Emily and Linda’s Travel Blog

Later on in our bus and walking tour, we visited the oldest part of the town (not counting the Roman ruins). It's got the narrow, winding streets we've become familiar with, but it's also got a distinctive feature - traboules and miraboules. Traboules are passageways through occupied buildings that connect one steet to another. According to our gude, as the town grew more populous,there was a need for more streets, but the town was already laid out and there was no room for new ones so they built the traboules into the allready existing grid as a way of moving more people and goods through the town.  Latler, during WWII, the Resistance used the network of passageways to evade the Nazis. Some a now abandoned or used for storage, but we were able to walk through a few, including one that is actually a mirabole - because it opens into a coirtyard. The one we visited is famous for it's red tower that rises upfrom the miraboule courtyard. 

Monday we took a bus tour of Lyon. Visited the basilica on the hill which we'd only seen from a distance the day before. It was a spectacular church with stunning mosaic work and a beautiful crypt below ( in the picture). Then we saw the "Mural of Lyon Life". There are a number of murals around town, decorating the blind walls of buildings, but this one is most famous depicting notable citizens of Lyon through the ages and incorporating trompe l'oeil images of shop facades. Around the corner is a more ordinary one, bur interesting to me because it incorporated 2 actual windows amongst the fake ones.

Wednesday was a travel day. We made the acquaintance of Bruno, our taxi driver who is a big fan of NYC and wanted restaurant recommendations in Brooklyn for an upcoming trip. When I told him I'd email him some, he took 3 euros off the fare! The TGV (Train de Grands Vitesse ) was very fast indeed and we were in Avignon just about 30 minutes later.  Linda fell in love with the Avignon train station and spent a considerable time photographing it so I'll let her post about that.we arrived safely at our boat in Avignon and went for a wander in the town once we'd settled in. 

None of the people I've met who've been to Provence have mentioned Le Mistral. I knew the word and had a vague romantic idea of some sort of seasonal winds that blow down across the lavender fields, but I had no clue how fierce these winds are or that they affect the region on average 100 days out of the year.  We first noticed them at Notre Dame de la Garde where they were crazy wild, blowing us off balance and making it a little frightening to walk too close to the railings on the hillside plaza.   Linda was taking a picture for a fairly conservative looking Muslim couple.  She said she had to stop and tuck her shirt in so as not to flash them as the winds blew up (she would like her mom to know that she did in fact tuck her shirt in so no harm). Later that night we were eating in a restaurant back down by the harbor and the winds started to rattle the the windows and blow the fabric roof of the eating area around in a threatening way, as well as picking up and tossing fairly large pieces of debris outside.  Walking home, we had to lean into the wind in order to make headway.  At lunch the next day, we were sitting at a cafe in a courtyard when the wind picked up our neighbor's lunch and dumped it into her lap ( this was a ceramic plate, not a paper one).  I said I knew about vol au vent, but I'd never seen salad au vent before.  Later that afternoon, the little bird we were watching almost got blown off the wall by the wind. Our planned cruise to the Calanques (Mediterraneann fjords) the next day was canceled due to the winds and the ferris wheel in town shut down for the day because it wasn't safe to run it. The sound the wind made blowing through the spokes of the wheel kept making me think there was a sporting event nearby because I thought I was hearing a crowd roaring.

So I have a new respect for Le Mistral.  People here seem to take it in stride, but it is definitely a force to be reckoned with. 

After our bus tour we headed into Le Panier, one of the oldest quarters of the city. Winding streets, long stairway walks, lovely little plazas, teeny cafes tucked into ancient buildings and artist's workshops made for an enjoyable afternoon of exploring. Afterward we had a much needed bit of cafe sitting where 

Linda made a new friend.

We started our day (Tuesday) with a bus tour to get a sense of the city. Here are a few shots along the way. The Mediterranean was gorgeous and the sun was out. Beautiful ride.

One of my favorite stories in high school

, and one the few books I've read twice, is The Count of Monte Cristo. Today we got to see the Chateau d'If where Edmond Dantes was wrongly imprisoned. Maybe I'll read it again.

Dinner offerings in this seaside city of course involve a lot of fish. We happened on a place that had grilled sardines, a favorite of mine. They were delicious, but the truly amazing thing about the meal was that Linda ordered them too. Those of you who know her will understand what a surprise that was (I think Noah's truly excellent grilled sardine appetizer was the breakthrough). Here we have Linda sitting down to a plate of sardines with anticipatory pleasure.