London, Day 3

On Thursday we had a leisurely morning. Larry went out and took some pictures of the Royal Crescent Gardens that go with the row of houses that includes our flat.

On Tuesday we had walked through Holland Park, the local big park, and had seen lots of irises. So Larry went there and took some more iris pictures:
He found some other lovely things along the way.

In the afternoon we went to the Foundlings Museum near Russell Square. This tells the story of the Foundling Hospital that was started in the 18th century by Thomas Coram with the assistance of the painter William Hogarth and the composer G. F. Handel. It is a wonderful story, and has carried on over all these years in the Coram Foundati0n. You can read more about it here. When the original hospital was destroyed at the beginning of the 20th century, the people of London put up such a fuss that the site was made into a children's park called Coram Fields. There is a sign on the gate that says no adult can enter without a child.

From there we walked to St. Paul's Cathedral. (Yes, Larry it's only 15 minutes - well, 45!) This day would have been my mother's 100th birthday. She was a church organist, and there was an organ recital at St. Paul's that evening. The organist was Henry Faris from the University of Birmingham, and his program was four fantasies by Alain, Franck, Boely, and Liszt. It was really fine. There is also a special connection with my mother and St. Paul's that will have to wait for another posting!

Here is a great shot of St. Paul's from the midst of the new Temple Bar buildings:We stopped for dinner in Notting Hill Gate on the way home. Another nice day.

London, Day 2

Today we went to visit the Royal Botanical Garden at Kew. The Director of the Herbarium, Library, Art, and Archives section is Dr. David Mabberly who was, for about four years, Director of the University of Washington Botanical Gardens where Larry volunteers. (When he's in Seattle!) Larry had contacted him before we left, and he graciously invited us to lunch and tour of his domain.

We met him at 12:30 and saw the amazing collection (where the 8 million plant specimens are housed ) in the Herbarium. They are in the process of updating everything from the 19th and 20th century storage to 21st century protocols. It was fascinating to walk through it all with him and get such a concise and clear history of everything. It is quite a complex, and a complicated process. They get 50,000 new specimens each year!

He took us to lunch at the local pub, and we had a lovely conversation about Seattle, England, and Sydney Australia where he is headed in August. He then took us into the gardens and introduced us to the Kew iris expert, Richard Wilford. He was a very nice man who took us all through the places where irises are planted and shared lots of information with Larry. Sadly, England had a very early Spring, so we are here in between bloom times for just about everything. Here's a picture of Richard Wilford and Larry in the rock gardens:He also took us into the greenhouses where we saw how they care for each specie bulb. They've also been part of a bulb conservation effort as part of the global effort to monitor bulb marketing. Here they are in the greenhouse:

We did a few more things in Kew and then headed back to Holland Park. It was a unique and informative day!

Burgundy to Lille to London

Our journey out of Cluny was a bucolic drive in the rich and beautiful Burgundian countryside. We saw lots of cows, and the villages along the way were planted everywhere with irises. We pulled over often so Larry could take iris pictures.

We finally had to leave the country roads and get on the freeway to continue our journey north. It was a long day, but the scenery, ever-changing, was interesting and full of the wonderful greens of spring.

We eventually arrived at Lille, just in time for rush hour! We made our way (with some GPS struggles - mostly operator error) to our hotel. We found a good local place for dinner - although Larry found the Belgian/Alsatian meats in aspic (cold) to not be quite what he had in mind!

In the morning we did some reconnoitering at the train station for our car drop-off. This was not particularly smooth as the people who were supposed to meet us to pick up the car spoke almost no English. French baffles me (we often wished we could have channeled Kathy Brandstetter!), even with some language skill. We finally had the clerk at our hotel translate for us on the phone. In the end we successfully parked the car, met the local agents, said good-bye to our little Peugeot.
We waited a bit in the station before they started the check-in for the Eurostar to London. The train trip was uneventful. When we first went through the Channel Tunnel in 1998, they made a big deal about announcing when the train was entering the tunnel and when it had come out. Now it's done without comment.

We arrived at the new Eurostar station at St. Pancras and got a cab to our flat. We arrived at just the right time, and were very pleased to see the place where we would spend the next week. It's a flat off the normal tourist routes. (When I gave the cab driver the address, he asked if we had family in London - good indicator of our location!) It is in Holland Park, and very pleasant indeed. We had heard that there was a London Whole Foods nearby, so we set off for there just for the fun of it. It was a lot farther than I thought, but we had a lovely walk in the whole area, and I am always happy to have London pavement under my feet! We returned to the flat with our food, got organized there, and in the evening found our local pub for a pint and some good English food. (It really is good!)

Provence Day 6 into Burgundy

We headed northwest from Nice, going through some now familiar territory by Avignon. The route north took us out of Provence through farmland and mountains, and we eventually came to Cluny in Burgundy. Cluny is the site of a very famous medieval abbey with influence all over Europe. Only a few walls of the abbey are still standing. The historical museum was closed as 1 May is a national holiday in France, so we enjoyed the simple medieval church.

After a good French sidewalk cafe dinner (steak frites et salade), we drove a few km to the community of Taizé for Evening Prayer. For those of you who may not know about Taizé, click here for more information. Here is a picture of the bells that begin to ring 5 minutes before worship:

You sit on the floor on steps in the large but very modern and simple worship space, surrounded by thousands of young adults. (People over 30 cannot visit there more than a week year.) Rick Steves calls the worship space "the place where Lutherans can get over their fear of icons!") We sang new chants and familiar ones in English, French, Latin, German, and Romanian. It was great to have this opportunity to worship at Taize in the Easter season. I had good memories of when I first visited there in 1992 with my friend Joan and her daughters (then 12 and 10) Erin and Annie.

Provence, Days 5 and 6

On this day we said good-bye to Venasque and headed southeast to Cannes. We drove cross country over some amazing geography - high passes, more beautiful roads lined with Sycamore, amazing views and vineyard after vineyard. We had great pizzas for lunch in a little town along the way.

We dropped down into Cannes from Grasse with beautiful views of the sea and all. We found our B and B in the town of Vallauris in the area known as Golfe Juan. It's run by a couple - he's French, she's South African - who for many years did yacht charters in Greece and Turkey, and later in Cannes. They have since sold their boat and have this beautiful spot for a B and B. (And they have great security! Right along the road coming into their place are three big palaces that belong to the King of Saudi Arabia, one of his sons and one of his brothers!) Daniel and Gillian are delightful, and we spent a little time just lounging around by the pool before heading down into Cannes to find dinner. Here's a sunset picture from Port d'Attache, the B and B:
We drove down the hill to Cannes, and spent an hour or so walking around looking at GIGANTIC yachts. Amazing. Here's a picture of Walleen picking their new boat:
Illusion is a good name for it! We had a good dinner and then back to our super secure beds!

The next day was our last traveling with Wally and Eileen, and it was all lots of fun. We took a "group" picture before leaving to take them to the airport in Nice.

We left them at the airport at 11 a.m. for their trip for a week in Lisbon.

Provence, Day 4

We had a leisurely start to the day, going for a walk after breakfast to see some more of Venasque. We went into the church, which is lovely. It had the most gracious words of welcome any of us had seen in any church that deals with tourists. They made us feel like they wanted us to see their church and learn the history. We then bought a ticket to visit the baptistery, the origins of which are pre-Christian. It was a very simple and quite moving building, where the parish's baptisms are still held. It is also one more tribute to the genius of the Romans in terms of plumbing and engineering! Here is a picture from the baptistery:
After our walk we went back to our B and B and then watched the Royal Wedding in real time! We started with the little TV in Wally and Eileen's room, or "Walleen," as we have come to call them. Then someone discovered that our hosts were watching on a big screen downstairs. They invited us to join them and we had a nice time conversing with them under the incessant French commentary on the television! We learned that Martine had been to London with her family on June 2, 1952 for Elizabeth II's coronation. She was 9 years old, and remembers it well.

After the wedding, we headed out to see some more of the landscape. We drove over a pass through our own local gorges, and dropped down into the town of Gordes where we had a little lunch. In Gordes we saw another "royal wedding" Provencal style.
We then headed out across the opposite valley. We were in the region made famous by Peter Mayle in A Year in Provence. (We learned from Blue Guide Provence that people in the area were so tired of seeing tourists walking about clutching a copy of the book that one local wrote his own book debunking Mayle's claims!)

We headed west a bit to find a couple examples of the local ancient hut, called a borie. These are dry-stone buildings unique to Provence that date back to 4000 BC! Here's a good example not too far southwest of Venasque, outside and in:
We drove back to Venasque through the neighboring village of St. Didier, where we had walked around a little bit the afternoon before. And we ended the day with another fabulous meal at Cafe Fontaine! Yum!

Provence, Day 3

When we were driving back to Venasque the day before, we approached Avignon from the west and saw the beautiful view of the old papal city. We decided to make Avignon our destination on this day.

Modern Avignon is a big city, but we did a pretty good job of finding our way to the west side of the old city wall, and even found a free parking spot! We went in through a small portal in the wall and walked through the quiet old streets to a long set of stairs that took us to the top of the essentially big rock where the old city is. From the top there are wonderful views of the Rhone and the surrounding area.
From there we walked into the cathedral, and then stood in line for quite a while to go into the Papal Palace - Palais de Papes. Armed with the requisite audio guides, we toured this amazing building with its long history, and the interesting stories of the seven popes who resided here from 1309 to 1378. (If you want some more history, click here for a Wikipedia article.)

After the palace, we saw a few fun things in the square in front, including this merry-go-round and a terrific elephant sculpture.

We next went to the famous Pont d'Avignon on the Rhone. Here are pictures of the bridge and the view back to the city.
When we got back to Venasque, we eventually went to dinner at one of two possible spots in the village. We had eaten at the hotel the night before and had a good meal and fun time. This night we went to the other place, Cafe Fontaine. It was fabulous. Amazing cooking and a wonderful small menu. It was great. We determined to eat there again the next night, which we did!