Friday, March 23
We met at 9:45 a.m. at Gare de Lyon, and then got on the TGV together to head for Avignon. It was a group of about 20 students, Mme Moll, Bertrand (field trip organizer guy) and the directrice of IES Paris, a woman whose name I... do not know. But she's nice. Mark, Allie, Lindsey and I all got a compartment of seats facing each other to ourselves, so that was nice. We chatted, read, listened to iPods, and napped during the 2 1/2 hour journey.
The train was a nice bullet-train ride and got us to Avignon around 1. We met our tour bus there and it took us into town and dropped us off to find lunch. We only had like 20 minutes to do so, and almost all of us ended up at this little boulangerie and got sandwiches which we ate mostly on the way back to the bus. Then we went to Uzès where we walked through the village to get to the Duché (duchy), the house of this family of dukes where--get this--the title extends to this day! That's right, the latest Duke of this family is like 10 years old and he'll come live in the house full-time one day! Isn't that insane?
We had a guided tour of the duchy and it was pretty funny because our guide, this fairly officious guy, and Mme Moll were totally duking (aha ha ha) it out the whole time. He'd tell us something and she'd be all "Oh, can I interrupt?" and talk to us some more about something, usually something not even all that significant, and he'd just look like "Yes, well. Anyway. Here we have..." and it kept happening and was so funny. It's not even like she was deliberately trying to show him up, it's just her crazy nature. Ahaha Mme Moll, you so crazy.
Oh, and before the guided tour we'd climbed up an eternity of steps in this tower thing that was part of the complex and reached the top where it was veeeery windy but we could see all out over the town.
After that we got back on the bus and went to Arles, where we would be staying during the trip. Arles is one of the towns van Gogh stayed in for a period of his life and where he painted "Starry Night" and that one of the cafe at night, among others. It also has some Roman ruins, chiefly a big Colosseum-esque thing called the Amphitheatre. Our hotel was named after it, Hôtel de l'Amphithéatre, and it was a REALLY nice hotel. When you travel with IES, they do go all out! Lindsey and I were roommates (Allie went with 3 other girls and Mark roomed with the only other boy on the trip, haha); our room was so cute and nice, great stone tiled floor, everything.
Once we arrived we had about 30 minutes to just relax before dinner, and we were all starving. Dinner was at this place called Restaurant la Comédie, and it was amazing. Due to seating difficulties, our group of 4 was divided, with Lindsey and Allie at one end and Mark and I at the other, but it was fine, we all had some good conversations. We got to pick our entree, main course, and dessert. For my entree I picked a salad with duck, which was maybe a mistake, because although I was lured in by the presence of duck, this wasn't normal roasted or whatever duck, it was raw strips that had been acidized with lemon or something to be made safe to eat. So it was like eating raw meat--not my favorite thing ever exactly. I had some, but couldn't finish it. The salad part was really good though. For the main course I had a pasta carbonara, and for dessert I can't remember but it was something goood. yum. Also, even though they're not usually supposed to, IES let us have wine with our dinner, the rosé the Provence region is famous for. It was pretty good too.
Saturday, March 24
After breakfast at our hotel in the morning (yumm, all sorts of bread products + hot chocolate! The kind where they give you hot milk and cacao powder and you mix it yourself!), we headed out with the rest of the group to go to this market in Arles, which was soooo cool. Provence markets are pretty well-known for being awesome, and this one did not disappoint. All kinds of foodstuffs, then craftswork, and ahh, it was so cute and great.
Arles amphitheatre (Roman ruins!).
Around 10:30 we headed out for Saint-Rémy, another famous van Gogh place, as it's the village where you can find the
Look familiar?
Haha, Mark and Lindsey were really excited about the van Gogh statue there.
A room styled to look like van Gogh's.
More olive trees.
After that we had free lunch in the village of Saint-Rémy, and we found this cute little restaurant and decided to have a nice lunch there. I got steak frites (yumm) and we got some carafes of wine, rosé and red, to share. It was pretty amazing.
From there we went to Aix-en-Provence, where you'll find Cézanne's studio and a lot of important architectural things. So you can bet Mme Moll had a field day showing us all the very significant architectural details. First we saw Cézanne's studio, which is pretty cool, just a cute little house and you can go in and see the second-floor room where he painted many of his works. Outside is a little patio (a cat was there!) and a gardens-type area that some of us went into even though we "didn't have time."
Cat chillin at Cézanne's
From the studio, on a hill, we walked down into the town, following the path Cézanne would have taken every time he went into town. That was when Mme Moll got her chance to show us all the architecture stuff, church facades and interiors so forth. At one point it was pretty hilarious because she wanted to show us this room where they were about to have a wedding, and all the people in there were like "No, you can't come in with a tour, a wedding is about to happen!" and Mme Moll is all "It'll be fast, don't worry" and told us some stuff about it and then as we were leaving the building complex, a limo pulls up in front accompanied by a crowd, and we pretty much can't get out without getting in the way of the wedding, so we had to stand (this group of like 25 tourists) off to one side of the foyer while the bride and groom and their party parade in and we're just standing there like, AWKWARD! It was so funny because it just represented Mme Moll's amusing persistence at all times.
After that we had some free time and went on what turned out to be a wild goose chase for this gelato place Lindsey had seen, and in the end some of us got pizza from a stand instead, and then met back up with the group to go to the Musée Granet, where not a single actual work by Cézanne could be found, disappointing many of us (I guess because all of them are in Florence!).
After that it was back on the bus to head back to Arles, and dinnerrr. This time it was at a place that served a Provençal specialty, tartines, which is toasted bread with cheese and other stuff melted onto them. This time I went with the duck choice again, but it was good this time, actually cooked duck. The tartines were a little greasy, but pretty good. Dessert was amazing, too, I got chocolate cake. mmmm
Place in Arles where van Gogh painted Terrasse du café le soir, Place du forum, Arles (Cafe Terrace at Night).
Sunday, March 25
Lindsey and I overslept so we didn't have time to eat all of breakfast (grabbed some rolls and such though), but we packed up fast and joined the group. After stopping by the Arles amphitheatre and poking around there (with a group of Japanese tourists, haha)...
...we went to the Fondation Van Gogh, which is this museum that houses works by artists of all nationalities who have made works inspired in some way by van Gogh or his paintings. It was pretty interesting to see, not all that fascinating though.
After that we got back on the bus to go back to Avignon, and from there got our TGV back to Paris. yay Provence!
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