FrankingWorldTraveller

Arles holds one of the remaining Roman colosseums as well as the Théatre Ancien, built in the last part of the 1st century BC. We found a parking lot instantly 200 meters from the colosseum, a virtual miracle. We walked around for just an hour or so, snapped a few photos and had a coffee before returning to the coin box that is the French highway system. Seriously, they stop you about every 2 miles and make you feed something like 4.65 euros into the machine. If you don’t have exact change, the world comes to an end while people back up behind you and honk until the very pissed off attendant comes and yells at you for making her get off her rump and give you change. Very embarassing. Take about 100 euros in coins if you ever plan to drive in France.

We spent the day, Sunday, walking around Avignon, window shopping closed stores, eating too many carbs for breakfast (a whole baguette and a croissant each with buerre et confiture). I observed what I had observed in Paris on my first visit to France in the early 90s with my friend RH. A small, fashionable woman came to the cafe and ordered a café, which was, of course, a .25 oz cup of espresso. She smoked 3 cigarettes, checked her email (a new addition from the early 90s), payed her coin euro and left. We paid 20 euros for our fat tourist bread bowl with a cappuccino that was mostly canned whipped creme. Yes, we picked the first place we found, no it was not a good choice. I hope to trash them on trip advisor, where I serve as associate God. (if I can find the name of the place).
We saw a Toulouse-Latrec exhibit in an old moldy Chateau, the Angladon Museum.

After, we perused the market, Les Halles, and marveled at the beautiful foods: fresh fish, a cooked pigs head, ducks, plucked and decorated with duck heads, so that the buyer will know what bird she regards, wine, and spices, and le fromage, lord, le fromage (cheese). We ate nothing, but bought some apples.

We made it back to the hotel and went to lunch at 4:30. Salads and Chardonnay- not a Rhone wine, but we found one from Gasconne, the region where I went to cooking school last year, a region of exceptional food and wine that is untouched by America’s notice.

We may go to dinner about 9, or just get a gelato and skip it. Another thing I love about Europe. Dinner is negotiable.

Back to La Ciotat!

La Ciotat in spring is a mix of intense wind, intense sunlight, boats and more boats, and at the shipyard, launches. The city is bouncing back from some hard times when the shipyard closed down for military ships. Small boutique boatyards have moved in, and now the biggest of the big Megayachts come here to get hauled with one of the rail/crane systems that were left behind.

One of Larry Ellison’s garish displays of wealth (300 ft? 43 crew? I think) sits in the water, not too far from where little ole Amante sits blocked on the hard.

With a thriving restaurant-filled waterfront in the Vieux Port (old port), it is hard to imagine the town has had rough times.
People come here for a day trip, walk along the waterfront and have a long lunch. On Wednesday morning the fishermen come in and sell their catch on the sidewalk. On Sunday there is a large street market with baked goods, cheeses, fresh produce, rotisserie, cured meats, clothes and crafts and in fine weather, people pack the tiny waterfront. A few streets from the waterfront paint a more austere picture. A few streets from the waterfront paint a more austere picture. Buildings are more weather worn, less restored, but a smaller version of the market runs twice weekly near the Lumiere theatre, the first theatre, where the brothers Lumiere invented the moving picture. It is of a train arriving at La Ciotat stain station.

The town is sheltered by a massive rock, Le Bec D’Aigle, and just to the other side of it sits Cassis. From Cassis all the way to Marseilles lie the Calanques, a series of fiord-like inlets, walled high with sheer limestone cliffs and deep dark blue waters.

The Calanques fill up with day trip boats and tour boats and are quite beautiful.
Amante is not ready, so we will tour around a bit while they redo the cabin sole for the 4th time.

La Ciotat has come to feel like our temporary home. Everyone at the Best Western knows our names, Bonjour Madame Franking, greets me several time a day by several employees. They even memorize when we change rooms and just write it down when we enter for breakfast. As we come and go we move to different rooms. This is the view from our favorite.

We have loads of restaurant reviews for anyone interested. And the Best Western is really the best place in town, and quite good for the price and location.

Welcome to Nice, France.

Don’t leave anything in your car. Even the lit, guarded, parking garage the Hotel Suisse sends you to. We left extra luggage in the car in the back of the station wagon, covered as recommended, and returned to find the window broken out and the suitcases evacuated of their contents. What was missing? How many of us really take inventory (me hence forward). Plus we have been here all week and moving things from one suitcase to another. Instantly Neal noticed the bag of electronics was missing. HIs Garmin GPS watch, all our chargers, the JVL Flip speakers for the Nav Station computer, but his Aveda shampoo and conditioner?!?!? My Very Valuable Breaking Grounds coffee??? Bastards! We are making a list of things as re notice them gone, but CRAP, it makes me mad to be robbed. Violated. Also sure the workers (guards) at the garage are guilty. We went to the cat at 11 pm to get my running shoes out of the car- no one saw but for anyone watching the cameras. Police told us we should file a declaration but they couldn’t hear it for about 4 hours, so we skipped it. They couldn’t care less.

I’ll post more when I have more electricity.
Here is the fun thing about Nice- Rudy reunion!

Our mate from last year is recovering from back surgery, so he can’t sail with us yet, but he was ready to chase down the thieves in his body cast!!

Rome was funner, but Nice is really cool, aside from the Niçoise thieves!!

Glorious and crowded, full of history and churches and cliched old haunts.
Ruins of ruins built upon ruins.

We saw so many school groups and I pitied them- kids growing up here have such a burden of history to learn. I had to learn Tennessee history, which was basically, some soggy water rats fleeing some kind of persecution, floated up on river rafts and stayed. The end.

We stayed near Campo Fiori, which sits on the ruins of the Pompeii theatre. It is a vast market by day, and restaurant and party hall by night.

First day we arrived, we slept a bit, then met with Mauro, a potential captain. We had 3 small beers at a cafe near Piaza Navona.

So hard to stay awake until bedtime! We walked a bit, and had dinner at Hostaria Costanza, right next door to hotel. We didn’t really want to walk off dinner yet, just be able to stumble home and go to bed. It seemed expensive for a local family feeling dive. We had baked turbot for 2, which was fabulous. I’ve missed having whole fish, picking through bones slows down the meal. We had Planeta Chardonnay, which was very good, we’e had it before in Sicily with the Berkeleys and the Finches.. This was perhaps our best meal in Rome, but I am a sucker for a well cooked fish. We walked 15 feet back to Hotel Lnetta, where we stayed for our Rome visit. It has a great location, wonderful service, but very small rooms.
Next day, we walked to Trastevere, to the Forum, to Piazza Venezia, and back to the hotel.

We met with Luca, a potential mate, and had lunch at Elle Effe- pizza which was plain, then napped and went to Spanish Steps and had dinner at an Enoteca on the way. We were more interested in going and seeing than eating, since we are arriving at Amante fat already.
Next day walked to Piazza della Republica, visited the Santa Maria Della Angeli. I never stop picking up my jaw from the wealth and grandeur applied to the churches in Rome.

Also saw Santa Maria Maggiore. Went to hotel and made it to vatican Museum appt at 2:30.


Got one more visit to St Peter’s Basilica. WOW

Dinner at Campo di Fiori restaurant. zzz. We had massages at the hotel in the ruins of the Pompei theatre, which is basically what the whole Campo di Fiiori area is. Our hotel has put a spa in the moldy smelling subterranean ruins, but it works! First massage in a roman ruin!

Nice view!

We drove from Puerto Vallarta to Sayulita, a charming beach and surfing town with great little shops and restaurants.

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Last year’s route.

Next year’s route: Plan A

and just for fun, cutest baby in the world, my great-niece, Josie. I can’t help it.

We spent a wonderful Holiday at home visiting friends and family and not skiing, for lack of snow.

Now that we’re back home, we starting to think about next season. We look back at what we did last season, which was cover way too many miles and spend too little time in each place. Here is a photo of the ground (sea) we covered:

If we don’t sell, and there is a next season, I hope to move more slowly and linger longer in place. This route included 6 overnight crossings and I don’t want to get use to it!

European capital of culture for 2013. They dressed up and made the waterfront shine!

This was a memorial to the victims of the holocaust and a promise to never forget.