May 20, 2012 - More in Provence

I headed north Saturday to Vaison la Romaine. It was another beautiful cross country drive on narrow hilly roads. I stopped at Abbey Sentanque, one of the few remaining active abbeys in France (monks actually in residence). It is certainly a worthy location in a little valley surrounded by lavender fields. There was a full sized tour bus in the parking lot, and I was very glad I hadn’t encountered it on the road! Something tells me I would have been the one backing up to a pullout to let him get by. Besides lavender, there were vineyards...

May 18, 2012 - Luberon hill towns

Look out France, I’m driving here! I picked up my car at the Marseille airport Thursday morning (after an early morning bus and train ride—that’s my last alarm for a while!). I have a cute little Peugeot 308, and believe me, with the roads I have been on the last couple of days, I’m glad it is little! I am readjusting to a stick shift, and doing my best not to ‘ride the clutch’ like my brother warned me about. The guy was helpful in setting up the GPS in English and programming in my first hotel. I programmed a mid-point I wanted to stop...

Jan 7, 2012 - Cathedrale Saint Sauveur

It was a beautiful evening. We listened to the concert in one of the oldest cathedrals in France, one built on old Roman Apollo temple grounds. It is built on the site of the 1st century Roman forum of Aix. Built and re-built from the 12th until the 19th century, it includes Romanesque, Gothic and Neo-Gothic elements, as well as Roman columns and parts of the baptistery from a 6th century Christian church. It is a national monument of France.

Oct 29, 2011 - What we miss

We fly home tomorrow and we have been composing this post for the past few days as we pack and say our goodbyes. What we will miss about France: The wine The bread and abundance of bakeries The warm sunny weather and beautiful scenery La Montagne Sainte-Victoire The incredible terrace running across the back of this house The fantastic old villages and ruins The warm sandy beaches and clear blue-green water The fresh fruits and vegetables Carmen wants me to mention that she will miss the black tomatoes - she eats them for every possible...

Oct 18, 2011 - A Regular Day

This is the tale of Carmen writing about the regular day. First in the morning we started with reading. At school we do spelling, art, reading, math, writing and maps and timelines. Mommy and me also like to do a couple French numbers and Janna also likes to count up to 30 in French. Today for school Mom showed us a map of France that she got. It was cool. Me and Janna both got to mark off the places that we went. I'll give you a example, for the cities that we went to. We went to Paris, that we took a TGV train to. That is one of the...

Oct 16, 2011 - La Montagne Sainte-Victoire, take 2

This is the story of when me and Dad went on a hike up to the summit of Mount Saint Victoire. I really wished that I could paraglyde when I saw the different colored paraglyders floating in the sky. But Dad told me I had to be older to do it. I think Carmen would have really liked the hard route because there were lots of straight up rocks and you didn't have to wear a harness. The ridge was very long and it got boring. The farther up we went the more windy it got. And the view of the sunset we got on the mountain was beautiful.

Oct 15, 2011 - Market Adventure

Aix is not known for many typical tourist attraction, other than haunts of local son, Paul Cezanne, and a museum that holds a few of his paintings. Instead most tourists come to Aix for the markets. There is at least one market every day and most days you can find two or three on different squares. They are varied and interesting from food to antique toy cars. We miss the farmer's market in Lincoln (more for the familiar part of our routine than particular market offerings) so this was a nice alternative.

Sep 16, 2011 - Small Joys

We haven't made any entries this week because we have mostly been doing regular life activities, and somehow they didn't seem entry worthy. We found some babysitters and the girls spent time this week getting to know them. Tom got some much needed breaks and time to work on his research. We found some shoes for Carmen who had already managed to destroy 2 of the 3 pairs that she brought with her. I bought her three pairs! The other small joys concern food. While this area of France is agriculturally rich with fabulous fruits and...

Sep 10, 2011 - La Luna

Kate here: we are resting at home today so I am uploading a few photos of our villa, La Luna. My favorite aspect of La Luna is how the house opens onto the terrace from every room on the first floor so we flow naturally in and out. So far the weather is so lovely that the doors stand open most of the time. Of course, if we can flow naturally in and out occasionally a bug the size of a buick flies in as well! But no mosquitoes or bothersome bugs that bite. I am also amused by the fig tree growing outside the master bathroom window. We can...

Sep 4, 2011 - We've arrived!

Well, we've just spent our first night at our house in Aix-en-Provence. (Tom is writing this on Sunday morning.) All told, it took 26 hours of traveling from the time we left Lincoln on Thursday morning until we arrived at our hotel on Friday night in Marseille. Carmen, unfortunately, did not enjoy the journey, as she came down with some sort of ailment on Thursday morning. She threw up on the plane, but neatly into the barf bag. Fortunately, she was able to sleep quite a bit of the trip and started perking up on Saturday afternoon. Now she...

Jul 29, 2011 - Aix-en-Provence

Although I am tempted to stay in our little french house for the entire trip, i realize that i can't drag these kids across an ocean only to stay "home" for thirty days. So we grab the GPS and head north to Aix-en-Provence. What a delightful place. The car park is so new age, the sign outside tells exactly how many spaces are left to park in (example: 339 when we arrived, just to give you a sense of the size of it). It is totally underground, high ceilings, shiny painted floors, and green or red lights at every parking space to let you...

Jul 24, 2011 - Glitch

July 24, 2011 Shit happens. There is no getting around it. As we packed up this morning to head for our visit with Glen and Lynn (who have a reserved sign on our bedroom…nice, eh?), I asked Brenda if she had seen the car keys. To make a long story short, I had lost the keys to our rental car (that’s REALLY not a good thing!). I ran back up to Le Bouddoir Restaurant from the night before but the sign said “Closed Sundays”. Brenda quickly sent off an e-mail to Lynn and Glen about our possible delay. While we sorted things out and developed...