Emily and Linda’s Travel Blog

Linda had read in a NYTimes article that the Cours Julien, which turned out to be right up the street from our apartment, was an arty, interesting neighborhood, along the several blocks long park Cours Julien.  It reminded us of the old East Village - gritty, arty, some local theaters, some funky shops and an esplanade along the park, lined with restaurants - most with outdoor seating.  One end of the Cour had the lower budget stuff, but as we headed down the hill, there were more antique shops, higher end clothing and fancier restaurants.  

We wandered around for a while, but mindful of the no lunch after 2:00 rule, we landed on a small cafe called Papa Fredo while there was still time. We tried a local beverage - Gambetta Limonade - a carbonated lemonade called Hamoud (not sure if that was the brand or the beverage name - the rest of the label was in Arabic).  The lemonade gets poured over a couple of ounces of fig juice.  Very nice.  

Marseille is famous for its pizza (the port city has alwasy had a large Italian community) so Linda decided to give it a try.  I opted for the "beignets de fleurs de courgettes".- literally zucchini blossom donuts.  They were nothing like the fried zucchini blossoms I'd had in Italian restaurants in NYC.  Much more like a pretty heavy deep-fried donut so I guess I should have paid closer attention to the name.  Tasty enough, but sort of drowned out the zucchini flower with all the batter.  

So thumbs up on the fig-lemonade and the pizza.  Beignets - maybe not again.  

Earlier in the day, I had tried to make a reservation for dinner at a highly reviewed Corsican restaurant called Mina around the corner from our place. I'd never had Corsican food before so that seemed like a good bet. My French is good enough for most travel situations, but I’m leery of making reservations over the phone so I decided to go in person. I walked in and asked for a reservation at 6:30.  I received a scornful look and was told they didn't open until 6:45. but they were willing to book a table.  By now we were pretty used to the late dinner hour, and it was actually more like 7:00 before we got menus. The local diners didn't start arriving for quite a while after that (although there was a trio of after-work drinkers who were carrying on quite the lively conversation - too far away to eavesdrop). 

This was one of the more upscale restaurants on the street, cheek-by-jowl with Tabacs (newspapers, lottery, odds and ends and bar), fast food take away joints, delis, and Dollar Store-equivalents selling the usual hodge-podge of stuff. 

Linda's Pan tomate was nothing like what we expected from our tapas bar experiences in the past - it was enormous.  and covered in prosciutto and parmesan.  

I (perhaps foolishly), ordered the fritti de fleurs haricots  - hoping for a lighter dish at the fancier restaurant than at the cafe at lunch.  Still pretty over-battered, but it was possible to taste the vegetable  

Our second courses were a veal Milanese with green peppercorn sauce for me and "Thon du Copain" - boyfriend's tuna - for Linda.  Apparently the boyfriend liked his tuna breaded and buried in sprouts, beet threads, and cheese.  Beautifully plated, but a bit much.  

Believe it or not, those seemed to be the lighter dishes on the menu.  It's one of those places that has a different menu every night and only a few dishes.  So it was an interesting experience, but not what we’d anticipated.  However, I did take the left overs home and got 2 more meals out of it (scrape off the bread and add more veg). 

During our last visit to Marseille, we had tickets to go to the Calanques National Park - a series of islands, inlets, and fjords between Marseille and roughly Cassis.  However, as mentioned, the Mistral was in full force and it was too windy to go out in the boat to see it.  This time, the winds were calmer and we were able to book the trip out of the Vieux Port.  There were many options - from 2 hours to all day affairs with swimming, kayaking, and champagne.  We opted for the 3 hour trip out and back.  No swimming or water sports. 

The day was lovely and the water was very blue that day, even turquoise in some of the Calanque inlets.  Technically the Calanques are fjords, but they were not the dramatically high steep kind you find in Scandinavia.  Lower, but still dramatic limestone cliffs and out-croppings mostly.  Linda found them not that interesting after a while (might have had something to do with her still recovering from illness), but though they do have a sameness, I enjoyed the trip and the sea.  

On the way back, we went past the Chateau d'If - famous as the prison where Edmond Dantes was held until his dramatic escape in the Count of Monte Cristo (anyone have an opinion on the new series based on Dumas' novel?).  

After 3 hours of wind, direct sun, and spray, we were pretty wiped out so we returned to our neighborhood and got take out food from a local chicken place I had scoped out earlier in the day.  I knew I had the right one because there was a line out the door - mostly mothers on their way home, picking up dinner.  I didn't remember to take a picture, but it was called something like "Poulet Take Away".  Didn't sound promising, but the line told the story. The 2 guys inside were barely able to keep up with the demand.  

When we were last in Marseille, we experienced "Le Mistral".  I'd always imagined that the Mistral was a gentle wind, soft and romantic.  Instead we learned first hand it's more like the Santa Ana Winds gone mad.  In particular, on our visit 11 years ago, we made our way up to the top of the hill overlooking the harbor to Notre Dame de la Gard - a beautiful church with Byzantine elements dedicated to seafarers and the maritime culture of Marseille.  Only the winds were howling and it was all we could do to keep from being blown off the hill into the streets below. We had to hang on to the columns outside in order to keep our feet under us.  Also we hadn't realized how early the church closed so we kind of got the bum's rush out of there (they literally closed the gates right behind us).  We remembered it fondly though and wanted to pay a more leisurely visit without fearing for life and limb.  

You can look up and see the church from almost anywhere near the harbor and from the grounds of the church, there are stunning views of the whole Baie de Marseille. 

The inside is decorated in a maritime theme with small ships incorporated into the walls and other ship replicas hanging from the ceiling.  I had remembered it as a simpler interior, but actually it's quite ornate.  

Once we'd finished wandering the church and grounds, we made our way to the Vieux Port harbor where we boarded Le Petit Train de Marseille - a kind of Disney-esque tram with a fantasy engine - for a tour around the Panier district , the oldest part of Marseille dating back to a Greek settlement in 600 BC.  There are also still some remnants of Roman walls.  Now it's known for its winding streets, art scene, and of course shops and restaurants.  Though the "train" is sort of hoakey, it is well suited to the narrow, twisty streets of the old town so it's a practical choice.  

In one courtyard we came upon a shop dedicated to Petanque - a game that's a cousin of Bocce where players toss their metal balls trying to get as close as possible to the small "jack" ball in the center, while knocking other players' balls out of proximity.  This shop had all things Petanque, including an indoor court - not clear whether it's for demonstration or actual play.  

The neighborhood struck me as kind of a cross between Berkeley and Old France -  a lot of street art, flowers, and wildly disorganized, colorful stuff along the sidewalks and in doorways.  

There's definitely a story here, but who knows what?

As we left the Panier, we drove past the "Cathedral de la Major", a huge church which they claim is the largest in Europe.  

We didn't have time to go inside, but the outside is indeed impressive - and so large you would probably need a drone to get a good shot of the whole thing.  [So I cribbed a photo from the brochure].  

After our exploring, we were ready for dinner on the waterfront.  "Mocktails" have become a big thing in France as well as in NYC.  Linda had a "virgin Planter's Punch"  I decided to indulge though and had a Ricard - anise flavored liquer that you pour into a glass of cold water, making it cool, milky, and very refreshing.  A traditional aperitif in the South of France and in this case, followed by a long-anticipated plate of grilled sardines, another local tradition  

We visited Marseille 11 years ago for a few days before starting a cruise on the Rhône. It was a short visit, but we really enjoyed it and have been saying since then that we’d like to go back. Last time we stayed in the Vieux Port area by the huge marina. This time we decided to try a different neighborhood - the Noailles, which has a more urban feel and a strong North African presence.  We arrived pretty worn out the first night and were very happy to discover a small Iraqui restaurant that offered takeout. It struck me that our little 4-5 block area had a mix of takeout, mid-range, and pretty upscale dining available, all scattered side by side with most of them offering outdoor dining as well as indoors.  

Our apartment was in a beautiful old building, now gone a bit seedy, but the apartment itself was lovely (the family -size birdcage chair was a little weird though).  

View from the window:

Our first day, we were both a little under the weather, but figured we could manage a visit to the MUCEM museum (Museum of Civilisations of Europe and the Mediterranean).  The location at the waterfront was breezy and beautiful on a hot day.  The core structure is surrounded by a "concrete lace" that creates interesting views from inside the building, especially on the rooftop terrace.  

The promotional materials say that "Mucem is unique in that it traces, analyzes and sheds light on the ancient foundations of this basin of civilization, and the tensions that run through it right up to the present day. To provide a forum for exchange on Mediterranean issues."  It was unusually frank about the history of French colonialization of North Africa and the imposition of European civilization on the people living there.  This appalling illustration from an 1830 publication, "Conquest and Civilisation" was a carefully planned piece of propaganda, attempting to claim France's inheritance of Greek and Roman culture as the basis for their superiority (while of course neglecting to mention the advanced culture of the Islamic world of the time).  The discussion of the piece also noted that the flow of the image in the sky went from left to right, emphasizing that it was the opposite of the direction in which Arabic is written. The fort in the background  is meant to emphasize the power of the French military and the "inevitability" of the conquest, while Marianne, the symbol of the French Republic offers an olive branch.  Unlike many other museums I've visited, the irony was emphasized rather than obscured. 

We also visited an exhibit on political art which included graffiti 

And this stark piece

The last exhibit we visited was about fashion designer Mossi Traore, a Malian French artist who grew up on the outskirts of Paris and draws on Mediterranean cultures, sports (especially futbol), and Bollywood.  

I loved how entranced this young girl was with the video about his work.

By then we were out of steam so we made another trip to the roof terrace for a breezy rest and a snack before heading back to the apartment for whatever the South of France equivalent of a siesta is.    

In a lot of French museums, “People with Reduced Mobility (PMR’s)” get in free, along with a companion  As a tourist, I didn’t have the official PMR card, but several of the museums let us in free anyway since I was using a rollator.  However, Linda must have dropped her ticket early on so we had to talk our way into some of the exhibits. As I sat down at our rooftop table, I looked down and noticed this 

What were the odds several hours later in a different spot on a windy terrace? 

On Sunday we said goodbye to Chris and Margaret who headed back to Long Island.  We boarded the train for Aix-en-Provence.  By that time, we’d figured out how to manage the Assistance service on the train and all went smoothly.  We had decided to splurge in Aix and stay at the Aquabella Hotel and Spa which was a real treat.  A lovely spot, situated in the old town, but a very modern facility carrying on the tradition in Aix, dating back to the Celto-Ligurians and Romans who came to “take the waters”.  We passed on the outdoor swimming pool in the blistering sun, but Linda had a massage and I indulged in a muscle-smoothing treatment and a “gommage” session (a body scrub with sugar, followed by a sort of weird hose-down contraption with multiple jets that comes down from the ceiling and looked like something out of a Sci-Fi movie).  As a chiropractor, I’ve experienced a lot of body work in my life, but this was one of the odder sessions. Still it was interesting and refreshing as advertised. 

Our room had a lovely balcony, perfect for morning coffee.  Linda also had a good time playing with the light and trying out a new technique of shooting through the bistro glasses in our room (still a work in progress). 

Mid-day in Aix was very hot so we did our roaming around in the early morning or evening.  It’s quite a lovely town, constructed of pink-yellow stone and built around a series of many squares, most of which at one time had a spring-fed fountain (though all but a few are dry now).  

This one, the Place d’Albertas, is considered to be one of the most beautiful, featuring “regency decoration freely reinterpreting Baroque themes.  

At night, the squares are full of locals and tourists (and probably students - since there’s a University) all eating, chatting and visiting.  Feels like the whole village is having a big party every night.  We ate dinners in town and I have to say the cuisine was not that remarkable (a surprising tendency to over-cooking everything -  a horror in France!), but there was such a lovely feeling that we didn’t mind.  The restauranteurs greeted us with enthusiasm and made us feel welcome.  

The best meal we had in Aix was lunch at the Hotel while waiting for our train.  Linda had a pasta with red pesto, pine nuts, and mesclun and I had grilled bass with soft polenta and beautiful composed zucchini batons made with alternating strips of yellow and green squash.  I really admired the work and precision that went into it.  It as accompanied by a creamy white sauce of a kind that I don’t usually like with fish, but it was spectacular. 

The rubbing, scrubbing, and relaxing accomplished, it was off to Marseille - a 15 minute ride on the TGV rapid train. No napping on that train.  

Waitresses from the restaurant ship at the foot of the Juche Tower

“These five young women are hostesses working on a boat operating along the river that runs through Pyonyang……One interesting aspect of women at work in North Korea is that factories employ only young unmarried women.  They live on site in dormitories with access to medical facilities, saunas and other amenities, existing in a form of self-contained isolation within the factory itself.  Similarly for roles such as hostesses or directing traffic at major intersections in Pyongyang, young women aged 20 to 26 - unmarred and conforming to the society’s established standards of beauty - are selected.”

Gladieu noted that he originally wanted to take a picture of a different man of similar appearance, but was refused permission to do so.  It turned out his guide felt the man was too ugly.  When asked if ugliness wasn’t a subjective criterion, the guide said “No, no.  It isn’t subjective.  When someone is that ugly, he knows it.  If I had asked him to be photographed, I would have forced him to confront his ugliness and caused him to lose face. I cannot behave in an immoral way.”  Gladieu went on to note that he began to understand the “almost pathological relationship to perfection”.  For example, he was never allowed to photograph construction workers because they were standing by incomplete buildings - not yet perfect.  

“In this photograph, I deliberately engaged with the poster in the background - a highly conventional feature in North Korea and also common in the former Soviet Union, and imbued with the full codified language of communist propaganda.  The man, with his slighgtly vacant gaze, poses with the same characteristically proud nationalist stance”

The building of the museum is itself full of contrasting vistas, lines, angles, reflections (Linda disappeared to explore them with her camera).  

Linda took some better ones, but this was my feeble effort.  You can just make out the actual meeting of the rivers.  

There’s a small park at the tip of the peninsula with an ONLYLYON sign to great boats passing up one of the rivers. 

That evening, Chris and Marg treated us to a typical Lyonnaise dinner at Le Grand Café de Negotiants where I tried a typical Lyonnaise dish - Quenelles (a sort of fish dumpling in a broth that tastes like lobster bisque) , Linda and Marg had a sort of beef stew with carrots “2 ways”.  And somehow I didn’t capture Chris’ dish

Best meal in Lyon IMO.  We went to a “fancier” restaurant the next night, but the food was unremarkable except for the presentation of this smoked salmon appetizer:

A “rose” of salmon with  creme fraiche and a tuille of dried octopus ink.  Still the taste didn’t live up to the appearance.  Seemed like the food involved a lot of work, but then was largely over-cooked.  Didn’t live up to the reputation of Lyon as the temple of classic French cuisine.  

Marg decided to take a rest day while the rest of us went to visit the Museé des Confluences.  The Confluences is the place on the peninsula where the Rhône and the Saône rivers come together 

It’s also the location for the Confluences Museum - dedicated to the confluence/intersections of natural science, anthropology, earth sciences natural history and art.  It’s home to some quirky permanent exhibits and often interesting temporary ones.  It’s also housed in a wildly exuberant building that Linda loves for its angles and reflections 

We spent most of our time that day on an exhibit by photographer Stephan Gladieu, described this way: 

“There’s not much we know about this country, and no surprises why – North Korea is one of the most closed-off dictatorships in the world. Photographer Stephan Gladieu travelled there five times to take a series of portraits. Duly authorised to enter this nation of absolute control, accompanied everywhere he went, he recreated a framework for freedom with his mobile photography studio, playing with backgrounds and the codes of propaganda. In front of the camera, the North Koreans look at us, just as we observe them. But what do they see in us and what do we really perceive of them?’

Throughout, the photographer invites us to consider what we think we see, what we actually see, and what might be our own projections onto the images.  

The first thing that struck me was how few of the people were smiling - even the children playing. However, Gladieu notes that in North Korea, it’s considered more dignified to have a “serious” face when posing for a photo.  He was monitored closely when he took his pictures, so they were likely all posed.  

“School children at Taesongsan theme park”

“”A group of women rehearsing a collective dance in the street”

“A married couple at the Central Zoo”  

“On my first day was taken to a place that set the tone for the entire stay: a Zoo - a space where animals are carefully staged and presented.  I perceive a parallel with North Korea itself - a society engaged in a vast theatrical staging, driven by a desire toward an idealized form of perfection, where pride gradually merges with political purposes….. Ultimately the most relaxed figures in the photograph may well be the the two penguins” 

Sorry if you got an earlier blank post.  I fat-fingered it and sent without intending to.  

The view from our living room window at dawn:

Linda took some time to work on her collaging while the rest of us got organized for the day’s outing. 

Our main goal for the day was to go to the Centre d’Histoire de la Résistance et de la Déportation, located in the buildings that were once the headquarters of Klaus Barbie (the building itself has an eerie feeling to it). To be clear this is a museum of the Lyonnaise resistance and the deportation of the resistance fighters.  There is less mention of the deportation of Jews.  The official explanation is that at the time the center was developed, the main focus was on the Lyonnaise resisters and that the Shoah was not yet a “historiographic topic”.  It seemed to me that the omission could have been rectified in the years since.  An exhibit about Jews in France and Lyon during the war will open next month so perhaps there will be more balance.   Still, the collections we visited were impressive for their careful and extensive documentation of the German occupation as well as the resistance organizers and fighters.  This quote on the wall struck me as ironic, but very relevant to us in the States now.  

“Memory is the root of deliverance, just as forgetfulness is the root of exile”. - Baal Shem Tov 

Especially in light of what is happening now in our country, the video testimony by people who were young kids when the Germans marched in particularly struck me.  They talked about playing by the road when the Germans marched in.  They had believed all the talk about how the French would fight back valiantly defending their communities - and then a few months later, the Germans were in charge.  With very little fighting, suddenly many Lyonnaise were working for the German regime/Petain government - whether by choice or by force.  An example of how quickly things can shift toward fascism and how hard it is for everyday, non-political people to take in what’s happening.  

I  confess my knowledge of the “Free French” government under Petain and its consequences was pretty basic before this visit 

The similarity between the propaganda put out by the Petain government and the stuff that comes from MAGA was dramatic.  A lot about fierce nationalism, the need for “true” Frenchmen to lead, the glorification of the qualities of the so-called “real” French man and the duty of French women to tend the home and preserve the ideal family.    

And, no surprise, the usual suspects were trumped up (pun intended) as the hindrances to pure French family life and success:

The heading says, “Leave us in Peace” and the black wolves and serpents are Free Masons, Jews, deGaulle, and Lies (this from a government which, like ours was manufacturing a steady stream of lies).  There were also many first-hand accounts and detailed documentation of how the resistance formed, how it was organized, and the challenges they faced.  I won’t try to summarize it here, but there’s more info at: www.chrd.lyon.fr (tap the address bar once you get there and you can get it to translate to English) 

Wednesday we moved on to Lyon.  When we arrived at “Assistance”, the SNCF folks were a little testy - Wondering why we hadn’t booked earlier.  Didn’t seem the moment to say we’d been trying for weeks.  Not helped by a client in a wheelchair shouting at them that he was not going to be a victim!.  Let’s just say the fellows behind the desk weren’t in a very cooperative mood, but we got signed in and helped onto the train as hoped.  The train itself was great (why can’t we have such nice trains?) with plenty of room, spotless, a descending platform that took us down to the lower level of the train, and a large sparkling clean rest room, large enough for a wheelchair with built in rails for the disabled. 

We connected with Marg and Chris at our Air BnB in an old Beaux Arts era building, not far from the Beaux Arts Museum.  Pretty nice digs on the 6th floor, looking out onto a church and some lovely rooftops, with a large airy living room/dining room, a huge eat in kitchen and an upstairs with 2 bedrooms and its own bathroom so we had plenty of space.  Our host Malika explained everything to us in very rapid French with abundant use of Google translate.  We held on as tight as we could to what she was saying and mostly understood each other.  I noted that she had what at first I thought was a verbal tick - she kept saying “Op!” (Or maybe Ahp), seemingly for emphasis at the end of a statement.  As in, “You push this and then this and “Op!”. Since then, I’ve noticed this seems to be common in Lyon and later in Aix.  Maybe one of you knows more about this linguistic oddity.  If you look closely at the video, you’ll also see there was some alarming artwork on the walls (and marked for sale).  We decided the less said, the better, but odd choices for a place that will have many varied visitors.  Malika seemed relieved when we agreed there would be “no boys” in our party.  We gave no further details, but all her worries seemed resolved when she saw all 4 of us together - 2 of us with rollators.  No wild parties from this bunch.    

Getting settled in and resting a bit was all we managed before it was time to search for dinner.  We found a Thai place a few blocks away.  Not as good as some of the other ethnic restaurants we’d been to, but my dish - duck breast with red curry and coconut milk was really good.  

That  was about all we could manage for our first day in Lyon so back to the apartment to try out the beds (and fabulous shower).  

Tuesday we decided our main excursion would be a trip to the Musèe d’Orsay, one of our favorite places in Paris.  We love the building as much as the art and just hanging out there is always a pleasure.  Built in an old railway station (the Gare d’Orsay), which was decommissioned in 1939 because its tracks were too short for twentieth century trains, I sometimes wish they hadn’t put all the new walls in because you lose the scope of the original tracks, but if you use your imagination, you can still “see” the space as it once was.  

Current space:

What it once looked like

I’d never heard of the “Nabis” before.  According to the info at the exhibit, “Nabi” is a Hebrew and Arabic word meaning prophet.  The Nabis saw themselves as prophets “of a new art form based on an interpretation of Gaughin’s ideas”. Members of the group included Pierre Bonhard, Marice Denis, and Edouard Vallotton among others.  This one, by Bonnard - Crèpuscule (Twilight) caught my fancy - especially how the figures blend into each other (I couldn’t distinguish one from another in some of them close up - only after stepping back).  

I also loved this one, especially the pair touching noses in the center. Also by Bonnard, it’s called “L’Apres-midi bourgeoise” and is a portrait of the artist’s sister and her husband with their children and friends.  

We had hoped to have lunch at the cafe behind the station’s huge glass clock (somewhat reminiscent of the one at the Eagle Warehouse in Brooklyn), but it was too crowded and I needed to sit rather than be online.  It used to be possible to go out on the terrace next to the cafe which has an amazing view of Monmarte and and the Sacrè Coeur on the hill.  Sadly you can only see it through the window now - so I couldn’t get a really good shot. The sky still made it dramatic though.  

As usual, Linda often spends a fair amount of time photgraphing the building, it’s angles, it’s views etc.  In this case there was also netting over the window - for those of you who have followed her, you know she loves to shoot through screens/scrims/grids, etc.  

Afterwards we had lunch at a cafe across the street - on a VERY windy day.  A flying umbrella almost took me out.  Here I record the fact that the waiter seemed more concerned with rescuing his umbrella than ascertaining if I was OK after it smacked my noggin.  The food was very good though, once the umbrella was secured.  I had what they called a Poke bowl - not like any I’ve encountered, but tasty.  Linda had a gallette - like a crépe, but made from buckwheat flour (farine de sarassin). In this case, filled with tuna, goat cheese and vegetables.  

By then it was time for the afternoon snooze, followed by a walk in search of dinner.  We really lucked out by finding a fabulous cozy Indian restaurant right down the block from our hotel.  We had no reservation, but were able to get a table by promising we would be out before the folks with a reservation arrived.  It ended up being packed and we heard the owner turn several couples away.  Not hard to see why - the food was excellent and included an appetizer we’d never encountered before - Dahi Puri, little toasted cups filled with chickpeas, coriander chutney, tamarind sauce, pomegranate seeds, and other stuff I can’t recall.  Crispy on the outside and then sweet/tangy/aromatic inside.  Our waiter said we’d love it and we absolutely did.  Their chicken Tikka Masala and Biriyani were also delicious.  Lovely end to a beautiful day.