Dreaming of France -- Outdoor Dining

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

Before I jump into outdoor dining, I want to direct you to Sim Carter's blog Chapter 1 Take 1, where she allows me to share the actors who would be my dream cast if my novel were made into a movie. Just one hint about the main character, Sadie:

Visit Chapter 1 Take 1 to see who the rest of the picks are. And thanks, Sim, for giving me the opportunity. 

What is it about al fresco dining and France that go together? Yes, I know that the words are Italian, but just a glance at cafés and restaurants in Paris and throughout France makes you realize how much the French enjoy eating outside.
Earl and I sat at an outside table yesterday having cocktails and hors d'oeuvres -- dates stuffed with goat cheese and wrapped in bacon to go with our gin and tonics. The evening was delightfully fresh, without the normal humidity we expect in July.
Time spent enjoying our outside dining reminded me of the many times we've enjoyed meals along the front of a French restaurant.
Here I am sitting under a canopy in a square in Aix en Provence enjoying a Kir Royale. My first drink in France when we traveled there last year.

We had a delicious lunch on the terrace of a restaurant in Marseille along the Vieux Port.

And, of course, we take every opportunity to eat outside in Paris.

This restaurant is on Ile de la Cité.

What do you think? Do you connect outdoor dining with France?

I'm also linking to Paris in July. Hope you'll play along with both Dreaming of France and Paris in July. We can't have too much France love, right?

Thanks so much for playing along with Dreaming of France. Please leave your name and a link to your blog on Mr. Linky below. I really appreciate your participation and I hope you'll leave a comment plus visit each other's blogs.

Spring Break Last Year Versus This Year

Apparently, according to Facebook, one year ago today, we were in Marseille and had no idea it was St. Patrick's Day. Wait. I do remember a few bars in Aix had rowdy celebrations on St. Patrick's Day. We did not partake in the Irish celebration because we were busy enjoying French culture.

This is the view as we exited the train station to a cloudy Marseille. In the center of the picture, far off, you can see Notre Dame de la Garde, the cathedral that hovers over the harbor. 

Here's the harbor, known as Vieux Port, and you can again see the cathedral above.

Yesterday, I edited the section of Paris Runaway that takes place in Marseilles, so it was definitely on my mind. 

This year, since I'm in Ohio, I spent today getting a skin check by the dermatologist. There's the Irish celebration with my pale skin and freckles.

Then I stopped by Mozart's bakery for a mocha and a cream cheese plunder pastry while I read.

Then a final stop for a manicure.

It's not France, but I can't complain on one of my few remaining days of Spring Break. 

Dreaming of France -- Bursts of Color in A French Market

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

One beautiful thing about France is all the outdoor markets. Once we live there, I look forward to doing most of my shopping at the markets.

These oranges were at a market in Marseille. 

Flowers are ubiquitous in French markets. I imagine that everyone takes time to make their apartments more beautiful by treating themselves to a bouquet of flowers. 

Here's a collection of colorful baskets, which would be handy to use when carrying home all of my belongings from the market.

The markets always have scarves, tablecloths or even bolts of material.

Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France.  

Dreaming of France -- Paris Runaway

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France.

It's been a little while since we've played Dreaming of France. I know the way to increase the number of people playing and reading -- all I have to do is move to France!
But our current plans don't include us moving to France until May 2017. Still -- May 2017 is only a year and a half away!
So today, as we head toward the end of 2015, I thought I'd post some pictures from our trip to Marseille in March.
We'd never been to Marseille, so we took the bus from Aix en Provence to Marseille, about 30 minutes. The bus stops at the train station, and the view from the train station is panoramic.

In the distance on the hill is Notre Dame de la Garde, our lady of the guard, which overlooks the Marseille harbor. 

The architecture in Marseille looks similar to buildings in Paris. 

This ferris wheel sits at the beginning of the harbor for a terrific view. Well, we didn't actually ride on the ferris wheel, but I imagine the view would be stunning from those little seats. 

We walked down to the end of the harbor where we saw the Marseille Cathedral. I'd never heard of it before, but sitting there along the edge of the Mediterranean, with it's dramatic dark insets, the cathedral wowed us. 

I'm looking forward to the day when we can return to France and explore Marseille again. 

I hope you're dreaming of France today too and I really appreciate everyone who participates and visits each other's blogs. 

Writing and Marseille

My week is busy with grading papers and writing.
I'm never really sure if anyone checks in on the blog and feels disappointed that I haven't written.
But, I have completed my first edit of Paris Runaway, my latest novel.
It's got a mother searching for her teenage daughter who ran away from their home in Florida to Paris chasing after the French exchange student.
The mother follows and learns about the importance of embracing life.
In addition to the streets of Paris, the novel will take you to Marseille, and into a Frenchman's bed.
Oh la la!
Thanks for sticking with me.
Here are a couple of pictures of Marseille.  The first is from the train station. In the background, you can see a hill and a spectacular cathedral sits on the hill overlooking the harbor. The church is called Notre Dame de la Garde.

And here's a shot of the ferris wheel along the harbor. 

Ferris wheels are becoming as ubiquitous as carousels in French towns these days. 

 

Dreaming of France -- The Ubiquitous Carousel

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.
A French town just isn't complete without a carousel. I think the French must have a lot more carousels per capita than we do in the United States. What does that say about the French? About us?
This one was in Aix en Provence, aptly named the Carrousel Paul Cezanne since Cezanne had a studio in Aix and painted many scenes of the nearby mountain Mont Ste. Victoire.

Note the gorgeous blue sky behind the carousel and the intense red and gold on the carousel. There's even a second story that kids can go up to.

We saw another carousel in Marseille when we spent the day there. 

I wonder how big a town has to be to have a carousel. Maybe I should be asking how small it has to be so that it doesn't have a carousel. 

Hope everyone is having a splendid spring.

Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. Please leave a comment and visit each other's blogs so you can share you love for France.  

Quirky Travel Differences

There are some funny things about travelling in another country. People do things differently. One of those things here in France is that we turn in our key every time we leave the hotel. The key is no card that you slide at the hotel door. Instead, it's a metal key with a big, heavy fob on the end. We might leave the hotel and be back half an hour later, but each time we hand in our key and say, "Bonjour, merci." And the desk clerk responds, "Merci, au revoir" or "Bonne journee." We might be gone the entire day and come back with a "bon soir" before asking for our room key, "Deux cent trois." Or maybe we go outside, find a market, end up buying something and come right back to the room where we have to ask for the key again. I've always been resistant to staying in a bed and breakfast because I feel like the owners are too closely connected to our comings and goings, and the same is similar here in France. That doesn't keep me from wanting to come here and visit, of course. It's just a quirky thing that people might not know about. Another strange thing I've run into the past two days, are signs in the bathroom that warn people not to put anything in the toilet, including toilet paper. That, of course, can be uncomfortable.

I saw that sign in Aix en Provence at the studio of Paul Cezanne. I also saw that sign when we traveled to Marseille today. Earl said the sign made sense at Cezanne's studio since it is on a septic tank, but in Marseille, near the port, it had to use a decent sewer system. We're definitely learning a lot here, and I'll throw in a few pictures that aren't about hotel keys or bathroom habits.

We visited Marseille today. The train station perches above the city. That's me posing.

Doesn't Earl look French with his scarf? We had lunch at this restaurant -- goat-cheese salad, penne and roquefort pasta, dessert of chocolate cake with English cream, followed by tea for Earl and coffee for me. 

I was kind of nervous about travelling to Marseille. It was a place we'd never been and I heard a lot about crime in Marseille, but after we had been there walking around for awhile, we felt confident enough to take the metro five stops out of the old port section of the city. The metro was clean, swift and safe. 

We only ran into trouble when we were in a government building and went out the wrong exit, twice. A guard ended up following us to make sure we didn't break any more rules. 

Dreaming of France -- No, Really, Dreaming of France

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.
This morning as I listened to Marketplace Money on my local NPR station, I heard a story about how anticipating a vacation is almost better than the vacation itself.
A study in the Netherlands found that people were happier right before a vacation than right after. The promise of the reprieve might be better than the actual trip! Nothing can go wrong as you are dreaming about it, but in actual travel, many things can go wrong, explained the author of the study who was attacked by a shark in Hawaii.
I don't fear shark attacks on our next trip to France, and I am enjoying the joy that comes with contemplating walking off the plan in Paris and traveling by train down to Aix en Provence.
I  Skyped last week with a blog friend in Aix en Provence, Delana (who hasn't been blogging much but who runs Travel Solo Bootcamp, was full of fun ideas for me and Earl.
One of the things she told us was that the Calanques, between Marseille and Cassis are open to cars during March. That means that we can drive our rental car on the calanques, a kind of Mediterranean fjord. Most of the time, people visit them by boat or they have to park and hike in to see them.

This photo comes from the Alaric English Speakers website. 

Delana explained that the roads are twisty through the steep landscape. Other articles explain that creeks cut into the stone leaving these dramatic shapes. Then the creeks pour into the Mediterranean, leaving the water pure and fresh. I wonder if we'll get any photos as dramatic as this.
I'm really dreaming of France and looking forward to our adventures.
What are you dreaming about this week?
Please leave a comment and visit each other's blogs to see what others are posting about.

Dreaming of France -- Marseille

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

My husband and I have never been to Marseille, but instead of dreaming of France, we're really both dreaming of Marseille. Mostly, because we are including scenes that take place in Marseille in our current novels. Of course, it is possible to write about a place without visiting it.
It's fiction, so we can make up things. But it's best to actually visit and experience the city, the streets, the individual markets to give real flavor to a place.
We also can visit the very streets of Marseille on Google Maps and move along the streets like the cameras did.
I've been online looking at trips to Marseille. They're very affordable, especially in the winter. We could fly from Columbus to Marseille and spend six nights in a hotel for about $1500 each. That's almost too cheap not to go!
Here's a picture of one hotel that particularly appeals to me.

This picture from Expedia pops up for Escale Oceania Marseille Vieux Port.
I'm not sure if it's the carousel on the left side or the street lamp, the charming old building with the promise of a port behind it from the looks of the open space. The golden light shining onto the pale stones. I just love the idea of staying here and wandering around the streets of Marseille.
I know the city has a bad reputation, which is one of the reason the characters in my book are there, but I would probably want to venture out to visit some charming villages in nearby Provence too.
So for now, I'm dreaming of Marseille.
I look forward to seeing your posts. Thanks for playing along and please take the time to stop in at each other's blogs.

First Chapter, Tuesday Teaser --

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.

I'm excited to start this one, even though some of the Goodreads reviews have not gushed over it -- The Marseille Caper by Peter Mayle. Of  course, I've never gotten over his book A Year in Provence. Here's the intro:

Shock has a chilling effect, particularly when it takes the form of an unexpected meeting with a man from whom you have recently stolen three million dollars' worth of wine. Sam Levitt shivered and pulled his terrycloth robe closer around his body, still damp from an early morning dip in the Chateau Marmont pool.

Also this week is Teaser Tuesdays. Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Open to a random page of your current read and share a teaser sentence from somewhere on that page. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers.
Here's my teaser from chapter two:

"Elena," he said, "are you wearing anything under that dress?"  

"Not a lot," she said. "A couple drops of Chanel."

What do you think?