Avignon

A lovely five-hour pause between classes today has given me ample time to catch up on emails and update my CV and eliminate every other plausible excuse for not writing a blog, so at last here's the first of my (hopefully two) updates on Provence.

Once I'd had my fill of day-trips for the first week of winter break, I went with my friends Vanessa and Dan to visit a couple of Provençale cities.

Our first stop was Avignon, which is about a three-hour train ride from Saint-Etienne. The countryside seemed to transform the farther south we went, and what I'd thought was decent enough (if still typically gloomy) weather in Sainté soon gave way to clear blue skies.

Some highlights from Avignon:

The fact that Avignon's still got a fully-intact wall around it is sometimes eclipsed by its more famous attractions, but it was really cool to see as we rode in on the bus from the TGV train station.

The Palais des Papes (Popes' Palace) is one of the bigger sights to see in Avignon, as it was (one of several) seats of the Papacy during the Great Schism in the fourteenth century. Very much living up to palatial dimensions, the Palais was huge but had an excellent layout of information. An audioguide was included with admission, and I'm pretty sure you could spend a whole day in there if you took the time to listen to everything it said.

And here at last is the famous Pont Saint-Bénézet, better known as the Pont d'Avignon. This picture doesn't give the most comprehensive view of it, but it was the best I could do short of crossing the river! It was constructed between 1177 and 1185, supposedly at the behest of 12-year-old Saint Bénézet, who received a divine order to build a bridge out over the Rhône at Avignon. We couldn't figure out exactly why it doesn't span the whole river (and I've since been too lazy to do what would probably be an easy Google search and find out), but my guess is that they had to shorten it to allow bigger boats to pass, since it's not a very tall bridge.

Here's the view from the end of the bridge, looking back towards Avignon and the Palais des Papes.

Annnd finally a random assortment of other photos I took around town, including the awesome upside-down iron elephant statue right in front of the Palais des Papes:

Annecy

A brief three and a half weeks ago (sorry for the delay! I have no excuses to offer aside from my usual delinquency), I went with my fellow Feurs purgatory-suffering friend Laura to Annecy, a town famous for its once filthy but now pristine lake.

Clocking in at a three-hour train ride, Annecy's on the far end of my day-trippable range, but a combination of a sunny day and knowing I probably wouldn't bother making a longer trip of it convinced me to go. Laura managed to escape from her well-meaning but overbearing host family in Feurs, so we met up in Sainté ever so early in the morning and made it into Annecy around 11.

The first order of business -- even before seeking out the lake -- was finding something to eat. We wound up at a dine-in only crepe stand that had only two stools at the counter, which was somewhat odd but worked out perfectly for us. The guy who made our crepes was nice and gave us some advice about what to see in town, though he was thoroughly appalled (even seemed a little bit personally offended) that we were only staying in his lovely town for the day.

After picking his brain and enduring harsh judgement of our travel plans, it was time to see the sights. We had picked up some walking tour maps in the tourist office that we half-assedly followed, but Annecy is small enough that just wandering around will still ensure that you see everything.

Despite the sunny, warm weather, the lake was heavily shrouded in fog. That definitely put a damper on my excitement for the town, but we still had a lovely walk around town and managed to take some nice pictures:

Feeling a bit of a late afternoon sweet tooth, Laura ordered a meringue in a bakery that was almost as big as our heads. Unfortunately she forbid me to take pictures of her eating it, for it was truly a majestic sight to see (this picture of me with the chocolate meringue will have to suffice).

Known more for winter/summer sports than for intellectual pursuits, Annecy boasts only one museum worth visiting (according to my Lonely Planet guide), the Musée Château d'Annecy. We decided to check it out. This museum was the most random collection of things I have ever seen; no coherent theme seemed to link the items, which ranged from coins to an absurd amount of stuffed North American animals to huge empty rooms with tiny modern art installments. This piece took the cake, however:

Major props to anyone who can even attempt to explain what it means.

Only after a thorough tour of Annecy's quaint streets did we head over to the lake in hopes that the afternoon sun would burn off some of the fog. It was certainly clearer than earlier, and I was very much impressed by just how clean the lake was; it almost could pass for a swimming pool. Apparently back in the '60s the lake was a filthy receptacle of all the sewage in the region, but after a massive clean-up effort it's now said to be the cleanest lake in Europe.

ASSE/Brest

One of the great joys of living in Saint-Etienne is that its soccer team, the Association Sportive de Saint-Etienne (ASSE), makes such a delightful acronym to make fun of in English.

I didn't catch the game tonight, but Saint-Etienne beat Brest 2-0... thus proving that ASSE is better than Brest (at least this time around!).

Other favorites include:

- Nice/ASSE

- ASSE/Toulouse

Allez les verts!

Le Puy-en-Velay

Known primarily for its crazily huge (and, let's face it, marginally tacky) red statue of the Virgin Mary, Le Puy is a surprisingly lovely little town. I get the feeling it's not on many people's radar as a big tourist spot, though apparently, perhaps thanks to our giant friend Notre-Dame de France, it does attract a lot of religious visitors each year.

Some friends had day-tripped au Puy a little while ago, so I knew it was a feasible destination from Saint-Etienne. Getting there actually proved to be a little more turbulent than I would have liked; Claire and I were on an almost empty train, but towards the end of the voyage a crazy guy plopped down next to me and across from Claire and started making very strange snorting noises. He was quite an invader of personal space, elbowing me repeatedly and sticking his legs out entirely under Claire's seat, forcing me to cram up against the window and Claire to sit with her legs curled up under her. I also got the distinct impression he hadn't bathed in a few months, but since I was trapped in the window seat we couldn't move... and his level of crazy was high enough that I don't think he'd have taken it kindly if we'd asked him to. At any rate, we suffered through the last 30 minutes of the train ride before arriving in Le Puy, where we told ourselves it could only get better from there.

And get better it did! Friends of a friend live in Le Puy and had invited me to come visit them, so we planned to get some lunch. Claire and I met up with Stephan and Laurence near where they work, and we headed to one of their favorite restaurants nearby. I realized when it came time for dessert that I hadn't had a chocolat liégeois perhaps since I first came to France in September, so when Laurence decided she'd have dessert I thought I might as well indulge as well. One bite of molten frozen chocolate heaven and I was wondering what had taken me so long... then again, you get what you pay for, and a 6.50 € indulgence is not something to be consumed every day. Claire got a café liégeois, which is similar to its chocolate version except you pour a shot of espresso over it instead of melted chocolate. Yum.

But enough about dessert... It was really nice to see Stephan and Laurence again; I had met them once before when an English teacher I work with, Lilian, had shown me around Saint-Etienne in October (back before Sainté was home). They lived in Tahiti for two years with their four-year-old twin daughters and had done some traveling in the US, so they were full of awesome stories and also gave us some great tips on making the most of our day in Le Puy.

One such tip was to check out the bakeries on Rue Pannessac, which invented a pastry called "le pavé de Pannessac" and modeled them after the cobblestones, or pavés, that pave the streets. Claire and I took some would-be arty shots of the culinary pavés with a reflection of their source material in the window, as shown on the right. You'd think our earlier dessert binge would have given us pause, but no! We later stopped back by this bakery and each picked out a pavé; I was feeling adventurous and opted to try the verveine version, since Le Puy is also known for historically manufacturing verveine liqueur, while Claire stuck with the regular chocolate kind (a wise choice, as it turns out). They were an interesting cake-like cookie, with two macaroons surrounding the respective verveine/chocolate filling, wrapped in an outer shell of white or milk chocolate. Gotta love regional French delicacies.

We did manage to fit in some sightseeing between dessert consumptions and made our way up to the beautifully Byzantine and Roman Cathédrale Notre-Dame du Puy (shown to the right and also visible in the first picture, directly below the statue). I do love me some nice Gothic architecture, but I do admit it was a pleasant change of pace to see some colorful Byzantine influence in this cathedral. More than just the building of worship itself, the cathedral complex also comprises a pretty cloister filled with lavender and the entrance to the climb up to the giant Virgin Mary statue, both of which I managed to connive us into getting the EU-resident student price. Mwahaha. I'm pretty sure the shop lady shot us a dirty look afterwards when she heard us speaking English.

Some more photos from around Le Puy:

The view from the feet of Notre-Dame de France

Notre-Dame, up close and personal

The view from the central arch of the cathedral

All in all it was a wonderful day trip, and I'm glad I was able to drag Claire along with me. Tomorrow I'm headed to Annecy with my "student" Laura (who's on exchange au Lycée du Forez), and then next week is Avignon, Arles, Aix-en-Provence and Marseille! Hopefully I can keep up the momentum on blog posting.

au revoir!

Dijon

First, some recommended watching to start off the entry.

Two nights ago I decided I was being ridiculous by squandering my first week of break away in Saint-Etienne and wrote up a list of feasible day trips, determined to strike out upon the morrow. Based on its having the most promising, least sainté-overcast-looking weather, Dijon edged out ahead.

Bright and early yesterday morning I mustered up the energy to catch the 8am train, which put me into Dijon around 11:00. I napped away most of the train ride and was happy to discover that between closing and opening my eyes the world had gone from grey (non-poupon) overcast to cloudless blue skies.

I was surprised to learn that Dijon is actually smaller than Saint-Etienne; they're just now starting to construct a tram line. Its smaller size did make it very navigable though, especially since I'd come without a big plan aside from requisite mustard tasting.

My Grey Poupon references are actually a bit inaccurate as concerns Dijon, since although the Grey Poupon people own Maille, the brand Dijon is most famous for, France actually phased out Grey Poupon a while ago (though for all that they put up a nice store front, I think it's all owned by Kraft these days anyway). Speaking of Maille's lovely storefront:

Since 1747! Owned by Kraft since 1999, but you don't see them flouting that fact...

Wall of Mustard

I sampled the chocolate/speculoos kind, which was definitely weird. Sugary smooth flavor with a hint of mustard, immediately followed by a huge spicy kick... it makes for a nice novelty, but I have no idea what you'd actually eat it with.

There's more to Dijon than just mustard. It used to be the capital of Bourgogne (Burgundy) and has some very rich history. Below are some Merovingian-era sarcophagi outside the Cathédrale Sainte-Bénigne.

The Museum of Archaeology is housed next to the cathedral in an old monastary with exhibits in the monks' dormitory and in the foundations of the building as well:

Dijon is also crazy about owls since a big tourist attraction is a little owl (chouette) sculpted into the side of the city's biggest church, Eglise Notre-Dame. Said to bring luck to those who touch it, its features have almost been worn away by centuries of rubbing. There's even an owl-themed walking trail around the city, the focal point of which is the little carving on the left, below. At the bottom center is a little dragon carving, located in a window just to the left of the owl. Apparently there are conflicting rumors about whether you're supposed to approach or ignore the dragon and whether it brings bad luck or cancels out your owl belly-rubbing wish, but curiosity overcame superstition and I decided to investigate.

I'll soon post a bunch more pictures from Dijon on facebook, but I wanted to at least get a blog up about it before I got lazy and punked out. Tomorrow I'm day-tripping to Le Puy, a small but supposedly picturesque town, and then perhaps Annecy on Saturday. Then Provence next week!