Aix-en-Provence and Grenoble
Hard to believe it's taken us this long to escape the confines of Paris, but apart from my forays into the Bois de Boulogne (two blocks away but just outside the ancient boundaries of the city), and our trip home at Christmas, we haven't come out from behind the walls since I arrived here in September. But Janet had been asked to speak at the university in Grenoble, so we made a weekend of it, and took the TGV to Aix-en-Provence on Friday, before making our way to Grenoble on Sunday afternoon.
The old city of Aix is not large but one can still get lost in the random twists and branchings of the ancient streets. It's a very lived-in town with lots of mobile phone outlets and clothing chains amongst the antiques stores. And of course plenty of restaurants, from the extremely modest to the many-starred. With a little research, and wandering, we chose a place called Le Ramus. Friday night in the off season found us the only customers that night. Our waiter took little encouragement to talk (in fact, my meal started to get cold), and we discovered that he had lived in Paris as well but had left because he found Parisians so cold. I had attributed this to a national rather than a municipal character, and am happy to be disabused.
We had been a little concerned about what we'd find in the streets this weekend, since there have been extensive and sometimes violent student demonstrations against a piece of legislation that will make it easier to fire (and consequently hire) young workers. Both Aix and Grenoble are university towns, but the only demonstration we wound up seeing was a small one on Saturday morning, that (as best as we could figure out) had something to do with rights for passage through the countryside.
On Saturday we did some more cultured exploring, visiting the Musée du Vieil Aix and the Musée des Tapisseries (Tapestry museum). Both were fairly small, but provided perspectives of local life back to the middle ages.
We took a train (which turned out to be a train and a bus) to Grenoble on Sunday afternoon. Mum told me that when she and Dad were climbing in the Alps they would periodically come to Grenoble for supplies; but if I was expecting Banff, it was dissappointing. Certainly Sunday evening isn't the best time to be downtown in most cities, but we found it singularly unappealing after the charm of Aix. There was a lot of plain, boxy architecture, ugly storefronts and a dismal number of shops for rent. Unable to find a restaurant of character or quality open, we had an ordinary dinner in a restaurant remarkable only for the worst service we've experienced in France.
Monday morning, while Janet was delivering her lecture, I did a little more exploring, in particular talking to a young man in the Maison de la Montagne. Their materials were mostly brochures for hotels and trips, but they had a fair number of reference books and maps, and were keen to answer any questions.
When Janet rejoined me, we took a look at the local museum of the resistance. While I felt it was trying a little too hard to glorify the members of the resistance (and condemn the "collaborators") whose actual effect seems to be less strategic than simply morale-building, the exhibits were remarkably evocative of the experience of France during the war in that area, including the treatment of Jews and others who were rounded up and deported.
triangles "undesirable" people were obliged to wear.
The trip down on the TGV had been through grey mist; the trip back was brighter and clear. The countryside, whipping by at 200 kph, seemed to have progressed noticeably in the direction of spring in the three days since we'd left. Much more idyllic than the scene inside the car, which was choc-a-bloc with squalling babies.
posted 21.3.06
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