Avignon Revisited

While Avi was here visiting, having never been to France, we went to Avignon.  The city was as engaging as ever, good for walking, good for eating, good for taking photos.  I managed to fit in my usual walk across the Rhone River to Villeneuve-les-Avignon and the requisite short stroll along the rue des Teinturiers – my favorite nook in the city -- where the 19^th century dye works used to be and where you can still find some of the old waterwheels that ran the industry, nestled in among the huge plane trees.  We also visited some nearby villages, but more about that another time.

The French have the reputation of being unfriendly, but I have not found that to be true.  After my trip to France last year I wrote a post about the café where I had my coffee and croissant each morning and the friendly barista who worked there.  I went back to see him (and have a coffee and croissant) on my latest visit.  He didn’t remember me at first, but it didn’t take long before he did.  He was as friendly as before and this time I managed to take his photo.  Voila!  Meet Bruno from the Tapenade Cafe.

 

Bruno

 

Palais des Papes (Palace of the Popes)
approaching from the rear

 

Palais des Papes

 

 

 

 

Sur le pont d'Avignon
L'on y danse, l'on y danse
 

 

Across the way is the bistro Ginette & Marcel
a great place for a snack

 

No Michelin stars, just homey atmosphere
and home cooking

 

Rillettes!

 

Most people were snacking outdoors

 

Breakfast at the Hotel Colbert

 

 

City ramparts

 

Rue des Teinturiers

 

 

Photos of France are not complete without
CHEESE!

 

 

Guess Where I've Been!

Walking: Along The Muga River

I have my friend Avi here visiting.  We’re friends from our teenage years and have only seen each other once in the interim, so it’s been quite a reunion.  Yesterday we took a walk from Castello d’Empuries to Emburiabrava on the path that runs along the Muga River – a walk of over 6 kilometers.  Each way.  We were so anxious to dig in at lunch that I didn’t think to take photos.  But trust me.  It was a variety of seafood and was very good.

 

This path is much longer than the section we did.  Since it passes near Figueres, one of these days I'll have to go rambling around and find it.  It also connects with several other walking paths, one of which is the Camino de Santiago de Compostela or, Cami de Sant Jaume in Catalan.  If you want to walk, there are many opportunities to do that here.

 

If you squint, you'll see poppies

 

 

Castello d'Empuries off in the distance

Almost to the sea

End of trail

Sant Jordi

23 April is the feast day of Sant Jordi, known to English-speakers as Saint George.  Sant Jordi, the one who slew the dragon and saved the princess, is the patron saint of Catalunya.  When Saint George slew the dragon and saved the princess, a red rose grew from where the dragon’s blood spilled.  Thus, since 1456, the day has been celebrated (only in Catalunya; not in the rest of Spain) by men giving red roses to the women they love – wives, mothers, daughters, and friends.   It is the Catalan St. Valentine’s Day.

In 1923 a Barcelona bookseller began a campaign to also celebrate 23 April as the Day of the Book because the deaths of William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes happen to coincide on 23 April 1616 and, I guess, he thought it would help his book business.  His efforts were successful and since then, books have been added to the holiday, and it has become the Day of the Book and the Rose.  It is one of the loveliest holidays here in Catalunya, where book and flower stalls draped in Catalan flags are set out on the main promenade of every city, town, and village. 

 

 

In 1995, 23 April was adopted by UNESCO as World Book Day upon petition from Catalunya.  It’s starting to catch on, but not many people around the world know about it yet.  For any book lover out there, if you didn’t see anything about World Book Day this week, this might be a good time to start making suggestions to your local bookseller to celebrate the holiday next year.

There are always more book stalls than there are bookshops in town.  That’s because stalls are also run by community groups, charities, political parties, and municipalities.  I stopped at the table run by the local group of sardana dancers to ask about upcoming events.  They were disdainful.  Their group only dances in competitions.  Evidently they are a closed group as they asked me no questions about my interest in dancing, my level of competence, or anything else.  That is one community group that I won’t be supporting.

(If you’re a regular blog reader and think you’ve got déjà vu, let me reassure you.  I’ve taken some of the above from my post on Sant Jordi of two years ago.)

 

 



Kids with Catalan Independence flags

Together we will build a new state.  Come with us.

It's In The Details

I kind of liked incorporating a quote into my post last week so I thought I would give that another try and open with one this week.  My topic is details.  But whereas last week’s post was inspired from the two quotes already in my thoughts, this week I had to search to prove what I wanted to say was valid.   I found two quotes related to my subject. 

The first is by Oscar Wilde, one of my favorite writers or, more precisely, one of my favorite characters.  He said, “One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details.  Details are always vulgar.”  Unfortunately, that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.  My thesaurus gives, as an alternative for “detail” “triviality.”  That wasn’t what I had in mind either, although trivial was an improvement on vulgar.

Then I came across a quote I liked better.  This one is by William Feather.  Now, I had never heard of William Feather so I had to look him up.  He was a publisher and a writer.  I was referred to Amazon, couldn’t find any of his books there, but I did find several references to him on the internet, so apparently he was famous for his aphorisms, one of which works for me: “Beware of the man who won’t be bothered with details.”

That’s the problem with looking for a quote to back up what you are trying to say.  It doesn’t always work.  In fact, I agree with Wilde, or at least with my thesaurus; details are often trivial, especially in conversation and even more so if the person speaks very slowly.  On the other hand, sometimes they are important.  They might perk up a boring salad or give meaning to the larger whole¸ whatever that whole might be.

So here I am in Figueres, not the most picturesque of towns.  It does not overlook the sea, there is no river flowing through it, it has no architectural marvels, it is just a plain, functional town with a nice, tree-lined rambla albeit only one block long.  Yet even so, if you look at the details among many nondescript buildings, you can find things to perk up the eye.

 

 

Change

“No man ever steps in the same river twice.”  Heraclitus said this sometime around 500 B.C.  Although he said it 2500 years ago, I’m only aware of having read it recently.  He believed that change is central to the universe.  This disturbs me, but it seems to me that he was right.

Benjamin Franklin said, in a 1789 letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy, that “nothing is certain but death and taxes.”  Could it be that he didn’t know about Heraclitus and that change was inevitable?  And yet he was right about death.  That is, for as long as there is life, there must be death.  But I suppose that life will not continue forever.  That will also change and this is also disturbing.

We all know on some level that things are always changing, but some of us are more comfortable with that fact than others.  I, for one, am a little frightened of change.  And as for death, I know I am changing daily, getting older every minute.  Eventually some part of me will fail and I will die.  This isn’t morbid; it’s simply the truth.

Is change a good thing?  Not that it matters; it is inevitable.  Still, we can judge it if we want.  Looking around me, I would say that sometimes change is good, and sometimes it isn’t so good.

I see the change in seasons and I always find that good.  By the time you are sick and tired of one, another creeps in.

 

Field,24 March

 

 

Same field, 7 April

 

But sometimes change doesn’t creep, it crashes, shattering reality as we know it.  As it apparently has for my neighbor’s magnificent cat who recently underwent a deeply radical change.

 

 

Father's Day

Father’s Day in Catalunya is celebrated on the feast day of Sant Josep, as I suppose it is in all historically Catholic countries.  This kind of makes sense to me but kind of not.  Joseph wasn’t exactly Jesus’s father.  I guess he was a stepfather.  He was married to Jesus’s mother and he raised the boy.  Doubts aside, Sant Joseph, which falls on 19 March, IS Father’s Day and I celebrated in a limited way by going to visit the fair. 

The Fira de Sant Josep in Figueres is also the Fira del Brunyol.  A brunyol is a kind of donut, but without a hole.  It is dough that is fried and sprinkled with sugar and eaten during the days before Easter.  I have nothing against deep fried dough covered with sugar, but I didn’t buy any brunyols because they were very expensive.  So I amused myself by walking up and down all the aisles and only buying something to take home for my lunch: a spinach pastry from a Palestinian stand and humus from a Berber stand.  The humus was the best I’ve ever had.  Many of the stands had handcrafts, a few had stuff made in China or Guatemala, and off to the side was an antique/collectibles fair.   But the best was the food stands.  Overall it was colorful and tasty.

Berber pastries