Waiting for Pat & Ralph

We're in the middle of a brief run of very mild weather here. It got up to 17C yesterday with mostly sun, and it's forecast to go almost as high again today (Thursday) - the day Ralph and Pat arrive for a two week visit - although cloudier.

Karen and I have had a not very eventful week. On Tuesday, the day after Shelley left, we went for a lo-o-o-ng walk on the Allée de la Méditerranée, the bike/walking path that goes along the River Lez, from Antigone in the centre all the way to the sea at Villeneuve-lès-Maguelone. It's a route we'll eventually take on our bikes.

The beginning of Port Marianne, looking back towards Antigone

On this day, we walked a mile and a half or so out through Port Marianne, an interesting near-suburban development featuring new buildings designed by internationally-known architects. There are some pretty cool-looking buildings, and more under construction - and some we've seen pictures of but didn't see this day. It looks to be a place worth exploring on bikes.

Montpellier, Port Marianne

We got past the main build-up of Port Marianne to the point where the new A9 extension is being built over the Lez, then turned and walked back.

Yesterday, we finally got our bikes out and rode them down to the farmer's market at Antigone, the one we visited last week. We had our first taste of riding through the pedestrianized centre, dodging pedestrians, scooters, other bikes and trams. Great fun. The route only takes about 10 minutes from our place. Karen thought the market a little disappointing this time; I thought it seemed about the same. And we bought about the same: some apples and some cooking veg, from the same stall run by a cheery young man who speaks quite good English.

My bike, mon vélo, unfortunately is not going to cut it. It's too small - a child's or small woman's bike, I think - and the handlebars are way too low. It would be crippling to ride any distance.

In the afternoon, it was lovely and sunny and we took our tablets and went and sat on a park bench in the sun on the L'Esplanade for an hour, right by the children's playground. We marvelled again at how Canadian parents and civic officials would have conniptions over how dangerous the playground equipment is. And also marvelled - Karen's observation, and spot on - at how quiet the place was despite dozens of children crawling all over the apparatus. If it were home, it would be cacophony.

Montpellier, L'Esplanade, maman

Also noteworthy was how patient the parents were. There was one young mother with a baby in a carriage and, evidently, a toddler in the playground, who stood or sat there the whole time we were there, without ever saying anything to the playing child that I saw. "If it was me," Karen said, "I'd have a book." Other parents were watching their kids a little more closely, but there were few of the real helicopters, hovering over their offspring; they would be the norm at a similar place at home. Most of these parents were socializing on the perimeter while their kids played happily and unsupervised.

We wandered home through the Ecusson, and saw a very good acoustic jazz band busking near Les Halles Castelane. And that's pretty much it, besides shopping, reading, watching a little TV. But now today, I'll take the navette out to the airport in the early afternoon and greet Pat and Ralph. I'm guessing we'll be a little more active in the next while.

Shelley comes to visit

Shelley Boyes managed to get enough ahead on her work that she was able to come for a weekend visit. She rented a car in Aix-en-Provence, where she's staying, and drove down on Saturday morning, arriving about noon.

Shelley has some Luddite objection to GPS and insisted on navigating herself to our place with just maps - this despite our horror stories about driving aimlessly around the maze of one-way streets trying to find the place the first time we tried it. But hats off to Shelley, she actually got here, or as close as she could get without our little card for lowering the bollards on the pedestrian street around the corner.

After a short breather we dragged her off for a wander. We went through Place de la Comédie and down the Esplanade de Charles de Gaulle first, then dove into the narrow streets of the Ecusson. It's always a different experience, you always end up going a different route, and you always end up seeing something new you hadn't noticed before, even if it's just a pleasing street vista (of which there are many) or light effect, or a shop that wasn't open the last time you went by. We passed the nicely restored church of Ste.-Anne, which is now a contemporary art gallery - currently between exhibits - and noticed again the fine gargoyles on the front.

Church of Ste.-Anne

Near church of Ste.-Anne (note the bicycle in the wall)

We spent much time window shopping and examining restaurant menus. For lunch, we ended up back at Iles et Thé une Fois, the little place we went to with Caitlin behind Les Halles Castellane, the posh market in the centre. It was a different crew on duty this day, but the food was as good and cheap as before. I had the spicy Thai chicken brochettes, Karen had a Thai coconut beef curry and can't remember what Shelley had - Stroganoff?

Shelley and another fibber

After lunch we meandered on, wandering up to the Place Royale de Peyrou and the triumphal Arch (which, Shelley noted after reading an explanatory plaque we had missed, pre-dates the Arch de Triomphe in Paris). Both impressed, I think. By the time we left the park, it was clear there was some kind of commotion up Rue Foch, the wide avenue that ends at the Arch and the Place Royale. There were police directing traffic, and we could here rhythmic drumming. A parade of some kind was coming.

Spire of Ste.-Anne from Place Royale

Place Royale de Peyrou

We went down the street and came to the front of it - a ragged affair with a Caribana or Mardi Gras theme. Most of the participants were black - who knew the city had such a large black community? - and university age. Many were scantily attired (especially the girls; funny that), despite the overcast and chill. There were drummers and horn players, some groups with crude uniforms, some carrying banners (Je suis Charlie), much dancing and ostentatious drinking. Whatever the pretext, the event appeared to be mostly about partying. Ah, the young! When will they learn?

We cut off into the old town again and zig-zagged our way back to the apartment. We had a good rest (while downing a few glasses of wine), and I prepped our evening meal. Then it was out again for another ramble before dinner. I imagine we will tire of the city eventually, but not yet. Most of the rest of the evening was devoted to planning our Sunday - a driving trip to Sète, on the coast just west of here - and wine drinking. (Ah, the aged! When will they learn?)

In the morning, we got out about 10:30 and walked down to Antigone. We wanted Shelley to see it (and she was duly impressed), and we wanted to check out the Sunday farmer's market on one of the main streets that runs along the edge of the neighbourhood. The market was on a narrow boulevard and jam packed. There were lots of mouth-watering things on offer, but we just walked through and back home.

The plan was to drive to Sète, which is about 35 km away, or somewhere nearby for lunch. We got away not much after noon and were in Sète by one. It's a fishing and industrial town, known for its beach, marina and, especially, the canals. It calls itself the Venice of France - it's not - and is famous for its seafood restaurants that line the Grand Canal. It could be pretty on a busy summer day, but this day was chilly and windy, if sunny, and we weren't that impressed. We spent 45 minutes walking along the canal and peering at restaurant menus, then headed out in search of a smaller place we'd read about, Bouzigues, recommended by one of our books as a less crowded and touristy place with the best oysters.

Sète

Finding Bouzigues was an adventure. It's only a few kilometers from Sète , but the 2003 Michelin road atlas we were using was either out of date or not detailed enough, or both. And Bouzigues is strangely absent from road signs until you get within a couple of clicks of it. In the end, we turned on Miss TomTom and she guided us there along a route we would never in a million years have figured out on our own.

Bouzigues (with Sète in the background across the Bassin de Thau)

The restaurant we chose, the first we looked at, was right on the front, Chez Julie. It was insanely busy - why we chose it - with frazzled, sweaty staff darting about, dodging between patrons waiting to be seated or to pay. We ended up waiting almost half an hour. The restaurant was good, the experience fun, but it was also, as Shelley noted, a place that catered to the bourgeoisie - less, perhaps, about the food than the experience of being out with family at the sea front. (Not the we aren't middle class, you understand.)

Bouzigues, Chez Julie

Actually, the restaurant is on the basin front. Bouzigues and Sète are on the Bassin de Thau, a salt water lagoon or étang, separated from the sea by a narrow isthmus. Out the window from the restaurant, you could see the oyster beds - they look like large tables sitting in the shallow waters of the basin. I'm ashamed to say, I still have no idea how oysters are - farmed? And no, Karen and I did not try them, although Shelley did, and pronounced them very good.

Our next stop was Villa Loupian, a Roman villa, mostly dating from the 5th century AD (although it was first established in the 1st century BC). It's a place that was owned in later times by a rich entrepreneur and wine grower and used only a few weeks a year. It was huge and evidently very luxurious. The local governments that run Villa Loupian have apparently run out of money. The site is no longer being excavated and the museum is pokey, with a skeleton staff (at least on this day), and very bad English translations of the explanatory material - to the point of being unintelligible in many cases.

But the big attraction here is the floor mosaics, dating from the villa's later period. And as it was late in the day, our admission - quite reasonably priced for France - included a private English-language tour. Our charming young guide's English wasn't terrifically good, but he was able to get across the main points. And the mosaics, painstakingly restored and housed in a covered pavilion with walk ways around them so you can get a good view, are magnificent. I've never seen so many, preserved (or restored) so well, still in situ, in one place. We learned about the different qualities of mosaics, the meanings of the graphic themes - mostly geometrics - and why they were so important as a way for the owner (the "citizen," as our guide kept referring to him) to impress customers, suppliers and underlings. A good show.

Villa Loupian

We took a supposedly scenic route back to Montpellier along the coast. It wasn't very scenic, but the evening light was lovely - for a brief moment. Back at the ranch, we settled in for the evening with wine, cheese and baguettes, and two episodes of Downtown Abbey on the boob tube. (Shelley had rented the full fifth season from iTunes and authorized our Apple TV as one of her devices.) What a perfectly splendid, perfectly silly program it is!

Montpellier, Ecusson, new street art by Kirrikoo

On Monday morning, we went shopping with Shelley in the Ecusson, poking into little shops. (I spotted a lot of new street art by somebody calling him or herself Kirrikoo - all pre-printed and plastered bill-style on the walls.) Our objective was the funky toy store we had shown Shelley the day before but hadn't gone into. She wanted to check it out for Xmas and/or birthday gifts for her nieces and nephews and grand nieces and nephews and assorted other little ones she generously indulges. We never did find that store, but found another that was just as cool in a different way, with toys for younger children. She ended up buying a lovely cloth book for one of her infant protegés. We ended up in Place de la Comédie for a coffee before Shelley headed out.

Shelley at the Place de la Comédie

Once we'd waved goodbye to Shelley, who was heading back to Aix to work, Karen and I had lunch and did our shopping. We also bought a slip wrench at the grocery store with which to adjust Karen's bicycle seat, which we duly did - and also her back brakes. And then, for some reason, we were very tired and shamelessly wasted a gorgeously warm and sunny afternoon (17C), moping around the apartment.

Bumming around Montpellier

With Caitlin gone back to England, and Shelley with her head down, working in Aix, Karen and I have been a bit at loose ends the last few days. What do we do now? Well, we explore the city is what we do, and we have been.

Tuesday was cleaning day, plus we were bagged from a bad night's sleep, but we still got out for a long-ish walk in the afternoon. We meandered among the narrow streets in the Ecusson, the old medieval centre, I could spend hours in there. We found ourselves back at the church of Saint Roche where the doors were open, an unusual occurrence apparently.

Across from Saint Roche church

As we were entering, we were accosted, rudely, by two supposedly hearing-handicapped guys with a sign-our-petition scam, a pretext for begging. Caitlin and I had a run-in with these very insistent dudes earlier and got as far as signing our names before realizing they were asking us to pledge a donation as well. When we waved them away this time, they charged ahead of us into the church and started approaching other visitors.

One of the church caretakers bustled over in high dudgeon and asked if we had given them any money. I thought she was asking us for money to enter the church at first, but no. I'm not sure why she asked. Maybe she was going to reprimand us for giving in to them, or she was going to offer to try and get our money back. In any case, she shooed the beggars out. They came flouncing back down the nave past us and waved their hands in our faces as some kind of protest or joke.

The church is remarkable for its lovely stained glass: a huge arched window over the altar in deep blues, depicting Jesus with a lamb of God in front of what looks like a castle, but may be the gates of Jerusalem, and a rose window over the front door in unusual orange-y pink hues.

Saint Roche church

Montpellier, Ecusson

There is a big arts festival starting here soon, Festival Tompisme. It appears to be mostly about digital media and runs to nightclub DJ performances and a live video link with the South by Southwest Festival in Austin TX - which I guess is also on right now. We don't think there's much in it for us, but we'll investigate further. In any case, on one little street, a couple was stringing up bright coloured pennants - really just scraps of fabric, but pretty. We assume this is something to do with the festival, but who knows?

Montpellier, Ecusson

Montpellier, Ecusson

On Wednesday, Karen had done some research on farmer's markets and wanted to do a mini-tour of the ones running on this day - one in Antigone, the big just-south-of-the-centre housing/office development I wrote about earlier, and one in the much less interesting Beaux Arts district just north of the Ecusson. It was lovely and sunny when we set out, but with a chilly breeze.

The market in Antigone was a good size, with maybe 30 booths set up in the square. Most, but not all, were food vendors who appeared to be selling fresh grown produce, local cheeses, nuts, preserves, meats. But there was also one selling beds! We bought some veg and a couple of apples of a variety we'd not heard of before - Pink Kiss - that were surprisingly inexpensive compared to the Pink Ladies we've been buying at the local Carrefour. They turned out to be very good too.

Montpellier, near Beaux Arts district

We walked on, through the edge of the old centre, to the other market, which was quite a bit smaller - maybe ten booths altogether. We did buy some garlic there from a little old lady who only had a small table and, we assume, had grown the garlic herself. By the time we got home, it had been a two-hour walk in total. Karen easily recorded her target 10,000 steps on the FitBit.

Late in the afternoon, we went out again, to the Pavillon Populaire, an exhibition space devoted to photography in the Esplanade Charles de Gaulle near Place de la Comédie - so a fairly short walk. The current show is a retrospective on the mid-century American photographer Aaron Siskind, mostly drawn from the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, which we visited two years ago.

This one is a terrific exhibit. I had long been aware of Siskind, but hadn't realized how influential his aesthetic has been on me. I was saying to Karen afterwards that practically every impulse I have as a photographer can be traced back to Siskind and his cohort of European-influenced American photographers. She saw the parallels too. Lots of grafitti shots, lots of abstracts, lots of architecture. Now, if I could only learn to take my pictures half as artfully. As we were leaving, I leafed through a book of the exhibit and was struck by how the reproductions in it really didn't do justice to the prints. They seem to glow with an inner light - like all good original art. I shall probably return, although the show is over on Sunday.

Aaron Siskind, Chicago, 1961

Today, Thursday, I was out in the morning on errands that took me through the Ecusson again. Such lovely little shops, often with handmade things, and always brilliantly presented.

Montpellier, Ecusson - look up!

In the afternoon, we took a walk along the bike path that we thought we would use to get to the river and the path to the sea. It took us down some very boring avenues. In the end we decided we'd ride through the centre and then through Antigone - less direct, but pleasanter. We're anxious to get the bikes out, but it's still a little chilly for biking - low double digits celsius, and only for a few hours in the afternoon - and Karen's needs some adjusting, which will require us to take it into a shop or buy a bike wrench.

The good news today. It looks like Shelley will join us here for the weekend. Woo-haw!

Bonne anniversaire, Caitlin! Et Bon Voyage.

As I begin this post, we've just returned from a lovely weekend visit with Shelley Boyes in Aix-en-Province. Shelley, bless her, had just finished two weeks of visits with her sisters, who only left Thursday, but she insisted we come. As it was Caitlin's trip and Caitlin's birthday weekend, we left the decision to her, and of course she chose to go and see her  tía malifica. (Don't bother checking Google Translate, it's a Shelley-ism: "naughty aunt" in Span-talian or Lat-lish.) 

We packed up our little Fiat bug and headed out on Friday morning. The plan was to drive through the Camargue, the flat, marshy area around the mouth of the Rhone River, to Arles, and then hit Aix about cocktail hour. The Camargue was not a hit with Caitlin: too flat, she said. (Duh!) She stuck her earbuds in and listened to music. We did see flamingos again, though not as pink as the ones Karen and I had seen earlier in the week, and lots of white Camargue horses, though most paddocked, not running wild.

We also saw the walls around Aigue-Mort to better advantage. It's almost as picture-perfect as La Cité de Carcassonne, and there's a real town inside inside these walls. We saw it from quite a few angles, in fact, because our map wasn't detailed enough to guide us smoothly around the city and out the other side. We ended up trapped for awhile on narrow little city streets and suburban roads. The French have perfected "traffic calming," with speed bumps the height of small mountains every 100 metres or so, and a speed limit of 30 kph.

Arles is a city we visited 25 years ago on Caitlin's first trip to Europe when she was a kindergärtner. She remembers little of it, although when we went to the famous Roman arena, which has been restored and retrofitted with modern stadium seating for bull fights and other entertainments, she did experience a little frisson of memory, she said. Here's a picture of her on that first trip, when we had money and could afford to take her inside the stadium to clamber around the bleachers.

On this trip, the main objective in Arles was the very new Fondation Vincent Van Gogh. The literature about the Fondation, to be fair, does make clear that it's not really a museum about Vincent in Arles, despite the name. It's a contemporary art gallery for displaying work inspired by or somehow intersecting with Van Gogh's legacy. Shelley and her sisters also went to this place and were told that what little of Van Gogh's work is held here was currently on tour. Although it's a lovely exhibition space, we were more than a little disappointed in it, not least because it was virtually Vincent-free on this day.

Arena at Arles today

The art currently on exhibition, by the Chinese-French expressionist painter Yan Pei-Ming, and French painter and conceptualist Bertrand Lavier was mildly interesting, but not really to any of our tastes. We thought the connections made to Van Gogh's work were tenuous at best. There was one rather nice, if small, Vincent self-portrait, but the Fondation was definitely not worth the €9 entry fee we paid, in our humble opinions.

View point on roof of Fondation Vincent Van Gogh

Arles was redeemed for us by the charm of its medieval centre, with its lovely squares and narrow streets festooned with artistic grott (n. from Eng. grotty, dirty, shabby, down-at-heels). We spent a happy hour and a bit wandering and taking photographs.

Banksy-like street art by Diabolik

Quaint street, pretty woman

Found art

Found art

Street art

Miss Tom-Tom guided us more or less directly into Aix-en-Provence. Shelley's apartment, in a new-ish building just outside the old centre, is lovely - quite a bit larger than ours, better appointed, nicer decor. The rooms are elegantly understated. She has no parking at the apartment - one of the nice things about our place is our reserved street parking spot - but her landlady had given her an entry card for a nearby parking garage where she has a spot. We unloaded our bags and Shelley and I drove over and parked.

After the requisite cocktails, we headed out about 8 p.m. for a birthday dinner in the centre, which is a ten-minute-or-so walk away. Shelley had a few places in mind, and was almost as successful as Miss TomTom in navigating us to them - only a couple of lost moments. We looked at a few along the way, but ended up at one Shelley had selected, that she had already been to a couple of times and likes. Bistrot des Philosophes has funky decor, simple tasty French fare and great young wait staff. It was very crowded on this Friday night.

Our waiter at Bistrot des Philosophes

Shelley let our waiter know, sotto voce, that it was Caitlin's birthday and when her desert came - some outrageous chocolate conconction - it came not with candles but a gushing rocket-like firework thing. We sang our girl Happy Birthday and other patrons clapped and laughed, to Caitlin's mortification (but secret delight, I suspect.)

On Saturday, the girl's actual birthday, I went out in the morning to repark the car and buy croissants, birthday card (she'd already had one hand-painted by her mother via mail), Valentines éclaires for the ladies, etc. and came back to find that Shelley had already given Caitlin a very generous gift of Euros. She got more from us, so was feeling flush and ready to shop, shop, shop. We headed out about noon, Shelley and Karen to buy dinner at an open-air market, Caitlin and I to shop for birthday presents. The plan was to meet later at the Musée Granet, the major art museum in Aix.

By now it was spitting rain and decidedly chilly. Caitlin and I trolled around the shops in the old centre. The shopping in Aix is as good as or better than in Montpellier. I don't understand how the French have avoided the downtown blight that afflicts North American cities. They do have suburban malls in France, but they don't seem to have killed the traditional shopping districts in the centre. We saw some chain stores in the centre in Aix, and some designer outlets, but there are still lots of independent boutiques for clothes, shoes, home decor, toys, etc.

Caitlin tried on some stuff in a couple of chain shops, then ended up in a very cool little boutique with quite unique clothes and accessories. The manikins in the window and inside were topped with papier maché rabbit and bird heads. She found a necklace with a pendant with a spooky-looking resin-encased rabbit image. Weird but cool. That was our birthday present to her.

The Musée Granet, like the Fabre in Montpellier, was founded in the early 19th century and is housed today in renovated historical buildings, in this case, part of a former priory. The collection is also similar to the Fabre, with mostly second-tier old masters in the main collection. The highlights at the Granet are the French 19th century painters, in particular Ingres and David. Ingres is represented by a couple of massive pieces, including a very powerful, and sexual, picture of Jupiter and Thetis.

The Granet has much more and better modern stuff than the Fabre, especially with the recent addition of the Collection Planque, the intact collection of Swiss art dealer Axel Planque, housed in a renovated former monastery chapel a few blocks from the main Granet museum complex. Planque collected modern artists from the 1940s to the 1990s. The collection includes a treasure trove of Picasso oil paintings and prints - they alone must be worth tens of millions of dollars - as well as less well-known but estimable artists such as Jean Dubuffet, Nicolas de Staël, Raoul Dufy and Paul Klee.

We spent a few hours combined at the two Musée Granet sites and then headed home to Shelley's where we had a lovely chicken dinner, and a fabulous chocolate cream birthday cake for Caitlin. I think our girl was, for a change, well fêted, on this her momentous 30th birthday.

The plan for Sunday was to visit Le Site-Mémorial Camp des Milles, the suburban museum housed in a former ceramics factory that was used as an internment camp during the second world war - including for Jews who were deported by the Vichy regime in 1942 and ended up at Auschwitz. It's remarkable also for the expatriate - supposedly enemy alien - artists and other intellectuals held there in the early years of the war, including the German artist Max Ernst. Most later escaped Europe.

Les Milles is a powerful museum, designed to give the history of the site, but also teach about racism and genocide. It draws in other examples such as the massacres of Tutsis in 1990s Rwanda, and of Armenians in early-20th century Turkey. What are the factors that lead to genocide - remarkably predictable - and how can we recognize the signs and ensure it never happens again? It's an important and powerful presentation, but way too large and wordy. Most of the exhibits require a fair amount of reading. We spent hours.

We unfortuanately got separated from Shelley fairly early on in the visit. Poor Shelley assumed we had rushed through because we were anxious to hit the road to go back to Montpellier. So she rushed to the end and then searched for us all over the site. Meanwhile, we were actually behind her and taking our time going through the exhibits. She spent 90 minutes waiting and traipsing back and forth looking for us. What a shame! She says she'll go back and see some more of it before she leaves Aix.

We drove Shelley home, grabbed our bags and skedaddled back to Montpellier - through violent rain showers. This morning, Caitlin and I went out and shopped for more birthday presents at Mango (Spanish discount fashion chain). Her presents from Shelley turned out to be two very nice sweaters. In the early afternoon, we went for a walk down in Antigone - Caitlin pronounced it "impressive" but was clearly not as taken with it as we are. Then later in the afternoon, we drove her to the Nîmes airport and put her on her Ryan Air flight back to England.

Dr. Caitlin Blackwell at 30 (on our balcony)

Karen and I drove the Fiat to the Montpellier airport, dropped it off at the rental place and took the navette back into the city. And so endeth the weekend.

Return to Carcassonne

Ten years ago, Karen and I spent a week in Carcassonne, which is 90 minutes north and west of Montpellier. We stayed with friends Brian and Andrea McCann in an apartment overlooking the city's main square.

I remember sitting in that square, sipping wine and reading in a French newspaper about a terminal building at Charles de Gaulle airport that had collapsed that morning, the day, or so we thought, that friends were flying out from CDG. I also remember lying awake at night, listening to the racket from a nightclub on the street behind our apartment, and hearing what sounded like the cries of someone being seriously assaulted.

Ah, those were the days!

La Cité de Carcassonne

We naturally spent a fair amount of time while there the first time at La Cité de Carcassonne, the reconstructed medieval walled town on the heights overlooking the Aude River and the new city. It's a tremendous place, with three kilometres of double walls and 52 towers. The cite, originally settled and developed by the Romans, has over 2,500 years of history, but most of what is there today dates from the high Middle Ages. At one point, during the 100 Years War, it was burned by Richard Lionheart. Today, La Cité is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We thought it would appeal to our history-nut daughter, so on Tuesday, that was our destination.

La Cité de Carcassonne

The drive down was easy on the autoroute, but ended up costing us another €30 in highway tolls (there and back). Ouch. It was a lovely day in Montpellier - sunny, high of 14C - but cooler in Carcassonne which is on higher ground. La Cité was easy to get to from the highway, and the site still looks amazing from the outside, at least from a little distance. We ate a picnic lunch in the car in the parking lot - the new austerity - and then sallied in.

La Cité de Carcassonne

By the mid-19th century, the old citadel had been abandoned for many years and was mouldering away, not least because local builders were cannibalizing its stonework. The government originally proposed demolishing it. The locals protested, and Paris relented, hiring architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc to head up a restoration project. (He also worked on the restoration of Notre Dame de Paris.) It took decades, and wasn't complete until the late 1800s. The place has been a touristic cash cow ever since.

La Cité de Carcassonne

There is some controversy about the integrity of the restoration - there was even at the time - with critics charging that Viollet-le-Duc and his collaborators turned the place into a kind of Dark Ages Disneyland. They have a point. It does look a little phony, with its perfectly conical-roofed towers and concrete-buttressed half-timber houses. And today it's mainly a place to go shopping for tourist knick-knacks. It's depressingly commercial. There is a museum display, but as I remember - we didn't go in this time - it mainly tells the story of the reconstruction project and the men involved in it.

La Cité de Carcassonne

We loved La Cité when we were here ten years ago. This time? Not so much. Caitlin says she enjoyed it. I hope so. We spent a couple of hours wandering around, poking our heads into shops, and walked down to the bridge across the river to the new city, the route we had most often come ten years ago. I was left wondering if it was worth the long drive and the costs involved.

La Cité de Carcassonne

The best thing I saw all day? A glimpse through the window of a closed art gallery in Bastide, the section of Carcassonne between La Cité and the river, of some paintings by a Cuban artist, Gustavo Díaz Sosa. Very cool.

Gustavo Díaz Sosa, from the series Huérfanos de Babel

The next two days would be down days for poor Caitlin, who, as it turns out, is not fully in vacation mode. She has another job interview, by Skype this time, today (Thursday). On Wednesday, she had to wait around for the people who will be interviewing her (from Gainsborough's House in Sudbury) to test out their Skype connection. And she has been preparing obsessively, reading and making notes.

Montpellier, Ecusson, Cathedral

Karen and I went out for a long walk in the late morning, wandering for almost two hours in the Ecusson, the medieval town with its maze of narrow streets. It's too bad we're not shoppers because the shopping here is fantastic. We were particularly taken by one toy store with fantastic stuff in the window, including beautifully made marionnettes - and hardly any conventional modern toys. I'll have to remember to take some pictures of the shop's window displays.

Montpellier, Jardin des Plantes

After lunch, when Caitlin had finished her test run of the Skype set-up, we went out walking again with her, up past the Place Royal du Peyrou to the Jardin des Plantes, the botanical garden which is open at no charge, at least at this time of year. There wasn't a lot to see, the place looks kind of desolate right now. But there was an impressive bamboo forest, and a greenhouse with very nice-looking displays of desert plants, closed when we were there.

Montpellier, Beaux Arts District

We were lamenting later with Shelley Boyes (by Skype) about all the closures. This is one of the problems with coming to a summer place in the winter. Outside the major cities, and especially in the places that are mainly tourist draws, things close down for the winter or have limited opening hours. Shelley, who is squiring her sisters around Provence this week, has run into the same thing. It wasn't such a problem in Valencia which has more appeal as a winter destination and is a big enough city that tourism isn't the main reason it has things to see and do - or Montpellier, to be fair.

Later today when Caitlin has finished her interview, we'll drive down to the beach to check that out. And then tomorrow, we're driving to Aix en Provence to visit Shelley, via Arles for some sightseeing - of whatever might be open.