Provence Blog by ProvenceBeyond

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.

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

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.

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/.

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!

Tour de France 2009 passing Seillans

Today we watched stage 2 of the 2009 Tour de France pass the perched Var village of Seillans.
    It's a real event watching the "Tour" pass by. Checking out a possible spot a few weeks in advance.
    Arriving around 9 AM on The Day. Getting the car parked (thankfully in the shade) not too far away. Then locating a suitable spot and calculating how well it needs to be protected. Going for a hike to while away a couple of hours.
    Setting up in the selected spot an hour and a half before the preliminaries start and settling in with cold water, a bit of lunch, and relaxing for awhile. Around 13h30 the beginning of the "caravan" begins: the circus of advertising trucks, vans, cars and floats that pitch the sponsors' wares and through out free gifts to the worthy. The caravan parade takse about an hour; then there's a gap of 20-30 minutes while course cars, press and other official cars pass by.
    A bit of excitement from the crowd, the leading media motorcycles and gendarmes, and a break-away group (les echappés) of 4 riders comes through [1st photo], and are gone in the blink of an eye. Radio information passes through the crowd that the echappé is 5 minutes ahead of the main group.
    Another flurry of excitement and then the main group of riders rolls into view [photo 2, with Seillans behind]. Lots of shouting and waving, and the Beyond camera is operating too fast to allow time to actually look at the riders. About 180 cyclists pass through in under 60 seconds (all of our photos are time-stamped with the same minute).
    Six hours after we had arrived, the 60-second burst of racing occured, and we gathered  up our things and joined the exodust, very satisfied by the day's adventure.

Calanques National Park

The Calanques are destined to become the Parc National es Calanques in 2011. It will be France's 8th national park, and the first national park of Europe in a pre-urban zone — at the edge of Marseille.

The Calanques, along with the Marine Park of Iroise in Brittany, are the first French metropolitan national parks to be created since 1979. The Calanques will be the first national park following a law of 2006 that allows local communal groups to have a say in creating the park and in the maintenance of the park.

Saturday - Beyond in the Snow

A week of rain (in the lowlands) stopped for the weekend, and Beyond took a drive from Grasse, up the Route Napoleon to Castellane, then along the Vedon River, south via Trigance, Jabron, Comps-sur-Artuby, Bargemon, Seillans and back to Grasse.

Along the Route Napoleon the trees, mountains and countryside along the road was all snow-covered, with overhanging branches sometimes dropping a load on us as we went by. The road was a bit dicey in one or two spots, but mostly clear. And absolutely beautiful.

Café stop in Castellane, along with some of the interesting quiches from the next-door bakery: courgette-chevre and artichoke quiches for the coffee, and crevette-crab and broccoli-rochefort quiches saved for the afternoon.

The Verdon river a deep green, but shady down in the valley between tall, snow-covered mountain slopes. Difficult for photography.

 Heading south past Trigance and through Jabron, there are usually birds of prey hunting the fields beside the road. This time there was a large "buze" perched on a low tree just beside the road. He soared away when we impolitelyl stopped just there.

These two photos are cell-phone photos taken on the move, through the windshield.