April

Last year the month of April was rainy and cold.  This year it has been beautiful, with a few days that were warmer and sunnier than half of last summer.  I usually keep my little camera in my purse and take pictures as I travel around town going to school and running errands.  When I pulled the pictures onto my computer, I was surprised to see how green everything has become and how many more flowers are blooming in the space of just a few weeks.

A Visit to the Eiffel Tower

Through the window

A glimpse of the exterior of the Château de Versailles from another wing of the palace.  It was interesting to see how the old glass slightly distorted the view through the windows.

Mont Saint-Michel

My parents recently came to visit us.  When they visited last year we spent the whole time in Paris, so this time they were interested in seeing more of France.  We decided to go to Normandy to see some World War II-related sites, picturesque French countryside, and Mont Saint-Michel.

J and I made many of the same stops on a weekend away with my brother and his wife last year, but when we went to Mont Saint-Michel we were short on time and were not able to go through the abbey at the top of the island.  This year we had plenty of time, so we climbed uphill and then went up many stairs to reach the abbey.

The views from the top were serene and beautiful.  When the tide is in, Mont Saint-Michel is an island connected to the mainland by a causeway; when the tide goes out during the day it is surrounded by sand and mud.  On both visits I saw people (barefoot or in rubber boots) making the trek through the mud to visit the island.

Last year you could drive across the causeway and park in a lot next to the island. The parking lot was covered by water when the tide came in, adding more than a little time pressure to our visit!  This year we discovered that the parking had been moved quite a bit inland and the island was now accessible by a shuttle.  A project is underway to tear up the old causeway and replace it with a bridge.  

The causeway was producing a build-up of silt in the bay and the new configuration will allow the water to flow more freely through the entire area.  An interesting part of the new arrangement is that the parking lot is almost one kilometer from the shuttle stop, forcing tourists to walk past a number of businesses owned by the mayor of the town.  The mayor was brought to court over the issue and was fined for using his status as an elected official to serve the interests of his businesses, but the shuttle stop locations remains unchanged as of late March.

The street running through the little town on the island is lined with restaurants and souvenir shops and is filled with people but the abbey is much less crowded.  My mom and I found ourselves alone in some of the many different rooms, chapels and stairways that comprise the stunning Abbaye du Mont Saint-Michel.  

The church in the abbey is a mix of architectural styles since different sections were constructed in the 11th, 12th and 15th centuries.

We loved the 13th-century cloister with its graceful double row of arches surrounding a sunlit courtyard.

Interestingly, Mont Saint-Michel, was the only place in the vicinity not captured by England during the Hundred Years War.  The abbey was used as a monastery until the French Revolution; after that it was turned into a prison.  The prison was ultimately closed and the abbey has been a historic monument since the late 19th century.

The Luberon

When we went to the south of France back in February, we decided to rent a car in between our time in Aix-en-Provence and Marseille and spend a day exploring the countryside.  Provence and the south of France have no shortage of interesting places to visit, such as the Calanques and Cassis to the east of Marseille, Avignon, and Arles. We decided to spend our time touring the Luberon region.

The Luberon is formed by three different mountain ranges, with many small towns situated in the resulting valleys.  We first learned about the region when reading A Year in Provence, a very funny book that my mother-in-law sent to us last year.  The book follows an Englishman's account of buying a house in the Provence and his first year of living there.  It has a number of amusing accounts of the cultural differences that he experiences in moving to the south of France, some of which seemed very familiar to us.  

We visited four villages in the region: Gordes, Roussillon, Lacoste, and Ménerbes (the setting for A Year in Provence).  We were amazed at the difference in each village's color palette.  They are all no more than 10 miles apart, but Gordes (the hill town pictured above and to the left) was mostly pale golden stone, Roussillon (pictured below) was orange and red, Lacoste was cool, gray stone (pictures at the very bottom), and Ménerbe (not pictured) had buildings covered with ivory plaster.

The orange-yellow in this picture is naturally-occurring ochre in the soil around Roussillon.

The whole area was stunningly beautiful despite it being the middle of the winter. I can't imagine how much more gorgeous the views must be in the summer when the grapevines and lavender plants we saw fill the stretches between the villages with even more color.  After a day of exploring, we were ready to follow Peter Mayle's lead and move south for our own year in Provence!