Provence Blog by ProvenceBeyond

Le Stuff catches a thief on the French Riviera

We've just learned about a very interesting blog called Le Stuff. Currently and mainly about the Alfred Hitchcock film To Catch a Thief, and tracking down the exact spots where scenes of the film were shot. 

Le Stuff's blogger is sharing his love of travel, food and the experience of the South of France, and he loves the driving scenes on the twisty mountain roads in To Catch a Thief.

 

Botero in Saint-Tropez

 During our recent weekend visit to Saint Tropez, during France's Heritage Days (Journées de Patrimoines), we wandered around the town admiring several statues by Fernando Botero. Here are photos of four of the statues.

We didn't search out all of the Botero statues in the town that day; there were too many other things to see and do (such as sitting at a café terrace beside the port and watching the St-Tropez-style world going by.

     
 
 
 

Villa Noailles in Hyères on France's Heritage Weekend

 Saturday-Sunday (18-19 Sept) was Heritage Weekend (Journées Patrimoines) in France, when  museums, olive oil mills, places of interest in towns and villages all over France are either open for visits (if they aren't normally open to the public) or free (if they're normally open but charge). We spent the morning in Hyères, near Toulon, visiting several sites, including the Villa Noailles.

 Viscount Charles de Noailles and his wife Marie-Laure, patrons of modern art, had their Summer villa designed by architect Robert Mallet-Stevens in 1923. The villa is located on the hill above the center of Hyères just below the Chateau ruins where the original fortified town once stood.

The Noailles were important patrons of modern art through the 1920s and 1930s, particularly surrealism; they supported film projects by Man Ray Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel; and commissioned paintings, photographs and sculptures by Balthus, Giacometti, Constantin Brâncuşi, Miró, and Dora Maar. Following the war years, from 1947 until 1970, the villa was the summer residence of Marie-Laure,who died in 1970, and the house was purchased by the city of Hyères in 1973. [Thank you Wikipedia.]

An experienced botanist, Charles de Noailles created a large Mediterranean park beside the Hyéres villa. The terraced gardens have a great collection of Mediterranean plants, and a wonderful view of the town and the seaside.

Charles de Noailles, who died in 1981, had another villa with extensive gardens built in a shady valley at the edge Grasse. 

Cévennes Steam Train - Train à Vapeur des Cévennes

 A picturesque steam train runs between the towns of Saint Jean-du-Gard and Anduze in the Cévennes. The 40-minute trip follows along the beautiful valley of the Gardon de St Jean river. Train schedules allow an easy round-trip voyage, or with stops of a few hours or even all day in either Saint Jean-du-Gard or Anduze.

If you're staying in Saint Jean-du-Gard, you can take the train to Anduze for the Thursday market day; if you're staying in Anduze, you can go by train for the Tuesday market in Saint Jean-du-Gard.

We took photo here (above) yesterday, of the southbound train exiting a tunnel and crossing a viaduct about half way between the two towns.

The train runs from April to September, with the most frequent service during the summer, June to August. The first train of the morning and the last one in the evening is pulled by a diesel engine, not the steam locomotive.

Prices and schedules are available on www.trainavapeur.com.

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.

Travel Advice for July-August: Don't

After decades in France of watching the summer news reports of July-August road congestion, we ignored our own resolutions and hit the road. Early one Saturday morning - 5 AM to "avoid the rush" - we joined the A8 autoroute heading west. Leaving the overly busy Cote d'Azur for the Southwest of France. 5 AM, Saturday, and the autoroute was already busy, but moving.

Weekdays are probably acceptable, but weekend travel on autoroutes during July and August are definitely to be avoided if at all possible. Traffic is very, very heavy, even with pre-dawn departures.

Toll booths (péages) cause huge blockages. We have an electronic pass card that lets us use "express" lanes, but even with that advantage the delays are painful. Without that, it's extremely painful.

Any slowdown along the autoroute, from a prior accident, lane narrowing, or some other cause, results in traffic jams (bouchons) that take hours to clear up. Passing a "bouchon" area, well after the original cause is gone, can be an hour or two of stop-go inching along. You're never stopped long enough to shut off the engine, so you're moving very slowly in a river of running motors.

Ahh. Turnoff and rest stop ahead! We'll just slide out of this mess and have a leisurely cup of coffee, a pee and relax for a few moments before rejoining the mass movement. What's this? No place to park? The rest stop is jammed. Cars circling like sharks looking for the weakness of a car pulling out and freeing a space.

Driver waits in the car while passengers go in to use the facilities and get the required number of coffees from the waiting vending machines.

Long minutes in the car and then pouncing on a vacated spot to park. Driver heads in to the facilities, ready to sip on the coffee that's been purchased for him or her. But the preceding coffee-searchers are still in the queue for the toilets, nearly half way to the front by now. Only a few more minutes to the pause that truly refreshes.

Finally refreshed! Now for the vending machines. With all the mobs, half the machines are empty or out of action. Still, some are working, so a nice cup of machine-made coffee. Ah, well, better than nothing - we suppose.

Now, back in the car, back on the road, and back on our way. Well, back on the road anyway. Remember all those other vehicles out there? It's now way past sun-up, and the early morning heavy traffic has morphed into mid-morning masses of traffic.

Take the earlier description of morning autoroute conditions and multiply by x.

Next year, vacations requiring autoroute travel will exclude July and August, and definitely exclude weekends.

First weekend July: Bad. Start of the French holidays. A third of all French in the Paris region are leaving town, mostly heading south.

July 14th weekend (Le quatorze): Very bad. Many French people now take there holidays from mid-July to mid-August.

Weekend end-July/beginning-August: Very, very bad. Le chasse croisée, where the Juilletists are returning and the Aoutians are departing on vacation. The traffic reports gleefully announce how many hundreds of kilometers of "bouchons" along the autoroutes.

August 15th weekend (Le quinze aout): Bad. The mid-July to mid-August crowd returning.

Last weekend August: Bad. The Aoutians returning from vacation, heading back to Paris.

You can check the status of French autoroutes in near-real-time online: traffic online.

Beyond is Lot beyond Beyond

Beyond has strayed well beyond the Provence of Beyond, to the Lot, in the Midi-Pyrénées [map] region of France.

So far it's low forested hills and farms of cornfields, hay and cattle. Small streams all over, and pretty little villages tucked in with the trees and valleys. The top photo shows the little village of Beaumat (Lot) amidst the trees of a small river valley.

The second photo (left) shows one of the cylindrical dovecotes (pigeonniers) in the village of Frayssinet.

We're staying a week in the countryside of the Lot departement  [map], in the village of Frayssinet, near Labastide-Murat [map], between Cahors and Gourdon (Lot; not to be confused with our perched Gourdon in the Alpes-Maritimes).

This is a busman's holiday for Beyond, getting away from the main computer, away from the daily grind of Beyond-ing, housework, yardwork, and all the other chores. A busman's holiday because we'll still be photographing the towns and villages in the lovely part of France, while hiking the trails and wandering  the lanes of the area.

Individual farmhouses in this part of France often look like tiny castles, with steep roofs and a steep-roofed tower attached to the house. We haven't yet figured out what this tower protuberance is for. There are individual round-tower structures for dovecotes (pigeonniers), including in our own (for the week) village of Frayssinet, so we guess the house-tower could be a pigeonnier.

The third photo (above) shows a house with in integrated tower that we think might be a pigeonnier. The older-style house in the fourth photo (below) has a similar "pigeonnier" tower, and is typical of the houses in this region.

Not too many fruit trees (at least near the lanes), and the blackberries aren't ripe here yet, so we're buying our fruit at the local markets. There are plenty of village markets, and the fruit and vegetables are very good. The wine seems quite acceptable as well, so here's to you!

Paris Freedom Cycles Anniversary

Beyond was in Paris this week, and today is the first anniversary of Paris' Vélib, short for Vélo Liberté (or Freedom Cycles in the English vernacular).
This photo shows a Vélib station in front of the Saint-Eustache church.

The Paris Vélib program has 16,000 bicycles available for instant rental, at about 1 euro a day, dispersed to over a 1,000 Vélib stations around the city. The system is a real success, with seemingly everybody using them, from students to business people to "society" looking people.

There have been 27 million rentals in the first year, and each bicycle is reckoned to have travelled 10,000 km in that time.

We've added a really quick Paris page to our Beyond Towns-Villages section, just so we could add a Paris Vélib page, with more information than this blog entry, and a few more photos.

Grasse-Cannes Train Schedule Variable

Our wonderful Grasse-Cannes railway line, re-opened in 2005, had difficulties during this past year (2007). We now have information (very unofficial, word-of-mouth) that the scheduled trains may or may not run, depending on last-minute police protection for each train.

Although word-of-mouth, our source is very reliable, and backed up by our own unfortunate experiences with the train during the last half of 2007.

Leaking luggage at the Nice airport

We've read stories for years about thefts of luggage contents at the Nice airport, sometimes when "rings" of luggage handlers were caught systematically stealing from the baggage they were handling. In spite of the few times when the thieves have been caught and received (at least) a bit of local publicity, the problem apparently remains.

We've had a Friend of Beyond recount a theft of this sort just a few days ago. Arriving in Nice and then having the occasion to open his luggage at an airport hotel only a few minutes later, he discovered the tiny luggage padlock twisted open, the suitcase rifled and missing some items. The digital camera had been removed from its case and taken, and an envelope of cash had been removed from inside a larger envelope.

Disarray of the contents indicated a hurried search, but removing items and leaving the outer containers implies an intent to hide the signs of the theft for as long as possible.

Reporting the theft to the authorities at the airport was accepted, but not with good grace.

Since this problem has been going on for several years (that we know of) with nothing being done to stop it, we can only advise our Beyond readers to be aware and take precautions. On tip is that a small lock on a suitcase is apparently a sign to the thieves that there may be contents worth stealing.