A tale of two French villages: First, Gerberoy

The past few weeks, we have enjoyed a visit from three of my friends from Minnesota, which means I have not had a lot of time to blog. They are all back home now and I would like to share some pictures of two lovely towns that we were able to visit: Gerberoy and Giverney. Both very similar, yet a few differences too.

First: Gerberoy

My Friday Tour Group had their end-of-the-season trip to Gerberoy, a tiny village about two hours away, by bus, north of Paris on the Normandy border. When I found out there was room for me and my three guests, I jumped at the chance to show them a different side of France, instead of "just" Paris.

This medieval,walled village, the smallest city in France, slept for centuries after wars, plagues, and fires weakened it, yet it still has quaint cobblestone streets, half-timbered houses, and an old church built in 922 A.D. In 1902, an artist named Henri Le Sidaner, friend of Monet and Rodin, discovered the quaint cobblestone streets and half-timbered houses.....and lived there and painted. He also encouraged the village people to adorn their homes with roses, and he worked hard to restore the ruins from the chateau into a beautiful garden. Now it is ranked as one of the 100 most beautiful villages in France.

We had an informative tour by a French man who is trying to preserve the town and let out the word that this is the home of the post- impressionist painter Le Sidaner, who lived from 1862 to 1939. I'm afraid most of us had never heard about him, but after visiting his studio and hearing about how his paintings have been increasing in value, we all could recognize how he is similar to Monet. His paintings of simple gardens and capturing "impressions" were beautiful. In fact, a few of his paintings are in the Musee d'Orsay. Some originals are now being sold for nearly a million dollars. We were able to see his studio, house, and courtyard, which often appeared in his paintings.

We wandered the winding streets (once walked on by William the Conqueror, they say) and enjoyed gazing at the storybook-like homes covered with flowers....





We had a scrumptuous salmon lunch ("best salmon I have ever eaten," my friend Katherine said) at a little inn. The town was getting ready for a flood of visitors the next two days, when they open celebrate their annual "Fetes de Roses". We were glad we had the village nearly to ourselves. It seemed almost empty, but we guessed that many of the old homes are now visited on "holidays" by Europeans wanting a little peace and quiet. No telephone wires, no traffic lights, no billboards. What a great place to get away!

Here is a slideshow of more pictures....

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Our last adventures...

Wendy must love driving....she loves "hot" cars and has driven everything from Toyotas to BMWs to a Lexus. She kind of liked that little Mercedes we were renting, so she was all for driving to Italy. After all, it was just across the border from Monaco, right? I wanted to hop on a train, of course...thought it would be a lot easier!

But my vote lost out and we headed out, stopping first at a perfume factory in Grasse. After all, Grasse has been famous for being a "perfume capital" since the Renaissance. They say 75% of the world's essences are produced here from the tons of varieties of flowers that are grown here, in an ideal climate.

We learned that it takes 10,000 flowers to produce just a kilogram of jasmine petals and almost a ton of petals is needed to distill just a liter of essence. No wonder perfume is so expensive! We saw bags of flowers (note the lavender)....

..... the essential oils extracted and distilled in huge vats....

........combined into all varieties of perfumes, after being smelled by only a select few "Noses" who train years longer than a doctor....

......and VOILA! Perfume......all on sale for the tourists. How could we resist that????

All of us emitting different scents, we headed east for Italy, less than an hour away, but not counting on a number of toll booths to stop us every few kilometers. But, we could see the Alps ahead of us, and we stopped in the first town, Ventimiglia. It was a quiet little town on the Mediterranean, filled with palm trees, pasta, and people who were not so "fashion-conscious" as the French. We felt a little less intimidated.

The beach was a typical Mediterranean beach.....full of small stones, never washed enough to turn into sand....

After a pasta lunch at a sidewalk cafe, we headed back to see Monaco, driving along the beautiful coast. The first view of Monte Carlo was pretty impressive with its tall modern buildings and harbor filled with yachts and cruise ships.....

We just "happened" to be there the same week as the Monte Carlo Grand Prix race through the city, with the time trials going on that day we were there. Streets were closed off, of course, but we maneuevered around the detours and found a parking garage (which was filled with mega-bucks cars). We had to walk around barricades to see the Casino, as the race went right in front of it.
With the sounds of speeding cars roaring through the streets, we barely got a glimpse of them through all of the barriers (you needed tickets, of course). We walked along the immaculate Disney World-like streets, admired the fancy stores and the playground of the rich and famous, and felt a little out of place. We headed back to Grasse, taking a drive through Nice, and relaxed.

Our last day on the Riviera started with a visit to the Rose Festival in Grasse.....

.....lunch at the harbor in Nice...

.... and a plane ride back to Paris.

I had a list of things I still wanted to show them in Paris, but how do you do it all? We did get to Bon Marche, the fancy department store, but my planned walk in Luxembourg Gardens was cancelled because an unpredictable rain shower stopped us. So we headed over to Notre Dame and had a tour in English, with a choir practicing for Sunday's service chanting in the background. It added to the ambiance, but it was hard to hear our tour guide.

We spent our last evening out with Lyle (with his four women)at an Italian restaurant

walked home under the blinking lights of Tour Eiffel....

spent Sunday on the Champs Elysses and toured the Louvre....

They saw a good part of Paris and France, for that matter.....and we said our good-byes the next day, Memorial Day, as they lugged their suitcases into a cab to take them to CDG. As I sat in the empty apartment, I regretted not showing them this and that, but still was glad we could do so much and that they all were able to come and visit. It is always so nice to have company!

Mountains and Sea

Wanting to get away from the crowds in Cannes, I told my sisters about a town up in the Maritime-Alps (mountains to me) that Lyle and I had visited two years ago. Wendy bravely drove the zig-zag road with hairpin turns.....up over 3000 feet to Gourdon, a tiny walled village on top of a cliff, built back in the 1100s.

We had to park the car a ways below and walk up to the town, now filled with quaint shops, a church, and a few restaurants. The view from there was beautiful! It was a wonderful town to do a little shopping, watch the parasailers, and have some lunch.

We headed back down the mountain to the sea, stopping in Antibes, a charming town that was once just a small fishing village, now a hot-spot for tourists and locals. The setting is idyllic, on the Mediterranean

....and narrow streets hundreds of years old..

We took some time to check out a Picasso exhibit in the Chateau Grimaldi, once the home of the Grimaldi family from 1385 to 1608. Inside were two floors of Picasso's 24 paintings, 80 pieces of ceramics, 44 drawings, plus tapestries, sculptures, and lithographs.....which he produced while living in the chateau in 1946. We quietly looked at them and scratched our heads, wondering ...... I guess I don't understand his style yet!

Grasse.....not just lovely in the day, but also at night

A beautiful night in Grasse.....and we looked forward to seeing a little of Italy and Monaco the next day....

Sisters in Paris and Cannes

I have two sisters, Cindy and Wendy, who have never been to Europe before. What a better time to visit than when you have a sister living in Paris? I finally convinced them to take the opportunity, and Cindy's daughter Dana , who worked 30 days in a row (she is a nurse) to save up for the trip, joined us too.

Wendy arrived first on a drizzly day, taking the Roissy bus from the airport, with instructions that I would meet her bus in the heart of Paris. Well, I arrived in plenty of time to meet the bus, which for some reason did not stop where it usually stops. So, we both waited for each other for over an hour, across the street from each other. Being without a cell phone, she found someone who would lend one to her, called me and we finally found each other. Not a great welcome to Paris!

We visited the Orsay museum and did a little shopping at Galleries Lafayette (well, we window-shopped mostly!).....

A few days later, we arrived at the same bus stop to meet Cindy and Dana, arriving Saturday afternoon via Iceland. Needing to keep them up, Lyle and four women went out to dinner at a cozy French restaurant near the Seine. Do we look French all in black? We even had some fois gras, which I think did not agree with their stomachs.

One thing on their list "to visit" was Jim Morrison's grave at the Cimitiere du Pere Lachaise, the most prestigious cemetery in Paris, owned at one time by Louis XIV and bought by order of Napoleon in 1803. Besides Jim Morrison, we looked for the graves of Oscar Wilde, Sara Bernhardt, and Chopin. A rainy day added to the ambiance.

The next day was a beautiful, sunny day....perfect for going up the Eiffel Tower. Cindy wasn't feeling well, though, (not used to Paris food?), so three of us braved the two hour wait and went to the top. I have decided going up twice is now enough for me, unless I go up to eat at the Jules Verne restaurant at the top (terribly expensive)!

Besides seeing Paris, I wanted them to experience a little more of France (and some sunny, warm weather). We hopped on the high-speed TGV on Tuesday morning, and headed for southern France. It was a 5-hour trip, but we all enjoyed the quiet ride through the French countryside and decided that riding a train is the way to go!

What a time to visit the French Riviera! The Cannes Film Festival and the Monte Carlo Grand Prix were both going on at the time. We shoved our bags into a train locker after arriving in Cannes and headed to the festival area along the harbor, keeping a look out for stars. Of course, we didn't see any...and the only big "event" that happened was I was either pickpocketed or somehow left my coin purse at the tourist office while buying a hat. I discovered it a few hours later and am still wondering how it happened. Bye-bye credit card.

We rented a car in Cannes and were surprised to find out that they had upgraded us from a VW Golf to a Mercedes...with navigation! I told my sisters ahead of time that I was not going to drive, being out of practice for the past year (or maybe just scared of French traffic?) and Wendy signed on to the job. Maneuvering between weaving motorcycles and fast, tiny cars made me cringe as we drove up into the hills above Cannes to our B&B in Grasse, a town known as the "perfume capital of the world". The B&B was a mansion built in the 19th century in the foothills of the Alpes Maritimes, and the view overlooking Grasse to the sea was breathtaking!

We enjoyed the French breakfasts every morning with fresh fruit and breads.....

.....but didn't have much time to enjoy the inviting pool in the olive tree grove.

We had a lot to explore in the next two days.....mountains and the Cote d'Azur. Next post!