Notre maison/Our house

For those of you who've asked, here are a few photos our house here in Aix...
We live on Avenue Eugene de Mazenod. It's just a little bit north from the center of Aix-a 20 minute walk or 5-15 minute drive. To reach our house, you turn into this little cul de sac. Our house is at the back on the right, barely visible.

Once you enter the house, you are instantly in the combination living/dining/ kitchen area. This is where we spend ALL of our time in the house when we're not sleeping.

Living and dining rooms...

Kitchen and entry way...
another view...
It's small and cozy and we are finding the tile floors to be quite chilly as the weather gets cold here! Slippers are a must!! Here are two of our 5 small bedrooms. They are perfect for sleeping and a few clothes. Easy to tidy up!

Sarah's room....
The closets are really like shallow broom closets, but since we couldn't bring many clothes they're the perfect size!


When the weather is warm, we enjoy being outside....

eating on the terrace....

swimming in the little pool....

Sarah and Mom enjoy refreshing dip in September.

On the north side of the house we enjoy playing boules...

and using our ecology minded, fresh air clothes dryer!

So, now you know a bit about where we live....come see for yourself!

Cassis II

GORGEOUS day today!! Perfect weather for our outing to Cassis. We enjoyed this little seaside community so much with Mom and Dave 2 weeks ago we decided to go back again-this time with Sarah and to swim in the warm water. Wednesday's are half days for Sarah so we picked her up from school in Luynes(sort of pronounced Lou-een) which is just south of Aix, and headed down to the coast. We thought we'd do so much better getting there this time but managed to miss the road we wanted a second time!! At least we didn't end up lost in Old Port Marseilles like last time!

We came into town a bit north of where we did the first time and tried to find the large sandy beach we'd read about in the guide book. After driving west from the town center along the coastal road, we came to a nearly full parking lot and saw some people walking down to some stairs to the sea. We were thrilled to find a parking place, gathered our picnic and all of our beach things and eagerly went down to the steps that led us to.....a rock covered beach. These rocks were more like boulders-no way you could swim here! So disappointing-where did all those people go from their cars? "Into town" was our only conclusion. We were quite hungry so we ate our lunch and then packed ourselves back into the car and headed out to find the smooth limestone beach we'd been to on our first visit to Cassis.

In no time at all, we were in a new car park and happily re situated on the 'right' beach, in amongst lots of other bathers. There was lots of great scenery for Nick!! He thought many of the topless women would really have looked better with their tops on! Sarah got a kick out of singing "Do your boobs hang low"!! We all went swimming in the nice, warm water. The stones were a bit tough on the feet though. It's impossible to look graceful getting in or out of the water here. The relatively small beach was covered with families, older couples, single men and women, many of whom seemed to be out for a little sun on their lunch break. We'd see individuals get up from their towels and put their "office" clothes back on over their suits and stroll off the beach presumably back to work! They looked very relaxed and refreshed.

After we'd been at the beach for a while, Sarah and I went to look at the harbor of Cassis just around the corner from the beach. We really enjoyed seeing all these kids being towed out into the open water for a series of afternoon races.


They were towed out quite far out before they began the races. Later in the afternoon, we saw them all towed back in again. Nice life!


We had the best time in the water over on the left side of the beach. We first went over to investigate what we thought was sandy spot on beach because it was nearly white. But, once in the water, we discovered it was a soft, water sculpted slab of limestone. We sat here for a long time and let the gentle, and sometimes unexpectedly big, waves wash over us! We were treated to a bit of excitement when a Frenchman swam in to the shore to show his wife and daughter the octopus that was clinging to his back! Everyone surrounded him for a viewing and photo op!














As the sun moved slightly lower in the sky, it felt like we could lounge there forever, but it was already 5pm so we decided it was time to head back to Aix. We rinsed off under the powerful, freshwater public showers that spout out of the sea wall at the back of the beach. We clandestinely changed back into our by the car in the parking lot and headed home. Can't wait to come back next year!

Drive along the south side of Mt. Sainte Victoire

Thursday 9.21.06 We dropped Sarah at school around 8:15 this morning and then headed off on our Mt. Sainte Victoire adventure. We went north from the school and got on the A8 heading east then took a secondary road further north until we joined the Le Tholonet road(?D17) which hugs the southern edge of the Mt. St Victoire(MSV) range. We enjoyed gorgeous vistas looking up at the mountain from many different angles. We passed through the towns of St-Antonin-sur-Bayon, Polubier and then came into a rich wine growing region enroute to the town of Pourrrieres. This is where our "pool guy" Rob Softly, lives. From here we headed due north and the road became even twistier as it wound through sparsely inhabited densely forested countryside. Somehow we missed the turn to go west along the northern side of MSV so rather than backtrack over the car sickening road we cut our losses, went north to the town of Rians. Next we went west through Jouques, Peyrolles and Meyrargues until we finally joined up with the A51 came south and got home by about 11am. We will attempt to get back to the northern side of MSV sometime soon on a good weather day. We’re trying to figure out which starting point for climbing MSV would be best. Rob has shown us two spots on the map, one in Vauvenargues and one a bit farther to the east.

Les Baux and St Remy de Provence

September 14, 2006
Today, Mom, Dave and I went on an outing to the towns of Les Baux de Provence and St. Remy de Provence-all about an hour's drive west of Aix. It was a lovely day and we got a good start leaving our house around 10am. When we left the auto route, we drove through L'Ilse sur la Sorgue. This was just a drive through visit but a town I hope to return to someday. The waters of the Sorgue River surround this picturesque town with a maze of little alleys. There are said to have been 70 waterwheels on this river for grinding cereals, pressing oils and making paper but only a few have survived. Today, the town is well known for it's large Sunday market where there lots of antiques.

We arrived at Les Baux in mid morning, parked the car and walked up to the village. We enjoyed poking around in the little shops, exploring the cobbled streets leading to a small chapel here, an atelier there....



We drove on ahead to St. Remy-de-Provence where I discovered a dead camera battery, hence no more photos. Here, we visited a few of Van Gogh's haunts before enjoying a delicious lunch at a sidewalk restaurant. After lunch we tracked down a man with whom I had corresponded prior to our move to Provence. He owns and runs the very attractive Provence Paradise, with four guest houses. If you're ever heading that way check out his site http://www.provenceparadise.com.

First visit to the Luberon

Sunday- 9.10
After a nice breakfast, review of the map and packing our picnic lunch, we decided to save going to the Luberon/Bonnieux for another time when we could see the Thompson’s and instead planned to go to the Gorges de Verdon northeast of here. Just as we were heading out the door, the phone rang and it was our Internet/phone friends inviting us to come to their house in Bonnieux! We grabbed our picnic and the other map and off we went….. nice to be able to change plans in mid-stream.

The drive north was part auto route and part country roads. Our first stop was the little town of Lourmarin. We walked around, bought some postcards, got a few snacks and enjoyed walking around the cafes where folks were sipping coffee and eating pastries.
We went into a cute boutique called La Mercerize on rue de la Juiverie. I found a darling, white skirt and Sarah enjoyed trying on the many hats on display there...

Fashion note: I left all my white pants and skirts in Duxbury figuring no one would be wearing them at this time of year, mais non…..works just fine here in September, everyone wearing white-in fact all white ensembles seem to be all the more fashionable!

Continuing on with our day....We drove towards Bonnieux on quite a windy, "going to make you carsick" road. We met our hostess, Lisa, at 'La Poste' where we could follow her to their house which she had explained would be difficult to find on our own. Down from the town we drove for a few kilometers and ended up at a their marvelous spot.

As we turned into the drive to their home we first past their vineyards where the grapes were picture perfect!

The house is an older home which they have beautifully, lovingly restored and renovated. We had the grand tour of the house and property including the 300+year old well and the remains of the Roman road which goes right through the property, the vineyards, lavender fields and cherry orchards.

Their place is just charming and so are they. We seemed to all hit it off quite well, enjoyed a great combined picnic and then had a swim and rest by their pool.

It was great for Sarah to have some time to just hang out with kids her own age. I’m sure it getting a bit old to have Mom and Dad as your constant companions. The kids all seemed to really get along well, too. Also, as their daughter is at the same international school as Sarah, it will be nice for her to have a friend at school next week.

Saturday Market in Aix

Today we woke up to another BEAUTIFUL day and we were all excited about our day to go into Aix for the big Saturday market in the Centre Ville. Sarah had been looking forward to this for weeks if not months. So had we. We walked down to the bus stop which is just a two minute walk from our home and caught the bus into town. It runs every 20 minutes Monday through Saturday and costs 1.10euro. We have since discovered that it is a mere 20 minute walk from home to "downtown" so we walk a lot too- nice to have a choice . We happily wandered around the town and the market place looking at all the things for sale. The big Saturday market is located in the Place des Pecheurs and the Place de la Madeleine-both just a short walk from the Cours Mirabeau. there are SO many things for sale : clothing, baskets, jewelry, household bric a brac, leather goods, provencale fabrics, linens, lavender(soaps, sachets, honey) and then food, food and more food!

It's a real feast for the senses! Everything looks so fresh, delicious and appetizing.






We bought some lovely different breads, one olive studded, a dark raisin one and the standard baguette. We also got fresh raspberries- consumed on the spot by the three of us-and lots of other fresh things for future meals and our picnic planned for Sunday. Hunger set in after all of our tromping about. Nick and Sarah each bought different sandwiches(I had sampled too many things at the market to eat a thing!) to nosh on as we continued to stroll around.For about 3 euro you can get a baguette with jambon, fromage and beurre, Sarah's favorite and Nick got a chicken one in a pita pocket with lettuce, tomato, cheese, egg and a nice creamy sauce. Next, we visited the Internet Cafe and checked our emails. Nice to hear from some folks back home! We rode the bus home and after unpacking our goods went for a swim.

Ventabren- Aqueduc de Roquefavour

September 8, 2006- photos added February 11, 2007

Sarah stayed home sick from school today. She, make that WE, had been up most of the night because of her cough. She rested and slept all morning but by lunch time she was feeling much better. We could tell because she wanted lunch AND to go swimming in the pool. Once fed and refreshed, she even had the energy to go on an outing. Nick and I were thrilled because we were ready for one too!

We got out the map and looked for someplace we thought would be interesting and not too far of a drive. We settled on going the Aqueduc de Roquefavour and the nearby town of Ventebren and about a 30 minute drive west of Aix. This is the biggest aqueduct in the WORLD! We drove by, around and under the Aqueduc en route to Ventebren.

The road narrowed and wound it's way up to the hilltop village where we parked the car and walked up into a charming town of "walking only'"streets that meandered about amongst the homes of this picturesque hill town. It was about 2 or 3 o'clock in the afternoon and we found the village mostly quiet with hardly a soul around. We did enjoy someones lovely piano music floating out of one of the many open windows of the homes. Sarah enjoyed being our photographer of the day.

We climbed up and up through the windy streets enjoying what lay around each corner...

When we finally reached the top of the town, we found the ruins of the Castle of Queen Jean...

and a lovely view of the town below....

We descended back into town where we asked the local tourist office for a recommendation for dinner. We were nicely directed to a restaurant in the next town. As we drove, our mouths were watering for the fantastic meal we thought awaited us. Sadly, we were disappointed to find it closed with a sign explaining they were on vacation until the 28th of September-another few weeks. Tant pis!

We tried driving south to what we thought might be a little "Sausalito(CA) type' town. We followed the map to the end of a land mass on the water to a town called Berre d'Etang.-which we knew nothing about. We were disappointed again when it turned out to be a rough, industrial, town with nothing worth even slowing the car down for! Cutting our losses, and with hungry stomachs, we headed home for the comfort of the known but meager contents of our own fridge and a cooling swim. It's all part of the process.......with travel as in life, we live and learn.

September 5-Notre premier jour

None of us slept well last night. The six hour time difference, combined with no real sleep on the plane the night before, has really gotten our time clocks in a tither! We’re each up at odd hours (despite Simply Sleep) and Sarah has developed a little night cough which usually starts up after 1am. The walls in our house are paper thin so she, and we, are up as soon as it starts. Hope she is not getting sick….

But here we are, in our petite maison franciase! Have to pinch ourselves......it's a beautiful warm blue sky day and we are ready for our first adventure. After a cup of coffee and a bit of juice, the three of us left in our Passat station wagon to navigate our way to the hypermarche/store called Carrefour. The simplest way to describe Carrefour is something like a cross between Harrods and a super Wal-Mart. What a combo!! This place sells nearly everything you could ever want/need. One hitch for we foreigners though is if you can’t find it on your own, you must know what an item you’re looking for is called in French first in order to ask for help! Trying to ask for things like men’s deodorant, alarm clocks, clothes hangers (you would have loved watching me try to describe these items) is a bit beyond my level right now!

We really went to Carrefour as it was suggested by Sarah’s school, IBS, as THE place to go to get all her back to school or “rentrer’ supplies. We had an extremely long list of things to get which, even with the English definitions, were mostly foreign to us…A4 paper? Never heard of it! Fortunately for us, Nick found a non-English speaking but extremely helpful woman store manager. By combining my French, Nick’s hand motions and Sarah’s list, she managed to pull all the items from the shelves in record time. There was a sea of other families getting their supplies and I think we completed our search in record time thanks to her. This would be a good time to mention that everyone here so far has been very kind and helpful to us. It does seem essential that one of us speaks some French and as that is me, I’ll say that the people have been very patient and appreciative of my efforts to speak their language and also forgiving of my mistakes. There are those who also speak some English so we are getting by nicely.

In addition to school supplies, Carrefour also has an amazing food emporium. They sell excellent fresh and gourmet foods-including lovely produce, fresh fish and shellfish, a zillion different kinds of cheese, meats, pates and Provencal specialties and a large wine department. We enjoyed just LOOKING at everything. Lots of things we don’t have in the states and then things we have but packaged, shaped, sized and of course spelled differently. We had fun choosing many different French wines to sample, especially the roses. At home roses are generally to be avoided, but French roses as we learned when we were in Provence 5 years ago, are a completely different kettle of fish! These wines, chilled and rosy colored are quite nice, very drinkable and are perfect in this warm climate. We even found a Cuvee Shirley to try!

After about two hours, we were armed with a car full of food and school supplies and headed home. We made the 10 minute return trip without getting lost. We put everything put away and were all hot and ready for a plunge in the little pool. We swam, paddled about really, relaxed by the pool for a while and then we prepared our dinner. the small kitchen is very simply outfitted. It has an electric, ancient stove top, oven with 20 page manual in french, a microwave, a dishwasher, whose instructions say its cycle lasts 2-3 hours! (Don’t think we’ll use that much), a coffee maker and a toaster. Not a lot of gourmet cooking happening here. Unfortunately, due to the heavy risk of fire at this time of the year, we can’t grill outside until October 1st. Tant pis! For our first meal, we had a Carrefour roasted chicken(poulet roti), a simple mixed salad of the freshest tomatoes and lettuces dressed with fruity local olive oil and a fresh baguette. Everything was yummy! Also, the Cote de Provence Rose went down nicely as well as some chocolate cookies Sarah picked out for our dessert!
The sun was still up near 8 o’clock and it was still in the low 80’s outdoors. Merveilleux premier jour!

Nous sommes arrive!!

September 4, 2006
We are delighted to finally be here after so many months of planning. The journey from Boston to Marseille was relatively uneventful despite our three stop itinerary. It went like this:
Nicholas drove us to Logan Airport in Boston around 6pm on Sunday, 9/3. An emotional goodbye curbside made the reality of what we were under taking become crystal clear. Once inside, we found the airport actually quite pleasant as it is nearly deserted at this time of day. We ate a light supper at a Mexican restaurant before our 8:30pm departure for Manchester, England. Very smooth flight, Sarah and I even got some sleep. Nick wide awake most of the trip. Manchester was SO green! They must get lots of rain there! We had a two hour layover here which was a good thing when Sarah realized she had left her Swatch watch on the plane from Boston. We spent quite a long time sitting near customer service waiting for them to see if they could track it down. We got some coffee and hot chocolate and waited anxiously. Miraculously they found and delivered it to us with a smile.
Brussels was our next stop. Flying over the English Channel, the first sighting for both Sarah and I, was exciting and the skies were clear so we could really see everything below. It was here that I experienced another reality check of where we were and how far away from home we were. We all thought the Brussels' airport was one of the best we'd ever seen or been to. It was quite modern, VERY clean, quiet and spacious.
Our final destination was Marseille. Although we flew straight over the entire country of France from north to south, and were looking forward to seeing the entire span from the air, we couldn't see anything until we were almost to the coast due to complete cloud coverage the entire way. The skies cleared as we neared Marseille and we could see the mountains-probably even Mt. Blanc with the most snow cover of any of the others. As we landed in Marseille, we were able to see the coastline, even the Camargue, where we had visited 5 years before. We expected getting out of the airport to be difficult and lengthy- with getting our luggage and going through customs but were pleasantly and inexplicably surprised to find we merely deplaned, picked up our luggage (which arrived in half the time it takes at any US airport) and then just walked out of the airport!! No customs, no immigration or ANYTHING. Still seems rather bizarre.

The climate outside was warm and sunny! It felt so good to breathe fresh air after so many hours in planes and airports. After a very short walk from the terminal we arrived at the rental car area, picked up our VW Passat ( larger version of the kind they have in the US) from Europcar, did a bit of rearranging of our SIX large bags (never would have fit all of it in any of the small cars that everyone else drives around here) and we were on our way north to Aix. Our landlord, Debbie Simmons, from London, had given us precise directions to follow to her house where she was waiting to welcome us. About 30 minutes and amazingly NO wrong turns later, we were inches from our new home but couldn't find it! So 10 minutes after driving up and down our street we finally arrived!

After meeting Debbie, getting our things inside and having a chance to get to know each other a bit, she showed us around the house and told us about the various appliances, locks and particulars of the house. The washing machine sadly is not accompanied by a dryer. This was not disclosed in our pre-rental discussions. Can't wait to see us trying to dry our laundry outside this winter in the midst of a mistral! May have to find a local laverie for those days.

After an hour or so we went with Debbie into the center of Aix for a little supper before she caught the bus to the Marseille airport to return to London. Our house is located to the north of the center of Aix and it is a five minute downhill ride by car or 20 minute walk to the center of town. Parking in Aix is difficult to say the least and we now know why Debbie recommends taking the bus or walking whenever possible. But a space we did find and we had a wonderful first walk around a bit of the city, fortunately led by our resident guide, Debbie. We ended up at a simple, little outdoor restaurant along an area called the Forum des Cardeurs, just behind the Hotel de Ville, for some so-so pizza(whoever heard of putting haricots verts and corn kernals on a pizza!?!), some Cotes de Provence rose, a varietal this region is noted for, and an Orangina for Sarah. The memorable part of this experience was when we went to pay the bill and they didn't take any form of credit card! Debbie only had some, but not enough, euros and we only had dollars as we had yet to find a Bureau de Change. We left what euros she had and the rest in dollars and fled. The waiter followed us down the street where we re-explained our situation . we offered to return the next day with more euros but he just threw up his hands and left but was most frustrated! We dropped Debbie at the airport bus stop and found our way back to our little house by following our "never leave home without it" map of Aix.

About Us

Welcome to the first ever Bates Blog! We are here in Southern France for a 10 month stay.....hence, the title "ALMOST a year in Provence"! For those of you who don't already know us, a little bit about our family.... My husband, Nick, our youngest child, Sarah, and I have moved to the wonderful, Provencal city of Aix-en-Provence from our home in Massachusetts until June 2007. Sarah is in 6th grade and attending the International Bilingual School of Provence(IBS). Meanwhile, our older two children, Nicholas, 21, and our daughter, Lindsey, 18, are attending college back in the States. When we planned this adventure, we had hoped they might join us and attend one of the many university programs here in Aix, but it worked out better for them to stay where they are. We three miss them and look forward to their long visit with us here over their Christmas break. Maybe they'll love it as much as we do and want to return when they get out of school in the spring.

This "dream come true"adventure is made up of several components:
*my VERY postgraduate year abroad/desire to live in a french speaking country
*a chance for us to slow down, stop and smell the roses(really that should be lavender!)
*an incredible education opportunity/life expereince for Sarah(though she does not realize this yet)
*a chance for Nick to expand his business into the European market and
*an opportunity to for us to travel in France and her neighboring countries.

We can already see that 10 months will not only fly by but it won't be nearly enough time to do all that we'd like.......but, that being said, we feel incredibly fortunate to have been able to put this whole trip together in the first place. Truthfully, during the 10 months we spent planning the trip(curious how that's the same amount of time we'll be here isn't it?!?) there were times we weren't sure it would actually come together(more about the planning part of the trip in a future blog) but, it did and here we are!! We really feel God opened all the major doors we needed opened to allow the whole thing to happen....from finding the house we've rented here in Aix, to renting our home in Massachusetts to a wonderful family, to finding the right school for Sarah and a wonderful little English speaking church community right here in Aix. The people we've met so far-both French and Intenational have been kind, helpful and welcoming. We are eagerly looking forward to the next 9 months and sharing it with you in this blog.

So, there you have a little bit "about us". now it's on to filling you in on some of our adventures so far.............
Hopefully I won't be the only one writing this blog but for now I'm it as this is my idea and project. I've encouraged all our family members to contribute. Nick and Sarah will have some entries soon and who knows, maybe Nicholas and Lindsey will contribute from time to time about their travels in the US?