Lyon – Painted walls and Secret Passages

Lyon is also known as the gastronomic capital of France, although, having eaten very well at stops along the way, and having spent time in Paris, I wonder about this claim.

so many delicacies to choose from

Our guide for the day, being from Lyon, stressed that her city, although the third largest one in France, is actually the second largest if you take in the whole metropolitan area.

Bottom right corner, note the projector

She led us from the river to a large building with famous characters, mainly from the region, painted on the outside walls at every level. The Lumiere brothers, who invented cinematography in Lyon, are featured, and an image of Paul Bocuse stands at street level in what could almost be a restaurant.

Because the city, even the old part, is so much larger than our other stops, we had to travel by bus through much of it, but then we stopped to walk through a few traboules (secret passages,) which have been used for centuries as short cuts through private dwellings and were useful during the German occupation for hiding people and goods.

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French Gourmet Delights – Frogs Legs, Snails and Paul Bocuse

Beaujolais and Dombes Regions

Food and wine were on the agenda for our outings on the 26^th. Unfortunately we couldn’t do both at once, so, knowing that we would be able to try the wines later, we opted for the snails and frogs legs.

Enthusiasm for snails??

After the truffle performance from Serge, our snail man was about as inspiring as any old snail in any garden, but he did show us a few tricks for catching them which I will be testing on the vegetable garden when I get back home – note the photos.

Sprinkle crushed grain on a hard surface and lay slatted timber against it to catch snails

We were put off at the beginning by his attitude when a couple of us ladies enquired about toilet facilities. He really did not want us to use his, and no wonder, it was in his house. The farm (can you call snail production a farm?) has been in production for about five years and making money for the last two years, so we thought he should by now have his facilities properly set up for visitors.

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Ardeches Steam Train

Ardeche and Doux Gorges

Plants sprout from steep rock face

Ardeche steam train

Moored near Tournon, we decided to take the easy outing on the Monday holiday and travel by a vintage steam train up to the top of the hills. Stunning scenery – water rushing below us, greenery clinging to and sprouting from impossibly steep, impervious looking rocks, and the rock formations themselves, begging to be photographed. Several of our group caught bits of grit and smoke in their eyes, hair and any other body parts that happened to be in the way of our engines by-products.

The journey brought back memories of my trips to Kalgoorlie when I was four or five. My uncle was someone important (I never thought to ask what his role was) on a gold mine near Kalgoorlie. I travelled there with my grandparents and my mother, so it must have been during the war years, when dad was away in England. The flying cinders and the smell of the coal fired steam captured it all for me.

Truffle Growing in France

On Sunday I visited the truffle farm and enjoyed not only the tasting, but the performance by Serge and his truffle-hunting dog, Amy, at La Rabassiere at Aurel in the Grignan area.

Amy, a much loved and valuable truffle dog

I thought we’d do a lot of standing, so it was the one time I took my portable chair/walking stick, but they were well organized, with plenty of seating in a tent which was set up on a semi-permanent basis for the visitors. Our guide was part of the charade, rolling her eyes and waving her hands at the dramatic performance and the extravagant wording used by Serge to explain his PASSION for the truffles produced on the 45 acres which were started by his grandmother. She produced 1000 tons per year, his father 150 tons a season, but now Serge can only get about 30 – 50 tons a year. The price has gone up so much though, that he still lives well and his son will take over when Serge retires.

He showed us a sample of a black truffle, about five centimeters across, looking rather like a large dog turd. He handed it around for us to smell after performing a sort of gastronomic drawn-out sniff–left hand holding the truffle to his large nose, then bending his body from the waist and sweeping the truffle ( in the manner of a cavalier waving his hat while bowing to his admired lady) and as his arm extended, his nose appeared to quiver like a dog’s. Guide lady didn’t need to tell us that this demonstrated the depth and strength of aroma to be found in a good quality truffle. It had, in fact been cut in half earlier, so it wasn’t nearly as pungent as I expected.

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Avignon, Pont du Gard and Uzes

Le Pont D’Avignon

Pont d’Avignon was worth a photo or two, simply to say we’ve seen it. Avignon seen from the river, with its medieval walls surrounding the papal palace and the town

Vegies but such French panache

makes another pleasing photo, but otherwise the visit was not very impressive, except for the markets.

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Cruising the Rhone River–Arles and Van Gogh

CRUISING THE RHONE RIVER IN FRANCE

Arles and Van Gogh

Van Gogh painted irises while in Arles

Finding the rest of the group in the airport at Nice was an adventure as no-one stood near the information counter and the staff there new nothing of our arrangements, but Australians have that certain look (never mind the accents) so we found several other equally puzzled prospective AmaDagio travellers and eventually our very French guide arrived to collect us and bundle us onto the coach. The itinerary said it would take about an hour and a half, but in fact it was a three hour trip from Nice to Arles. We arrived as most of the passengers were about to go to the captain’s cocktails and safety talk. So, while the early arrivals displayed their finery while drinking champagne and nibbling dainty cocktails, I dashed into the lounge, disheveled and weary, tossed back a glass of bubbly and retreated as soon as possible to dress appropriately.

A sculpture of Van Gogh greets us on the path to the hospital

Next day we visited the hospital, St Paul de Mausole in St Remy, Provence, (still used for the mentally ill) where Van Gogh spent the end of his life. The chapel is quite austere, pretty much as it was when he went there in 1889. Copies of many of his paintings line the walls and particularly the staircase which climbs up to his tiny room.

Courtyard in the hospital

I was particularly taken with the internal courtyard. When I was at boarding school, at St Brigid’s in Lesmurdie, I liked to walk around that courtyard, but at the time didn’t realize its significance. I now suspect that it was supposed to be a place of quiet contemplation, which of course the nuns never got to enjoy with a bunch of noisy girls requiring constant discipline. Perhaps during our holidays they could walk around it, fingering rosary beads and concentrating on holy meditation.

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Nice France

NICE AND THE FRENCH RIVIERA

Antique lift in the foyer

Well, we’ve now been to Nice, Antibes and Cannes but won’t be in a hurry to return. The hotel, Le Negresco, was very grand and our room was spacious and quiet with a bed large enough for at least four people. Valuable works of art dominate every part of the hotel’s interior

Private beach closed for the night.

Walking back from dinner one night I experimented with the camera and captured this unusual photo of one of the private beaches.

Fishermen on the shore at night

Fishermen on the stony shore made another interesting night time shot.

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Prague – Buildings and Music

PRAGUE – BUILDINGS AND MUSIC

A wide variety of roof lines yet they harmonise wo well

The buildings are largely what make Prague so appealing to me. Like elegant Paris, so many of them have to be captured in photos. I love the variety of architectural styles, the generally pale colours on the walls, and the different roof lines. In Australia I rarely look up to the top of the buildings, but in Prague there are so many styles from vastly different eras that I am surprised at the way they blend and harmonise so beautifully.

One of my favourite buildings is in the famous square near the Astrological clock. To me it typifies Bohemian Prague.

The photo was taken as we walked to our first concert; attending at least one musical performance is imperative while in Prague as musicians are everywhere. Our Mozart Dinner Concert was held in the Grand Hotel Prague which is immediately opposite the famous clock.

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Prague – Old Jewish Area

JEWISH PRAGUE

On Friday May 15^th we were guided around the Jewish area of Prague by a delightful young lady called Katerina who told us so much about the history of each place that I wish I could remember all of it.

Our first stop was the Pinkas Synagogue, established in 1535 by the Horowitz family. It is no longer used as a house of prayer, but was turned into a memorial to the 77,297 Jewish victims of the Nazis from Bohemia and Moravia. Interestingly, this was done by the communists during the mid to late 1950s. The walls inside the building are covered with the names of the victims with dates of birth and

Names of the dead cover the walls

death (when death date is unknown, the date taken is that of departure by train to the death camps.) Seeing so many names, I had to close off my emotions or I’d be overwhelmed by the awful events. On the end wall of the main hall, are lists of all the camps where prisoners were held until they were sent to the gas chambers, mainly to Auschwitz.

As the Jews were confined to their ghettos, in areas frequently flooded, the synagogue has been under a metre or more of water several times and had to be repaired each time, most recently in 2002. I hadn’t realized that because of a ruling in the Old Testament, one must step down into a synagogue, so of course the chance of flooding is greater. I wonder did Jesus change this rule for Christians?

Prague’s Old Jewish Cemetery was our next stop. A fascinating place, with headstones sticking out of the ground, at odd angles and from a vast array of depths. It has been built up with fresh layers of soil so that now the ground level is about two metres above the earlier level of surrounding walls. Moving the hallowed graves is not allowed so the number of bodies buried here from its beginning in the 15^th century is not known. It is not a large area, nothing like our modern cemeteries, but a mature tree that has pushed its way through five or six gravestones, gives some indication of the age and jumble of this place. As we walked around, Katerina pointed out symbols on the stones to show the family name or position in society – a lion, fish, jug etc. Dark stones are the oldest, marble being used more recently although the last gravestone is from 1787.

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Singapore gardens: Cloud Forest

Our next stop is the Cloud Forest, a moisture and temperature controlled environment, again enclosed with a glass and metal dome.

35 metre man-made waterfall and mountain

From seven stories above us, water falls down, splashing the paving and giving us a cooling shower as we try to take photos of each other posing in front of it.

Following the crowd, we walk in a clockwise

Plants growing on the side of the ‘mountain’

direction, taking photo after photo in an effort to record the myriad colours and shapes that sprout from and cling to the sides of the ‘mountain.’

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