Lyon

We had done a little bit of research for our stay in Lyon, but we are still really surprised and impressed by this city. It isn't full of museums, but it has beautiful buildings and bridges, plus it has an incredibly well-preserved Mediaeval town centre.

In Mediaeval times, Lyon made a lot of its money from the production of fine fabrics. To get the massive bolts of fabric through the city without soiling them, the merchants used a passageway system that connected streets through courtyards and tunnels. These passageways (called traboules) are still in existance and some of them are open to the public. Finding the traboules is a bit like a treasure hunt. The doors that lead to the traboules also lead to the apartments that line them (it is all a residential area). The button to push to gain entry is on a different place on every door, so we may have inadvertently been buzzing residents all day. Once through the door on the street, a passageway would lead to a courtyard or another passageway. There are also passageways underground, but these are not open to the public. The traboules were also utilized by the resistance to avoid capture by the Nazis in WWII.

There are amazing restaurants here and they serve everything from caviar to pig's feet (we have had neither). It is an evening activity in which everyone seems to participate: wander from restaurant to restaurant, reading the menus, then make a selection. Too bad we can't have a different dish in each place, but we would explode!

Last Day in Arles

We hired a driver to take us on the "Stone Monuments" tour. It is supposed to be a group tour, but today it was only the two of us and a lady from New Zealand. Even though it is normally quite touristy here, we have been very lucky with not running into crowds.

We went to the Pont du Gard, which is the remains of a Roman aqueduct, built about 2000 years ago. This is the largest aqueduct remaining, and also has the largest arches. We both were expecting that it was built over a raging river, but the supports are all on dry land. This makes bit more sense, since it probably wouldn't be standing if the supports were constantly being eroded by water. We also saw the remains of Glanum, a Roman/Greek/Gaul city and the small town of Les Baux, which was abandoned in the middle ages.

Even though the driver kept apologizing for how late the growth was this year, we also saw what we considered to be fields full of growth and trees full of friut, and that seems pretty early to us!

Highlight of the day in Arles

Today we participated in a march by the Communist Party of France! It was the only way to get to where we wanted to go, so we just slipped in and walked along. Now we can say that we are "politically active"!

Recap: Greece Top 5 List

Now that we have been here for long enough, we can start to rank what we have seen. Here is our top 5 list for Greece:

1. Greek Salad. No Greek Salad we ever had oustside of Greece compares to the ones we had in Greece. The onions and peppers were so sweet they tasted like fruit. Tomatoes and cucumbers as fresh as can be. Goat cheese magnificent. All throughout Greece the salads were excellent. We could consider becoming vegetarians if we could have these salads all the time.

2. Yacht Cruise. Yes it was pricey, but worth every penny. Stunning scenery. A splendid way to see the Cyclades.

3. Delphi. Lovely mountain town with rich history. Only wish we could have stayed longer.

4. Epidaurus. Our choice as the most magnificent ancient ruins in the Peloponnese.

5. Chania. Great town on Crete with rich history. The beach rivals any we've been to before. Our hotel selection didn't hurt things either!

Arles Photos

Roman Arles

Today we explored some of the Roman sites in Arles. Arles was the great reward for Roman soldiers who served out their duty. After a whole bunch of years slogging across Europe and fighting whomever they were told to, they could look forward to retirement in the south of France. We should all be so lucky!
Some of the Roman sites were harvested in the middle ages and their stones were used to build other sites, usually churches. The most surprising thing in Arles is that the arena was never destroyed or buried, but had its arches closed in, and it became a fortress. There are still a couple of walled in arches and three towers are still standing from mediaeval times. In the 1800s the walls were opened back up. The arena is now in use for bullgames and bullfights. In bullgames, the bull is harassed a bit but lives. In bullfights, the bull dies. The bullfights take place twice a year and have something to do with the rice harvest. We did not discover the connection between rice and bulls, but it probably makes sense to somebody. We wanted to see a bullgame, but there was one in Avignon on the day that we arrived, but none in Arles. In reaction to this news, we ate bull for lunch that day. (Bull meat is very common in this part of Provence...it tastes like cow.)

Wine Tour

Today we did a wine tour in the area around Arles. We had a guide who took us to two wineries, an oliverie (is this the right word?), and to a lunch spot in the chic town of Maussane. She normally guides larger groups up to six, but today it was just the two of us.
We started out at a vineyard called Chateau Romanin on the north slopes of the Alpilles Mountains. The cellars are built into the mountain side, on the site of an ancient cathedral. The Chateau doesn't exist anymore, but there are a few vestiges that are visible from the parking lot. This place was architecturally amazing. It really shows their passion, and not a penny was spared when building it.
At Chateau Romanin , we began by watching a short video about grape harvesting, then toured the crushing and storing area, then we tasted the wine. The French take wine tasting much more seriously than we do in North America...we even had written instructions for how to properly taste wine!
We had lunch in a small town, then went to an oliverie, where we again were walked through the production process, then tasted 7 different olive oils. Jim gave up after four, but Joanne carried on for all seven. The best olive oil was one that was made from lightly fermented olives. The biggest thing that we learned: 90% of the oil from an olive comes from the stone (aka pit), not from the fruit. Who knew?
After that it was one more winery, this time on the south side of the Apilles, in a Provencal mas (big stone house). It was a traditional winery in that their process was purely organic...no pesticides, artifical additives, etc.
We also learned that in order to obtain the AOC notation (apellation, declaring that they are a "correct" wine of a certain region), a winery must adhere to some very strict rules, including that they are not allowed to water the vineyards! Regardless of how dry the summer is, and it can get to 40C, they cannot irrigate their vineyards. They also have rules about fertilizer and how and when to harvest. If a winery loses the AOC verification, it gets called "table wine"...which still tastes pretty good to us schlubs!
We had fantastic wines and it was really nice to have someone drive us through the country side and take us to places that we never would have found on our own, all the time providing informative and interesting commentary.