Ah, Easter. Well, being Jewish I can't say that the actual holiday has that much religious meaning for me, but I do love the chocolate Easter eggs and the fact that living in Germany means I get a four day weekend. How cool is that??
So for this long holiday weekend, my friend and I decided to drive the Napoleon Route from Grenoble down to the French Riviera and Cannes. OK, so Napoleon went the opposite direction, but really, does it matter that much to you??So before we went on our trip through France, Andrea and I went to see this DJ, called David Guetta. It's a music festival that is partly sponsored by Marlboro. We went with Andrea's Dutch friends Tycho, Robbert, and Stuart.
It was a fun night out with everyone. My first night out really since I moved over to Germany. I had such a great time, although the fact that we were out until almost 5 am meant that we didn't really get moving until much later in the afternoon, but that's ok, we still managed to get on the road before it got dark out on Friday afternoon.So when we finally did make it out the door, we made our first stop Annecy. It is this beautiful, incredibly picturesque town maybe a two or three hour drive from Lausanne. It was definitely a place to linger. And we definitely spent some time lingering and taking pictures.
We spent the morning just wandering around Grenoble, shopping and looking in windows and then early afternoon we headed south. We passed a little town called Brie (that remarkably bore the scent of the cheese itself), and then kept driving past beautiful pastures and postcard perfect mountains.
And kept on our way until we reached a town called Vizille. It was so beautiful. They had this chateau there that they had turned into a museum. It was completely free and the chateau gardens had been completely maintained and were all open to the public. The gardens were amazing. And I can't imagine what the house must have been like to live in. I imagine it was a bit drafty and cold. Anyhow, they had a really wonderful art collection.
The rain didn't last very long, and soon we were on our way to Castellane watching the sun set as we drove along. So the thing Gorges. They are also known as the Grand Canyon of Europe. At the time we drove through the you should know about getting toCastellane is that in order to get to this town, you have to drive through an area called the Verdon Gorges, the sun was going down, the rain was falling, and I was driving the car along hairpin turns clutching the steering wheel for dear life. And I think Andrea was unusually happy that it was getting dark out so we couldn't see the full extent of the actual gorges themselves. From the little I did manage to see, it was quite a long way down. . . .
Castellane is this tiny little town sunk in the middle of the gorges. And in the summer, it is full of tourists who are there to rock climb, white water raft, hike and participate in any other outdoor sport you can possibly dream up (we actually saw paragliders as we were leaving the town the next day). It's a pretty little town, with about five hotels in it. And guess what we didn't have again on Saturday night. . . yup, a hotel reservation. So we arrived at one hotel, asked the proprietor if he had any rooms (to which he of course replied no), but since he was full up, he directed us to a little motel down the street. And told us to hurry because everyone was looking for rooms. We got one, and since the guy at the other hotel had been so nice, we went back there for dinner. And we ate, and ate, and ate for hours. And drank some of the most amazing wine I think I have had in a long, long time. And the cheese. . . my god the chevre this man was serving was unreal, a little runny, rolled in herbs de Provence, with a sweet, creamy tanginess I could die for. I think I could have made three days worth of meals out of that wine and cheese alone. And the escargot weren't bad either I must say.
Anyway, we went back to the motel at about 1am, crawled into bed and passed out until early the next day. Easter morning. It was a beautiful sunny day and after packing up (and me pulling the door handle off the door of our room. Oops!), we had breakfast down in town. It was beautiful, the church bells were ringing, there was a little market right down in the square selling, herbs, sausages, fresh cheese, Provencal olive oil, regional cookies and things like that. It was beautiful and perfect for Easter.
After breakfast, we decided to hike up to this little chapel that sat on a cliff and overlooked the town. It wasn't a difficulty climb, in fact it probably only took about 20 minutes to hike all the way up, but it was a beautiful view of the town from up top, and the chapel itself was really pretty. I believe it was a Notre Dame chapel, but I might be mistaken. Anyway, we hiked back down, grabbed the car and kept heading South, because now, St. Tropez was calling our name.We did find this beautiful little chapel along the way where we believe (according to our guidebook) that Napoleon may have stopped in at as he marched from Cannes to Grenoble.
It didn't take us that long after leaving Castellane to
get into more Mediterranean climes. In fact, as we started descending in altitude we immediately noticed the change in the air and in the architecture. It was actually pretty incredible, the buildings and houses as we descended became increasingly colorful and the closer we got to Cannes the more we saw lilacs blooming along the fences and in people's yards.
And then there it was, Cannes and the Ocean.It was incredibly pretty, and surprisingly humid as well. But it only made us want to get to St. Tropez faster, so we pretty much did a drive by of Cannes and kept on trucking along the coastline. The coastline itself was pretty amazing.
St. Tropez was great. We met up with Andrea's friend, Ilham and her fiance, Pascual. Spent a night out on the town and a morning hanging out down in St. Tropez. What an insight into a totally different world from where I live. Ilham and Pascual were telling us about this bar you can go to and they keep a running contest of who has spent the most money on a bottle of liquor. Ilham said they once saw someone
spend more than 20,000 euros on a bottle of champagne. It's crazy! I just can't quite imagine what it must be like to lie that kind of life. But hey it wouldn't stop me from going back. It is a beautiful resort town. People all walk around wearing white, they play baci ball in the middle of the town square, they party and live life to the fullest. It's decadent, but it is fun once in a while.
We had a great breakfast and coffee right by the harbour before heading back to Lausanne. And I should add here, that I made my train by about 60 seconds. I think I walked onto the train and the doors closed right behind me a few seconds later. Now, I know what you're all thinking, especially given my tendencies towards tardiness. but you should all know that we left plenty of time for me to get to the train. What we couldn't control was the immense traffic accident that stopped everything for miles and delayed us by almost two hours. That was far, far beyond our control. The good thing is that I did actually make the train, and I rolled into Frankfurt on a crisp April morning at 4:30am.
It was a long day at the office on Tuesday. But so worth it.And that my friends, was my first adventure in the French countryside. Now I just have to figure out what "St." town I'm going to hit up next. . . . suggestions are welcome. . . . St. Sebastian anyone??
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