"Mini Carnevale" in Collioure and Visit to Elne

February 24th

They had a very small Carnival celebration here in Collioure in the afternoon. I came upon the end of it, so perhaps the children had paraded about in their costumes first.... In any case, it was fun to see them in the lovely sunshine with adoring parents and grandparents watching the festivities fondly.

February 25th

Taking advantage of the one euro bus ticket, I went to Elne. The Tourist Information brochure reads "27 centuries of History, Art and Humanity in Catalonia".

Exterior view of the Cathedral

This must be SPECTACULAR when the lavender is blooming!

This is a way for people to get out in case of fire in this basement museum space.

Huts, built between 2400-2000 BC, were found in the area. All description was in French, so....

These signs (and the next picture) were in the same shop window.

There are several other places I would like to visit in Elne, and I hope to return on a day when they are open!! Thanks for coming along!

What to Do on a Rainy Day??

Well, I had to go out to do a few errands, and since I've been a bit of a "slug", I thought why not take the bus to Cerbere? It is the end of the line very near the Spanish border, and I knew nothing about it. I had a book, in case there was nothing to do or see....The ride over was really lovely in spite of the gray day! It did remind me of Carl Sandburg's "Cats", "now in a valley, now in a height"...very much the feeling of being "on top of the world"!

And there was NOTHING there....I did, however, find a local "sports" bar to have a ham and cheese sandwich with some Olympic viewing before the  next bus back.

France allows vineyards to have small rustic building for people stay in temporarily during harvest, etc..

I took another trip to Perpignan where I had a tasty lunch with awesome chocolate cake...gateau au chocolat....pesto pasta was the entree, but this was the treat!!

There is a copy of Drawing on the Right Side on the Brain, so I have been doing those exercises, MUCH to my surprise! When I was taking high school biology, Mr. Ham, our (quite young) teacher wrote that my sketch of the paramecium was "A bit grotesque!". Maybe that was even his first teaching job!

And it is easy to be "slug-like" here in the lovely Collioure by the sea, as it is still very quiet,albeit more and more shops are re-opening. Now I will be getting on the bus several times a week and exploring. (It is similar to Sardinia when I had a car there and went exploring on the winding island roads every other day.) There is an amazing history here, and I will learn about it!! I hope you will come back and travel along!

Ah, The Lure of Collioure, the Start of the Cote Vermeille....

February 14th

Happy Valentine's Day!!! I have been here in Collioure for two weeks today and enjoying a slower pace...yes, MUCH SLOWER PACE. So finally I will let you know what I have been doing and finding here.

FAUBOURG BEACH-closest to the flat

Church just up the street.

Square where the market is on Wednesdays and Sundays.

Bar Les Templiers where famous painters paid for their drinks with their works down on the left.

Cathedral

Okay...same shot but by day....

People in Nice asked me "Why Collioure?" The real reason is that my friend Nancy's friend Kathleen has a place here, so I rented it. It, like Nice, is also on the coast. However, Collioure is a real summer resort, so it is very, very quiet, now, especially compared to Nice! However, the opportunity to live on the sea-practically-is great!


Alas, there are no Meetup groups near by, but I have met two women, so we've had some dinners and "field trips"!

I took the bus over to Perpignan; it was one hour by bus, and would have been 20 minutes by car....So I visited the Palais of the Kings of Majorica

.

It was another effort updated by Vauban, whose home-oops-palace-I had visited in Burgundy.

Fort Liberia which Vauban also built, but we didn't have time to see.

Statue of St, Peter at the town gate

Sally, whom I met through Joanna of Nice, and I went to Villefranche-de-Conflent, a Unesco listed town, and we walked through the ramparts, so in one hour we walked through eleven centuries of history. we were the only ones there, and we could only imagine how WILD it must be in season! Vauban also had a hand in an update to the Ramparts which we walked through.

Thanks for coming along, and come back to see what other adventures I will have here in Collioure!

Saying Good Bye to Nice....

As I was saying au revoir to Nice and the area, I took a delightful walk around Cap d'Antibes with Lana, Portia, and Jean. It looked like both the coasts in Maine as well as California!

Wednesday night, before my last pub quiz at the Blue Whale, some of us had dinner at a Franco Ethiopian restaurant called Le Soleil d"Asmara. They brought three large plates which we shared. I had never had Ethiopian food before; they served pieces of buckwheat crepes to pick up our food (chicken, beef, and pork). It tasted okay, but I really do not like to eat food like that with my fingers....

On Thursday morning my couch surfing friend Regine made an appointment with her dentist for a cleaning, and was KIND enough to drive me from the bus stop, as she thought I would have trouble finding the office. (I think she was right!) Then we met Caroline for a "Bio" lunch (all organic food) in the Port area. It was an interesting menu. I had pork with an interesting starter of broccoli veloute with a poached egg on top!
That night I met Mike, Tim, and Adrian for drinks at the
Gossip Bar in the Port.

Tim

Then we went to have a wonderful going away dinner at La P'tite Cocotte in the Old Town. My scallops were delicious....The chocolate fondant cake was SO DELICIOUS I forgot to take a picture!!

Mike

The next morning I was off to Collioure, two hours from Barcelona, for the next two months. It would be very different from all that Nice had to offer, but it would be interesting....It is an active summer community in July and August and much quieter during the rest of the year.

Guests from Normandy Come to Nice!!

Wednesday January 22nd

I met Nicole and Jacques at the train station after their long train trip from Caen to Paris to Nice. It was great to see them after our last visit when I stayed at their home on the Normandy coast. Nicole was the second Weston-Rombas Association exchange student from a little town in France to a little town in the USA. She reminded me of how she happened to come. The school sent her parents a letter saying she was invited to participate in this program. As she described, and I can only imagine, she was a shy girl from a small town coming to a very different place for a year without family or friends-except for her new friends! She is still in touch with some of her classmates. We would be having  a busy three days! They had only been to Nice once long ago....

Thursday January 23rd

Jacques, Nicole, Joanna

On Thursday we went to Vence with Joanna and Lana to see the still and always wonderful Rosaire Chapel which Matisse designed and painted. I had read that the January morning light was very special, but regrettably there was no sun. Nonetheless, Nicole and Jacques were as captivated as I! It closes right at 11:30 (the nuns have to have lunch!). So we found a place for lunch, and then we walked all around the walled city.

10 minute walk to chapel-Nicole and Lana

No pictures inside....

Simplicity rules this chapel

The (7) nuns live just next door

We were lucky that there was a Matisse exhibit in the Chateau in the center of old Vence, where we saw different pictures than we would be seeing in Nice. As Jacques put it, he learned not only about Matisse the artist, but also Matisse the man!

Jacques was great guide!

...waited patiently for us to catch up!

Vence is a delightful town to visit!

A view of the Chapel we could only see from the Old Town!

Dinner that night was Provencale daube, and Tim and Mike joined us for a lively and fun dinner. Nicole had found some lovely pastries to compliment the cheese course! (This differed from the Marseille daube I had served in the fall, as it had less red wine.)

Mike and Nicole

Jacques and MIke

Nicole and Tim

Friday January 24th

This was our Nice day….We were up at Cimiez by 10, and the Monastery was our first stop. It is now only a church, but the gardens are lovely. Nicole told me that the paintings were by Brea, a famous French painter, but they are all covered (by something that looks a bit like waxed paper), so what you see in not that lovely.  The archeological museum with the dig outside the museum which we could walk through was our next stop. This time,  I noticed the explanations in English as we walked out into the dig! REALLY interesting! Jacques may have had his “fill” of Matisse, as he was not too keen to visit the Matisse Musee. But Nicole did, and Jacques came along; both were glad they did! There are different works here, and you can see how Matisse's style changed.
Lunch was at Chez Pepo, where they had their first socca! (It was also my last socca, as 1/31 was rapidly approaching!)

Caroline(the German teacher) joined us for dinner that night where we had pesto pasta and lentil soup. She also gave them some info about the walk we would do the next day!

Saturday January 25

Mike had told us about his walk along the coast to Villeneuve, so that is what we did on this glorious sunny day!   

Closer to our destination!

We had lunch outside on the water, which is one of my favorite things to do! We took the bus back and got ready to go have dinner at le Bistro d‘Antoine. Luckily they both liked my restaurant choice! We stopped at Shapko's for some jazz before we went back to the flat.

Sunday January 26

Well, all good things…and it was time to Nicole and Jacques to return to Caen. I thoroughly enjoyed their visit, and they hopefully will return to Boston next spring to visit Boston, Maine, perhaps Martha’s Vineyard!  I went to the train station with them, as I wanted buy a ticket to return to Nice for the Saint Patrick’s Day gala which Bernard is planning!
Thank you again for coming to visit, Nicole and Jacques! Hope to see you spring 2015 in the US!!