Best Laid Plans

In France, some plans got changed.  First, there was this bus ride.  I had gone from Avignon to Arles by train and intended to return the same way.  But somehow or other I had bought, from the vending machine, a ticket for a bus rather than the train, and that bus was just about to leave from in front of the train station.  It was a matter of going to wait in line to exchange the ticket and risk missing both the bus and the train, or getting on the bus, in spite of the fact that while the train does the journey in 20 minutes, with the bus it would take over an hour.  Then again, what was the hurry?  And as it was Saturday and the transportation system was running on the reduced weekend schedule, it might be wise to grab what was at hand.   

It was a pleasant journey accompanied by eclectic music from an oldies but goodies radio station that the driver had cleverly chosen.  Starting with Edith Piaf, we then heard the French Partisan song, some French rock and roll and some 1970s American pop.   To cap it off we arrived in Avignon earlier than scheduled.  There is no music on the train so overall I would say that I was happy with the switch.

Although I had the next day planned out, in bed that night, I couldn’t get to sleep.  Sunday is the big weekly antique fair at nearby Ile-Sur-La-Sorgue.  It’s one of the biggest antique markets in France and something I very much wanted to see.  But because it was Sunday, the public transportation would once again be limited.  And in this case, very limited.  My only morning option was a bus that left Avignon at 9 am.  Returning in the afternoon I would have the choice of a bus if I wanted to return a little earlier, and a train if I wanted to return a little later.

So why couldn’t I sleep?  I didn’t know.  But when, eventually, I realized that I didn’t have to go, that I could change my plan, that I could sleep as long as I liked and do whatever I wanted, and I decided that I wouldn’t go, I relaxed. 

I would walk to Villeneuve-Les-Avignon.  It’s about an hour’s walk, across the Rhone River.  I love the walk and I love being in the pretty village of Villeneuve.  I had planned to visit Villenueve on another day when they had their weekly market, but I could go twice.  Sunday I would visit the Carthusian monastery.  Et voilà.  I could turn off the alarm, relax, and go to sleep.

I didn’t get to see the famous antiques market, but I did stumble upon two unexpected flea markets.  What a surprise.  The first was right in town, along several blocks of one of my favorite streets.  It looked like a neighborhood affair.  It was amazing to see some very fashionable women rummaging through other people’s used clothing.  It doesn’t happen here.  For the most part, Spanish women find secondhand clothes disgusting.

 

 

Then, further along there was a big flea market on the Ile de la Barthelasse.  I made a small detour and went.  I didn’t buy anything at either flea market, but had a good time poking around under the huge plane trees.

 

 

So much for the Carthusian monastery.  Another plan out the window.  I had enough time to amble around a little and then have lunch.  A very good lunch, as it turned out, and not at the old favorite that I had intended to go to.  No, I decided that as everything else was new and unplanned, so should lunch be.  So I went to a place I had read about and it was lovely, even the bathroom. 

 

 

Entrance to the unvisited Carthusian monastery

 

Lunch was at Le Bistrot du Moulin, once an olive mill.
That round table is the dessert tray!

 

The final surprise was the bathroom

 

Tot Sants (All Saints)

Today, Tot Sants (All Saints), the Catalans visit cemeteries to clean up and decorate the crypts of their deceased loved ones.  Although they say that younger people are not continuing the tradition in large numbers, the local cemetery here was full of people of all ages and flowers of all sorts.  There were small bouquets, potted plants, and flower arrangements of all sizes.  There were real flowers, plastic flowers, and artificial flowers that from a distance (perhaps not as far as heaven) looked real.  There were simple displays, elegant displays, and tacky displays.  Altogether they dressed up the cemetery and made it a colorful, almost cheerful place.

Although my parents are not interred here, going to the cemetery provides me with the atmosphere to think about and remember them.  This isn’t the first time I’ve visited a cemetery on Tot Sants.

But this is the first time that someone was killed at the cemetery I was visiting on Tot Sants.  I didn’t hear the gunshots.  I think the shooting occurred just before I arrived.  And I didn’t know anything about it until after I had left.

I left the cemetery as I had entered, through the main, front gate.  But rather than walk home the way I had come, I headed down along the cemetery side wall in order to do a loop.  After walking a few blocks, just past the side entrance and before the road where I would have turned, there was a police barricade.  I thought it was strange that not only would they not allow cars through, but pedestrians couldn’t pass either.  So I was compelled to make a small detour and then pass the barricade a few yards further on.

It wasn’t until the evening news that I found out what had happened.  There had been a fight between two gypsy families and one man had been shot and killed.  This is a society where there is relatively little fatal violence (outside of domestic violence) and hardly any guns (outside of hunting rifles).  These sorts of fights, when they occur, are usually fought with knives.  This was very strange news indeed.

I’m not sure I’ll be visiting the cemetery next year for Tot Sants.  I wouldn’t want to be there when those two feuding families show up to clean and decorate their family crypts.

 

Cyprus trees always mark cemeteries

You don't have to bring your own watering can

It's sad to see abandoned crypts

 

Awaiting new tenants

 

Friendly French

When I checked into my room at the Hotel Colbert in Avignon earlier this month and opened my suitcase to unpack, I found a few things had gotten wet from the rain that morning.  One was my nightgown which I simply hung in the shower to dry.  Another was more of a problem – it was my copy of The Garden of the Gods by Gerald Durrell, an out-of-print book, one of two books that I had brought along for my week’s reading material (Inspector Maigret escaped dry).  The worst was my soggy bookmark. 

It may sound unimportant to you, but I’ve been using the same book mark for many years.  In fact, it didn’t start life as a bookmark but as a postcard and came to me either by chance or by divine intervention in a used copy of an Inspector Maigret paperback that I bought years ago in Berkeley at Black Oak Books.  I’ve been using it for at least 13 years.  The image is a vintage black and white photo, somewhat blurred, of a person with an umbrella, walking in the rain, passing by a Citroen 2CV.  It’s by Sabine Weiss and is titled 2 CV A Paris, 1957.  I don’t care that it’s become ragged at its edges and that I’ve had to make minor repairs with scotch tape.  It’s what I’ve been marking pages with for as long as I can remember, and it’s important to me, and it was wet.

The hotel provided a hairdryer in the bathroom, so I gave my beloved 2CV postcard some gentle heat treatment and leaned it up against the wall to dry thoroughly.  But just in case, I set off for a little shop I know that sells an interesting array of prints and cards.  Maybe I could find its duplicate? 

My shop had no Citroens modern or vintage.  But they did have some interesting cards including one smashing black and white image of Audrey Hepburn from Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

When I went to pay for the cards I had chosen, I pointed out the Hepburn card and said to the woman that I thought Audrey was very beautiful and was one of my favorites.   The woman agreed, and asked me something that I didn’t understand, so I said “Oui.”  She then looked around under the cash register, and whipped out a day-at-a-glance desk calendar with 352 images, all of Audrey.   I politely pored through them then went to put the calendar back in the box.  It was then that I noticed it was a calendar from 2008.

Surprised that she had held onto it for so long while hoping that she didn’t expect me to buy a seven-year-old calendar, I thanked her and handed back the box, preparing to pay for the cards I had selected.  But she pushed the box back at me and said she meant for me to have the calendar.  It was a gift. 

The photos in this post are of Arles.

 

The Arlesiens are grateful to the American Air Force pilots who
died while helping to liberate Arles
in August 1944

Despite the fact that Vincent Van Gogh painted
hundreds in the few weeks he lived in Arles
there are no paintings of his in the town.
This reproduction shows the little yellow house
where he lived.  It is no longer there, replaced
by the grey brasserie that you can see.  The larger
building behind it is still there.

A better view to compare with the reproduction above

Arles sits on the Rhone river

Riverside walkway

Vincent was a patient at this hospital after his ear
incident and breakdown.  He was probably correctly
diagnosed at that time as having temporal lobe epilepsy. 
This is now a cultural center.



View of a cafe Vincent painted
that is still there

Harking back to its Roman roots

 

The Roman amphitheatre

Les Alyschamps was once a prestigious cemetery.

At The Train Station

In A Writer’sParis, Eric Maisel explains that he likes to write in public places and that for him, bus stations, especially those with international connections work well.  There, he says, “every few minutes a drama unfolds.”

As it was, the first drama of my recent trip to France unfolded at the train station in Figueres, before I had even left town, as I was waiting to catch an early morning train north to Cerbere for the first leg of my journey.

A few drops had just started to fall as I left home, although not enough to open an umbrella.  But before long real rain was coming down and my umbrella went up.  I kept myself relatively dry and figured the suitcase would take care of itself.  Later, when I unpacked in Avignon, I found that suitcases do not necessarily take care of themselves and some of my clothing had become wet.  But that wasn’t the drama.

At the station there was, as is usually the case, a very long line to buy tickets from the single open window.  And as always, there was an employee walking the room to tell us that if we were paying in cash, we could buy our tickets on the train (theoretically if you don’t board with a ticket in hand, you face a fine).  I chose to forgo the line and board.  My ticket to Cerbere, France would cost 1.90 euros and I had enough cash for that.

Waiting at the platform for my train, the promised drama began to unfold.  The train for Barcelona begins its run at this station and was sitting, available to be boarded.  To reach it from the station, one had to descend the stairway, pass under the tracks, and climb back up on the other side.  At the top of the stairs at the station end stood a man with a large suitcase.  His wife was some feet behind him, evidently hesitating to take the plunge.  He was shouting at her and she was shouting back at him, but to add emphasis to her point of view, she was also stamping her foot. 

The drama would have been more complete if I could actually hear what they were saying.  Unfortunately, I was too far away to hear what they said or even what language they were shouting it in.  I presumed that their dispute had to do with whether or not to board the train without having bought their tickets at the station.  Then again, they could have been arguing about anything, as couples do.  However, unlike my own train that still had some minutes before its scheduled departure, theirs was just about to leave.

When the loudspeaker announced that the train was departing imminently, she gave way.  He, having a head start, arrived at the train first, but the doors had already closed.  Now we were getting to the real drama.  Would the train leave without them?  And if it did, how would the two react?

But the station master quickly put an end to my drama.  He called out to the engineer to open the door, and the two were let on.

With my drama thus deflated, I was left with my own thoughts and expectations for the week ahead.  There would be no drama with a companion.  I was travelling alone.  There would be no arguments, no compromises.  For me, travelling alone is easy in some ways and difficult in others.  I have done it many times now, and I love the freedom to plan my own itinerary, set my own schedule, and do things at my own pace.  But evenings alone can be difficult and of course, there is no one to share impressions with.

First sojourn would be in the monumental, riverside town of Avignon.  I’ve been there so many times now that it’s become my home away from home. 

The Hotel Colbert
My room off the patio was through
the small brown door at the back

Colorful city-run bike sharing

Oh my!

One of several favorite restuarants

Coming up from behind the
Palais du Papes

The Popes haven't always lived in Rome
Sometimes they lived here in Avignon

Le Chapelier Toque, another
favorite restaurant and probably the best

Baba au Rhum to die for
I was so anxious to taste it I didn't wait to take the photo

N.B.  The train station in the photo above is not Figueres -- it's the much prettier Portbou.