamingos

One of the last days before the Pyrenees, we pulled up to a countryside restaurant just before dark.  After taking our order, Jean-Marc, the proprietor, asked where we were from: Netherlands, Germany, England…?  “No, actually we are from the US.”  He ran back inside the bar screaming as if there was a fire: “Oh Putain!  Putain de merde!  [pardon my French, he was very excited]  We have two Americans here… AND they speak French!”  He came running back out.  “Two Americans visiting my restaurant; we’ll celebrate with some alcohol!”  Immediately the three of us were taking pre-dinner vodka shots.  When he calmed down a bit, I asked him what all the fuss was about.  It turns out Jean-Marc had always dreamt of visiting the US, but he has not as of yet, nor has he ever had any Americans visit his restaurant (which came as a surprise given the huge tourist numbers in places like Monaco, Nice, and Aix).

Jean-Marc, you're crazy

Jean-Marc joined us for much of the surprisingly tasty bull-meat dinner, and so it turned out a rather jovial one as we incorporated many of the other patrons into the conversation.  After dinner he invited us to camp behind his place; we happily accepted.  We joined the campfire with other guests of his bed and breakfast and I engaged in interesting conversation with Jean-Marc and Phillipe, one of the other guests.  We talked for hours (over more vodka drinks) about retirement in France, Bordeaux’s wine climate, and how a great amount of fascination with the US still stems from WWII, as was the case for the ever eccentric Jean-Marc.  It’s always interesting to hear about how different perspectives can be even in a place I think of as so similar to the US.

The next morning we packed up, thanked Jean-Marc enthusiastically for his hospitality, and said goodbye to our other new French friends.  We turned our wheels southwest and continued on in France, but this time the riding would not be as flat as before.  It was time to cross the Pyrenees.

Off to the Pyrenees