An Anniversary Celebration in Nice

The beach in Nice, France, is one of the most uncomfortable beaches I have ever been to.
Don't get me wrong, the city is beautiful and the vistas are breathtaking, but if you're in search of a beach to frolic along the Med, choose another place.

The rocky beaches don't keep families from the beach

I knew the beach in Nice was rocky when I made a mistake writing about a trip to Nice in my book The Summer of France. Luckily, a friend corrected me and I was able to go back and edit so that Fia's trip to the beach was filled with softly rounded stones.
My own trip to the beach might have been filled with worn stones, but I had no idea how painful they would be.
Before we went to the beach, I went to a beach shop and bought a 7 euro pair of flip-flops because I had forgotten to pack mine.
I foolishly thought that the flip-flops would protect my feet. They did on the walk down to the water, but the first wave that rolled forward washed a layer of stones between my feet and the shoe.  As I was trying to kick them out, I lost my flip-flop and it started to float away.
The water was chilly, so I sat down on the rocks and soaked my feet, each time another layer of rocks somehow covered my shoe, wiggling between my foot and the sole. Earl swam a bit, sans shoes; he must have tougher feet than I do because he stood on the floor of the sea. After awhile, we decided to head back to the towels. Here was the next tricky bit.
The descent to the sea is a bit steep. So I stood up, emptied the rocks from my shoes. I precariously balanced while I put them back on, only to have another avalanche of pebbles to fill my shoes before I could take my first step.
I realized that I could not walk up the incline with the flip-flops on, so I carried them,  yelping in pain while I climbed to the top of the embankment.
Another pause while I put my flip-flops on and then a brief walk to the towel where, you guessed it, I lay down on a pile of rocks.
It wasn't as bad as trying to walk.
I may have to go in and edit The Summer of France so Fia has as painful an experience as I did.
I have decided that old tennis shoes might be the answer to the rocky beach -- an old pair of converse would have kept the rocks out and saved the pain on my feet. I don't know how all those kids are running and swimming barefoot. I guess they get used to it.
But don't cry for me. This morning, Earl and I simply took the elevator up to the top floor and swam in the pool of our hotel.

This is the curve of the beach where we're staying to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. 

The pool on our rooftop

The view from the rooftop

We came to Nice to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary, which was Tuesday.
We traveled with Grace and Jack to the Pont du Gard, the ancient Roman aqueduct,

An amazing feat built in the first century AD

then we traveled to Carrières de Lumières, where art is projected on the walls of an old limestone mine and brought to life.

We've seen three exhibitions here. This one was Gaudi and Dali. 

Then we spent the night in Aix en Provence before leaving Grace and Jack behind. We used our credit card points to book a hotel in Nice, and now we have a lovely break along the shore.
But you won't catch me swimming. If only I'd packed some old tennis shoes.

Dreaming of France -- Dreams Coming True

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.

I'm excited to share the latest news with you all about our plans for moving to France in 2018.
I already had shared that we were picked for our first housesit -- only for a week and with a menagerie of animals, but it was a start.
Now, we have housesits for the first three months of 2018!
We'll begin in January staying a week in the Loire, near Normandy. It will be a good transition for us, although we'll be pretty busy taking care of animals that week. The house, in addition to dogs and cats, has a donkey, a mule and chickens.
After that, we'll head to southern France to a charming village where we visited in May. When I found out we had this housesit, I yelped in joy. Three dogs and a few chickens in the beautiful village of Uzès for a month.

Here's the overlook in the village. Somewhere in the hills below is the Pont du Gard. 

Here's the village square where we sat for coffee. A group of children gathered by the
fountain after school before they were led off by some kind of teacher. 

Here's a beautiful cobblestone passage. The village was built up around a dukedom, or duchy. So a tower sits in the middle and much of the rest of the village served as stables or other outbuildings for the castle. 

I call this an arcade. It is lined with shops, like weavers and artists and children's clothing. 

 Uzès is the village just north of the Pont du Gard roman aqueduct. The water from Uzès ran across the Pont du Gard to provide Provence with a steady supply. 

See why I squealed with delight? I'm so excited.

Then at the end of February, after a few months of practicing our French, we'll travel to Surrey, England to housesit for a month for three dogs, including a new puppy named Spud.
It's all working out just as we'd hoped.
Thanks for sharing my joy. Your support and encouragement means so much to me.

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

The Pont du Gard

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.

As this post is published, we're flying home from France.
Le sigh.
But we had a fabulous time and can't complain about an 18-day vacation.
While we were in France, we visited the Pont du Gard, an ancient Roman aqueduct. We had just been in the village Uzes where the water ran across the aqueduct to the more southern town of Nimes.
The sun came out at just the right time.



We have never gone to the top of the aqueduct, but apparently you can take a tour and go to the top level. I did take a picture of these stone steps that lead up to it.
   
Although the steps look ancient, they were built in the 1800s. You can see where they are worn away in the middle.
 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 -- 55 Days

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.

In 55 days, I'll be in France again.
Can't wait!

Here I am in the French countryside in 1985 as an au pair.

In 1991, I dragged my husband along for the first time.

Bicycling around Provence and across the Pont du Gard. 

Eating ice cream in Aix en Provence.

And just a few years ago in Isle sur la Sorgue in the south of France. 

Do you see a pattern? I'm pretty much always smiling and happy. Well, it's vacation, what's not to like?
I'm looking forward to our vacation in France, in preparation for our move to France in the fall.
Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France and please visit the blogs of others who join in too.

Dreaming of France -- 2017 This is the Year

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.

Today is the first day of the year that I will move to France. This year we will make our dream come true.
Everything I do with the kids, with my friends, makes me think, I won't be able to do this next year.
So there's a certain melancholy to it, but I imagine the adventures my husband and I want to have. I think about his recent 61st birthday and how we could push back the date to move, but how many healthy years do we have to climb mountains and dip our toes into the Mediterranean.

How many years can we count on wanting to walk unfamiliar city streets and settle into cafes for glasses of wine or tiny cups of espresso, to order in another language and try to translate menus;

to breathe in the beauty of a Roman-made arena or walk in the footsteps of great artists;

We visited the studio of Paul Cezanne and gazed at Mont Ste. Victoire which he painted many times.

The Pont du Gard in southern France was built by the Romans around 19 BC

And we rode our bikes across it. Amazing

I know that I may face many sentimental decisions in the coming months as we get rid of belongings, sell our house and plan to move to France, but I need to remember the reasons I'm doing it. We could get to the end of our lives and say we accumulated a lot of things and lived a safe life, or we can take some chances and have some adventures.
Hopefully, the safety of a leather recliner will be waiting for us when we tire of adventures.
So, don't cry for me, dear readers, wish me luck and follow along as I journey on.
Oh, and pray that none of my kids decide to become parents, because I have a feeling that grandchildren would throw a wrench into all of our plans.
Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. Please leave your name and blog address in Mr. Linky below, and leave a comment letting me know what  you think about my love affair with France, or your own passion for the country and its people and cultures. Also consider visiting the blogs of others who play along so we can all share the love.

Dreaming of France -- Pont du Gard

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.
Maybe we can all satisfy our yearnings for France, until we get there again.
This week I'm sharing with you some photos from our 2002 bicycle trip in Provence.
We rented bikes and they were fabulously sleek. The company delivered them to our hotel in Avignon. We had planned a 40-mile bike ride to Nimes and along the route, we'd see the famous Roman Aqueduct Pont du Gard.

From this angle, it just looks like some magnificent Roman engineering. We got to actually ride our bikes across it.

 

Look at this picture of me and the bikes. We are so small compared to the aqueduct.

The only problem that day, was we didn't pack food to eat during the bike ride. We were still in an American frame of mind and assumed we would stop for whaatever we needed to eat -- you know, at a French 7/11.

Well, those don't appear too often in France. So we rode without food and I got grumpy. 

Here I am, in desparate need of chocolate. We never rode without chocolate again.

We still consider this our best couple vacation ever.  

 

Saturday Snapshot -- France Reverie

To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post on Alyce's blog At Home With Books. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don’t post random photos that you find online.
This month, I'm also participating in Paris in July sponsored byThyme for Tea and Bookbath, so, of course, I need a France related photo, and I can't believe we're at the end of July so this is my last official France post.
When people ask about my obsession with France, I say I've visited a number of times. I finally sat down and counted. I've been to France nine times. So, I decided to post a photo from each visit.
My first trip was in 1983 between my junior and senior year of college. I went with my boyfriend on a student tour of a gazillion countries. I packed a gigantic suitcase.

Next, I went to France in 1985 for three months as a nanny to two American girls who had French grandparents. We stayed in Corsica, near Bourges, and in Paris.  

This was at their country house outside of Bourges.

My next trip was with my husband in 1991, the year after we got married. We came home from the trip pregnant with Grace.

Our next trip was with all three kids, ages 2, 4 and 6, in 1998.

Here we are in Monet's Garden where Tucker disturbed everyone with his loud crying. Our

 French friend Marguerite lives in Paris. She taught English literature in school.

I went to Paris with my friend Michelle in 1999 after her mother, who was from France, died. Michelle had never visited France.

Earl and I went for our favorite trip in 2002 maybe. We're unsure of the exact year. That's our estimate.

This is us in front of the Pont du Gard. We actually rode our bikes across it.

We went again the following year for a 5-day weekend in Aix en Provence as I did some research for a book.

In 2006, we took all three kids again, age 14, 12 and 10.

In 2010, Earl and I went to celebrate our 20th anniversary.

Could there be another trip in 2012? How about 2013?

Cycling in France

I needed to write another post to get rid of the complaining post below, so I thought I'd focus on France again as part of Paris in July, thanks to the meme from Thyme for Tea and Bookbath
I'm enjoying the Tour de France on television in the mornings. I watch to see the countryside, but also get sucked into the drama of the racing. I cringe and look away at the crashes. Bicycling in France was one of my favorite vacations of all time.
In October 2002, Earl and I left the kids with my parents and went to France for 10 days. We rented bikes from Bourgogne Randonee in Burgundy. They delivered the bikes to Avignon in Provence for us where we began our tour. We traveled with saddlebags on the bikes and nothing else, so we really had to pack lightly.

This is me standing with the bikes. In the background on the left is the bridge from the famous song, Sur le Pont d'Avignon, and that's Avignon on the right behind me.

We had a very loose schedule planned on where we would stay each night. We pieced together some different bicycle routes from the book Bicycle Tours of France by Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks.  

The first day was the hardest for me. Maybe because of jet lag, but also because we didn't take any chocolate with us along the way on the 40-mile ride. I think we pictured stopping at a 7/11 type store to buy something to eat. Bad planning.

I need to scan this photo again to get it in
 the computer in a more usable form.

We rode across the Pont du Gard, a Roman adqueduct near Avignon and ended our day in Nimes. We had no hotel reserved, simply pulled into the center of the city on our bikes and went to the tourism office. They helped us find a hotel across the street from the Roman amphitheater. In spite of some rain, we made our way from city to city. One day when it was raining, we put our bikes on the train for a short ride to the next city. We also stayed in Arles, Salon de Provence and ended up in Aix en Provence where the brothers of Bourgogne Randonee retrieved the bicycles.
On the trip to Aix, we had lunch in a little village called Equilles. We could see Aix in the distance and we lingered over pork chops and green beans, along with glasses of rose. For some reason, we still consider that simple meal to be one of the best we've ever eaten. Maybe it was the fatigue, the ambience, the company.

This trip has been our high standard for vacations since then. We can't wait to move to France someday where we can take bike trips whenever we want.