Europe Day 10 of 59, Avignon to Èze

I was dreaming last night. In this dream, some guy had tickets to a basketball game to be played in the Coliseum of Rome. I was annoyed that he was too lazy to get on that train, but then I got him to go and soon we were there. Then I awoke at 5am to see Barbie tuning into the Laker game that was being played live on another continent. I watched the Lakers finally lose at 6am, a bit annoyed with them but not heartbroken. (What can say when your hometown team makes a lot of mistakes, including missing many free throws, and their opponent makes the highest percentage of shots in NBA Finals history, and your team still nearly wins at the end? You say that they are likely to win the championship.)

The reason I bothered with all that was to inform you that, hey, I didn't go back to sleep. As the kids say, "Dang it." I waited for Barbie to wake up and then we headed to the train station with, randomly, the same taxi driver who picked us up at the train station days earlier. I almost got a pic of him answering his iPhone on the drive, as it was cool to see the caller ID appear on his dash and all that bluetooth coolness that in the USA is reserved for luxury cars.

There she is, the TGV to take us away. If I had bothered to bring a full-feature camera, then I might have bothered to try to stand still enough to leave the aperture open and catch this sucker zipping into the station as a blur. But then I'd be not traveling as lightly as possible for 59 days. I cannot tell you how great it feels to step out of a hotel room and know that you have everything you need in three small bags.

Barbie again slept on the train ride, so I whipped out my special edition Newsweek that I never read from January all about the Obama inauguration. Lots of history in there, which I like.

It is obligatory, when the sea becomes visible from the train, to take a picture.

It is not obligatory to take a picture from the train of graffiti, but I often do when stopped in a station.

We switched trains in Nice. This is the Nice train station. Pronounce "Nice" like it's English and suddenly you have a Mister Rogers moment; "This is the nice train station. With nice tracks. And a nice train." But this wasn't "nice," it was, "Neese."

We got off the train and we were soon in the back of a car headed up a hill.

We headed up the hill, not towards the ocean. Good pics of Èze village will have to wait until tomorrow. I couldn't get them from the car. But it is a tiny village on top of a hill overlooking the Mediterranean. Our car dropped us off at an office where we gave them our bags and then we had to walk up the hill for ten minutes, on a fairly steep path.

I did take a picture of the valet parking area of our hotel. This pic suggests that those staying here are not impoverished.

Here's a moment along the path to the hotel. You get the idea this place is not new.

Sorry, I was too exhausted to take pictures until they sat us down for lunch. I should have gotten very close to this "welcome drink" that was fizzy and sweet and strong with liquor, but you should be able to see the naked woman stem if you click on it.

The view from our lunch table. Beautiful place, though when you are from California you are reminded of home when you see this.

This woman sat with me at lunch. Then came with me to my room. I will try to get her name later. By the way, here is where we had our first rude French restaurant experience of the trip. Not in the big city Paris, or the medieval town Avignon, but at the luxury hotel overlooking the Mediterranean where they are supposed to bend over backwards with brilliant service. Go figure.

We got a little two level hotel room. Here you see the bed, stairs on the right.

Here you see the stairs, bed on the right.

Here you see the view from the room. Yes, the same view from lunch. Not long after taking this pic, I had a video chat with to my brother and his kids on Skype, and then I went to sleep for 13 hours. I woke up and got to the blog just now. And now you know why I bothered telling about the lack of sleep the night before.

The only pic I took of our downstairs area is this. Note the theme? Picasso is truly the theme of this trip. I forgot to mention him in Avignon, but it was once again one of Pablo's stomping grounds.

For fun I include Picasso's, "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (The Young Ladies of Avignon)," 1907. Yes, this should have been included when we were in Avignon, not leaving it. These are prostitutes in Barcelona, not Avignon, but they "of Avignon," and we'll be in Barcelona so, which means you can expect more Picasso references in two weeks. You see, the entirely unintended Picasso theme of this trip is stronger than ever.

Europe Day 9 of 59, Avignon

It rained all night. Not normal rain. Hard, heavy rain, with thunder and lightning. The kind of rain that hits the ground so loudly that you assume cats and small dogs are being carried out to the river while the city sleeps.

After listening to the storm all night, we woke up to a beautiful, sunny day. As the French would say, "eep eep ooray!"

The day she began with a continental breakfast at the hotel. This was my first continental breakfast on the continent this trip, and a picture seemed necessary.

After breakfast, we walked the grueling 4 minutes to the Pont Saint-Benezet; a medieval bridge that didn't cut the structural mustard. Only four of twenty-two arches remain. Sure, they could build a massive stone palace/fort for Popes too scared to deal with the angry mobs of Rome, but they kept trying to build a bridge and the river she kept on washing it away. Thankfully the oddity of this bridge to nowhere is an excellent trap for tourists.

This pic is actually from a bridge pylon, so that's two-thirds of what remains. But it looks far better than the pics of the entire thing, so this is what you get.

From the bridge you get this lovely view of the ramparts of Avignon, which according to Wikipedia, "are one of the finest examples of medieval fortification in existence." And now I know what is being referred to in the Star Spangle Banner when we sing, "ramparts."

Here is the money shot of the bridge to nowhere, from the top of the hill near the Pont Saint-Benezet. By the way, there's some story about Saint Benezet being a boy who said that they should build a bridge and the Lord gave him the power to lift a gigantic stone to get it started. Which goes to show that people continued making up some pretty exaggerated stories long after biblical times.

It is a struggle to tap the "Take Picture" button with the same hand that you are holding the iPhone, and there's no way I'm not including this pic after all that effort.

The Palais des Papes (left) and Notre Dame des Doms (finger) from the back.

I wish that the city hadn't ruined the composition of this shot with that street lamp. Was it there in the 14th century? No. Now take it away.

I quite liked the four angels mourning Christ on the cross. Very expressive sculpture. Again, big props to pre-Renaissance artistes.

Barbie in front of Europe's last remaining medieval merry-go-round. Wait, maybe I read the date on that horsey wrong.

"Hey honey, what country are we in again?" "France, dear. France." That conversation has never occurred in this hotel lobby. (Not our hotel.)

The ramparts protecting us from the armies who want to loot our riches and steal our women.

Barbie in front of our hotel. It was a very lovely hotel.

I took this the day before, but it goes well with the previous pic as this is the courtyard on the other side of the previous picture's doorway. I include it now as proof of hotel loveliness. (Mon dieu! Our first anachronistic picture!)

Moi lunching at La Piazza across from our hotel. It's not Italy but that's the name of the restaurant, so don't go all correcting me that public squares in France are not piazzas.

The old city's main street at night. The merry-go-round is right behind me.

The Palais des Papes and Notre Dame des Doms at night.

Just a theater. But at night it is pretty.

This French lizard changes colors to match whatever it steps across. The technical name scientists gave this species is "Color Changing Lizard."

A picture worthy storefront on the way home from dinner. "Hey honey, what country are we in again?"

Another pic worthy storefront poster. "Hey honey, what country are we in again?"

Today is my brother's birthday, so (1) Happy Birthday Matt and (2) I bought you a gift at the last shop pictured.

Europe Day 8 of 59, Paris to Avignon

This morning marked the last time that we would wake up in Paris this trip. I know it's silly, but I had to take a picture from inside the car on our way to the train station.

Importantly, the Royal Trinite cafe which one can see through the windshield is where I got yesterday's nutella crepe. Does it tell you something about me that I took three or four bites and then said, "Fouquet. I should have taken a picture of this beautiful crepe." Expect a nutella crepe pic in the near future. I shall eat them until I remember to take that picture.

Alas, here is the Gare de Lyon, Paris's main train station. We really are leaving.

I cannot explain it, but I adore the activity in a busy train station. Train stations are just plain cool. Whereas airports are the opposite of cool. Bad words come to mind when I think of airports.

Here is the TGV... these suckers have been clocked at 300+ mph. Which reminds me. I started the stopwatch on my phone when our ride began, and never stopped it. So much for calculating how fast we actually went.

Barbie slept for all but a few minutes of this train ride, leaving me alone with this elegant view. Fortunately, the iPhone which is serving as this trip's camera and internet connection also has my 1,500 favorite songs on it, so I had that sucker on shuffle for three hours and it made the ride pleasant enough. The train must've been moving pretty damn fast, because every time I saw a point of interest such as a nuclear plant it was literally off in the distance within seconds.

We arrived in Avignon and saw this view from our hotel's front door. The city wall we're within is either Roman or Medieval, as it is clearly hundreds of years older than everything else. In fact, the wall looks Roman, while you have Medieval stone buildings inside it, and then even more modern buildings next to those. A study in contrasts that I couldn't get a pic of from the taxi, but will try for you tomorrow.

After getting settled, we walked down lovely streets such as this until we found what we were looking for, which actually took no more than five minutes.

There she is. The Palais des Papes, which according to Wikipedia is one of the largest and most important medieval Gothic buildings in Europe. Next door is the Notre Dame des Doms cathedral, with the gold statue at the top that I figure has to be Mary. I know the history involved the Popes hiding here from violence in Rome, er, I mean taking up residence here by choice, but the idea that when they returned to Rome other people took up residence here and claimed to be Popes too is awesome. The term "antipope" has a special musicality to it, no? I recommend http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palais_des_Papes for those wildly interested in facts.

This was actually my view during lunch, and I was struck by the total lack of symmetry. This pic is ugly as heck (can you say "ugly as hell" for the former Pope's house?) but I included it because soon there will be pics of the other side of those windows.

I took a ton of pictures of this stone building, far too many in fact, but will only include the greatest hits.

Firing arrows from up there must've felt like shooting fish in a barrel.

This is inside. That's a room, not an outer wall. Can you imagine an interior room with a ceiling that high? No you cannot. Proof yet again that the medieval Popes were actually giants, perhaps from outer space.

This tradition of copping the pose of a statue began in Florence a few years ago. (As I typed that I realized that someday I have to take a chair to the Lincoln Memorial and get a pic next to him.) Let's just say that, based on this picture, I have definitive proof that I would have made an excellent Medieval Pope.

How amazing a space is this? And there are the windows that looked ugly from outside. Not so ugly anymore, are they? No, they're not. See. All that matters is that one's home looks good to the resident, not the neighbor. The Papes are teaching us humility with their Palais.

This cat was just hanging out. He/She looks almost exactly like Max, my family's cat when I was in high school and college. Max was the greatest, friendliest lap dog of a cat ever. Therefore the cat makes the blog.

Remember that first pic outside the Palais des Papes? Now we're next to those spires, not looking up at them.

As hard as I tried, I could not get a great pic of the p.o.v. of an archer up here ready to defend the Pope. So I took a metapic. Sue me.

This is the room below the massive room with the asymmetrical lunch windows. Obviously the center columns are holding up the room above's unimaginably heavy floor. But they sure look good, too. Function and form. Don't go around insulting Medieval architecture until you check it out in person. Renaissaince, shmenaissance.

I thought it was just too funny that the gift shop is in a chamber like this. I guess I wouldn't expect them to build an exterior gift shop when they already have all that space. Still... this is almost as funny to me as those Nun's behind the counter of trinkets at the Vatican.

And that's where the day ends. We came back to the room and caught a random broadcast of yesterday's Laker victory on TV, complete with French announcers. You cannot top hearing a guy shout in a thick accent, "Lammarrr Udomm Ooh Lah Lah!"

No food pics today. I hope that's not too disturbing. We went to sleep early instead of getting dinner and lunch's bolognaise was not recorded.