Sud de France (I hope you like pictures)

Marseille:

As you might already know, I went on a trip to the South of France last week. It was a free trip organized by the school, so obviously I was all up on that. Our first destination was Marseille, on the southeast coast of France. It was absolutely stunning there. The weather was beautiful; it was sunny, it was warm...aka nothing like Paris. I love Paris and all, but this weather was very much needed. We walked around, basked in the sun, grabbed a nice lunch, then took a leisurely stroll up to the very tippy top of Marseille. And by leisurely stroll I mean extremely exhausting hike. (Lead by our program directer, Audrey, who has more energy than all of us put together). Right, so we hiked up to that super high up cathedral looking thing you see in the following pictures, called Notre Dame de la Garde.

It was actually a beautiful hike, and extremely rewarding. At first, we were like not having it, given that we were walking up all those roads people pass by and think "I feel bad for those unfortunate souls that have to walk up that"....only we were those unfortunate souls. Numerous times. But we began to really appreciate the walk when we started seeing sights like this:

And finally, when we reached the very top, we were seeing this:

Pretty cool, right? After we walked around the cathedral and took lots of pictures, we took a bus all the way back down to the main part of town so we could make the boat tour we were supposed to have. Well, it turns out the river was too high or something, so the boats weren't running that day. It was a shame, but we took advantage of our surroundings and enjoyed some free time out on the town. We grabbed some ice cream, and set out to find the beach. I'm not entirely sure why it took us so long to find a beach, but it did... You would think the
beaches would be clearly marked, but apparently you just have to know where the beaches are. Damn hipsters. In any case, we found one eventually, and took much pleasure in dipping our feet in the Mediterranean ocean. (Freezing or not, that was some nice ass water). And to make the experience all the more rewarding, we had the chance to watch the sun set over the ocean. 

 

We went out for dinner, and given that A. we were all exhausted, and B. it was a Monday night, not much was going on around town. So we bought some bottles of wine and enjoyed the evening from the inside of our hotel room :)

The next day we woke up early, had a wonderfully calorific breakfast complete with pain au chocolat, then headed out to tour Hotel le Corbusier, which is a hotel built by famous architect, Le Corbusier in 1952 (as shown to the right). I don't happen to be a huge fan of Le Corbu, but it was still neat to see one of his buildings, seeing that I'd learned about him before. The whole thing would have probably been a bit more enjoyable had the wind not been blowing us all over the place. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that walking in a straight line was nearly impossible. At one point we were up on the roof terrace and doing everything in our power to not be blown right off. Alas, in the end, we all came out alive and well. Minus our hair, which was nothing short of a lost cause.

After that, we took a brief tour of the oldest part of the city of Marseille, which dates back to as far as 600 BCE. It's the oldest city in France, no big deal. But the best part about this tour was the food. We had bread, goat cheese, tapenades, wine, fougasse (which is olive bread typical of southeastern France), and lastly gelato. Oh, and can we just talk about the size of this fougasse? Yeah... I ate the whole thing.

Right, so then we gathered our stuff and hiked up a mountain and a half to get to the train station where we headed off to Nice.



Nice:

When we got to Nice, we took our time settling in at the hotel, took a group nap (we're adorable, I know), then hit the town to find ourselves a nice spot for dinner. It was unfortunately raining the entire time we were in Nice, so we didn't really feel like leaving the main stretch of road to find a restaurant, but as it turned out we found a nice little Spanish restaurant with a friendly staff, great food, and naturally, karaoke. We'd considered going out after, but then we all remembered that sleep was a thing and so it was decided.

Wednesday was my favorite day of the trip. We began by taking a tour of the old village of Nice, which was absolutely beautiful, despite the rainy weather. There was everything from small shops and restaurants to Baroque churches to markets...you name it. All of the roads were narrow cobble stone streets lined on either side with tall pastel-colored buildings. I couldn't help but fall in love with the town. It was just so charming.

Our next stop was the Musee d'Art Modern et d'Art Contemperain. I'm not even a fan of modern art, but I loved almost everything I saw in this museum. Plus they had a Keith Haring painting and I'm alllll about my boy Keith <3

Keith Haring <3

After that, we stopped at a corner food vendor where we had the choice of many typical Nicoise foods. I shared amongst friends the following: Socca, which is a crepe-type dish made with chickpeas, fried scalion puff thingies, and lastly, a dessert called Tourte de Blettes, which is a delicious pastry filled with...wait for it....Swiss chard. I kid you not. Swiss chard, pine nuts, raisins, apples, all baked into a pastry topped with powdered sugar. It was SUPER tasty. All of it. :)

Then we caught a bus to Cap Ferrat which is about a 30 minute drive from Nice. Also, as stated in the Wiki page, it is the second most expensive residential location in the world. Aaaaaand here's why:

So if anyone wants to find Dana a rich husband who will buy her a house in Cap Ferrat, I'm all ears :) Anyway, we visited the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild, built for Beatrice Rothschild, a member of the extremely wealthy Rothschild family. I don't think I could have added more "Rothschild"s in that sentence if I tried. This is the estate from the back with a beautiful view of the main garden.

But wait, there's more! Seriously, there are 9 more gardens. Who needs 9 gardens? Dana needs 9 gardens. Dana needs a Florentine garden, a Spanish garden, a French garden, an exotic garden, a stone garden, a Japanese garden, a rose garden, and a garden de Sevres. 

Once we were back in Nice, we shopped, we chilled, and later that night, we walked around in the pouring rain in search of a restaurant. And boy did we find one. It was a cute little restaurant on the same street as our hotel. The place wasn't too big and there were only two tables at which people were sitting. One, a group of stylish young adults (I'm assuming Parisian), the other, a group of 4 happy middle aged artists. There was one woman that seemed to be running the whole place and when we were told that we'd have to wait about 20 minutes to be served we considered just finding another spot. While we were discussing amongst ourselves, one of the ladies at the happy middle aged artists table strongly encouraged us to stay, telling us the food is fantastic and that the place in general was two thumbs up. We took her word for it thinking that waiting for a little was better than walking around in the rain to find us a place that would serve us right away (we're such Americans). Let me just tell you, it was the best decision we've ever made. 

Whilst sipping our wine, we were brought free aperitifs (as pictured to the right) which was carrot, tomato, avocado, and tuna on a spear of endive. The free bread was pretty damn tasty, too. When the waitress came around to take our orders, I had no idea what I was doing, but I thought I was ordering something vegetarian. Turns out I need to brush up on my French, because "daurade" is not a manner of cooking nor is it a type of pastry...it is a fish. Had I been smart enough to check what that word meant, I wouldn't have been so surprised when they brought me fish. In any case, it was the most delicious thing I've ever eaten. I also want to clarify that yes, I am a vegetarian, and no I do not eat fish. But, I'm living by Drake's philosophy, "you only live once". #yolo. (I'm actually extremely embarrassed that I just wrote that, but I'm keeping it in as punishment for typing it in the first place). In all seriousness though, I'm in Paris, and I want to enjoy every second of it. I think it's important to experience every aspect of the culture, and I don't want to deprive myself of trying things. That being said, I enjoyed every bite. I'd never experienced such flavors before--it was absolutely incredible. The crazy part was that in total, our meal lasted three and a half hours. And by the time we left, both tables that were there when we sat down were still there, because dining in France is not about settling for convenience or simply grabbing a bite to eat. It's about the atmosphere, the company, the tastes, the smells, the culture, the conversation, the wine... I've learned to truly appreciate the value of sharing a meal, and I hope I'll be able to bring that mindset back to the states.

After our meal, we decided to find a beach to walk on despite the rainy weather. We figured if we were in the south of France, we were finding a beach and that was that. We finally gave up on trying to stay dry, and ditched our umbrellas. It was so nice just letting loose and not caring. We danced in the rain, we sang in the rain, we ate chocolate and speculoos cookies in the rain... It's the simple things in life :)

The next day was unfortunately our last day of the trip. We took a bus into Antibes where we visited the Musee Picasso, the former workshop of Pablo Picasso. It was really neat getting to see a so much of his work in his very own workshop.                                                                   Also I have no idea how this picture got onto my camera because pictures were forbidden and I would never in a million years think to take pictures when no one was looking that's just bizarre...

So after we left Picasso's crib, we took a bus up to Saint-Paul-de-Vence, which is one of the oldest medieval towns on the coast of southeast France. The village itself is picture perfect. Stone everything, very narrow streets, small shops and galleries hidden within the numerous arched doorways... In a way, it was very surreal. It was one of those places you'd never expect to actually exist. I'd even venture to say it was magical :)

Finally, we ventured far and wide, up the hills, through the woods, until we ended up at yet another hidden treasure, the Fondation Maeght. It's a museum of modern art located in the middle of nowhere with a pretty neat collection of art, and the most amazing sculpture gardens. None of it made much sense as it was all very abstract, but given that these sculptures were so large and abstract on top of being placed randomly amongst trees and stone walls, it was very easy to get lost in one's own thoughts and imagination. We spent lots of time wandering, climbing, exploring, discovering... I felt that the gardens brought me back to a state of innocence--a state of childhood naivety. It both a playful and moving experience for us all.

And then, unfortunately, it was time to make our way to the airport to catch our plane. It was very difficult saying goodbye to the south of France, but alas, it's good to be back in Paris. 

A toute a l'heure, sud de la France <3