The Road Trip: Riviera

Early May, we left Barcelona on a Eurolines bus to France. Originally we had planned to take the train down the Riviera and up to Lyon, where we would rent a car and tour the alps in (compact) style - but given our new time-crunch (expletive directed towards the Schengen Agreement...), we decided to rent the car right at the Spanish - French border and return it just east of Paris 13 days later.

We picked up our sweet steed in the town of Narbonne. While waiting for the car, we discovered a fourteenth century cathedral - although we'd seen churches that claimed to be older, it was really nice to explore the damp, musty interior. Churches are nicer when they aren't tourist traps.

Our car was a Fiat 500, standard transmission. Tiny engine but, as we proved later that week, entirely alp-worthy. The arrangement for our two week rental was that Dan would drive and I would navigate old school - ie with a giant atlas - because we are too cheap for GPS.

Enormous bridge at Meyruis, Parc des Cevannes.

From Narbonne, we drove north into the Pyrenees to the Cevannes National Park, a former tableland that has been gouged out by rivers into a series of long peaks and deep gorges that make for phenomenal hiking and exciting driving, if you're into whipping around one-and-a-half lane roads and cliffs and near death experiences. Cough, cough, Dan.

We stayed at a nearly empty campground and that night thanked our lucky stars that we had invested in a puffy, 7€ comforter for the duration of the road trip, because the temperature that night fell to nearly zero degrees Celsius. Wrapped up in layers and our fleece blankets and the comforter, after a bottle of red wine, we made it through the night warm and happy.

The next day we got hiking information at the tourist office in nearby Florac and hiked up one of the peaks. As our first climb in a couple weeks we were easily winded, but the view over the hills and gorges was worth the thigh pain.

From the Cevannes, we drove high up along a long peak and then descended into Avignon, which is pretty, but expensive, and then to Arles. As the city is famous primarily for being home to Vincent Van Gogh for over a year, we couldn't help but take a Van Gogh tour to see the original buildings and landscapes he spent the year painting. We also toured through the Roman colosseum, which is still used today for non-lethal bullfights.

The view of Arles from the colosseum

We drove along the French Riviera, encountering navigational difficulty only when we accidentally ended up in chaotic Marseilles, generally avoiding the cities and sticking to the small, winding roads along the coast. Even in May, the water is turquoise and inviting, the beaches are covered with sunbathers and screeching children and the cliffs in the background are stunningly picturesque. We stopped for the night just west of St Tropez, back in the woods away from the coast, and then on the Sunday night just west of Nice.

I'd been to Nice before, in 2008 with my best friend Piper, and we had a phenomenal time - coming back and looking for the gorgeous, lively town I expected to show Dan, I was a bit disappointed. If you're not in Nice to party, it seems to be a bit too full of tourists and dirty to be as enjoyable as I remember. Although I'm sure had we gone to the beach early in the day, I'd have spread my towel over the smooth, hot stones and been as content in the Mediterranean sun as I was three years ago. Nice will have to live in my hazy, happy memory.

The beach at Menton, just east of Nice
on the Franco-Italian border.

Dan and I both very much enjoyed being in Southern France. Primary among the reasons, past the usual stuff about the scenery and the food (I love cheese. I LOVE IT.) was the simple fact that we could once again communicate with people past basic needs. Neither of us are fluent in French, but we are both functional, and after just a few days of being surrounded by the language and the culture we were quickly picking our floundering vocabularies back up and chatting, if in a bit of a slow stutter. It is amazing the difference it makes to the travelling experience!

I will have the alpine section of the road trip up in a few days - we miss everyone at home!

S

Parc des Cevannes - sometimes, there's just no rushing the drive.