Provence Blog by ProvenceBeyond

Rians village in the Var, on Beyond

The Medieval Var village of Rians has been added to Beyond. This small village, located northeast of Aix-en-Provence and the Sainte-Victoire mountain, is a frequent café stop on our Beyond trips into the Var, Vaucluse and the Luberon.

Vinon-sur-Verdon added to Beyond

Vinon-sur-Verdon is a small but active village,  located between the Luberon and the Verdon Gorges, and sits astride the Verdon river. Sitting at the junction of 4 departments, Vinon-sur-Verdon has for a neighbor the Cadarache nuclear research center.

Saint Julien-le-Montagnier and Windmills

We've added Saint Julien-le-Montagnier to Beyond. A pretty, Medieval village in the Haute Var with windmills, a lovely 12th-century church and a magnificent 360-degree panoramic view.

Cucuron Medieval village in the Luberon

We've just added Cucuron, one of our favorite villages in the Luberon, to Beyond. A lovely walled village, welcome cafés and restaurants and a very pretty pool (bassin) add to the attractions here. Our first visit to Cucuron was in 1997. Our most recent was a couple of days ago.

Silvacane, the Third Provencal Sister, in Beyond

We've added a Beyond page for the 12th-century Silvacane Abbey. Located in the wide Durance valley of the Vaucluse, northwest of Aix-en-Provence, Silvacane is known as one of the Three Provençal Sisters, three Cistercian abbeys built in the 12th century. The other two are Senanque Abbey and Thoronet Abbey.

Autumn Abbey and Mid-Week-Weekend

The photo here is the front of the 12th-century Silvacane Abbey in the autumn, one of the Three Provençal Sisters of Provence, along with the Senanque Abbey and the Thoronet Abbey.

We visited here on Beyond's 3-day weekend, this Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Since Beyond is 7/7 job, we take our rare  1-day, 2-day or 3-day "weekends" whenever time allows. 

Day 1 we visited Rians, Saint Julien-le-Montagnier, Vinon-sur-Verdon and Peyrolles-en-Provence; over-nighting in La Roque-d'Anthéron and dining in nearby Cadenet. Some of these visits are flying-visits: a café stop and a short wander around; and some are multi-hour photo reportages. Most of these villages we had visited previously, but Vinon-sur-Verdon was a lovely discovery.

Day 2, after an early-morning visit of La Roque-d'Anthéron we visited the Silvacane Abbey and the walled Medieval village of Cucuron. Late afternoon we stopped Saint Michel-l'Observatoire before over-nighting in the only hotel remaining in Forcalquier. 

Day 3 we returned to Saint Michel-l'Observatoire, but two days of autumn sunshine had changed to a very overcast day, dampening the photography a bit. We had a leisurely cross-country drive past Oraison and Entrevenne to Bras-d'Asse for a short café-and-visit stop, then on to Barrême for lunch. Finally, down the Route Napoleon via Castellane and back to Grasse.

Chartreuse and Tree Strawberries in the Maures

We had a good 7-hour loop hike yesterday in the Maures forest, beginning at the edge of Collobrieres (in the Var department). Thickly forested hills, not as steep as the Alpes, but we still did over 900 m vertical.

The loop took us through woods of cork oak, chestnut and even the small cedar forest of Ragusse.

The highlight was a short visit (external only) of the Chartreuse de la Verne, an impressive 12th-century  Carthusian-order monastery – now an active monastery of the Congregration of Bethlehem. Visits inside the monastery are allowed.

We got the verticality of our hike by dropping down from the altitude of the Chartreuse (450 m) to the artificial lake of Verne (80 m) and the return hike up over the Sommet du Péra (521 m) on the return leg. The lake is very long and narrow, zig-zagging roughly southeast down the valley. The level of the lake was low, but the deep blue water was still lovely.

Apart from the ubiquitous cork oak and chestnut trees, the most common plant we saw, all day long, was the strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo). These were everywhere, with white blossoms and red, ripe, round "strawberry" fruits, many already dropped and littering the trails. The ripe fruit is good to eat (good being a relative term). We've sampled them from time to time and they're alright – at least we wouldn't have starved if lost in the woods.

New photos for Sault, in the Vaucluse

We've added new photos for our Sault page, a village at the foot of Mont Ventoux in the Vaucluse department. Not only a bunch of new photos, but we improved the size and quality of the previous Sault photos that we put online in 1997.

Grasse, Cannes, Eze Travel Adventure

Our morning's walk near Grasse turned and a passing bus heading for Cannes turned into a travel adventure. We hopped on the bus and, on the spur of the moment, decided to check out a recent request about bus travel between Cannes and Eze Village.

Paying our 1-euro bus fare, we asked for a transfer (correspondance) and then settled into our seat to enjoy the passing scenery and the surrounding people. The Grasse-Canne bus (#600) can be full, especially during going-to-work time, so you aren't guaranteed a seat.

It's about 50 minutes from Grasse to the Cannes Gare SNCF (railway station).

From Cannes we caught the #200 bus for Nice (one around every 20 minutes) and settled in for a long ride. The scenery is interesting along the way, and a lot of people get on and (a few off) during the trip. This bus passes along the coast, via Antibes, Marineland, the CAP3000 shopping center and the airport, and is very popular. From Antibes the bus was packed and picked up no more passengers, leaving some disappointed people at bus stops along the way.

One hour 40 minutes from Cannes to Nice (and it did seem long with all the stops). At the Nice gare routier (bus station) it only took a couple of minutes to locate the slot for the #82 bus (Plateau de la Justice). The times are irregular but there seems to be one about every hour during the day, going along the "Moyenne Corniche" road high above the sea, passing the Col de Villefranche, Eze Village and the Col d'Eze.

Only 25 minutes from Nice to Eze Village, with great scenery along the way. We spent not much more than an hour exploring the steep narrow streets of the village. There are a few over-our-head level restaurants inside the upper old village, and we opted for one of the "normal" places near the village entrance.

The #83 bus connects Eze Village, perched on its rock high above the Mediterranean, with Eze Plage and the Gare SNCF; about 20 minutes by bus.

We took the more direct route, going down the steep, zig-zag footpath. Marked "45 minutes", we got to the railway station in 35 minutes, moving quickly but stopping for photos along the way.

There are frequent trains along the coast heading for Nice and Cannes, and we lucked out because the next train along was heading for Grasse (via Nice and Cannes, of course).

From Eze Gare SNCF it was 14 minutes to Nice and 55 minutes to Cannes. Even with sitting stationary at Cannes for 10 minutes, the trip from Eze to Grasse was only an hour and a half.

Overall: Grasse to Eze Village by bus is 3 hours, plus two waiting periods (at Cannes and Nice). Eze Village to Grasse is 1h50, plus one waiting period (for the train to Cannes/Grasse).

The whole adventure is fun, but the trip is the destination.

Flocke and Rasputin moving to Antibes

Polar bears Flocke (German) and Rasputin (Russian) who now live together in the Nuremberg zoo will be moving to the Marineland attraction park at Antibes early next year (2010). Flocke is called the "celebrity German polar bear" by AP, so we suppose she's well known somewhere.

 
Marineland is a celebrity themepark at Antibes, going strong since 1970. The main attraction is the marine show, including killer whales (orcas) and dolphins. We've visited the shows here and recommend them enthusiastically. 

The Marineland zoo has sea lions, seals, penguins, pelicans and flamingos. There's also an Aquarium, a Petite Ferme, a Tropical Birds enclosure and possibly a Butterfly park (we visited this once and it was later closed, but we heard that it had opened again).

A large Aqua-Splash park is hugely popular in the summer, and a mini-golf is available in the Marineland park. 

Just outside the Marineland park there's a summer-long Carnival collection of rides, stands, events and adventures.

Outside Marineland

Revest-les-Roches and Tourette-du-Chateau villages

We've added two Alpes-Maritimes mountain villages to Beyond: Revest-les-Roches and Tourette-du-Chateau. Both villages are located in the forested mountains northwest of Nice, just behind and above Gilette. Both villages are tiny and have little or no commerce.

Driving the long, narrow, twisty roads to and around the villages is an adventure, and the scenery is beautiful.

We went there for the hiking a few days ago, doing a 5-hour loop hike to the top of Mont Vial (1550 m; 900-m vertical). There are a lot of loop hikes in the hills of that area, and we'll be back there again tomorrow.

La Garde-Freinet village photos added

We've added a lot of new photos to Beyond's La Garde-Freinet page. Admittedly our previous page was pretty lame, with only 3 small and ancient pictures. The current bunch of photos include some taken from a visit a few days ago along with some much earlier photos.

The annual Chestnut Festival in La Garde-Freinet happens the next two weekends: 18 and 25 October, 2009.

Departing Provence - Briefly

We left our home territory for a few days last week, for a visit to Munich's Oktoberfest. Our beerhall tourist photos aren't appropriate here, but we did get a couple of aerial photos of the Mediterranean coastal mountains to share with our readers.

The first is Monaco, as we were passing by on our way east to the the Italian coast. The second photo shows the isolation of a small village perched in the mountains: probably Bajardo (north of Sanremo), with the wee village of Ceniana in the valley in the lower-right corner of the photo.

Gorges du Cians closed Nov-Dec 2009

The Gorges du Cians [map page] is a narrow, beautiful north-south valley, northwest of Nice, between the Var river in the south and the mountain village of Beuil in the north. The Cians Gorges is closed 14 Nov until 11 Dec at the level of Rigaud, near the southern end.
The northern part of the Cians Gorges is still accessable via Beuil, either by using the Gorges de Dalius to the west or the Vallée de Tinée to the east.

This second photo is a shot of the lower Cians Gorges in the winter. You can see the road snaking around the side of the cliff at the lower left.

Paris Patterns

Paris is admittedly a bit beyond Beyond, but we love the place, get in long hours of walking there, and find wonderful things to photograph.
Some samples here from our trip there last week include chairs stacked in the early morning, and some "faces" on the Pont Neuf at night.

The "faces" are just a few of the Pont Neuf's 385 mascarons (masques) sculpted by Germain Pilon in the 16th century. They're apparently all imaginary, and don't represent any particular notables of the era, as Renaissance paintings often do.
 

Mercantour Raspberries in 10 hours

We did a nice day hike yesterday in the Mercantour, with 10 hours hiking and nearly 1600 m vertical, and obtained a handful of delicious wild rasberries. There were fields of wild raspberries on the mountain sides, but there's always too much trail and not enough time.
Starting at the Salese Parking area, northwest of Saint-Martin-Vésubie, the trail is barely light at 7 AM, and at 9-degrees C, much fresher than the coast. It's an hour's hike up to the Col de Salese on the GR52, where there's a multitude of hiking choices.
This day we took the trail that goes up to the Col de Mercière, overlooking the Isola 2000 ski station. On the first half of this 3-hour section of the trail we often see several chamois on the mountain sides. On this Saturday hike, with the occasional shepherd's jeep already out there, and the rare early-morning weekend hiker, we saw only one lovely chamois bounding through the woods.
About an hour out past the Col de Salese there's a nice view down onto a lower valley were a track goes past the hamlet of Mollières (2nd photo).  There's another nice loop hike that takes you along that valley.
An hour and a half out from the Col de Salese our trail crosses the tiny but beautiful little Tavels river (3rd photo). We've previously hiked out to this spot just to spend a couple of hours of leisurely picnic lunching. Today, though, we've another hour and a half up the trail to the Col Mercière.

 The last part of the trail up to the Col Mercière zigzags up mostly treeless, grassy slopes. The views are great, with the only signs of civilization a few concrete pillboxes nestled into the rocky slopes. The ones in our (4th photo) are directly beside the Col Mercière.

Instead of a simple return trip back down the trail, we elected for a little track southeast along the side of the cliffs (5th photo), aiming for the Lac de Tavels. Somewhat of an adventure in that the line of cairns through the rocks gave out (at least to us) and we ended up clambering across large rocky areas and up very steep slopes through the trees before finally finding our remote little lake (1st photo).
We took well-earned lunch break at the side of the lake, completely alone except for four rock climbers on the vertical cliffs high above the lake. Another group of four English-speaking hikers arrived just as we were leaving.
From the Lac de Tavels we followed a small but reasonably-well-marked track southwest, back down to the main trail we had hiked up earlier in the day.
On our return trip, past we passed a shepherd rearranging the stones in the road, beneath where water runs constantly; he said it's up to him to keep the jeep-track in repair because he's the one who uses it. We later stopped to discuss navigation with a couple trying to find the tiny Lac Scluos. Our map was better than theirs but after a bit of exploration we determined that both maps exaggerated by showing a "trail".
Back "down" the return trail includes some uphill stretches, including the final bit up to the Col de Salese, then the last hour down hill with less-than-happy leg muscles to arrive at the parking area a good 10 hours after our departure.

 

New Webcam at Villefranche-sur-Mer

We've just added a link on our Villefrance-sur-Mer page to a new, high-definition webcam that looks out across the Rade of Villefrance-sur-Mer towards the Mediterranean.
The webcam, installed on the roof of a villa in Pont St.Jean, was established by Shin. Shin, based in Japan and a Friend of Beyond for many, many years now, is passionate about Provence and visits regularly.
The direct link to the Villefranche-sur-Mer webcam is: http://vsm.shinshu-a.com/.

Big City (French) Honeybees

We read an article a few months ago about city dwellers installing bee hives on their balconies. It apparently worked fairly well, and we never heard anything negative from the neighbors on the same floor with undesired visitors to their balcony barbecues.
    Now (beginning Sept 2009) we learned that the head of the department of Finestère (in Brittany) installed six bee hives (ruches) at their headquarters in Quimper [map], in sympathy with the protection of honey bees in the region.
    Honey bees have been in decline worldwide the past few year, partly to do with an unknown disease and other lethal "issues", such as the expanded use of pesticides. While intended to support local honey producers, the Finistère effort discovered that the "city" honey bees do very well indeed: they are producing  5 times the amount of honey as their country-bumkin cousins.
    Our beehive photo here comes from the very center of Paris, in front of the busy "Les Halles" area. Photo taken today at mid-day, before our TGV return to the sunny South of France.

France Café Taxes Lowered - Grasse Café Prices Steady

Taxes (TVA) for cafés and restaurants in France were lowered at the beginning of this summer (2009) from 19.6% to 5.5%. The lower TVA was finally done, at the insistence of  the café-restaurant owners to "allow them to have lower prices, attract more customers and be more competitive".
We were in Paris a month or so ago, just after the lowered-TVA law came into effect. There were immediate studies by newspapers and other more official organizations to determine how many, and which, establishments actually passed the lowered taxes on to the customers in the form of lowered prices.
Results were mixed, but it seemed that many, if not most, cafés and restaurants did lower their prices. If not by the full tax-reduction amount, at least enough to be interesting to the clients.
That was, of course, in Paris, where competition is a consideration.
An article in this morning's local paper (4 August 2009) described the results of a study of the café-restaurant tax-reduction effect in Grasse, the perfume capital of the world. Results: TVA reduced, prices steady. With only a very few exceptions, the excuse of the Grasse cafés and restaurants is: (paraphrased, of course) "we're going to wait until the tourist season is finished to see what effect the lowered TVA has before we lower our prices".
This Gallic logic seems a bit self-serving to us.

Birds of Prey from Entrevaux Medieval Festival

At the Medieval festival in the Medieval village of Entrevaux, this weekend we watched a wonderful Falconery and Horse show put on by Hippogriffe (www.hipppogriffe.net). Seeing birds of prey in action is a great experience. And being able to see the rapaces close-up, without intervening screens and wire enclosures is a rare experience.

This little group of photos is to share our experience with you, beginning with the American Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), above.

The Gyrfalcon (Falco rusticolus).

 

Harris's Hawk (Parabuteo unicinctus), on the hand of Hélène, master horsewoman.

 

Barn Owl (Tyto alba).

 

Eagle Owl (Bubo bubo).

Peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus).

Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus) - we think; there are very many varieties of sparrowhawks. We even caught one once, that had landed injured in our yard, and eventuallly made it back into the wild.

Medieval Festival of Entrevaux!

This is a great Medieval festival in the authentic Medieval village of Entrevaux, and you have one more day to attend -- or never again!? We spent the first have of today (Saturday 1 Aug 2009) at the festival, and it's wonderful. It's probably too late for you to attend this evening, but there's all of tomorrow (Sunday 2 Aug 2009), and then perhaps never again. (This is the first time the festival had been held in 4 years, and there may not be any budget for future events.)
The whole village is "in character". Medieval costumes everywhere, and many of the faces and characters seem truly Medieval, as if the costumes were their regular clothes. The atmosphere is relaxed and happy, the setting is magnificent, and the events are many and fun.
    Crossing into the walled town over the drawbridge we were met by Medieval troups and wandering minstrals. A wedding took place in front of the 15th century church and troups and minstrals marched and wandered throught the narrow streets and picturesque squares (like in our 2nd photo).
Lots of Medieval games for the kids. Stands throughout the village selling period articles, and many yesteryear trades and crafts are displayed and explained.
    The Medieval encampment is spread out on the parkland between the village and the river (our 1st photo). The kids games are down here, along with events such as the fabulous falconery and horse show. Our 3rd photo from this event is a shot of the American bald eagle.
    What a great time!

Entrevaux Medieval Festival 1-2 August 2009

The Medieval Festival in the Medieval village of Entrevaux is taking place this coming weekend, 1-2 August. We're going to try to make it there.