Roland Garros Preview

We set off bright and early forthe Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters. One of the plans for the trip was to attend major tennis tournaments and Monte Carlo was a perfect place to get our tennis-fix going. Interestingly enough, the tennis centre is actually on French soil, but considering Monaco is only one square kilometer in size, space is hard to come by.

Beautiful day for some good tennis

Both the French and the Monaco government cleverly put tolls on the road leading into Monaco and I’m sure they make a fair amount of money just on that tiny piece of tarmac. Other than the tolls, the view was beautiful and we were set for some great tennis. The winding roads of Monaco are exactly what you see on television during F1, a network of roads of compressed twists and turns such that your GPS is guaranteed to lose its bearings.

We do have to say that the tournament was well organized with the city rerouting traffic to ease the flow and numerous car parks offering ticket holders cheap parking. Parking was a breeze and we reached there early enough to have a walk around the grounds. This was our first clay court and Masters 1000 experience so we were pretty excited just walking into the grounds. We had bought the quarterfinals and since it was a men’s only tournament, it assured us of a full day of top mens action. The only disappointment was that Djokovic had pulled out citing injury only a few days before tournament started. He was on a winning streak and it would have been great to see him at his best. The line up was: Federer vs Melzer, Murray vs Gil, Nadal vs Ljubicic, Troicki vs Ferrer which wasn’t too bad actually. We are both Nadal fans and it was a treat to finally watch him play after a few missed opportunities in previous tournaments. Here are pictures from the matches.

Federer taking his serve

Nadal lining up his devastating forehand return

None of the matches were particularly outstanding but the company made up for it. We mixed up our seat numbers and sat on a German retiree’s seat by mistake. We ended up talking to him throughout the day about Germany and Singapore, as he had traveled to Singapore before for work. We talked about mooncakes, durians etc, lol… Apparently, he has a home in Nice and comes to Monte Carlo for tennis as well as F1, definitely living the high life. We also ended up talking to an old Italian man who drove from Genoa together with his son. English wasn’t his strong point but we managed to have some good laughs.

View from Prince Albert's seat

All in all, it was a pretty good day. It was our first day seated on one spot since being on the road for more than 2 months, so definitely a good break. Next, lets see if Nice is indeed nice.

Perfumes, frescos and stars

For our second day in the region, we decided to do a factory tour and visit L’Occitane!

It was a bit out of the way, but well that’s what the car is for. The factory tour lasted for about an hour and since we were early, we managed to walk around the exhibit which was on display near the retail shop. They had some old equipment on display and explanations about the distillation process and various types of flowers/ herbs which they used in their products. Our guide was a young French girl who seemed quite new but she was quite pleasant and tried her best to give us all the information and answer our questions. It was interesting to see that almost everything was still done manually, such as bottling and packing, I had thought it would be automated. After the tour, we obviously had to buy some stuff, I must confess I went a little crazy and spent way way more than I should have, but then again who can resist all those lovely bottles of body lotions, creams, face masks etc?

They rollout a new product every 2 weeks!

After buying stuff like crazy, we decided to soak in a little small town atmosphere and visited Aix-en-Provence. Cezanne had stayed there but we didn’t know much him and so did not visit his studio or house, instead we just walked around the town. It was a beautiful day so it was nice to walk around and soak in the sun. We popped into the church for a look-see and also wandered down the Cours Mirabeau. I bought some macaroons to eat and though they are more delicious than what you can get in Singapore, somehow I still don’t really like them all that much. Aix was also famous for its fountains but we weren’t in the mood to hunt down all of them and only looked for the famous ones.

Beautiful fresco in the church

After the long day, we made our way to Nice, passing Cannes along the way. Honestly, from the road, Cannes looked decidedly dingy, it's kind of hard to imagine it as the place where the stars come out to play. They must have some hidden beach or resort stashed somewhere else cos it certainly didn’t look anything like what I imagined it to be. In any case, we arrived at Nice and spent our first night at a youth hostel!!!

Totoros in Cannes? Perhaps not their first time.

Our original plan was to stay at Monte Carlo but prices there were sky-high so Nice was the next best place to stay in. Prices were still high though so in the end we had to stay at a youth hostel. I had stayed in one years ago while CS had never stayed in one, so it was definitely an experience for him. The hostel we were staying in was huge and thus packed to the brim. It certainly took a while to get used to rowdy teenagers, luckily we had booked a private room otherwise I think I may just die. The good thing was there was a kitchen so we could prepare dinner and stuff. It did turn out to be a pretty good stay, noisy teenagers at night not withstanding. Most importantly, it was a perfect location for our next stop, Monte Carlo!

On the trail of Van Gogh - Part 1

Since we were in the south of France, we obviously had to go to Provence with its lovely fields of lavender and wonderful scenery. The one thing we forgot to check though was the period of the lavender season, which is apparently in July so we were about 2 months early, haha… It wasn’t a big loss though cos the scenery was still breath-taking and there was the added bonus of less tourists around so everything was a lot more pleasant.

Our first stop was the town of Arles where we visited its weekend market. It’s kind of like our pasar malam but they sell vegetables, meat etc on top of the usual assortment of cooked food and clothes. The clothes and bags are all along one section while the cooked food, vegetables, meat and fruit in another all along the road. The roads were packed with cars and trucks, so it was a little crazy to get parking. As it was a clear, sunny morning, everything just looked fabulous. We bought some strawberries to eat but unfortunately they didn’t taste as good as they looked.

Beautiful produce

We also walked around the town for a short while and managed to find the café terrace which Van Gogh made famous in his painting ‘Café Terrace at Night’. It’s now renamed as Café Van Gogh and there were tourists inside taking photos. We contended ourselves with pictures from the outside cos we had a more important place to visit, the Saint-Paul asylum in Saint-Remy-de-Provence where Van Gogh stayed in after the infamous ear-severing incident.

Before making our place to the asylum, which is just outside the town of Saint-Remy-de-Provence, we stopped by for some sustenance. Lunch was a simple affair at a family-run restaurant and I had the best fish soup ever! The French fish soup is different from our Chinese ones, it was creamy and you eat it with cheese and bread. Luckily CS didn’t like the taste of it so I could devour it all by myself. We also stopped by a free museum about perfume making, it was rather non-descript so we took a while to find it. Though it was quite small, it was informative and we did learn quite a few things.

Totoros, lost in Provence

Hardly looks like an asylum

We finally arrived at the asylum and being typically blur, we ended up in the real asylum, lol… The old asylum had been preserved so that admirers of Van Gogh can visit it, we just didn’t expect that there would be a modern version still running. We did wonder why it looked so modern but didn’t think any more of it, luckily the staff were kind enough to point us to the right direction. Though it was an asylum, there was a sense of peace and the scenery was absolutely amazing. There were lovely flowers and their scents perfumed the surroundings.

Stopping to smell the flowers

The place had copies of his paintings all over with a small write-up on the pieces which were quite helpful. There were also articles to explain how care was provided for the patients during Van Gogh’s time, which were quite educational and also shows how far we have come along since. For instance, water therapy where the patient was placed in a tub of water used to be quite common, this would not be done today.

Olive trees

Exquisite surroundings

After leaving the asylum, we made our way to Roussillon as the tourist office had highly recommended it. The red cliffs and ochre quarries were supposed to be a sight to behold but alas we were too late and couldn’t enter the park. We stumbled onto a house that was being built so we drove in to get a closer look at the cliffs however the owner of the house appeared and told us it was ‘private property’ so we had to leave, sigh… From the little that we managed to see, it did look rather pretty, too bad we had to arrive late. Here are some pictures of what we managed to take, and there are still more areas to explore in Provence!

Red Cliff (no, not that one)

City of Popes

Since we had already been to Rome and visited Vatican City, we thought it would be a good idea to also visit ‘the other Vatican’, which was Avignon.

Avignon hosts an annual famous theatre festival with 800 productions on show

In the history of the Catholic Church, which is definitely long and colorful, they had a period where the Pope resided in France and not Italy as per tradition. This caused a schism within the Church and also resulted in two Popes in two different cities from 1378 to 1423. The whole history is a bit too much to cover here and is also not the main aim of this entry so if you are interested, here’s a link to the wonderful creation that is Wikipedia.

One of the remaining structures from the time of Papal Avignon was the Palais Des Papes aka Vatican City II. My expectations were probably a little high but it was not as grand as I imagined it to be. Then again when the Pope moved back to Italy he probably brought everything back with him. It may have looked very grand during its day but now it looks pretty normal and is just a really large building with almost nothing inside. I did think it was rather good to play hide and seek there though since it did seem to have lots of hiding places and the grounds are quite huge.

Inside the church

We also visited Pont Saint Benezet, which is supposed to be a famous monument and a beloved song. We don’t know anything about it though and since it was super windy that day, we didn’t go up onto the bridge. In any case, there is a better view of the bridge by looking at it and not being on it, lol…

A humorous temporary sculpture by Miquel Barceló

Trailing a school excursion

Other than Avignon, we also visited the nearby town of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon. It was a much smaller town than Avignon and we went to the La Chartreuse du Val de Benediction. It was rather empty when we were there so it was a little creepy. It was also very quiet which I guess suited its purpose as a monastery. It owes its beginnings to Pope Innocent VI and he requested to be buried there when he died (usually popes are buried in St Peters Basilica in Rome). Currently it serves as an artists’ residence and they can stay there rent-free if I remember correctly. Pretty peaceful place for some meditation and wonderful art perhaps.

Medieval tower

Fantastic dinner in Avignon

All in all, Avignon was much prettier in my head than in reality, but then again which other city can claim to be a papal home before, eh?

Aint no mountain high enough

As stated in our previous entry, the next mountain for us to conquer was Mont Blanc in Charmonix. Well to be honest, we didn’t actually conquer it, we took a cable car ride up, lol…

Mont Blanc

Ski season lasts pretty long for the ‘roof of Europe’ aka Mont Blanc. There were lots of people going up Mount Blanc for skiing and they looked pretty serious with all their gear like ice picks, axes and stuff. There were loads of warnings about how dangerous the slopes are and how the ski paths are neither groomed, marked nor patrolled, which seemed quite ominous. Everyone who was skiing looked super geared up so I assume they know the risks involved. You know it's serious stuff when the brochure has a note: "Bring GPS locator beacon".

Beginning of the treacherous ski down

Once you are up on Mont Blanc, you can actually take another cable car ride to Italy, which we didn’t do as that cable car looked way too scary for me. The views on Mont Blanc were great though and we had quite a lot of fun staring at the people skiing on the slopes. One guy wanted to do paragliding but there wasn’t enough wind for himto jump off. Aiguille du Midi which is where people ski and apparently paraglide is 3,842m high!!! It’s already freaky enough for me to be up that height, can you imagine jumping off a slope that high? Yikes!

Dreamy view

We had read about how the cablecar journey up can ‘make your heart leap’ but it was so jam-packed with people I could hardly see anything and so there was no leaping in my heart ascending. The journey back down was a whole different story however, the cable car kind of went freefalling for a while, which totally freaked me out. I think I gave a pretty loud gasp but then again almost everyone in the cable car did the same. CS said having that alone was worth the money we paid for the cable car journey, haha.

That's where little elves make Mont Blanc pens!

After all the leaping hearts, we decided a good meal was needed to restore ourselves back to vitality and thus we headed off to Lyon, gastronomical capital of France, for some lunch. We picked a restaurant in a guide-book and while the brasserie looked pretty impressive, the food was nothing to shout about. The escargots were pretty good, though honestly anything with garlic herb butter is bound to taste good. It seems like we have to get away from the big cities to get any decent food. Luckily we were heading to the Provence region next so beautiful scenery and hopefully good food awaits us there!

Escargot in garlic herb butter

Watching, Eating, Learning…

Since we were in a country famousfor its cheeses, we had to make our way to at least one cheese making factoryto learn how its made. Thus we made our way to a little town and found ourselves at La Maison du Gruyere to learn how cheese is made and also watch a live demonstration as well. Before entering the enclosed area where you can watch the cheese-making process, we walked through a small exhibition which taught us about what the cows eat inorder to produce the required amount of milk for cheese-making. There is also an interactive display to smell the different types of flora of the pastures and of course cheese-tasting! It was a rather small exhibit but rather fun towalk through, and then after that it was off to the enclosed area to watch the demonstration.

Where milk churns to cheese

There are only 3 people making cheese in the area that we could see and it basically requires a lot of churning and stirring. After the cheese wheels are formed, comes the aging process of cheese wheel turning. It is a back-breaking task to mature the cheese and give it the complexity we taste. It is of course all automated now but overall there’s still a fair amount of labour involved. All very interesting but one mind-blowing fact to remember - cheese-making cows eat 100kg of grass a day! That’s more than a whole human’s weight (at least for some of us) in grass!!??

Endless rows of cheese wheels

Next, we headed to the Alimentarium. This is a food museum sponsored byNestle about all things cooking, eating and digesting.

It was a pretty fun museum andthey even have cooking classes there! There was a chocolate making class when we were there but you have to sign up in advance and it was in French. It’s a pretty hands-on museum so we had a lot of fun playing with the displays. One of the better exhibitions was about digesting and we had a lot of fun tasting food and playing the various games. They also had a garden outside featuring all our favorite salad leaves and herbs.

Vegetable Garden

Just outside of the museum is Lake Geneva, the weather was beautiful so we spent some time walking around. As one of the symbols of the museum is a fork, they stuck a fork sculpture into the lake, quite a funny sight.

Anyone dropped a fork?

That’s all for Switzerland, butis that the end of the Alps? Not yet, we have yet another taller mountain to ascend!