Dreaming of France -- Old Haunts and Old Friends

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.

Happy, but exhausted.
For the first time since I received my Fitbit for my birthday last year, I had a couple thousand steps in by the time I went to bed last  night. That's because I went to Aix en Provence and went to meet with my old friend Delana.
I met Delana from her blog. She was a 50-year-old woman who had gotten divorced and moved to France. It was supposed to be for a year, but she was hooked and hasn't gone back to Minnesota, eight years later.
Delana has lots of energy and many friends, so it's always fun to connect with her.

We spent the night at her apartment, and this morning, I went for a run in Aix en Provence. This was the first French city that ever felt like home to me. I walked along the Cours Mirabeau and it just felt like I belonged.
This morning, after only about four hours of sleep, I got up and headed out for a run.
Paul Cezanne, the painter, had his studio in Aix.

We always love to visit it. An artist's workshop is called an atelier, so we generally visit Cezanne's atelier.

 Today being Sunday, plus election day, plus early, I knew I couldn't go inside, but I wanted to run up the mountain so I could see Mont Ste. Victoire, one of Cezanne's favorite subjects.

He painted the mountain view over and over again as his eyesight got worse.
Copies of his paintings of Mont Ste Victoire are displayed from a gorgeous viewpoint.

The paintings are displayed here on this bluff, it you turn around, you can see the mountain. 

Here's my attempt at an artsy photo of Mont Sainte Victoire. 

My knees were a bit tender, so it wasn't the best run, but the views were spectacular. 

We visited a city that we liked a lot on Saturday morning, so it's still in the running for the place we could move. It's called Pezenas. Everyone kissed each other as they stopped for coffee. 

Do you think all this sunshine might be luring us like sirens?

Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. Please leave you link below and visit each other's blogs to share your love for France. 

Dreaming of France -- Blue Skies

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.

It's especially poignant in the fall as I see planes race across the painfully blue sky. I want to be on that plane jetting toward France. I can imagine the sky is equally sharp in the south of France. After all, so many artists are drawn there to paint because of the light.

When we visited in March, gray clouds muffled the brilliance of the sky, but we still got to stand and admire the scenery that Paul Cezanne recreated on his canvases. 

Up the road above Aix en Provence, Cezanne's studio is preserved. 

And farther up the road is a lookout with recreations of Cezanne's paintings so we could look at the paintings and at the mountain that Cezanne captured.

Here's one of Cezanne's paintings. 

And here's the view from the lookout. Of course, the scenery has changed greatly since Cezanne painted there. 

But I need to show a beautiful blue sky, so here's a picture that my friend Leah took in Nice. 

And here's another one that shows the sky and the beach. 

Hope you're wishing on planes flying across beautiful clear skies too. 

Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France.